Dear Dorothy,

I hope this letter finds you well. Most importantly, I hope you get the chance to read this letter when it finds you. When I read your story I was reminded of my own struggles. Sweetheart, how I wish you and I could hold hands and go to the porter- our creator, and God. I wish we could show him our naked bodies. After all, we were all naked when he made us, weren’t we? At least that’s what the good book says. So I am hoping when we stand before him, he will see the big difference between our bodies and judge for himself, how unfair he has been to us.

My dear, my body is the complete opposite of yours. I am very very slim. I don’t even weigh up to 40kg. Meanwhile I am thirty-four. Yes, you read that right. I am a thirty-four year old woman who weighs less than fourty kilograms. Just imagine what I look like.

I have always been too skinny for any one’s liking. Sometimes when people look at me I can see it boldly written on their faces the statement, “You are too skinny. You should eat something.” Right from primary school to tertiary school, no boy or man looked at me once and turned back to look at me again. When I walk with friends and a man approaches us, it’s never me they are interested in. It’s always them.

When I was in SHS I had no breasts. Even when I was eighteen, my chest was flat. Imagine how that must feel like. The only men who talked to me often said things like, “Eei maame kor fie na kor twa nofuor.” Which is to say that I am still a baby so I should go home and get weaned off breast milk so I can grow properly.

While my classmates in SHS had boys doting on them for their beauty, I was invisible. While girls my age had boys sending them love letters, I was treated like a primary school child. I stood on the side and watched my friends enjoy the attention of their boyfriends. I could only smile and be happy for them even though I too wanted to be seen, loved, and adored.

You said your mom was cautious about how you dressed before going out, that’s good of her. Your mother was protecting you because she knew you had a pride to hide until you were mature enough to know the intentions of men. As for me, my mother didn’t even blink if she saw me with a boy. I bathed outside even when I was in high school. She knew I had nothing to entice men with so she never bothered about how much skin I showed.

I remember how I had to wear many dresses just to appear big. It was only way I felt confident enough to step out of the house.

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The man who called you baby doll and didn’t know your name, I think professed his love for you before breaking your hymen. At least he showed you to the world as his baby doll. It wasn’t like that in my case. Nobody showed interest in me so at twenty-nine, I got fed up and gave myself to the only man who hinted that he desired me. He is a married man. I knew this but I still went ahead and gave my virginity to him.

I regretted my actions the moment it happened so I have cut ties with him. Now I’m back to square one. A place where I am invisible to men.

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Just like you, I also look at myself in the mirror and feel pity for myself. I quite remember recently when my neighbor’skids came to my room and I was dressing up. A little girl of five looked at me and said, “Aunty, you have very small breasts and tiny butts.” I was so heartbroken. All I could say was, “God, has it gotten to this? Even children are mocking the body you gave me.”

Dorothy, what I have learned in all this is that we can’t change anything. We can even go to Atwea mountains to pray and fast for fourty days but nothing will change about the way we look. All we can do now, my dear, is to wait and hope that one day God will send us our Prince Charming so we can also feel true and pure love.

I want you to know that I admire your body and I love you.  Let us armour ourselves as it is written in Ephesians 6:11-13, and we can overcome the weapon fashioned against us by our body.

—Vera

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