CHEPT-O VICTORY IN POKOT-LAND
It is a beautiful morning and am packing for my flight from kampala to Pokot-land of victors, in karamoja. My dear wife serves me breakfast as we hurry to our airport taxi , as am reminded by Kamaali my driver that we will be late for the flight if we don’t make haste. After loading the luggage we set off to the airport,and the journey takes us forty five minutes just in time for the onboarding. When the plane takes off I am reminded of the last time I was in Pokot-land, and that was to film a story for my blogging activism work against the female genital mutilation that had proved insurmountable in the land of asis and iiat, and the battle by various NGOs, government and private sector partners to combat the vice in Pokot land and her neighbours with community leaders leading the sensitization and teaching of the Pokot people of the dangers of this mythological and unfruitful act.
It is eleven o’clock and the bright sunlight of Pokot-land shines on our faces as we board our van sent by Pokot chief to pick us from the airport and drive us to the venue of the chept-o victory day which marks five years without any female genital mutilation in pokot-land and across the neighbouring land. On arriving we are welcomed by the winner of miss chept-o victory; a pageant to sensitize and educate the population on the crude vice of female genital mutilation and its sour effects on the girl child of Pokot-land ,thereafter we are educated by Pokot chiefs’ three beautiful daughters who are champions and victors over the vice and how they championed the fight in their village of which am here to write a story on how far they have fought and how their persistence has paid off. After the celebrations we go to our hotel where we are to sleep for the night after a busy day of audio and visual recording of the girls and boys at the amudat senior secondary school the venue for the main celebrations.
As the moon shines, my wife’s shines even brighter with a wide smile testifying of what she and other girls plus women had to endure before the fight began and how the wholesome fight has secured safe future for all women in this new Uganda without female genital mutilation .