The Women

Tuesday, February 26, 2012

After a day of nothing quite working out right, we finally got to spend most of our day in the place we aimed to be. I’m getting the feeling I don’t even know the depth of what we are doing or what could be cooking here. It seems like the aim of the trip is just being present and working on building relationships. Today I walked from house to house with one of the young women who knows the alleyways and people well. We would stop and ask if we could talk to the women for a few minutes. I was hoping I could get an in with them as I told them I’m new here and just want to understand their health, life, and struggles better. The women are harder here; harder to get them to crack a smile, always cautious, and not making much eye contact. So different from the outspoken, almost immediately-accepting way of the women I’ve met up north. As we just sat with people in the morning, it’s obvious, the women are almost hidden; either out trying to do “commerce” to make a few dollars or are at home trucking buckets of water back and forth, washing clothes, and just sitting because they cannot even afford to buy anything to sell for a few dollars. I just keep thinking how the oppression of poverty falls to a deeper level to those women.

Most of the women are young, single, caring for their children, and have no way to gain income. They are most likely powerless to the man who wants to spend the night with them, because perhaps that man will give them something to eat or give them some money to live for the next day. This could mean powerless to abuse, powerless to infection, powerless to pregnancy that gives them another mouth to feed. If this is not injustice, I don’t know what it.

I think the reality of what we saw is beginning to sink in. One woman, 35 years, who sat in a 5 X 6 room that is her home. One twin mattress she shares with 3 kids and all their belongings crammed in the room. She sat there washing a mountain of clothes in a bucket. She sees her husband every now and then, maybe next month… Another woman with a 5 year old with severe conjunctivitis, but had no money to take her to see the doctor. A 24 year old, mother to an 8 year old boy; the man she is with now beats her and doesn’t even give her money or food as he used to do. The women who walked past me perhaps 10 times this morning, each time carrying a 5 gallon bucket of water she had refilled at the community faucet on her head to her house.

I know this is just a glimpse I’ve seen and can’t even comprehend what is really going on. Even that they shared with me this much is a gift. The women are on my heart tonight.