Day 35: The diary of a sex worker

What is it about sex that makes men not notice that the woman isn’t in the room?

Here they were all excited, getting off one by one.

None of them could feel my indifference. There, they were thinking they were breaking me, but I wasn’t there. I guess you if you are with someone like me; you can afford not to bother if I’m there or not.

I wouldn’t be angry if they were paying clients, but these were men people pay to protect women like me. But again, when have they ever protected anyone? They said it was illegal, what we do, but what they did wasn’t.

I have been doing this job for almost eight years now. I have come to accept where men don’t care if I’m in the room or not. They all want to get their money’s worth. It sounds crude but it does help, because in this job one has to be numb to survive.

Anytime I say this, a voice in my heads says “so quit.”

But, women in my family have been doing this job for generations. My great-great grandmother set it up; at the time, sex for fish was big business. In fact, my auntie was one of the first women from our village go to Abidjan. We have always worked hard on our backs to get by. I just moved up one level, that’s all. I lost the shame and came to this wretched city, Accra.

It is funny. I call it wretched, they call it a city, the gateway to Africa. And when they do, they make it sound like this place is a piece of heaven. Interesting how two people living in the same space can see different images huh? Because from where I stand, (and I do stand a lot) no one should compare this place to a city much less a gateway.

I live in a hostel. And like most homes it has no toilets and bathrooms. There are two ways to do number two here, just go over there to the big gutter, sit on the edge and download or two, pay to use the KVIP. But be warned, you can suffocate to death in there. There is the school, right by the park where the democracy preachers hold their rallies.

I didn’t go to school there, but I can tell from Anima’s poor spelling and inability to pronounce Cape Coast that, there isn’t much learning going on there. Anima is our landlady’s daughter. She’s lucky; she will soon be initiated into the job. It is the boys growing up here that I pity. None of them will make it into the police service.

I live here and I work on the pavement at Cantonment roundabout.

That is where the men in black picked me and three others up. They said we were to be taken to the closest police station. But we didn’t, they stopped somewhere along some bushes and asked.

Yes, they did! Thank God, if all you’ve ever had to give them is money. They left with the money we had. I’d like to report to someone, but who do you complain to when the police abuse you?