Sai Hankuri

Secrets and the Price of Passing

I can’t keep a secret for a minute. I give gifts the day I buy them. When I try to hold something back, my face contorts a little, as if the information is expanding inside of me, fighting to get out. In the end, it always escapes.

No, I can’t keep a secret for a minute. Much less a lifetime.

A surprising number of the women I’ve spoken with have explained to me how through ingenuity and discipline in equal measure they have been able to hide their fistulas from their communities, their friends, their families, their co-wives, and –most impressively- their husbands.

I spoke with a woman who had kept her fistula a secret for 7 years. Anytime she would wet her skirt cloth, she would rapidly wash and change it. “Didn’t your co-wives get suspicious when you changed skirts so frequently?”, I asked. Her cowives had young children, she said. Anytime she felt herself getting wet, she’d reach for the nearest baby. Hold her for a minute, then blame the wet cloth on her (while babies are typically “potty trained” early — often before they start walking — they typically don’t wear anything like diapers).

I spoke with another woman who had hid her fistula for 15 years. From everyone. Fifteen years of waking up at three in the morning, sneaking out of her room where she could secretly wash the rags she used as diapers, hanging them up to dry, lying nervously in bed, and sneaking back out to take them inside and bathe them in perfume before anyone else in the household woke up for the first morning prayer. Fifteen years of vigilant self care. Fifteen years of new hiding places for soiled rags. “How did you manage when it was your night with your husband?”, I ask (in polygamous households, the husband usually spends two consecutive nights with each wife, so women are typically on a 4, 6, or 8 day rotation). She tells me that on her days, and the day before, she doesn’t drink anything and eats very little so that she won’t wet the bed. She gets thirsty, and a little weak, but she says it’s worth it.

“Why hide it?” I ask.
“This disease comes from God. But, why give anyone reason to talk. Because people do talk”.

Astonished.
I am totally awed by her diligence.
A slight smile starts at one corner of her mouth and creeps towards her ear.
The more surprised I seem, the faster it spreads.
My eyebrow raises, I ask her if she isn’t a little proud of her abilities to hide it.

She laughs a little bit and looks down.
“Yes, not everyone could, you know.”

And yet, it must be lonely to keep such a big secret from everyone you love for so long.
The smile begins to recede towards center. Soon it’s gone.
Yes, she says. “Ina jin kadaici” I feel loneliness.

In compounds where as many as 20 people live together, and friends, family, neighbors, and village kids come and go, rarely is one physically alone here. Yet, when such a large part of your identity is hidden away, you feel alone, even among a sea of people.

To look like everyone else, to seem like everyone else. “I’m not a woman anymore”, she says, “But I pass”. And for her, loneliness is a small price for passing.