There is a guy staring at a beautiful portrait of a Samburu girl. Hands in his pockets just staring deep into the image. The image stares back at the guy, smiles back even. This girl, the Samburu girl is immaculate. She wears her smile with pride as she does the millions of ornaments hangings on her neck and the Mohawk braids seated on her clean shaven head. This guy like many of you reading this does not know if this girl is Samburu or Turkana because he is, well, just like you. We will go with Samburu because it sounds better and there is a legendary joke Njugush makes about Samburu for some tour company that I just cannot get enough of.

The joke; that the word Samburu originates from some guy from the larger central province in Kenya who discovered Samburu and his name was Samuel Mburu and hence the name Sam-Mburu.

The portrait is black and white, and it is perfect. She is the definition of beauty, this girl. The guy staring at the portrait is me, I am lost in thought. I see beauty and I admire this girl, not in a sexual way though. I admire her zeal and her beauty, I see her for who she could be. I see myself watching TV one day and seeing a familiar smile and it could be this girl or travelling to Bali and the pilot has a beautiful smile because well, she is this girl from Samburu. Or taking my daughter to the dentist and boom this girl is the dentist because when you have that much of a beautiful smile and crystal white teeth, the best thing you could do would be becoming a dentist and helping people have awesome smiles.

In reality, beyond the beautifully edited photos taken by a professional photographer with a canon there is a beautiful girl in Samburu. It could be this same girl because she is not a model, she is a real girl. There is a girl in Samburu who’s smile I will never see on TV as an anchor or who will never be the pilot on my route to Bali or who will never be a dentist regardless of the crystal white teeth and a beautiful smile she has that would make kids want to visit the dentist. I know what you are thinking right now; there are many other girls from Nyeri or even Nakuru who will never be those things. The answer is yes, many will not be but the reason is what sets this smiling girl from Samburu apart.

When I look at her, I see the zeal and aggression, this girl could as well be the next president but she will never be. She will never be anything beyond a second or third wife to some old man somewhere in Samburu. She really wants to dream but the only thing she knows is how to graze a herd of cattle. She has never seen a classroom door, well maybe she has but has never been to classroom. Not because she does not want to but because the system does not allow her to be. It is not who she is but where she is from.

You see, we might be all over twitter when the government violates the rights of someone but this girl does not know twitter or the government or rights.
Twitter might know her because if she was on twitter which I believe she could be, without her consent. She would get a few hundred retweets and believe me those are many by twitter standards because the last time I got ten retweets, I had to pin that tweet to my profile. I am angry because this girl could be worth more than a few hundred retweets and she is definitely worth more than a few cows and goats for a second wife.

When politicians are busy discussing 2022, this girl is in Samburu herding goats. She will probably have two kids by 2022 and sad thing is she will barely be sixteen years. When girls her age are happy they got their first period, this girl is afraid that her first period might be the reason she gets married off. She secretly hopes that her tiny boobs stay tiny, it will be the only way the will stay a girl not a wife.

This girl lights up my space with her charming smile and I am sure she does to many spaces across the world because her image and innocence has been used to get funds that has not helped her beyond a meal. These funds that have been collected on her name which they cannot pronounce and have been used to book air tickets, first class even and hire land cruisers and stay in expensive hotels. I am sure she was warned that she must smile by a local coordinator to these people who live life at her expense.

She is a queen though, and she shines and glows through all this. If she had choices like our girls in Nyeri or even Nakuru she would choose something else, she would have choices. She would have equal opportunities like these girls. She would at least have options to choose less; she would see the world and choose to stay home. But she does not have options, if she’s lucky she will be a second wife and not a third.

I know I will not see her when I go to Samburu with my family. She will probably be married off or might have died from a female circumcision gone wrong. If she is lucky and this is luck at its best; she might have been saved from all that and in a boarding school where rescued girls go to study and have choices. Have options of things they could do or be.