I have great regard and respect for those in the sex trade. You know not only the ladies of the night but also those ladies who perform the function as hostesses at seedy karaoke joints whilst letting themselves get groped as well as the masseurs in what is shamefully known as a spa. I think it takes great courage and determination to take that desperate step.
This is the true story of a lady I met one day while I was on my way home from church. Lets call her Clarice. I first spied her hobbling along the muddy path which links PCAG to Kirimandala Mawatha. She was wearing a ragged dress and a pair of muddy slippers. She was balding and her hair was in patches. But the copper color streaks through the black and the grey showed that she would try to dye it whenever possible. I still don’t know what made me stop my vehicle and offer her a lift and thus started a relationship which has gone on for nearly three years.
This is her story. She was a little loco so there might be some inaccuracies but the gist of the story is correct.
She would have been a very good looking girl in her younger age. Young, innocent and pretty it was not long before she fell for someone who was double her age and married at the tender age of 15. She had three kids with this man. I believe she was happy with him and everything was going fine. When he died. Leaving her to take care of three kids with no income. Sadly Clarice was not educated. She could not read or write. To date this makes travelling a nightmare for her and there have been many instances where she has got lost by getting into a wrong bus. And people have found her fallen on the street.
Well she had three kids to feel and out of the goodness of her heart she actually went and adopted another girl as well.
Sadly there is no one who would offer a decent job for someone who had four kids and can not read or write other than a servant. Which means that she would have to keep her children under the care of someone else. She did not want to give up her children and so she decided to become a cabaret artist and dance for all these bachelor parties. She used to tell me she used to get 1500/- per appearance which means it was quite a lot of money at that time. Well with this money she brought up the kids and all of them are married and getting along ok. Not that they are well off but one could say they are comfortable with a roof above their head.
Sadly some of the traits such as strength of will, independence, determination and sheer courage which helped her to bring up her children against all odds now began to work against her. She could not live with any of the children. She was always fighting with the spouses as well as the grand kids making it an absolute nightmare for everyone in that house.
Which means suddenly she had no place to live as she was not welcome in any of her kids houses. She actually managed to find a place for 500/- well it’s a room and she has to cook in it. From what she was telling me it would have been a miserable hell hole. Because it used to leak into the room when it was raining and once she was telling me how their were rats in her hand bag and eaten it. Of course she had only one hand bag which means that she had to carry her stuff around in a “Siri Siri” bag for the next couple of days. Well sadly she was diabetic and her the lack of food and understanding of how to treat herself took its toll. She was kicked out of her room and no one wanted to rent out a room to a sick old lady. No one wanted to deal with the responsibility. She did not have any money. She got 1500/- from the church a month which she would manage on. I helped her out with a couple of thousand more and occasionally give her some vials of insulin. She used to hangout in church and beg from people. But with all that it was a meager existence.
Anyway since she could not read or write her habit of taking her medicines were quite erratic I am sure. Sadly bad meals improper medicine and lack of proper living space made her worse. It was a vicious cycle. The less money and facilities she had the more sick she got. The more sick she got the less money she had because she could not go out and beg. She used to move from house to house. Sometimes with a friend. Sometimes with a nephew occasionally with her children. Still she would fight with the kids and storm out of the house. As she became weaker she would go missing for days. Sometimes she would be found fallen on the road and taken to hospital. However unwell she was she did not want to give up her freedom of movement because that was the only independence she had and she had to hold onto it. Sadly she had to lose that too because a couple of days back we finally managed to get her into an Elders Home which is run by my church. And as she entered the home she fell seriously sick and was admitted to intensive care and it was diagnosed as renal failure. After many years of abuse the kidneys had finally given up.
Sadly the best thing that could happen is for to her to die soon. To end the suffering. Not necessarily for her but more for those around her.
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