Cheshe Dow

Initiate - Bojale

 

In the winter of 2009 a village of 45000 stood still. Its heart beat to a drum along with the 3000 bare breasted women of all ages in sync with the drum that echoed that heartbeat, not written but remembered. I want to tell you that amid those women I knew where I began and ended but to the extent that it is possible our hearts beat together, we surrendered and were made whole.

 

For a winter we were proud of those all those who had come before and without doubt the multitudes that would follow.I dared to look up as we made our way beneath moonlight and safety under cover of night that women the world over dream of. When we owned the night, the way so many women before us had, I saw a woman older than I can understand move to a beat that was as much of her as her beating heart.

 

For a winter, we as a tribe, as a people, understood that we were old, that we were here, that we were connected, that we were timeless, that we were proud of who we had been and who even if we dared to forget, still were, we were proud to belong to that group of people…we felt connected to our ancestors and to each other; and for the duration of that winter we made no apologies and did not feel a need to explain our place in the continuum that is the story of our people.