He began bringing his girlfriends to our home and would ask me to sleep on the couch while they slept in our bed. Sometimes he would bring two women at the same time. By that then, I was pregnant. I had nowhere to go so I dealt with it. I would hide my pain with a smile. I have a very beautiful smile. None of my friends knew what was happening to me.”

I remember one day, I was 5 months pregnant and he came in the morning with two women. I was sleeping on the couch. My boys were home from school because it was a holiday. My husband and the women came in and went to the bedroom. They were having sex and moaning. I banged on the door so that they could at least cut down on the noise because of the children. He came out and slapped me, and then dragged me down the stairs. He threw some money at me and told me to go and have an abortion. That was the day I left for good. I was bleeding heavily. I took my children and we left.

I counted the money. It was Twenty Thousand Kenyan Shillings ($200). Knowing that I had no other means to provide for my family, I chose not to seek medical attention. I thought if I went to the hospital I’d be left with nothing. And I knew I needed to look for a place to stay. So I just used a thousand Shillings (10 USD), went to church and I cried out to God. I asked God to heal me for I couldn’t afford to have a miscarriage and the bleeding stopped; I was healed.”

I then managed to find a small house where I could pay 500 Kenya Shillings ($5) for rent. I bought some bedding, a cooking stove, and a few other essentials and started life there. I never reached out to or heard from the father of my kids. My daughter was born a few months later.

Three months after my daughter was born, I started a business exporting and selling clothes to South Sudan. I would take the clothes there and be there for a week and then come back to Kenya. Life was getting better for me and my kids since I was making good money.