Woman-in-transition

Sometimes I’m genuinely minding my business you know, moving up and down, doing my chores and all and BOOM, I pass by a glass window. I don’t know what’s in that mirror-like thing but it calls me, literally all the time. So, of course I’m stopped by some divine command, it’s like someone leads me to stop by. The next one minute, I’m looking at my “too thick unhealthy” waist (according to Western idiologies and whoever said girls should be size 0) yet perfectly designed by God for me and the man who’ll notice my value doesn’t like in my waist or curves. As a young woman in transition, I’m noticing all my wrong places, all the places my food loves to settle and I’m thinking ‘Girl, you’re a hot mess’ And these are mind battles every woman fights, wether beautiful, tall, short, small… we like to give it a general term ‘insecurities’ Meanwhile, all this time, I haven’t looked at my face. Then somehow, my eyes meet my eyes. I can’t explain how the magic happens but my mouth opens up, I start talking to myself, talking to myself like I would someone I love. My eyes know me, they know my worth, my value, what I stand for, my purpose… They know me in and out and they remind my mouth all the time. I find lots of peace in talking to myself. I’m not mad. This is what every girl-in-transition to womanhood needs sometimes. We should acknowledge that we all go through a series of stages when we feel the ugliest, we feel unloved, unworthy, like we don’t measure up. But deep down, we know exactly what we need to hear. Look into the mirror girl, talk to yourself like you would someone you love. That’s the beauty with self love, everything you need emotionally, psychologically, you can give to yourself. So brush your hair, drink your water, eat healthy and love your woman-in-transition. Take good care of her, don’t starve her, don’t undermine her. Acknowledge all the ugly things you see, embrace them everyday. Work around them. Don’t hate you.

All the Dark Places

No one had paid attention
No one cared to mention
They drew the guns to the North
No one cared to protect the South
Maybe no one wanted to see
Or, we saw, just didn’t care

Then one morning
Dazzling as the sun’s reflection
Awakening as a bell notification
A visitor came, TROTTING
and bright as light,
He showed his might, spread his light
In all the Dark places.

The once silent sighs
Saw their way to deafening screams
Society slid, society sulked
We could no longer work
Yet people needed food, security,
assurance
And without plan, without preparation
They drew the guns to the South.

But how then, how?
How could they distribute food
or masks?
No one had cared to arrange a clear database
No one had even organized records on citizens
How could economies sustain themselves?
No one had laid a clear foundation
All our dirty linen, inefficiencies
All our dark places trotted to light.

But that’s the thing with visitors
They call us to order
They call us to change, to prepare
They make us see the cobwebs in the corner
The fragility and disorder
Corona virus had showed us
How fragile our society was.
Primah Birungi

Counting My Life on beads

Like dew on a leaf, life is tremulous. Very uncertain, very unstable, very unfulfilling, very absurd. These are bitter truths I’ve learned the hard way. Every other day, I saw the beads around Tinati’s waist and thought to myself “what an awkward way our African mother’s ensured we African girls had clear waistlines when we got older” I never thought that one day, my life would look like those beads on Tinati’s waist. Like those beads, our lives seem to be wound around something. For some it’s love, for others family, work, climate change, women empowerment, anything, name it. My point is, our beads/life is wound around something like Tinati’s waist. And that waist becomes our priorities in life, our goals, and we are always focusing on those waists being satisfactorily beautiful. Just as Tinati never chooses the color of beads her mother puts around her waist, we never chose our skin color, our DNA, hair colour, or to leave in these pandemic times. We simply play along to the music that has been handed down to us. But then again, those beads are our chances, many chances for trial and error, and that’s how we live life, chanting our chances on beads. Until the cycle is complete, we return to the first bead, like Catholics do a rosary. Until we have had our fill in life… The waist shall at one time become too big for the beads and behold, the string shall break, the beads scatter to nothingness. There shall nolonger be any chances. The mother collects those beads just as the creator does… Where is your waist? How are you chanting your beads around that waist?