Becoming a Role Model Miss Kenya Ororo Monroe Aka: Storm I was six months old when my parents moved us from Manhattan to Egypt but just five years later, I found myself trapped next to my dead mother under the bombed out rubble that had once been our house. With both of my parents dead and a community in turmoil, I wandered the streets alone and began to steal in order to survive. I took up with a group of child thieves who were led by master thief Achmed el-Gibar. He was my only role model and I excelled at picking locks and stealing in order to please him. One day, I picked the pocket of a tourist named Charles Xavier. He turned out to be a mutant who used his powerful mind to stop the theft. I never forgot him. I believe that chance encounter influenced me to wander south from Cairo into the heart of Africa. On that journey, my fall to darkness seemed to deepened when I killed to protect myself from a man bent on rape. I nearly died on that long trek, but found love and the power to control the weather along the way. Though the love did not last, my power continued to grow and having had no strong influence other than the master thief I was not responsible with its use. I at last came to my ancestral homeland (my mother was a descendant of a Kenyan Princess), the Serengeti Plain of Kenya and there met a tribal woman named Ainet. Her tribe believed that the Rain God Ngai had granted all cattle to them for safe keeping when the earth and sky split into two. My control over the rain and therefore the prosperity of the grasslands, led to a belief that I was their God come to live among them. Ainet helped me to be humble in their worship, to be kind, and to always realize my obligation to help those who need it. The tribe preferred to remain nomadic herdsmen, I would bring the rain wherever we went to keep the cattle (cattle are rarely killed, but instead are accumulated as a sign of wealth and traded or sold to settle debts.) and our tribe fed, moving as our needs necessitated. Even today they live this way and it is making living in modern times more difficult for them as their open plains and traditional grazing grounds are shrinking. They have resisted adopting a more sedentary lifestyle, demanding grazing rights to many of the national parks in both Kenya and Tanzania. They routinely ignore international borders as they move their great cattle herds across the open savanna with the changing seasons. This resistance has led to the romanticizing of their way of life and paints them as living at peace with nature. I can assure you, it is “mostly” true. I found a peace in Kenya I had longed for after the death of my parents. I must admit that being called Goddess and the thrill of my power may have led me down a dark path from which I could not turn back. Then the man I had tried to rob years before on the streets of Cairo, came to me and told me something that would change my life forever, give it purpose far greater than I could have imagined. That man was Charles Xavier. He told me he had a school for gifted people like myself, who had extraordinary abilities and I went with him to the US to meet them. I learned of the true nature of my abilities and that I was NOT a goddess but a mutant. That such power could be used for the good of ALL men, not just my adopted family or, I am ashamed to say, for myself. Charles Xavier taught me who I am deep within my heart. That I am not unnatural but simply what I am. That my talent is something I can share with the world, which I can use to help others weaker than I, to stop bad people from doing bad things. His words to me were a gift. I do not wish to be a role model…I AM a role model. I strive everyday to bestow Xavier’s great gift to others and to pass on the things that Ainet instilled in me. I teach mutants like myself how to control their own power and not to fear it. I count myself lucky to be able to help my fellow mutants and in so doing, my fellow human kind. I will always struggle with the darkness in my past but I use my experiences to inspire others to be brave in the face of adversity. Even if I had never been a Mutant, Kenyan Goddess, the Weather Witch, I know deep in my soul that I am a strong and fearless woman, and that I make a difference. Ororo Monroe Miss Kenya