AFS BLOG #9

    "A Girl Who Demanded School"

    I really enjoyed the video of Kakenya Ntaiya highlighting the desire of a female born in such a traditional setting as Kenya with one of the most common wishes and that was to attend school.  The traditional setting in which was spoken of by the author as a fact confirming humorous way was very enlightening to me. The confirmation of her speaking of her upbringing, childhood and young adulthood in a lightened manner proved that you can overcome any unpleasant situation if you put your mind to it. Ms. Ntaiya grew up in a household that proved no different than any other in her country, her dad was the head of the household even though he was not present physically all of the time because of his duties as a police- and her Mom's role was to take care of the house children, land to assure all was well when he arrived home. Even thought his arrival home may have only been twice a year, he was still given prompts as head of house. The household was considered to be normal for their society because all traditions were followed - no one stepped outside of their role, making the house "normal". The idea though that even as traditional her family and household appeared there was some underlying desire for change, change that would need to be approached with caution as to not disturb tradition because that was "bad:. Ms. Ntaiya request to attend school which was not the norm for females in Kenya, had to be approached with a definite plan to assure that she would be able to get the request out before it was vetoed. She made what she felt was a deal with her Dad and that was to follow the tradition and become engaged at puberty to someone that Dad chose also to go through female circumcision if he would allow her to attend High School. This sounds too painful and unnecessary, but due to tradition no one bothered to challenge. According to Chapter 24 this ritual of circumcision of a females genitals became a situation that was proven to be against the law later . One would wonder what is the purpose of a female circumcision unlike a male it is not done to improve hygiene and definitely not improve sexual interest. So I wonder why would a group of people engage in such a barbaric act all because of tradition? religion? I know that many years ago there was not means to understand the body as time and technology has allowed us to do, so tradition was something that was a concept thought of by elders of the villages. I enjoyed her explanation of how she fought to get something she wanted -education and also the light hearted explanation of tradition of an African family.