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| Random picture of a Samburu Woman |
What does it take to be a Samburu woman living in a dusty forgotten corner of Laikipia whose name escapes me? Not much apparently. Aside from the basics like being female, you also need to be lacking a formal education. Minimum support from your husband in just about every aspect of your life also helps. To have undergone female genital mutilation at some point between 7 and 13 is also quite useful (Actually, it is key). Water is not an important ingredient for this woman. However, if its a pool of brownish viscous liquid slowly drying up like a 3 hours walk from your mud and wattle hut. Then maybe we can consider it. You will also need a couple of children, anything above 5 will suffice. They should be half way malnourished and whenever possible unswatterble flies around their eyes like in those CNN images should be thrown in. Underpants on the children are a none issue.Then there is this business of the house. At best, it should be a round Manyatta, so small you can count the number of times you scratched your naval based on how many bumps your elbow got from hitting the wall.
You also need to know how to build the Manyatta, if you can’t build one then you are probably a man. Speaking of men. To be a woman in the true sense, you need to have a husband, if he leaves you or you are foolish enough to leave because he probably beats you senseless every now and then, you become a pariah. Other real women will shun you and probably wont let their children catch Trachoma from the flies following your children around like good neighbours would. In fact they won't even let their kids' flies hang out near your's. And what? you ask does this valuable man do. According to a group of about 20 women living at the edge of civilisation, 0.0000 something %. Their words not mine, and yes, they can think in percentages and decimals (I almost tripped on that one). Their JD, (Job Description) is to be nowhere near when its time to build houses or look after sheep, that is women's work. They mostly hang out with their friends and chat, sometimes they drink and lecture their sons - who should be in school listening to real lectures- on the art of being real men. They also pass time plotting which of them should marry the 13 year old ripe and mature class eight drop-out (You will meet her later on). Why waste those lush breasts and fresh baby making hips behind high-school desks? That would be an abominable crime. “Education is the problem with these women”. sips changaa, “They think learning how to read will make them better mothers and housekeepers? What sheepwash". I digress again.If you are a woman and you can name more than 10 girls you know(or people you know know) that have been to high school. You probably don’t fit into this description.
According to my "research", which involved talking to real life Samburu women sitting outside their houses in the aforementioned quadrant of Kenya, there is hardly a female high school graduate in the immediate villageviroment.(yes i made up a word). There is a school nearby called Tangi Nyeusi. The parents hired the most educated woman they could find to teach their nursery school kids. A class 8 drop out who could not afford fees to go to college. Now she is a teacher earning the princely sum of Ksh. 2,500 or $25 a month. Thats a whole different story for another day.Something has got to give and unless the Samburu woman is untied from the brightly coloured and beaded yoke of culture, she will continue to walk in ragged sheets dragging in her wake the misery and numb ambition of a generation that last walked the world when the president thought it was cool to whip government ministers like school boys and shoot musicians (Allegedly on the butt in both cases).
Disclaimer. If this post offends you. You probably need to be offended.
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