Young eyes should not read this entry.
There is so much that can be said about the cultural
differences here in Zambia, that I don’t even know where to begin. Within
gender roles and acceptance, there are a lot of differences than what I’ve
known in America, and
that is/will be a struggle for me to get used to. Not that I have to accept
their beliefs, but I do have to learn about them, respect them to some degree,
and acknowledge that this is meant to be a cultural exchange.
Women are meant to do all of the house chores here. A woman is considered lazy
if she stays in bed until 8am. A man, however, can stay in as long as he would
like, and wouldn’t be considered lazy. Boys are meant to go to school and get
an education, while a girl is to stay home, care for her siblings, and help her mother with house
chores, while learning how to be a woman and take care of a man. Boys eat first
when meals are served, and will usually get the better food, while the
leftovers will go to the sisters or younger children after he is finished. A woman
is responsible for getting up early in the morning, fetching water, cooking
breakfast, and sweeping the house/outside grounds as well as mopping. She then
does dishes, and serves her father or husband (whoever the male is) their breakfast. She is
responsible for taking care of the children, collecting and washing the dishes,
cooking all of the meals, cleaning the house, washing the clothes, fetching the
water, fetching firewood, selling whatever it is that their family sells, and pleasing her husband to
whatever extent it is that he asks. A woman is to kneel on the ground before
her man, and in some cases, she is not to make eye-contact, as a sign of
respect. She eats after he has eaten and been satisfied with his meal. And if
we can get into sex
practices, as we talk about very often here, it goes even further.
A woman must succumb to sex at her partners’ wishes,
and if she denies having sex with him, it is grounds for a divorce. Before
engaging in sexual activity, a woman must kneel on the ground, and clap 3 times. Every few days, she
shaves her mans private parts, as a type a foreplay. After sex, she is to take
a warm towel and clean his privates, and again, kneel before him, clap, and
thank him. When I explained to my bamama what we consider ‘rape’ in America (for the sake of
definition, I will simplify it as a man taking advantage of a woman through sex
when she has said no and denied him to engage with her), my bamama told me that
badada rapes her very often. Now, I think there is a lot here lost in translation, and I know that
my badada is not a violent man (and is much smaller than my bamama, I don’t
think he could force her to do anything!) and I see a lot of respect and love
for each other in their relationship. I’m sure she just meant that sometimes, when she doesn’t feel
like engaging in sexual activity, he still tells her she has to. Since I am on
the topic of sex, I will explain some other cultural practices around it, and
probably go into more tangents (this post was supposed to be about gender roles, and I’ve already
switched!). Women here wear beads, which is a string of beads worn around their
waist under their pants, never to be seen by anyone but their husband, and worn
as a sort of decoration to please their man. There are three main colors of beads that women wear:
white, red, and black. White is the color that is worn on a normal basis, so
that he husband knows she is okay. Here, men and women, even in a relationship,
do not discuss the female body or things that go on with it openly. That being said, the red beads
are worn or placed on the bed when the woman is on her menstrual cycle, so that
he knows she is not available for sex during that week. When she is finished,
she will put the white beads back, so that, again through indirect communication, he knows she is
okay. And the black beads are worn or placed on the bed when the woman wants to
initiate shaving her husband, and initiate having sex.
Here, it is very uncommon to use condoms, and is pretty
much unheard of in a
married couples relationship. There are different taboos surrounding condom
use, as well as a lot of religious objection to them. First off, if a woman
goes to a health clinic and is educated about condoms, HIV/STI’s, birth
control, whatever- and she is receives free condoms then presents them to her husband to use, he
will think that she is a prostitute and that’s where she has gotten the condoms
(sex workers have really low rates of HIV/STIs in Zambia because they use
condoms!!). Secondly, the myths such as condoms taking away from the feeling of sex, condoms carrying
HIV, condoms not being big enough, wearing 2 condoms=greater protection, etc.
are still believed in a lot of the rural areas. Also, because this is a
Christian nation, talking about condoms is discouraged, as “it will contribute to premarital sex.” When we
go to give health presentations at the schools, we have to check with the
headmasters about what we are allowed to present. They usually forbid the
discussion of condoms, so our ABC (Abstinence, Being Faithful, Condoms) talk turns to an
AB talk. However, the students will bring up the subject, in which we are able
to invite them to the clinic for more information- because off school grounds
we can educate them about everything, and even distribute free condoms.
There are many cultural things that Zambia is learning
from the Western culture and is trying to incorporate into their culture. One
of these is gearing away from girls and boys getting married at the age of 15.
Now there is a law
that they must be 18. There is a high number of very young mothers, I’ve seen a
lot of 15, 16, 17 year olds in the clinics that are pregnant or already with
child. In going to the clinics and from having health talks at schools, young
girls are starting to
learn about family planning, and are learning the safe ages to have children
without putting themselves or their baby at risk for child/maternal mortality.
Polygamy is still practiced in a few tribes here in
Zambia. The tribe that I am now a part of (since I am now a Zambian), Tumbukas, is an example of
a tribe where polygamy is still practiced. I’ve even met many married Zambian
men who have a woman on the side that they are not married to. When I ask if
their wives know, they say yes, but the wife cannot do or say anything about it, the usually just
quietly accept it. However, a woman is definitely not allowed to have more than
one man. From what I learned, there are lower rates of HIV in Polygamist
relationships here, because the man is faithful to his wives. In monogamous relationships, it seems
to be the man that brings HIV into the relationship, by sleeping around and
being unfaithful. Off topic, and because PC says we have to be very careful
about what we say on our blogs, I will just quickly mention: Homosexuality is illegal in this country,
and if it is found that someone is gay, they are sentenced to 25 years in
prison. And according to The New Yorker, Zambian prisons are the worst prisons
in the world.
On the topic of HIV (I’m sorry, this is one component of my job,
so I’ve learned a lot about it!), I will talk about dry sex. So, before coming
to Zambia, dry sex meant something completely different to me. Since coming to
Zambia, I have learned that dry sex is the practice of a woman taking a certain powder or herb,
usually received from a village traditional healer/witch doctor, and placing it
within her vagina to dry her out, so that she feels “tight like a virgin” and
it is more enjoyable for the man. Of course, this causes the woman a lot of pain, but again, it’s
all about pleasing her husband. And as you can imagine, the friction causes the
female to tear, which… hey! open wounds = portal for HIV transmission = another
contributing factor to Zambia having the highest HIV rates in Africa.
Hokay, so, that’s enough of the sex talk. Back to
gender roles.. ish.
Yesterday (Aug 30th, from the time I am writing this) we went to meet His Highness, the
Village Chief. I’m not sure of the exact numbers, but in Zambia there are 9
Provinces, each province
has a main Chief, who serves with the government (well, all the chiefs are a
part of the government), and then in each province, it is divided into several
districts. More Chiefs there. From the district, it is divided into Chiefdoms.
Each Chief has his
Superior Headmen that serve under him, and under them, each village within the
Chiefdom has a village Headman as well. The experience of meeting someone who
is considered royalty here was crazy, and it’s really hard for me to take
serious (although I respect
them and am sure I will learn to respect them more as time goes on) because in
America we view people as equals and don’t really put people on pedestals. It
was weird for me to have to bow down for someone, and we’re also not supposed
to look them in the
eyes. In fact, not only do women have to kneel (men do as well) but women have
to lay down on the ground on their side and clap three times, then roll to
their other side and clap three times. You also have to present a gift to the
Chief, the best gift
being a white chicken. His Highness was dressed in an elegant green robe with a
matching green head cap, and walked with a staff/walking cane, as well as some
fancy stick that seemed to have some animal tail fastened to one end of it. He
entered from the
opposite side of the courtyard as us, and was preceded by a group of women
singing and dancing a song that announces his arrival and sings praise to him.
We all had to stand until he entered, and he was also accompanied by his senior
headmen, as well as his
security guard. Once he was seated, we were invited to take our seats as well
(on the ground) and present our case of why we had come to meet him. He told us
how to properly greet a chief in the village, what the responsibilities are as
a chief, how one is
selected, and many other cultural lessons. He spoke very very highly of
himself, was the complete opposite of humble. But eh, he’s royalty!
I recently got my site assignment, and this upcoming
week, I will get to travel to my future village and spend 4 days there in my hut,
alone! This is to give us a feel of what village life will be like when we are
completely on our own, and see if anyone wants to ET (Early Terminate= go back
to the US). I’m very excited about my site, but I also haven’t been there yet, so we shall see how
these next 10 days go! My counterpart whom I will be working with came to a
host workshop at our training center, and he gave me some information about
where I will be. I have a little over 13 thousand people that I will serve in what is called my
‘catchment area’. I will live in a village called Komsokoto, on the property of
the headman who is named Prince Charles. Prince, for short, has 2 wives that I
have seen pictures of, but possibly more. They are building me my own house, which is a lot bigger than
the typical house that people and volunteers live in here. It is square,
instead of round, and rather than being just one room, it will have 4- two
bedrooms, a seating area, and an indoor kitchen. Usually all the cooking is
done outside, and as
my asthma has gotten worse here from the smoke and dust, I don’t think I will
be cooking over an open fire/brazier inside my house. I will most likely just
use the kitchen to store my food, as a pantry. The bathroom and the shower are
of course outside.
They said I will be able to build a fence around so that I’m able to have
privacy, which will be nice, and will also help keep my puppy inside! As well
as my future chickens. Yes, I plan on building a chicken coop and raising
chickens. No, I’ve
never done this before nor do I know how. Yes, I will learn. And I will
probably fail a few times. But it can’t be that hard, yea? If anything, I
already know how to kill chickens and clean them to cook them!
My house is located about 3km from my health clinic in which I will
work. I will bike to work every day. My clinic is severely understaffed, as it
only has 2 trained staff members, rather than the required 5. My counterpart is
a very educated man, and has gone to med school here in Lusaka, at the most respected Medical school
in Zambia (one that I was possibly thinking about attending after my service
with the Peace Corps, should I wish to stay in Zambia). He is an Environmental
Health Technician, but also acts as the doctor and midwife at my clinic. Which is great for me,
because I really want to learn midwifery and help deliver babies. He’s also
working on a lot of the projects that I’m supposed to do in my community
already. Another great thing, as I am a first generation volunteer. I was
hoping to be a first
gen vol, but I also wouldn’t have minded being a 2nd or 3rd, and coming onto projects that had already been established, in a
community where they understand what a Peace Corps Volunteer does and what our
jobs don’t entail (such as giving money, or doing everything for them). In my village, they
have never seen a white person before. I know I will face many challenges in
being a first generation volunteer here, but I’m also happy that I won’t have
some huge shoes to fill of an amazing past volunteer, and not be able to live up to their
expectations ;) I get to set the groundwork, and represent ‘Merica! And I will
do my best. By golly gee wiz.
-Anya Ambrosia (how I am referred to in my village.. my Tumbuka name for the time being is: Taonga. That means 'Thanks'. I told them it was stupid and to choose a better one for me.) :D
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