Long before the blue light of phones lit up our faces, we sat beneath the red light of the evening fire.
The other day, scrolling through voices on social media, I saw people arguing about hormones and how they are used to alter gender. They spoke in the fast language of science and politics. But as I read, my mind did not stay in that glowing screen. It walked backward, barefoot, to my grandmother’s hut, where stories were medicine and memory was law.
My grandmother—old as the roots of the Mugumo tree—used to call me to sit near her goatskin mat when the sun bent low over Mount Margaret.
She would lift her thin finger and point toward the mountain standing like a silent elder against the sky. “Do you see that mountain?” she would ask. “Yes, Cucu, I see it.”
She would nod slowly. “Before the colonialists came, before maps were drawn with foreign ink, that mountain was not called Mount Margaret. It was called Karima ihii.”
When she said the name, she lowered her voice, as though the wind itself was listening. “They believed,” she continued, “that if a boy walked around Karima ihii seven times, he would turn to be a boy.”
I remember blinking, confused even then. “Cucu,” I asked, “what if a girl walked around it seven times?”
She did not laugh. She did not smile. She only stirred the fire and said, “She would be a boy.” The fire cracked. A goat coughed in the darkness. The mountain stood quiet in the distance.
“You see,” she continued, “our people understood that not everything is as fixed as the stone that builds a hut. Some things are like rivers. They bend. They change their course. But change has consequences.”
She leaned closer. “That is why, before paying dowry, the elders would ask: ‘Mwana ũcio rĩ, nĩ wa rũrĩra rũrĩkũ kana nĩ wa mbari ĩrĩkũ?’” She translated it for me in her slow, patient way: “That child—does he or she belong to this lineage, or to that other clan?”
Because, she explained, if someone had come from Karima ihii—if their path had circled mystery seven times—the elders feared what they could not see. They feared approving a marriage whose roots they did not understand.
“In our time,” she said, “people did not speak of hormones. They spoke of mountains. They did not speak of laboratories. They spoke of spirits. But the question was the same: What makes a person who they are?”
The night would grow deeper then, and I would look toward the mountain, wondering how many feet had traced its shadow.
“Cucu,” I once asked, “did anyone really change?” She looked at me for a long moment, her eyes reflecting firelight.
“My child,” she said, “stories are not always about stones becoming flesh or girls becoming boys. Sometimes they are about communities guarding their balance. Sometimes they are about fear. Sometimes they are about power.”
She tapped my chest gently. “And sometimes they are about reminding you that identity is not only yours. It belongs to family, to clan, to ancestors.”
Today, when I read arguments flashing across screens about science reshaping the body, I hear her voice again. I see Karima ihii standing before it was renamed, holding secrets older than colonial tongues.
The mountain has two names now. Perhaps it always had more than one. And maybe that was my grandmother’s true lesson: Names change. Empires come. Science advances.
But human beings have always wrestled with the mystery of who we are— walking, in one way or another, around the mountain seven times.
The other day, scrolling through voices on social media, I saw people arguing about hormones and how they are used to alter gender. They spoke in the fast language of science and politics. But as I read, my mind did not stay in that glowing screen. It walked backward, barefoot, to my grandmother’s hut, where stories were medicine and memory was law.
She would lift her thin finger and point toward the mountain standing like a silent elder against the sky. “Do you see that mountain?” she would ask. “Yes, Cucu, I see it.”
She would nod slowly. “Before the colonialists came, before maps were drawn with foreign ink, that mountain was not called Mount Margaret. It was called Karima ihii.”
When she said the name, she lowered her voice, as though the wind itself was listening. “They believed,” she continued, “that if a boy walked around Karima ihii seven times, he would turn to be a boy.”
I remember blinking, confused even then. “Cucu,” I asked, “what if a girl walked around it seven times?”
She did not laugh. She did not smile. She only stirred the fire and said, “She would be a boy.” The fire cracked. A goat coughed in the darkness. The mountain stood quiet in the distance.
“You see,” she continued, “our people understood that not everything is as fixed as the stone that builds a hut. Some things are like rivers. They bend. They change their course. But change has consequences.”
She leaned closer. “That is why, before paying dowry, the elders would ask: ‘Mwana ũcio rĩ, nĩ wa rũrĩra rũrĩkũ kana nĩ wa mbari ĩrĩkũ?’” She translated it for me in her slow, patient way: “That child—does he or she belong to this lineage, or to that other clan?”
Because, she explained, if someone had come from Karima ihii—if their path had circled mystery seven times—the elders feared what they could not see. They feared approving a marriage whose roots they did not understand.
“In our time,” she said, “people did not speak of hormones. They spoke of mountains. They did not speak of laboratories. They spoke of spirits. But the question was the same: What makes a person who they are?”
The night would grow deeper then, and I would look toward the mountain, wondering how many feet had traced its shadow.
“Cucu,” I once asked, “did anyone really change?” She looked at me for a long moment, her eyes reflecting firelight.
“My child,” she said, “stories are not always about stones becoming flesh or girls becoming boys. Sometimes they are about communities guarding their balance. Sometimes they are about fear. Sometimes they are about power.”
She tapped my chest gently. “And sometimes they are about reminding you that identity is not only yours. It belongs to family, to clan, to ancestors.”
Today, when I read arguments flashing across screens about science reshaping the body, I hear her voice again. I see Karima ihii standing before it was renamed, holding secrets older than colonial tongues.
The mountain has two names now. Perhaps it always had more than one. And maybe that was my grandmother’s true lesson: Names change. Empires come. Science advances.
But human beings have always wrestled with the mystery of who we are— walking, in one way or another, around the mountain seven times.
