The Wellness Circle

You are standing in the Naivas aisle. Mum said "just get pads" before she walked off to the vegetables section. You are looking at three shelves of options with different colours, different sizes, different everything, and absolutely no idea where to start. You pick one up. Read nothing on the back. Put it down. Pick up another. Sigh. This is the part nobody prepares you for. Not the products themselves, but the overwhelming moment of choosing one. Let us fix that right now. Option 1: Disposable Pads This is where most Kenyan girls start, and for good reason. Pads are straightforward to use. You peel the adhesive strip, stick them to your underwear, and that is it. The reality, though, is that they shift. They bunch. On heavy days they can leak from the sides. They also create a lot of waste, because every pad you use once goes straight into the bin. Over a year, that adds up to a significant pile of plastic. They work. But they are not the only option, and they are...

You have had your period for a week now. Or maybe a few months. And every single time, there is a new thing making you go: wait, is that supposed to happen? The colour looks different. The cramps hit harder on day two than day one. One month it lasted four days, the next it dragged on for seven. You got so moody last week you cried watching a Safaricom ad and could not explain why. So let us just say it plainly: your body is not broken. You are not weird. And no, you are not the only one. Why Your Period Is All Over the Place In the first one to two years after your period starts, irregular cycles are completely normal. Your body is still figuring out its rhythm. Some months it shows up early. Some months it is late. Some months it skips. That is your hormones calibrating, not something going wrong. A regular cycle can be anywhere between 21 and 35 days. So "normal" is actually a pretty wide range. If yours does not match your friend's, that does not mean yours is the bro...

You are in class. Maths, probably. Or maybe you are on the bus home or sitting in assembly trying to pay attention. And then something feels different. You go still. Your stomach drops a little. Oh. It is here. Your very first period just arrived, and nobody warned you it would feel like this. Not the exact moment of it. Not the way time sort of slows down while your brain scrambles to figure out what to do next. Breathe. You are okay. Millions of girls have had this exact moment, and they made it through just fine. So will you. Here is exactly what to do. The Next Five Minutes The most important thing right now is to get to the bathroom. That is step one. Everything else can wait. Once you are there, check the situation. If you do not have a pad or anything on you, folded toilet paper tucked into your underwear will hold things for a little while. It is not glamorous, but it works, and it will buy you enough time to sort things out properly. Then ask for help. This is no...

She will come home one afternoon and everything will have changed. Maybe she will be quiet about it. Maybe she will be frightened. Maybe she will already know what is happening because a classmate told her something at break time, half true and half myth. Either way, her first period is coming. And how you handle that moment will shape how she feels about her own body for years to come. For many Kenyan parents, this conversation never really happened for them growing up. Periods were figured out in silence. Pieced together from whispers in the dormitory, a hurried explanation from an older cousin, or a pad quietly passed under a toilet door by someone who understood without being asked. That was survival. But you have the chance to give your daughter something better. And it starts long before she sees her first drop of blood. Start the Conversation Earlier Than You Think Most parents wait too long. They assume there is still time, that she is still young. But girls in Kenya are be...