How I learnt... about PMS
(In an attempt to blog more I am introducing a How I learnt Series. Let’s see how this goes)
I was 9 when I learnt about PMS for the first time. It was the rainy season. The kind of season that lower primary school children find useless because break and lunch are officially limited to places that offer cover and school is actually about…you know school.
So there we sat, Rover, and I and the other p4 girls, tossing the now useless kwepena ball half heartedly around to each other bored out of our wits, when one of the boys dashed out into the rain and the other followed, their red socks quickly turning brown. Our mutters increased because if you’re 9, a girl and you don’t have short hair, you have very quickly learnt that water is not your head’s friend. The Wicked Witch of the West melted into gooey green mush but you? You only have a scratcher, a lifter, and a pissed off adult muttering epithets you shouldn’t hear as your scalp is poked prodded and sometimes bloodied back into neatness. Rover and I said all that, you know, with 9 year old vocabulary and a few “boys are stupid!” to vent our frustrations and somehow, I’m not sure how, it ended up in a dare to cut off my hair, a week of ball gum from Rover if I could do it.
Background – I had only ever had my hair cut once, and that was the whole cut off the baby hair business that Ugandans are actively in support of. My mother had apparently been brow beaten into the act, information I was unaware of.
So, with the sun making a belated appearance I arrived home, eager to get this venture on the road sure even God was on my side when I saw her car parked (Usually, by the time I got home, she’d left for her shift at the clinic). I ran through the door, greeting everyone, and stopped at the foot of my mother’s chair.
“Mummy, I want to cut off my hair” I announced.
“What?” She raised her eyes from the book she was reading to look at me with her ‘will not tolerate stupidity’ today look.
“I want to cut my hair!” I repeated all bright eyed, with starry eyed belief in all things good.
“Ok, we’ll talk about it later,” She replied and turned back to her book.
“No! I don’t want to talk. I want to cut off my hair and I want to do it this weekend before I go to school, “
Something snapped. One minute, she is pointedly trying to be nice and the next she is all cool and collected. But not nice cool and collected like those ‘50s mothers. It was like in those old ninja movies. You have killed the hero’s whole village, beaten him up, spat on him and he felt nothing. Now he’s chained to a wall, going to die but just then the idiot bad guy whispers an insult about the love of his life into hero’s ear. The audience gets a flashback to love of his life standing under a cherry blossom tree looking lovely and utterly undeserving of such insults and SNAP! Your delivery of whoop ass has arrived. It was like that, but there were no warning flashbacks.
“Go get, the lesu, Kaaka’s scissors and put a chair outside” She said in that cool and collected ninja way.
“But I want to go to the barber” I objected. Ok, I admit, I wanted those lines on the side of my head. You know what she did? She smiled down at me a ninja smile and said, “I can do it well enough here at home”
So busy was I daydreaming about wiping that know it all smirk off Rover’s face and getting chewing gum I didn’t pay attention. Oh no, I went eagerly to my fate, collected the lesu and my grandmother’s huge, heavy, can cut through bone, stainless steel scissors, put a chair outside and sat down, fantasizing about my gum.
She came outside and it was there, like the ninja with a knife, she unleashed her fury. No, no comb. Just scissors. First left, then right then the back, then right again, then centre. And as she cut, she talked. About all the work she had put in, all the combing, and braiding, and removing gumming and oiling and washing! What did she get for her labour? An ingrate! Cut it off?! She’d show me cut it off!
With my toy mirror I watched in growing horror. And then I began to cry in horror. In fact cry is too kind a word. I sobbed. I wailed. I begged for mercy, told her to stop. I was like those women in Nollywood movies. At the sound of my cries, her arm became gleeful!
“You wanted to cut your hair, now why are you crying?!” And she laughed an evil laugh (maybe I imagined that part)
When it was over, my head bore no resemblance to anything kind. I was bald in places, too much hair in others. I looked like my four year old sister had given me the haircut. I stayed in that chair sobbing, wondering what I had ever done to deserve such horribleness, how could my life possibly get any worse than this?
“Now go get dressed. We’re going to be late for X’s birthday party”
The next mornining blogger’s grandmother explained to her that there comes a time when her mother, all women in fact, shouldn’t be disturbed. The blogger was forced to attend that birthday party and everyone under 12 laughed at her. She also had to attend school the following week because they had to wait for the bald patches to grow out a little so the barber had something to work with. She has developed a fear of hair cuts. Rover did keep her end of the deal and give her the week of ball gum.
PS - The blogger is pretty sure her mother is the next best thing since sliced bread. There are no hard feelings harbored.
I was 9 when I learnt about PMS for the first time. It was the rainy season. The kind of season that lower primary school children find useless because break and lunch are officially limited to places that offer cover and school is actually about…you know school.
So there we sat, Rover, and I and the other p4 girls, tossing the now useless kwepena ball half heartedly around to each other bored out of our wits, when one of the boys dashed out into the rain and the other followed, their red socks quickly turning brown. Our mutters increased because if you’re 9, a girl and you don’t have short hair, you have very quickly learnt that water is not your head’s friend. The Wicked Witch of the West melted into gooey green mush but you? You only have a scratcher, a lifter, and a pissed off adult muttering epithets you shouldn’t hear as your scalp is poked prodded and sometimes bloodied back into neatness. Rover and I said all that, you know, with 9 year old vocabulary and a few “boys are stupid!” to vent our frustrations and somehow, I’m not sure how, it ended up in a dare to cut off my hair, a week of ball gum from Rover if I could do it.
Background – I had only ever had my hair cut once, and that was the whole cut off the baby hair business that Ugandans are actively in support of. My mother had apparently been brow beaten into the act, information I was unaware of.
So, with the sun making a belated appearance I arrived home, eager to get this venture on the road sure even God was on my side when I saw her car parked (Usually, by the time I got home, she’d left for her shift at the clinic). I ran through the door, greeting everyone, and stopped at the foot of my mother’s chair.
“Mummy, I want to cut off my hair” I announced.
“What?” She raised her eyes from the book she was reading to look at me with her ‘will not tolerate stupidity’ today look.
“I want to cut my hair!” I repeated all bright eyed, with starry eyed belief in all things good.
“Ok, we’ll talk about it later,” She replied and turned back to her book.
“No! I don’t want to talk. I want to cut off my hair and I want to do it this weekend before I go to school, “
Something snapped. One minute, she is pointedly trying to be nice and the next she is all cool and collected. But not nice cool and collected like those ‘50s mothers. It was like in those old ninja movies. You have killed the hero’s whole village, beaten him up, spat on him and he felt nothing. Now he’s chained to a wall, going to die but just then the idiot bad guy whispers an insult about the love of his life into hero’s ear. The audience gets a flashback to love of his life standing under a cherry blossom tree looking lovely and utterly undeserving of such insults and SNAP! Your delivery of whoop ass has arrived. It was like that, but there were no warning flashbacks.
“Go get, the lesu, Kaaka’s scissors and put a chair outside” She said in that cool and collected ninja way.
“But I want to go to the barber” I objected. Ok, I admit, I wanted those lines on the side of my head. You know what she did? She smiled down at me a ninja smile and said, “I can do it well enough here at home”
So busy was I daydreaming about wiping that know it all smirk off Rover’s face and getting chewing gum I didn’t pay attention. Oh no, I went eagerly to my fate, collected the lesu and my grandmother’s huge, heavy, can cut through bone, stainless steel scissors, put a chair outside and sat down, fantasizing about my gum.
She came outside and it was there, like the ninja with a knife, she unleashed her fury. No, no comb. Just scissors. First left, then right then the back, then right again, then centre. And as she cut, she talked. About all the work she had put in, all the combing, and braiding, and removing gumming and oiling and washing! What did she get for her labour? An ingrate! Cut it off?! She’d show me cut it off!
With my toy mirror I watched in growing horror. And then I began to cry in horror. In fact cry is too kind a word. I sobbed. I wailed. I begged for mercy, told her to stop. I was like those women in Nollywood movies. At the sound of my cries, her arm became gleeful!
“You wanted to cut your hair, now why are you crying?!” And she laughed an evil laugh (maybe I imagined that part)
When it was over, my head bore no resemblance to anything kind. I was bald in places, too much hair in others. I looked like my four year old sister had given me the haircut. I stayed in that chair sobbing, wondering what I had ever done to deserve such horribleness, how could my life possibly get any worse than this?
“Now go get dressed. We’re going to be late for X’s birthday party”
The next mornining blogger’s grandmother explained to her that there comes a time when her mother, all women in fact, shouldn’t be disturbed. The blogger was forced to attend that birthday party and everyone under 12 laughed at her. She also had to attend school the following week because they had to wait for the bald patches to grow out a little so the barber had something to work with. She has developed a fear of hair cuts. Rover did keep her end of the deal and give her the week of ball gum.
PS - The blogger is pretty sure her mother is the next best thing since sliced bread. There are no hard feelings harbored.
9 comments
SOCKS!!!
REPLYLol!
REPLYhaha. Where there no cameras at that moment. Would have loved to see how you looked with that uneven hair cut. "Bigoli" is what it was called then.
REPLYDid you take any photos of the hair cut?! would love to see it...
REPLYI want a visual........ Pictures please.....lol
REPLY@ all y'all - you request for photos has been answered thus , "neda, wapi, non, nein, no!!!!!!!" looool.
REPLY*mental images*..that'll do
REPLYi think i would have been tramatised for life..oh my..any way who am i to say..i started growing hair when i was 18..lol..
REPLYohhh. you've made so happy:-)
REPLYhi! thanks for commenting. I'm always open to new ideas. I can't wait to hear yours.