Cow Bells in the Air??

I recount this only out of utter amusement. There has been no change in my marital status as far as I know.

Yesterday we found ourselves again in Lobira on the way home from a long day in the field. We are building a health unit in Lobira as well as training the teachers in the school (I’m glad to report that we successfully scored a new blackboard for the school when we met with the education director in Ikotos the other day!!), so there is always something to be done. While the rest of us waited for Michele (who is supervising the construction of the health unit) to speak with some of the workers, we chatted with those workers and teachers milling around the center. The conversation soon turned to cows and then obviously to marriage prices. Basically, people here still hold fast the dowry system. One wife costs about 25-50 cows depending on her quality. If you see these cows though (so thin and so small, dirty, mangy, you name it) you would not feel all that respected knowing that was all you were worth.

So Jeff began having some fun with one of the workers who asked if I was his wife. “Yes, that is her,” Jeff said. “She was very expensive. Guess how much I paid for her?” The guy tried to guess, but was unsuccessful. I was shocked at the low price he thought I was worth!! “Oh, but you see, her father is a very rich man and she cooks and cleans well. She is worth much more!” Jeff said. “I bought her for 200 cows. And they were fat!” The guy was shocked. “No woman is worth 200 fat cows!” he said. They spent the next 15 minutes trying to convert the price of 200 cows into Kenya Shillings. It turns out that I am worth one million KSH, which is really only about $10,000. Definitely not enough to buy me, given my usefulness, quick wit, intelligence, good looks, humility, and excellent taste in music and basketball teams (ps – I met a guy with a Tarheels jersey on in Torit the other day! It was awesome. I wish only I had taken a picture. I have not, however, seen a Duke jersey anywhere in Africa. The Heels are becoming an international force now. It’s sensational! Dr. and Mrs. D – I was super excited to hear that THE STACHE will be coming to Charlotte to join my boys. You’ll have to join Steve and Steva for a Bobcats game soon!). “In America,” Jeff continued, “You can’t buy a wife for less than 90 cows, and those women are very ugly. They can’t cook and they are willful,” he said. I just about peed my pants at this comment. “Are you ready to come to America? Could you afford a wife there?” The guy was super unwilling. It was priceless.

I am constantly reminding Jeff that we can be a good example to people here in terms of how women and men should relate to each other. But he seems to find it super fun to talk about beating me and about how many children he has with his co-wives. I’m less amused. I keep trying to convince him to let me fight him in public, and then at the end he will fall and I will put my foot on his chest in triumphant victory. He rarely lets this charade take place. I really think we are losing a golden opportunity.

But seriously, women here have the worst lives ever. I can’t begin to recount how imbalanced the roles are. The UN reported Sudan to be the worst place in the world to be born a girl!! Not only do the women do all the work (and by all the work, I mean ALL the work – planting the fields, carrying water (usually two 20 liter jugs on their head at a time – Jeff tried with just one and could barely walk and he is a beast! I can barely lift one from the bore hole to the shower.) cooking, cleaning, watching the children, collecting firewood, etc). The men are most of the time found sitting under trees playing cards and drinking beer. Not kidding. And the worst part is that since the women and young girls have so much to do during the day, many of them are not allowed to come to school so the cycle is perpetuated. Convincing parents and teachers, or at least planting the seeds regarding the necessity of “girl child education” is my biggest priority in the short time I have here. It is definitely an uphill battle, though. Most schools that I have visited have less than ¼ female to male enrollment. And most girls are forced to marry young (of course for the cows – the main source of currency here), and with this dynamic created, girls are thought of as merely a source of potential wealth. So they marry young (many times by 14 or 15, if not earlier) and then begin to have children, and this does not stop until they grow old and are unable to have children. It’s really sad that most of them will not realize their full potential or any potential in terms of access to education or opportunity outside their homes or villages at any point in their lives. I also realize that my dreams for them are not their dreams for themselves. They value very different things than I value and hope for different end results than I hope for. But I know they know that there are better things out there. I have met many bright, educated women here in Sudan who know the value of opportunity, and many bright, uneducated women who have a burning desire to be educated and to see their children educated. I only hope that as time goes on, these women will become the role models to the young girls in their communities and will be figures that those growing up in their presence wish to emulate. I’m convinced that when we see a vision of what we can achieve and become, we will work hard to get there – we will know that a goal is attainable. If there are people around us that we look up to, who have lives similar to those we aspire to have, we will be motivated to change ours to get there. But without that vision and example to work towards and spur our desires on, we have nothing to hope for. So I am encouraged that there are beacons of light, even if only a few, in this place to be examples of hope and faith to those they live among. The people that I have met love their land and their people and want to see their lives improve. I can now appreciate how twenty years of war can devastate a place and halt forward momentum in technology and living standards of the people who live through it. But they are strong and they will move forward…