Desert Flower (7 page)

The next thing I felt was my flesh, my genitals, being cut away. I heard the sound of the dull blade sawing back and forth through my skin. When I think back, I honestly can’t believe that this happened to me. I feel as if I were talking about somebody else. There’s no way in the world I can explain what it feels like. It’s like somebody is slicing through the meat of your thigh, or

cutting off your arm, except this is the most sensitive part of your body. However, I didn’t move an inch, because I remembered Aman and knew there was no escape. And I wanted Mama to be proud of me. I just sat there as if I were made of stone, telling myself the more I moved around, the longer the torture would take. Unfortunately, my legs began to quiver of their own accord, and shake uncontrollably, and I prayed, Please, God, let it be over quickly. Soon ir was, because I passed out.

When I woke up, I thought we were finished, but now the worst of it had just begun. My blindfold was off and I saw the Killer Woman had piled next to her a stack of thorns from an acacia tree. She used these to puncture holes in my skin, then poked a strong white thread through the holes to sew me up. My legs were completely numb, but the pain between them was so intense that I wished I would die. I felt myself floating up, away from the ground, leaving my pain behind, and I hovered some feet above the scene looking down, watching this woman sew my body back together while my poor mother held me in her arms. At this moment I felt complete peace; I was no longer worried or afraid.

My memory ends at that instant, until I opened

my eyes and the woman was gone. They had moved me, and I was lying on the ground close to the rock. My legs had been tied together with strips of cloth binding me from my ankles to my hips so I couldn’t move. I looked around for my mother, but she was gone, too, so I lay there alone, wondering what would happen next. I turned my head toward the rock; it was drenched with blood as if an animal had been slaughtered there. Pieces of my meat, my sex, lay on top, drying undisturbed in the sun.

I lay there, watching the sun climb directly overhead. There was no shade around me and the waves of heat beat down on my face, until my mother and sister returned. They dragged me into the shade of a bush while they finished preparing my tree. This was the tradition; a special little hut was prepared under a tree, where I would rest and recuperate alone for the next few weeks until I was well. When Mama and Aman had finished working, they carried me inside.

I thought the agony was over until I had to pee, then I understood my mother’s advice not to drink too much milk or water. After hours of waiting, I was dying to go, but with my legs tied together I couldn’t move. Mama had warned me not to walk, so that I wouldn’t rip myself open, because if the

wound is ripped open, then the sewing has to be done again. Believe me, that was the last thing I wanted.

“I have to pee-pee,” I called to my sister. The look on her face told me this was not good news. She came and rolled me over on my side and scooped out a little hole in the sand.

“Go ahead.”

The first drop came out and stung as if my skin were being eaten by acid. After the gypsy sewed me up, the only opening left for urine and menstrual blood was a minuscule hole the diameter of a matchstick. This brilliant strategy ensured that I could never have sex until I was married, and my husband would be guaranteed he was getting a virgin. As the urine collected in my bloody wound and slowly trickled down my legs onto the sand one drop at a time I began to sob. Even when the Killer Woman was cutting me to pieces I had never cried, but now it burned so badly I couldn’t take any more.

In the evening, as it grew dark, my mother and Aman returned home to the family and I stayed in the hut by myself. But this time, I wasn’t scared of the dark, or the lions or the snakes, even though I was lying there helpless, unable to run. Since the moment when I floated out of my body and

watched that old woman sewing my sex together, nothing could frighten me. I simply lay on the hard ground like a log, oblivious to fear, numb with pain, unconcerned whether I would live or die. I couldn’t care less that everyone else was at home laughing by the fire while I lay alone in the dark.

As the days dragged on and I lay in my hut, my genitals became infected and I ran a high fever. I faded in and out of consciousness. Dreading the pain of urination, I had held back the urge to pee until my mother said, “Baby, if you don’t pee, then you’re going to die,” so I tried to force myself. If I had to go, and no one was around, then I scooted over an inch or so, rolled myself onto my side and prepared myself for the searing pain I knew was coming. But my wound became so infected for a time that I was unable to urinate at all. Mama brought me food and water for the next two weeks; other than that I lay there alone with my legs still tied together. And waited for the wound to heal. Feverish, bored, and listless, I could do nothing but wonder: Why? What was it all for? At that age I didn’t understand anything about sex. All I knew was that I had been butchered

with my mother’s permission, and I couldn’t understand why.

Finally, Mama came for me and I shuffled home, my legs still bound together. The first night back at my family’s hut, my father asked, “How does it feel?” I assume he was referring to my new state of womanhood, but all I could think about was the pain between my legs. Since I was all of five years old, I simply smiled and didn’t say anything. What did I know about being a woman? Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I knew a lot about being an African woman: 1 knew how to live quietly with suffering in the passive, helpless manner of a child.

For over a month my legs were tied together so my wound would heal. My mother constantly admonished me not to run or jump, so I shuffled along gingerly. Considering I had always been energetic and active, running like a cheetah, climbing trees, jumping over rocks, this was another kind of agony for a young girl sitting around while all my siblings were playing. But I was so terrified of having to go through the whole process again that I barely moved an inch. Each week Mama checked me to see if I was healing properly. When the ties that bound me were removed from my legs, I was able to look at

myself for the first time. I discovered a patch of skin completely smooth except for a scar down the middle like a zipper. And that zipper was definitely closed. My genitals were sealed up like a brick wall that no man would be able to penetrate until my wedding night, when my husband would either cut me open with a knife or force his way in.

As soon as I could walk again, I had a mission. I’d been thinking about it every day as I lay there, for all those weeks, ever since the day that old woman butchered me. My mission was to go back to the rock where I’d been sacrificed and search to see if my genitals were still lying there. But they were gone no doubt eaten by a vulture or hyena, scavengers who are part of the life cycle of Africa. Their role is to clear away carrion, the morbid evidence of our harsh desert existence.

Even though I suffered as a result of my circumcision, I was lucky. Things could have been much worse, as they frequently were for other girls. As we traveled throughout Somalia, we met families and I played with their daughters. When we visited them again, the girls were missing. No one spoke the truth about their absence, or even

spoke of them at all. They had died as a result of their mutilation from bleeding to death, shock, infection, or tetanus. Considering the conditions in which the procedure is performed, that isn’t surprising. What’s surprising is that any of us survived.

I barely remember my sister Halemo. I was around three, and I remember her being there, then she wasn’t there anymore, but I didn’t understand what had happened to her. Later I learned that when her ‘special time’ came, and the old gypsy woman circumcised her, she bled to death.

When I was around ten, I heard the story of my younger cousin’s experience. At the age of six she was circumcised, and afterward one of her brothers came to stay with our family and told us what had happened. A woman came and cut his sister, then she was placed in her hut to recuperate. But her ‘thingy,” as he called it, began to swell, and the stench coming from her hut was unbearable. At the time he told this story, I didn’t believe him. Why should she smell bad, as this had never happened to me or Aman? Now I realize he was telling the truth: as a result of the filthy conditions the practice is performed in, hacking girls up in the bush, her wound became infected. The awful smell is a symptom of

gangrene. One morning, their mother came in to check on her daughter who, as usual, had spent the night alone in her hut. She found the little girl lying dead, her body cold and blue. But before the scavengers could clear away the morbid evidence, her family buried her.

One morning I woke to the sound of people talking. I stood up from my mat and saw no one, so I decided to investigate. Through the early stillness I tracked the voices, jogging about half a mile to where my mother and father were waving goodbye to a group of people walking away. “Who is that, Mama?” I asked, pointing at the back of a slight woman with a scarf wrapped around her head.

“Oh, that’s your friend, Shukrin.”

“Is her family moving from here?”

“No, she’s getting married,” came my mother’s reply.

Stunned, I stared at the figures disappearing. I was around thirteen, and Shukrin was only slightly older than me, about fourteen, and I couldn’t believe she was getting married. “To whom?” No one answered me, as such a question was considered none of my business. “To whom?” I repeated my question, which was again met by silence. “Will she be leaving here with the man she marries?” This was common practice and my greatest fear was that I would never see my friend again.

My father said gruffly, “Don’t worry about it. You’re next.” My parents turned and walked back to our hut, while I stood there grappling with the news. Shukrin was getting married! Married! It was a term I’d heard over and over, but until that morning I’d never really questioned what it meant.

As a girl in Somalia, I never thought about marriage or sex. In my family in our whole culture nobody ever talked about any of that. It never, ever, came to mind. My only thoughts on boys were competing with them to see who could be best at caring for the animals, racing with them, and beating them up. The only thing anyone ever said on the topic of sex was “Be sure you

don’t mess with anybody. You’re supposed to be a virgin when you marry.” Girls know they will marry as a virgin, and will marry only one man, and that’s it. That’s your life.

My father used to say to my sisters and me, “You girls are my queens,” because he was considered very lucky to have some of the best-looking daughters around. “You are my queens, and no man will mess with you. If he tries, just let me know. I’m here to protect you I’ll die for you.”

More than one opportunity came for him to guard his ‘queens.” My oldest sister, Aman, was out one day taking care of her animals, when a man approached her. This guy kept pestering her, and she kept repeating, “Leave me alone. I’m not interested in you.” Finally, when his charm didn’t work, he grabbed Aman and tried to force himself on her. This was a big mistake, because she was an amazon, well over six feet tall, and strong as any man. She beat him up, then came home and told my father the story. My father went looking for this poor fool, then Papa beat him up. No man would mess with his daughters.

One night I awoke when another sister, Fauziya, let out a piercing scream. As usual we were

sleeping outside under the stars, but she was separated from the rest of us, and lay off to one side. I sat up and dimly saw the shape of a man running away from our camp. Fauziya continued to scream as my father jumped up and chased the intruder. We went to her and she reached down to touch her legs, which were covered with white, sticky semen. The man escaped from my father, but in the morning, we saw the prints of the pervert’s sandals next to where my sister had slept. Papa had an idea who the culprit was, but couldn’t be sure.

Sometime later, during an intense dry spell, my father had traveled to a local well to gather water. As he stood in the damp earth at the bottom, a man approached. This man grew restless waiting his turn for the water and yelled out to Papa, “Hey, come on! I got to get some water, too!” In Somalia, wells are open areas where someone has dug down deep enough to reach groundwater, sometimes one hundred feet deep. As water becomes scarcer, everyone becomes very competitive, trying to get enough water for the livestock. My father replied that the gentleman should come ahead and get what he needed.

“Yeah, I will.” This man wasted no time and climbed down into the hole. He went about his

business, filling his bags with water, and as he walked about, my father noticed the prints of his sandals in the mud.

“It was you, wasn’t it?!” Papa said, grabbing the man by the shoulders and shaking him. “You sick bastard, you’re the one who was messing with my girl!” My father hit him, beating him like the cur that he was. But the cur took out a knife, a big African killer knife, carved with an ornate pattern like a ceremonial dagger. He stabbed my father four or five times in the ribs, before Papa managed to wrestle the weapon away from him and stab the man with his own knife. Now they were both seriously wounded. My father barely managed to climb out of the well, and make it back to our hut; he returned home bloody and weak. After a long illness, Papa recovered, but I realized later he had told the truth: he’d been prepared to die for my sister’s honor.

My father always joked with us girls, “You are my queens, my treasures, and I keep you under lock and key. And I’ve got the key!”

I would say, “But Papa, where’s the key?”

He would laugh like a madman and say, “I threw it away!”

“Well, how are we going to come out?” I would cry, and we’d all laugh.