The first time I had sex I was 20. With 5 years’ experience in masturbation. I got an STI. She manipulated me into sleeping with her. With mandazi. Yes, mandazi. I was a nervous wreck in that bed. Called me a coward for not ejaculating inside her. It hurt. But I was used to insults […]
The demons stared back. Coiling in my bed at 2 am with a sleepless body in the dead of the night. A heavy bag of daunting thoughts. Mum and dad endlessly argued in their bedroom. My heart pounding hard. A woman had called mama, threating to throw her out of our home with us, her […]
Let me count you the ways I love myself: When I was 6, I lost my five month old sister, Jael. Jael Apondi. She died while feeding, food went through her wind pipe. I helplessly watched her life fade away as she choked in the struggle. The lady tried everything to get the food out. […]
Dad was exceedingly brutal on my body, man. Sometimes the beatings were spread out, sometimes bundled in a week. He’d hoist my tiny body to the air and throw me to the wall, like a ball. Only I couldn’t bounce back. He’d stomp his feet on my head like he was eliminating a snake. He’d […]
In neuroscience there’s something called ‘neuroception’. This describes how our nervous systems distinguish whether situations or people are safe, dangerous, or life threatening. As a form of healing, social support like having safe and healthy relationships enable us to ‘co-regulate’. This is connecting to another safe nervous system that helps us rewire our brain to […]
Guys, gather here. We need to talk. All women are the experts of their bodies. We men, will never grasp the magnitude of the challenges they undergo to simply exist on this earth and still be the amazing people we harass all over the place. Now, since we were kids, we were socialized to think […]
The first time I had sex I was 20. With 5 years’ experience in masturbation. I got an STI. She manipulated me into sleeping with her. With mandazi. Yes, mandazi. I was a nervous wreck in that bed. Called me a coward for not ejaculating inside her. It hurt. But I was used to insults […]
Mother’s clothes and shoes lay scattered all over her bedroom floor. A stench of desolation hung in the house. I asked father why he did it. He said it was the anger. Anger made him do it. I feared my 13-year-old sister would be scarred by the mess if she saw it. So I locked […]
Daddy and me, first years Unspoken traumas. When I was 5, daddy would put me up on our living room table whenever he was home, switch his Sanyo radio on and ask me to dance for him to soukouss and rhumba hits. We took evening walks around the neighborhood, visiting his friends’ houses while holding […]
At The Bar My partner and I entered a bar to catch a drink one evening in 2018. We had spent some incredible hours facilitating a gender workshop and thought it fine to enjoy a band over some light conversation while supping some refreshments. The band strapped the evening with their vast swathes of Congolese […]
