Hi Matthias, Good morning
I'd be interested in knowing how you perceived the African cultures you had contact with, in terms of the leadership of women in social and religious affairs.
I was in Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Kenya. In all of them I encountered Christian women, Muslim women and pagan women.
The social aspect was interesting. I’ll focus on Christians in this post. There is some, but not much, to tell about the Muslims and pagans.
The Christian women were busy but social, and the Christian men tended not to understand why I wanted to spend any time with them. It wasn’t that they were jealous but rather that the women were the workers and the men were the idlers. There were exceptions but that was the general tenor. My speaking with the women was typically seen by men as foolish (on my part), as an intrusion, keeping them from their work. My speaking with women was typically seen by women as an oddity; they smiled, laughed and welcomed my conversation. They seemed surprised, and were flattered, that I took an interest in them. They seldom stopped working for long. They were the family breadwinners.
A few stories for flavor.
When people knew ahead of time that I was going to be visiting their village I was often met with a warm reception - women lined up and singing. Men were there but it was only the women who sang.
There wasn’t a lot of food in the villages, and what food there was typically consisted of roots and the equivalent of grits. Meat was scarce, a luxury, and the people seldom ate it. Women delighted in offering me food to eat. On one occasion the people in a small village had prepared a special treat for me - a basket of fish heads! I don’t care for fish, but only fish heads was particularly unappetizing. The men looked solemn, the women expectant, the children curious. I thanked them for their great generosity. Smiles abounded all around. I explained that I had just eaten before my arrival - smiles were replaced by disappointment - and told them that nothing would please me more than to share their gift to me with them. Smiles returned and the basket of fish heads was passed around. The people - men, women and children - ate them as if they eating apples. It was like a holiday to them. They were so happy, and I was happy - for them and for gracefully finding a way out of eating fish heads.
One day I visited a larger village. The women were busy cooking grits and talking among themselves. The men were in a separate group, far removed from the women. I spoke with the men first and then asked if it would be okay for me to speak with the women. They said that they didn’t mind but it was obvious that I was asking to do something that simply was outside of the norm.
The women were friendly but it was also obvious that they were now outside of their norm. I asked them about the food they were preparing. They said it was almost ready to eat and invited me have some. Since I was a guest, they invited me to be the first to eat. This presented me with two small problems: (1) As a pastor, I customarily am the last one to put food on my plate; if there is barely enough to go around, others will eat and I’ll be fine with little or nothing. (2) There were no plates or eating utensils. Everyone takes turns plunging a hand into the pot, men first.
After a prayer, all eyes were on me. I was holding up the line. Setting my custom aside, I approached the large pot, then, with a smile on my face, glanced around. The men were stoic, the women had warm smiles on their faces and the children were still curious about this outsider - for many of them had never seen a white person before; and to keep them in line, so I was told, parents would tell their misbehaving children that if they didn’t behave that a white man would come and carry them off in the night - I was the boogeyman they feared, dreaded and hoped wasn’t real.
I asked them how to eat the grits. One of the women told me to stick in my hand, pull out a handful, roll it into a ball, put it in my mouth, chew and swallow. I laughed! When I did, everyone did. Go time. I thrust my hand into the pot - uh oh. The villagers’ hands were calloused, mine weren’t. I quickly withdrew my burned hand from the boiling pot of grits and started wringing the grits off of it. The men were perturbed, the women and children were laughing hysterically. I licked the remaining grits from my aching hand and pronounced it delicious. (It was.) The women were delighted! The line started moving and everyone had enough to eat.
Oh, but there’s more. As I watched them going through the line, I noticed a woman walking past with a bucket of water on her head. I commented that it didn’t look easy to do. The women laughed and said they had been doing it since they were girls and it was very easy to do. I asked if it would be okay for me to try it.
There was a moment of silence. Everyone was surprised that I would ask such a thing. This was woman’s work. The men were clearly unhappy and the women didn’t know quote what to say. It was an awkward moment. Then one of the women handed me a bucket filled with water and demonstrated how she effortlessly put it on her head. She removed the bucket from her head and handed it to me. The moment was frozen in time. Everyone just stared, waiting to see what I would do. I wondered myself - then acted.
I placed the bucket on my head. It was heavy. I glanced around. It was like looking into the faces of the dead. I’m sure they were alive and breathing but it was clear that we were all in unfamiliar territory. I took a step or two and felt the bucket shift on my head. There was a gasp. I’m not sure if it was me or someone else; probably several, including me. Another critical moment. What to do?
I was standing near a building. Thinking quickly, I took a step and disappeared from their view. I quickly dumped out the water and reemerged from behind the building - with the bucket upside down on my head and it covering my face. I stumbled around and then whipped off the bucket, revealing a big smile on my face. The crowd erupted in laughter! I returned the bucket to the woman who had handed it to me. She was laughing so hard that the bucket dropped harmlessly to the ground. I was swarmed with women and children. One of the men told me a little later that he thought I handled it cleverly but shouldn’t have, wouldn’t have, found myself in the predicament if had abstained from doing women’s work.
More later.
