CAROLE MARITIM would put on smiles in public, but for ten years, tears, pain and agony characterised her life behind closed doors. She still has bite marks on her thighs to show for an incident where her ex-husband tried to ‘circumcise’ her with his teeth to make her a ‘proper’ Kipsigis woman

Grace Wachira @yaa_grace 

Their love brewed after a brief poshomill encounter 20 years ago. He had a way with words and was a natural charmer. He said that he loved her and that he would marry her and her blood boiled. 

Carole Maritim was 20 and her Mr charming, John Doe*, who was her first love was 25.

The two love birds could not wait to start enjoying intimacy and start a family, so thet eloped on May 6, 2000 and began to live as husband and wife in his parents’ homestead.  

Eloped because she wanted to be away from her stepmother who was not particularly the easiest person to live with. So bad was their relationship that she attempted suicide twice and failed.

The first two years following their marriage were surreal. “It felt like we were living in a real-life fairy tale. We idolised each other and thought we could not wrong each other,” she reminisces.

Only for the bliss to be cut short in 2002 by her military husband’s sudden deployment to Sierra Leone on a peace keeping mission. He left his new bride expectant with their daughter, who is now 17 years old.

As daunting as their long-distance relationship was worth the pangs of loneliness,Joe was determined to make it work as he would frequently bring her the latest Sierra Leone ankle length skirt suits, and she would rock them like a dutiful wife.  

You see, she was determined to silence the naysayers who had sworn that city girls could not fit into Kericho’s rural way of life.

“I wore those headwraps and the long dresses and I made it work. You could easily pass me off as one of those villagers walking around in slippers.

The sun darkened my fair skin as I spent hours in the farm, you wouldn’t tell I was born and bred in the capital with dreams of becoming a nurse that I had shelved for my dear husband,” she recalls.  

Their love was at an all-time high and when his one year run in Sierra Leone came to an end in 2003, he came back home and the two decided to write their own love story, which began with moving out with their two children.

“We got a five-acre piece of land and built a stone house. Life was good and he never showed any signs of violence until I found out I married a serial cheat,” Carol narrated.  

The first time he put hands on her was in 2005 when she confronted him about suspicious text messages she found.

“I did not see the slap coming and I fell on the ground. That’s when I began to understand the kind of man I married.

The honeymoon phase was over and the rubber hit the road. I had married a monster,” she narrates lifting her spectacles to wipe a tear rolling down her cheek. 

He would beat her for anything and everything, always in the wee hours of the morning or in the silent night.

After the blows and kicks came to an end, he would have his way with her, against her will. 

Her journey out

There was no one in the village she could open up to. “I did not want to be the one who hang dirty linen in public and I had children to protect.

One time, he beat me up in the kitchen and my son bit his leg. He landed a slap on him and resigned him to a corner. I was in so much pain at that time and the rage I had towards him was palpable,” she recalls.

There’s not a single day since 2005 that Carole did not wake up wishing to leave, but she couldn’t. 

Carole started to strategise how she would get out. She would save the little she got from chamas and in 2006, she tried leaving.

“I packed and left for my uncle’s house, but soon after, he charmed his way back to me and apologised,” she remembers, terming her return as the worst mistake she ever made. 

She endured harrowing nights of beatings, for the most mundane things such as shaking hands with people on her way to the market, and the following morning he would tell customers who came to buy milk from them every morning that she had come down with bad malaria.

“One time I screamed the whole night and when the neighbours asked him, he said that we too heard it from a distance,” she said citing him a talented actor.

One night in 2007, he hit her, but this time it went a little too far. “He hit me with whatever he could get his hands on and broke my finger.

I had a plaster around my hand and he told people how one of the cows was obstinate and broke my finger as I milked,” she pulls a dry laugh. 

Carole then lost her father in 2007, but even that did not attract an ounce of sympathy or empathy from her husband.

He would constantly abuse and taunt her for being uncircumcised, coming from a broken family and for being an orphan. 

She chokes on tears as she recalls how he would leave Sh200 on the table and tell her to leave.

“He’d come back home and scorn me saying I couldn’t go anywhere because I was ragged and useless. He mirrored me to second hand clothes.

My children would hide items in the house that they thought he could use to hit me. The trauma they suffered every time voices rose broke my heart over and over,” says Carol. 

She considered killing herself and her children, but quickly aborted the idea after she thought of how unsuccessful it could pan out.

She tried leaving again in 2008 and went to stay with a girlfriend in Nakuru, but he talked her back into the marriage.

“I had children with this man and I still had hope that he would change. A few weeks after settling back, he went back to his former self.

He beat me even with firewood and raped me after. He beat me so hard one time that my head bled,” she cries. 

That was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. She knew it was time to get out and her uncle was her best bet.

They reported the matter to the police and he was arrested and later charges were dropped. “I honestly do not know why I still held on.

I started braiding hair and one day, he showed up at the salon I was working in, slapped me in front of people and took me into a bush where he beat me up and raped me,” she tears. 

That was his new routine. Waylaying her in the evening, walking her home, chatting with her uncle who did not know what she was going through then, serially sexually assaulting her on his way out right outside the homestead or in the cowshed.

This happened whenever her uncle asked her to see her husband out. “Only my auntie knew and we could not speak out because we are women.

My scheme to leave materialised when I came across a client who hailed from Machakos who coincidentally knew our family friend from back in the day. We reconnected and started talking. She was my ticket out,” she beams. 

Moving on

Carole talked to her children in May of 2009, gave them the liberty to choose if they wanted out.

They did. She wanted to get away as far as possible from Kericho. “I got out with nothing, but a few clothes and my children.

I left at 2am with a Nairobi bound matatu and I have never looked back since,” she smiles with relief.

As soon she landed in Nairobi, she discarded her simcard and permanently closed that chapter of her life. 

Her angel, who she fondly calls mum, helped her secure a job at a salon in Lang’ata and put her through counselling.

She later moved out with her children to Kibera slums. “It’s been an upward climb since then. I stopped braiding hair and now I am a beauty and nail specialist.

My daughter who is now in first year of college and her high school going son approved of my new relationship in 2015. Naturally, I had my doubts about dating again, but my current husband proved me wrong. 

My children look up to him like a father. They are the ones that pushed me into finding happiness and now, we are a family of five, they have a baby brother,” she says. 

She stops and exhales a sigh of relief after receiving a text message from a victim of domestic violence who reached out to her after she shared her story on a popular Facebook page last week.

“See, after I shared my story, this lady reached out to me saying she wants to commit suicide because she can no longer take the abuse from her husband.

We quickly organised for her to receive help and I just received a text she is on course with counselling,” she smiles.

“I got overwhelmed by inboxes from women going through abuse and I founded a WhatsApp group, Stop Domestic Violence to act as a platform for sharing and supporting each other,” says Carol who plans to start a movement to stop domestic violence.