When your period shows up unexpectedly, chances are you’re having your best day. You’ve had a series of bad days—unexplainable mood swings, random pain, erratic appetite, just general “off-ness.” But on this day, you wake up and the sunrise is glorious… The air is softer, and your feet feel light. On this day, you feel radiant, positive—almost like you could fix all the bad roads in the country and solve the public debt. Three hours into this beautiful day, you take an ordinary bathroom break and, voila! Lady Flo is here 🤣. A cruel joke!
When your period shows up unexpectedly, the first thing you do is scan your environment. You are on guard, like a soldier scanning the perimeter. It feels like everyone is watching you—even though you’re alone in a bathroom cubicle. In an instant, a battery of emotions hits you: Joy – you’re a normal woman, and your body is doing its thing. Sadness – today, of all days? Fear – the debilitating cramps, the discomfort, the nausea… All of it is coming. Panic – did I carry an emergency pad or tampon?
And just like that, your good day dies, and hell is born in its place.
It’s another kind of hell if you don’t have menstrual products to tide you over. If you’ve got your emergency pad, you quickly hightail to wherever it’s stashed, then return to the bathroom to set things in order. If you don’t? Once your heart stops racing, you scan the room again to identify potential helpers. You put on your game face and walk straight to that one person you’re confident will understand. You’ll do so until you find something.
If you know for certain there’s no one to help, you retreat to the bathroom stall and start strategizing. Your brain goes into overdrive. You’re calculating the distance to the nearest shop in meters, kilometers, minutes, electricity posts, steps—all of it. It could be 10 minutes away, but it always feels like 10 light years.
As you’re still figuring out your escape plan, that cramp—that cramp—hits. The one that starts in your lower back and settles right above your butthole. Straight from the pits of hell. Diabolical! Your back stiffens, your face contorts, your breath hitches, your eyes sting. If you happen to think of someone at that moment, they’re having a bad day. That cramp is deeply spiritual. Okay, I made that up. But it feels that big, you know? Believe me. That cramp is bad.
Now, if you’re living with PCOS, you know this experience too well. Because the one thing we can never predict, or expect, is a period. These things just show up. Sometimes after six months. Sometimes a year. You could be giving the presentation of your life, on stage in front of your cheerleaders, haters, employers, fans, and strangers—and then, that first trickle of blood stops your brain.
If you’re in a foreign country, your heart skips a beat. I promise you, the realization is so disruptive you feel the hair growing out of your scalp. In an instant, worlds are colliding in a different universe. A butterfly flaps its wings halfway across the world, a glass breaks, a baby laughs, a star is born, lightning crackles—and there’s a drop of blood sliding down the walls of your vagina onto your panties. And you run out of breath.
Now, if you’re on the border of a foreign country, you will die and be born again. You’ll be stuck in an infinite time loop imagining all manner of possibilities, visiting every other universe like Dr. Strange in Infinity War. You’ll pray, curse, breathe deep, breathe shallow, come back to reality—only to escape again.
The journey from Arusha to Namanga is an easy three hours or so. A polite 30 to 50 km/h, thanks to nauseating speed limits and multiple police stops. You had one emergency tampon. You used it the moment Lady Flo arrived, in a dismally unsanitary public bathroom. You squatted, handled business, and prayed it would hold.
There are no shops around. The driver refuses to make any stop unless you give a reason.
“Madam, ni kama ungejipanga mapema na vitu unataka. Mimi, I am not stopping,” he says with finality.
If only you could explain. But that’s an intrusion you’re not ready to welcome. Your seatmate, another girl, says she doesn’t carry emergency supplies because she makes sure she’s done with her period before traveling. But she understands. You hope your one tampon can hold back the floodgates until you find a replacement. Just one tampon. Against the Nile. A few whispers travel through the bus. Another tampon appears. Just one. That will do. For now.
You sit calmly. Now you can breathe a little easier. You simply need to get to the border, dash to the bathrooms, and you’ll be clear for another three hours. Four, if your body shows you grace. But even then, four would be cutting it close.
At the Namanga border, the lines are long. Very long. Apparently, every Kenyan with means dashed to our Kiswahili-speaking neighbors for the weekend. Buses and buses. Hordes and hordes of Kenyans trying to beat the border before Monday madness. The knowers say we’ll be here for at least three hours.
You can feel the tampon fill up. It’s threatening to slip out. You can feel blood spilling onto your panties. Onto your jeans. It’s uncomfortable, especially under the hot sun. You cannot sit. You cannot stand. The last thing you want to do is walk, because period blood flows more urgently when you walk.
Your seatmate tries to cheer you up. She makes you laugh.
Worse!
Because when you laugh during your period, the blood comes out happily too 😂. Happy things don’t move slowly. They move fast. In plenty. With energy.
You need to use the emergency tampon you received earlier. With this one, you’ve got three hours. And most of it will be spent at the crossing. Your seatmate hints that you can try the shops open at the border crossing. There’s hope. So you check into the bathroom first. The Nyayo-style, crowded cubicles. You’re trying to open the tampon casing, then it slips, falls, and rolls into the toilet. People don’t know what happened. All they hear is a scream—“NOOOO!”—followed by a barrage of expletives.
I apologize to everyone who was in that bathroom, on that day. I really do.
A quick recce is done. None of the twenty-something women present have an emergency pad to spare. Some stare at you like mbona hukujipanga. Eyes full of judgment. Others look at you with pity. Some are just mad that you’re holding up the line.
You brace yourself. Game face on. You rush to the shops. Quick steps, holding your breath. Panic. Your ears are hot. Your hearing is selective now. You’re deaf to the world. You ask for pads. They don’t understand. You switch to the word “Always.” Everyone knows Always. It’s on TV. On the radio. Girls dancing energetically, singing about how Always gives them comfort. Because periods are a dancing affair eeh? Have you ever tried dancing during your period? I digress.
Still, no luck.
Shop after shop. Run by men. Three, four men per shop. They do not sell Always. Eight shops later, a young man points to a shop at the furthest end. Try there, he says. You half-run, half-skip. The situation in your panties is dire. Your jeans feel wet. The old man running the shop has Always. But he also has hearing problems. So you end up shouting,
“NATAFUTA ALWAYS!”
The men lounging outside the shop stare in horror. The old man is horrified. Like his ears have just heard the news of the rapture. It is a rapture alright. And it’s happening in your panties. He wraps the packet in swaths of newspaper, takes your money, and shoos you away. He doesn’t meet your eye. The men outside avoid your path like you’re a contagion.
You spot a dingy guesthouse across the street. Duck in. A young man is watching football on his phone. You ask to use the bathroom. He’s confused. What change do you want to make? Why would a girl like you want a room? You brandish the Always packet in his face. He goes berserk. Apologizing like he’s offended the gods. He half-bows, runs away, then returns with keys. He ushers you into a room. Tells you not to touch anything—just use the bathroom. He apologizes again and again.
Crisis averted. Congratulations to all teams. Makofi?
Now comes the next challenge: Where do you dispose of the used tampon?
The kind boy won’t let you use the bin. His face says everything. He is not that kind of kind. He’s just the guy with keys. Thanks to the swaths of newspaper given by the shopkeeper, you head back to the government bathroom. You dispose of the used tampon. There are stares. Questions. Judgement. Pity. Disgust. Comedy.
It’s a long drive back to Nairobi. Even longer to your house.
And in all of this—there’s one small, silent, wrapped-up savior. The thing that’s always expected to be there, always unspoken, always needed: Always.
What else can you do, really? This body, with its cycles and betrayals and warnings and surprises, is still mine. Still home. Periods are personal, yes — but they are also profoundly public. They shape how we move, how we travel, how we shop, how we show up in boardrooms and bus queues and border posts.
Menstrual health isn’t a private affair. It’s a public one. Because the border guards won’t wait. The shopkeepers won’t listen. And the bathrooms, well — they don’t ask if you’re okay.