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My name is Vintenga Galitze, and I am 21 years old, and I am a farmer.
I am Flynis, and I am the wife of Vintenga.
I am 18 years old.
We grow tobacco, vegetables, ground nuts, soya beans,
and these are the products which I sell.
What happened is that I was at a place
where I was selling roasted meat.
Somebody got my meat,
and he didn't want to pay me.
I just talked to him very strongly, but I didn't beat him up. They said I caused
this breach of the peace.
Then I was locked up in a cell at Kanengwo police station.
There was no food provided in the police cell.
The only food I used to get was the food that was being brought from here by my wife
or my mother.
I used to pay him a visit every other day. I would leave this place around
7 in the morning, and come back around 3pm.
I knew that if I didn't go with food, then he would have no food.
I was in the police custody for 24 days.
Thereafter I was transferred to Maula prison, where I stayed for 2 months.
The first day I entered the prison cell
it was so congested.
They piled us up like sacks of anything. And we had no chance to
get water.
We had no chance to get any food.
And then that night I didn't sleep. I kept standing the whole night.
This was a very difficult moment for me because I thought I would die there any time.
I was forced to work maybe double the work I would
do when my husband was here.
It was very difficult for me to live alone, because
I had nothing.
I sold the television set, our bicycle,
a cot and a car.
They had to sacrifice all this because they wanted to save my life. And for me to get out,
it was because of these paralegal officers.
One day when I went there I came across him, I came across his file.
I saw that it was not reasonable
enough to keep such a person in prison.
So we wanted the magistrate to give his discretion as to what should happen to
Vintenga.
By chance, the magistrate granted him bail.
And now he's at home on bail.
If we didn't intervene,
it's very possible that he would have still been in custody up to this time.
But he's reporting to a police station which is 50kms from his
village. And it's very expensive for him to travel all this way.
So I feel this is still
having a big impact on his life.
I am in a very hard
situation this time, because even though we are approaching the farming season
again,
I cannot manage to buy fertilizer
to apply to my garden.
Looking at the way we were living before my husband
was arrested, I thought at one time we would live in a huge house
and we would be able to eat well. My husband's arrest
made me lose hope of all the future.
What we were dreaming had come to doom.
Now, I'm thinking that though we are poor, slowly we'll start again,
rebuilding our family.