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Fadzayi Maposah-Correspondent

Some days are so eventful that I am tempted to think I will be acting in some action movie.

 Although I will not be the lead actress, I am among the top movie stars in the performance.

When my daughters refer to some of the things that I go through, they just say “Drama Mama”. 

If my life was a movie, it would be one drama with many turns and twists that leave the audience stunned at the end of every scene.

In my life the diverse twists and turns tend to change the movie genre. 

One moment, it is a horror movie and it seems as if there is a whale getting too close to eat up the main actress and she is struggling to swim away.

The next moment, it is all a comedy, the main actress is looking amazed at the story that she is being told and she cannot make head or tail of the issue.

When she seems to understand it she has grabbed the tail of the story and it just does not make sense.

When the genre changes to a soap opera and the actress cannot seem to wake up from a dream where she is searching for her long lost love…

Life is indeed dramatic at times.

When some things happen, you just have to pinch yourself to make sure that you are not dreaming . . . 

In one day, a companion and I saw a teenage girl burning sanitary wear in a tin. We were told off by her mother when we asked the teenager to be careful.

We were indirectly labelled potential witches who had interests in soiled sanitary ware. 

The same day we witnessed females being summoned to a crucial ad-hoc meeting after one street member had discovered soiled sanitary wear on a path that led out of the street. 

On wanting to be part of the meeting we were dismissed because of our grey hair; it did not seem necessary that we participate at that meeting. We were considered to be too old to be involved. 

The two of us agreed that indeed it was an eventful day and if we were still in school and had been given an essay with the title: The day I will never forget; we would have obtained top marks.

My companion said to me that we had such an eventful day and at our ages our blood pressure could have slightly been elevated. 

She said that taking me half the way to my home had exposed her to much excitement that her being a “gogo” (grandmother) with much grey hair could not handle. 

Although I laughed when she mentioned the word Gogo, I agreed that we had experienced a lot in one day.

We could actually just pitch what we had gone through to some content creators and we would have produced a block-buster movie from which we would draw many benefits.

She said that it was strange that all our experiences throughout the day had been about the reproductive system in particular the “it” experience, menstruation.

My companion was of the opinion that the things that are left unsaid tend to turn up in the most awkward places and instances. 

And though people are not eager to draw an agenda to discuss menstruation, the topic simply imposes itself and people have no choice but to discuss it.

Though it is very normal, it has been turned into an abnormal topic that is best whispered and some are taken away from the discussion because “it” is not necessary that they be present.

My companion made me laugh when she said that the woman who had dismissed us from the soiled sanitary ware meeting did not know that the meeting could have really benefited from our years of experience but she had quickly dismissed us from the forum. 

No value in experience.

Sad is it not, that people do not want to place value of experience on a pedestal?

We bemoaned being excluded from a meeting where we thought we would have learnt how the woman who had called the meeting would deal with improper sanitary ware disposal. 

We quickly told one another that it was wrong to judge without full information.

 Maybe it was not improper disposal but simply an accident.

Or someone had managed to get hold of it before it found its way into a tin where it was to be burnt. 

Maybe the user had disposed of the sanitary in a bin and it fell out when the garbage truck delayed in picking the litter bins. The two of us laughed at each other, we were just imagining and the maybes were many.

We concluded that we should find something different to discuss as we got to our parting point.

We stood at our parting point, not willing to say goodbye but also realising that it had to be done.

I was just starting to thank my companion for the time that we had spent together when two women a few years younger than us got to where we were.

As they were waiting to cross the road, one of them seemed to continue what she had started.

“It is embarrassing to stain your dress because you are on your period. But that stain saved me when a baby was discovered dumped alive in one of the bins,” she said. 

“Everyone knew that there was no way I could be pregnant. It happened a long time ago but my two sisters and other girls who were rounded to face first the wrath of conveners of a street meeting before the police came.”

Most street meetings do not end well.

One may leave the meeting really affected.

The women crossed the road.

I waved at my companion and crossed the road with no further comment.

Menstrual health management issues had been our portion throughout the day!