All that is bitter and sweet: Story of a victim of incest, abuse

SHE made the headlines in our sister paper, the Chronicle in 1995 when her step-brother was outed as paedophile and rapist. And 27 years later, she is back in the headlines albeit with a different story, one with a happy ending.

Mrs Tryphine Ngubeni, one of the most driven businesswomen in Bulawayo and a born-again Christian, reveals ‘all that is bitter and sweet’ revealing that she was the victim of incest and sexual abuse.

In an exclusive interview with Sunday News, Mrs Ngubeni (44) who owns Tryie’s Cakes, a business that specialises in baking ingredients, equipment, cakes, confectionery, edible prints. The company is also engaged in graphic designing and offers tutorials interested people.

But getting to this point has not been a walk in the park for the married mother of three. She narrates her traumatic childhood and that of her mother’s, struggling to attend school before eventually being settled at a children’s home in Bulawayo. She says she struggled with depression and loneliness as her mother struggled with taking care of her after her second marriage broke down.

A young girl, smart beyond her years, Mrs Ngubeni’s father however, refused to send her to high school after her mother had managed to get her through primary school. She tells Sunday News of multiple incidents of sexual abuse at the hands of her own step-brother before it finally came to light and she was taken in at John Smale Children’s Home Barham Green, Bulawayo.

But the rape admission is just but one chapter in this traumatic narrative. Mrs Ngubeni’s mother was a victim of child marriage, given up by her family in rural Zvishavane to an adult man to offset a debt before she was even born. By the time she had given birth to Tryphine, she had already given birth to seven children in this marriage. Eventually the marriage broke down and she found herself hitched to a man in Kwekwe but this too did not end well.

“My mother was forced into marriage before she was even born. My grandparents used her to pay off foodstuffs they had received from this man. They promised to give this man a wife in exchange for foodstuffs yet at this point, they didn’t even have a girl child to give. She was sent off into marriage at the age of 11 and in that marriage, she gave birth to eight children. The husband was abusive and eventually my mother managed to escape the relationship.

“She moved away to Kwekwe where she met her second husband, my father and for a while she was happy. My father had also come out of a marriage and the couple only had me during their time together. However, this did not last long and after they were separated when I was just three days old, my mother and I moved to Bomba in Gokwe,” Mrs Ngubeni narrates the story of her life.

Growing up was tough for the tiny tot – she was raised by a single mother with no education who had married at the age of 11. Mrs

Ngubane’s mother had no real options to make a living and look after a growing daughter but to buy and sell wares.

She had no one to turn to when chips were down. Her siblings from her father’s first marriage and her siblings from her mother’s first marriage all treated her like the step sister she was and were not very supportive.

“For me at this point in my life, all I had was my mother. My half sisters and brothers didn’t want anything to do with me. Love was something I did not know in my formative years,” lamented Mrs Ngubeni.

As she grew older, school became a necessity but her mother was struggling but she was enrolled at Bomba Primary School. The green fingered little girl began growing sweet potatoes at home.

“For me to go to school, my mother and I were vendors. I had green fingers so I grew very healthy sweet potatoes which I sold to generate school fees. I would wake up and go to school. After school I would go into the field and harvest my sweet potatoes and head to the bus stop to sell.

“Other women chased after buses but I always managed to get business from people in cars and many a time these people would buy my whole stock for the day. I would spend very little time selling and go home. Between the two of us, my mother and I, we managed to see me through to Grade Seven after which my own personal traumas began.

“After Grade Seven in 1992, I approached my father for fees to proceed to secondary school, but he told me that he would never educate a girl child. He said girls were only good for marriage and child birth. Those words touched me because I was actually quite good in school — Grade Seven I had four units from the examinations,” she said.

To try and raise money for secondary school, Mrs Ngubane found herself a job as a 12-year-old maid for a lecturer at Kwekwe Polytechnic College. She spent a year working for this family and when she had raised enough for school, her paternal aunt suggested that she move to Gwanda to an older step-brother who worked as underground manager at a mine. The brother was a married father of two and at face value, this seemed to be the perfect solution.

“I then went to Gwanda and with my savings from working in Kwekwe, I bought myself school uniforms and was able to pay school fees for the first term. But when my money was finished and the expectation was that he would step in and begin helping me with fees, my nightmare began.

“My step-brother, with whom I shared a father, said he could take me to school but he asked me what I would give him back in return. I didn’t understand what he meant, I was 13 years old! Instead, I promised him that after school, I would see what I would do for him and he said that wasn’t what he was talking about. He said he wanted payment and he wanted it then.

“The next thing he said was that for my fees, I would have to sleep with him or I would stop going to school. He did what he did — he raped me. This became a regular occurrence when fees were due which was about a year. Then there was a change of heads at the school I was attending and a female took over. One day I wrote a letter detailing my troubles and slid it under her door. The following day I was called to her office and found her in the company of police officers. I was told to go with the police officers and when I got to their car, I found my brother in handcuffs inside. I spent a couple of nights with a female officer before I was moved to Bulawayo to John Smale Children’s Home in Barham Green. My brother appeared in court and was granted bail after which he escaped to South Africa and died there.”

After being moved to the Children’s Home, she met a lady who taught them baking and the bug bit from that moment. Ever since her first foray into baking, she has been working hard towards establishing herself and her business. A prudent businesswoman who employs seven workers, Mrs Ngubeni could have bought a car with revenue from her thriving business but instead she re-invested in Tryie’s Cakes.

“One time I had made a bit of money and considered splurging and spoiling myself by buying a car, but God said no and I re-invested it into the business,” explained the Christ Embassy congregant.

In parting she said: “I have seen, experienced and known poverty. There is no type of poverty under the sun I haven’t seen or experienced - from going to school barefoot, having only one uniform from Grade 1 through to 7. At one-time water was our relish and sometimes we would make a mixture of salt and water for relish. I don’t wish this life on anyone in life. Poverty is the driving force behind my hard work. I am a victor in Christ Jesus. He lifted me up.”