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From a young age, my sister and I have been taught that the only time a girl can Confidently show her face in public is if she has been married off to a rich husband who will surely take care of not only her but also her family.

All my life I despised the idea of marriage. My mother used to say that marriage was something we could never run away from. After her passing, my sister needed a new mother, someone to look after her. With both our parents died, my grandmother decided that I was old enough to get married and therefore she went on a search to find me the perfect husband.

As time went by, I successfully forgot about what my grandmother said. I made plans to get a job and help put my sister back in school. After my mother's death, nothing was the way it used to be. We moved to my grandparent's village in the south of Angola, a very poor society filled with old beliefs, and die to that no one was willing to employ a girl who does not understand her place is in the kitchen.

Three months later, after moving to Angola, my grandmother that she had exciting news for me a ' surprise ' she said. After living with her for three months I am fully aware that nothing good comes from her surprises. The last time she told my nine-year-old sister, Nina that she had a surprise for her, Nina cried for three whole days non stop. My grandmother had sold her to a German couple that needed a house help.

My grandmother told me that she had finally found a guy who is willing to marry an ugly girl like me. Two minutes later she looked at me, perplexed by the fact that I didn't say a single word to her. There was nothing to say. I remembered my mother and she hated being married, yet never said anything against marriage. My mother never really had a relationship with any of her children, and she never said why, but from her dreamy brown eyes, I could tell that she was incapable of loving children she never wanted to have.

Two weeks later, my future husband and his family came to my grandmother's house ( a place I can never call my home ) to pat what in Angola is called ' Dote ', which was the official symbol of two being made one through marriage. I was officially a married woman and I hated every second of it.

After the night .of my wedding I planned to escape, find Nina and run away to another town, city or country Because I had no idea the man I married is worse than my father. I've heard most women describe their first wedding night as magical, the only magical thing about being raped is not being able to feel the pain.

I was never stupid enough to believe that man could be different, and my father made sure that I hated man by the way he treated my mother. My sister always said that our mother was weak from keeping quiet about her situation, but now I'm going through the same thing she did, I realise that I'm not half as strong as my mother was.

One night my husband came drunk and broke the only plate we had, I keeled down looked at the p
Broken pieces and how they could never be the same again and how they represented me. I picked up one piece and without thinking, without realising what I was doing, I saw blood flowing from my hand.

Being able to feel the pain felt so good. I enjoyed every minute of it. As I took my final breath I said a prayer to Nina, asking for forgiveness. I looked at the broken plate and realised broken things can never be fixed.
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