Patriarchy on hind legs

I saw patriarchy today. It was on its hind legs.  Arms akimbo, it stood at the door, surveying the room. Appraising all of us. Up, a lesser being jumped! He smiled so wide I feared his face would crack. As he got closer to it, he started clapping his hands in greeting, the traditional way. Then he went down, almost squatting, all the while clapping those hands in this endless greeting. The meeting froze. The cameraman turned the lens towards it. Satisfied with the greeting, patriarchy clapped back to acknowledge the greeting and told the lesser being to stand.

 It was led to the high table.  The special place reserved for it. Up on the podium, from whence it could continue to appraise us. The flowers were beautiful, a massive bouquet that must have cost at least twenty real dollars. Even the bottled water laid in front of it was of a different variety. We all had the cheaper 50 cent sort. Patriarchy sat back in its high chair, took out its three mobile phones and laid them out in front of itself. Not bothering to turn them off, or putting them on silent. Patriarchy is important you see. It must be available 25/7. It cannot miss a call. Besides, it can always answer its phone mid speech, “hello! Yes! It is me. Yes. Me; Honourable/doctor /ambassador/engineer/prophet/reverend/bishop/Mr/father of/Minister/chief/imam”

It always has to remind the caller and all within ear shot, of its importance.

I celebrated patriarchy today. Aided and abetted its power over me, over all of us. There is a special way to greet it. Colourful. Wordy. Full of humility. The longer it is the better. The lesser being took the microphone. Asked another lesser being to welcome the great patriarch, in that special way reserved for patriarchy. Lesser being two obliged. Down he squatted. Asked all of us to clap our hands in unison while he chanted the greeting. A long, colourful praise poem. Praising the totem. Inviting the ancestors of the totem into the room. Thanking patriarchy for gracing us with its presence, we of lesser importance. Then he invited us the women, nay ordered the women to ululate, in the special way that women ululate for power. I do not possess the gift of ululation – fortunately. So I sat with my mouth half open in amazement, while my sisters’ ululation must have rung all the way to Samora Machel Avenue.  Patriarchy fiddled with one of its phones, then, the other. Clearly bored by this performance for its supplication.

I saw patriarchy last week. It was on its hind legs in another room, in another town. It walked into the room late. All the chairs were taken. Mostly by women. There was only the floor mat left, next to the woman in the blue dress. She shifted to make space for it. But it stood erect, and smirked.
Then the women on the chairs got the message through osmosis– make way, make way, patriarchy is here!  Suddenly three chairs were vacant. Oh two more! Plus four more! Such a vast choice. It surveyed the chairs, appraised the room, and chose the one strategically next to the window. It was too hot to sit anywhere else.

Patriarchy is good at 'interpreting' words and others' thoughts. Even when we are speaking the same language; “what this woman is TRYING to say is.....I think the BROADER issue is......The more strategic discussion IS.....

See, it is the role of patriarchy to think for lesser beings, to interpret their words, and even to yank thoughts out of their heads. Patriarchy feels it carries the burden of framing every discussion and reframe it so that we lesser mortals get it/get with the program/abandon our silly ideas/think bigger/think better/generally fall in line.
Then there is the real interpretation. It is the role of patriarchy to provide literal translation for those of us who don’t speak ‘the language’ at all, or well. English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese. That language. It is the duty of patriarchy to translate as well as decide what is important and what is not. I listened to patriarchy two weeks ago, up in Binga, in Siachilaba ward. The women spoke Tonga. The visitors spoke only Shona. Translation was needed.

“I was very happy to buy my own pots with the money I got from the garden”, Georgina said.  

Translation; “haaa, she is just saying some small -small things.”  

I heard patriarchy in Haiti three years ago. It had to translate from Creole to English, for the visitors to understand each other with the women in the program. “Sometimes we don’t even enjoy the sex!” said Marie. All the women affirmed her with claps and whoops. We were bemused. What had she said? No translation. All picture, no sound. We asked for translation, it wouldn’t come. We begged.  Then we got angry. Demanded it! “Well, she just said something very silly, you don’t need to hear it”. Patriarchy clapped its mouth shut and looked the other way. Patriarchy had spoken. It had decided. This was not to be spoken about. Not on its watch.  

All my photos are full of patriarchy. It put its paternalistic arm around me in every picture. I am not sure why. In workplace conference group photos, community photos, social gatherings.  It just wanted to touch. To feel?  To protect? Who? From what? We will never know. We just know we were OWNED.

I can now spot patriarchy from a mile off. I have learnt its ways. Some of them still fox me. Some still surprise me. I just need to get better at dealing with it, when it walk in on its hind legs.

 

More weddings, less funerals

"You are looking for the one who was sick? He is not here anymore. He is gone". My heart sank, I looked at my colleague. He looked down. The old woman was confused, wondering why we were crest-fallen. "No, no! I don't mean gone, gone.  I mean he has gone where others go!" Even more confusing. We only knew of one place where "others" had gone in the last fifteen and more years. Somewhere up in the sky. Or the other wing. The woman kept up her bright smile. "I mean he went Egoli! To Johannesburg! Where everyone goes these days. He needed to find a job. What could he do here in the village? So we found some cash, and sent him on his way. He was now very healthy. Very, very fit. Agh, sorry, you thought I meant he was dead? Oh no. He is very much alive!"

This story was related to me by one of my colleagues in an anti- HIV & AIDS program that my organization supports. The same story has been repeated over and over and these last two weeks as I went around visiting our program partners, and the communities they work with. There are no more Home based care (HBC) patients. Most of them are up and about. Thanks to the availability of Anti Retroviral Treatment in Zimbabwe. This is one big change that has occured since I have been gone. Let me say, since I lost the third of my siblings in 2000. Everywhere we go, the partners have largely abandoned the HBC programs.  Gone are the days of distributing bars of soap, detergents, gloves, and bed sheets. Now it's medication, nutrition, and livelihoods.

One of the things I so looked forward to when I left Zimbabwe was the luxury of spending each weekend in my own house not going to funerals, or to pass condolences for the ones I had missed.  I relished the idea of weeks and weeks without having to bury anyone. I so yearned to listen to, dance and enjoy my favourite Reggae music. I had to clear the space clogged by funeral dirges which had become the songs in my head.  Yet I dreaded the expense of flying out every month to come bury a relative or two. I opened a separate funeral/illness fund. I abandoned it after three years. I had hardly saved anything. 

This whole year I have only buried three people whose HIV status I knew. What bliss! Ok that sounds wrong. But you get the picture.  Both Granville cemetery and Westpark did not look like giant "festivals" when we had the two funerals. Back in the late 1990s, if you were given a burial time of 1100hr you just had to be there at 1100hr, and finish by 1200hr. If you spent too long you would be drowned out by the funeral next to you, and the other one on the other side. Women decked in their church uniforms, the Lutherans in purple, the Methodists in  red, the Anglicans in blue, and the ubiquitous Mapostori in white looked festive and sang in their loudest voices while the drums competed. Anyone passing by the cemetries who didn't know any better would think we were all on colourful picnics. Ice cream, juice, milk and fruit vendors soon found captive markets and they would descend on the "picnic" sites in droves. They made a good killing - pardon the bad taste pun. In 1998, my brothers and I ended up on first name terms with one of the undertakers. "Ah welcome back the Mawarires! Nice to see you!" The poor fellow forgot where he was. Nice to see us? We quickly forgave him, he had seen us thrice, in three months. 

I have only visited two elderly relatives in hospital this whole year, both of them with diabetes. More bliss! By 2001, I could find my way round Parirenyatwa hospital or the Avenues Clinic with my eyes closed. Of course there was always one ward in each, whose very mention you knew what it signaled.  I damaged my left hip going up and down those stairs at Pari by walking too soon after a major operation. We just had to do what had to be done. 

Anti retrovirals are now easily available and affordable. Just last week, I got a frantic call from a friend whose brother did not know how and where to access ARVs.  By the end of that very day, we had three people calling back to say let him come and get them. The very next day, a community based organization dispatched a counsellor on a bicycle to his rural home. ARVs by room service! 
In Binga, one of the remotest, and poorest districts in Zimbabwe where I just came back from, dozens of women and men told me their stories of living with HIV. This in very public forums and in mixed groups. They showed me their vegetable gardens where they grow all varities of veg for themselves and for sale. Some have started income generating projects which - yeah yeah before all you NGO naysayers ask- they actually do generate tangible income! Women and men sang (what is an NGO visit without a song and dance for the 'donor'?) about the goodness of Anti Retroviral Treatment, and encouraged men to accompany their wives to go and get PMTCT drugs.

 HIV is still around. Thousands of people have it. There are even new infections. There are still some people dying. I met two 'peer educators' who between them have six wives. That is not the story for today though. I have been to six weddings in the last year. In my church the wedding banns take at least 20 minutes each Sunday. At weddings and parties if the food service is late, you are sure to hear several people shouting, "hurry up, those of us on medication need to take our pills on time!" And you know they are not talking cancer medication. I am fascinated by women I have seen exchanging stories about their pills, comparing the colours, wondering why they are different. They laugh at one another, "ah my HIV is probably bigger than yours".

Zimbabweans might be poor, suffering under the economic crisis and the political yoke is still around our necks. But AIDS related deaths no longer stalk the land. I am happy that thousands of women no longer have to carry clinics on their heads, as my friend Edna at Women's Action Group once put it. They can get on with their own lives and have a little snooze if they wish.

I have a song in my heart and it's Bunny Wailer's Rock and Groove. It's not Jerusalem My Home. Now where to find a big shocking green hat then a purple fascinator for those two Christmas weddings?