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In some ways, Himba and Khoush were like night and day, but in matters of girlhood and womanhood and control, we were the same.
“When you face your deepest fears, when you are ready,” she’d said. “Don’t turn away. Stand tall, endure, face them. If you get through it, they will never harm you again.”
The three days passed, as time always does when you are alive, whether happy or tortured.
“I will wash this off soon,” it said. “It’s not good to feel this pleased with life.”
The Meduse worshipped water as a god, for they believed they came from it. This was the root of the war between the Meduse and the Khoush, though the details had long been blasted away by violence and death, and then angry, most likely incorrect, tales of heroism or cowardice depending on the teller.
As I sat there, watching Okwu dance with its god, I thought about how strange it was that for me to swim in water was taboo and for Okwu such a taboo was itself a taboo. I remember thinking, The gods are many things.
Dancing was like moving my body in the way that I saw numbers and equations move when I treed. When I danced, I could manifest mathematical current within me, harmonizing it with my muscles, skin, sinew, and bones.
How different my life would have been if my parents had just let me dance.
