The dissonance of mooing cows, crowing cocks, birds bringing sweet high notes, and people
chatting outside the house ushered in a deceptively bright morning. The commotion woke me,
and I stepped out under a clear, blue sky without knowing what would happen.

Amid the cacophony of different species of chirping birds, my Mama, Khasandi, beckoned me,
“Come and sit here, son.”

I thought nothing of the request and sat down. An old man with an unkempt mustache got up,
flashed his heavy-lidded eyes at me, and stated, “Your mother says the hawks are finishing all
her chickens.”

“But I haven’t seen any?”

Right away, he adopted an accusatory tone. “How could you let that happen?” Before I could
figure out something to say, he asked, “Look up in the sky—what can you see up there?”

“Just a clear blue sky.”

“You don’t see any birds?”

I thought it was the usual mind tricks older men played on young people. “No, I don’t.”
He asked again, “You don’t see the hawk?”

The bird that could sprint on the ground, chasing down a lizard, mouse, or rat, was also a
menace to young chickens. The keen-eyed raptor was patient, soaring in the sky, spying and
biding its time for the right moment to swoop and strike. Before anyone realized it, the agile
hunter with the fearless spirit of a conqueror would drop its wings, dive down with its claws
extended, scoop up a chick, and be gone in a flash.

By the time anyone heard the cries from the mother hen and rushed outside, the hawk would
already be skyrocketing and using its beak to decapitate its struggling catch. The people on the
ground would gaze helplessly, watching loose feathers flying off and falling away as the hawk
plucked them to make room to rip its prey open the moment it arrived in its nest, where it
would enjoy the meal in peace.

I sensed he was teasing my boyhood ability. “You mean you are young but don’t have laser
vision that can protect your chickens?”

His offending comment caused me to want to be the first to spot the predator in the sky that had
made it hard for anyone in our village to rear chickens. Older men in the village often bragged
about their superior ability to take a seat to see what a young man could not see standing. I took
the challenge literally and wanted to turn the tables on him by seeing the bird while I was
seated when he couldn’t see it while standing.

“Keep looking. You might be lucky one day.” I heard him chuckle as he mocked me.
But the high dose of ultraviolet radiation from the sun was making it impossible. My vision
blurred, but determined to see the hawk before he did, I kept squinting and opening my eyes
transitorily. Presently, a few birds appeared in the sky.

He taunted, “Anything yet? Or should I close my eyes to see what you cannot see with your
eyes open?”

When he said that, I trained my entire focus on identifying the hawk among the flock for its
ability to dance in the sky or fly backward. I was so fixated I didn’t see him covertly pull some
sharpened metal pieces containing bits of razor blades—pinned on thin bamboo sticks—and
several copper wires out of his bag.

My eyes started to burn from staring at the sunlight. I looked away and shut them to avoid
further discomfort. It took a little while for the blurry splotch of the sun’s after-image to
disappear. Still, I failed to notice he had removed and positioned his surgical tools right by me.
He stated, “Maybe if you look up with your mouth open wide, you can avoid the light from the
sun and see clearer.”

Thinking it was a Solomonic tactic I didn’t know about, I did, and that was when he expertly
plunged a short, blunt stick into the oral cavity that separated my lower and upper jaw. Before I
realized what had just happened, my mouth became stuck in an open position as his helper
stepped up and swiftly held me on the chair.

The old man peeked into my mouth and confirmed the existence of the long uvula at the back of
my tongue. He momentarily stepped back like an artist, taking a long mental view of what he
was about to create, and then leaned forward to make sure I couldn’t miss what he was about to
reveal.

“I’m going to remove the pesky mass of flesh at the back of your throat.”
Having been caught off guard and still thinking it was a silly prank, I did not detect any
disingenuousness. Instead, I stared at him incomprehensibly, more focused on his unsightly,
dirty yellow teeth than anything else.

He continued, “That long flesh grips your tongue, causing you to stutter.”
While speaking in a peculiar voice, alternating between soprano and shoddy speech, the village
surgeon began to insert a bamboo stick with razors on each side and a teaspoon into my mouth.
That was when I realized he was about to trim my uvula, the sharp tongue-like organ in the
inner roof of the mouth just before the throat. To exacerbate the dire situation, the crude
surgical operation would be performed without anesthesia using non-sterile instruments. That
meant that, unlike a standard surgical procedure in a hospital, there would be no quiet,
sterilized room, no MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to see how far the uvula had grown to
deserve a cut, and no complicated machines to monitor my vital signs.

Out of reflex, my throat tightened involuntarily, and the surrounding air became strained and
tense. When I resisted, his helper promptly pressed me down and held me to ensure I remained
seated and motionless. I attempted to resist by battling it out, but he held my chest and rear end
down using his steel arms and powerful knees. When I started moving my head from side to
side, he moved swiftly and locked it down, ensuring I couldn’t move an inch in any direction.
His hands felt like iron manacles—all I could move were my toes and fingers. The traditional
practitioner, startled by my intense resistance, stepped back, razor in hand.

As soon as he confirmed I was secured, the man, who I later learned also performed
circumcisions, drainage of abscesses, and tooth extractions, rubbed his hands excitedly like he
was about to get to do what he loved most of all. He moved forward and peered deep into my
throat with narrowing eyes. I felt it constrict to repel him, but it was too late. Knowing what he
was about to do, I could feel my pulse viciously pounding in my neck.

A crooked smile lingered on his lips. He quickly stilled himself and brushed off my muzzled,
wide-eyed protest. The man was so focused that he didn’t even move his eyes. He pushed both
items far inside, but with a limited amount of space in the throat, the traditional surgical tools of
razor and sticks bumped into each other.

The resulting gagging caused reflexive movements of my tongue to get caught up in the mix. I
felt a pang of more dread and took a deep and desperate breath to calm my nerves, but it was a
fruitless undertaking. Rattled to the core, my heart started to beat faster and faster.

Since the uvula exists to help expel any objects that are too large to swallow, when he touched
it, it triggered a gag reflex, which caused a contraction at the back of my throat, meant to thrust
objects forward to prevent choking. But these laryngeal spasms did little to slow him down. The
last thing I saw close to my face was his dirty fingernails, so long they had begun to curl under.
As soon as he reached the destination, he made the first cut. I gasped at the suddenness of the
slit and twitched viciously as a half-strangled scream escaped my lips.

At the second slice, the paralyzing pain spread through my body like hot liquid metal. My
eyelids shut tightly in response, and all my facial muscles contorted instantly. To no avail, I
began to fidget and convulse in a desperate effort to free myself from the muscular hands that
had held my head firmly in place. In no time, the village surgeon began to slice off my uvula
inch by inch, deeper and deeper, as if he worried that if he left a millimeter of it, I might die.
From thereon, each snip led to a toe-curling pain that scorched my windpipe and spread like
wildfire throughout my tormented body. With my tongue feeling the cold spoon, I felt the uvula
drop on the shallow part of the smallmouth shovel he had strategically positioned directly
below it. Immediately, I tasted the saltiness of my blood deep in my throat.

Given that there were no suction pipes to clear the blood and saliva, I choked on the fluids. The
instant I swallowed, it ignited a flare of excruciating pain that caused me to shut my eyes again.
Thinking it was over and I could now rest and start my recovery, he gently massaged my throat,
and I overheard him informing Mama, “His tonsils feel enlarged.” He peered into my
bloodstained mouth for his own second opinion and revealed, “They are reddish, which could
indicate infection and risk more complications.”

I couldn’t move to reposition myself because it felt like the pain had paralyzed my muscles.
Struggling to regain my senses, all I remember is going in and out of semi-consciousness with
the gateway to my stomach still in open position. The excruciating pain underneath my skull
had made my ears feel bunged up, making it difficult for their muffled voices to reach my inner
ears to comprehend what they were up to. Despite the pain, I made a strenuous effort to snap
out of the trance and eavesdrop pointedly. That is when I barely ascertained the village
practitioner, and Mama was haggling over what sounded like the cost of another surgical
operation.

Little did I know this would be another second phase of slicing deeper into my throat.
When I finally understood what was about to happen, the possibility of any comforting
prospect disappeared. The bright morning that promised a new beginning a few minutes ago
was no more when I heard the village surgeon warn Mama, “The tonsils could cause
bedwetting, snoring, difficulty breathing in his sleep, or another infection in his throat. They
must be cut.”

When she didn’t object to the dire diagnosis, I felt a perceptible clinch in my gut, causing my
face to curl into disbelief. The confirmation caused instantaneous fear to sweep over me in vast
waves, and my heart started to pound hard with increasing frequency. This time, I was long
past any tolerance level for any more pain. The incisions I was about to endure were going to be
twice as painful and twice as long because the tonsils in question were a pair of glands made of
fleshy masses on each side at the back of my throat.

As if my realization had sent a telepathic message to Mama, she shot me another sidelong
glance. I started to mumble a prayer because, upon hearing the cost, her mouth curled up
disagreeably. I hoped she was going to change her mind. But that yearning didn’t last long
when I heard him caution Mama tersely, “Or else the tonsils could swell, burst, and kill him.”
That warning statement brought my prayers to naught. My primary protector rolled her eyes
heavenward, and I could smell instant fear and concern boiling in her mind. She lowered her
head and turned to look at me wearily one more time, and I whispered the quickest prayer.
However, her eyebrows rose as a trace of urgent concern crossed her face. Mama shook her
head and rubbed on one side of her dimples as if forcing herself to think of a better plan but
failed. When she focused again, she gave me a look only a mother can pull in a horrible
situation, signaling it was going to be painful, but the alternative could be much worse.
Knowing what was about to come, extreme fear and disbelief were the only emotions that
registered on my face. When she turned back to make eye contact with the village surgeon, her
hand moved in helpless surrender. She gave up bargaining over the price and gave him the
go-ahead to do the tonsillectomy.

The man, who was impatiently waiting and had a forehead coated with sweat despite the
morning chill, nodded. He instantly looked my way, his gaze sweeping by me as if it were a
rescue searchlight. The friendly face that had automatically turned into a smile when he
received the money disappeared. His lips folded, no longer pleasant, just business. His
redder-than-red eyes twitched synchronously, causing him to back up a step, and my gut
clenched in twisted knots. When he stepped forward and leaned his dead face into my mouth,
my heart palpitated raucously, prompting my lips to quiver. Aware that the next step would be
another gruesome slice inside my throat, desperate breath started to come in short bursts. My
constricted chest followed suit, and my heart began to beat so maddeningly that I was scared
my body’s main engine was about to knock itself out.

Although I was imperfectly aware of my surroundings, I don’t remember him washing the
blade he had just used to slice off my uvula a few minutes before. Terrified at this new
harrowing prospect, my body started to shake, and all I remember was him instructing his
helper to hold me in place again. Without delay, his hard-nosed aide forcefully locked me in the
same position that he had me when my uvula was shaved off. Before I could even have some
breathing room from the first cut, he gripped me like a savage anaconda.

When he moved on to the second phase of hacking the tonsils, my jaw jerked involuntarily.
Another brand new burning pain seared the inside of my throat. I automatically gurgled and
struggled to breathe, coughing more blood from the previous cut. I gasped for breath, my
eyelids tightened, and I thought my eyeballs would pop out with a bang. The ripping pain felt
like a bolt of lightning had struck my tormented body from head to toe. I winced frightfully as
absolute torment wreaked a devilish agony. But being held in a fixed position, I could only curl
my fingers and toes so tightly to rein in the torturous procedure.

Everything around me was thrown off balance in the ensuing commotion, ending up in a
star-filled blur. Sweat cropped up on my forehead and dripped into my eyes, further blurring
my vision. From thereon, every snip sent searing pain down my trachea and spread throughout
every nerve in my body. As I desperately breathed in shallow gasps, my imagination held me
captive, and I could swear that hundreds of wasps were stinging my sliced throat.

While he continued trimming both sides, I winced as shards of pain shot down to my ribcage.
My adrenaline surged, my heart followed suit, and started to pound uncontrollably. I twisted,
pushed, pulled, tightened all my body muscles, and screamed through my nose, but the
powerfully built helper, an expert in holding down high-strung patients, didn’t let go even for a
second. The more I pushed and pulled, the more he seemed determined to exert his unyielding
pressure. No matter how I changed positions, nothing moved.

Before I could collapse from the pain and pressure in my head, he brought out the dissected
body parts, then quickly stepped back to leave me free to cough out the blood that was about to
choke me. When I paused after expelling air several times, my throat felt like it had just been
scorched with an acetylene torch. Unable to do anything else, I remained in a trance, totally
knocked out by what I had just experienced. In that deadened moment, the only thing I could
hear was my own low, throaty bubbling noises. It was impossible to see past this moment, so I
stayed mute, listening to the pulse ceaselessly pounding in my ears. When my senses started to
come back, the first thing that crossed my mind was that if I’d known this traditional surgeon
would slice the inside my throat, I would have run as if a tornado was raging at my heels and
put the entire Atlantic Ocean between him and me.

As if he heard what was going through my mind, he returned to get his bag, rummaging for a
small bottle containing medicinal ashes. Using his stretched-out middle finger, with a roughness
I couldn’t have anticipated, he smeared it on the fresh wounds. When he continued to rub, and
the concoction started to get absorbed, the penetrating pain felt as if the village specialist was
scraping the skin off my skull. I gagged for air as another kind of debilitating pain entered every
part of my body, like the shadows of clouds on the ocean.

“That will stop the bleeding and numb the pain,” I barely heard him say when he rubbed again
to ensure it had permeated entirely. When I felt his finger on the desecrated wound the second
time, earthshaking pain flooded my skull and put my head under tremendous compression—I
thought it was about to explode.

When he pulled out the thick stick that held my mouth open, my jaw dropped shut, signaling
my muscles to go limp, and my eyelids drooped and shut. Still, it did not stem the scalding
pain, which took its course to lessen. In real-time, the pain had developed a raw quality that
was beginning to feel like it had no end or limit. Heavy sweat from the adrenaline rush trickled
down my beaten face as labored breathing slowly returned to its normal rhythm. As my eyes
watered freely, all I could do was wait for my strength to return so I could take another breath.
But that was easier said than done because my body gave up on me. Unable to make any sense
of the exceedingly excruciating procedure, I deflated like a punctured balloon and sunk into the
gloomiest trance. The helper who had locked me down pulled me off the seat and gently
positioned me face down to let the bleeding take its natural course.