It’s a time of globalization, of small-world antics, of international disasters reaching our homes from abroad, and the world’s laundry hanging out for all to ignore. Foreign aid is a sexy way to balance out armed conflicts and Africa receives the lot. Mozambique has about 50% more foreign aid coming in than it did in 2002, yet farm production levels have remained the same since 2002, and 81% of the population lives on $1 per day, also the same as in 2002. I am often told by NGOs and foreign aid funders that I am valuable because of my perspective. After living in rural Mozambican communities for 3 years my days spent here are almost worth more than my education. I know rural Mozambique and understand many of the real reasons why it has not caught up, or even is not catching up. There is no single answer to explain why this country is poor, but I feel that a perspective on life here helps immensely. My hope is that my perspective will help me find real solutions to some of the challenges this country faces, but also inform others of what life is actually like beyond media images and journalistic snapshots.
Over the next few weeks and months, I’ll be posting about this, topic by topic. Feel free to email me with requests or comments. And remember, these are my observations based on 3 years of experiences and discussions.
Sex:
Its really popular here and the reason we’re all here, so why not start here. People have a lot of sex, and they start young (around 14yrs old). Now, sex here has a different motive, because its believed to be a man’s need, like a physical need. Consideration for a woman’s needs are not considered. So a married man has sex when he wants and those not married call on any girl they can to get some as well. Its almost as if they are starved for sex and always hording what they can get, when in reality there is no shortage. This then connects directly to gender equality and womens’ rights, because they have little say in sex and it is expected of them. Occasionally female friends stay at my house when they are traveling through town and unable to make a bus connection out of town. When my friends in town learn that a woman spent the night at my house they immediately want to give me high fives and make other insinuating physical gestures. When I remind them that the woman that stayed at my house was a friend, not a girlfriend and that it is physically possible to sleep in the same room as a woman and not have sex with her their response is often, “Yes you can, but why would you!” Men assume they have the right to always have sex and they believe that women do not have this right at all. This right that men have also often justifies infidelity.
Condoms are common here. Most bars and stores sell them and hospitals and NGOs offer them for free. However, high availability does not imply high usage. Men and women in the States often use condoms as birth control as much as if not more than for disease prevention. In Mozambique the number of children you have is a sign of strength and fertility, and there is no stigma about having many children with many different women. Furthermore, the under 5yrs mortality rate for children in Mozambique is 14% (as opposed to an average of 9% in other developing countries and less than 1% in USA/Europe). It is very understandable that parents want large families because the odds are that all of their children will not see their 6th birthday; this is fact. To complicate this further, the average citizen does not have any form of IRA, pension, investments, retirement fund, etc. The old are supported by the young. In a country in which 70% of the population’s primary economic activity is rural agriculture (99% of all farms are in the smallholder sector), it makes sense to have a family of 8 to: 1) support you in your old age, and 2) work the family farm. Having a lot of kids, even from a young age, is a point of pride, and to a certain extent having children all around the province, or even around the country, further augments one’s stature. There is no shortage of education about HIV and other STDs, but stigmas surrounding even discussing them makes not using a condom easy. To a certain extent using a condom is a sign that you have a disease to give. Furthermore, I suspect that a woman has little say regarding a man’s decision to use a condom or not.
Gender Relations:
Gender equality programs, awareness, and measures exist in quantity here. April 7th is Mozambican Womens’ day and is a nationally recognized holiday. There exists a national womens’ organization. NGO monthly, trimester and annual reports always ask for participant data in terms of the number of male and female participants. Additionally, Peace Corps Volunteers in the country have started a network of girls’ youth groups throughout the country which are aimed at empowering the girls through different activities.
All of these efforts and projects and recognitions are extremely important. However, sometimes numbers of women participating or public ceremonies of recognition for women are interpreted as grand measures of success in womens’ rights. In the States first women fought for their own rights and then they were publically recognized often decades late and posthumously. I am not implying that women do not deserve right until they fight for them, however, recognizing women for their everyday actions doesn’t always have the same empowerment effects. Women here have not struggled here for their own rights as they did in the States, but more often were told they had rights; grassroots versus top-down. This has made its adoption into the moral cultural fabric slower by both genders. I know women who are strong, out-spoken, and amazing, who will still concede to the word of a man just out of what appears to be instinct. I also know men who are in positions of power, who speak out for the need for women to be included and their equality promoted who then discriminate in the workplace and in social scenes against women. However, if you just look at the numbers of female participants this inconsistency is very hard to see. In my experience, when visitors from our funders come to see our field work they often ask about the number of women active in the project and are certainly pleased to the point of asking no further questions if they learn that more females than males are involved in the project. Getting women and girls to participate is easy. The challenge is finding a way for both sides to value the contributions, words, thoughts, presence, and strength that woman have. This is done by means of all the aforementioned programs and ceremonies, but these numbers need not be the end itself.
It is so hard to combat the mentality that men and women are just different and that these differences are immutable. Both sides will laugh at comments contrary to this. When describing the Masters degree that my wife is earning in the States I always point out that in little time she will be more educated than me. This very often causes mouths to drop and the “Well we, Africans…..” comments to roll (more on those later).
