A Marabout to his Followers, A Beast to his wives

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According to his followers, Tofobally (not his real name) is a great kind-hearted, and philanthropic marabout. People from far and wide including those living outside of the Gambia come to seek spiritual solutions to their long-term problems, including health issues, and progress in their careers and businesses.

Tofobally, is a young middle-aged Gambian in his 40s, residing in a small village in the Basse Upper River Region of the Gambia. He has pale fair skin, medium height, chubby looking, and handsome. He has a charming and charismatic personality that seems to enchant and hypnotize those who visit him for spiritual assistance, especially women. 

Aside from his spiritual powers to provide spiritual help to those in need, he is also a notorious womanizer, unknown to his followers. He is good at marrying and divorcing after having his way with a woman and satisfying his lustful desires. He is an expert in carrying out his plans and that is how Mafanta, falls victim to Tofobally. 

Mafanta (not her real name), hailed from Ballingho village in the North Bank Region of the Gambia. She is a very beautiful woman in her 30s, fair-skinned, with eyes like diamonds, tall, and naturally endowed. she was married before meeting Tofobally. She had two boys with her former Husband but due to their tribal differences and the unending conflicts between her and the Man's Family members including the mother, her marriage ended. Staying with her elder sister at Tallinding in the Kanifing Municipality for years, her younger brother, Ousman, who was a friend of Tofobally, decided to talk to Tofobally about her sister. 

Ousman, only wanted the best for her sister and since Tofobally portrays himself as a good Man, a scholar, and a marabout who is also well off and can no doubt take care of his sister, he decided to introduce the two together. 

Tofobally, was already married to two wives and divorced a few times. When the idea was brought before Mafanta and her Family, they all welcomed it with a broad smile because it turns out that almost the entire Family including the Mother visited Tofobally on a few occasions for spiritual help and can attest to his charms and bubbly personality.

Soon a date was fixed for the wedding and Family and friends were invited. On the wedding day, Tofobally lived up to his name and status by buying  Mafanta, a huge luggage full of expensive garments from "Gesner Bazin, till, boride, thioub" and the latest of all the expensive and trendy fabrics accompanied with shoes, purse, chains with earrings and perfumes. There was no music because Tofobally is a Marabout. It was the best calm, classy and luxurious  Wedding ever. The Beautiful Bride Mafanta keeps changing into luxurious, classy, expensive, and trendy outfits well-tailored to bring the best out of her curves and fair skin. 

Whenever she changes into a beautiful outfit and spins in front of her friends like a beautiful model taking charge of the runway, their eyes sparkle with envy wishing and dreaming of having a man like Tofobally who has a classy way of showing off his love for his third wife. 

After the wedding, Tofobally requested for his wife to be taken to Basse to join the other wives and his Family at his Mansion in a remote Village. Mafanta was accompanied there in a traditional Bridal style with few people and cooking utensils and other items that a married woman needs in her husband's house in the Gambia. 

After a few days, the elderly woman who accompanied her there left and that was the end of being pampered and celebrated as a third and the newest wife in the Mansion. The Mansion was huge and inhabited by Family, relatives, and disciples of the Marabout. They use a huge cooking pot used during ceremonies to cook for everyone, three meals a day, Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. The wives took turns to cook two days each. 

Mafanta is not only beautiful but also a great cook and soon everyone took a liking to her food. Unknowing to her, she is married to a jealous, possessive Husband who is also a wife-beater. Whenever, Mafanta, is either chatting or attending to any male in the Compound, the Husband gets jealous, and when she denies having anything to do with the man or tries to explain herself, her face is greeted with a resounding slap. 

Tofobally, drags her by her hair into his chambers and uses a cane to flog her like a slave, piercing through her pale and fair skin, and covering the floor with droplets of blood oozing through her wounds. She also abused her verbally calling her a whore who flirts with all the men in the compound. 

She loves this man a lot and the last thing she wants is to get a divorce again because she can't bear it and society will start talking and pointing fingers at her that she is the problem. She can endure the huge size of the Family and cooking for an entire generation but how can she endure such monstrous treatment from the man who claimed to love and protect her? 

The worst of it all is that this is a respectable person, admired and loved by many. who will believe her words? Even if she wants to leave how will she escape a village ruled by her husband? who will she trust to help her out? Mafanta decided to tell her mother, who is a huge fan and believer of her husband and she told her to be patient and to avoid doing things that will ignite her husband's anger. 

Three months into the marriage, her Husband married another young girl her age as his fourth wife. He started justifying his actions towards Mafanta, saying that she is jealous and misbehaving because he decided to marry another wife. 

The beatings continued and Mafanta's beautiful fair skin was marred with scars from the piercing caused by the cane her husband used on her. She managed to escape to her sisters in the Kanifing Municipality. The Husband called her mother and apologies for what happened saying that Mafanta couldn’t stand the presence of another woman being married to him. 

After a week, they negotiated and she went back to her Husband and the beatings resumed when Mafanta had a brawl with one of the family members. She then decided to pack her luggage and sneak it through the back to a neighbor's compound escaped again at dawn and left the village for the city. 

Even though the scars of the husband's brutality against his wife are visible on her body for everyone to see, Tofobally still justifies his actions as a way of disciplining his wife. Mafanta is still living with her sister who threatens to not welcome her into her house again if she goes back to Tofobally to be beaten to death in the name of disciplining his wife. 

As a Marabout, no one in the Family dares to return the bride price he paid or asks him to divorce Mafanta because he still claims that he loves her and wants her back. 

There are many women like Mafanta and her Co-wives who are battling Domestic violence in the Gambia and around the globe. Women like Mafanta who are dependent on family and are not financially stable stay in abusive marriages and relationships just to get a place to lay their heads put food on their table, and feed themselves and their kids while getting closer to an early grave each day as a result of the abuse they receive from their loved ones.