celebrating talents, creativity, innovations.
I am sitting with a friend in twin LT, we are trying to put as much as possible into our heads before our exams begin, even though we spend most of the time talking, laughing and talking some more. She makes a joke, something about my height and bursts out laughing. I watch her hand move to her stomach, hold it tightly, she puts her head to the desk and stays still. I ask her what is wrong. Outside there is the hum of voices, the excitement of laughter, the sound of feet against concrete. The sky is brooding today, wearing deep melancholic shades of blue, keeping the sun behind big rolling rain clouds. She lifts her head slowly, smiles but says nothing. "Are you having cramps?" I blurt out. I have never discussed anything related to this with her before, this will be the first time after nearly three years of being friends with her it will cross my mind that she has a monthly visitor, that she feels a level of pain every twenty one days, the first time I will ask. She nods, tells me not to touch her stomach jokingly or make her laugh. I do not listen. Soon she teases me again and I reach out and squeeze her stomach gently. She mock screams, pushes my hand away, shifts a little out of my reach. "Is it that painful?" I ask again. Months earlier I read an article calling for the demystification of the woman's menstrual cycle, the ignorance of the disgust associated with it, the constant need to hide it from the male folk because of it's "grossness", the expensiveness of sanitary pads to help with a natural process and the insanity of it all.
"Yes, yes it is." She makes a serious face. "My head is pounding right now. Really pounding."
"Then how are you here now? Enduring such headache and still going about your day aunty?" She laughs at the shock on my face and waves it aside. I think about how I never really looked at her all this time to notice this or if she hid it so well. Sitting down here, I want to think of how it would be like to be a woman, to wait for a natural cycle every month for every year until you hit menopause. I ask her if all girls have this pain, she says it varies, some don't, some do, for some the pain is worse than hers, for others they feel nothing. I ask why she has never said she is in pain all this while, how she manages it the pain.
"We never really get used to the pain. We just endure it. If I tell you, a guy, what will you do. Won't it end at sorry and that's all? Will you take the pain away?"
She is right. There is nothing I could do but wonder at the special kind of power given to the women folk. A special kind of strength. One beyond physical might, one almost spiritual, one that has built our world and shaped generations past, present and future. I do not want to fall into this discussion because there will be a lot of things to say, more than this write-up allows but I know you know. I know you look at the woman beside you now and see strength. Not just strength to endure but strength to fight.