CHAPTER 4: MENSTRUAL PREPARATION AS REPRODUCTIVE LABOUR-WORK
4.2 M ENSTRUAL PREPAREDNESS : FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH MENSTRUAL KNOWLEDGE
4.2.8 Ndebele MHMMMs
It is my view that the village elders’ apprehension about early sexual debut (both consensual and non- consensual) reflects a collective anxiety among the Ndebele that is linked to the reproductive labour-work prevent early unintended pregnancy. The messaging around ukuziphatha is pervasively transmitted, even if not completely understood by adolescent Ndebele girls. This is seen with Gogo Betty who says that when she first started menstruating her periods were irregular. With bemusement over her youthful naïvety, Gogo Betty recounts that she once confided in a friend shortly after ménarche that she feared she may be pregnant because she had not had her period in some months. Her friend was surprised and remarked that it could not be possible as Gogo did not have a boyfriend. To this, the then teenage Gogo Betty confessed she had been ‘touched’ by a boy. By touched, she meant that he had touched her hand with his own. Her friend burst into hysterical laughter saying, “You can’t fall pregnant like that. You would have to be another case of the immaculate conception!” This is an example of the kinds of “falsehoods about menstruation and their [girls’] own bodies and possibly make [girls] more vulnerable to maladjustment” (White, 2013:65). Gogo Betty’s surprise about Ntombi having been allowed to swim to swim in the river with boys in the first FGD shows that Gogo Betty – as an elder – is worried about early sexual debut and early unintended pregnancy.
Her views on the impropriety of allowing Ntombi to swim with boys as a young girl is influenced by her Christian upbringing which she shares with me. She concedes that this upbringing shapes her views about the Ndebele culture and Ndebele sexual socialisation. It is evident from the opposing stances of Ntombi’s elders and Gogo Betty that even among Ndebele elders there are divergent views about how and when Ndebele girls should be socialised into sex.
Figure 14: Photograph of insimi yophoko (a finger millet field) taken in Sikelela67
Rapoko’s scientific name is Eleusine coracana. It is not to be confused with marble red sorghum grain (amabele). Finger millet has high drought tolerance (US National Research Council, 1996) and is therefore well-suited to the drought-prone climate in Matabeleland South province (cf. page 79). Speaking on its properties as a Ndebele MHMMM, Gogo NaNambitha recalls that:
Back then [when she was a young girl], what they [the elders] used to do was they would make isitshwala [the Zimbabwean staple dish made from ground grain meal and water to a mashed potato like consistency] sophoko68. I don’t know maybe they also added to medicine to it. They knew that it had properties to shorten long courses.
It shortens the period to make sure that the period would be 3 days long. Others have week-long periods and so this helped with that.
Gogo NaNambitha’s comments reveal how rapoko is a grain that is believed to help with regularising menses. In a conversation with Gogo NaNambitha, Gogo Betty speaks about the uneasiness and uncertainty she experienced when she reached ménarche and found she had an irregular cycle. She explains that she had her first period but did not have a second until almost 6 months later. This type of irregular cycle is a
67 I used this finger millet from this field to make isitshwala sophoko photographed in Appendix C (page 235).
68 See Appendix C, page 235.
catamenial disorder known as oligomenorrhea. Adaji et al. state that “Most women all over the world are aware of their pattern of menstruation and how it affects their lives (2005:147). This may be true once a pattern has been established following ménarche, however, early in one’s reproductive life, as we see with the teenage Gogo Betty, menstrual patterns may be irregular.
Gogo MaGumede confirms this in a one-on-one interview that she recalls that there were some herbs that were inserted in the porridge and that these herbs were known to help shorten the length of one’s period so that it was more manageable. When I probed her about what these herbs were, she said she could not remember. NaAnita (aged 55) also recollects being served iporridge eyophoko with garnishings. She says:
What I’ve noticed though about reaching ménarche. When we started menstruating, there was certain food that was prepared for us when the time came, I don’t know what exactly it was. What happened was, when you started menstruating, you told the elders that you had started menstruating. You would go there [to your paternal Aunt or grandmother] to Aunty or your grandmother] and stay there for a period of time.
They would make you iporridge eyophoko. But I’m not sure what they mixed it in with.
Whether it was a type of bark or what exactly?
NaAnita explains that this was done specifically when a Ndebele girl started menstruating. Ntombi adds that the mixture had to be sipped directly from the bowl in which it was served or scooped using a wooden spoon but that it could not be eaten using the hands. In taking these four narratives into account we can conclude that phoko is believed to be an MHMMM. None of the women know what exactly was in the porridge. In the FDG, upon hearing these accounts, Gogo Betty responds pensively that this is no longer done for young Ndebele girls. This mixture of iporridge eyophoko is part of indigenous menstrual knowledge and preparation that has been lost over time. Among the daughters in the study, none of them mentioned iporridge eyophoko at all. Sanabria (2019) states that, “Various forms of care are extended to plants. They form part of kinship structures, and their genealogies may be entangled with those of the humans who domesticate and propagate them.” The collective forgetting and loss of MHMMMs leads to the loss of kinship structures of care and knowledge on herbs and medicines used in the management of MHH. This care and knowledge of indigenous plants was once a type of reproductive labour-work transmitted from one generation to another. Could it be that this fragmented knowledge transmission is a contributing factor to the early unintended pregnancy crisis?