Women do the heavy lifting

Jessie Kabwila's article Are Africa's women on the rise? was published as I was preparing to blog about my experiences in the refugee camps of Maban county. The byline cited a "...series of notable successes for African women - with two Nobel Peace prizes, a second president and the first female head of the African Union Commission." I hoped that the article would not let the soaring accomplishments of a few obscure the drudgery that is the perpetual reality of the masses. 

Kabwila's article was a call to action. She discussed the structural imbalances that condemn African women, the majority in rural areas, to lives that are characterized by poverty and illiteracy, and offered suggestions for what would constitute "a female-friendly state".

Kabwila concluded on a note that I agreed with wholeheartedly. "It is good that the number of women in positions of authority in Africa is increasing but for this to constitute a rise in the definition and lives of women in Africa, the structure that produces what is called a person, man, woman and power has to change.

"After that, you can begin to ask if the emergence of women like Joyce Banda means a rise for women in Africa."

* * *

Spot the baby.

I can say with absolute certainty that on the rise is not an expression one could associate with the feminine gender in the Maban refugee camps. I had come away distressed at their condition in life.  Like the majority elsewhere on the African continent, they are the caregivers and homemakers, toiling unceasingly to nurture families. They cook and fetch, while bearing and raising children. Matrimony and motherhood are often experienced early, as girls are generally married off at the onset of puberty. 

Eleven year old Beja, may never go to 
school because her mother needs 
her to help with the children and 
the household chores. Beja came to
 symbolize in my mind the plight of the
 feminine gender, while her brother
 Abdalla, just two years older, 
epitomized the possibilities a
 male could aspire to. 
[Read: Beja's lot in life]

Still, I could not help thinking that the refugee women were considerably worse off, that they were sweating more blood than their counterparts. Uprooted violently from a place called familiar, the safety they found in a foreign land came, in my view, with overwhelming physical burdens that flowed from entrenched beliefs about gender roles.

The situation of the refugee women and girls must have been less difficult in their villages in Blue Nile. Though grateful for the support they were receiving, they spoke longingly of the life they left behind; the mud huts whose walls they smoothed with clay and cow dung. They cleaned their houses, they said, and arranged the furniture, and looked after their children while the men went out to work to support the family.

Unlike the vast camps that brought tens of thousands of refugees together, the villages in Blue Nile would have been much smaller, clustered within reasonable distance from the rivers and wells where women fetched water for domestic use. Family members probably bathed and washed their clothes in streams and rivers. In the refugee camps, someone--girl or woman--had to fetch all the water for household use from the water pump (the standard is 20 litres per person per day... do the math!). 

Most of the vegetables I saw in Yusuf Batil
camp were of the wild variety, culled form
surrounding areas. In Doro camp, which has
existed for a year, many families have
cultivated land.

At home in Blue Nile, the refugees grew their own crops--the sorghum and the vegetables that are their staple food--to eat and sell in the markets. In the refugee camps they received two-week or one-month of back-breaking rations that had to be carried home. This was the current reality; this was the cost of upheaval. Things would change in due course, but for now it was punishing.


In all four refugee camps, girls and women carried 20 to 40 litres of water in buckets and jerry cans several times a day as well as firewood and food rations of up to 90 kg.

Could this child be a day over eight years of age? She was
about to carry 20 litres of water home.

I made a Facebook album (A little help from a friend) with photos of a child assisting another to carry 20 litres of water to her family's tent. I was touched by their show of solidarity. I had no illusions about the loads these children and women were carrying. In Doro camp, I had watched my colleague, an able-bodied healthy man, try and all but fail to left two jerrycans each holding 20 litres of water. A young girl, who could not have been a day over nine years of age, balanced the stick over her shoulder and moved off in a trot.  

In Jamam camp, heavy rain had turned most of the surrounding grassland into a vast lake. I was at the water pump when I decided to follow three girls home.  The footpath was submerged. We had to wade through the water. These barefoot children were carrying about 20 litres of water each; they slipped and slid on the muddy ground as they made their way home. I would given them a hand, but I had tried and failed to lift the jerry cans (never mind carry them!). 

So I followed them, fearing all the while that I might fall into the dirty water. I tried not to think about the creatures that must reside within. The girls fell a number of times. They just got up, adjusted their loads and carried on, carefully trying to make sure the groundwater did not enter the buckets and jerry cans.

I attracted attention with my camera. Young men and boys invariably asked me to take photos of them... which riled me to no end. I had not the Arabic to ask how they could just sit and watch their mothers and sisters toil away day in and day out. 

Each time I followed these girls and women, I was amazed at the physical strength and the sheer spirit by which they must fetch and carry several time each day, in addition to other domestic chores.

As an African woman, I felt for them. It was not hard not to put myself in their shoes. Despite the trauma of displacement, society had maintained its gender roles. Later I would learn that not to conform would be considered taboo. My friend Awino summed it up as we chatted about traditional practices. "That's exactly what our grandmothers and great grandmothers went through," she said. "They didn't have a say in what happened to them." Yet, the women's pain was not lost on the refugees... 

• A young unambiguously expressed the desire to create a better life for his mother. 
• A community leader lamented the situation of women. 
• Two young women who were aspiring to become professionals, spurning the early marriage what was the norm for their peers with the full support of their families, cited education as the only option. 

Young Abdalla, said that when he grew up and became president he would 
build a big house for his mother, and make sure she always had money. 

Umda Ahmed Mahgoub was among the sheikhs who led 32,000 refugees from Bau across the 
border into South Sudan last May. The Umda said camp life was difficult for  women; 
they worked hard fetching water and firewood, and looking after children. He lamented the 
lack of work for men; they were idle most of the time, when they should be working the land.

The lovely outgoing Amuna, flanked by her brothers, said she must go to school. I asked how. 
Most young women of her age that I had seen in the refugee camp had at least two children. 
She responded that she would not get married  until she has completed her education. She was 
in the 8th grade. She believed proper education would help her make proper decisions in life. 

The lovely Sena (smiling at the back) was waiting to be interviewed at a teacher recruitment 

exercise. There were five girls and at least 75 boys applying to become teachers that day. Sena

 hoped to become a doctor. She said early marriage was not good; the responsibility would too

 much if you were not educated. You would not know how to take care of your children well. 

Sena said because of the war, women were working too hard. She said they needed rights and

lighter work. Husbands needed to get jobs so that women could take care of children at home. 

That refugees were concerned about the excessive burdens on women was encouraging; tiny drops of hope in a mighty ocean. I raised the matter with a young man who spoke fluent English (...this signified that he was educated), fully expecting that he would be sympathetic and perhaps offer ideas about how the issues could be tackled in a culturally-sensitive manner.

He laughed derisively at the idea that men or boys should help with domestic chores. That would never happen in his community, he said. Such a man would be banished. 

He painted a gloomy outlook that was reminiscent of the The myth of Sisyphus. I had to bite my tongue (I had asked, after all) as I listened to him explain that a man could never carry water of firewood, or do domestic chores. That was taboo. Women could never be leaders in his community (I wanted to block my ears). He said he didn't understand those African countries that have women as presidents. 

With all the calm I could muster, I told him his people would never progress as long as women were downtrodden. I meant it. 

I had come face to face with the force of the cultural impediments to the progress that was needed to change the lot of women, the kind of progress where people challenge their own taboos and assumptions in favor of rationality. 

Later I was reminded of that young man and the uphill task of reconsidering taboos when my colleague, Allison, tried to lift bundles of food weighing easily 90kg that a refugee woman was about to carry, and then took on the men who were standing around. "The women carry and the men use camels," she said. They thought it was funny.

Lest I convey that the refugee men struck me as being layabouts while women did all the work, this is not true. I did get the distinct impression that men worked--including doing heavy lifting (such as at the food warehouses)--where such labour generated income. 

Evidently the taboo battle is in the realm of hearts-and-minds. I daresay, it can only be won in the classroom, where girls and boys interact as equals and where empathy can grow naturally from a willingness to challenge prevailing assumptions. One more reason to push for universal education.

There is cause for optimism; light at the end of the tunnel. In all the meetings I attended with refugee leaders--who were always men--they pleaded for education for the refugee children. There are now 16 schools in the four Maban refugee camps, and 30 early childhood development centres. All are temporary structures constructed with plastic sheets and grass thatch. Of the 17,631 enrolled kids, 45% are girls. 

I remain hopeful that the day will come when communities that undergo upheaval recognize the folly of not taking on domestic burdens shoulder to shoulder. Men and boys can do the heavy lifting too.

Wading through the water is treacherous. I should know; I did it.  The dry ground has got to hurt
their feet, which will be all soft from the water. Still, they have no choice.

This woman told me she went to the water pump four or five time everyday. She said she had a
husband and five children. She said she had no  choice; it was her duty. In any case, she could not
 use the rainwater for domestic consumption, she said.

Her little brother was sick; she was bringing him home from hospital with another young child in
tow, no doubt doing her bit to help a mother who is overburdened with domestic chores.

I could have hugged him. Some lucky mother, wife or sister somewhere could get on with other
 household chores while this handsome chap went out to collect firewood. It could not have hurt.

Food distribution

Food distribution day.

Food distribution day.

Families that own camels and donkeys are better off;
those with the means also rent transport services.

MEN AT WORK

A child rights conundrum

All names have been changed and photos blurred to protect the identities of the concerned people.

Muna cut a forlorn figure at the roadside, her two year old son straddling her hip. 

She was deeply troubled. She had elected to move to another refugee camp with the man she loved and her two young children. Her father, a community leader, had forbidden her to take her four year old daughter with her. 

But, it was the desperate gestures of another woman that caught my attention at the UNHCR transit centre that morning. 

The convoy taking refugees to their new homes in Gendrassa camp had stalled. The vehicles were lined up on the road with the ambulance carrying elderly persons in the lead. Passengers were all seated in the UNHCR bus, mostly women and children. Able-bodied men generally ride on the back of trucks with the family belongings. Others walk the 70km distance herding cows and goats, and arrive in Gendrassa many days later. 

I noticed a woman of indeterminate age in the middle of the road behind the bus. There was a young man with her and one of my UNHCR colleagues. The woman seemed to be pleading with the young man. At the same time, my colleague was appealing to her to get on the bus, giving reassurances that her son would be safe with UNHCR. The woman did not seem to be convinced. 

Later I learned that she was a widow. She had several young children on the bus. The young man, whom I shall call Yusuf, was her eldest son. 

By then I had been in the refugee camps long enough to recognize the importance of families maintaining togetherness as a coping mechanism. Later I deduced that Yusuf's mother had legitimate concerns about her son's security, and desperately wanted him to get onto that bus. 

Yusuf, on the other hand, chose to remain in Jamam with Muna, the young woman who had chosen to be his bride against her father's wishes. By daring to live with Yusuf she had incurred the old man's wrath. The father had forbidden Muna from taking her four year old daughter with her.

Eventually Yusuf's mother allowed herself to be convinced. She boarded the bus albeit reluctantly, and the convoy left for Gendrassa. I approached the couple to hear their story. 

Muna told me the people from her village walked for five days before reaching Elfoj at the border. They fled because of war. She and her husband Muktar carried their two children on their backs; the boy was then a little over one year old and the girl was just over three.

Muna said they all lived in Elfoj for about a month. During that time, Muktar divorced her, invoking ṭalāq in accordance with tradition. According to Muna, Muktar told her father he wanted nothing more to do with her (Muna) or their two children.


In due course, the community was transported by UNHCR and NGOs from Elfoj to Jamam, where Muna lived with her father and the rest of the family. 

Sudanese refugees in Upper Nile live in clusters that are named after their village of origin, in a sense maintaining the social fabric that would have been ripped by the trauma of forced displacement. This being said, the choice of where to live is voluntary; no individual is forced to live with their community. 

To me, Muna's defiance symbolized a chip off the old block. She said her father was headstrong, a very proud man. He owned plenty of cattle and was the sheikh (leader) of his community. Audaciously she had chosen to go away, to marry Yusuf against her father's will. Still, she conceded, if he refused to release the child she had not the power to go against that wish. It was evidently more than a battle of wills. The rights of a child, her child, were at stake. 

Muna was heavy-hearted. She said her little boy was very attached to Yusuf's mother. He had cried to see his would-be grandma go away that morning. Her uncles had advised that she (Muna) should just go. She was tempted to do so, but something was holding her back--she could not desert her own flesh and blood. Her own mother died when Muna was a young child. "A child's place is with the mother," she said, adding that her daughter was ill with fever and was not eating well. She needed to look after her.

Muna showed me her ration card. Both her children were registered in her name, according to UNHCR regulations. As the principal caregivers, mothers are entrusted with the responsibility for collecting entitlements on behalf of their children. Exceptions are made where the mother is absent or is otherwise unable to care for the child. An example of underlying concerns is that a man might remarry, or divert  (eg. sell) food and other forms of invidivual assistance, and thus deprive the child or children.

I probed, trying to make sense of Muna's story. Was she perhaps betrothed to a man of her father's choosing? No, came the reply. Was it a matter of dowry? Negative. In accordance with tradition, Yusuf's family had approached Muna's father to ask for her hand in marriage, offering to pay dowry. Her father had turned them away. Muna's elder brother and her uncles pleaded on her behalf. Her father would not hear of it. Muna could go with her son, he said. His granddaughter would not leave his homestead. 

Muna's maternal uncle Karim found us chatting. He said the old man did not want Muna to leave; he was against the marriage. He said Muna's first husband, Muktar, had since remarried and was living in Jamam with his new wife. He (Karim) and others had tried to get Muna's father to change his mind. The old man was intransigent, arguing that if the children's "owner" were ever to come for them he wouldn't know what to say. In their tradition when a couple divorces, the children become the father's property. 

Afterwards I had a quick chat with Yusuf. He confirmed my suspicion that his mother had been afraid he might come into harm's way in Jamam.  He did not understand what Muna's father had against him. He had humiliated Yusuf's people. When they had approached him to ask for Muna's hand in marriage, he turned them away. Yusuf said he would live with Muna as man and wife, and would look after her children. Yusuf did not think the old man would agree to release Muna's daughter. 

I bade the couple goodbye, puzzling over the conundrum that was revealed to me through a chance encounter by the roadside. Muna's determination to put right the unjustness of her father's decision was remarkable. She could have boarded that bus with her son and Yusuf's family, and gone off to start a new life. She didn't. I thought to myself, Muna's father might disagree with her choices, but did he have the right to prevent her from being with her young daughter. Did the child have rights? Did the mother have rights? 

As we drove back to the UNHCR office, I contemplated the motives of the father I had not met. I saw in his intransigence a risk that he might blind himself to the gathering clouds of change. The unceremonious uprooting of his community and the forced displacement that had brought them to South Sudan were omens. The change would take place imperceptibly with one precedent - and then another - provoking sporadic shocks... 

• He viewed his daughter's actions as an affront... a shock for sure. 
• Would he then not perceive the enforcement of child rights as encroaching on inviolable customary laws... shock. 
• Management of activities in refugee camps would be transferred to elected committees; progressively youth, women, older persons and persons with disabilities would have a voice in decision-making, perhaps emasculating his iron grip ... shock, shock, shock. 

My imaginings evoked the experiences of Obi Okonkwo, protagonist in Nigerian author Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.

Even now, as I speculate about an individual whose side of the story I did not hear, I wonder how Muna's father could possibly to justify his actions.

As for Muna's story, it is for me a reminder of the distance women the world over still have to go to have their rights and choices respected.