Neipamei Ngodia is the only girl in her family of 18 children and three mothers to go to high school.  At 14 years old, she refused to be circumsized (which leads directly into marriage), and was outcast by family and friends for her choice of school over marriage.  Now 16, Neipamei is determined to become a surgeon, and to return to her Maasai village so she can serve people where they are most comfortable - at home, speaking their native language with a doctor who understands not only their illness but also their culture.  Neipamei understands much more than most 16 year olds, and dreams bigger than her society would like.  Being in her presence feels both like standing alongside a gentle soul and a locomotive - she will not be stopped, smiling all the way home.

Video by Kate Cummings. Location: Enoosaen, Kenya. Partner: Vital Voices, 2009.

In this interview, Kakenya Ntaiya talks about the freedom she has found in education.  Tracing her path back to childhood, Kakenya remembers her family hardships and the constricting nature of traditional Maasai values on her future.  But Kakenya was not going to accept her family’s selection of a husband-to-be for her at age five; and she was certainly not going to let generations of ritual and multiple father-figures with a limited perception of her potential stand in the way of her own dream.  Instead, Kakenya - with the support of her mother - rallied together the very community that resented her independence and convinced them to send her to college in the US.  Now, less than a year away from finishing her PhD in international education, Kakenya is still dreaming - but this time, for her entire village.

Interview by: Kate Cummings. Location: Enoosaen, Kenya. Partner: Vital Voices, 2009.

I’m interrupting our story of Kakenya’s school and the people of Enoosaen to update you on the women’s village of Umoja Uaso:

Today, Wednesday, when Rebecca (the chief of the women’s village) was in the village hall for a workshop, her former husband arrived under the acacia tree, shotgun in hand.  He cocked the weapon and yelled for Rebecca to come out. I’m going to kill her, he said.  Waiting, he pointed the weapon at the other women, threatening anyone who got in his way.  When Rebecca refused to come out, he stormed through the village to the nearby campsite and locked all the huts and took the keys, declaring this was all his land and none of them had the right to be there.  As he was leaving the grounds, he shouted, “either I will die or Rebecca will.”  The land title is in Rebecca’s name, but because she is still considered married (can’t get a divorce in Samburu-land), her husband can claim the property as his own.  It is possible that he helped her register the land in her name for this very purpose. The women of Umoja scattered immediately, fleeing to relatives, to friends in other villages, some just running without a safehouse waiting for them.  Mr. Lolosoli (that’s Rebecca’s former husband) roamed in and out of the deserted village all day, gun at his side, a rabid predator.

No way out

I called Rebecca this evening as soon as I heard; her voice was noticeably hushed and her laugh shaky with nerves.  Is it because of the money? I asked.  Rebecca just recently returned from a crafts show in Sante Fe, New Mexico, where she brought in thousands of US dollars from the sales of Umoja’s jewelry that will be used to support the women collectively.  Rebecca paused on the phone: “I don’t know, maybe.  No – I just don’t know.”  Before the commotion, Mr. Lolosoli sent someone to beat Rebecca as a warning.  It was her own son.  I had to ask her to repeat herself: you mean, your husband sent your own son to beat you — and he did?  “Yes!” I didn’t know what to say next, so I asked what seemed like a useless question: what do we do now?  “The police are on his side, so there is nothing we can do.”  On his side?  “He is a big business man in town, you know, and he has connections with the county council.  The police will not intervene.”  What limb of power, what step on the ladder, is next when the national police force is out and the local government is holding the hand of the man who holds the gun to the face of 48 women and their children? In one act of unfounded retribution, the foundation of this revolutionary women’s village is cracked and shaken – because this man, this successful business man with his own hotel and restaurant, wants what he doesn’t have.  Rather, he wants what the women have.

Rebecca, like her Umoja sisters, has fled to a nearby town (also known for its instability, but here the tension is between the Burana and the Samburu), and she has no idea what comes next.  If you know anyone in Kenya or in the international community that can help Rebecca and her village against these injustices, do not hesitate to use your phone, computer, fingers, brain and heart.  There is no time to lose.

**Visit the Advocacy Project website for a thorough report.

Dtipayon, a resident of Umoja Uaso

Kakenya got off the phone, shaking her head.  “Some bad news today.”  She stood up, then sat down again.  “One of the girls from my school – her teachers say she has been sitting in class with a blank stare, she jumps suddenly sometimes, closes her body up.  They think she’s been raped.”  How old?  I asked.  “Maybe nine.”  Who did it?  “They think it was a relative. “ What?  “Yeah,” Kakenya looks down, frowning.  “She was visiting her mother’s relatives in another area – they think it happened then.  Maybe an uncle.”  Kakenya looked up quickly, her braids flying back.  “I want to know that man so I can beat him myself.”

The next day we were in the yard, some chickens around our feet and freshly picked tomatoes piled nearby.  Kakenya started yelling to a voice behind the fence – come!  There was a yelp and then a girl, bright and running, appeared in the dirt drive.  “This is the girl – she lives just next door,” Kakenya said.  The girl leapt over stones, lithe and tall, her head shaved and her school uniform hanging loose on her frame as she moved without stopping into Kakenya, burying her face and laughter in her dress.  With both hands on the child’s head, Kakenya spoke softly, smiling down at the girl’s crown.  “How is school?  You’ve been working hard?”  The girl nodded with head tilted sideways, her eyes lit up.  Her embarrassment increased by the moment, so much attention, and she returned her face to Kakenya’s stomach.  “Have you been sick?”  Kakenya tapped the girl’s chin.  The girl shook her head.  “Because I hear you missed some school – you were not sick?”  The girl is quiet, her head movements less noticeable.  “We will talk, just you and me.  Come on Saturday?”  The girl looks up – yes, her head nods.

Young girls of Enoosaen

“I don’t know how to counsel a girl about this.”  Kakenya was sitting in the living room, elbows resting on her knees.  Since the girl’s visit, she had been noticeably distracted. “What if she cries?”  I think that would be good – I said.  That Saturday, during the purple in-between time of sunset and nightfall, the girl came back.  She was quieter.  The two of them retreated to one of the grassy hillocks near the edge of the farm.  Kakenya asked the girl to tell her what she remembered and, resting her body against Kakenya’s, she started slowly:

It was daytime.  I was alone in the house.  An older man, he touched me.  When I see men now, I think they are coming to get me.  They will do the same thing.  Sometimes when I am in class, I remember, and my body gets so tight.  I couldn’t see for two days [she went blind from the trauma].  I hear a ringing in my ears that lasts the whole day.

Kakenya could feel the girl’s heart beating rapidly, the muscles of her jaw, arms, thighs like taut rope.  She gave the girl a diary for writing.  “Whenever I am not here, write down what you want to say.”

I saw her the next day in school.  We came to visit the students, and play a few games.  I taught them a song, and watched the girl as she bumped shoulders with her classmates, eagerly mimicking my hand motions and tones just like them.  We repeated the melody, molding our hands into flowers, mountains – and in between the mountains and the hills, the girl dropped her hands, an almost imperceptible cloud covering her eyes.  She bowed her head, and passively moved her body out of the crush of students.

There is no healing ceremony for rape in the Maasai tribe, despite how often it occurs. What is present and too common is women and men’s reaction: “This is the girl’s fault”.  To hear rumor of this response sets fire to the disbelieving heart.  But to put your hands on the head of a nine year-old child, to see her eyes still remarkably bright, and to know that she is the one that mothers, brothers, fathers are blaming for a grown man’s brutality – this is enough to break even the observer.  I, like Kakenya, want to beat this man.  I want my anger to become a swarming force of violence that surrounds him in his home and tears apart any piece of him he thought was good.  And then I want her to know, this small girl, that she is perfect again.

School girls