Saturday, February 28, 2015

Gender roles here--it's not what you think

Gender roles are very set here so there is no question as to what job is whose responsibility.
For example: 
A woman's job it not to kill a chicken--it's the man's. But it is a woman's job to cook it. In other provinces women do kill chickens, just not in Cabo Delgado. 
It is the man's job to drive the bicycle--often with one or more passengers. And also they drive motorcycles and fix them when they break too. Only recently have the "liberated" women starting driving bikes and motos. And let me tell you, it's super hard to get on one when wearing a capalana.
Sewing, go figure, is a man's job. The women won't do it because a sewing machine is just that, a machine. They are the old fashioned kind of machine with the foot pump.
Working a maxamba is a job for men and women. They don't have plows, tillers or tractors. Everything is done with a hoe with a two foot long handle. It's backbreaking work and long hours which is yet another reason they are so buff.
And it's a woman's job to pilar (grind) the corn, de-hull the rice and do all the cooking. The pilão is a heavy wood trunk about two feet tall. About 8 inches makes up the stand and the other 1 & 1/2 foot of trunk is hollowed out and they use a four foot long heavy stick to pound the food inside if the pilão. (It's hard to explain, but believe me, it's really intense work that they do every single day Atleast once a day). No one grinds the corn into flour too far in advance because it's more likely to get bugs in it or to mold. 

No comments:

Post a Comment