mutilation

To became a Bondo

The meeting with the Bondo women happened during my first trip to Masanga in September 2010 had left inside me a deep mark… .the desire to meet them again  and  accept their invitation to become a Bondo. I realized a strength, an involvement, a recognition and a joy to share that brought me again to Masanga with Janny to participate in the third "new style" Bondo ceremony promoted with the support of the association Mea but above all sustained and strongly wanted by Ya Ramatu Fornath and by Michèle, two special and marvellous Bondo women.

The arrival to Masanga this time has been exciting because of the familiarity hugging the women and the children I already knew and seeing again these places, so I enjoyed, like a child at a birthday party, this atmosphere of joy and feast that was in the whole village.

Sunday evening arrived and I was approaching  the moment when I would have relied on them, to leave myself totally and enter their world. For me a western “Poto” without any kind of similar experience  was like to jump really into a new dimension.

Michèle has illustrated the various moments of this preparation week to the Bondo ceremony  so I would like to share the emotional feelings that I lived spending 24 hours  for 7 days with women and children that talked a language that I didn’t understand.

I entered first in the Bondo house and then I spent the first night in a small dark room surrounded by women and children trying to sleep while outside the Sampas played their drums and sang endlessly like mantras the Bondo songs. And then my fears started haunting me: sense of claustrophobia, need of space, air, I felt me imprisoned, forced to stay in a space for me too small but I couldn’t get back. I listened to the music from the outside and I observed in the obscurity this crowd of women and children sleeping,  huddled one close to the other on the floor.

In spite of the difficulty of not knowing their language, the Temene, these marvellous women took care of me as they did with their children trying to teach me all their tradition but understanding my differences, engaging in a lot of small attentions to facilitate me in the experience, but also they tested me soliciting me with energy to take part in their songs and dances.

The relationship with these unbelievable women has been intense and deep touching so many emotions with different colours and tones: the frustration that I felt when I didn't understand what they told me or their continuous requests to repeat a song or a footstep dance so I felt like a child forced to obey the teacher authority. Then however the joy and satisfaction arrived when I succeeded in dancing and singing with them following the right rhythm and feeling at ease with the sonorities of this new language.

Sometimes I felt like a small little animal in a zoo, the object of their curiosity that inevitably my presence (as Poto) provoked. Then  a great number of women, younger and less young, children and young girls came from the village and they stood quietly to observe, to study, to scrutinize what I did and above all how I did it. The beautiful thing is that everything happened without any sense of embarrassment from both parts. All was direct, simple, clear and so natural and spontaneous.

I remember the pleasure the young women who could speak English and who explained me with perseverance the meaning of their songs and I repeated up to them till I could succeed in reaching the goal.

I remember with endless and deep sense of fullness and liberty my attempts to imitate the movements of the pelvis, of the back and the rhythm of clapping hands when the children untiringly joyful and happy involved me in their game made by dances and songs.

Sometimes I discovered myself to observe these women take care of the children, to cover their heads, to wash them, or while they were smearing their body with cream (vaseline),  while they were preparing them for the night, or when in the morning they lit fires in the bush. All this with simple essential gestures, the same gestures I saw in the small young girls 7/8 year-old when they took care of the smallest, with the same naturalness and spontaneity. So appeared on my memory the stories of my mother and my grandmothers, of their stories and infancy and It was so clear inside me the feeling of affiliation to this world that flowed with the rhythm of nature, of the energy of the earth, of the light, of the day and of the night and so our presence followed this movement.

I stopped at times to observe these strong women, the Sampas and the Sowés that conducted together with Ya Ramatu Fornath the various moments and ritual of the initiation that would have allowed 58 children and two Poto to the passage and the entrance to the clan of the Bondo women without suffering the ritual of the mutilation and this moved me deeply.

The intense look of Ya Ramatu and her testimony, her presence, her strength and honesty so clear, true and deep beyond all any spoken or written word makes me feel a big sense of gratitude for having been welcomed and given this meeting and the embrace with these Bondo women.  I am Chèma Ruko! Fino!!!! Bondo, fino!!!

Thousand encounter in Africa

It was March 2007 in Spain when I first met Michèle. We were both participating to a seminar and in this occasion Michèle told us about her experience in Africa and her project in Masanga: to create pre-elementary school for those children whose parents promise not to practise the FGM to their daughters. An alternative and concrete proposal instead of the mutilation of clitoris that is still practiced in many places.

The desire to help Michèle in this project for me was natural and immediate. I accepted to sponsor a small girl, Fatima. Since  that moment it has grown in me a strong and intense desire to know this reality, a sort of attraction, a deep call to which I have not been able to withstand. Finally this year I organized my working vacations to go with Michèle to Masanga for the new school year.

I didn't exactly know what to expect and what I would have done but I had a deep feeling that from this trip I would have returned enriched and I would have received more than what  I would have been able to give. So it was.

The meeting with Michèle at the airport of Brussels on 10^th September 2010 has been cheerful and full of enthusiasm, we both had so much energy to spend in this  (only for me new) adventure. The arrival to Masanga still today is difficult to describe. I have only a deep memory of the emotion.  I felt seeing the people but above all the women, the mothers and the children hailing Michèle, a white Bondo woman who was returning to Masanga. They all sang and accompanied  the rhythm clapping their hands and playing their djembes, (African music instrument) dancing around her and with her, smiling and creating an unbelievable wave of energy that was originated from the red earth of Africa and was expanding in the air through the intense and vivacious colours of this land. I allowed myself to get involved with these marvellous women that embraced me and the thousand children that first timidly then more and more curiously looked for a contact with me. It has been like entering into the sea and being carried by the tide, the flow and reflux of the waves. A magic encounter with the people of Masanga.

Since the first day everything developed with extreme simplicity but with great intensity. Michèle is devoted all her efforts to meet all the parents and enrolled children to her program. You can’t imagine how hard it is the job to organize and answer to the needs of those who don't have almost anything, in order to give them an occasion and a possibility for a positive change, and help those children to have a better life as adults in the next future.

My helping was above all devoted to the children of Michèle’s school. It’s difficult to explain because I can't find the words to say how precious and special this experience has been. I really enjoyed being in touch with them and giving my time, observing their games, their success and also their difficulties and their fears, to leave that the communication naturally happened beyond the language for me incomprehensible as the “temene” is, but we developed a sort of language made of short songs, dances, games, embraces, looks, smiles and small gestures, little attentions. All this filled entirely my days leaving me a feeling of fullness and harmony where "everything" really "everything is all right."

Very precious has also been the meeting and the exchange with the teachers of the school of Michèle. This year it has also been inaugurated the primary class. Sixteen small wonders that had already attended the school of Michèle were now beginning the primary class.  The attention for the school and the didactic programs are still very scarce and poor in this country and Michèle with her project can really be, also for these teachers, a good opportunity to improve, to grow professionally, to acquire new knowledge and to experiment with the little students. In the few weeks that I spent with them it has been really beautiful to see that also the teachers have taken the risk to move forward. We confronted ourselves, we exchanged opinions and didactic suggestions to create the environment and the most favourable atmosphere to welcome and stimulate, encourage the growth and the learning experience of these 64 small marvellous creatures.

The encounter with the people of Masanga and the near villages has been exciting. Their poverty didn't cast a shadow on the intensity of their direct and deep looks, their ability to enjoy hoping for a help and to welcome me with sincere joy through the songs and the dances.

The encounter with the nature of Africa has been very strong. The colours, from the intense green of the plantations of rice and the palms to the red of the earth, from the obscurity of the night to the thousand tonalities of yellow, violet, pink, blue, green, red, orange of the traditional costumes, the smell, the sound of the rain, the incessant song of birds, crickets and crickets, the sound of the ocean, the silent flowing of the rivers, all this accompanied my short stay leaving me an intense and deep memory.

Many months have passed now but every single encounter in this journey has left in me an invisible trace but indelibly engraved in my mind that makes me feel part of an unbelievable and mysterious stream of Life.

I am infinitely happy to have met Michèle and grateful for the great opportunity she gave me.

Hello everybody!

I spent all September in Masanga but this time I was under a steady rain and a rate of  100% humidity .

The jeep offered to us by Gaznat à Aigle finally arrived on the spot (not charged on the planned boat, problems of mooring and fight to take it out  of the port)…in short, I was able to drive it only in the last week of my stay, that was not easy.

While waiting for it I had to take the local taxis for my urgent movements. When I say taxi I mean  4 wheels turning and vibrating in all directions under a bodywork-strainer… and especially a pipe sending its gases to the cockpit…As a result of the races, my lungs didn’t like all this at all and I am back home  still completely exhausted.

But let’s go on to the good news.  

Eight sowes of Magburaka, the administrative centre of the district, came with their daughters and girls asking to register them in our program against the excision! That is enormous! I hurried to say YES of course.  

In December we are going to organise the 3rd Bondo ceremony WITHOUT excision with 60 girls. Marie Kamara, a former co-worker of the WHO returned to her country and helps us on the spot.

This year I travelled with a friend, Pierre-Louis, who took and listed the photos of all children to send them to their godfathers and godmothers. An enormous work that he did magnificently well and helped me a lot. He wrote a nice summary on his journey that I enclose at the end of this text. 

For the 1st time we have two great volunteers who come from Denmark. Soren, who manage the program, the school and the in-service training of the native teachers. Jacob, who builds a house for Bondo ceremonies and also takes care of MEA.

We organized the beginning of the school for our nursery school children, and for children of the primary school and those of the secondary school.

Today we have 270 pupils in the program and 225 girls of those escaping the excision. Five more are going to join the ceremony in December and approximately 60 more are waiting in the village of Rogbeshe. Once again, if I could find enough help on the spot we would be able to accept in the program about 1000 girls tomorrow …

A short story to end this short report:

Marion was born in 2007. She was so small that we didn’t think she could survive. Her mom is one of our alumni. I gave her my soft blanket to hold her baby in the warmth and recommended to breastfeed her as often as possible. The following yea I found Marion in great shape but her mom is Limba, a clan that also practices FGM. I told her not to excise Marion that I would take her in the program but she refused. Every year I went to see her and this year I gained. Mom and girl came to visit me. Marion, so beautiful with her intelligent big eyes, began the nursery school in our school… OUF! Only for that I have the courage to continue.

My best regards to all of you and thanks a lot because without you this program would not exist.

Michèle