Spare a thought for the rural girl child

Challenges of menstruation period

By Perpetual Dzimbanhete As boys and girls grow up boys become smarter than girls. At least That's what research tells us . The first time l saw this article l asked my brother why . His answer was that girls would now start focusing on boys instead of their books . Since l believed him to be Google l accepted his answer contently.

But what if there was more to it than the girl having a boyfriend. After all the boy also had a girlfriend, isn't he also giving his attention to the girlfriend? Ladies and gentlemenl believe there is more. The more is that girls mensturate !!! Imagine waking up before the sun is up and going a couple of times to fetch water.

If you are on your periods you will definitely need more water to bath yourself thus you have to add an extra trip to the well. However You are late for school therefore you decide to use less water for bathing so that you leave for school early. You don't have pads because you can't afford them. So you are using pieces of cloth to soak up the blood.

Since you have used a little bit of water you don't wash it properly. You finally make it to school. The teacher is Great Zimbabwe Times teaching and you are just there like l hope l haven't spoiled. At the end of the day you don't concentrate in class. You spoil! Everyone sees it!!! The boys also see it!! Everyone is laughing.

You have now earned yourself a new name. You ask the teacher to go home to clean up. You don't go back to school because you leave so far away from school and you don't want to face those people again. The next day you wake up and it's the same routine . You decide to stay at home cause you don't want a repetition of what happened the day before.

So whenever you are on your period you don't go to school. The boys start noticing the pattern. When you are about to go they start asking you why you are still at school. You finally decide to be absent even on the days that you are not on so that it is not so obvious that you are on your periods. While you are away everyone else is learning. You are falling behind with the syllabus. You can't catch up cause you don't have text books. You start failing.

Suddenly what is suppose to be a blessing feels like a curse. That's the life of a girl menstruating in the rural areas . With little or without enough money to buy enough pads the girls end up having to find other things to use. Most girls have to use piece of cloth. However this pieces of cloth need the most hygiene. They have to be washed thoroughly and the ironed.

If this is not done it may lead to the girls catching bacterial infections. If this infections are not treated as soon as possible they may affect the girls fertility. The girl can't wash it properly because that will mean an extra trip for her to the well of which she already has many other chores she has to see to. Obviously she can't iron it because she needs a lot of ciders to get the iron hot.

Which means that she needs to burn a lot of wood to get them. However to fetch firewood she has to walk at least five kilometres to get the firewood. So obviously she will opt for the option where she won't have to make a lot of trips. There are other groups of girls. This ones use leaves , pieces of paper , tissue and rarely some use cow dung.

I wonder how they do it though. . This may lead to thrash, bruises and urinary tract infections. In extreme cases it will lead to cervix cancer. At the end of the day these girls will not concentrate in class because they are busy worrying