Delphine's Prayers

Delphine was 13 when she was raped and became pregnant. Now aged 30, she tells her story to Rosine Mbakam, a tale of a life that hasn’t allowed her much happiness. Delphine takes the blanket from the bed she sits on to give her testimony, and wraps it around her like a cocoon. She asks Mbakam to sit down so she won’t feel so nervous and then starts her story.

She tells of how her father rejected her, how one act of sexual violence followed another, how her life took a downward spiral, how she married a much older white man, and how she left her homeland of Cameroon with him to settle in Brussels.

Talking expressively in a pidgin English, Delphine’s emotions veer from rage to cynicism to deep sorrow. Mbakam’s carefully probing camera stays locked on Delphine’s face. Then suddenly we hear the doorbell ring, and then a child’s voice, and Delphine has to get out of her bed to let in her daily life.