It's interesting what they say, the non-educated ones especially - as they don't give us answers they think we want.
Most of them tend to the cattle, waking up at six, milking the cows, cleaning the homesteads. Only a few work as teachers or in any kind of formal employment. The highest position they aspire to is councillor. But perhaps this is only because it is the closest within their reach. Most of them are married. And so they have all been circumcised.
We take exceedingly sweet milk tea during our breaks that has this burnt taste in it. We watch the women interact with one another, sipping the same sugar tea and yapping away in Maa.The organisation had arranged to conduct human and legal rights workshops and medical trainings (the dangers of circumcision) and so these carry on while we continue our questionnaires.
We interview a few men and they are decidedly more arrogant in comparison. But their testimonies are of equal note; they bring up the conflict of new and old worlds, the question of land and registration, that they prefer women uncircumcised because they feel warmer. I decide I want to write a story about it. But months later this blog entry is the closest I have to doing it.
We stay a total of three days doing the questionnaires. And every night Dr. Maria tells us the saddest stories of events at the hospital. A thirteen year old, leaving her baby to die of neglect because she is both depressed and not prepared to take care of it. Pregnant women dying because their husbands won't allow them to come to hospital sooner. The way the leathery feel of the clitoris (healing after circumcision) rips every time a woman gives birth... It is enough to break anyone's heart. And Dr. Maria's heart is clearly broken. She consoles herself she says by writing journals. But this is not enough I think, a good support system and periodical breaks are in order.
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