The nurse, dressed in white from head to toe comes in and calls the name of one of the girls. After she calls girl number three, I realise that the nurse and the patients are on a first name basis.
“What name did you use to register me?” I ask Caro.
“Nicera.” She whispers in my ear, smiling.
“What? Why?”
“None of these girls use their real names, and the nurse only asks for one name. At one time, I registered as Francesca, and then there was Wilhelmina and even Theodora.”
“Mhm, funny.”
There’s sickening silence in the room with only the sounds of the wall clock ticking, flapping of magazines and noisy tappings on phone keypads. The nurse comes, and calls in the fourth girl, Henrietta. I can’t believe how fast this so called surgeon does her surgeries! It’s one more girl in-front and then, it shall be me.
A few minutes after Henrietta leaves for her surgery, a middle-aged couple storms into the lounge and starts looking around, suspiciously.
“Someone just got busted.” Whispers Caro quite loudly so that everyone hears. We all gaze at the couple.
“Are they the police?” The girl sitted a few inches from me asks in another loud whisper, much louder than Caro's. I look at Caro questionably.
“Of course not! The woman who owns this place is the granddaughter to the Minister for Health. In other words, this place is kinda legit.”
The couple helplessly looks around, probably for the lost sheep, but it’s hard to tell who is who considering that all girls are dressed very conservatively and with most of them wearing ugly wigs on their heads and are all covered up with heavy Maasai shukas.
The woman starts ransacking the girls before the nurse comes to our rescue as the man remains standing at a corner, scratching his head,
“Winnie, Winnie, is that you?” The woman shouts as she strips one girl off her wig and shuka. She takes her by force from the seat and drags her to the door. Her friend is left there, mouth agape, not knowing whether to go rescue the friend from the wrath of her parents, or remain glued to her seat and save herself from becoming another one of their victim. Once calm has returned, the nurse calls out.
"Winfridah."
No one answers. She calls the name again, and then again, before the ditched friend announces that she has left.
"Will I be getting my deposit back, coz she's left without being served?" She enquires.
"Sweetie, we only give refunds if we don't deliver, not if you fail to deliver." She then calls in the next name,
“Nicera.”
As the ditched girl storms out of the lounge furious, my butterflies resurface and this time round, accompanied by heavy pounding of the heart. I ask for God to show me a sign, which I know he won’t for it has been a while since we last had a sincere one on one.
“Nicera.” The nurse calls again. "Has she also left?"
Caro pinches me,
“It’s your turn." She reminds me.
It's at this very moment that it finally clicks, and I become conscious of what I am about to do, and what's about to be done to me, and my baby.
"Don’t worry; it will be over before you even know it.” Caro reassures me.
I envy the level of courage this girl has. In her eyes I see the inhumane creature these cheap surgical needles, knives and bloody foetuses have transformed her to.
I take a whole minute to get on my feet and walk towards the operating room. Just then, everything starts to gradually peter out. It feels as though my brain is slipping into a coma. I start to recount everything that has just taken place; getting undressed, laying on top of the bed and staring at the blank white washed walls and ceiling, which I had anticipated to be decorated with an uncountable number of blood stains.
The nurse comes in, then the surgeon; an old wrinkly man. I can see their lips moving up and down as though talking to me, and then to each other, and back at me.
Caro comes in, shakes me a little and sits me up as the nurse tries to open my eyes by raising my eyelids. Once again, I lose control of my whole body, strength and mind.
#6
I remember the sharp chills, down my spine
The missed heartbeats
The cold shivers that left me sweating
The sweet smells of your scent, full of love
I could forever think of you, live for you, die for you
I could have held you close, and my heart would always be your peaceful dwelling
I coulda, woulda, shoulda stood by you, amidst the roughest storm, and laughed with you on an easy Sunday morning
We would have held hands down the street
Counted stars under the moonlight
Kissed at the site of the rainbow
Made love first thing at dawn
Grown grey by each other's side
Though you crushed my heart
I still got the memories, so dear and close I hug them
I'll cherish you for the little time you possessed my heart, thoughts and fantasies
Now that you given them to another
The brain of a woman in magical! It is capable of imagining, thinking and doing everything that a male brain can never accomplish.
She has lesser number of brain cells and tissues yet can transfer data from the right to left hemisphere much faster than he can. Hers is a well balanced brain, his is not. She always stays in touch with her feelings and has a higher sense of smell, and although she may end up attempting suicide three times more regularly than he, it's he who ends up killing himself three times more than she. But, it only takes a few words of discouragement to turn this magical brain into a naïve, scared and introversial brain.
As a young girl I had the wildest dreams, thoughts and imaginations. I dreamt of making it big in life, conquering what the early scientists failed and above all, lead a happy life. But I was told,
‘No, you are not supposed to think like that, you are girl!’
They taught me how to think, act, behave and carry myself. It wasn’t easy at first, but with time I learnt how to sieve and block whatever my brain was made to think about, whatever it wanted me to speak out and whatever it was supposed to share with the world; because as a girl, God had made a couple of errors in giving me a much bigger and smarter brain than He should have.
So they invented new ways of controlling what God failed to control. Female genital mutilation, bride price, rape, wife inheritance, buibuis, polygamy, honour killings, breast implants, vaginal rejuvenation… They even renamed everything she touched; catching up became gossip, finding love became gold digging, being sexually adventurous made her a slut and, family planning became abortion. And when they looked and saw what they had made out of her, they were more than pleased.
This is why I need a 'Womanhood for Dummies' guide book. The Womanhood for Dummies would have informed me early enough that I am now an embarrassment to my family, and that I should never go back home; not until I get a husband to adopt my daughter, or give her up for adoption while making sure that no one discovers the dishonour I have brought upon the sacred family name.
I would love to name her after mama, but I can’t. I can't even name her after anyone in the family for just like her mother; she too will become an outcast. The Bible states that all children are a blessing from God, but in my world, the world I was born in, a child can only be a blessing if she is born in accordance to the archaic traditions. If she has no father from whom to borrow her last name, or in-laws to be named after, then she's not worth being celebrated.
I am six months pregnant. There are only six more weeks remaining before the beginning of my final exams, and eight weeks to the end of my life in campus. I had anticipated for this moment, the moment when the best organisation would come to our campus and lure the best performing students. But no matter how good my grades are, I doubt if any HR executive would risk luring a young, inexperienced and pregnant undergraduate.
&
nbsp; The doctor says that I should rest a lot, since this pregnancy is no ordinary pregnancy. He calls it ‘a miraculously strange pregnancy.’ Dru is excited about becoming a father, but I have been thinking about a permanent solution of getting him away from being a part of our lives. It's definite that I can't be granted sole custody of the baby, but I can try and squeeze him hard towards paying child support, and once I'm strong enough, I can run. If only this had happened a few years back, I could have meekly sought refuge in FIDA and emerged the winner. But today, if I were to try making such a move, he would also seek refuge in MAWE: Women vs men's right groups, I wonder which team would win.
His beloved girlfriend has been acting disturbed lately, I am afraid that she may do something crazy. I don’t mind if she hurts herself, or me, for I know how to fight back. But were she to hurt Dru, then she’ll have killed the only source of financial support I could ever rely on.
I hear that she is friends with Caro now; my ex-best friend. The girl had to call it quits after I jilted her at her favourite abortionist. She had always been acting crazy, but never did I know that she was heads over heels for Dru, and that she could go to any limits to make her well laid plans go her way.
I'm hence very much surprised when she comes and sits next to me in class. She doesn’t say a word, only grins at me. I try to comprehend the grin but I find it hard to make out whether it's a ‘Can we be friends’ kind of grin or, ‘You have no idea what I have in store for you bitch’ grin.
She remains behind as the lecturer and the rest of our classmates leave after the lecture. I can’t believe that she has been my friend for all these years yet she is so hard to understand. She may not be 100% crazy, but that has never stopped her from doing really crazy stuff before in order to get her way.
‘Is she planning on pushing me down the stairs?’ I am wondering to myself.
“Girl, you are glowing. I am so jealous!” At last, she says.
I look back at her and smile. Maybe I should respond, but I have no idea what is there to tell her. I don’t know her anymore.
“Hey, I know I have been acting like a real snob in the last couple of weeks, but I am really sorry. I…I…I…”
“No worries, I'm cool.” I tell her as I make my way out.
“Neema, please… You have no idea how much ashamed of myself I am right now, I can’t even believe that this is me!”
“Okay. Fine. What do you want?”
“Let’s catch-up. Coffee? My place? After classes?”
“Baby hates it when I drink coffee."
“I have plenty of yoghurt too, and fresh juice, and ice-cream. Please don’t make this too hard for me; you know how poor I am at apologizing.”
It's almost a quarter past four in the evening. Most of the day’s classes are over and the so called social and outgoing students are catching up at the cafeteria, the TV room, the hostels or at the legendary Kamukunji grounds. As I pass a small group of well educated male college idlers at the Kamukunji, they all hush.
When people hush as you pass; it’s for two reasons: It’s either they were talking about you or, they are making up absurd stories in their heads that they plan on introducing as their next agenda as soon as you are away from the scene.
I have been talked about so many times that it now feels as though I bear a Breaking News tagline that makes anything and everything about me too juicy and irresistible.
Not long ago, they would have hushed to ogle at me. But my once curvaceous glass-hour figure has gradually been replaced by a kwashiorkor-like physique. Still, I look yummy, especially after adding weight in all the right places; the hips, the ass, the boobs.
I wonder what it is about me that these boys are planning on gossiping. Presumably how I dismissed their being interested in me in exchange of the interest of an older man? They will then gossip about how cheap their fellow female students are, how they sleep with any man who drives a nice car, how many of us have so far got pregnant, the massive number of abortions we have procured, how we trade our bodies for sex with the lecturers, how they would never marry a girl from this campus; because we all have some STIs, and judging from our current lifestyle, who knows if we would ever be able to make them fathers?
In the course of their gossip, another girl will pass, probably a timid female first year student; poorly dressed, above average looks, quite attractive. Almost everything about her will neither be that bad nor too great, she'll be okay. Again, they will hush as she passes. They'll resume with their gossip before one of them gathers the courage to go chat her up; for she is different, disciplined and conservative.
He will hate to be seen with her in public for she isn’t the girlfriend material. She's like a precious jewel that should be hidden in a treasure box, and not flaunted in public, he will tell her. In the course of their relationship, she'll be hurt countless times, but will always forgive him and give him another chance to toy with her young heart's feelings and inexperienced mind. By then she will have grown to the idea that with so many single girls desperately looking for boyfriends, she'll be the luckiest of them all to have him by her side. Then one day she'll meet another, not the best, but better. He won't promise her a thing, spoon feed her lies or feel ashamed to let the world know that they have something special going on. At that very moment, she will become me; another good girl gone bad, the kind of girl you hush when she's passing and hate on when she's no longer in vicinity.
It's exactly half past four when I arrive at Caro's pretty residence. Unlike me, her parents can afford to rent for her a nice one bedroom apartment now that she's all grown up and about to join the corporate world. Last time I was here, it was much cleaner and organized: seems like she is yet to friend a good friend like me who's open to playing maid in her house.
Within a few minutes, she has chased some of her new friends who are nothing compared to my irresistible company. She doesn’t ask about my baby or how I have been. We only talk about where she’s going for her internship, which lecturer is pissing her off, and what kind of drink I would like to have.
Minutes later I learn that this wasn’t just another one of those we are cool right kind of catching up. She has invited another party over.
I have never understood why some women have to carry an entourage of fellow women along when meeting the enemy. This small physique of mine in accompaniment of my current condition doesn’t require such an army, even an 11 year old bully can easily bring me down.
This is exactly what would have happened had all this new transformation come knocking while back at home. Mama and Aunt Sylvia would have called an older and wiser woman to talk to me, advice me and siphon her expertise on how to be and act like a woman down to me.
I almost storm out of the room once I learn that this new visitor is Dru’s girlfriend, or so she claims she is. Other than her dislike for kids, I have no idea what in her has been repelling him from her charm. She has it all; the beauty, the class, the sophistication, the charm. Had I been born male, or had I chosen to make me believe that I am bisexual, I could have easily fallen for this woman. Her accent though screws up everything. She has this very annoying accent that is not Kenyan, American, British or Caribbean. This is the kind of accent Kenyans assimilate when they take a ride to the airport to pick up a long-distance relative, or whenever they travel out of the country for a year to pursue their master's degree in another African county.
“I didn’t come all the way here so that we could fight each other over a man. I understand that you are a very smart lady, but as your friend told me…”
So there's a BUT, and they had been discussing me behind my back?
The woman keeps on talking and talking, not putting any commas or full-stops, but still maintaining her calm as classy women should always do.
“…I know that you don't love him, may be you do, but not as much as I do…so please don't take him away from me. I’m sure you wouldn’t like seeing a
younger girl come into your home and steal your father away from your mother.”
The monologue sounds so perfect I'm left wondering the number of hours she had to spend reciting and perfecting it.
Can someone really steal another's boyfriend or husband? It's not like he's a piece of property you can steal, hide and sell when the coast is clear, or return once a witchdoctor announces that if you don't return whatever was stolen, you'll start eating grass.
“If it’s the money you want, I will you give it to you. Just name your price and I’ll sign for you a check right now.”
I'm thinking to myself, this woman must have watched too much Western reality TV shows that she's now starting to live in one. All along I remain sitted at the edge of the couch, weighing my options as to whether I should stay and continue listening to this crap, or leave them to discuss how stupid I must be to be thinking that he won't also leave me for another.
I’ve learnt that the more you become the good listener, the more the talkers take advantage of your silence, and that makes me steam up more and get ready to explode. Right now I want to explode, shout at them and throw a few things in their direction before walking out of the door in style as I leave it banging so loud that it shatters the window next to it. Since the doctor said that I shouldn’t get annoyed, I chose to express my sincere gratitude before leaving amicably.
“I guess it would be insulting if I didn’t thank you for luring me into this therapy session and telling me how I should live my life. I mean, am so thankful, you have no idea how fabulous I feel right now. I just wanna kill that man!”
“So, what do you say?” The lady asks.
This is why I love sarcasm; some people are just so dumb to differentiate real talk from mockery.