As the stupid tourists pull out their cameras, my mother calls my siblings to pose. She turns toward the gawkers, leaving me mostly out of the picture behind her back. Little do the white people know, but they're actually taking a picture of two families at once.
My family and I were once one of those gawking American families, coming on tour to visit the Himba people of Namibia. A middle-aged couple with 4 kids, ranging from age 7 to 17. I was the oldest of those kids, 17-year-old Cassian, tasked with watching over my little brother Finn. He thought he could take care of himself, but he was only 11, so I still had to act as his babysitter. My sisters, Daphne and Alice, were paired together as well, and they seemed a lot more interested in the tribe. Cassian seemed to only be interested in one thing, being the bare female chests all around him. I don't think Mom and Dad thought long enough about bringing the pubescent boy on the trip, but there he was anyway.
The women of the tribe seemed annoyed at us being there, especially with Finn refusing to look a single one of them in the eye. The tour guides joined my parents and me in trying to tell him off, but one of the Himba women finally snapped. Even the tour guide seemed to be confused as to what she was saying, but she shouted at us rapidly in what must not have been her native language, then threw some kind of powder at me.
My body suddenly froze in place. It was like time around me completely stopped, and I could feel my body beginning to warp itself into a new form. The woman and her older daughter went around the now-frozen encampment, finding the rest of my motionless family and throwing the same powder at them. As I watched the world grow around me, I realized they were casting spells on us. My body began compacting itself into a much smaller version of itself as the mother walked back over to me.
She began talking to me in her native language, but I could somehow understand what she was saying, as if her words were being translated into English in my mind. "We've had enough of your staring, looking at us like pieces of meat. You seemed decent enough though, so you get to transform first and then watch your family. You're getting off easy, but I can't say the same for the others."
With that, she watched my transformation with great interest. I continued shrinking, and I noticed my skin getting darker and darker as the seconds went by. She grabbed my wrist to hold my hand in front of my face, and I watched my now dark brown fingers get shorter and thicker. It was obviously a small child's hand now, and the woman towering over me made me realize that the rest of me probably matched by now. I was still getting smaller, and I felt my muscles weaken to the point where I probably couldn't walk anymore. My clothing evaporated into dust, which coated my tiny body and added a slight reddish hue to my new skin. A black bracelet appeared around my right wrist, and a piece of rope wrapped itself around my right ankle. A sharp pain between my legs as my changes came to an end made me suddenly realize exactly what my future entailed.
"Ah, my adorable little baby girl!" she cooed in her language, still being translated in my mind. "You don't get to be unfrozen yet though. It's time for your family to find their new futures!" I watched through my changed, unmoving eyes as she walked over to Finn's frozen form. A little more powder was thrown his way, and his transformation started.
His body began shrinking, while also slimming at an alarming pace. Finn was becoming significantly thinner than any human should ever be, and as his skin gained a metallic sheen I realized I was lucky to end up as a baby Himba girl. His ever-shrinking body started bending around itself, forming a simple ring of metal. The former 11-year-old boy's form settled into its new shape, and the woman picked him up and slid him over her arm, coming to a rest around her upper arm as the simple metal armband he had become. What was she planning for the rest of my family?
I watched as the woman's older daughter - my new big sister, I guess? - approached my father, Silas. The girl looked to be 9 or 10, utterly dwarfed by the 40-year-old man frozen in front of her. That wouldn't last after she blew more powder onto him, jumpstarting his own transformation. He began shrinking, like his two sons before him, but unlike Finn, he remained humanoid. Not human though, as his skin gained a straw-like texture and began separating into threads. Much of his shrinking body turned into tightly-wound rope, shaped into a vaguely human form. His hair grew out and turned into similarly wound rope dyed a different color, forming what looked like braids hanging from his head. His clothing shrank into a simple cloth skirt around his waist, and his arms exploded into feathered blue threads attached to his shoulders. Facial features disappeared entirely, and the girl finally picked up her new doll that used to be my father.
Next, the woman and her daughter approached Mom and Daphne respectively, the powder starting their transformations at the same time. It became obvious the 40-year-old woman and 14-year-old girl were experiencing similar transformations. Their arms and legs thinned out into string and combined to form loops. Daphne's remaining body split into two portions attached to the limb-band, shrinking and simplifying into simple blue cloth. The Himba girl partially disrobed and slipped into the new skirt my sister turned into.
Mom's transformation was a bit more complex, her body splitting into three cloth portions instead of two. Two of the three turned a faded black color, but the third wrapped all the way around her waistband and gained a floral pattern across its dark grey fabric. She was slid onto the woman's waist, falling in place around her hips.
Last but not least, the woman - my new mother, I suppose - approached Alice. What was the 7-year-old thinking at that moment, having watched her entire family transform before her eyes? I knew I would never find out, as one last blast of powder jumpstarted her transformation. She shrank more than anyone else, her arms raising straight up and her body bending backwards to make her hands and feet meet. They melted together, making her body one continuous loop. Still shrinking, she formed three stripes that wrapped all the way around her, the outer two turning black while the middle turned a bright blue color. Her flesh and blood gave way to simple rubber, and she finished her transformation as a tiny wristband. The woman reached down to pick her up, and walked back over to me with my little sister clutched in her hand. With a simple motion, Alice was slipped onto my own tiny wrist.
With a quick chant from the woman, the world around me unfroze, and I found myself finally able move. Not that I could do much; being turned into a baby girl had removed a lot of my fine motor control, so I was stuck on my back. Any words I tried to utter came out in infantile babbles and gurgles, so I did the only thing I could think of to vocalize my frustration. I let loose my crying as my unwanted new mother picked me up, cradling me in her arms. I heard her say something in her language, but her words weren't being translated in my mind anymore. Ignoring her foreign cooing, I wept for myself, for my family, for our former lives and our horrific futures.
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I'm not sure how long it's been since our transformations. It's hard to keep track of time when I have to sleep so often, my body putting most of my energy into growing. I've had to endure breastfeeding, unintelligible baby talk, being held by my new older siblings, specifically NOT being bathed in any way, and being carried around in a primitive baby holder behind my new mother's back. Knowing that I'll eventually grow into a woman not too dissimilar from her is a daunting thought that I try not to dwell on, but deep down I know I'm lucky. I'll grow up, learn to walk, learn the language, and earn my independence years from now. Sure, I'll end up marrying a man from the tribe and carry and give birth to several children, but I have it a lot better than the rest of my old family.
Mom and Daphne hang around their owner's hips more often than not, only occasionally removed when their fabric gets too dirty for even their unbathing wearers. Finn stays wrapped around New Mother's arm, only ever adjusted and never removed. Dad's form is showing wear and tear from his owner's playing, but he should still have a few years of use in him. Alice, wrapped around my wrist as she is, is getting tight. It'll probably only be a month or two, if that, before she's removed from my wrist for the first and last time, to be passed down to some other newborn in the tribe.
I really do wish I knew what exactly they were going through, but I'll have to settle for watching them being used by my new family. They aren't treated like anything more than their new forms, their humanity long forgotten by their owners. I'll have to settle for growing into the best little Himba girl I can be. I may not understand the language yet, but at least I know my new name is Anele? Every little advancement is greatly appreciated, and I almost can't wait until I'm allowed to wear a skirt.
Hopefully that skirt won't be some other transformed tourist...
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