Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 10:19:28 +0300 [05/20/2009 02:19:28 AM CDT]
From: Lawrence Nzuve
Subject: Re: Proverbs/Sayings on Women’s property rights and a petty update

Bro Omtatah

That was really comprehensive. You saw a lot and am happy you have something to bring back home. On the Kenyan Episcopal delegation, that was really bad. It stinks. Am almost ashamed of professing the faith. Anyway. I cannot judge lest i be judged. They should however put their act together.

As you always say, peace
—
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On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 5:10 AM, Okiya Omtatah Okoiti wrote:

Peace be upon you.

1. Petty this-and-that updates

I am somewhere on the Sudan-Central African Republic border, learning loads as I travel, eat and sleep harsh through some of the war ravaged villages of the vast Southern Sudan territory, in some areas seeing returning refugees literally rebuilding from scratch, trying to make sense of the tragic nonsense that is war.

I began on the Ethiopian border (where I was hosted by my former Xavarian secondary school teacher, from Boston USA, who is doing very commendable work setting up a girl’s secondary school in the middle of “nowhere”). I plan to move down to the Uganda border, then cross back through more villages to Torit and onto Lokichogio for a flight back to Nairobi. It would have been easier and shorter to go to Entebbe from Nimule (on the Sudan-Uganda border), but I want to avoid Uganda like the plague for now. (For personal health reasons.) Other than one day in Torit, I have largely avoided urban areas coz I want to see the real people, not Kenyan professionals working in Sudanese cities. I have stayed with Catholic priests totally embedded in the communities they serve.

For example, I had never seen a priest digging with a hoe like a peasant to grow his own food for subsistence… Fr. Santalino, a Madi man, does that every morning with the peasants. Many local priests (they have seen as much school as their Kenyan counterparts, whom they trained with in Nairobi and Rome) lead Spartan lives among the peasants, providing them with vital (spiritual and material) services as they rebuild their lives. (Some of the priests are ‘warriors’ who experienced the pangs of war behind SPLA lines, or as prisoners of the Lords Resistance Army which abducted and tortured quite a number of them. And, for a few days, the SPLA, kidnapped the legendary (retired) Bishop Taban Paride.)

At the operations base of the Catholic Diocease of Torit, not at the bishop’s residence, meals are a family affair – the bishop, priests and all workers ( did not see any nuns) eat from the same humble table laid out on the veranda – no hierarchy. Among the workers are two Muslims who practice their faith freely and openly. I would love for our Kenyan Catholic bishops (I am not familiar with other churches) to tour and rediscover their faith before the sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger. For example, when they travelled for a regional bishops’ meeting in Arusha a while ago they are reported to have distinguished themselves as being the only episcopal group that carried their food and cooks, and expensive drinks, from their home country, and cooked and ate lavishly in seclusion from the other bishops. Hata kama ni ugali na tsimondo tsia tsisindu (posho and gizzards from quails), this is unacceptable!)….. The social rot extends beyond our politicians!

BY THE WAY, THE COOKING BY LOCALS IS EXCELLENT. YOTE NI TRADITIONAL FOOD – THE KIND MY LATE PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER USED TO COOK. For example, meat is smoked, before it is cooked in simsim sauce, etc. People don’t eat fresh meat like foxes. My paternal grandmother was of Luo extraction and here ni Njaruo tele. M7 hana bahati. In fact, the Luos in Kenya look like mutations. if not, they are just the tip of the Luo Iceberg hidden in the confusion that is vast Africa. There are many other Nilotic groups, and also many Bantu groups. That’s another story for another day.

Church music is fantastic, I had never seen 12, 13, and 18-string musical instruments. The instruments range from one string in varying combinations to 21 strings (though I did not see one but I was told they have them). Last Sunday I celebrated the Eucharist among the Madi, and was touched when they offered a special prayer in my honour (Kenyans are held in very high esteem because of the Comprehnsive Peace Agreement), praying that God should help Southern Sudan to break off from the Arab north, gain independence and join the East African Community.

2. Proverbs/Sayings on Women’s property rights:

Today, in a discussion with a group of local Zande (Azande/Xande) men (a people living on both sides of the Sudan-CAR border, and who speak a language of the Adamawa-Ubangi branch of the Niger-Congo) on wife inheritance and widow property rights, an elder who had been quiet throughout stopped my human rights talk with a one liner: “If a woman comes by an elephant task in the forest and picks it up, that task belongs to her husband.” (My translator does not speak good English, but that is what I made of his translation.) He said emphatically then walked off contemptuously without uttering another word.

What on earth did he mean?

As I insisted to the group that the sentence made no sense to me, one of the men told me that it meant that, absolutely, married women have no property rights…

He said: “When a woman is unfaithful and she bears a child with her secret lover, that child belongs to the husband, and many men around the world are forced to raise children who are not their blood, thikning they are theirs… so why shouldn’t the property a wife makes also belong to the husband?”

This kind of logic is totally beyond my comprehension…

Do we have similar proverbs, sayings, onliners, etc, that can throw light onto the traditional African world view on the question of the property rights of women, and help move the debate forward? I would like to know, especially those that state the contrary, giving women property rights in traditional Africa.

Finally, thanks to all who donated the many books on Human Rights, etc. Though they were a drop in the ocean of local needs they were very very well received. Bishop Akio wants to set up what he calls “a community founded on and protected by a spiral of human rights principles,” with small Christian communities and CBOs (including non Christian ones) serving as the building blocks at the base, rising to the sub-parishes, the parishes, deaneries, and to the diocese… For the secular ones he wants to see them organised at corresponding State administrative units.

Peace.

Omtatah

PS:

Please don’t ask for pictures just yet coz I decided not to carry a camera in order not to “distance” myself from the people, by looking like a tourist or a news reporter. Nevertheless, some of the priests I visited along the way took snaps and I will soon have them.