I survived an acid attack, and I can take whatever else life throws at me

“As the acid ate into my skin, I felt the agony. My whole body was in pain. I was burning. I was going crazy with pain. I was screaming, screaming, screaming!” Benta Akinyi narrates the ordeal that would scar her both physically and emotionally for life. She sits across from me with a plate of food going cold in front of her. A scar distorts the right side of her face; pulling at her lower eye-lid, melting away part of her nostril, and tightening her mouth.

Earlier, she had complained of pain in her leg. “The scarring on my leg still hurts, 11 years after this was done to me,” she tells me as she briskly massages her leg through her jeans. “It’s especially bad when it’s cold. The scars run all the way from my face, neck, arms, back, and legs. It’s a miracle I survived,” she explains.