On being a woman

The hitchhikers are barely visible in the dim glow of a rising moon, but we pull over to pick them up. I hop off my bike seat and re-roll my pant leg so it stops catching on my broken pump handle that sticks out. The hitchhikers are two preteen girls, just old enough that their tee-shirts aren’t flat but no older than 12 or 13. They aren’t old enough or lucky enough to be bike owners though, so tonight they decided to walk and hope they could catch a lift on the back rack of some guy’s bicycle. I am with M’Pedougou’s 20-year-old-boy posse, a rowdy pack of testosterone and hormones, all dressed up in their decorated bleached European-style jeans and tight t-shirts. It’s “soiree season” – the time of year when the young men of each village put on a big night of dancing and invite all the surrounding villagers.

The M’Pe posse convinced me to come along, so when we finished our round of tea at my host family’s around 10, a group of 15 or so saddled up and we peddled off into the darkness. I held my flashlight awkwardly gripped on my handlebar, veering around potholes in the dirt path. I noticed that most of the boys were riding blindly, and some of them didn’t even have brakes – they just put their foot on the back wheel to slow down. When we reach the first hitchhikers, the girls hop on side-saddle onto the back rack and then appear impervious to the rattling and bouncing that is making my flashlight look more like a strobe light.

After about 5 miles we reach the water. Under the fresh light of the low full moon, I see currents rippling and the whole posse dismounting to roll up their pant legs. “Sita, roll them up pretty high.” Ok, I think, this time’s as good as any to get schistosomiasis (the water-borne illness because of which we are told to never wade or swim in fresh water). I roll up my pant legs and we forge our way across, picking slowly over the unseen and rocky bottom. One guy tries to show off and ride across, until he hits a rock and falls off and everyone laughs.

We show up at the soiree with wet feet but well warmed up. I ogle a bit at the production. A beat-up old taxi had brought a generator, lights, speakers, and they walled off the schoolyard with whatever burlap sacks or tarps they could find. The lights are surprisingly bright after our quiet ride under the stars, and the speakers bump out fast Cote d’Ivoirian dance anthems. A crowd teems at the entrance, and the M’Pe posse globs on to the amoeba. There are two bouncers at the door taking money and giving tickets – it is CFA 500 to enter, about $1.25, and that includes a soft drink. In one of the few instances where I like sticking out because of my whiteness, they pull me up to the front and usher me through for free (I don’t want a soft drink). Inside, the school desks and tables are arranged in the schoolyard and groups of people are hanging out talking and flirting. It reminds me of a high school dance. When the M’Pe posse finally filters through, we go into the school house to dance. The main room is an inferno, a boiling, dripping, sweaty sauna of a dance party. I get the expected curious looks and stares (what is a white girl doing out here?) but a good share of greetings and waves from the people I know. The Sikasso DJ is a giant of a man (I know immediately he isn’t from a village – no one can get that fat eating corn toh!), and he sidles my way and tries to pull me into a circle and dance with me. Just as quickly, the M’Pe boys circle around and close him out. I smile and think, ah, it’s good to go dancing with 15 brothers who look out for you.

As the night wears on – we move inside and outside as the sweat drenches us and then evaporates in the brisk night air – I notice that there are very few women at the party. It is at least two thirds men, from the age of 12 to 40, with a heavy concentration of 20 year olds. But the girls, that is important, girls, not women, are few, and they are mostly of our hitchhikers’ demographic – preteens and early teens. I think about what I’ve read and heard, that women are married off as early as 12 and not much later than 16, and I stop to wonder if all this really is the equivalent of a high school dance, with the men all looking at these girls as prospective hook-ups or wives or second wives. They even play the requisite slow song now and then and everyone but a few couples rushes outside to cool off (isn’t that familiar?).

I also can’t help but reflect on my own place at this soiree. Ha. I’m the only white person. The only woman. The only college educated person. I’m just an anomaly – a pale, unmarried, childless 24 year-old woman who likes to go dancing. I would expect to feel “out of place” in the situation, but I have come to realize in my Peace Corps service that I am just different here, that I do not have a ‘peer group’ or a social place in this culture. All the women my age are married with three kids and never went to school, so the closest peers I have are the 20-year old guys who make good buddies for drinking tea and forging rivers at 5 in the morning. By the time I crawl into bed the moon had crossed the sky to pass the baton back over to the sun.

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My host mom Alimatu and I are out collecting shea nuts one afternoon when I ask about her uterus. In the fall she had sharp pains in her reproductive system and she had gone to several doctors. She says that she and Jakalia (my host dad) had been told that her uterus was spent, just worn out from bearing four very large boys. She says that the doctor told her she shouldn’t have any more children. She stops, and it is just the breeze and the sounds of our nuts plunking into our buckets. So, I ask her, what do you plan to do about it? Are you going to take birth control? She says that she doesn’t want any more kids, that she is tired, and she doesn’t want to risk another pregnancy. But birth control, that is Jakalia’s decision, and he hasn’t said anything to her. I pause. Alimatu, have you talked to him about this? I think if you point out that he doesn’t want you to die, that he wants you to be there to raise your four boys, he might agree to put you on birth control… And we continue collecting nuts, plunk, plunk, and I speculate that rain might come later.

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I've heard and read a lot about women's rights... but until now I have never understood how important the 'right' part is, that aspect of freedom, the aspect of choice. The differences between me and Alimatu are many but at the core is that I have choices in my life. I can decide to take birth control if I want to, without consulting anyone. I will decide when and to whom I marry, and if and when I have children. I ride my own bicycle to the soiree because I have economic rights and I can buy my own bike.

But... it isn't a simple picture. I don't know how I feel about this yet, but I know it is anything but simple.