Last year

 Since we are busy with 16 days of Activism for no violence against women and children (sometimes shortened to 16 days of activism) I thought I would share an experience I had last year. I became the victim, and survivor, of assault. 

So, here we go.

One Sunday afternoon (it was 30th of June) I decided I was going to ride my bicycle since it was a very nice day outside. 

This is my bicycle

I was riding around for about 1 hour or so. On my way back home, I thought to myself "Let me try and find where my hairdresser is going to be." I went riding down the street (road and pavement) that she had moved her business to. While I was riding along, I passed a large group boys walking in the same direction I was riding. They seemed to all be different ages. One of them moved out of my way, so I said "Thank you!" The person near the front was dressed completely in black. One of them had a red t-shirt. One had a grey jacket. When I got to a road that I knew was dangerous for cyclists (lots had been attacked in that road) I turned my bike around and started cycling back home. 

That was when I saw the large group of boys had spread across the entire road and were heading in my direction. I thought "Okay! This is not good." So I tried to go around them by riding on the grass. Since I was riding on the grass, I wasn't going very fast. 

Then I heard one of them shout what sounded like "MAPHA!" That made me look up and I heard the one, dressed in black, run up towards me (from my left side).

He kicked me. in my ribs, so hard I nearly fell off my bike. When I looked down, all I saw was his big, black boot. And the boy in the red t-shirt laughed at me.

A car drove past and the driver didn't stop to try and help me. But the next driver did stop, he asked me what happened, leapt out of his car, yelled at them, maybe tried to shoot them and escorted me half way home. He said he saw the whole thing because pretty much knew what was going to happen when he saw it starting. I cried the rest of the way home.

When I got home, I phoned my mom and my dad and burst into tears when I told them what happened. When I was in the shower, I burst into tears replaying it in my head. The next morning, when I touched The Bronze Bandit's handle bars, I burst into tears again. When I was riding back from a shop, a man (dressed completely in black) ran up towards me, from my left side. I braced myself for impact and thought "Please don't hurt me!" On Tuesday, I went for X-rays because the doctor was fully booked on Monday. No ribs were broken or cracked. On Wednesday, I reported it to the police. They phoned the next day just to make sure things were right and they were going to go to the crime scene.

I replayed those few seconds about 150 times in two days. Whenever I see a group of similar looking boys, I think "Don't hurt me!" Or I think "Did you do it? Did you hurt me?"

I don't even want to think of what would've happened if Zoe had been with me.