My Menstruation Story 11.

My journey into the world of menstruation began unexpectedly, just a month past my 11th birthday. Imagine the person I am today, and then picture me even smaller. I wasn’t anticipating menstruation for another 3 years, based on the knowledge from my class 6 science lesson that 14 was the ideal age for menstruation. In my village at that time, an 11-year-old menstruating was uncommon.

One ordinary morning, as I followed my routine to the backyard toilet, followed by a warm shower prepared by my mother with water heated on a jiko (electricity was a luxury we couldn’t afford), I discovered blood. Saying the sight of it terrified me is an understatement. I hurriedly searched for evidence of cuts anywhere on my body and found none. For reasons I still don’t remember, I didn’t connect it to menstruation. My mind raced to the most dramatic conclusion born from beliefs ingrained in my Mijikenda community — witchcraft was at play.

Those who come from the Mijikenda community believe that witchcraft is real, and out of the many ways it manifests is witches can indulge one in sexual intercourse when they’re asleep. That was the only reasonable explanation for my fateful predicament that morning. I had never had sex and stories from my peers were, blood comes out when one loses their virginity. I hesitantly told my mum after a long period of figuring out which witch on earth would have done such a heinous act to me and what that meant for my future marriage prospects. A good girl was meant to lose their virginity to their husbands after marriage, not witches in their sleep.

To my surprise, when I confided in my mother, her reaction was one of immediate understanding that left me wondering whether she grasped the intensity of my situation. I was taken aback when she gently explained my reality. The concept of menstruation that did not seem relevant to my life at that moment, was what I was experiencing at that tender age. Even though I could see the shock on my mother’s face as she wondered how early my menstruation onset was, she helped me navigate the new chapter and debunked my fears of witchcraft. Even so, I was still in denial. I couldn't understand why it had to come this early when girls with more years than me were yet to experience it. I remember putting on a sanitary towel while asking myself Why me at 11 years old.

Little did I know that it had just begun. Reality sank into my not-so-little head on the 2nd day of my first period. It wasn’t a pad that my Mom put on my panties that day but a piece of cloth cut from her old lesso. I stared at her blankly, not knowing what to expect throughout the day. At that age, not only was I very shy but I also had a very low self-esteem. You can already picture how sheepishly and doubtful I would walk in the school corridor and only when need be. Every step I took on that fateful day felt like people noticed the difference in my walking style.

I couldn't stop thinking whether classmates had noticed and what their thoughts were about my unusual walking style. Maintaining a piece lesso between my legs on a school day was no easy task. I couldn't run to the washroom as often as I would like to check whether it was full or not because I was doing my best to minimize movements and I couldn't freely balance my improvised pad when it favored one side ( it had no wings unlike the sanitary towel). My first menstruation was indeed a nightmare.

For the rest of my 5 days of menstruation, I had to learn how to balance my improvised sanitary pad, take calculative steps when walking just so it stays intact, sit in well-thought-through positions to avoid staining my school uniform (that would be a big shame), but most importantly evade menstruation suspicion from boys in class. That would not only have made them maintain a social distance in the name of the smell of blood but also have the whole class talking about my uncommon early menstruation behind my back.

The biggest hustle was to keep my mind in class with everything that was going on. Even so, nothing hurt the most than exclusion as friends sidelined me from games when they knew I had begun my menstruation. That is when it fully dawned on me that my life had changed forever. The sight of blood had pushed me into early maturity. It not only replaced my innocence with the responsibility of managing my menstruation but also forced an association with older girls I wasn’t ready for. Little did I know this one occurrence would change my life drastically. Thereafter, I would draw unnecessary amount of suspicion every time I'd sit with boys my age. My transition was not a bed of rosses. Instead of it being a smooth transition I'd celebrate years later, I viewed it as a thief to the innocence I wanted to hold on a little longer.

My story, though deeply personal, is far from unique. In many places in Kenya, menstruating at 11 is now normal. Most girls are left behind in menstrual hygiene management conversations, hence are prepared to embrace their menstrual journey with dignity. The high poverty levels rampant in in underserved communities aside, the silence surrounding menstruation in households and communities leaves many adolescent girls facing their periods with a lack of knowledge on how to manage their menstruation. Whereas most girls access such information from school programs, many are still left to tend to themselves, hiding their menstruation onset until way later.

Speaking openly about menstruation and sharing our menstruation experiences aids in dismantling stigma and shame barriers, making it easier to share knowledge on menstruation and empower more adolescent girls to understand their bodies from an early stage. This is why I set out to interact with women and girls of all ages, to collect and share their menstruation narratives (with consent) in a series of blogs dubbed Breaking The Silence on Menstruation Through Storytelling on my medium account lydiafurahahesketh.medium.com