don't worry, it gets uplifting at the end...
"The tradition dates back centuries and is rooted in a belief that a woman is haunted by spirits after her husband dies. She is also thought to be unholy and "disturbed" if she is unmarried and abstains from sex. She must be cleansed, therefore, to attend funerals or remarry. "
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 18, 2003; Page A12
GANGRE, Kenya -- The women of this village call Francise Akacha "the terrorist." His breath fumes with the local alcoholic brew. Greasy food droppings hang off his mustache and stain his oily pants and torn shirt.
He's always the first one in line for the village feast, tucking into a buffet carefully prepared by the women of the village like he's diving into the ocean, no restraint. He's too skinny and has, as the women point out, terrible taste in clothes. His latest hat is a visor styled from shabby paper stolen off a local cigarette billboard.
But for all of his undesirable traits, Akacha has a surprisingly desirable
job: He's paid to have sexual relations with the widows and unmarried women of this village. He's known as "the cleanser," one of hundreds of thousands of men in rural villages across Africa who sleep with women after their husbands die to dispel what villagers believe are evil spirits.
As tradition holds, they must sleep with the cleanser to be allowed to attend their husbands' funerals or be inherited by their husbands' brother or relative, another controversial custom that aid workers said is causing the spread of HIV-AIDS. Unmarried women who lose a parent or child must also sleep with the ritual cleanser.
The custom has always been unpopular among women. But in midst of an AIDS pandemic, which has led to the deaths of 19.6 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, having relations with the cleanser has become more than just a painful ritual that women must endure. Cleansers are now spreading HIV at explosive rates in such villages as Gangre, where one in every three people is infected.
Areas that still practice the tradition have the highest rates of the disease, and health workers say the custom must be stopped. It's a striking example of how HIV-AIDS is forcing Africans to question and change traditions as the disease ravages the continent.
"We don't want it and we won't accept it anymore," chanted Margaret Auma Odhiambo, as women ululated in agreement in her village, a lush rural farming community about a nine-hour drive northwest of the capital, Nairobi. "I refused it once and I will keep refusing it."
Twenty years ago, women -- even when they formed social clubs that frequently started projects to sell goods -- often could not question customs like cleansing, for fear of being beaten or having their property stolen.
But as HIV-AIDS started killing husbands in greater numbers, these women's groups, which were mainly social alliances and a way to make extra money, began to turn into powerful and political widows' groups. As their husbands perished, the widows were largely left to make money for the village and help care for the swelling number of orphans left without food or financial support.
In Odhiambo's village, the women said 30 percent of them were telling the cleanser to go away. They have formed a group called Standing Idle Does Not Pay, or Chungni Kimiyi in Swahili, a phrase that has become a mantra among women in the surrounding villages. They want the cleanser to go.
A cleanser is typically the village drunkard or someone considered not very bright. The job is seen as low class but essential to "purifying" women. Village elders say the custom must be carried out or the entire community will be cursed with bad crops. The cleansers are paid in cows and crops, as well as cash.
Odhiambo, a friendly woman with curly black hair and shiny black skin, recently stood with her group discussing the issue as the warm smells of a feast of fish, vegetables and maize meal they had made wafted through the village.
As predictable as the rising sun, the cleanser, Akacha, popped by, his bottle of local brew in hand.
Odhiambo watched as the cleanser served himself some of the food. Then she started talking to him about finding another job.
"Your services are not required any longer," she said, as her friends gathered to cheer.
"How many women have you slept with?" she asked, smiling and trying to prod the information out of him.
"I can't know," he sniffed. "I don't want to know."
"Do you know your HIV status?" she asked.
"That one I don't want to know," he said.
"Today, you sleep with this one, the next day another, the next day someone else," Odhiambo said, sitting next to him and trying to convince him of the danger. "Do you use a condom?"
"Never," he responded. "They won't be really cleansed if the condom was there."
Akacha has been forced to discuss the issue because more and more villagers are dying. Still, Akacha said he believes he provides a valuable service.
"It's not bad for me since I get to be with the beautiful ladies," he said, chuckling over his plate of food. "The women like it 'cause who else would be with them? They can't stay alone with the spirits. They need me."
The issue has become so tantalizing that village elders are currently debating what to do about the custom. Meanwhile, health care workers and human rights agencies argue that they actually have no need for such services in the world of HIV.
"It's a custom that must be stopped," said Janet Walsh, deputy director of Human Rights Watch, which released a report on the issue in March. "Condoms are never used; they say it has to be skin-to-skin to work."
In Africa, women are six times as likely to contract HIV as men, mostly because of rape and customs like cleansing, in which one man can spread the disease to hundreds of women.
Cleansers can be found in some rural parts of Uganda and Tanzania as well as the Congo, where traditional religions exist next to fluid versions of Christianity and Islam. They are also a staple in Angola and in villages across West Africa, specifically in Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Nigeria, according to African aid workers who have been trying to talk to people in these countries about the HIV risk that cleansers present.
The tradition dates back centuries and is rooted in a belief that a woman is haunted by spirits after her husband dies. She is also thought to be unholy and "disturbed" if she is unmarried and abstains from sex. She must be cleansed, therefore, to attend funerals or remarry.
"The older generations need to change," said Nancy Oundda, a nurse with the African Medical Research Foundation, which works with the widows' groups and children orphaned by AIDS in this region. "Their attitude will change with education, and if they realize what this tradition is doing."
The foundation has donated a donkey, hoes, a cart and materials to the women
so they can transport their bricks to market and make money to support themselves, a key to being able to refuse the cleanser and also avoid being inherited, along with their property. The group also provides seminars on HIV to the widows and village elders and prods leaders to abandon traditions such as cleansing. It also pays school fees for 300 orphans to take the burden off of the widows.
So far, the widows said, the education is working, and they reported being far less worried just knowing they could say no.
"I am so fat and happy without these men harassing me!" said Tabitha Anyango Odero, a widow who was pressured to be cleansed and inherited until she fought back and said she did not want to die because of AIDS. "Look how clean my house is now. Look how healthy I am now. I love my widow group."
On a recent afternoon, Odhiambo gathered with a group of women putting on a short drama about refusing to be cleansed or inherited. Polygamy was also questioned in the skit, because men spread HIV-AIDS to their wives at alarming rates.
In the skit, a woman's husband dies from complications of AIDS and she refuses to be cleansed or inherited until the men take an HIV test.
"I am clean like water," says the cleanser.
The audience exploded in laughter.
"Then take the test," replied the woman.
But in the end, a village elder forces her to be cleansed and inherited, and she too dies from complications of AIDS.
"HIV is shaking the whole world," a character says, as the play concludes.
Men in the audience -- sitting in some chairs set up under a large tree -- laughed and clapped and shook their heads in agreement.
"Slowly, by slowly, we must change," said Dalmas Ongan, 62, who wore a three-piece gray suit and a straw hat and said he loved the play. "We used to say we would die for our traditions. Even me, I used to say cleansing was good. But I think this attitude helps nothing. We all may die if we don't stop this one."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
This is really important to read.
The 1 in ever 37 people in the US is ether in prison or has served time there. This is now the highest incarceration rate in the entire world, no more of this "industrialized world" shenanigans. Yes, we have more people per capita in jail than China and Iran.
If you're a black man, you're chances of going to jail are now 1 in 3, that's up from 1 in 4 the last time I heard. Can you imagine, or do you know personally, the effect this knowledge must have on a boy growing up? If you're a white man, you're changes are only 1 in 17 but this is still amazingly high.
Nearly 1 in 4 of the inmates in federal and state prisons are there because of drug-related offenses, most of them nonviolent. And for women, that's 1 in 3.
They don't give any statistics for blond girls from Connecticut, but I'm guessing we're fairing well comparatively, not that I'm holding down the average...
I can't take it! It's just too much! Can't just one small thing make sense
and we can all cling to it like the sweet hard ground after floating adrift
on the seas of postmodernism for so many years?
But, in more positive news: tonight is the second day of the meteor showers!
Get your butt outside!
AND, it looks like god has once again intervened and that nutcase Poindexter
resigned:
i read this article in Harper's last month and i truly think it is the best thing i've read on 9/11 and our administration in a seriously long time. the machine thing is a bit of a stretch, but the rest of the article is beautiful. take the time. it's so worth it.
ok, i know, i've abused my spam privileges, but you MUST click on this link, YOU MUST.
otherwise i will send corporate mercenaries to modify you...
I spent all morning today analyzing the gut contents of rainbow trout. It was actually amazing to pick through, pull out the invertebrates, and try to identify them. I found that a surprising percentage of the organisms were terrestrial and it was so neat to feel like I’d made a discovery. I even have a lab coat. The idea that someone could look at me and say, “Get that woman a lab coat” is just hysterical.
And it’s so funny to be around scientists. Hippie scientists at that. Everyone hangs out and plays bacci and smokes and talks about the universe but they know what the hell they are talking about. These people hear about social trends and graph them in their heads and actually have the thought of, “I’ve got to get home to graph that so I can see what it does.” They analyze the contents of fish food and say, “Ah, I’ve studied those. They’ve got lots of hemoglobin so they’re good for oxygen.”
I went a birthday party and was cleaning up my dish and had a social custom crisis. I had to get rid of the rest of my ice cream cake and I didn’t want to put it in the compost because I thought they might not want the sugar and artificial stuff in their compost. But I spent too much time in the kitchen and decided to let the bacteria have it. Although, I’m sure it was a total faux pas. I’m sure they will say, “My god, who put ice cream in the compost. Oh, she’s from New York.”
One thing that I do find fascinating, and that I also noticed of the more south west coast, is that they were not founded by Puritans, and it shows. They don’t have any of the same shame about sex, so they don’t have as much insecurity, which – I think – leads to less stereotypical gender roles, gays included. Totally gentle, small, caring, unassumingly heterosexual men can go through their entire lives without thinking they are less of a man in the slightest. Butch older women with sensible haircuts and designer eyeglasses accompanied by identical partners, who may, or very well may not, be lesbians, literally polka dot the landscape.
But they also don’t assume as much about sex as I’ve felt those in New York and New England have; it doesn’t generally seem to be on everyone’s mind. It’s like we got all the Freud and they got all the Jung. I am living with my Professor, and after all the eyebrow raising and sarcastic commentating I got back East, I don’t think one Canadian has even had a dirty thought enlaced in their reaction. It’s actually customary, and neither presumptuous nor scandalous, to go camping alone with a man you just met who might even have a girlfriend. And no, that’s not only from experience, I did a survey.
But I did actually go camping and I did actually spend the weekend sleeping on moss near a river in a rain forest known for its mountain lions, black bears, and two thousand year old trees. We cooked off the fire of this old man who used to be a chemistry field scientist and simply realized he had no place attempting to fit into society. He now lives in the woods and knows the lineage of the local bears and will talk your ear off about how the World Bank rigged the Great Depression. He listed and offered each smokable plant and sap of the local trees. He told me this unbelievable strategy for turning schwag into blazing herb by somehow using dry ice but, ah, I can’t really recall what he said to do...I listened to an impassioned debate over which species and strain of psilocybens were ideal for each type of journey and cursed my negligence at forgetting a pen.
I also had interesting fortune to find out what I’m like when I actually think I’m about to die. I was peeing at two in the morning, petrified of becoming food for some of the local fauna, when this three foot high by four foot long light brown animal (it was a dog) comes running at me (to see what I was doing) and I stood up and let out an actual scream of terror. The dog just bolted but I don’t think I’ve ever screamed in terror for real since I was about ten, but it was actually sort of fun to be *that* scared and live. Adrenalin is neat.
The next morning I woke up all sheepish, but no one had even registered my primal call of distress. They all, understandably, look forward to their encounters with pumas and bears, especially because brown bears won’t attack unless they think they’re being threatened. Pumas, however, will stalk you. There's a story from about three years ago in which this guy was riding his bike and looked back to see one trotting behind him. The cougar keeps getting closer till it’s an all out chase and the cat eventually jumps up and drags him off the bike. He only lived because someone else drove by, jumped on the cougar and beat the hell out of it. And it was only ten years ago since a perfectly sane, lost mountain lion was tranquilized in the parking lot of the downtown five-star hotel. So you can understand my concern at two in the morning while actually in their habitat. But it seems that I’m an anomaly; in general, the people I know are just like, “Eh, yeah, we could get eaten. But we probably won’t.” Not even baddass-like; just
logical.
In fact it’s the same logic that allows everyone the luxury of never locking their doors and letting their girlfriends go off to camp with single men. They think, “Sure it happens, it might, and then we deal with it when it does.” They’re so chill I can’t even fathom where they’re coming from.
And it’s an atmosphere like this in which anarchy actually does start to make sense. Because everyone’s so chill, there's not as much danger, and not as much need for punishment systems or legal codes to define appropriate behavior. In the States, we need that rigidity because Americans need laws like white trash need religious fundamentalism: without it, everyone would be sleeping with their siblings and chaos would rule.
But then you have to wonder if the rules and jails of society are actually creating the environment in which they are necessary. Although we can’t very well scrap the police state altogether with so many crazies on the loose…who knows.
It does seem that things are going to get quite a bit chiller around here for me, as I’m moving into a commune of eco-commie hippies next week. I guess that “cry for help” email was really more of a heads-up over where I might be heading. My recently be-Cali-d friend Megan put it best when she said, “the best part about the west is that you can have a latte AND hug a tree at the same time!"
But I’m still showering, so don’t worry. I’m actually quite sure I’ll get kicked out at some point in the near future when they discover my non-hemp accessories and proclivity for booty house...
So the Zapatistas are throwing a three day party in Oventik, Mexico. Below is a nice article from - surprise - the AP. The imagery of thousands of people in traditional dress and ski masks is just beautiful and hilarious. Following that, the invite that Subcomandante Marcos wrote and it's quite funny and beautiful like everything he writes.
But the *really* cool thing is that they're broadcasting a radio show today
and through the miracle of the interweb, you can hear it at 3PM EST on
http://chiapas.mediosindependientes.org/
Subject: AP,Mexico's Zapatistas launch giant party,Aug 08
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 07:00:49 +0200
With ski masks and marimba bands, Mexico's Zapatistas launch giant party
ASSOCIATED PRESS
4:19 p.m., August 8, 2003
OVENTIC, Mexico - Mexico's Zapatista rebels threw open the gates of this ountain village Friday as they launched a three-day public party featuring a ski-masked marimba band, basketball and lots of folks wandering about with their faces hidden.
The event was meant to inaugurate a new Zapatista strategy that is supposed to make it easier to deal with the outside world - yet another step away from the movement's clandestine military origins.
Truckload after truckload of masked Zapatistas, many wearing traditional clothing of local Indian cultures, wound up the narrow highway to Oventic, a small village in the forests more than 400 miles southeast of Mexico City that has become one of the Zapatistas' temporary headquarters.
Hundreds of foreign supporters joined the rebels at the meeting ground, a mountainside sprawl of patchy grass sloping down toward a basketball court where a man in a black ski mask used a loudspeaker to describe the action for people in the crowd - many of whom also wore ski masks or bandannas.
While the atmosphere was relaxed, with people resting beneath plastic tarps, visitors were asked to identify themselves on entry and reporters were told not to conduct interviews.
After years of clandestine organizing, the Zapatistas emerged on Jan. 1, 1994, and seized several towns in Chiapas state. The government declared a cease-fire 10 days later and there have been few open clashes with the government since then, though there have been repeated conflicts with neighboring communities.
Most Indian people even in the Zapatistas' jungle heartland have declined to join the movement, put off by its tendency toward strictly collective organization, its military bent or its near-complete rejection of government aid or cooperation.
Many non-Zapatistas, however, do express support for the rebels' insistence on greater autonomy for Indian communities.
Foreign supporters have made the Zapatistas and Subcomandante Marcos emblems of the worldwide anti-globalization movement.
<<<<>>>>>
CHIAPAS: The Thirteenth Stele
Seventh and Last Part: A Postscript
Here it is again! It's back! After a tragic period when it didn't delight us with its incomparable style! The much longed for! The....Recurring...Postscript! Yes!!!!! Yippee!!!!!! Hurray!!!!!!! Bravo!!!!!!! Cheers!!!!!!!! (It may be assumed that at this point the audience is erupting in joyful applause).
P.S. Which Extends the Hand and the Word. - It's official: you are formally invited to the celebration of the death of the "Aguascalientes," and to the fiesta for naming the "Caracoles" and the beginning of the "Juntas of Good Government." It will be in Oventik, San Andrés Sacamch'en de Los Pobres Autonomous Municipality, Zapatista and Rebel Chiapas, on August 8, 9 and 10 of 2003. Or, as we say here, arrival is on the 8th, the fiesta on the 9th and departure on the 10th. There is a sign at the entrance to the Caracol of Oventik that reads: "You are in Rebel Zapatista Territory: here the people govern, and the government obeys" (I want to put a similar one up in our camps, but it would say: "Here the Sup governs, and everyone can do whatever they like." Sigh.).
P.S. Which Reveals Classified Information. - Attending the fiesta, as revealed by our intelligence services (who are, at the end of the day, not so intelligent, because they still haven't found my sock that I lost the other day), will be the Autonomous Councils of ALL the rebel zapatista municipalities, the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee- Comandancia General of the EZLN, and some thousands of support bases. There will be few speeches and many songs (there have been persistent rumors that zapatista musical groups will be there from various regions, and they will present a hyper-mega-magna-super duper concert for no reason other than the joy of continuing to be alive and rebel - compared to this, any techno concert would be nothing but a snack with a piñata, little hats and tiny packets of sweets.
In the unlikely event that you decide to attend and to share this joy with the transgressors of the law, you would do well to listen to the following
recommendations:
P.S. Which Blows Its Own Horn Because It Says Still an Umbrella (For the Rain, You Understand). - In zapatista lands, the ground, in addition to being dignified and rebel, is cold, wet and muddy. The fiestas are generally so lively that the rain can't contain itself, and it has to participate, extremely heavily, right in the middle of dances and heartfelt words. That's why it wouldn't be a bad idea to bring, in addition to light feet for dancing, an umbrella, nylon, plastic, a raincoat (or, if lost, a magazine), in order to cover yourself from above and below. One of those horrid "sleeping bags" would be of great use to you if you wish to have the good fortune of being able to interpose something between you and the rain, and between you and the ground.
P.S. Which Makes the Sign of the Cross. - In zapatón soil, the only roof which is guaranteed is the one that the supporter of the sky holds up (Old Antonio dixit), and, given what was explained in the previous postscript, it rains during these days and nights as if it were thirst, and not dignity, that abounded here. Because of that, you should be willing to sleep (ave María purísima!) with many and many more, under the same roof and in such promiscuity that would render Roman orgies mere "children's parties."
Or you should bring one of those tents (which are quite practical, because they're the first to become shipwrecked in the rain and the mud) in order to pass countless moments of silence and tranquility.
P.S. Which is preparing a "Marco's Special" Sandwich. - Under zapatudo skies, the only food which abounds and redounds is hope. Given that, according to scientific studies, a balanced diet is necessary in order to complete hope with calories, carbohydrates, vitamins, hydrocarbons, and other similar things, it would be good if you were to bring an adequate portion of canned food, junk food, rolls, biscuits and cookies (if they're "pancrema," they'll be seized), or something of that nature, because the only thing you're likely to find here is tortillas (and maybe not even that).
P.S. Which Tunes In. - If you have one, bring your short-wave radio (or "borrow" one, but don't buy it unless it's from a stall seller or a small shop - they work better than those from the big malls), because on August 9, at a time we still haven't decided, the first intergalactic broadcast of "Radio Insurgente" will be heard. Even if you decide to punish us with the whip of your disdain, wherever you are you will be able to tune us in. The exact band and frequency are: band of 49 meters, at 5.8 megahertz, on short-wave. Since it is to be expected that the supreme will interfere with the transmission, move the dial with the same swinging of hips like in a cumbia, and search until you find us.
P.S. Which Cheers. - During the momentous event, there will also be a hard fought basketball tournament. The best team will rise to the victory (note: any foreign team which dares to defeat the locals - the zapatistas - will be taken prisoner, forced to listen, completely, to the "Fox With You" program, and declared "illegal," therefore voiding his victory). Participate! Support your favorite team! (note: any demonstration of support or sympathy by the spectators towards any team other than the locals - the zapatistas - will be remanded to the closest assembly in order to be criticized and "looked at"). There will be teams from all over the planet (United States, Euzkal Herria, the Spanish State, France, Italy, UNAM, UAM, POLI, ENAH, "Civil Societies," "Absolute Chaos, S.A. of (i)R. (i)L, of C.V." and others, including the "dream team" of the "Primero de Enero de 1994 Rebel Autonomous Zapatista Secondary School" (by the time they finish saying their name, the opposing team will already be asleep!). It's almost certain that the final will be between the EZLN and the EZLN (in order to guarantee it, generous portions of sour pozol will be distributed to the other teams). It has been rumored that there's been a fierce fight among the large multinational sports news consortiums for broadcasting rights, but it would appear that the Zapatista System of Intergalactic Television has the exclusive. It is also said that the betting in Las Vegas is 7 times 7 to 0.0001 (in favor of the zapatudos, of course).
Vale. Salud and, if you can't come, don't worry, you'll still be with us.
(No longer to be continued)
>From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico, July of 2003.
<<<<>>>>
Originally published in Spanish by the EZLN
**************************
Translated by irlandesa
August 4, 2003.
To "Civil Societies"
To the National and International Press:
I am informing you on various matters as necessary:
1. - Entrance to the party for the death of the "Aguascalientes" and the birth of the "Caracol" of Oventik, on the 8th, 9th and 10th, is free. Meaning that, not only will there be no charge, no special credentials will be necessary either. Reporters only need credentials from the media for whom they work, and "civil societies" only need a picture ID. The police, informers and "intelligence" (ha!) agents will be allowed entrance, but they should fully identify themselves in order to receive the usual condemnation.
2. - According to information in the press, the Cocopa is assuming it will have a meeting with the EZLN on those dates. That is not true. We have no intention of meeting with any member of the political class (nor, of course, have we invited any of them).
3. - On August 3, at noon, Public Security police of the state of Chiapas (30 agents) harassed zapatistas who were working on the rebuilding of the "Caracol" of Morelia, Chiapas.
4. - "Radio Insurgente, the Voice of the EZLN" will be broadcasting on August 9, beginning at 3 PM (southeastern fight front time). Or from 2 PM (Fox time) and from 10 PM UTC (the simple fact is I don't know what that means, but that's how radio listeners orient themselves in other countries). The test broadcasts have already met with interference by the supreme government (which has, in addition, already put the "Limite" group up to blocking our signal: do you believe it?). Even so, we'll broadcast anyway, and, in addition, we'll be recording the program on CDs, and we're going to distribute them as if they were flyers offering jobs.
5. - We don't give a damn about "Mana's" affairs, and, it goes without saying that they leave us u-n-m-o-v-e-d.
Vale. Salud and batteries (for the radios, you understand).
>From the "studios" (ha!) of the slippery dial ("Radio Insurgente," that
>is).
http://chiapas.mediosindependientes.org/
The Sup, getting in a mess with the cables (chin! Nothing was recorded? No way, va de nuez: Ejem, ejem...now?...the raincoat...ready! "You are listening to Radio Insurgente, the Voice of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, broadcasting from the mountains of the Mexican Southeast"...chin!...Again? Mmh...Would it be better if I climbed up in a tree and yelled real loud? - sigh -)
i'm sure everyone's seen this already, but if not, keep an eye out:
Mars in Opposition: One for the Record Books