Tomorrow

My name is Jaha from Gambia. It happened on a sunny afternoon I sat down on the floor with the other girls shaking out of fear and confusion, I could hear Yaam I tried pressing my palms against my ears but I could still hear her blood-curdling scream, that painful scream that pierces the soul, the pain is like a thing that hangs around your neck. I saw the way she was pressed to the floor her legs apart by two women with a middle aged woman at the middle who held a very sharp object that looked like a hook, she used it on yaam’s genital , I wanted to leave this place, I just wanted to go back home but I couldn’t. After we went back home I felt betrayed by my parents I hated that I was a girl, I never wanted to look at my body because I felt ashamed of it. The last time I heard from Yaam she told me how she never enjoys having sex, the pain she always felt; she hated it, she hated being touched by her husband. Yaam died some years back in childbirth which was too difficult for her, she bled to death.
After Yaam’s death I was scared of getting pregnant because deep down I know why she died and I still get nightmares of what happened that day. The tomorrow I want is a Tomorrow where mothers would not be scared for their young daughters, a tomorrow where young girls would not be ashamed to look at their genitals, she would not be afraid of childbirth, she would enjoy having sex with her partner and love being a woman.
That tomorrow is now, I am now a gynecologist and I take care of women like me who has had such ugly experience. I am happy because my people no longer engage in such practices because they now know how evil and dangerous this practice is to a woman’s health. Genital mutilation practice has been banned in my community.
I traveled to the village some weeks back I saw female children running on the street playing innocently, others females going about their activities. I was happy because I know that this children would not be ripped off their innocence they would grow up without knowing this horrendous pain. This is my tomorrow!