feminism: destroyed.

The key to surviving in the African bush is to first- abandon all feminism. Better yet, discard all understanding of Western feminist theory you have at all; there is no context for it there.
The second is to bring skirts with an elastic waistband; your family will feed you more in a day than you typically eat in a week.

Friday morning all USP students set off in a coaster towards the eastern village of Soroti. Those of us living on campus went towards Soroti while the off-campus students headed a bit in another direction to the mountainous region of Kapchorwa. Our group stayed at the beautiful Margaret's home in the hills of Soroti deep in the bush…and I do mean literally the bush. Like…there were bushes whacking our faces and arms through the bus windows as our bus created its own trail to get from the road to her home. We pitched tents, did some hiking to see over the valley which allowed us to see THE WHOLE WORLD- from Lake Victoria to Mt. Elgon anyway. We ate a beautiful dinner and finished only just as the torrential downpour rushed in- sending us all to her living room for the evening to bundle under sleeping bags around a lantern and play mafia and laugh away our last night of being together. I went hiking (maybe this wasn't the wisest choice, in hindsight) in the dark with Mark, Rachel & Becky through the rain and thunder to the top of the hill to watch the lightning bar its way across the sky over the valley--- there was dancing. :)

In the morning, they piled all but two of us onto The Orphan Train of a bus and put Lexi & Leah in the Land Cruiser to head the other direction to their host families…as the Land Cruiser then caught up to our parked bus in town later, we noticed the ominously empty back seats where we had last seen Lexi & Leah and someone gasped "oh my gosh, they're gone!"- at which point the subtle panic set in. Slowly and painfully they detracted us from our cluster of familiarity and comfort and sent us out in groups of two and three into separate smaller vehicles to go to our families. And of course- I was the last one to be dropped.
I was left in a home with the beautiful Mama Janet, my older sister Esther, and my two younger teenage sisters Naomi & Luy. My younger brother Dan and nephew Tony proceeded to just stare at me for the entire week I was there. My family had a new brick kitchen being built, a brick one room building for Dan & Tony, a cement house with a small living room, bedroom and two storage rooms for all the food my family grew (rice, papaya, oranges, millet, sim sim, beans, g nuts), and four small circular mud huts with straw roofs. The place was beautiful, simple, and peaceful with small goats running around, chickens invading the kitchen hut (bold move for a chicken likely to be eaten for that night's meal, I thought), and lizards everywhere. I helped my mom clean g nuts and pick greens for dinner and enjoyed the slightly awkward broken-English, laughing conversation. Just as I had settled in and was feeling comfortable, in walks Papa Stephen.
My week became a feminist's nightmare.
While my days were spent lovingly and relaxingly with my wonderful host Mama and sisters, the evenings were the most challenging hours of my life. Stephen was the farthest thing from my understanding of what a father should be. Rude, condescending, dominating, mean, arrogant patriarchal method of running a household… and had the audacity to demand I call him "papa" (which I would not). With every passing hour my deep appreciation and LOVE and respect for my real parents grew massively- especially for my father. It was like living with a sixteen year old punk with a major macho complex all week- the way he would come home and ask pointedly why I was not kneeling to greet him or serving him tea the second he walked up the dirt driveway and if I had actually done anything useful that day. Monday night I resigned myself to survival mode and became like a zombie for the hours that he was home: I allowed myself no emotion, no feeling, no frustration, I did not look him in the eyes, I did not verbally respond to his tormenting, and for all intents and purposes separated my body as far from myself as I could. The duality and degree to which I was able to actually remove myself from the physical situation was astounding and painful. I knew that if I allowed myself to feel frustration, to feel the homesickness, to admit to loneliness that I would not make it through the week. So I bit my lip and when it got especially difficult retreated to go take another bath under the stars. ((which, btw- there is nothing quite like standing in a cement walled structure, naked, half soaped, under the stars and rushing wind of the African village night)). Stephen introduced me to Mama Janet as "this is housewife. She cooks." and spent more time talking to me about one of his orange trees in the orchard than he did introducing me to his entire family.
All week I kept imagining pulling through until pick-up on Friday morning… being able to step onto the bus full of other USP students and just be able to cry. I looked forward to crying all week long. Because in the company of my family- of the other students here- I knew that I could safely allow myself to break down, to process, to detox. I kept envisioning giving my friend Tony a hug at the end of the week. as it turns out, my friend Lindsey went through an almost identical experience and also kept envisioning hugging our dear Tony upon pick-up. After close analytical discussion last night we unearthed our reasoning for seeing his scruffy face in our mind's eye all week: Tony respects women. He is a teddy bear, brotherly type full of joy and genuine appreciation for people and a truly respectful attitude towards women especially. After our week of living in a home where the father-figure was either emotionally abusive (or drunk, in her situation), all we wanted was a personality to redeem that, which we saw in Tony.
There is no context for feminism in the bush. This week shattered my world views of gender roles, of equality, of dominance, of patriarchy, of oppression. I feel as though all the views I have developed over the years of studying sociology and feminist theory and gender differences/psychology were broken down this week to the point where I'm not sure how to reconstruct them in an appropriate context. I suddenly realized that many things I once considered universal, once considered true, can't even be spelled in this context. What do I do with that? Still unsure… Maybe in a few days I'll come back to this and elaborate and be able to actually spell out my head-on collision with redefined gender roles and everything else around that this past week, but for now: I'm still not quite able to process it all.
Pick up was a breath of fresh air.
The driver picked me on Friday morning and took my swiftly away back through the bush to the waiting bus full of all the other students (I was the last one picked, naturally) under a tree by the side of the road in town. I got out of the small Rav4 that picked me from Kyere and was ushered into the hugging mama arms of Margaret as other staff members grabbed my gum-boots, sleeping bag and backpack and tossed them down the assembly line of arms on the bus. I stepped onto the bus, saw an empty seat next to Lauren in the very front, asked if it was free, and before my butt even hit the seat the waterworks set off.
I lost it.
Completely.

I spent the next hour on the bus in between staring motionless with furrowed brow out the bus window and just sobbing, finally letting myself feel all the emotions I had denied myself all week long.
After letting myself react and calm down, we finally reached Sipi Falls and met the rest of the students in Kapchorwa. We stayed in cabins on the side of a mountain at the Sipi Falls Resort and enjoyed a weekend of luxurious rest, catching up and swapping stories, hiking through the mountains and behind waterfalls, drinking stellar coffee (which was made on the mountain opposite the one we were residing on), and just generally informally debriefing from our weeks in the bush.

HIGHlights from the bush:
Learning to make cassava chips. So good :)
Balancing a jerry can of water on my head all the way back from the local well.
Meeting Lucy- a neighbour with downs syndrome. She came over for lunch one day and I went over and peeled her an orange… a half hour later she returns with a massive jerry can of water on her head and explains to my sister Esther in Ateso that "she paid me kindness, so I have brought water to pay her kindness." Most precious thing ever.
Hiking with my host-cousin Robert- a former Honours College student who graduated last year. Rock climbing in a skirt…it's a skill. That's all I'm saying.
Bathing outside.
Milk tea :)
Having fresh popo (papaya) at dinner…there is no taste like a freshly picked and cut papaya.
Laughing with my sisters and having my seventeen year old sister Naomi ask me to teach her Spanish.

The weekend was incredible. I stood on top of the world and in caves behind waterfalls and was recaptured all over again by how intense of a Creator our God is. Hiked through coffee plantations and fields of banana trees and corn on small footpaths and over rocks we had to boulder across through the blazing sun that made us sweat until we were soaked through and then through rain and hail that beat down on our heads and sunburnt necks. Watched the sunrise over the mountains and sang worship songs overlooking the valley, swung on a swing hanging over a ledge on the mountainside, and snuggled our way through all night conversations inside the warmth of shared sleeping bags sitting around a small lantern in the lodge. It was a beautiful time of community and adventure and caffeine to be all together again at the resort after our week of isolation, of awkwardness, of life in the village.
Here's to peanut butter pancakes, to the forceful spray of waterfalls just feet away from your shivering body, and here's to a new perspective on family.