Chapter Nine
“This is Maria. She is from another village but now lives with the sisters at the convert. Manka why don’t you make way and let her sit next to you.”
Maria was the thinnest girl had ever seen and the most unhappy looking. Ikunda who had been the saddest I had ever seen, looked a lot better compared to Maria. Her eyes always darted around nervously. Maria didn’t have a school uniform yet. The dress she wore to school was old, moth eaten at places and tattered. Her skin was patched and dry as if she had spent days walking under the scotch hot sun.
“Why don’t you have a school uniform?” I whispered to her.
“The sisters said they will buy me one once they get money from the Parish.”
“Will they get you shoes too?”
“Uh-huh,” she looked around, gazing at the bare feet around her and replied with an uncertain tone.
“Didn’t you have uniforms where you come from?”
“We do but when I ran away I didn’t take anything with me.” She then added as she lifted her tattered dress, “my dress wasn’t like this before. It got torn as I ran in the bushes.”
“You run away?”
“Yes,” Maria later told me, “then the kind sisters found me.”
“Run away? Why? From who?”
“From my village,” Maria started crying as she explained “they wanted to do something horrible to me.”
“Couldn’t your mother have stopped them?”
“She was one of them.”
Maria did not look happy at all. She was always looking back – worried that someone from the village might come to get her. The next evening after school we walked back to church together. She was going back to her new home; I was going for choir practice. Makicha was no with me that afternoon as she had to help her mother at the pub.
“My sister was tricked to go to the forest with our Bibi when she was thirteen. This was two years ago. She was there for months. She had been tricked with a few of her friends. There were about fourteen of them. Three of them didn’t make it back. Mama said the bad spirits had taken them. It happened sometimes. But it didn’t really matter to me then, as when my sister returned she was so fat and glowing, I was so jealous of her. All her attention was on her and she was always made special meals to make her more beautiful.”
“Did they make her soup with lots of butter in it?” I smacked my lips as I was asking since I loved soup, especially makanyagio soup.
“As if you were there,” she smiled sadly.
“There was even a big feast for her coming back. We had ngoma, lots of mbege and even pilau. There was singing and dancing for three days!” Maria smiled sadly as she recalled this. “Baba even slaughtered our biggest cow for her!”
With my hands cupping my face, I nodded my head gently urging her o continue with the tale. I couldn’t understand the reason behind the sadness as so far the tae sounded jovial.
“But a few days after getting back she started getting sick, always a fever. Her body was so hot you could practically boil water on her! And she could hardly walk! Then she started smelling. Mama tried washing her. Even with warm water, she still smelt. It was horrible!”
“Maybe she wasn’t using soap when she washed?” I asked in amazement.
“She always did! Mama even helped! Mama scrubbed and scrubbed! But my sister still emitted that horrible stench. All the while I hadn’t been allowed to see my sister. I would only take her food and quickly I would be shunned away. Baba had even built a hut for her. They said she had to be kept in solitary, incase she did have bad spirits.”
“Bad spirits?” I interrupted Maria.
“Yes, bad spirits from the forests. They said sometimes girls who are taken to the forests come back with them - like the three girls that never came back. They had the bad spirits. The bad spirits make you sick and sometimes they kill you.”
I hugged my legs; suddenly feeling a chill, then nodded my head to show that I had understood and urging her to continue.
“So then an aunt came with a witch doctor to cleanse the house. She said maybe my sister had come with the bad spirits from the forests instead of the good ones. For a while my sister felt better. She even came out of the hut.”
“Phew,” I heaved a sigh of relief.
“But then she started getting sick again. This time the glow had left her and instead she started looking hallow. Her soft coffee milky complexion turned dark, hard and gnawed. The stench returned again. This time more horrible than ever. The witch doctor was summoned again. The women of the village and Mama stayed in the hut with the witch doctor every evening singing and chanting to wad the bad spirit away. But it didn’t work. The bad spirit took her.”
I looked at Maria in horror, my gaping mouth silently urging her to go on.
“When the spirit takes you they don’t bury you on your land. Its bad omen as it might bring other bad spirits in your house. So they throw you away. They threw my sister away, Manka!
“So why did you ran away, Maria?” I whispered.
“I heard Mama and my aunt say it was time to take me to the forests.”
“What do they do in the forest?”
“I don’t know for sure. But I heard the sisters whisper among themselves later that it was circumcision.”
“Do you know what it means? Did they tell you?”
“No, they didn’t tell me anything. But the sisters looked appalled when I told them the story, so it must be something bad.”
“You never heard your mother say anything about it?” I looked at Maria worried, my eyes begging her to remember.
“Yes, actually I did” she cupped her chin as she replied, “before my sister went, Mama had been saying that going to the forest would make her a real woman.”
That evening when Ikunda was alone and calm I went to join her in the room. I sat on the mattress staring at the termite-ridden naked trusses, trying to find the words to ask her about what I had learnt. I fidgeted on the mattress, knowing that my shifting would make her turn around.
Ikunda had always been very warm and sweet, but after getting married Ikunda became quiet and reserved on one side and quite stern and short tempered on the other side – always far away in thoughts – the same look I had seen on Mama. These days anything would get Ikunda into a rage. I wondered if children turned one stern and short tempered. But it couldn’t be as Ikunda’s babies were as quiet as mice. I never understood why Makicha wanted to get married if it meant not being fun anymore but becoming quiet and stern.
“Dada,” I had murmured to her, after my shifting never got any attention from her.
“Mmh, when you call me ‘dada.’” She had replied sharply, “it always means you want something from me. What is it? I’m tired I want to sleep.”
“It’s just something I heard –“
“From Mama?” she had asked sitting up quickly.
I told her the story quickly and watched her gasp and her eye widen with alarm. She later told me that Maria’s sister must have been circumcised.
“Why? I had asked her, “what is it? Why did the spirits take her?”
“You have to many questions. This is a grown up issue.” She had turned to the side of the wall and curled into a ball.
“Please,” I had begged, “but Maria is scared.”
“It basically marks the transition from childhood to womanhood. Now go away!””
I left the room with my shoulders slumped wishing I hadn’t asked her. I was scared. I thought - if I had finally become a woman surely the next step would be to circumcise me. I was scared. I wanted o ask but I knew I couldn’t ask Mama; as such topics were a taboo. Shangazi Lulu and Mama Mdogo Philomena were so occupied with Ikunda’s issue that I doubted if they would pay attention to me. I felt scared and alone.
