We’ve all heard the stories, the horror stories. There was this news piece on KTN News and they didn’t leave anything to the imagination. Walisema yote. I found the story going on so I didn’t get which corner of Athi River or Tana River, the village(s) in question are located.
Basically the interviewees were grown women. In one instance mama mmoja (completely veiled in Muslim fashion of course) narrated how she was mutilated as a small girl of about 8 years. What they do in this corner of hell is they rip off the whole meat. The labia kila kitu wanawacha tu anus. Then they take a kawaida sewing thread and needle and sew the young girl up. Her legs are meanwhile tied apart as the old ladies butcher her. From what I understand the pain is so enormous some girls permanently lose complete sensation in the area.
Yaani some nerves down there die off. These are not trained surgeons. Luther may concur. After sewing the girl up with the thread, no bandage, they tied her legs together very tightly and actually broke her thigh bone. They tying of the legs is part of the procedure into so called womanhood. Na mtoto alikuwa ameletwa hio torture chamber na family yake. When her family took her home and finally realised her leg was fucked up, they took her to a local dispensary but it was too late, the leg was ruined and today she walks with a permanent limp. In those communities if the girl can’t be salvaged after being butchered mtoto anatupwa juu vilema huko ni taboo. Tupa, zaa ingine. Maasais do the same. You’ll never see a Maasai in a wheelchair. Huko ndio original Sparta 300, movie ikianza.
Mama mwingine alikeketwa halafu baadaye akakuwa pregnant. As is common in that corner of the world, the girls don’t make it to a full pregnancy term. The babies often die. Her baby was still born due to lack of oxygen because kuzaa through that pinhole vagina the wakeketaji leave behind is impossible and extremely painful. The orifice has become a hardened scar. The traditional mid-wives who also double up as wakeketaji then held the lady back by force… AND RIPPED THE DEAD KID OUT THROUGH THE PINHOLE BY SHEER FORCE!!!
The woman did not want to say any more. Nor did she need to. Her fistula is so severe even mere walking is torture. Hakupata mtoto mwingine. Wapi Duale and other senior members of the marginalized communities?
Oooh ndio yule huko na masukari saga na manyumba pale Hurlingham! More pressing matters sio?! Is okay, is alright.
One girl was 8 when she got the cut. Her mother passed on and during the school holidays akaenda kuishi na nyanya. The grandmother takes the little innocent girl to the devil. What happened there at that place, the now twenty something year old didn’t want to describe anything. As soon as she could walk again she ran away and never came back. Goodbye education of any kind. And she swore never to get married if that was the prerogative behind her cut. Afadhali akufe hivo.
Surely there must be a kadhi somewher who can issue a fatwa against the devils who do this things.
NOW, ABOUT THE BOY CHILD:
This Bukusu business or Maa business, haina kasoro yoyote? I’ve seen how they pull and stretch the meatus as if skinning a goat…
What of infection? Deformity? PENILE CANCER?!!
AIDS! Tetanus! What of dick trauma, juu ujue huyu sio surgeon! Hajui nerves zimepita wapi na asiguze wapi. Kisu sio a sharp surgical blade, ni kisu ya kulalishwa kwa mawe. There could be some fellows suffering in silence. Some must have gone for corrective surgeries later, very quietly. But anyway, to each his own.