Chapter 12-Outcast

It didn’t take long for Tolani to find out the meaning of ‘outcast’. It meant a person declared rejected by the society and Ebun Clark was an outcast. Ebun was a thirty-five year old woman, formerly known as Ebun Aderibigbe. Her parents had tuberculosis and died when Ebun was seventeen years old. After her parents’ death she moved in with her uncle and aunt.

Ebun had been given in marriage to a man of forty-five years at the age of twenty-two. Her husband Mr. Doyin Kolawole had never been married. He was a quiet person but as soon as she got married to him she discovered he was a very hot-tempered person who beat her regularly with or without provocation. He found fault with everything she did and he wasted no time cursing her and using any available object in his sight to beat her. He used sticks, belts, rods and shoes. There was a day he complained the food was taking too long and while she was trying to explain that this was due to her having to trek back from the market because the money he dropped for soup did not cover the cost of transportation to and from the market, he got so angry that he threw a breakable plate at her. It hit her on the left side of her face and made a huge gash that bled profusely. He rushed her to the hospital and the wound was dressed. The wound healed after a few weeks but the mark never left. As soon as she got home, Ebun who had been working as an assistant teacher at Agbara secondary school in the next town of Agbara just a few minutes walk away and saved some money in the process moved her things out of her matrimonial home and rented a mini flat for herself in Agbara. She promptly filed for a divorce. Meanwhile in those days, getting a divorce for a woman was a very rare occurrence in the whole of Nigeria. In Ebun's hometown of Asa, just a short distance from Ilorin the Kwara State capital, Ebun’s was the first divorce case in her town. Her husband considered it an embarrassment and pleaded with her to return but she refused. Her uncle and aunt also tried to persuade her but failed.

One day while the case was still in court, Doyin Kolawole visited her with his younger brother Dapo Kolawole at her apartment in Agbara in another attempt to win her back. However, in the course of their conversation he lost his temper and beat her to a pulp. She was only saved because of his brother's presence. After the incident, the leaders of Asa town invited Ebun and her husband for a meeting. The then head of town Chief Arowolo gave her a month ultimatum to withdraw the case from court or be banished and publicly declared an outcast. Ebun didn't withdraw the case. Her brother-in-law who had never supported her husband's maltreatment of her testified in her favor and she was given judgment against her husband. The town leadership again sent for her and she was publicly banished and given two days to take the last of her things from the town and never return. Her uncle and aunt and every other family member turned their backs against her.

She didn't return to Asa again but went to her apartment in Agbara and continued her teaching job. However, news of her banishment had preceded her to Agbara and going to work daily to people’s scorn and mockery was tough for her. One day the principal of Agbara secondary school, a white American by the name of Mr. Tony Clark called her into his office and told her he heard about her case and considered her a heroine for standing up for what is right. He told her to disregard what people were saying and know he was there for her. That was the beginning of their friendship. Seven months later they were married. At the expiration of his teaching contract three months after their marriage, she followed him to America and became an American citizen by marriage. Ebun came back to town eight years later to establish an NGO in Ilorin with the intention to among other things;

Ø Ensure all girls were sent to school

Ø Invest in the education of girls up to higher institution.

Ø Liberate girls from societal oppression

Ø Fight for the rights of girls

Ø Empower women through vocational training

Ø Assist with legal services for women who needed one especially in the cases of an oppressive marriage

Ø Organize seminars and trainings for women to educate them on their rights against oppression.

The day Tolani and the other four girls resumed at the academy, they were shown around and introduced to their job by one of the women working with Ebun named Miss Bimbola Tyler. She and another woman named Ms. Toyin Akanbi (a divorcee from the next town) were on a paid nine-to five job with Liberating Women Academy. Tolani and the other volunteer girls had the duties to write letters to the homes of girls and to schools inviting them to Liberating Women Academy. Each girl had a desk and computer and Miss Bimbola put them through what their daily job requirement was.

Ebun met them later that evening as she had gone to meet a lawyer on a case for one of the women earlier. Tolani would never forget her surprise the first time she saw Ebun Cark. She had heard so much about this woman that she expected to meet a very tall person with a loud voice and a very powerful aura. She was the exact opposite. Ebun Clark was a slim woman of average height (about 5foot 4inches), she was very dark in complexion while the left side of her face still had the mark from the wound her husband gave her. The weirdest part was that she was soft spoken………until provoked. She usually wore her head in braids and she often dressed in black pants suits. Ebun was one of the most interesting characters Tolani had ever met because she could go from a soft, gentle woman to a determined woman who

doesn’t take ‘No’ for an answer in a space of seconds. The day Tolani and the other volunteers met Ebun, she asked about their families and showed genuine interest in their welfare and personal lives. They were so impressed by her they just couldn’t get over how nice she was. Later that day the eight women (five volunteer, two full time workers and Ebun) had lunch together in one of the rooms in the academy which was used as a dining room and they discovered she was also a very easy person to talk to.