The Cut

My nickname is Tess from Isiolo, Kenya. I nicknamed myself because I felt it sounded cool to be called Tess. I come from a very small village where everyone knows everybody.  I remember a lot from when I was young and I wish it was all I remember now. I was born to a family of eight children, seven girls and one boy. I was the second born in my family and at one point it was just me and my elder sister, Martha. When we were just the two of us was the best time of my life; I was the last born and she was a child without any responsibilities. Martha, only two years older than me, used to catch butterflies and grasshoppers for me, we run in the rain, ate dirt from the anthills, run on the grass full of dew, and sang our hearts out. It was a moment of pure laughter and unending play. I loved Martha.

One day my mother’s stomach became so big. I thought my dad had hit her so bad that this time the swelling refused to go away. I was so worried for her, like the time that dad hit her with a stone on the face that her lips crushed and her two front teeth broke. My mother bled so much and she hid behind our thatched house, letting her blood seep in the red soil. My sister and I helped to put the soil into a small heap, whenever her previous heap was completely soaked in blood. I don’t know whether she was in pain. She did not cry. So, when my younger sister, Lisa, was born, I couldn’t play with Martha most of the time. She was busy tending the child, fetching firewood and water, cooking or washing the soiled pieces of clothes mom had cut up to use in place of diapers (mom used torn clothes in place of diapers) of the baby. The neighbors were quite far and I couldn’t cover that distance to find playmates, let alone be allowed to leave the homestead. My mother was busy working on the farm or tending the livestock. My father loved going to the center to get his favorite local brew. He would come home drunk every day.

When Lisa started liking my games, it was officially my turn to catch butterflies and grasshoppers for her. Lisa loved me, we were great playmates. Life was easy for Lisa and I, but Martha complained that she was tired all the time because of the unending chores. Then, mom’s stomach was swollen again, and it was my turn to let Lisa know dad didn’t hit mom. She didn’t ask, but I felt the need to clear her worries, just in case she had them.  When another child was born, and another, and another, I started to grow less and less close with the new members of the family. I was sucked in chores, just like Martha had been when Lisa was born. I was now a full time worker in the house and on the farm. Every day was like the other, routine after routine.

There was no school, no church, or any event that we participated in to spice our lives. We loved the December holiday because it was the only time we left home to visit mom’s birthplace for Christmas. We met with other children from my grandparent’s neighborhood and played with our cousins until darkness fell and it was time for bed. Besides playing with Martha and Lisa, these were my second best moments in my life. I remember one time my rich cousins from the city came with their mom’s magazine to show us. The pages of the magazines were very smooth, they had a silky feel and I instantly fell in love with it. As if that was not mind blowing enough, the images of people living a fairy-tale lifestyle and walking on red carpet felt so unreal to me. “How could people look so beautiful, so clean, and live so well? Is this even true?” I asked my cousins and they swore before God that it was true. I believed them. I had never stolen anything in my life, but I prayed to God to help me steal the magazine, hide it successfully and spend the remaining days undiscovered until we left for home.

I almost got a heart attack when my cousins were leaving for the city. “Has anyone seen the Cosmopolitan magazine?” My cousins kept asking and my heart would skip a beat every time they would ransack all bags trying to find it. I didn’t even know why she was calling it cosmopolitan, I didn’t know how to read, but I sure did know how to interpret pictures. I had seen that the women in the magazine looked nothing like my mom or Martha. They were so happy, they were so smooth and you could even see their eye color. I did not even know that eye color was a thing, and I remember being so keen since that day to note a different eye color. Some of my family members had brown while others had black eye colors. I wondered what world these people lived in, but what confused me the most was seeing people of a different skin color.

“Do you know something Tess, just like there are birds of different colors, there are people of different colors too? There are black people, like Uncle Ken, there are brown people like Lisa, there are red people, there are white people, and there are even green people that live in the forest.” Martha had told me one time while we were washing clothes. I had watched her eyes grow big as she tried to convince me and I instantly knew she was telling me the truth. Whenever Martha was telling a lie, she always avoided eye contact, but this time, she even stood up and put her soapy hands on her waist. Hands akimbo, she looked deep into my eyes, waiting for me to say something. I didn’t know what she wanted me to say, so I told her that my cousin had mentioned that to me sometime back. She was so relieved that I also knew. She said that she was so glad that she didn’t have to prove to me. “Oh, my God Tess, that’s such a relief. I didn’t know how to break this news to you. How could I have proved this to you? Now that we both know, what do you think about it?” She had said and had gone back to washing clothes by the bank of the river. By her side, we talked about it in great lengths and we really laughed especially when she told me of the people with their mouths on their foreheads. I didn’t believe some of the things because I knew Martha would exaggerate just to make the story juicier and intensify my laughter. With time, we started including Lisa in our stories. We became a pack of three. I had succeeded in hiding the magazine; now I needed free time and privacy to analyze it to my satisfaction.

After a few months, my mom started going to a church at the local center. Martha told me that our Aunt Jenifer, the owner of the magazine, had advised mom to start going to church. She asked my mom to draw dad to church because the ‘church people’ could talk to him about taking us to school. Mom hadn’t gone to school, but she had always talked dad into enrolling us in a public school near our home. “I can’t educate girls! Give me boys you woman!” My dad yelled every time mom brought up the ‘school argument.’ I later learned that when mom gave birth to subsequent girls, dad became more violent and threatened to marry another woman who could give him sons to carry on his ‘legacy.’ Mom kept promising him that she would keep trying until a boy came along. The church, a few miles from home, had a community of its own. Soon, we all became part of the community, apart from dad.  

“You should come to church, you know? The church is a good place and you get to form another community there that can help you in times of need,” Mom said to dad one day while we were taking dinner.

“What kind of help?”

“For instance, they will help with medical bills or funeral expenses whenever they occur.”

“Women are so gullible. The church needs your offerings and tithe. It’s a business and I refuse to make another man richer. Have we ever been sick in this house? We are not in the city where pollution is killing people. We eat organic foods, our life is chill and laid back, we don’t live risky lives and we are all from good families; no hereditary conditions,” Dad had said sipping his mursik (traditional fermented milk).

“I know. But that is beside the point. I think you will be happier when we join a good church like Siblings of Christ Church.”

There was an awkward silence.

“Are you happy? More than you were before Pastor Kim corrupted your mind? Do you know pastor Kim is rumored to have disappeared with money from his old church, bought himself a motorbike and started Siblings of Christ Church. Besides, what does anyone in that church have that you admire? You keep going, but ensure my lunch is always on the table on time,” he said.

For a moment we were all surprised that he was unusually nice towards mom, especially by allowing her to go to church. In a few months, some people from the church came to our home to talk to my parents into letting us go to school, since the public school was free anyway. My dad was reluctant because that meant that we wouldn’t be home to do the chores and farm work. However, he finally agreed and at the age of ten, I stepped in a class in Somoletu Primary School. We were put in the same grade with Martha and Lisa. It was not unusual to find children of mixed ages in the same class because some, like us, started school very late. When we got to class, the pupils gave us a standing ovation to welcome us. They all said things in unison, they were in blue and yellow uniforms, and they looked really organized. “Wow, when we finally get our uniforms, we will look exactly like them, and we shall speak Swahili and English like them,” Lisa exclaimed.

“Here, some exercise books. No skipping the lines and no wasting any page. I will buy other books next year,” dad said one evening as he finally handed us some books that we had been asking for days. Dad and mom were not employed and we understood that they went out of their way to buy us the books. We had a piece of land that we grew some crops and reared some livestock. Dad had to sell a goat to afford the books because the harvest wasn’t ready yet, for mom to sell some potatoes in the market. Dad did not like selling his animals; he only wanted to increase them. “Your dad has done you a big favor by selling a goat to buy you stationery. Don’t let me down. Don’t let him down,” mom said.

School was fine and fun. I loved reading; I was getting better at reading. One day my class teacher asked me what I wanted to become when I grew up and I said I just wanted to read. Reading gave me a lot of knowledge that I didn’t know. I was reading so many stories. Animal stories. It was all I could read anyway. There were only enough books for everyone to read and I made sure that I utilized every chance I got to finish up a book. Because of my love for books, I learned how to read and write faster than my sisters. Unlike Lisa and I, Martha was not excited about school.

“Do you like school?” I asked Martha one day as we were running home for lunch.

“I love going to school just because I get a chance to talk to Kelvin. I like Kelvin. So I love school because Kelvin is in it.”Martha said after catching her breath.  

“Hahaha. Just make sure dad doesn’t get a wind of that. He will pull you out of school. What I really mean is, do you like reading story books? I have never seen you borrow a book from the library.”

“Tess, what is the point? I will be married off immediately dad finds a husband for me. When you look at that school for instance, as the grades progress, the girls become fewer and fewer. Where do you think they go?”

“Why would you say something like that? Two years ago, who would have thought that dad would have taken us to school? He sells his goats to keep us in school. Previously, he wouldn’t have sold them even if our life depended on it. He has changed.” I said, pacing up to keep up with her.

“You are so naïve Tess. The cows and goats that were brought home last year, where do you think he got them from? Of course, someone paid someone’s dowry and they are waiting for us to get our blood of the month. And it goes without saying, that person is me, Tess. I am the eldest and I don’t know who that man is. He could be older than dad, he could be having many wives already, and this is keeping me from concentrating in school. Do you know what Kelvin told me? He said that his sister died when some people were trying to circumcise her a few years back. He said that I should refuse it, by all means,” Martha said, stopping again.

“Wait. You want to believe Kelvin now? This is what dad called brainwash the other day. That is our culture and we must do it.”

“It is our culture. However, we must not do it. It is not important. It is very risky. People die Tess. People die,”

Martha was not blinking and neither was she looking away. So, maybe she was telling the truth.

When I went home that evening, I was troubled so much about what Martha had told me earlier. I worried about her and wondered if truly dad wanted to marry her off. She didn’t look sad, only quiet. “I have something I need to show you,” I told her that evening after we were back from taking milk to the Dairy Shop. I went to the corner of our room, where a big cracked pot was placed on a stone. There were so many items in the pot; it was our small store. There were old broken toys, cooking oil containers, broken radio cassettes, empty perfumes and lotion tins, among others. Under the pot, I had kept the cosmopolitan magazine, neatly wrapped in a nylon paper to protect it from the water that sometimes seeped through the thatched roof when it rained heavily.

“I took this magazine from our cousins because I wanted to see these pictures as many times as possible for me to believe that there are opportunities out there that make women successful,” I said as I perused through the book hurriedly before someone came in and caught us.

“You stole it? Let’s go to the farm and see it!” Martha said, her eyes so wide, as if to beg me to agree. We didn’t talk about how I stole it.

On the farm, under the beautiful sunset light, we went through the pages one by one, analyzing the beautiful women, the handsome men, people living in big, magnificent houses, many driving sleek cars, children eating exotic foods, and most of them wearing elegant clothes and shoes. The women were not only stunning; they looked so confident and powerful. They were all smiling, as if they were very happy. None of them had broken teeth, or black eyes, or dressed in tattered clothes. Their chests were in good shape. Mom, and most of the women in my area did not wear bras. Maybe they didn’t like them, or they were not sold in our market. These women had chests that caught our eyes, their waistlines were hard not to notice, and their legs were long and lean. There was something about these women that wasn’t about the women in our area.

“Wow, I would like to look like this woman,” Martha said, pointing at one picture.

“If you learn to read, maybe you can be like her or even better. These women work in the big cities. Just like Aunt Jenifer.”

“But Aunt Jenifer did not go to school. She was just lucky to have married a rich man,” she said.

“We can’t all be lucky, can we?”

We talked about the women in the magazine for a long time. For the first time, I tried to read what the magazine said. The English was a little harder from what I was used to read in children’s story books. Nevertheless, I tried to read every word I came across. For the next couple of days, Martha was in the farm alone, reading the magazine, or rather perusing through the pages to see the pictures. She could not wait to get out of school to look at the magazine until one day that she noticed blood coming out of her private parts. When I thought she was in the farm reading the magazine, she was actually there so that her blood could seep into the soil. That day, she did not come to sleep and I was worried. I went looking for her in the night and I found her clutching her stomach under a tree somewhere in the middle of the farm.

“What are you doing out here at this time of the night? You can’t see the magazine in the dark. Are you hiding from someone? Have you done something?” I kept asking when she did not respond.

“It has finally come. My monthly blood. I can’t be like these women. They will cut me and marry me off. I don’t want that. I want to go to school, work and make money and look pretty like those women.” Martha said and chuckled, as if to show me she was not so worried.

I could see her worry plastered all over her face. She had her hands folded across her chest at some point, her knees raised and a mound of soil nicely done under her sitting area. It was cold and she had carried her sweater. It looked as though she wanted to spend the night away.

“You know we could carry some of the soil in our room, right? You can’t stay away forever. If you do, dad will know the blood has finally come.”

“I could use a piece of cloth too. I just wanted to be away and think. I want to run away, Tess. I just don’t know how or to where.”

“Because of the blood?”

“Kelvin told me to run away. I will die if I don’t.”

“Oh, Kelvin again. Okay, let’s go home and use a piece of cloth as we think of a way.  By the way, we could ask mom to talk dad out of it. If we show her this magazine, she will do something about it,” I said and felt a surge of conviction even to myself. Mom could save us. Besides, it was because of her that we were finally in school.

 “Let the girls finish school, Moses. Jenifer says that school is very important and that FGM is risky,” Mom cautiously said to dad. Dad did not hurt her, but the night was filled with quarrels. We stayed up and listened through the conversation.

“Does Jenifer run this house nowadays? If you let that prostitute brainwash you, you won’t like it. Besides, Sam has already paid the dowry and Martha is getting the cut this December. That is the end of this discussion,” dad said and stormed out of the house in the middle of the night.

********

“Help me Mom! Help me! Someone Please! Tess, run away! Save yourself! They will come for you too!” Martha screamed after the women found her from her hiding spot in the farm. They dragged towards the gate that led out of the homestead. I watched her drag her legs on the ground while the women held her by her arms and shouted to her to woman up. I was looking through the window of our room, Lisa on my side, mute as a fish.

I saw mom walk towards her, to try to make Martha understand that her hands were tied. “Oh my dear. Just go and get done with it. Either way, they will cut you anyway.” She said as she handed her some herbs to chew before she reached the river to help numb her pain during the mutilation. Martha threw them away and insisted that mom should make them stop.

“Please mom. Make them stop. Save me. FGM is risky and could kill me,” Martha pleaded.

“Please Martha don’t give me a headache. Everyone here went through it and no one is dead. You must do it to find a husband,” Mom said and the four women, still holding Martha in position, nodded in agreement.

“If you let me go mom, you will never see me again. I will die. And when I die, make sure nothing like this is done to my sisters. Let my blood mean something…”Martha was still saying before they all cut her short and continued to drag her out of the homestead.

“Protect them! Protect my sisters!” Martha went screaming until we could not hear her voice anymore. She looked behind, of course to see if she could see us before she finally gave in to be taken to the river. We were cowards. We didn’t attempt to save Martha; we just peeped through the door. Maybe Lisa was a coward and I was not. I had been bedridden for a week because of a terrible Malaria. I hoped Martha remembered that when the women stormed into her hiding place. I hoped she understood I couldn’t save her because I was sick. I hope she understood, we could not be circumcised together because I was sick. Where was dad? I wondered. I curled up back to my bed and wept until the sun came up.

When Marthat came back, before the sun was up, she was taken to ‘her house’ to heal. She couldn’t be visited by someone who was not circumcised. She was a grown up woman now, and she couldn’t mingle with ‘children.’ There were all kinds of food aroma at home; roasted meat, chapati, pilau, sour porridge, boiled yams, and it was just like a feast. We were going to celebrate the becoming of woman of one of Moses daughters. Sam, had brought some of the food for the celebration and for her ‘house stay’ until she could heal and then he would take her as his fourth wife. Sam was a rich man in the area; he had many goats and cows. Most of his wealth came from marrying off his young daughters to other wealthy men in the area. He had the ‘bad luck’ of having girl-children only. Therefore, he needed to marry Martha to try his luck.

When mom and the women in the kitchen finally prepared all the foods, they went to Martha’s small house by the homestead gate to take the ‘first serving’ to her. I was watching them because I had also waited for a long time for our turn to indulge in the feast. It was not every day that we got to eat ‘Christmas.’ Mom and the other women started walking around the house as if to look for something. Later, I realized that Martha was missing and everyone started looking for her everywhere. I ran out of the house to the farm where we used to hide while reading the magazine. To my surprise, I found a paper neatly folded and a small stone placed over it. Martha had never written anything to me. I didn’t even know she could write anything beyond her homework. I hurriedly yanked the note without first removing the stone; I almost tore it. ‘I did this for you girls. Run away.’ The note read.

What did she mean? What did she do? Where should we run off to? I wondered.

********

A day after her circumcision, some boys found Martha’s body a few meters down the river, from where the FGM took place. Even after her burial, I was still as mute as a fish. I didn’t say a word to anyone, not even Lisa or my other younger siblings. We did not have a culture of eating together because every time we were together, my dad would find a reason to quarrel anyone, which always led to people walking out of the house. Additionally, mom minimized the instances they were together with dad to avoid his random anger outbursts, which always ended up to insults and blows.

One day, while eating from behind the house with Lisa, mom showed up and shushed us up. “During the funeral, I organized with Aunt Jeniffer for your relocation to the city. Tomorrow morning, before the sun rises, I want you to pack just a few clothes and walk to the center before anyone sees you. You’ll find Aunt Jeniffer there waiting for you. Go to school. Be the women I saw in a magazine in your room,” she said and hugged us so tightly. It would be her last goodbye until we saw each other again. All I could hear in my head was, “Protect them!”

That night we didn’t sleep. We didn’t talk to each other. We just thought about issues and worried about the dark. Even though I was only thirteen, I was the eldest and it was my obligation to take care of all my siblings and my mom now. I looked at Lisa and I found her looking at the roof. I pitied her. I looked at my younger siblings and I was hopeful for them. If I became anything close to the women on the magazine, I would save them. “It’s time. Let’s leave,” I told Lisa and we started our journey in the dark. We were to leave before mom woke up to milk the cows at 5AM to avoid dad spotting us.

It was so cold and dark. We were so afraid and didn’t utter a word. The road was empty, our footsteps were loud that we had to tiptoe not to awaken the night ghosts. Before we knew it, we were at the local center. Aunt Jenifer was nowhere to be found. We were probably there earlier than we should have been. The stage was eerily empty. Even the touts had not yet arrived ready to load people into their matatus. I looked at the clock at the center of the stage and the long hand was at one while the short one was at two. It must have been so early in the night because we stayed behind a certain shop for so long before the sun rose. Then Auntie Jenifer showed up and bought us breakfast before we left for the city.

********

The culture shock in the city was beyond what I imagined. I watched a television and used a phone for the first time in my life. My parents did not have a phone so I called my cousin who was in another room, just to feel how it felt like to ‘make a call.’ Children in the city, as young as four years, spoke in Swahili and English so well than anybody in my previous school. Children could read and write better than most people from my school. Everyone in our new neighborhood went to school, including Lisa and I. We went to the same school with our cousins, but everyone wanted to hear us speak so that they could laugh at our accent. Luckily, our cousins protected us by playing with us to limit the attention. My reading desire grew more than before, especially because Aunt Jenifer bought me so many story books. I started to write in a diary that my Aunt gave me. After apologizing for taking the cosmopolitan magazine, my cousins forgave me and they returned it to their library in the study room. I read many books from their library and from school library without hiding. Aunt Jenifer kept updating us about our parents back at home. “When you left, your parents had a big fight and your dad broke your mom’s hand. She is fine now and happy you are in school. Her hand is okay,” Aunt Jeniffer told us one day when we were coming from church. It was a relief for me. I thought dad would have killed mom, but luckily he only broke her hand and she had recovered by the time I got the news. I hated it when mom suffered.

During Christmas holidays, we did not go to my grandmothers place. We feared dad would organize for our abduction because he was still furious that Sam came back for his dowry. Our traditions were changing. Our culture was changing, and our perspective over life in general was changing. It was like an awakening. I swore I would not let what happened to Martha happen to another girl in my village. I started writing in my journal about how I felt about the life of a girl child in Isiolo, her choices, and her fate. The feelings were so intense that whenever I started pouring my heart in the journal, I felt like Martha was beside me. One day, I showed my teacher of English what I had written. She encouraged me to continue writing the story and she said that she would help me get published in the annual school magazine. The more I wrote about Martha, the more convinced I was that the girl child in my village was unfairly treated. She was not only neglected, she was violated, abused, and stripped all her human rights because the community felt she did not matter. “I changed my mind about the school magazine. Thank  you for the offer, but it will not have the impact I envision it to have,” I told the my teacher a few months later when she asked about the story.

*********

My relationship with mom was great. I loved her for fighting for her daughters. She did not let the death of Martha go in vain; she protected us. All my other siblings were in school. Lisa was in her final year in high school, while I was in my second year in the university. I wanted to be an advocate of the girl child by becoming a lawyer, but I didn’t pass my grades so well. However, nothing was going to stop me. So I took a course in journalism, so that I could use my platform to bring stories such as Martha’s to the public eye. In my third year, I met Martin, a young man that we shared a lot in common. He was from my village, he shared in my view about the rights of the girl-child, and the importance of education. I loved him because even though he was in the engineering department, he found time to read my articles in my blog, and added his input in my work.

I got a job with a small Television Channel as a reporter. I worked so hard to bring the plight of the girl child to the eyes of the world, especially on matters of FGM and early marriages. My parents were proud of me. Lisa was in the fashion industry and my other siblings were doing well in school. I had bought my parents good mobile phones so that we could communicate whenever we wanted. I had also facilitated the installation of electricity at home, bought them a big radio and a TV set to watch what was happening in other parts of the world. News of my success spread like wildfire and now most parents from my village considered educating their girls.

My advocacy was taking root and I had been recognized regionally and internationally for my work. I turned the story from my diary into a memoir.  I was invited to an international stage in the U.S.A. to speak about my book. Martin accompanied me to U.S.A. and we both enjoyed our first time on a plane. It was an eye opener for me to realize that life even got better with every step of the way. The freedom and the opportunities for the girl child in the U.S.A were more than they could ever be in my city. It only made me push harder for fair treatment of the girl child.

After our U.S. visit, Martin and I decided to officiate our relationship. In my culture, it was an honor to be a virgin on your wedding night. After dowry payment, we flew to South Africa for our honeymoon. Life was good. I was in magazines and on red carpets. I was one of the women a girl child in a small village like mine would look up to. I was pleased with myself and my sisters. I got pregnant during my honeymoon and after nine months, I was rushed to a private hospital in the city. Martin was by my side all along, stroking my hair, holding my hand to calm me down during labor and being a gentleman like what we watched in movies. He was nothing like my dad, he treated me like a queen, like a powerful woman my girls looked up to. I loved him. Lisa was waiting in the hospital lobby all night long as I went through my labor. “Push Tess. I can see the head,” the doctor said.

I pushed. I pushed again and when finally the baby came, I felt a cold blade cut through my private parts. “Oh my goodness! That hurts so much!” I exclaimed. The doctor looked at me with a sad gaze. I put my hand over my genitals to make sure it was not what I thought it was. Sadly, it was. I was mutilated so bad the place was flat and the blood was flowing like a river. Then they did the sawing to leave only a small space for passing urine. They stopped the bleeding. I almost died in shock. All I could hear in my head was “Oh my dear. Just go and get done with it. Either way, they will cut you anyway.” I hated myself. I hated marrying a person from my place. “Did dad ask him to do this to me?” I wondered. I looked at Martin and I did not recognize him. “Don’t worry; I will take care of you. You are a perfect woman now,” He said and chuckled.

When Lisa got in to see my child, I looked at her and sobbed. All the school years, the stories, the airtime, the blog posts, the travels and the recognition. All of it, and still I ended to the trap I was running away from. I sobbed even more. How will I move on from here? How could I help a girl child escape this? How will I grace the red carpets, magazine covers and TV screens to empower another woman when I have lost my race when I least expected. “Lisa, run away. Save yourself,” was all I could say to her. She didn’t not need too much explanation. She hugged me tight and told me sorry.

*******

“You didn’t lose the battle. You intensified the fight.” Lisa told me one Christmas when I visited her in the U.S.A. She was free. My sisters were free, but many girls weren’t.

Many girl’s aren’t!