Molly Melching, Executive Director of Tostan, shares a personal interview on TakePark.com, citing a couple key dates in her life.

The first came in 1974 when Molly Melching, 24, landed in Dakar, Senegal to begin a six-month course studying African literature. Melching missed an important telegram from Dakar, telling her not to get on the plane, because the course was cancelled.

Obviously, Melching stayed in Africa.

The second important date (there are many more) is July 31, 1997, when a group of 30 women announced their decision to abandon the practice of female genital cutting.

When the women came to discuss the issue at another village the following year, however, Melching was still having doubts.
“It was so tense,” she remembers. “They were coming to talk about FGC, a tradition that nobody talked about publicly.”
As the tension rose, Melching told a colleague she thought Tostan should quit working on FGC. It was just too deep, she said. Plus, she was an outsider.
“This isn’t something I should be doing,” she confided. One might expect that reaction from a white, American woman wading into 2,000 years of tradition. Then again, one might also expect a 24-year-old stranded at the Dakar airport to turn around and go home. via TakePart.com

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