Page 13 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 2

ISSUE TWO | SEPT/OCT

then repeat the cycle again. One of the things about ovarian cysts is that of me that have been fragmented,
it could lead to infertility, so here I am as a teenager just thinking wow I those lies that I have believed.
could end up not having children. Thankfully, by the time I had my first So you know just allowing God to
surgery I’d met, the man who would eventually become my husband. He rewrite history. I would tell people
was at the time just a person I had met, but he stuck through it all, and that I am tired then hear a different
with time it became more. I was like we need to talk about the fact that label, “You’re lazy.” Even getting
I could not have children, he simply said, “Okay, but I’m marrying you labels, silent labels, as the one
for you, not because of your ability to have children.” That really helped. who always has ‘those issues’ and
I got married at 21 and I think it’s one of the best things that happened. By you know ‘those’ is heavy, eh? It’s
this time I was still in pain, and I was on different types of contraceptives, really weighty because it’s almost
just different things to try and make the pain go away. Then we moved to like a humble insult when you put
Mombasa and I took a very stressful job that made me even feel sicker, it that way. It’s now a blessing in
like now I was just having crazy cysts. I woke up one day and I was like, disguise because then I’m the
“You know what? Not this. I don’t know what, but not this.” I decided I person that ‘those’ people go to
wanted to write, but I couldn’t quite figure out what I wanted to write or ask ‘those’ things. Now I can laugh
how I wanted to write. Thankfully, the next year I got pregnant. It was about it, then I used to be like
good to just be pregnant. I didn’t have any drama other than a bucket God, really this is embarrassing.
load of fatigue. Explaining “you know my uterus
I became a mom and I can say that I feel like motherhood changed me and its lining were not agreeing...”
and actually set this ball rolling. There is the belief that endometriosis it’s so complicated.
can be passed down through the genetic pool, but that one I have I’ve seen the shame and that’s
refused and it’s not denial but I’m like, “Lord, I think I’ve carried it for what I want to take away but
all other generations and this has to end.” I started to think and I you know I believe that God has
realized I wanted girls to know what I wish I knew. I wanted to talk to actually given us the power and
girls and moms as well, because socialization can actually make a huge the boldness to actually go and
difference. How you are socialized from the beginning, what you believe
from the beginning, if you believe it is part of the curse, you will walk
around feeling like you are cursed, if you believe that God’s redeeming
love still moves within this, then you will still experience that. I believe
that one of the greatest things that you can give a woman is to help
them understand their body because no one can ever do it for you and
I think it’s even part of God’s desire for us.
I decided to write a period diary to tell girls how a period should look,
how a period should feel, you know the things that no one tells you
about - it should be red, but which red? There are so many shades of
red. Should it have chunks? Should it not have chunks? Should it hurt?
Where should hurt? Where should it not hurt? And let’s define hurt,
because that’s another thing that’s so ambiguous. Should it hurt that I
can pop a painkiller and go and do whatever I need to do? What about
when I can’t leave my bed, does it still fall under normal? There are
many times I’ve not left my bed because of my period and still been told
it’s normal. What is normal? It’s raising a generation that is experiencing
it differently and also knowing what they’re taking in. There are effects
that I’m living with until today. One of them is, you lose bone density
when you go on certain medications and I wish I had known because
when you’re put on such a drug you should be put on calcium, which I
was not aware of.
I have seen painful affliction and I have seen the Lord’s healing hand.
And you know sometimes you want healing to be instantaneous but I’ve
also seen the process of healing and it’s God healing my body and also
God healing my mind as well, God healing my emotions; those parts

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