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Fadzayi Maposah-Correspondent
Siblings are wonderful individuals but they have their own downside. One, siblings really do not mind their own business. They have this thing especially when they are young where they think all business is ‘family’ business. It is probably rooted in that as families we share most amenities. As they grow older they seem to understand the importance of respecting boundaries. Siblings especially the younger ones, you can be mistaken to think that they are trained just to irritate the older siblings.
After my ‘it’ experience happened I realised that womanhood had its own precious benefits at home. The benefits were amazing and unexpected! It was like I had been elevated to a new level.
The years of Ma Ncube emphasising the importance of proper bathing really paid off when ‘it’ happened.
To ensure that I would not be disturbed while bathing, Ma Ncube told my siblings that she was not happy with the way they were disturbing my free time whether I was in the bathroom, reading or even listening to my favourite radio show.
She called upon them to treat me with respect. She even said that because I was the eldest the siblings should take ‘orders’ from me.
I felt like dancing and rolling my eyes at my siblings and shouting
“Look at me now!”
It empowered me. I was elevated to a new status. Was Ma Ncube celebrating my elevation as it were to woman hood? She was just one individual but she became my solo ‘Bubbly Trio’. She did well to be there for me in a way that she knew. The selfish me, began to think that she should have accorded me this status way before! Human beings love power and recognition!
Private bath time was one new luxury that I enjoyed. Actually I would recline and soak myself in the very white tub that Ma Ncube ensured was spotless clean. I would hear my siblings grumble as they walked past the door. Occasionally someone would hit the door and then shout that it was the shinning brush or broom that had hit the door.
It seemed that my siblings were eager to do so much housework in the passage each time I was bathing.
Maybe I had read too many Nancy Drew books, I always thought that one of my siblings would peep through the key hole and try and see why I took so long in the bathroom or why suddenly I had developed a habit of taking a bulky drying towel that seemed like an overnight package.
Looking back, I think that I contributed to the reason why my siblings were so curious about my bath time.
Because in the past I would walk ‘very light’ into the bathroom but now I had ‘an abnormal load’ to the bathroom.
If had not been that Ma Ncube had my back, I am so sure that one of siblings would have attempted to grab the ‘luggage’ just to see.
I would hear my brothers comment that maybe I was now reading my books as I lay in the tub, a fantasy that I had read about!
I would simply ignore them although initial reaction was to shout ; “You will never understand what it means to be woman”.
Tendi and Nyari were equally curious. I suspect they listened attentively as I slept in case I talked in my sleep so that the mystery of Fadzi’s behaviour would be solved!
I longed for my own bedroom or the comfort of the girls’ school where there was much solidarity for woman hood, something that I believed my brothers would not understand. Maybe they had their own male solidarity that I too did not understand or recognise as a young female. At face value they were just nosy siblings.
I did a lot of standing during my ‘it’ experience because standing seemed safer regarding potential accidents. I dressed in very dull colours that would not easily reveal the accidents and enhanced my chocolate complexion.
On my third day of my first ‘it’ experience we had a visitor. I really love my relatives but unfortunately for me the timing of aunt`s visit was so ill timed! It meant a change in sleeping arrangements that also affected my luggage carrying at bath time. There was an addition to the already curious family members too.
When aunt repeatedly commented how much I had grown since the last time she had visited, it made me uncomfortable. I suspected that Ma Ncube had shared that I had ‘grown up’ in the real sense. It was confirmed later in the day as I washed up the supper dishes while aunt and Ma Ncube sat at the kitchen table talking about how it was back in the village when they were young girls and how sanitary ware was scarce.
As I washed the dishes, I ‘multi-tasked’. I could hear my siblings laughing in the adjacent lounge where they sat with WaMambo and also hear what MaNcube and Aunty had to say. The two women talked about how their duties especially in the fields did not change just because they were on ‘it’. In fact, they recalled that one would need a very good excuse to take a break from the fields just to change sanitary ware.
Ma Ncube and aunty asked one another if their fathers and uncles had been aware of the ‘special times’ that women went through or they just chose to ignore it.
I turned away from the sink to look at Ma Ncube and aunty. As they sipped their hot tea, I could see from the expressions on their faces, they had really gone back to the times they were teenagers and woman hood had knocked on their lives.
They laughed it off then but I concluded at the time ‘it’ had happened it had not been easy or a laughing matter.
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