TATU OF MBAZA

There is something immensely beautiful about Tatu.
A young girl who walked in her own light, an ambitious young girl who wanted to travel beyond the village, beyond the valleys and the mountains her family and relatives lived, she wanted to explore the big wide world, the world the radio speaks of, the tall buildings, the city under the sun where dreams come true.
Tatu.
With this huge dreams, Tatu was well aware of her realities, her abusive dad to both her and the entire family especially mama Tatu, her brutal brother who has always told her she was nothing, in fact less than nothing, he has more than once compared her to cows, cows a whole human with huge dreams that traverse beyond the village and beyond, her, cows, really?
Then the neighbor who continuously makes really inappropriate compliments, sexual compliments, Jesus, ‘I am literally her daughters age and yet here he is trying to make me a wife’, Tatu regularly thinks to herself.
Then there is school, Tatu’s safe heaven that fuels her huge enormous dreams of the land beyond of the great achievements she will make in Mbaza and beyond, the world in fact. She wants to bring change in her tiny village,to make sure other girls are not as conflicted as she has been for her whole life.
In Tatu’s village all the girls go through Female Genital Mutilation, just like clockwork, no explanations just that, because it has been done for ages and it has some communal value to it.
The other girls say it is painful but worth it.
Embarrassing but dignifying.
Painful but a joy.
A joy that kills dreams and open floodgates.
After healing you are ready, you are a woman.
Ready for it all.
Everything but those dreams beyond the village.
You are now confined in the village.
A lifetime of pain, shame and unsaid trauma.
But this will not be my story, I must go to school, escape the cut and mentor girls to dream bigger, do great things beyond going through Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and getting married.
After all what value have the two added to the hundreds of girls before me?
Tatu, a rebel, a shifter, challenger and a non-conformist.