By 'cutting' me, my mother killed my dignity

By Venter Mwongera                                                                       

The landscape is all green, hilly and a few clouds of smoke are seen at a distance. In the densely populated countryside, the fields are covered with green vegetations beneath the tall miraa (Khat) trees whose appearance resemble canopies of tropical rain forests in Latin America.

The houses are sparsely distributed and despite the fact that there are huge miraa plantations in these areas, many of the houses found here are muddy and are grass thatched. In most of the families in Ntonyiri Location, Meru County in Eastern Province; on average, every household has at least ten children.

The economic activity for people in Ntonyiri is miraa farming and this is their ‘gold’. In a day, one can fetch around fifty thousand on average hence they attach high value on their miraa plantations. The fencing is too tight such that even a passer-by cannot harvest a single straw of miraa to keep his mouth busy as they go about their businesses.

Ntonyiri is well known for its richness in miraa since it has the loamy soils which are wealthy in nutrients and are best suited for this crop to thrive well.  



As I cover around 5 kilometers to the interior parts of this place, I am overwhelmed by the serenity and the beauty of the area. I can’t explain how time has flown because my watch reads 2.00pm. I alighted from the matatu within their terminals at 9: 00 am to cover a short distance to meet my interviewee.

Meet Ms. Doris Kaari, a slender, chocolate face with deep dimples on her chins along with well cropped hair and a smiling face. Her dependable smile conceals a lot of frustrations that Kaari has been through.

Ms. Doris Kaari, who was circumcised by her own mother

Kaari shows me her hut where I sit inside to give her time to prepare and grant me an interview. Her room is well decorated with newspapers and magazines with different prominent people but when you study them keenly, each page has an educative or informative message.

When Kaari finally comes in, I ask her, who was pinning these newspapers and magazines on your house walls? She blushes and answers, “It’s me. I enjoy reading and when I come across any material that inspires me, I put it on the wall so that I can read it more often.”

We finally settle for an interview and she narrates to me her story amid tears.

“It was in 1998 early one morning when my mum took away my joy, peace and my self esteem.” She takes her handkerchief out of her skirt and wipes away drops of tears which were flowing on her smooth face like a water fall.

This really makes me nervous and I inquire from her if its ok we continue with the interview or we reschedule. She composes herself and confirms to me that she is fine we can carry on with the interview.

 “I hid here as a small girl in August 5^th, 1998 to elude female genital mutilation,” she says, pointing through the thick underbrush of the Ntonyiri forest, her quiet voice almost drowned by the swaying of huge miraa trees, “I was 5 and I remember we would have bags on our backs, we could carry sometimes 10 liters jerrican of water, sometimes 15, and we would throw them behind our back.” She demonstrates, crouching in the red dust and shuffling backward. 

“Sometimes my mother could be so close we couldn’t even rest on our way home – we would just carry on with heavy cans and keep going. If we were too slow we would, you know, be punished seriously,” she says as she squints one eye.

It was a cold morning and my mother gathered her sisters and my elder sisters to come and witness her barbaric acts on me. I had hardly taken my breakfast and there was no room for informing me what they had planned for me. 

One of my aunties grabbed me with her two hawk hands as my sisters watched calmly at our scene as it was unfolding. My resistance was futile because my aunt’s energy overpowered me.

I didn’t know that my mother was a circumciser till it happened to me. Without wasting much time, my sisters and other aunties unstrapped my skirt and shorts. My mum with her crude knife tore my inner wear and circumcised me. 

I could not really tell how it was done but it was at a lightning speed. I only saw blood flowing down my legs and heard ululations from the people who had come to witness my mother’s wickedness.

I was locked in the house for two weeks being fed like a small baby and during all these days, the guardians that I was with in the house never mentioned anything about schooling but their hot topic was getting betrothed to an elderly man who was rich and would bring wealth to my family.

By the time my mother and my elder sisters had decided to circumcise me, they had already found a man in his sixties to marry me off when i get to 7 years.

When I learnt about these little secrets, I could not help but I cried most of the time and I stuck with my education.

My people chose to frustrate me all through. Any time I came home for lunch after school, I could not meet any food left for me. My mother could unashamedly tell me that I should not waste time in school but instead get married to the man of their choice who had many herds of cows, big miraa plantations and would afford to take care of me.

Any money that was supposed to be paid to the school was a thorn in my flesh since this meant that I work extra harder to get it.

Day in day out was a struggle for me. I sneaked my school uniforms and books out of the house without my mother’s knowledge and during evenings, I would fetch water and firewood all alone as a form of punishment because I adamantly went to school. During weekends, I would clean clothes to earn a few shillings to buy books, pens, uniforms and pay activity fee since it was a requirement for all pupils in our school to pay. 

Occasionally, I could even dig other people’s shamba to finance my education.

By God’s grace, I struggled all through primary education and I managed to score 325 out of the possible 500 marks. I could not afford to pay for my secondary education.

I talked to my brother-in-law about my problems and he was happy with my performance despite the many challenges I had faced along the way.

Being a matatu driver, he couldn’t raise a lot of money to pay my secondary school fees but he made arrangements with the school authority on how he would be clearing my fees.

In February 2008, I enrolled in Maua Girls High School and as fate would have it, during April holidays the same year, my sponsor got involved in a head on collision with a miraa vehicle and he passed away before he got to Maua General Hospital.

That marked the end of my studies and my ambitions of being a lawyer one day were buried together with my brother-in-law. 

My life took a new twist and my parents’ prayers for my marriage were almost successful. My dad drunk with other old men and received many goodies in the name of cementing my relationship with them as their wife. 

I could not give up on education so easily. My only sister who sympathized with my situation is a grocer and she could not raise my school fees and provide for her children since she was now a widow.

I made up my mind not to concede to their plans and I have been working in different houses as a house help just to raise money to educate myself.” Kaari concludes.

Kaari is only one example of how female genital mutilation is being used to frustrate the efforts of girl child in pursuance of education.

Despite of the many anti- FGM campaigns by the governments beginning in early 1990s and a number of large NGO clearance projects, there are still millions of girls trapped by such practices throughout the countryside. 

These perilous practices especially concentrated amongst the Abagusii, Maasai, Marakwet, Pokots, Ameru; can result in many deaths in a day countrywide. The majority of today’s FGM victims are children who are below 10 years who cannot make decisions on their own and who often rely on their parents to make decisions for them despite pervasive female cut risk education campaigns.