The gorgeous sunlight soon hid behind dark, looming clouds. The Kenyan nurse kept looking nervously at the darkening sky and then shooting me shaky smiles, trying to tell me in very broken English that a storm was coming.
I didn’t panic immediately. I had no idea what time it was, but we would be swooped up by the giant steel bird at any moment, right? Right. Because I was very poorly prepared to spend the night in the mountains where I could barely communicate with anyone about my bleeding uterus. I could hold my pee for another 12 hours. Skipping a few meals was not even a little bit of a problem. I had enough clean water for 24 hours if I rationed well. But I couldn’t figure out a way around The Tampon Problem.
The sky started spitting on us and we heard the helicopter whirring in the distance. The nurse and I packed up quickly, made the short hike back to the clearing just in time to meet the helicopter. The pilot got out, threw our bags in the luggage compartment, dumped out all of our drinking water, and we were zipping through the air two minutes later trying to outrun the imminent storm.
Read Carrie’s full story on her blog at Our Stable Table… (Seriously. This may be the most epic period story you’ll ever read. AND there’s a giveaway! Check it out!)