The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein made the famous observation, "If a lion could talk, we could not understand it." This implying that a lion's frame of mind is so vastly different from our own that even if they could speak our language it wouldn't make sense to us.
Throughout my time in Uganda I have been confronted by women whose daily life is so far removed from what I consider normal in the US that I know I could never understand their mindset or get a grip on their reality.
I had a long conversation with Ivan's mother, a wonderful lady who unfortunately I do not have a picture of. I talked to her about the cultural differences between how she grew up in a very traditional and strict Ugandan village and how only a generation later she is raising her own children in a whole new Africa. I also talked to her a little about some of the differences between Japanese and American culture as I perceived them. She said from what she understood about Japanese culture she liked it a lot and found it similar in values to her own native culture.
Ivan's mother told me in her village marriages were supposed to be arranged and dating was non-existant, but that she used to secretly see a boy she liked in her village, and that after the first time she had sex with him at 18 years old she became pregnant. She said she panicked (naturally), and pleaded with the doctor to let her have an abortion so her parents wouldn't find out, but he wouldn't, and so she tried for months to self-abort her own baby. She said she had no knowledge of sex education, or pregnancy, or abortions. She tried everything she could think of from punching herself in the stomach to swallowing a whole bottle of asprins at once; anything she could possibly think of she said she tried, but to no avail. By the time her baby was due she feared that it would be born with all sorts of birth defects from all the terrible things she did to herself to kill the baby inside her, but he was born a strong and healthy boy.
Luckily for her, the boy's family acknowledged her and so she dropped out of school and moved from her parents house into his parents' house and they were married. She had three more children, all boys (the second being Ivan), and when her sons were two, four, six, and seven years of age her husband died in a terrible accident. She was only 25 years old at the time with four children, and has spent the last 17 years raising them all by herself. She was dropped out of school and pregnant with her second child living in her in-laws house when she was my age, and she's spent the last half of her life as a single mother raising four boys- her life is so wildly different from my own. I am amazed by her grit, although she brushed off my sentiments and doesn't think what she has done is anything exceptional.
I had a strange feeling talking to her, because although looking at each other our lives are so different, they aren't necessarily uncrossable. It's the same reason Oedipus still makes its readers so uncomfortable- not because what Oedipus did makes him an unrelatable stranger (he that he killed his father and slept with his mother) but because you look at yourself and realize that he was not responsible for this terrible fate, and that it could have happened to anyone- to you- and that's a strange and terrifying reality to face. I am not so different from this woman sitting across from me, who I met that afternoon and who brought me into her home, cooked me dinner, and confided in me her incredible life story. We differ in resources, but not much else. What I mean is if I was born into an African village like she was, without the resources or options I have in the US, I could easily now at 19 years old be on the same path she was, for no other reason than chance that I was born in the US and not Uganda.
On the 21st Grace, Hannah, Denise, and I went to a teen moms' home. I think the name is pretty self-explanatory: it's a place of refuge, running for one year now, that is open to teen mothers and their babies who have no where else to go. This is a much needed facility in Uganda, and yet there is very little support out there for these young women. The way I see it the country/culture has set these girls up for failure and its heartbreaking and frustrating that they don't get more support.
First of all there's the enormous issue of rape and sexual assault being perceived as a "private" and "personal" problem that leaves the women as damaged goods making them reluctant to report it because 1) it will brand them for the rest of their life and 2) there is not a strong, reliable legal support system so what's the point? Instead it should be recognized as a public and political issue that does not stigmatize the women but protect them, and appropriately punish and stop the men responsible.
Secondly abortion is illegal, in nearly every case across the board. If carrying out the pregnancy is not directly going to kill the mother, it is illegal.
Thirdly, birth control is not made easily accessible, is expensive, and is not well understood- so the why and how is not there. Basically women (and men) just don't know their options and what they mean or how or why they work.
Issues 1-3 when added up, of course are going to result in unplanned, unwanted pregnancies, but where are the men in all of this? Somehow they've escaped from the equation, although they have an equal, if not greater, role in the country's very serious problem of abandoned babies. Like I said in an earlier post currently 1 out of 16 people in Uganda is an abandoned baby like the ones at Sanyu- thats an estimated 2.5 million children.
Factor this in with my fourth issue, which is the stigma attached to these young mothers by heir community. They have no support, and are judged so that instead of eliciting sympathy (which I think 1-3 added up ought to) or help they are blamed. The man and woman who set up this specific teen moms home, a rarity, said it took them three years from the time they had all the documentation and plans drawn up to get approval to start up because no one was willing to support the cause. There is a lot of reluctance by their community to face these girls and own up to their role in the Uganda's abandoned baby problem. It's not just the young mothers' fault. Its no wonder so many girls and women, with no support and no means of raising a baby on their own leave them in parks, or in hospitals, on the steps of churches, all over the place. Its terrible, but not exactly an enigma.
There are twenty girls at this teen moms' home which we visited between the ages of 16 and 20, most with one baby, some with two. One girl shared her story with us- she's now 19, like me, but has an 18 month old son. When she was very young her parents both died and her and her older sister lived together and took care of each other from then on. She was always late for school because without a mother to help she had to do her share of the housework before she could leave for the day. One day while walking to school late there was no one else on the road except a man coming toward her walking in the opposite direction. She was raped, impregnated, and her sister couldn't afford to house them both so she was homeless in the city until she found the teen mom home and has been there since. I don't understand what kind of world this is where so much chaos finds itself in the presence of one girl's life, but that's the world we've got. She began to cry as she told us over and over again that she doesn't know who her baby's father is, and he will never know that he has a son. Again, this girl, Rachel, is my age, but I can't in the least way relate to her mindset or what her daily life is like as a teen mother with no family.
I told all of the moms there that they should not be ashamed for finding themselves in their predicament, in a shelter, but that they should be proud that they stayed with their babies. I was requested infront of everyone after Rachel shared her story to please tell all of the girls something to inspire them. I felt conflicted in doing this because what could I possibly offer them? I don't presume to understand what they're going through or how to advise them, and was very humbled to be there. Plus I was overwhelmed from having just heard her story and being put on the spot like that. It was the first and only thing I could think to say at the moment. It's hard to think about all the babies in Sanyu who I have grown so fond of, to look at Myrian and wonder who are the parents who left her for dead? How could they not love her? And even though they are so well taken care of at Sanyu, the children still need parents. It's so obvious they are desperate for more attention- they need parents!
I think the fact that these girls stayed with their babies despite their circumstances is highly commendable, and I'm thankful places like this exist to give them a sense of security and belonging so they don't feel alone, because they aren't alone.
A very inspiring day with the teen moms
One of the teen mother's children.
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