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16.10.04 - 13:46
WARNING: this entry contains some sexually explicit and graphic material.
Nonetheless, I think the story is an important one.
Abdurachan and Moussa went to the wedding of a certain fisherman friend named Mamadou. The bride was a gir that not one of th three had met before the wedding. In a picture Abdurahman showed me, she looks to be about sixteen; he says she's much younger-looking in person. She is Malian.
It is a Malian tradition that the bridal couple spread a white sheet over their bed, so that the blood of th bride's maidenhead can be displaed and attest to her purity. In addition, wedding guests tend to be around their hut when they first have sex, lending little privacy.
Mamadou and his young bride Awa tried and failed to hve sex for two nights. He could not get inside her. Moussa and Abdurachman heard her screaming the second night, and decided one of them ought to tell Mamadou to stop.
They laughed about it. It was decided that Awa needed to go to an old woman, a practitioner of traditional medicine. Awa's arms would be held back, several people restraining her as the old woman cut inside her with razor blade. Certainly, the woman could cut Awa's hymen.
"But," I asked Abdurachman, "what if te hymen is not the problem? Perhaps she is so nervous that all her muscles are clenched, or maybe she's just not big enough? She is so young..."
He shrugged. "The woman cuts a lot with the razor. She cuts EVERYTHING." Whatever that means. I had an urge to vomit.
We talked, at my insistence, about the dangers of the "operation" - tetanus, hemmorhage, infection, scarring, irreparable harm to her reproductive system. The possibility of death.
But Abdurahman just shrugged again. "Eh, it's not our [Soninké] tradition."
"But did you tell Mamadou not to let her do it, or did you just laugh?"
"I just laughed."
(epilogue: the woman came, but determined that Awa did not need to be cut. Mamadou is searching for medicine for the problem; what type, I don't know. Perhaps Valium, to let that poor girl relax.)
