The Fine Balance

Every time I get on a plane to travel from Africa back to Europe or America I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone.  Truly, the differences between the “first world” and the “third world” are like travelling between worlds and to imagine that they are just different places on the same planet is pretty mystifying.  In some ways the adjustment to living here again and adapting to life has been easy and enjoyable (I owe this to the fact that this is our second time around.)  It has been relatively easy to adjust to cooking with the ingredients that are available, and I love that we can get most easily and economically fresh fruits and veggies that are for the most part, organic.  I have no problem with the lack of entertainment.  I love to read above all things, I’m getting time to learn to play some musical instruments which I have wanted to do, and family time is much easier to come by which is probably the greatest benefit of living here.  We have a lot of good friends among the Kabiye people and I honestly love them.  

However, there are deeper parts of the culture here that are quite staggering to observe on a daily basis and almost impossible to wrap one’s mind around.  I have come to believe that a key issue in African culture is power that is mismanaged and therefore pollutes the lives of just about everyone.  The often fruitless struggle for power has many manifestations, but in my opinion the most pervasive manifestation is gender inequality.  

Here a crowd will lynch a person who steals in the market, but a man will also hand a young daughter over to an older man to form a beneficial relationship for the family.  Boys are seen as virile and strong because of sexual conquests but girls are defiled and used up.  In fact, the Kabiye word for a divorced woman means “used up.”  When a woman has a child, the father’s family and even her brother has more say in the child’s life than she does.  Children are FREQUENTLY taken from the homes of women by male relatives at the male relatives will and a woman has little to no recourse.  Spousal abuse is an acceptable means to “correcting” your wife.

I am not making a case for man bashing.  I don’t see it as a problem of men being evil and victimizing women, I see it as a human problem as people mistreating other people, and it just so happens that it in this case it is based on gender distinction.  It seems that here people often have needs and responsibilities that are outside of their power to fulfill.  That’s a hard thing to cope with and people often turn to destructive coping patterns such as exerting power where they can, over those subordinate to them.  In the case of this culture, women are subordinate to men and therefore become the recipients of a man’s anger and frustration.  Who then, in turn, is subordinate to a woman?  A child.  Thus the cycle perpetuates itself and becomes the modus operandi for the whole community.  

John Mayer penned the lyrics “Power is made by power being taken…” and those words echo in my mind frequently as I live among and interact with people here.  Some situations are so sad and seem so unjust, and to my mind, absolutely unacceptable.  Yet they are approached with resignation because people here are powerless to resolve them.  It makes me reflect on how privileged I am to have grown up in a place where I was taught that I can make my own decisions and chart my own path.  

I don’t deceive myself that the work we are doing will change the whole culture, but I am glad to stand beside those who fight for each small step and who seek healing from these hurts.  I feel honored and privileged to know and learn from these people who live in such hardships and yet live with joy and peace in Christ as if unassaulted.  Witnessing the indomitable spirit of another is both a salve in times of pain and an inspiration in life.