It was a Friday afternoon in Yaounde, I was resource person to a three days seminar on domestic violence, and my presentation was entitled “Mitigating domestic violence and filling the gabs with genuine love” talking to a cross-section of women and men from development NGOs, I passed on my message, capacitating them to stand up and fight domestic violence stating from their respective homes and then expand to the communities in which they would.

My audience was very attentive, imbibing all I had to say and asking questions where necessary, at the close of the day, I went home satisfied, knowing that I had imparted knowledge that would be replicated in different communities latter on and my objectives would have been on their way to realization and this was my reflection as I drove home concluding this blessed Friday.

Sunday morning, I was coming back from church so happy to have listened to a pastor preach as if he had attended my lesson the previous day. A dynamic Pastor, he handled the sermon so well bringing out biblical explanations of why domestic violence should not be condoned in the Christian community. Had I know earlier on this was going to be his theme; I would have invited my seminarians to come for filed work.

Reflecting over this as I slammed on my honk inviting my security guard to open the gate, I notice a woman was descending behind me. The gates were flunked open and I drove into the yard. I had barely settled down over a glass of orange juice when the guard came in to announce that a woman wanted to see me. Well I almost shouted on him for accepting visitors at such an hour when I had earlier on given firm instructions that I don’t entertain visitors on Sundays immediately after Church service but he insisted that the woman was in pain and crying. This told me something way up and so I ordered that the woman be shown in right away.

As unbelievable as it turned out to be, the woman was one of my seminarian the previous Friday, she was actually the woman who was tailing me. Her face was swollen and she had all the brushes one can imagine all over her body. She told me that she was coming back from the hospital and decided to stop by to have a chat and advice from me.

It turned out that she had a fight with her husband on Saturday, only a day after the seminar. She told me the fight erupted during a dispute over some money (her money) she used to pay the child’s school fees without the husbands consent. And the reason she gave for not informing the husband about her intension was that he would have collected the money and that would be it while the child stayed on out of school for fees.

I did a few phone calls, calling a friend of mine who’s a senior commissioner of police and another social welfare worker. When they arrived, she recounted her story and I told my friends to deal accordingly with the husband if it turns out that he had no justification to put the wife under such pains.

On Tuesday, ill be stopping by to know what how it all ended. Already, I’m planning to use the law to teach that nasty husband of hers that gone are the days when men still torture their wives physically for what ever reason. Barely a few months after I handled the first case of domestic violence, this is yet another and I’m determined to use this one to put and end to this whole pathetic scenery.

Talk to you soon