My First Time – Unequipped and Unprepared

For you to understand where I am coming from, and the state of cluelessness I was in, I need to tell you two things. The first one is that I went to one of those really bad Kenyan public schools. I am not discrediting our education system (although we all know we could do better). All I am saying is that I might not tell you what I learnt in that school, but I remember a lesson going by as the teacher filed her nails, and the students fought amongst themselves. I also recall instances of people fainting after being beaten and students fighting back after being caned. But that’s a story for another day.

The second thing is that although I come from a family with three girls and a mother, no one had had the conversation with me. One of my sisters was in a boarding high school somewhere in Waiguru’s county, and the other one had just gotten married. My mum, on the other hand, was not open to any conversation, other than who did the chores and who didn’t.

Shame and Secrecy

Although I didn’t know much about periods, I knew that it was something that the world should never know you were going through. This is not because of the comprehensive lessons I had had in class 6 (that is where the first topic on reproduction comes to play). Rather, it was based on observation and ill-informed conversations. See, at the time, I was in a public primary school (I know I have already said this, but you need to understand), and we had not studied anything about this. We were still doing exams with content from previous classes.

Many of the girls who had started menstruating had one thing in common. They all looked around the class when they were going into their bags to get pads. Then, swiftly, they would remove a folded hand and place it in their dress pocket. All this hiding and sneaking around made some of us curious. These big girls told us to hide our pads, especially from the boys, that it would be the greatest embarrassment of our lives if anyone saw them.

Why did I believe them? Well, I am the same girl who thought children were born through the butthole. These girls had educated me on that topic, so when they told me how to handle my pads and menstruation, I believed them. Also, since the entire school population was clueless, I had seen girls being laughed at for messing their dresses. I knew the shame was real.

Tag, you are it!

Luckily, I got out of that school and went to a place where actual learning was taking place. Thanks to the previous school, I had to catch up, on my own, with work from class four. Apparently, we had not been learning, and the new school couldn’t teach me everything. In this transition period, I missed the reproduction topic.

So here I was excited to join a new school and make new friends. Elated, in my first week, I jumped out of my desk to join the rest of my new classmates in the field. I felt something warm trickle down my thigh. Clueless, I lifted the dress, just a bit, to glimpse at this weird liquid, I saw blood.

I wanted to scream, but as the new girl, I didn’t want much attention. Also, I had already embarrassed myself earlier (honestly, I embarrass myself unprovoked so often it doesn’t bother me anymore). I put my dress down, closed my legs really tight and started walking downstairs to the washrooms. Okay, so I wouldn’t call it walking because it was the funniest thing in the world, but I made it.

I remember staring at my pant and wondering how it had gotten wet without me feeling it. I took some tissue and started absorbing the blood from it. After a few wipe downs, I decided it would do for the time before I figured out what was next. Then, I folded a big piece of tissue and placed it the way you would use a pad. I had to survive for the rest of the day.

Between my weird walking style back to class and sitting uncomfortably on my thighs to prevent the tissue from falling off or leaking, I cursed that I was a girl. I didn’t understand why I had to go through this nonsense, and boys didn’t.

Ooops!

That was probably the longest day of my life. All lessons were too long, and I couldn’t focus on anything else, other than my bleeding privates. I would have shouted with joy the minute the last bell went, but I couldn’t. I needed to sit tight and wait for everyone to go out before I could stand, and when I did, the tissue fell off. I wanted to die. No one was in class, so I picked it up and kept moving.

Home was only 5 minutes away. I rushed into my sister’s room and found a pad, just one. The thing is, when you grow up in a situation where things such as reproduction, and menstruation are not discussed, it is hard to bring it up.

That night, I took the pad off and washed it. Yes, I did. I had heard somewhere that you could wash pads, I didn’t know there was a specific type that allowed that. I hanged it to dry through the night. Imagine my surprise when I got up and found that it was still wet? With no alternative, I put it on and went to school; I needed to survive.

I didn’t make it through the first lesson, I was paranoid that I had messed my dress, I was new to the school, and I couldn’t stomach an embarrassing moment. So I did what any girl in my situation would do, I removed my sweater and wrapped it around my waist.

The thing is, this is the most common indicator of a period accident. In as much as people couldn’t see it, they knew. Kind, bubbly, and caring Teacher Claris saw me and knew. As you would expect, she gave me the option to go home and take a shower. That’s the obvious solution when you live a few steps from the school, right? No!

I existed in an environment where everything was my fault, and all mistakes were worth ridicule. I couldn’t handle more emotions. So, I lied. I told her no one was home. I remember taking an ice-cold shower in her house as she ironed my dress. I remember crying in the bathroom, knowing that although she had saved me that day, I would still need to find a permanent solution.

That day, after school, while my mum was in the bedroom and my dad was watching television, I walked up to my father and mouthed the hardest words I had ever said to him. This was a man who had me when he was 45, the age difference plus the taboo conversation had my stomach in knots. All the fear was overshadowed by necessity and in knowing that he was my safest and most reliable bet.

“I – need- sanitary- towels.”