Laughing Sisters

The breeze blew into the room, gently shifting the lace curtain covering the doorway to reveal the two cow knees roasting on the charcoal jiko. A toddler sat naked next to the smoking stove, using charcoal bits as building blocks and giggling to himself, as if there was nothing in the world more fantastic than his architectural plans. Our laughter from within made him look towards us. I was in a tiny living room sitting on a sagging sofa with Veronica (one of the research assistants) and two sisters. The older sister sat on the floor while we did the survey, she had insisted there was nothing to hide from her sister and she wanted her to stay. She sat on a woven mat, leaning against the wall with her legs folded beneath her and thought our survey was fantastic entertainment.

One of the questions we ask is whether they’ve had sexual intercourse, the research assistants hate asking this one, preferring just to tick off the ‘yes’ box. She smiled as she answered: “Well…you know...I am Catholic, but I’m not the virgin Mary! Where do you think my four children came from? The Holy Spirit?” When asked if she’d be up for doing self-collection for HPV with a swab in her vagina, she said sputtering with laughter, “why not? There’s much bigger things than that been in there!” My favourite answer however, when asked if she would need her partner’s approval to do the self-collection. Veronica pausing for breath attempting to translate for me, “You’re joking! What do men know about vaginas anyway? What he doesn’t know hasn’t hurt him so far!” The sisters shot jokes back and forth the whole time, it may have been the most entertaining interview so far. They were both intelligent, well-spoken, hilarious women. The laughter in their eyes and bursting out every pore lightened the sometimes intense days we’d been having. It was refreshing. Joy in the slum.

At some point that afternoon Doreen the program coordinator caught sight of my feet. “Sheona!” What?!? I assumed I had just made some kind of terrible cultural faux pas. “Your feet!” A bit of relief, she was just appalled at the state of what Kisenyi had done to my feet and declared that Friday afternoon she was taking me for a pedicure. We laughed some more. It was a good day.