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into her sagging face entered the compound, followed by a young Oromo girl gripping the creped legs of two upside-down chickens.
    “Abai Taoduda,” Nouria fawned, rushing forward, dropping to her knees and kissing the fleshy part of the woman’s hand where the thumb and forefinger meet. Abai Taoduda exchanged greetings of peace with the women while the young Oromo girl handed the two chickens by the legs to Anwar, who was standing far back by the fence with his brother. Anwar held them proudly, talking to them as they protested this change of hands.
    The elderly woman made her way into the center of the circle and raised her palms in praise of Allah. A chorus of praise shuttled through the air. She approached Rahile on the bench, pulled her to her feet and kissed her on the forehead before sitting down precisely where Rahile had been sitting and pulling the girl down onto her generous lap.
    “Uma Sherifa!” called the midwife. Sherifa, a blind woman who lived in the neighborhood and had a reputation as a wonderful singer, rose to her feet. She was often paid to perform at weddings, but having never been invited to such an event, this was the first time I’d heard her sing. Her eyes were clouded by a white film, but her voice was so clear that I could hear the river of sweet water cascading down the mountainside, I could see the wall being built around the city inch by inch, I could feel the bittersweet joy of being ge kahat, a “daughter of the city,” one whose protection serves the community as a whole.
    The midwife lifted up her skirt and spread her plump, dimpled legs. She pulled up Rahile’s dress as well and tied the girl’s thighs to the soft insides of her own with two long black scarves. Then she put a cloth in Rahile’s mouth, told her to bite hard, tugged at the folds of skin between Rahile’s legs and swiftly ran a metal blade down over them.
    “What is she doing?” I couldn’t help but cry out.
    “Uss!” the women closest to me chastised.
    I stood with my hand over my mouth as the midwife made several quick slices with the blade, removing thin bits of skin. All the color drained from Rahile’s face. A tremor rippled throughout her body as a thick pool of blood grew between her legs. I lost all sensation in the lower half of me, watching in horror as the blood began to creep over the side of the bench. Rahile caught sight of it as it lurched toward the ground and she let out an agonized cry.
    In the background, one of the chickens, which Anwar had beheaded with the last downward pull of the midwife’s blade, ran amok around the compound. The women raised their heads and cupped their hands over their mouths: a celebratory chorus of epiglottises as they ululated heavenward. I wanted to catch Rahile’s blood in my hands and give the color back to her. She was whimpering, her lips trembling, her eyelashes fluttering over her glazed eyes.
    Nouria blotted her daughter’s wound with a rag, and then the midwife tugged the scarves loose and scooped the girl up under the arms. Nouria grabbed the deadened heap of her daughter by the ankles, and the two women lay her down on the bench. The midwife pinched together the two remaining flaps of skin between Rahile’s legs and began piercing them perfunctorily with a row of six sharp thorns. I bit my knuckle so hard I drew blood. The midwife inserted a matchstick in the space between the last two thorns, and Rahile’s whimpering slowed and deepened. She breathed heavily, as if through a blanket.
    Abai Taoduda dragged her by the underarms and held her over a small smouldering pit of aromatic wood so that the smoke washed up over the wound. She held out her callused hand, and Nouria passed her warm ashes from the fire, which she patted up and down between the thorns with her flat fingers. Two women held Rahile by the shoulders as the midwife wrapped a bandage round and round her legs, binding her immobile from her hips to her feet. They carried her into the hut