The first cut happened just a fortnight before I turned eight years old. The memories are as vivid to me today as they were fifteen years ago, of two cuts that completely changed my world, cuts that give me night terrors and chills. On both accounts, I recall everything more than I would like; the smell of desperation and hopelessness, the sweltering August heat, my viridescent dira, the arenaceous ground; I can even see my monster’s bloody, rugged hands, her unforgiving eyes, and the darkness that followed because I fainted both times. It is a memory of such intense infusion, of feelings of despair, that it has become both a glaring red stain cloud and a dimmed light in my soul.
You see, I have an eidetic memory! My infibulation was excruciating. I cried a lot in the following weeks and lamented my lost autonomy and innocence. My heart would silently rebel – it does not have to happen.
When I turned twelve, my aunt examined me and avowed that I was not closed enough. The act of been examined was already undignifying for my budding womanhood. Two days later, I had just finished my breakfast; injera and minced goat meat, when my monster showed up in the company of my aunties. A dark cloud of hopelessness filled me; I had nowhere to hide and no one to help me. I screamed and tried to escape their clutches, but I was weak and only twelve. My monster cut me again; this time ascertaining I was tightly closed.
I lay on the floor in unfathomable pain. I could not relieve myself, or walk. In the following days, my stomach started to swell, and I was sweating one moment and freezing the next.
Then, my monster came, for the third time! I thought she was going to cut me again. I didn’t cry or talk; I just spread my legs and was resigned to my fate as a woman from my culture. I became unconscious, and I was in the hospital when I woke up. My genital area was swollen and throbbed painfully. I asked my sister if I would die since she looked terrified, and she said that my infibulation had been cut open to drain the pus and urine. I didn’t care as I was ready to die.
It has been years now, and this is my story.