Maschio e Femmina in Africa
Mutande
A casa di Nenella, dove abbiamo passato gran parte dell’autunno africano, vige la regola che il personale di servizio non lava le mutande da donna. Ne derivava il fatto che non disponendo ancora di una collaboratrice familiare e non potendo chiedere aiuto a mia moglie, occupata dal suo lavoro a tempo pieno, o a mia figlia, perché è una bambina piccola, il compito toccava a me.
without going into gory details, I can say that washing the pants of girls already presupposes a certain amount of application and good will, but at the end of the task fairly easily.
The problem was when a dozen heads of women's underwear I had to go to the zone tenter through the garden of the beautiful colonial style house. The wires for cloths were placed exactly in front of the staff quarters. I immediately noticed the look of commiseration with open contempt and painful when I watched the two gardeners, two guards, a cook. Nor things were better with the home that give me enough expressions of disbelief. The situation was aggravated
by the fact that the wires were dirty and there were always clean the clips: the precariousness of the situation, typical of a house in Africa, made it more painful than my performance as a spreader.
addition, subject to the gaze of all those people, I could not escape some embarrassment, especially when a few hung on wire or silk lace slip, filled with flowers or ribbons color coquettish. "What will they think of us?" I'm looking at those flimsy incarnations of female vanity. The worst was when the gardener most annoying seeing that I had spent the clips I handed him a grabbing the back of the store and drew back immediately as if to say "I am with this thing you're doing non c’entro nulla”.
Io, un po’ schizzinoso, pensavo invece alle sue mani non pulite e guardavo con scetticismo la molletta. Pareva brutto rilavarla?
Quando cadeva uno slip sulla terra rossa tutti stavano lì a guardare che cosa avrei fatto: la sciacqua? come la sciacqua? dove la sciacqua? Ogni mio gesto era seguito con somma attenzione.
Imparai a uscire per stendere le mutande quando non c’era nessuno, verso le 3.00 del pomeriggio col sole a picco, e Raja, l’ospite indiano che lavora all’ONU, mi faceva da “palo” e mi diceva quando erano tutti fuori per servizio.
Ridevamo tutti e due e sgattaiolavo rapido verso i fili dei panni, ma poi scoprivo che eran tutti là, flattened under the single thread of shadow behind the block to wait for the afternoon ritual of the pants stretched.
Slowly I began to give a damn about their looks of pity and took a look at all proud of my work in the eyes of a faithful husband and loving father. I did not feel less male pink slip soon stretch out just because blacks and whites with bow side.
the end had become a pleasure to go to dry clothes because it allowed me to observe others, to see what would happen every time and look, as does an anthropologist, the people around me and their reactions.
Even at home, now that I have a permanent home, I have overcome the disbelief of the girl who helps us I cook at home when I say I do not have to worry about lunch and dinner. In the garden
women serving our Indian neighbors look at me in disbelief when they see me pass the soap on shirt collars most delicate Cristina, having no time, trust me.
I would also like more time to study and write my essays, but I sacrifice myself for the good of the family. The different forms of domestic work have always been interchangeable in my family and what matters to us is the common good, the joy of living together and renew every day the miracle of love.
Women and men in Africa
The concept of marriage in Africa is very different idea of \u200b\u200bmanhood in this continent does not allow a man to wash the underwear of the woman he loves.
Many men who work daily to Nairobi did not bring with them a sandwich to eat in the lunch break of the day's work. If you do not sit at a bar and there is not a woman to serve lunch, according to them. Many things in Africa will never change because the living condition of servitude allows women to every man, even to the poorest and slaughtered, to feel a king when he comes home.
Women semischiave, take their shoes off her husband to return home, wash, serve the food and often do not eat with him, but by themselves relegated to a place in the house. Often suffer the violence of her husband, are beaten and raped without this being cause for complaint to the police, especially in rural areas.
In many African countries, girls suffer genital mutilation different. One is infibulation, which is the stitching / closing of the vagina with a needle and thread, in order to "preserve" the girl's virginity until their wedding day. Another is clitoridectomy, which is the total excision of the clitoris, in order to drastically reduce the sexual pleasure of the girl and her desire to eroticism. Very often the two procedures are done together, one does not exclude the other. Are conducted without respect to any rules of hygiene and without any anestesia, spesso finiscono in setticemia con la morte della bambina e, per tutte quelle che sopravvivono, il dolore non cessa con la fine dell’intervento e gravi sono i disturbi e i dolori acuti anche a distanza di anni.
L’OMS, l’Organizzazione Mondiale della Sanità, ha dichiarato che il fenomeno è diffuso in varie regioni del mondo, ma in Africa assume proporzioni drammatiche.
Sono mutilate il 97% delle ragazze in Egitto, 99% in Guinea, 92% in Mali, 89% in Eritrea, 90% in Sudan, 80% in Etiopia, 71% in Mauritania, 32% in Kenya, 18% in Tanzania e mancano i dati sulla Somalia dove si presume le FMG (Female Genital Mutilations) siano altissime.
La pratica delle mutilazioni, in queste regions, is part of either the Muslim world, Christian or animist. In addition are the same girls to take such actions that are often highly ritualized nature and form of initiation and an important moment in the girl's life, family and community. The teenagers say, "did my grandmother, my mother did and so will I". Without the "ritual of mutilation, which is often experienced with a mixture of joy and resignation from the girls, marriage is not allowed entrance into society remains precluded. It 'obvious that these measures implying a character blackmail against young African, "If six rules are not expelled from the village, you will never be a woman, you're dead, plague-stricken, no one wants. "
I spoke with hundreds of women's problem, not the young students who are the only cities to live in families that do not follow these "traditions", all consider it a problem in Western society, not them, they refuse to change the culture and we propose to deal substantially else.
In such a context are doomed to failure all the policies imposed from outside which are not the product of a fresh encounter on gender roles in Africa on one's family, the freedom within marriage and rights in civil society.
Many girls I interviewed, along with their parents, they think it is a form of colonialism want to impose our European and "Western" to their ancient traditions.
E 'evident inability of feminism to give European and American contemporary interpretations of the phenomenon that is described as a barbarism, and of course it is, but is not studied in its social, cultural and religious backgrounds. Even
African feminists seems to follow the policies of their Western sisters and their contribution is mainly aimed at an increase in the weight of intellectual women in the continent.
African women, forget the entire world, continue to play all the hard work and are not equal to humans even within marriage. The African men widely practice polygamy with the consent of their own women and with the support of institutions. What is important for a man is to have money to convince the parents of a girl in marriage to grant it.
The early marriage, that the child given in marriage as a child regardless of his consent or his ability to understand something, it is unfortunately widespread. So are "sold" girls aged 6, 8, 10 years.
In rural areas marriage agreement provides for payment in natural assets: livestock, general. For
Aorai Chiodo, South Nyanza region, Kenya, Mzee Ancentus Akuku lives, 90 years. He married his first wife in 1939. In 1950 he had 18 wives. Over the years, has married 130, has held the 85, 45 has the hunted. He said he was never one of those who pay only one or two cows, he paid eighteen or twenty cows every marriage is a man rich enough. E 'HIV.
The description of a good wife by a man in a rural African resembles the figure of a maid / slave / nanny, "possibly male children should do, bring water and firewood, cooking, changing clothes for children, clean my lice , wash my feet. " Only in large
City emancipation of women has gone ahead and made it possible, but only in the higher social classes, a different form of relationship between man and woman, but also in the city are many women who try to "escape" to a remarriage after being abandoned by the first mate or husband.
to intervene should invest in education schools. In Africa, where more than 60% of the population is under 21 years, schools are few and do not have enough teachers.
elementary school classes can consist of 80 or 90 children and teachers, poorly paid, they just give orders and to teach some rudiments from memory.
Good schools, all private and mostly foreign, are only for children of expatriates and wealthy white children of ministers and businessmen.
Universities often pay in a state of decay and neglect and who can go abroad to study, almost always in the country that once had the role of power that colonized and plundered.
Signs
In Mombasa, in December 2009, I saw a giant road sign. There was a man looking town, but quite distinct and the words: "I am a good father and sometimes I do the HIV test" I mean, you know, you assume that a man plays with all the women he wants, but in short, the gentlemen, if you are a responsible father let the test each time so perhaps it is not plagued wives! ... If this is advertising Progress in Kenya wives may resign!
In Nairobi, March 2010, another giant billboard Giggiri: "Investing in girls' education is to make the company" I know that the sign meant, send their daughters to school, do not leave them to "make shoes", but the message can be ambiguous. The emphasis on education for women seems to ignore the fact that, throughout Africa, the boys are just having to get an education and a new sign radicalmente diverso. Non si potrà mai cambiare la condizione delle donne se non si cambiano i pregiudizi maschili sulle donne.
La causa prevalente dell’insuccesso scolastico dei giovani maschi a scuola è il “Machismo” stesso. Quando insegnavo ad Addis Abeba seguivo con altri colleghi il progetto sperimentale dell’Istituto “G. Galilei”. Avevo l’incarico di monitorare la crescita educativa e cognitiva degli allievi delle Scuole Italiane dalla Elementare al Superiore. Molti bambini etiopici apparivano eccellenti alla scuola elementare e alla scuola media anche se già all’ultimo anno della media qualcosa cambiava in peggio. Improvvisamente i maschi non facevano più domande al professore, non intervenivano further discussions on literature and poetry, is robbing the educational dialogue. When asked "Why?" Replied that things were female, that men do not talk about poetry, literature or art. The school, after all, is not important. The model of the teacher took over on the male model made by the austere father, the older siblings, friends of his father and brothers.
studies have been published in the UK that coincide with my observations and report the same phenomenon for the children of Pakistani immigrants and lower layers of the society. Excellent for the Primary School children of poor Asians and Africans are not studying in higher education. Not so for girls, in England as in Africa, with the strongest motivations to continue their commitment to social redemption, even the increase aware that only through the study will find a place to work and greater independence from males.
Moreover we must consider the culture of origin of many young men in rural Africa. When you ask the Turkana herdsmen who is a "real man" give the answer that most frequently is: "a real man is someone who kills his enemy", the second answer is one that does raids and catch the animals. " With a cultural
of such species is difficult to think of sending children to school and farli studiare arte e filosofia.
I maschi africani assomigliano a quello che erano i maschi italiani di una volta. Tramontato il mito del latin-lover molte signore americane ed europee, italiane comprese, cercano avventure con i beach boys delle località di mare in Kenya: i ragazzi scambiano le loro prestazioni sessuali con i soldi, la promessa di un matrimonio, la dubbia ascesa sociale coincidente con il rituale “viaggio-premio” in Europa.
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