Morake and her friends had attended a Fresher's party.
“We were friends with some of those guys and there was a guy who was in the university – I had such a crush on him.”
The guy took advantage of Tumi’s trust in him.
“He spotted me in the crowd and we got to talking. He invited me to his room and we got to making out. He had told me that he was going to get me a belt because I was wearing baggy pants. That was his line.
“So we are making out and it was exciting for me. And he is older and nobody in high school notices me and look at this Varsity guy he sees me as a sex bomb.”
What Tumi thought would be an innocent kissing session turned into an evening that would haunt her for years to come.
“Now he starts coming on strong but I was fine. He forced and raped me. Obviously, I couldn’t scream at the time because I was in shock. There was a time I pushed him off and then I ran to the door and he ran to the door and locked it.
“That’s when he pushed me onto the bed. It was hard to trust men after that and also hard to tell anyone it happened because now I must explain why I was at Unibo at night in a guy’s room. In my head I was like nobody is going to believe me.
“They are going to say you went to his room at night, what did you expect? I didn’t tell anyone for a while.
The first person she told was her English teacher who recommended therapy.
Tumi notes that she used to cry every time she thought about this guy. Speaking about it helped her eventually make peace with what had happened.
“It’s almost like you relieve the trauma. You have to take yourself away from the guilt and I hate being the victim, it’s not in my DNA.
“I consider myself a survivor so it was getting past that and then just understanding my sexuality and how I relate to men sexually.”
