Temisan starts out timid. All her life she has been conditioned not to question “authority”. Not her parents or teachers, and certainly not the church. Her belief system essentially is that any circumstance that befalls her is her lot in life and well deserved including being repeatedly raped by the man she called Father, and is to be endured in stoic silence. Birthing a child, however, forces her into a position where she has to think and take responsibility if not for herself, then for her baby. It occurs to her (regardless of circumstance) that just like her, this child did not ask to be born, therefore it is up to the people who birth them (in this instance her) to look out for them. Nobody ever looked out for her; that will not be the fate of this baby.

In the house she maintains her timidity, walking on eggshells and maintaining her people-pleasing ways. Hauwa’s antagonism however is one straw too many, and for the first time in her life, she pushes back inflamed by the injustice of it all. Her time in the house and through the ministrations of the other women especially Flo, affords her the opportunity to find her voice, think for herself and take decisions…strong enough to finally confront her abuser.