Her name is Kamene. She is from a village about a day's travel from Bamako, the capital city of Mali in West Africa. Kamene is four years old and she wears her hair in the ekai style, held stiff and upright. She is being sent by her parents to a village that her father tells her is far, far away. He also tells her that when she returns, she will be "different from when she left. He places a pendant around his daughter's neck and tells her that it will protect her against any evil spirit that calls her name. Then he adds, to push his warning deeper into her mind, "Do not listen to any wind that calls your name in your sleep."
- Kamene has never been beyond the gates of her village and although she has no idea where she is being sent or why, her young mind is wide awake and excited just to be travelling on a bus for the first time going somewhere. She is placed for the journey in the care of a woman so old that Kamene is afraid to look at her. It is nightfall by the time they arrive at their destination.
- When she is woken the next morning by the old woman, Kamene is surprised to find that there are many other girl-children, her age and younger, in the village. Kamene and the other children wash themselves in cold water from a clay pot as the new day dawns.
- The children are not allowed to play and even though they are young and the word 'wrong' has not yet entered their lives, they sense with some fear that there is something different about this place. They are taken to a hut at the far end of the village and told to sit on the ground outside. In silence, the children watch as a group of older women file past them into the hut. The youngest of the children is one year old and Kamene and the others have the responsibility of looking after her and keeping her quiet.
- Inside the hut, the buankisa uses a hoe to dig a hole for the. blood. There is a strong smell of sap incense burning and on the walls are traces of blood from the sacrifice of chickens.
Without warning, the sound of fifty women wailing shatters the stillness of the morning. Kamene and the other children tighten their bodies against an unknown fear. The piercing sound seems to start in the women's bellies and as they push the air from their throats into their mouths, the sound comes as a quivering, hollering, body-shaking earthquake drowning the silence of the village. Between the wailing.. the women are chanting: "We are coming, we are coming, we are coming, the ancestors are showing us the way, the blood will flow on this new day, the girl-child will become a woman. We are coming, we are coming with the blessing of the ancestors."
- The chanting, dancing women slowly make their way towards the children, their bodies moving to a drum rhythm long remembered. When they get to within a few feet, their wailing and movement come to an end as if on some ancient cue and they make a semi-circle around the children.
- The children are transfixed. None of them see the buankisa come out of the hut and approach them. As she reaches to take Kamene by the hand she says, "Who is the mother of this child?"
- "I am the mother of this child," one of the women gathered around the children says as she steps forward. Kamene can't believe her eyes, seeing her mother emerge from the group of women in this far-away village. But when she tries to go to her mother, the buankisa tightens her grip to stop her. "I bring her for the blessing of the ancestors," her mother says and moves towards the buankisa.
- "Come," the buankisa says, pulling Kamene with some force towards the hut. Once inside, the two women begin to undress Kamene. Neither of them speaks to the child and each time Kamene reaches for her mother, the buankisa restrains her. The other old women in the hut are quietly chanting prayers.
- Kamene's mind is filled with fear and uncertainty as she stands naked in the hut. Then her mother sits on the dirt floor and pulls Kamene down and sits her between her legs. She pins Kamene's legs wide apart with her own legs and holds her upper body so tightly that Kamene can hardly breathe. Kamene wonders if her mother is trying to get her to pee. Then she feels a pain between her legs so bad that everything goes dark and a scream tears from her mouth. As her sight slowly returns, she feels her mother pulling her up from the floor, but her legs will not hold her. Her lower body and legs are covered in blood and the pain rolls in terrifying waves through her. The buankisa and her mother hold her up and half drag her out of the hut. The buankisa raises her hand, a small piece of flesbheld between two fingers. "The girl-child has now been cut," she announces. Kamene hears the words but her mind does not comprehend them as the pain takes her back into darkness.
