…Sijakushow kwetu tulikuwa best friends na njaa

Ceiling yetu haikuwa best friends na taa

Nyinyi mko na timetable kwa fridge

Vile ile food mtadecide

Tulikosa sana I think minyoo zangu zilicommit suicide…

King Kaka – Home kwa Mabeast https://youtu.be/RBCDUpJMqFg

Stories have been shared about the misery of girls during their menstruation but never did it strike me to do a little bit of digging to find out the situation on the ground. Some stories are just as gory as anything might be but it’s the sad reality.

On 26^th Aug 2013 Kenya Citizen TV published a news report; Period of Shame. Feathers, goat skin, soil. This is what the girls used during their periods.

Watch the report https://youtu.be/1hn822TrKXo

Six years down the line, the script ought to have changed and yes it has. From feathers to blankets, goat skin to tattered clothes and for a lucky few to sanitary towels. However one thing remains constant, missing school.

Similar reports have been shared over time. They may appear fictitious, non -existent. Stories just made up to gain your sympathy. I know the majority of us or may be all of us are privileged enough not to have had the experience of using a goat skin in place of a pad. The mere imagination of using cow dung is enough for one to curse womanhood but not that fast. This is someone else’s sole source of console.

I call it zero grazing. Our interactions and movements are limited within our own social circle. It’s nature. We are limited to interacting with people from the same social class and may be a few from the one above but rarely do we go below us. It is not our fault, however, to want to remain within our herds. Live in the comfort zone.

How about we go exploring? Call it a fact finding mission. You and I. Break free from the herd and head outside. Get a feel of a different life.

A mother lives with her five kids in the slums of Mukuru kwa Njenga – Kenya. Among them is an eleven year old daughter, Mercy*. The mother is a casual laborer who washes clothes and sells vegetables at a small kibanda* outside their home. The mother makes on average Ksh.200. She is a hard working woman and she tries her best to feed the family.

On 19^th February this year, Mercy had an experience she wished would never have happened. It was on a Tuesday, a day she says was her worst. It was during mathematics lesson and the teacher asked her to stand and calculate the question on the board. She is a bright student and is always willing to show it off especially in mathematics and this was no different. She walked to the board but the normal silence that graced her walk to the board was slowly being swallowed by laughter. She assumed that may be she had missed a funny comment from the teacher and proceeded to pick the chalk. The laughter did not cease and instead her name was now part of it. This definitely got her attention and she turned from the board only to find a few boys pointing at her dress while some girls trying miserable to stifle their laughter.

“Mercy you have blood on your dress,” a girl sitting close to the front whispered into her ears. This was it!

Her feet, she says, felt wobbly and she ran out of the classroom. To say she was embarrassed would be an understatement. She had stained her clothes. Being a bright student, she could remember the science teacher mentioning something about periods and that was all; Just a mention.

She ran all the way home, not bothering to even pick her bag. She felt humiliated all the way. The laughter ringing in her head with every step she took. By the time she was getting to their shanty, her face was soaked in tears. She felt ashamed of herself, she felt humiliated and it was just the beginning. Her mother was not home and her brothers were in school. This to her was a relief as she could bear the shame alone, at least for some time. When her mother came home that evening and Mercy broke the news, she got heart broken. Her mother had made Ksh.150 from her job but had been robbed off on her way. Simply put, she could not afford to buy a packet of pads for Mercy.

*“Niliskia vibaya lakini najua mum huwa anajaribu sana”

And that is how Mercy experienced her menarche. She spent most of the night standing as she could not share the bed with her brothers. When she got tired, she sat on a basin and made sure she cleaned it the first thing in the morning.

Mercy had to spend her first period in pain and shame. She could not leave the house and could not attend school. Luckily her mum came with a packet of pads two days later and she had to use them sparingly risking getting Toxic Shock Syndrome as she would have to wear a single pad for a whole day.

Its been two months since Mercy began her periods. The experience so far, she says, is one of shame as the boys in her class keep jeering at her and she no longer has the confidence to walk to the board like she used to before. In the subsequent two times, she has been forced to use a piece of blanket which she reuses.

“Saa zingine huwa najiuliza mbona nilizaliwa msichana,”

A question which came to her mind only a few months ago. It is a journey which will last for about four decades, the journey of womanhood. Must it be a journey of shame? Must she go through this monthly trouble like this?

I believe we all can relate to Mercy’s stories. May be not in the exact same circumstances, but my ladies we know the feel of embarrassment and humiliation. My lords we probably know the laughter, the jeering, and the finger pointing.

Menarche is meant to be the hallmark of womanhood. An experience worth treasuring but this is not always the case. To some it is like a shadow they can’t get rid of, a reason to hate womanhood and to hate themselves.

‘ A study in Kenya shows that one in ten 15 year old girls have engaged in sex to get money to buy pads. These girls have no money, no power. This is their only option.’

Journal for Women Health

Maybe we are among the few that can enjoy the luxury. My friends and I can enjoy the comfort and pride of being a woman. Your girlfriends, friends, classmates don’t have to miss classes to attend to their periods.

28^th may is the Menstrual Hygiene day. A day marked to enhance menstrual hygiene among women and to restore the lost dignity of womanhood. menstrualhygieneday.org

We may not reach out to everyone but we can change the story of the few we are able to. Mercy and her friends can regain the confidence to work out mathematical questions on the board. Girls can experience menarche with pride.

The best feeling there ever can be is having the ability to buy comfort. A minimum of Ksh.50 will buy a girl comfort and pride. Restore the dignity of being a woman.

Let us be part of this campaign and help Mercy, Mary, Jane and Juliet. They are our sisters and they need us.

Be part of the team!

Menstrual blood is the only source of blood that is not traumatically induced. Yet in modern society, this is the most hidden blood. The one so rarely spoken of and almost never seen except privately by women.

Judy Grahn

The Medical Students Association of Kenya (MSAKE) – Standing Committee on Reproductive Including HIV/AIDS (SCORA) in collaboration with Project Respekt is having a menstrual hygiene campaign on the 28^th May 2019.

To be part of this noble mission💪, follow on twitter;

@Scora_Kenya @MSAKE_Kenya

#EndPeriodPoverty

#NoMoreLlimits

#ShameFree

Feel free to share your experience, drop a comment, share…

faithdaktari@gmail.com

#REDHUGS❤️❤️