My First Period

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.3 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 19 September 2017

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Periods are a taboo subject in many parts of the world. But for some Tanzanians, like BBC reporter Tulanana Bohela, a girl’s first period is celebrated. When she got her first period her female relatives gathered round to shower her with gifts. They sat her down and gave her life lessons on how to be a woman. One of those lessons was that she must keep her periods secret.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello from the BBC World Service and welcome to the latest edition of the documentary podcast.
0:07.5	Every week we bring you a range of stories from our presenters and reporters across the
0:11.9	world.
0:12.9	If you have the time, please rate the documentary on your podcast app and leave us a comment.
0:18.1	Let us know what you think.
0:19.1	There are some roads, we've got to love them, we're in traffic, we're in a car headed towards
0:28.1	town.
0:29.1	Today and we are going to the city centre to buy Kangas.
0:36.0	Kangas are a special type of fabric, they're basically a fabric, a cotton fabric that
0:40.7	have different decorations on them and especially what's special about them is that they have
0:48.2	printed messages on them that can come in the form of proverbs or similes or just messages
0:53.4	depending on the celebration that you have.
0:55.9	Now during the first period Kangas are a very special part of the ceremony because the
1:02.7	girl gets get Kangas that are printed with special messages that give her advice as to
1:07.8	what she do once she's now become a woman.
1:11.9	So we're going to look for Kangas that are similar to the ones that I got during my first
1:16.3	period.
1:19.2	That's right, you heard it, my first period.
1:23.4	It's kind of weird seeing it out loud.
1:25.6	It's a subject matter that's surrounded with so much taboo in my country and yet as you
1:30.8	can hear, a time for celebration too.
1:34.3	I'm Tulanana Bohela and for the BBC World Service I'm going to let you into the world
	...

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