The Awakened Woman

by Tererai Trent

  Once you have prepared the ideas and your audience, you are ready to tell your story. Tell a story of your inner self that doesn’t necessarily fit the narrative others have about you. A story that has been buried inside you, and yet, its revelation adds power to your sacred dreams—the buried dreams.

  Talk about your buried dreams. Discuss what’s at the heart of your dreams. What awakens you when you think about your dreams, what overwhelms you? What will inspire others about your buried dreams? Start small, but be deliberate: speaking of your dreams strengthens your connection to them.

  Once you have done this, set a new intention to tell a make-believe story about yourself, to the same audience or to a new one, full of something that does not yet exist. Talk about the dreams you’ve written down and buried so that you can hold them and give them shape. Tell how things will be when you get there, even if it seems silly (especially if it seems silly). Be bold and brave in your imaginings.

  In your journal, reflect on how it felt to speak your dreams to others. Were you afraid? Inspired? Impassioned? Did the telling make your dreams more real to you? Keep going. Tell the story of why your dreams have surfaced for you and imagine achieving them over and over to anyone who will listen.

  Celebrate your creativity and your fullness, even if you feel full of contradictions at this pivotal moment of verbally manifesting your dreams. As poet Walt Whitman would say: “Very well then . . . I contradict myself; / I am large . . . I contain multitudes.”23 Respond by claiming your contradictions, all the multitudes you contain, and speak them!

  Who knows what will happen? Your creative storytelling is just planting seeds. Some won’t grow. But oh, my beloved sisters, some will.

  5

  VALIDATE YOUR BODY’S KNOWING: HARNESSING YOUR SENSUALITY

  What is erotic? The acrobatic play of the imagination. The sea of memories in which we bathe. The way we caress and worship with our eyes. Our willingness to be stirred by the sight of the voluptuous. What is erotic is our passion for the liveliness of life.

  —DIANE ACKERMAN, A NATURAL HISTORY OF LOVE

  In October 2015, I attended the First African Girls’ Summit on Ending Child Marriage in Lusaka, Zambia, where I spoke about the importance of eliminating the scourge of child marriage in the world. It was an informative and emotional event, where I heard many stories and met many women who had experienced sexual trauma.

  During a break between sessions, a tall woman with smooth olive skin sat down next to me and introduced herself as Seynabou Tall. Tall was a perfect name for a woman of her stature and presence. It wasn’t until I looked at her business card that I learned she was the regional adviser with an international organization whose mission is to ensure universal access to reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health to all couples and individuals. I can tell that, like me, she had been reflecting on her personal and professional experiences in this area and she had a story to tell.

  She scooted her chair so we were much closer. “I grew up in Dakar, Senegal,” Seynabou began.1 “I was one of six aunts whose advice was always sought out by the younger women and especially cousins and nieces.” Other women in the conference joined us and soon we formed our own circle, all eyes on Seynabou.

  “One of my younger cousins was forced into a marriage at the age of thirteen to an older man, and before long, she bore him many children. It was before I could find my own voice and so I stood by and watched my cousin struggle at the hands of this man. He was jealous and domineering; he kept her pregnant back to back as a way to control her. Where would she go with all those children? As was the custom in cities and rural areas like ours, my cousin’s parents believed that marrying their daughters off early was the right thing to do. It was their way of keeping them away from early pregnancy outside of the protection of marriage.

  “Thank goodness, soon, the husband died of old age,” Seynabou said with a serious expression and a hint of laughter. I heard suppressed giggles among the women as they cheered the cousin’s freedom. “By now, my cousin was hardly in her forties, too young to be alone in the eyes of the elders. As per the tradition, the late husband’s family was ready for her to be inherited by one of the men in the family. My cousin didn’t want any part of it. Another marriage!

  “No, she complained bitterly to us aunts. But what could we do?” asked Seynabou. “Thank God, my cousin’s sons were now older and they sided with their mother. They threatened their father’s family that if any men attempted to come near their home they would regret it.” Everyone in the group sighed with relief. “Good for her! Good for her! Oh, what amazing sons! We need more sons like that!”

  “One day, without asking for her consent, the elders met with and married her off to a cousin of hers, a forty-year-old man named Samba, also a widow. My cousin was very upset. She went around and complained to each of the elders, asking them to cancel the marriage. They refused.

  “Out of desperation and with no support, she decided that the marriage would be a companionship: Samba would visit once a week in the afternoon, but would never sleep with her. Samba accepted the deal. In time they became friends. Samba was patient and respectful of the terms and conditions of their relationship, and in turn, he was accepted into her home, helping with the bills, offering gifts, and advising the children in their studies and personal lives.

  “One hot afternoon, Samba visited my cousin looking for medication to alleviate a pounding headache. She had none, so Samba asked if she would have her sons rush to a nearby store to buy some pain-relief medication. My cousin is a very compassionate woman. Samba was now resting on the dirt floor outside and he seemed to be in much pain. My cousin did not have much room in her house, but she could not just watch a man in such pain.

  “She asked Samba to rest in a small crafts room adjacent to her bedroom. After making sure that Samba was settled, my cousin tiptoed out and left Samba while she looked out to the road to see if the boys were anywhere nearby. Soon, in a strained voice, Samba was calling for water. My cousin entered that room with a gourd of water and did not come out until the boys arrived.

  “Soon the boys returned and found the small room locked. The older son found it very strange and asked his mother if she was okay. My cousin came out of the room with such sadness in her eyes; she seemed to be on the verge of tears. Did he harm you? the son asked his mother, and my cousin remained silent. By then Samba was out of the room and about to leave. The son turned to Samba and asked if he had harmed his mother. Samba kept walking, and the son warned Samba that if he ever stepped his foot in their yard again, he was going to kill him. Samba took his bag and quietly left.

  “Days pass and all ears are kept to the ground. We wanted to know what Samba did to our cousin, but no one was talking. We knew that nothing in the village ever stays hidden, and so we waited. We knew that whatever happened would come out eventually,” continued Seynabou.

  “Soon it came time for a family gathering where everyone was present. These gatherings bring women together: they congregate to mourn losses and celebrate blessings, and to catch up with each other. Old stories are revisited, some with a little bit of exaggeration, and new ones are told in such vivid detail that they burn into your mind forever. As aunts of the village, we collected in our own room, where we sat and visited, inquiring about each other’s families and exchanging the latest news.

  “We all looked for our cousin. We asked after her, but she was nowhere to be found. Yet all her children were present. We continued with our conversations as normal, but I knew that each of us had burning questions that needed to be answered.

  “The following morning, we were all surprised to see our cousin approaching. This was not the shy beloved cousin we knew and expected. Dhi . . . dhii . . . dhii . . . we heard the sound of her feet as they hit the ground. She walked like a woman on a mission. In silence, we watched. She wore her usual attire, a red cloth tightly worn over her skirt, old sneakers torn at the corners and showing holes where ea
ch pinkie protrudes from the shoes. She entered the yard with deliberation. We looked at each other with amazement.

  “Culturally, young women are expected to kneel down as they greet their elders. This time, however, our beloved cousin spared no time for greetings or any small talk. She remained standing, looming over all her aunts and cousins of the same age like a soldier about to give instructions. She wagged her finger at us, one aunt at a time. It felt like a lashing on our skin.

  “ ‘You old witches,’ she said, and before we can recover from the initial shock, our cousin rests one hand on her hip and puts the other hand to her lips, signaling to us that we dare not speak. All we could do was gasp. ‘All these years you were enjoying this thing’—now pointing to her vagina—‘while you watched me suffer? I had no idea how sweet it is to be aroused by a man and left intoxicated while I feel the explosion of my clitoris!’

  “Now we were in shock. We had no idea how to respond, but we didn’t have the chance anyway, because our cousin went right on testifying to her pleasure. ‘Samba took me to a level I had never been before. He aroused me with a desire that leaves me demanding more. My whole body erupted like a volcano when he stroked my clitoris and I experienced parts of my body that I never knew existed. Forty years . . . forty dead years of being denied what’s rightfully mine. How dare you for never saying anything?’

  “Stunned and silent, we watched our cousin as the weight of her words penetrate our ears. ‘Is this what you have been enjoying all along in your marriages . . . and did you ever think of me and that old man? How could you?’ With tears streaming down her cheeks, our cousin stormed out. Just at the door of the room, she looked back, took two steps toward us, and said, ‘One last thing, tell my son never to threaten Samba. I will kick anyone who interferes with my Samba.’

  “She swung her head, tightened the loose fringes from the colorful cloth that had loosened in her powerful speech, and headed back home, where we can only assume Samba waited in bed. We all remained speechless for a few moments, until the eldest of the aunts let out a high-pitched ululation loud enough to be heard in the corners of our small hut. My cousin had found herself.”

  Seynabou paused to let the full effect of her words settle on each woman in the circle. “My sisters, the eruption of orgasms is beautiful, and yet we seem not to think about it as we discuss the stories of our sisters and daughters forced into early and child marriages. Why can we dedicate whole conferences to discussing our pain, but never our pleasure? In all of the work we do, our inner work and our community work, our goal is not simply to eradicate suffering and injustice, is it? We also want to create a world with more harmony and wholeness. If this is so, then I believe that we cannot make the same mistake the other aunts and I made with our cousin. We must also testify to our pleasure.”

  I was stunned. I had never heard anyone speak openly about our erotic power. Because I was married very young and sex became an obligation, it was never a topic about which to talk. Therefore, I had no idea of an orgasm and never knew it existed. As I reflected on this story, I found myself thinking of the first time I had sex with my current husband, Mark. I thought I was having a heart attack and even asked him to stop. The poor man was shocked, as he had no idea why I would push him away. Later I realized I was having the first big O of my life! Like Seynabou’s cousin, no one had told me about the power of sex and its liberating effect.

  I looked around, seeing my shock mirrored on the faces of the women in the circle. I knew that, like me, for most of the women who listened to Seynabou’s story, this was the first time that they also heard anyone publicly speaking about sensuality, the first time anyone had encouraged us to embrace our deepest desires and be openly connected to our own bodies and sexuality.

  Sex for some of us and for many of the women who came before us—our great-grandmothers, our grandmothers, our mothers—had always been for procreation, a marital duty for women, and never for its pleasures. And for many it has been a source of shame and fear.

  The moment of the cousin’s declaration of her sensual arousal, how she was taken to deeper places in her body that she never knew existed, left many of us tangled and scrambling for something to which we could not put words. This dirty, off-limits, forbidden thing—might it be central to our awakening as women, to walking the path of our sacred dreams?

  What We Have Lost

  I know I am one of more than 700 million women and girls worldwide today, girls like Seynabou’s cousin, who had babies or were married before their eighteenth birthday.2 Seynabou’s story brought home the realization that 125 million of those girls live in Africa, and that I count myself in those statistics. I am also counted among the more than one in three women who were married or in union before the age of fifteen.3

  At one point during the conference, two women approached me so they could introduce Sarah, a fourteen-year-old girl they had rescued from a horrible marriage. Sarah had been married to a man old enough to be her father, and she was his fifth wife. Shy, using her front teeth to chip away at her fingernails, Sarah hardly looked at me as she shared a harrowing story of abuse at the hands of this man and his wives.

  We soon split off so that Sarah could nurse her nine-month-old baby, while I literally dragged my way to find any open breakout session. I didn’t care what topic or what expert panel; I just wanted to be in some corner with my thoughts. I couldn’t take my mind off Sarah and the many young girls I had seen. Here I was, in my mid-fifties, crying for my own lost childhood. It’s hard to be a child when you are married at the onset of puberty and made to have children right away. Having a child at the age of fourteen, what did I know? Innocence, pain, misery, shame, and blame all mixed in equal doses like some recipe for a stew that no one wants to eat, and the world goes on as if nothing is wrong. I saw myself in Sarah.

  My thoughts traveled back home and I remembered a young girl named Marita. Marita was married at a tender young age to a man named Bob. As is the custom, Bob’s family wanted proof of Marita’s virginity when he married. On the night of the wedding, the couple is instructed to have sex on a plain white cloth. In the morning, Bob’s aunts check the cloth for blood. If there is no blood, the aunts will poke a hole in the middle of the cloth, exposing a nonvirgin. With blood, a different cloth with no hole is presented to the family. Silence prevails until the aunts present a folded cloth to Bob’s family and the elders. Fortunately, the cloth has no hole and both families are happy to know that Marita is “pure and untouched,” especially her father, who is given a substantial bride price. A different outcome would have embarrassed the family and Marita’s character would have been forever tainted.

  Bob was proud to be marrying a virgin. He let it be known that he paid mombe yechimanda, a “virginity cow,” as part of the bride price. To provide for his growing family, he moved to the city. Eventually, though, he wrote home to say that he contracted a strange illness. No one knows what ails him, and he soon loses his job as a “garden boy” (a term used by white masters during the colonial era that is still used today; white settlers would call the Black men who served as gardeners “boy” regardless of age). He returns home to Marita and their two young children in defeat. It is believed that Bob had another wife in the city and that she left him when he fell ill, but no one is talking details.

  Still quite young, Marita is a very quiet woman who treats her husband and father-in-law with humble servitude. Bob dies not long after he returns to the village. He was only in his thirties. As custom dictates, Bob’s younger brother Vashe inherits his brother’s wife and children, and so Vashe moves in with Marita to assume the role of husband and father. Vashe is a good man, who understands the connection between many wives and poverty. Vashe had hoped to get an education, but he was forced to drop out of school at age thirteen because his father, a polygamous man, could not afford tuition—indeed, his father could barely afford to feed his forty-plus children, and this desperate situation forced some of his wives to return to their families
of origin. Despite this hard upbringing, or perhaps because of it, Vashe is proud to be known as a responsible man. He promises me that he will do whatever it takes to provide for his new family, Marita and his brother’s children.

  I had returned home on a short visit from the United States when Vashe showed me a rash on his arm that is not responding to medication. Do I know of a strong American drug that can cure him, he asks? It feels as though a knife pierces my heart when I realize what might be happening. With no HIV medication available, it does not take long for Vashe to succumb to his brother’s disease.

  Vashe’s widow, Marita, packs her bags and children to return to her birth family in disgrace. This once-hopeful young woman will forevermore be referred to as “the one who killed two husbands.” How infuriating, I reflect. Her virginal purity was demanded for her marriage and yet she is the one who is blamed for contracting sexual diseases. The system was designed so that there was almost no situation in which she could prosper: her worthiness was measured by her virginity and ability to produce children; sexual stigma was always going to be closely tied to her value and her identity.

  I wonder, if Marita, Sarah, and all the young women I have met, as well as all those millions of women and girls in many countries around the world who still practice child marriages, wife inheritance, and value virginity, had the power to define their own sexuality, how different would their stories be?

  Now that I’ve spent many years living, studying, and speaking outside of my village, I know that the problem of women’s sexuality is not limited to the issue of child marriage, nor is it only a problem in Africa. In fact, every day in the US, I see evidence of the many ways women’s sexuality is distorted and limited, from the hypersexualization of young transgender girls (our cultural obsession with their genitalia or where they use the bathroom) to the widespread practice of men catcalling women on the street (and often threatening women if they decline to smile or respond), to the fact that we elected a president who, in 2005, bragged about kissing women without their consent and grabbing them “by the pussy.”4