I was born in a family of a total of eleven children. I am the third child born. My loved his family, took very good care of us and he was also a very popular farmer in our village. unfortunately, the second child died and we remained ten children who are still alive till today, and we were raised in good will. Then reached a time when mother became very ill and became desperate after going to the hospital several times without any improvement on her health, she decided to seek help from the traditional healers in our village.

And my grandmother from my father’s side had inherited traditional witchcraft bags from her people and she was the one trusted in the whole clan for spiritual and medical help. And because my father loved me so very much he started to convince me to become a traditional healer and take over from his mother.

The Jins (spirits) spoke to my grandmother through a dream, that in order for my mother to be healed she had to accept to be handed the witchcraft bags and inherit the spirits .My mother accepted the offer and was handed over the bags according to traditions, and the Jins (spirits) that were haunting her were temporarily released but Later those spirits turned up and began to torment her again to this day .She was also a very good and successful farmer but this situation messed up her entire health system and the entire financial system .But the problems didn't end there it was actually just the beginning ,these bad spirits continued to destroy the whole family and we totally lost direction.

When I started school, I studied with so much difficulties until I finished primary school because my parents failed to help me continue my secondary education so I ended up getting married at an early age. I was courted by my auntie’s (my father’s sister) son Hassan Said. And the family on the fathers' side called for a meeting to talk about the issue. And the decision was that my marriage could not be closed because my fiancé’s sister was married to a Christian so their family was rejected and discriminated. According to a dispute arising from both parties he had to be specifically given a double payment, one of his married Christian sister whose uncle did not approve of the mistake of having his father eat the dowry from a Christian man.So my fiancé was to told in order to go ahead with our marriage he should pay his married sister’s dowry for a second time to the elderly men but also pay for my dowry .

Hassan failed the terms and we agreed to get married without the consent of our parents, I lived with him for two years and had one son with him. After baby was born, we lived with together for about a year and my husband died. I stayed for about a year and a half, continuing to work hard for my son until I was remarried and fortunate enough to have a daughter. Unfortunately, my second husband did not live long with us he also died. I was left with a lot of sadness and frustrations. I continued to live with my two children through the most difficult and exhausting circumstances.

I stayed for four years with my two children. I was fortunate to learn sewing and within three years I continued to sew and earn a living and I was raising my children all by myself.

Four years later I found another man and remarried, my husband was a traditional healer and I was the second wife to him which is allowed in Islamic religion. Before I was married to him, I had made a small step in life and after marrying me within a month of our marriage and I began to experience various problems and realized that he had given me false promises. What happened was that he united us with his first wife and we lived in the same room. The older woman was a very superstitious loved practicing witchcraft rituals ,she was complaining that it was unfair for our husband to let me stay far from her as she claimed that it was better for the family if we stayed in the same house, so the man took the decision to put us together in my small room where I was living with my two children.

My co-wife's goal was not just to live together with me, but to get closer and find a way to kill me through witchcraft. As a result, my husband and I began quarreling, endless fighting that he decided to disappear for about three months and during this period of time we never spoke at all. After things got worse, I begged my husband to let me go back first to my parents’ home to let them live in peace. After a while he followed me and begged me to come back, I accepted him hopping that he had changed and corrected his mistakes but that wasn’t the case.

My husband could not balance both families demands, what happened was that he favored one side and I being left without any close support whatsoever. He excluded me from all the family’s errands and did not want me to interfere on his farm activities and things by claiming that his first wife did not want me to be included. I continued to endure that life until I had my first child with him. The man married a third wife and life became worse. I decided to return to my parents' home for the second time, I got a second child with him while he continued with his traditional healing work, every time he could make money, he took the whole of to his other women living me with my children empty handed.

Although life continued to be difficult but he decided to marry a fourth wife, and completely left our house to go live with his fourth wife, leaving me and my five children without any help whatsoever.

When he left us and decided to live for his fourth wife we were left in the worst possible situation and for two years I was struggling alone with the children. As days went by, we found ourselves in a much more difficult situation as things could only get worse. One day he came in only as a passerby and left Tsh 1000 /=

to be spent for a month or so, until he felt like passing again and to this day, I have a total of six (6) children.

TO BE CONTINUED