"SHE IS A MAN AND A WOMAN"
Influential Women in a Rural District of Western Zambia
September 1996 Masters Thesis Cultural Anthropology University of Amsterdam Written by Emestien Jensema Palmgracht 32 1015 HM Amsterdam Supervisor: Prof cir. S. van der Geest. CONTENTS
PREF ACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I SUMMARIES II
LIST OF MAPS Map 1. Location of Masese Agricultural Project v Map 2. Lipumpu VI Map 3. Mushukula VII
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Rationale 2 1.2 From Victim to Actor 4 1.3 Set-up 5
CHAPTER 2. THE LOZI AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT 6 2.1 Zambia: country and history 6 2.2 Research Area 6 2.3 The Lozi People 8
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODS 14
CHAPTER 4. TEN INFLUENTIAL WOMEN 21 4.1 The Trader 22 4.2 The 'Male' Woman 26 4.3 The Nurse 28 4 .4 The Benefactress 29 4.5 The Healer 31 4.6 The Mulena Hae 32 4.7 The Traditional Birth Attendant 34 4.8 The Old Woman 36 4.9 Two Politicians 37
CHAPTER 5~;~~URCES AND CONSTRAINTS OF INFLUENCE 41 5. frs·ources of Influence 41 5 .2 Constraints and Obstacles of Influence 49
CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 53 6.1 Conclusions 53 6.2 Recommendations 55
GLOSSARY OF SILOZI TERMS 59
APPENDIX 60
REFERENCES 69 PREF ACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Finally time had come, I would go on fieldwork as a part of my Masters degree in Cultural Anthropology. But where to go, what to do? Many different subjects had been going through my mind, till Anne Marie van Swinderen gave me the opportunity to do a research which was not only of interest to me, but also likely to benefit others. On top of that the research would give me the occasion to see what it is like to work for a Dutch development organisation (SNV). My mind was quickly made up. From July 1995 to January 1996 I did a research among the Lozi people in the Sesheke district, Western province, Zambia (see map 1). The research looked into the activities of the influential women, hence the title of the dissertation: She is a man and a woman. This is the translation of a Silozi phrase used to praise a strong, independent woman. In this dissertation I use the real names of the influential women presented. I decided to reveal their identity since it is in the line ofthe research. As influential women they have public positions, the community is aware of their activities. The women themselves are proud of what they do and if I did not use their real names they would probably be dissapointed. Only in illustrative cases containing less positive information I hide the identity ofthe people concerned. When a Silozi term appears for the first time in this dissertation I will explain the meaning the text or in a footnote. Thereafter the meaning of the term can be found in the glossary. My stay in Sesheke would not have been a success if it was not for the support Anne Marie gave me while I was there, I would like to thank her for that. I am especially grateful to Agatha Mufuti who has worked with me the three months I stayed in the field. Without her commitment this research would not have been possi ble. Furthermore I would like to thank all the other people in Lipumpu, Mushukula and Sesheke who have helped me carrying out the research, especially the Kangombe family and the 'influential women'. Mr. Mutendewa drew the beautiful map of Mushukula and sent it to me after I had left the field. I also thank my supervisor Prof. Dr. S. van der Geest, his advices have been of great value to the research and to the writing of this dissertation. Mrs. H. Heldring-Stolk corrected the biggest part of the English in the text. Without my father's study the writing of this dissertation would probably have taken much longer, I'm glad he did not mind too much the mess I created there. The encouragement and interest of my parents, family and friends did me a lot of good.
I SUMMARY
In the Lozi community a contradictory social situation exists. Many women are heads of households, produce most of the foods the households consume and often generate cash incomes on top of that. Despite this the Lozi women are subordinate to men. Only few women have managed to achieve a gender equality in access to the key processes in the village and to resources such as land and money, they are 'influential women'. Influence is not something which comes automatically when one grows old or when one neatly corresponds to the conventions of marrying and having children. The most telling outcome of this research is that women gain autonomy or influence by their own efforts, often against the current of conventions. To be able to do so the women need some basic resources to support their initiatives. These sources can be intellectual for example a proper education or the possession of skills. They can also be material e.g. economic success and the possession ofresources such as land. Women's groups are a resource for gaining autonomy as well. In a group women can achieve collective control and take part in shaping their social environment. This shaping of a social environment can go very far, as the initiation ceremony proves. Initiation provides women with a social space where they have absolute autonomy, a female field of power which is not intruded by men. An autonomous woman has a say over her own life whereas an influential woman can determine her own life and influence other people's lives as well. In many cases autonomy will lead to influence. The community respects an independent woman and her advice will be sought in different situations. But only women with a positive self-image who use their resources extensively will become influential. The male society has trouble accepting influential women and shows this in various ways. Often a husband hinders his wife in her initiatives to achieve autonomy because he feels she should be solely dedicated to him and the household. In other cases the respect the community has for influential women turns into envy. Envy can be directly or indirectly expressed. Either way it is harmful and will deter women to hang on to their influential position or to become influential in the first place. The envy and the fear of envy leads to social levelling. If a woman does reach an influential position, despite all the above mentioned constraints, she can exercise her influence on an inter-personal level and on a community level. A number of women in the project area indicated they would like to gain autonomy. The Sesheke Gender Group wants to support the women in this. The group's aim is to improve women's self image and make them more independent. Especially women who have achieved influence through economic success and women who possess skills such as healing or ploughing can be of use to approach other women. They show interest in change and like to work for the community.
II SAMENV ATTING
In de Lozi gemeenschap is sprake van een paradox. Veel vrouwen zijn het hoofd van een huishouden, produceren het grootste deel van het voedsel voor hun gezin en zorgen ook nog voor een inkomen. Toch zijn Lozi vrouwen ondergeschikt aan de mannen. Slechts enkele vrouwen hebben een zekere mate van gelijkheid veIWorven in de toegang tot besluitvomling en hulpbronnen. Zij hebben macht over hun eigen leven en kunnen zich ontrekken aan andermans macht. Ze zijn invloedrijke vrouwen. Invloed is niet iets dat een vrouw automatisch verwerft wanneer ze oud wordt of door precies te doen wat van haar veIWacht wordt: trouwen en kinderen krijgen. De meest opvallende uitkomst van dit onderzoek is dat vrouwen autonomie en invloed kunnen veIWerven door hun eigen inspanningen die vaak juist tegen het veIWachte patroon ingaan. Orn dit te kunnen doen hebben de vrouwen hulpbronnen nodig die hun initiatieven kunnen onderstellllen. Deze bronnen kunnen immaterieel zijn zoals een gedegen opleiding en goede vaardigheden, ofmaterieel, bijvoorbeeld land of economisch succes. Vrouwengroepen zijn ook een bron voor het verwerven van autonomie. In een groep kunnen vrouwen tot collectief zeggenschap komen en een vorm geven aan hun sociale omgeving. De initiatie ceremonie bewijst dat dit vormgeven erg ver kan gaan. De initiatie geeft vrouwen een sociale ruimte waar ze absolute autonomie hebben, een vrouwelijk machtsveld dat niet kan worden binnengedrongen door mannen. Een autonome vrouw heeft enkel zeggenschap over haar eigen leven terwijl een invloedrijke vrouw behalve baar eigen leven ook bet leven van anderen kan bepalen. In veel gevallen leidt autonomie naar invloed. De gemeenschap respecteert een onafhankelijke vrouw en vraagt in uiteenlopende zaken om haar advies. Alleen vrouwen met een positief zelfbeeld die bun mogelijkheden ten volle uitbuiten kunnen invloedrijk worden. De mannnengemeenscbap beeft moeite invloedrijke vrouwen te accepteren en laat dit op verschillende manieren zien. Vaak zal een echtgenoot zijn vrouw tegenwerken in haar initiatieven om autonomie te verwerven omdat hij vindt dat ze zich volledig aan hem en het huishouden moet wijden. Ook kan het respect van de gemeenschap veranderen in afgunst. Deze afgunst wordt direct of indirect geuit. In beide gevallen is afgunst schadelijk en kan het vrouwen ervan weerhouden bun invloedrijke positie vast te bouden of om zelfs een dergelijke positie te ambieren. Afgunst en de angst ervoor leiden tot sociale gelijkmatigheid. Als een vrouw echter de tegenwerkende krachten kan weerstaan dan slaagt ze er misschien in haar invloed uit te oefenen op persoonlijk en gemeenschapsniveau. Een aantal vrouwen in het project-gebied heeft aangegeven dat ze meer autonoom zouden willen zijn. De Sesheke Gender Groep wil hen hierin steunen. Het doel van de groep is het verbeteren van het zelfbeeld van de vrouwen waardoor ze onafhankelijker kunnen worden. Met name vrouwen die economisch succes hebben, vrouwen die werkzaam zijn in de gezondheidszorg en vrouwen met speciale technische vaardigheden, zoals
III ploegen, kunnen helpen bij het benaderen van andere vrouwen in de gemeenschap. Deze vrouwen tonen interesse in verandering en willen zich graag inzetten voor de gemeenschap.
IV MAP no. l:Location of Hasese Agric. Project and agrio. camps. .... t0~.~~~---'~·-0---'.1..io__ __,'jOl<"'f _( ICAU: 1"6000,000 \ f '-·-., j j ./' ZAIRE J I i / r'l NORTHERN PROVINCE ~ ·-...J II MANSA ...... _/ Ill SOLWOI r· ( \ ( NORT/i-WESTERH FROllHCE / COPPtRBElI PROVIHC \.....- ...... ~ ./ ) v \._.-...I
MOZAMBIQUE
PROVl//Cf.
11! CHOMA ZIMBABWE PROVINCIAL BOUNDARY INll:RNATIOOAL BOIJN DARY ·11 11 PRO>INCIAL f OOTSWANA MA SE SE PROJECT AREA - distribution of caio12e • I lZl' \ ,-- ! \', i:, Mushukula I P' I 1 I I I \ I I \ I ~ river or plain 1mportan t roadJ already before 1967 ·-··- • important v111Hge (:run p, conatrueteu by lhe i'rojoct from 1987-1990, otaffed by DAO. ·------'tr" ' ''. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Precious Songiso was born in Simbala village, Mushukula in 1964. She was the last born of a family of seven children. As a young girl she lived in Simbala village with her mother and her brothers and sisters. Her father was living in Livingstone and after her primary school she was sent to live with him so that she would be able to go to secondary school. She only stayed two years with him; in 1978 rebels fighting the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), made Livingstone unsafe and Precious' father decided his daughter had to go back to Simbala. She married a man from the neighbouring village. The marriage did not last very long and after their third child was born they divorced. Now two children are living with her and one child with a brother of her ex husband. Her mother is also living with her. This is not very logical because her elder brother is one of the biggest farmers in Mushukula so he could easily take care of his mother. Precious says it is her sister-in-law who prevents her brother from supporting his mother. He is no support at all to Precious either so she takes care of her household by farming, brewing beer and doing piecework. However she cannot do all the jobs within the household, for instance when her house needs thatching she will have to ask a man to help her as it is absolutely taboo for a woman to thatch. Because her brother does not want to help her she asks other men, and in exchange for the work she will brew them beer, this trade is called lubile. Despite the hard work Precious enjoys being a single woman, she feels it gives her considerable freedom. She does not have a husband who interferes with her activities: she can join a women's group, organise meetings and express her opinion freely. Besides she feels people respect her, because of her independence and her care for her family. This is clearly shown by the fact that she was sent to attend the conference for influential women in Sesheke without even being present at the meeting where the community decided which influential women were going to represent their agricultural camp. Apparently the community appreciated her and thought she would be able to make a valuable contribution. This case story raises several questions: How does Precious manage to be independent whereas many other women depend upon their male relatives? Does the fact that she is divorced have an impact on her position in the community? And what do her children contribute to her status? Where did she learn to organise meetings? What influence does she have in the community? All these questions relate to one main question: What role does Precious play as an influential woman in the community? 1 The field research explored the lives and roles of influential women in two Lozi communities. Precious' life story is only one ofthe many life stories I collected during the research. Of course each influential woman has her own story, still some elements appear again and again, and the focus will be on these elements. The research was carried out from July to December 1995 in the Sesheke District, Western Province of Zambia. I was given the opportunity to this research into the role of influential women in the Lozi community by Anne Marie van Swinderen, SNV Gender Issues and Monitoring Officer, and the Sesheke Gender Group. 1.1 Rationale In May 1994 the Sesheke Gender Group (SGG) gathered for the first time. The group consisted of ten members, six women and four men, from six different departments, including the departments of Health, Agriculture and Education. The main purpose ofthe group was to have an inter-departmental forum in which gender issues could be discussed. The aim of the group was also to organise inter-departmental activities on gender. In the plan of action mid 1995 to mid 1996 the SGG redefined the objectives as follows: their overall objective was to improve on gender equality in access to resources, e.g. money, land, human resources, services. They tried to achieve using three practical objectives: In the first place they wanted to create gender awareness with the staff of the departments, other institutions and the wider public. Secondly they planned to coach, monitor and screen development workers in the district on gender awareness and compile a profile on same. Lastly the SGG wanted to be a strong and competent group working merely on demand. The first activity of the group was the gender survey at Mutuwapa:fa in August 1994. This activity was :financed by the Masese Agricultural Project. The objective of this survey was to obtain data on the gender situation in the district, it looked into questions such as: What is the social construction of the sex roles and the relationship between the sexes? The SGG found a seemingly contradictory situation. In some villages up to 50% of the households are female headed, with women producing most of the food the households consume and often generating a cash-income on top. Despite this, women are not powerful, on the contrary they even appear to be subordinate to the men in the community. The main problem the female headed households have is that they must pay someone to do those things which are ordinarily thought of as man's work. A number of women expressed their unease about this situation and said they would like to be able to do these activities themselves. The community also indicated another problem: Mostly men participate in decision-making on village level, even though all women are invited to village meetings only few women participate, namely the influential women. Still many other women would like to have a say in the key processes in the village as well. The SGG obtained the 2 community's suggestions on how to approach these gender issues. Three recommendations followed from the survey: 1 1. To conduct a workshop for indunas , stimulating gender awareness. The community and the SGG recognise that gender equality would be impossible without the help of the indunas. In this workshop the indunas indicated what type of social changes they would find acceptable and feasible. 2. To conduct a workshop for influential women, to give them a chance to exchange views on what responsibilities they have 'steering' their community, and how this steering could effectively include gender. 3. To conduct a course for women who are head of their household training them in skills which are gender bound and which they indicate they want to learn. The follow-up of these recommendations started in January 1995 with the indunas workshop on gender. Sixteen indunas from Maondo Agricultural Block discussed the local gender situation. They were given training in various ways of reducing gender imbalance in their area. The second recommendation was followed up in July 1995 by a conference for influential women (see under Appendix: Report of the Influential Women's Conference). This conference was organised with fimds from SNV Zambia. The SNV Program Officer on Gender coached the SGG in making a program for the conference. The 19 women invited were identified by the camp officers 2 of the seven different agricultural camps. Because these women have succeeded in achieving a level of gender equality which many other women in the project area would like to reach, the SGG was much interested in influential women and decided the conference alone did not give enough attention to influential women. In view of this the SGG and the Masese Agricultural Project requested a research to explore the role influential women have in key processes within a village community3, the basis of their influence, their role in guiding other women, and in changing and maintaining traditions. The SGG expected that knowledge ofthe role of these women would make it possible to approach other women and improve gender equality within the project area. During the survey the submissive behaviour of the women was discussed, some people had the opinion that there is a kind of 'women's culture' in which older women encourage younger women to act submissively. Others said that men put women in a subordinate position. From the literature I studied when writing the research proposal in the Netherlands I gathered these influential women would mostly be elderly women. Therefore my main hypothesis was that age was an important determining factor in acquiring influence. However in the course of my research a new understanding developed and I slightly adapted the proposal. 1 Village headman or judge a the Royal (traditional) Court in Mwandi. 2 Each agricultural camp has its own camp officer. 'Ilris officer is the link between the community and the Department of Agriculture. He keeps the community in his camp informed about the activities of the department. 3 TI1e village comm1mity I am talking about is based on agricultural production by small independent farmers. 3 1.2 From Victim to Actor , It has taken some time before anthropologists became interested in the role women play within society. In the first place the attention was focused on men and gender roles were not considered. If women were at all a topic, they were seen as passive and subordinate (di Leonardo 1991). In the 1960s the international women's movement saw to it that women were given more attention. In 1970 E. Boserup published her book 'Women's Role in Economic Development". In this book she came to the conclusion that women's part in world economics is far bigger than suspected, though they have less access to means of production (Moore 1988:45, Postel-Coster 1987:12). After this publication many more books on the role women play in society were published. In the 1970s people started to analyse the universal male dominance and women's low status. A new vision came into being: women were actors instead of victims. In spite of their apparent powerlessness and low status they have a lot of influence. "... women, like men, are social actors who work in structured ways to achieve desired ends" (Rosaldo & Lamphere 1974:9). The nature of these strategies depends upon the power structures found within a community, this of course varies per culture. This research investigated the ways which are available to the Lozi women to become influential. Influence Women in all societies have possibilities to influence their environment to a certain extent, even though at first sight it may look like they do not have any say. Raphael puts it like this: "Females [sic] are depicted primarily and dominantly involved with decisions and authority in the home sphere but having a large influence as well on public decisions and power" (197 5 :2). Collier thinks women in a patrilocal and patrilineal community are able to exercise this influence because they are political strategists who use sources that are within their reach to achieve political goals. They will influence politically active men by means of "domestic tragedies" (e.g. a domestic quarrel). Collier argues that the cumulative result of all domestic quarrels should not be overlooked (Collier 1974). In this Collier suggests: women cannot independently achieve influence; they will have to work through men because the latter make the decisions in the community. Contrary to Collier's theory the research showed Lozi women can independently achieve influence. But what is the influence I have been talking about? Lamphere, after Parsons (1963), defines influence as follows: "A woman exercises influence when she is able to bring about decisions on an other's part to act in a certain way, because it is felt to be good for the other person, independent of changes in his or her situation and for positive reasons, not because of sanctions that might be imposed." (1974:99). The fact that influence brings decisions about for positive reasons turned out to be a key concept in this research. 4 The SGG has narrowed this definition down to the following: "Influential women are generally women who are very active in participating in development, who coach other women, who lead others in their community, who talk freely" (minutes SGG meeting 17 march 1995). During the research I considered women to be influential when they have a position in the social hierarchy within a village that allows them to make decisions that have an impact on themselves and on others. This means that influential women can easily be identified by other villagers (men, women and children). This definition excludes all less obvious forms of influence (through domestic tragedies for instance). The subject of the research had to be restricted this way because it would be impossible to cover all forms of influence in three months. In this dissertation it will become clear that women can become influential outside the 'women's culture' and without manipulating men. 1.3 Set-up In the following chapters I will first give a short history of the Lozi people and their land and give a description of the villages I lived in and the conditions under which the research was carried out. In the third chapter I will explain the methods of research. The findings follow in chapter four. I distinguish four fields of influence namely the social, the economic, the cultural and the political field. However none of the influential women restricted their activities to one field, I will present ten different influential women and give a brief analysis of each woman's life-story. The analysis will be based on the information I gathered in the field. What were the sources of the influence of these women? Are there any positive or negative forces which had an impact on the influence of woman within a community? Chapter five explains the findings and elaborates on the theoretical background. The final chapter consists of the conclusions, were the research questions answered, has the objective of the research been reached? In what way are the findings of interest to the SGG? What recommendations follow from the research? 5 CHAPTER2 THE LOZI AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT 2.1 Zambia: country and history Zambia is landlocked and bordered by eight countries. The climate is tropical and the vegetation is mostly savannah. The area is semi-arid and since 1978 the rainfall has been mostly irregular and insufficient, which has led to a decrease in food production. Women do about 60% of all the necessary work in agriculture (Chabala and Gichira 1989). Many different tribes live in Zambia, most of them are patrilineal. The government officially acknowledges seven 'tribal' languages which are taught in schools. English is the language people are expected to speak next to their 'tribal' language, the schools are using history and science books written in English. Zambia's written history starts about 100 years ago with the arrival of the British. In 1889 the British South-Africa Company and the Lozi king, Lewanika signed a contract. The British began exporting ivory, slaves and copper to the West, while at the same time European planters settled in the south of Zambia (then called Northern-Rhodesia). Northern-Rhodesia became a British Protectorate in 1924. Kenneth Kaunda and his United National Independence Party (UNIP) led Northern-Rhodesia to independence which was granted in 1964. Since that time the country is called Zambia. With Algeria and South Africa, Zambia is one of the most urbanised countries in Africa. This is due to the copper mines and the government policy after the independence to subsidise life in the cities with the money that was earned by exporting copper, which made urban life very attractive (van der Lans and Nooter 1988). 2.2 Research Area4 The Western Province of Zambia is divided into six districts: Kalabo, Kaorna, Mongu, Senanga, Lukulu and Sesheke. The research was carried out in the Sesheke district. The Masese Agricultural Project area, covers roughly one-third of the south-east of the Sesheke District (map 1). It is an area with a population of about 30,000 people. The area has a low potential for agriculture due to poor soils and an average rainfall of only 700 mm annually. Consequently, the population is involved in traditional subsistence farming of a 'slash-and burn' system. The rainy season lasts from about mid-November till the end of February. However, rain-fall varies considerably. This unpredictable rainfall appears to be a determining factor in the shortage of farming outputs. Sesheke district is one ofthe poorest districts of Zambia. 4 Source of information: the research proposal as it was vvritten by AM. van Swinderen (1994 ). 6 The research covered only two small parts of this area, the two agricultural camps Lipumpu (map 2) and Mushukula (map 3). Lipumpu was chosen because the Gender Survey during which the research topic was identified partly took place in this camp. I selected Mushukula because it is very far away from the basis of the project, Masese, and the area is said to be more traditional. It gave me the possibility to investigate ifthere was a difference of influence between women in Lipumpu and in Mushukula. Lipumpu In Lipumpu I stayed in Lichaha village, at about 6 km from Masese, the basis of the project. The village consists of fifty households of which 21 are female headed, in comparison to neighbouring villages the female headed households (FHH)5 form a high percentage of all the households. The overall population consists of about 200 people. Lichaha village is situated on the banks of the Loanja river. Nowadays this river has completely dried up and turned into one big plain. To find water people have to dig very deep wells in the plain or go to the pump. At the pump there was always quite a crowd because the wells in the plain could only be used for a limited time a day before they dried up. The village has three shops. These shops sell basic necessities such as cooking oil, pens, exercise-books, cigarettes, buns and soft-drinks. One of the shops is the co-operative shop where also hybrid maize seed is sold. Apart from the shops there is also a very small market place with a few stands with similar merchandise. Next to the co-operative shop is the hammermill where people can bring their maize to have it hammered 6 into mealie-meal (maize meal), the basis of the staple food bohobe . The shops and the hammermill are all grouped together on either side of the main road, together they are called the station because there are always people waiting around hoping for a lift. There are two churches in Lichaha, the Catholic and the New Apostolic Church, in Masese they have the United Church of Zambia (UCZ) and the Seventh Day Adventists (SDA). Almost everybody in the village is a member of one church or the other. To get a better view of the position of influential women in different parts of the project area, the field research was continued in Mushukula, Sampuo village. 5 A farm household headed by a woman who is single, divorced or widowed. I also include women who live separated from their husband and are not supported by him. 6 Thick maize porridge. 7 Mushukula Mushukula (map 3) is situated 45 km north of Masese. The people in Lipumpu consider the people in Mushukula very conservative and traditional. They even call them Tote/a which means backward people. It was interesting to find out if there was indeed a difference in conservatism. One very obvious difference is the fact that the people in Mushukula have less access to cash. There are no shops so it seems the cash economy is still fur away. This logically implies that only very few women are trading in Mushukula whereas in Lipumpu trading is one of the most common activities of influential women. Further more education especially for girls is not considered as important as it is in Lipumpu. The level of education is lower than in Lipumpu. Sampuo is a village with about 100 inhabitants. The percentage of FHH is as high as it was in Lichaha (50%)7. However in the neighbouring village, Mwanza village, most of the households seemed to be male 8 headed . Because Mushukula is almost 50 km upstream the Loanja river, the river has not yet completely dried up. During the time I spent there (October-November 1995) the water was no longer running, the river consisted of a number of puddles. The plain around the river is always very green and provides fresh grass all year round. A brooklet with crystal clear water forms the border of Mwanza and Sampuo village. This stream, the Isungo, provides running fresh water in all seasons. At various spots women wash clothes, children swin1 and play and men or women take a bath. On the banks of the Isungo maize is growing. Many people dig their own well in the plain of the Loanja river where water can be found at 0.5 to 1.0 meter depth. Beside these wells Sampuo village has two pumps, one at the school and one next to the rural health centre. So compared to Lipumpu water is plentiful. In 1993 the only hanlillermill in the area broke down and since then the women have been pounding their maize again by hand, which is heavy labour. All women and children spend at least two hours a day pounding, without the help of men. Mushukula school has recently been renovated and is the centre of the activities in the area. All meetings are held at the school and it is the place where visitors are accommodated. Both the SDA and the UCZ have their services in a school building. 2.3 The Lozi People The main population in the district is Lozi, as it is throughout the Western Province. The Lozi are patrilineal. Silozi is their mother tongue, it is one of the seven acknowledged 'tribal' languages. 7 Source: the ward COllilcillor ofMushukula ward, Mr. Mutendewa. 8 Source: Mr. Mwanza, village-Induna ofMwanza village. 8 The Lozi probably originate from a group of Aluyana who came to the Zambezi plain at the beginning of the 19th century. Aluyana was corrupted via Luyi to Lozi or Barozi. Barotse land is the area where the Lozi live (Turner 1952). Politics The king of the Lozi is the Lttunga, who has the National Council (}vfulonga) to support him. In this council you will find the indunas, who are the representatives of the people (Gluckman 1951). The first female indunas have recently been appointed in the Mulonga in Mwandi. Three of them were present at the conference and everybody treated them with great respect. Their traditional dress showed their status. They wore at least five skirts on top of each other as a sign of dignity. The traditional political structure has remained in tact up to today. The indunas continue to have a lot of influence, though it has adapted to the national political situation. Within the Barotse land there are several silalo indunas, an induna who has jurisdiction over several villages. He is the representative ofthe Litunga in the area. Each ward in the project area has its own silalo induna. After my arrival in Lichaha village Agatha took me to the silalo induna to introduce me and to ask his permission to carry out a research in his ward. The si la lo induna is also the presiding judge at the traditional court, the kuta. The judicial system shows the integration ofthe traditional and the national structure. Very serious crimes are not tried at the kuta but at the local national court. All silalo indunas and village indunas are men. A village induna is assisted by a village committee, when matters have to be discussed. In Lichaha village the committee consisted of three men and a woman, in Sampuo village only men were members of the committee. The kuta is sought for advice whenever a problem needs to be solved within the village community. The court gathers once a week, three to five village indunas assist the silalo induna, they also act as judges. Especially in the period July-September the court is very busy. People do not have anything to do in the fields, and spend much time drinking so there are a lot of arguments. As soon as the rainy season is approaching people prefer working in the fields and the court is quiet. The popularity of the silalo induna determines the frequency at which a kuta is attended. In Lipurnpu the silalo induna is very popular and the kuta is well attended. The silalo induna in Mushukula, on the contrary, is not popular at all, he is generally considered to be a weak leader and ill tempered. In case of a dispute in Mushukula people mostly take counsel at the Zambian local court or the ward councillor. Each ward has its own ward councillor, a representative of the Zambian government in Sesheke district. The ward councillor travels to Sesheke about once every three months to discuss the district plans with other ward councillors, the district planner and others who are involved in the (Zambian) government of the district. 9 In Mushukula the ward cmmcillor, Mr. Mutendewa, is very active and he is highly respected by the people in his area. One case makes this very obvious: In Sampuo village a thief was caught while he was trying to steal soap and sugar. It was the second time this young man was caught stealing and the people in the village were extremely angry with him, because he was also said to hassle young girls. He was captured by the villagers and taken to the local court. This court was right next door to us in Mushukula. Most of the cases concerned marital problems. The court was supposed to be open and gathering every weekday, but it was closed most of the time. There were either no cases or a person of the staff (either one of the two judges, the secretary or the court-orderly) would be away collecting his salaries in Sesheke. This collection of salaries was at least a week long expedition. The day the villagers caught the thief the court was closed so then they took the thiefto Mr. Mutendewa, even though the latter did not have the proper authority. He decided the thief should really be taken to the police, but nobody felt like walking to the police (a three days' walk). So instead he released the thief after some blows and kicks from the angry villagers. Mr. Mutendewa advised the thief not to return to the village because it was not unlikely the villagers would lynch him next time. Mr. Mutendewa's importance is also shown by the fact that Agatha first introduced me to him and only much later I met the silalo induna. Food production Officially the Litunga was the owner of all the Barotseland and he allocated it among his people. In practice the induna, the village headman divided the land. Once a family possessed a right to land, this right became inheritable. Generally this is still the case, both sons and daughters inherit land in the village of their father's family. In case of a dispute over these rights those involved will first turn to their village induna. Ifhe fails to solve the problem the case will be taken to the kuta. Mostly the case will be solved by now, if not it will then be taken to the Litunga; however this hardly happens. During the rainy season the Zambezi river is flooding, this flood used to determine the Lozi life: "The flood dominates Lozi life. It covers and uncovers gardens. All life in the Plain moves with the flood: people, fish, cattle, game" (Gluckman 1951: 11 ). Nowadays most Lozi live on the highlands and the extent of flooding has been much less, consequently people do not have to move as they used to. Though in some parts ofthe project area moving is still prevalent. 10 On the fields people grow mainly maize, sorghum, millet and groundnuts, in some areas also cassava and rice are grown. The availability of the fields, seeds and oxen for ploughing influence the choice of crop. Especially oxen can be a problem, in Sampuo village for instance only two households have a plough and oxen. To prepare the fields for the sowing-season the whole village asks their assistance. Of course this is impossible so many households, especially FHH, are forced to plough the land with a hoe (by hand). Hoeing a field is heavy labour and this forces people to cultivate a smaller plot. Owning cattle is a form of social security since it is thought of as a reliable source of cash and gives status. In day time men and boys tend the cattle on the communal grounds. Cattle is used for ploughing and fertilising the soil with manure. Besides milk is a popular drink, especially sour milk. However the milk production of the cows is little, so milk is not abundantly available and quite a luxury. Maize porridge, bohobe, is the staple food. It is eaten as breakfast or lunch and dinner together with a relish. This relish must have a high nutritional value since the bohobe is made out of white maize and is not nutritious at all. Meat is a delicacy as a relish but generally people do not like slaughtering their animals for consumption, an animal is only slaughtered as a last resource to get ready money or for barter. If a cow is slaughtered the meat will be sold in the market. A chicken will usually be slaughtered to provide food for a welcome guest. Sometimes men go out at night to hunt duikers or other small antelopes, unfortunately game is rare in most of the project area and often the hunt is unsuccessful. Still in Mushukula game is much more abundant than in Lipumpu and some men even hunt for a living. To preserve meat it is cut into small pieces and dried in the sun. Fish is another favourite relish, again it is not easy to come by. Most ofthe rivers in the project area have dried up, only in the Zambezi river fish can be caught all the year round. So people in the villages have to buy dried fish if they do not live on the banks ofthe Zambezi. Vegetables are the only relish which everybody can provide for themselves. Many people have a small vegetable garden in the comer of their courtyard and are growing just enough to provide for their own household. They mostly grow rabe9 and Chinese cabbage as these seem to be quite resistant to pests. Gender roles The Lozi have strict gender roles. In general men and women have their own activities. Especially elderly hold on strongly to the gender roles in the Lozi society. Because of the respect that people have for elderly, people will listen to the elderly when they claim a certain activity is gender related (source: Ms. Mulobela). An incident at Lipumpu school concerning the out-door activities expresses clearly the rigidity of the gender system. The activities teach children practical skills which come in handy in the daily life. In these activities 9 A kind of endive. 11 job-segregation is applied. The girls collect the sand and smear the mud in the latrines, the boys cut trees, thatch roofs and make fences. Once the deputy-headmaster, Mr. Sankondo, tried to introduce mixed outdoor activities however many parents protested and so it was decided to segregate them again. Obviously this job segregation at school contributes to job-segregation at home. "There are certain periods of the year in which men are busy (August-September for 'building houses' and 'fencing' and October-December for 'ploughing'). Other times of the year they appear to have nothing [.. .]. Women's tasks, although varying in type over the seasons, are continuous over the year" (Report of the Mutuwapafa Gender Survey 1994:5). The main finding of the Mutuwapafa Gender Survey was that "indeed women perform a lot more duties and are responsible for a larger share of the household tasks than men" (Report Gender Survey Mutuwapafa 1994:3). In daily life men and women almost seem to live in separate worlds. Because they have very different activities during the day they do not work together. In village meetings there always is a men's side and a women's side, they do not sit mixed. In case ofa death women are mourning in the house and the men sit outside. Drinking is also not done in a mixed setting, often men sit under a tree on benches whereas the women sit in a courtyard on mats. The hierarchy between men and women is clearly expressed by the fact that generally men sit on a chair whilst women sit on a mat surrounded by children. Lozi marriage is based on lobola, if the price for the bride has not been paid the marriage has not been contracted. When a woman marries she will usually leave all her possessions and move to the village of her husband. She will have to live in the village of her in-laws and this will give her a subordinate position, as they can call on her labour force whenever they like. A well known Silozi phrase explains the situation: Musali hanna munzi, which means a woman does not have a home. Several marriages end in a divorce because the in-laws were too demanding. As soon as a couple is married they are expected to have children. Childlessness is a ground for divorce. I even met a woman who had been married five times but none of her husbands stayed with her because she could not have children. Contraception is not commonly used and it often happens a woman has born seven or more children. Some women told me they feared they would never be able to become pregnant again if at any time they had been taking the contraceptive pill. Lozi men can be married to five wives at the same time, but polygamy is fading because only very few men can afford it nowadays. A husband can have as many girl friends as he likes, to the Zambian court of law girl friends are no ground for a divorce, if a wife has a boy friend the court does recognise it as a ground for divorce. Divorce is a very common thing and during the research I met only very few women who had been married only once. 12 Land is allocated to the newly-weds in a village meeting. In principal man and wife work on these 'family fields' together but in the last decades a lot of young men have left the area to go and work elsewhere. In many cases a woman has to do all the work on her own, with her husband absent and no (male) relative willing to assist her on top of the drought of the past few years, this fact has decreased the agricultural production dramatically. Usually everybody is invited to village meetings, but it is mostly men who participate in the decision making. Women fail to attend meetings or are afraid to speak because it is not 'proper' for a women to do so when men are present (ibid. 1994:4). This is also related to the fact that in the old days women were not allowed to contribute unless their opinion was specifically asked for. In some cases the husband determines whether or not a woman can contribute. Some men encourage their wives to attend and speak out. Others disapprove of a woman giving her opinion, they say: "She just wants to be clever" (which is not considered to be an asset in women), or even forbid their wives to attend at all. Sometimes the women themselves fear they are ignorant and their opinion has no value. Still some women do not seem to be restricted by this and definitively contribute to the decision making processes in the village. I will come back to this later. 13 CHAPTER3 RESEARCH METHODS During the first week after my arrival in Sesheke the SGG organised the conference for influential women. This conference was a follow-up of a recommendation which ensued from the Mutuwapafa Gender Survey. The SGG had arranged for a research-assistant, Mrs. Anjanganjanga, who was to be my interpreter at the same time because I did not speak any Silozi. She was an elderly woman with a lot of knowledge of Lozi traditions. We both attended the SGG meetings where the programme ofthe conference was planned. The Conference At the conference 19 influential women from different agricultural camps were present. These women had been identified by their camp officer because they were active in participating in development programs, they coached other women, led others in their community and talked freely. During this conference the SGG introduced the research and the research team (Mrs. Anjanganjanga and me) to the influential women. The women reacted positive and they all promised their assistance. The conference played an important role in steering the research. The main objective ofthis conference was to strengthen women's leadership skills. Other objectives were: a. Explain what gender is. b. Find out what makes these women influential, what role they play in society. c. Build confidence in the women themselves by meeting each other. d. Hear the participants' experiences being influential (successes and failures). e. Find out how they overcome their limitations and constraints. f. Formulate an action plan per camp. The conference took place at the Farmers' Training Centre (FTC). The day before the conference started the women had gathered in Masese. The project provided the women's transport from Masese to Sesheke. The Gender Group had arranged the women's accommodation at the FTC and provided their breakfast, lunch, tea and supper. The first morning the three indunas wanted a VIP treatment and distanced themselves from the others. They took their breakfast after everybody else and sat in the middle of the square the tables formed in the conference room. In the beginning of the conference they dominated, but this changed in the course of the conference and everybody became free to speak their minds. 14 Each SGG member was responsible for a part of the programme. This part was related to the department where they came from. In most cases the participants were asked to contribute and together they reached a general conclusion. A video camera filmed the course of the conference. The conference started explaining gender to the participants, this was done by means of a role play played by the participants themselves. Obviously the women enjoyed exchanging views on the gender situation in their villages. The following day two women explained their activities in their villages, and one induna explained how she became an induna. Then the women continued to discuss constraints and limitations on their influence in the community. Husbands, envy and gossip were often mentioned. Together they discussed how to overcome these obstacles. They decided more efforts should be made to inform their husbands about their activities so they would be less suspicious and more supporting. To avoid envy the women agreed that it would be best to involve as many people as possible in their activities. During the conference the SGG members gave the women a workshop on public speaking and information on inheritance rights and on maternity care. The last day of the conference the women had to come together per camp and decide upon their plan of action once returned to the village. Every camp presented their action plan in the conference room. The influential women have been following up these action-plans by organising meetings to explain what gender is about and inform people about the activities planned at the conference. Some of these activities are the follow-up of the third recommendation, as they propose to give training in skills women do not possess due to their gender (like ploughing or building a latrine).The meetings the influential women organised in their camps proved the conference had built confidence in their abilities. I wrote a report of the conference and in the evaluation of we could conclude that the main objective of the conference had been met. The leadership skills of the women had definitely been strengthened, but two practical objectives were not reached: (b) What makes these women influential and what role they play in society remained vague and was not answered sufficiently. Another objective the conference failed to fulfil was to hear the participants' experiences in being influential (d), only few experiences were being shared and the different types of influence did not get clarified. The research was partly aimed at these objectives. Research Proposal In the research proposal I had written in the Netherlands I assumed that the influential women would mostly be elderly women. However at the conference it was apparent that age was not a major determinant for influence. After an analysis of the conference I rewrote the research proposal, introducing the findings of the conference. My first month in Sesheke was mostly spent behind the computer of the Masese Agricultural Project. 15 In the 'Field' After rewriting the proposal I went into the field, finally. It was decided it would be best to stay with a local woman who would be the interpreter at the same time. I went to stay with Agatha Mu:futi in Lipumpu, Lichaha village. The project had successfully worked with her before because she was a very open minded person and willing to try new things. Agatha was a 34 year old widow and mother of one child. The fact that she was single meant that she was very mobile, she did not have to take care of a husband. She was generally respected which contributed to the fact that everybody welcomed us and answered our questions seriously. In both Lipumpu and Mushukula she introduced me to the silalo induna and the village headmen and we asked their permission to do the research, they all agreed and wished us good luck. Agatha had attended the conference, so she was aware of the research and was an influential woman herself. This added an interesting perspective to the research: the research object becomes researcher. Especially when we were discussing the questions referring to the conference this was a great help. It also meant the research subject interested her and she was as enthusiastic as I was to find the answers to the questions. Because she was not shy she did not mind asking my questions. On the other hand she would inform me how to behave and give me background information on certain situations we ran into. It was obvious that in time our co-operation improved and we really became a team. Lichaha village is closely situated to Mutuwapafa and also took part in the Mutuwapafa gender survey. In the village I was accommodated by Agatha, sleeping in a tent in her courtyard, this gave me the opportunity to experience and participate in family life (a family headed by a woman). Many people were visiting Agatha during the day (she was always selling something either snuff, salaula10 or wine), so I had the possibility to talk to many different people. I spent five weeks in Lichaha. None of the influential women from Mushukula who attended the conference could speak English. Luckily Agatha Mufuti was willing to join me as interpreter. She arranged we would be accommodated by the Kangombe family in Sampuo village. Agatha slept in the hut with the Kangombe children and I slept under a big Monzauli 11 tree in a tent. This tree was the centre of our activities and if we were not out we would sit under the tree. Mrs. Kangombe was pounding her maize under the tree, Agatha was selling her salaula and people came to visit us there. Mr. and Mrs. Kangombe had built us our own latrine, and the pump was about five minutes walking. We could wash and bathe in the Isungo. Mr. Kangombe even built me a table under the Monzauli tree, so I would have a table to work at (the desk with the most beautiful view in the world). Mr. Kangombe was very concerned about the research and because his English was good I could discuss some of 10 Second-hand clothes. 11 A tree producing red edible beans. 16 my :findings with him, sometimes this would give me a new perspective. Especially his remarks about the initiation ceremony, which is a subject men generally do not talk about, were clarifying. Staying in a male headed family gave me the opportunity to observe the way the different jobs within the household are divided (and compare with the situation I witnessed in Lichaha), even though Mr. Kangombe is the judge at the local court and not a fanner. I found the people in Mushukula generally very helpful, especially the concern of the ward councillor (Mr. Mutendewa) and the headmaster (Mr. Wambulawae) were a great help to the research. In total we spent 25 days in Mushukula. Interviews In the field we arranged at least one interview, visit or assignment a day. These activities would mostly take place in the morning. Especially if we had to walk a long distance before reaching the place of the activity we would get up at dawn and tryto be back before 11.00 AM, to avoid the heat of the midday. Before an interview I would prepare questions. No standard list of questions was used though some questions kept returning in each interview (for instance: Who do you consider influential women in the area and why?). Most of the interviews were in Silozi translated by Agatha, in this paper I do not always state whether the infonnation was translated or not. Ifthe person being interviewed spoke English Agatha was not present at the interview. Her absence gave me the opportunity to cross-check earlier :findings and make sure Agatha had not been steering the answers people gave me. Group Discussions In Lichaha we tried to arrange a group discussion twice. The first time only one of the five invited women showed up because of circumstances beyond our control. The second time the discussion was more successful, in this discussion both men and women participated. Because four of the seven people present spoke English the discussion was held in Silozi and English simultaneously, all contributions were translated in either Silozi or English. We organised three group discussions in Mushukula, because only few people spoke English in Mushukula the discussions had to be in Silozi. Except for the discussion in which the ward councillor, the camp officer and the silalo induna participated, then we talked English. The groups differed in formation and discussed different topics. During these discussions I found not being able to understand Silozi a considerable handicap: it soon became clear that the discussion dropped dead as soon as Agatha translated for me. To avoid this she would give a summary at the end of every discussion before moving to the next topic. She was also taking notes in English during the discussion, which I read and could asked to be clarified if necessary. Luckily Agatha and me had been working together for quite some time so I trusted her to lead the discussion. 17 Mapping To find out more about the different households and to get a picture of the area, Agatha drew a map of Lichaha village. Unfortunately I did not have such a detailed map of Sampuo village so for the composition of the different households I had to trust the information given to me by the ward councillor and the village induna. I do have a map of both Lipumpu and Mushukula (Maps no. 2&3). Initiation Ceremonies During the field research I witnessed two initiation ceremonies, at both ceremonies I taped the songs the people sang. I do not have a literal translation of each song, but I did manage to get an idea what the songs were about and to discuss the meaning with the female members of the SGG. The first week in Lichaha an initiation ceremony took place in Lukuku village, across the plain. I had the chance to attend this ceremony, I but did not have the time to prepare for it properly so I did not get all the possible information. Women are generally very secretive about the things the malanguo 12 is taught during these lessons, and Agatha found it difficult to explain the lessons to me. Luckily two friends in Lichaha village were not shy to tell me the contents of the lessons. I witnessed a second initiation ceremony in Sampuo village during the last month of my field research. This time I knew what to focus on and I gathered much more information, I was even allowed to attend a lesson given to the malanguo when she was kept in the house. Essays Lipumpu school and Mushukula school both assisted to get the opinion of children on the subject for which they were rewarded with sweets. In Lipumpu the question was: "Write a story about the most important woman in the village and explain how she is helping and advising other people or in what way she is an example to others". I caught some children cheating: one story was literally repeated five times. To make sure my question was not leading the children I changed the formulation slightly, in Mushukula I simply asked the pupils to write a story about the most important woman in the village. The essays of both schools contained many similar determinants of importance but the children in Mushukula had been less specific in the age and the marital status of the women they mentioned. 12 Girl to be initiated. 18 Village Meetings To get an impression of the follow-up of the conference I attended the meetings organised by the influential women and the meetings organised by the Lipumpu Gender Promotion Group. This group was set up to organise the activities proposed on the Lipumpu action-plan designed at the conference. I attended several village meetings not only the meetings organised by the women at the conference but also a meeting on the renovation of the school for instance. These meetings gave me the opportunity to observe who was participating and who was not. Later on I would ask for an explanation of the participation I witnessed. On Independence Day Agatha and me were invited to be guests of honour at the festivities. It was interesting to see who was leading these festivities and what the allocation oftasks was. Court In Lipumpu Agatha and I witnessed several court cases of both the traditional Lozi court and the Zambian court. We interviewed the silalo induna and the court secretary to get an understanding of the procedure in such a kuta. I did not have the opportunity to go to a traditional court in Mushukula because it was closed. The rains were coming, and people did not have much time to go to court. Besides the silalo tnduna was not popular, so he was not trusted to solve problems. However I did visit the local Zambian court where Mr. Kangombe was working as a judge and talked to him about this court. Women's Groups I also tried to give some attention to women's groups within church organisations. I spoke to several women about their church activities and visited services of different churches. Reports Each time I returned to Sesheke I would assess my findings. I wrote three brief reports for the gender group and discussed my findings with them. It was a good way to keep a review of the research and identify what was needed to be found out next time in the field. At the end of the research I wrote a report for the project and gave three presentations of my findings to different audiences. One to the camp officers at their bi-monthly meeting, concentrating on the findings and the recommendations which followed from the research. These recommendations would need the co-operation of the camp officers, so it was a presentation from a mainly practical point of view. The second presentation was for the SGG and other interested parties and was much more elaborate and corresponded with the written report. 19 The last presentation was the most interesting. Agatha and I went to Masese and presented the findings to the Lipumpu Gender Promotion group many of whom had been personally involved in the research because they had been interviewed. We also discussed the recommendations with them and asked their advice on the implementation. The people reacted enthusiastically. They supported the recommendations and even provided me with some extra infonnation and ideas for the implementation which I added to the report. In Retrospect Looking back on the course of the research and the methods used, I have a few remarks. To have the support of the project was very convenient: They arranged for my transport to the village, I could use their computer when I was in Sesheke and they provided me with a very capable interpreter. The conference in Sesheke provided me with an excellent introduction. Whenever I was in Sesheke I could discuss my findings with the SOO and Anne Marie van Swinderen. They wanted to be informed about the progress of the research, and when I was in Sesheke I would give them an update. This forced me to arrange my findings regularly and enabled me to keep a review of the research. The presentations which were given at the end of the research were especially enlightening, and it was fruitful to take back the results of the research to the people who had provided the information. The main obstacle in the research was the fact that I did not speak Silozi. Agatha was a very good interpreter, but of course she could not translate everything, especially ordinary daily conversations eluded me. I think a lot of information could have been gathered during these casual conversations. On the other hand I am convinced Agatha's co-operation was essential to some ofthe information I gathered. Looking back on the research methods I think the right approach was used. Of course I sometimes ran into surprises: The first day of the conference I caused great confusion by wearing pants and a big shirt, the participants were wondering whether I was a boy or a girl. I had not realised how keen people were on proper clothes, a woman should wear a long skirt. And when visiting the women's groups in churches it became clear to me that a minimal knowledge ofthe bible was required, which is something I lack completely. I am aware ofthe fact that I collected purely qualitative data. It is impossible to generalise the findings from these two more or less arbitrarily chosen villages. But the data do give the SOO and the Masese Agricultural Project sufficient information on the role of the influential women within the project area which was the objective of the research and I was able to deduct some practical recommendations. 20 CHAPTER4 TEN INFLUENTIAL WOMEN As I mentioned earlier it is possible to discern four fields of influence within a community. Firstly the Economic field, women in this field have economic activities. Some women have a shop, others sell vegetables or scones. They earn money which they can keep to themselves, no husband is claiming it. Especially ifthe trade is prosperous, people will often come to these women to ask them for advice or a loan. Agriculture is part of this field because it is the way most people earn their living. A woman who is a successful furmer is highly respected. The Social field concerns activities depending on the co-operation of groups of people e.g. developmental issues, education, health care and churches. Especially in health care and church groups women are involved. The community appreciates the women's activities because it benefits. Thirdly the Cultural field, the activities in this field aim at conserving the Lozi culture: the music, songs and dances but also the norms and values. In the cultural field I include the mulena hae13 and elderly women in general as they are the ones trying to preserve beliefs and taboos. In the fourth place I consider the Political field. The politics in this field are related to the local government: women who join political parties gain influence through their position within a party. Often they will be experienced in public speaking this will enable them to participate actively in village meetings. I have found most women started to be politically active with UNIP, some told me UNIP gave women training when they were active members. Usually women are influential in two or more fields at the same time: when a woman achieves influence in one area she is likely to be asked to participate in other activities so naturally she will extend her influence beyond the first field. In Lipwnpu many women were active in the economic field. In Mushukula people mostly considered the social or the cultural type of influence as most important. Politics did not get much attention. The participants at the conference were mostly socially and/or economically influential. In the next paragraphs I will illustrate the above mentioned generalisations with the help of case studies. I will also shed a light on questions such as: What does their influence encompass? What are the characteristics of a woman's influence in a certain field? What qualities give a woman influence and what fuctors have an impact on these qualities? 13 Mistress of the initiation ceremony, puberty trainer. 21 4.1 The Trader Agatha Mufuti was born in 1961 in Lichaha village, Lipumpu. She was the sixth born in a family of eight children, both her parents were farmers. At the age of five she moved to Mongu to live with her aunt and uncle (brother to her mother). They were childless and Agatha's parents welcomed the idea of having one mouth less to feed. In 1968 she moved again because her uncle got a job as a driver in Katima Muhlo, Zambia. It was here Agatha started to go to school, grade 1. In 197 0 her uncle became the council driver of the Sesheke District so they moved to Sesheke. Agatha went to Sesheke Primary school where she took her final exams in November 1974. Then it was decided she would return to Lichaha village and live with her own family. It was not easy for her to be back in Lichaha village. Her sisters and brother did not accept her and her own parents were much stricter than her aunt and uncle, who had been spoiling her because she was their only child. She was not used to the hardworking life of a farmer in the rainy season. The results of the finals came in and she had failed. Her parents did not allow her to go back to Sesheke, instead she was sent to Sioma boarding school in 1975. In 1976 she went to Senanga secondary school. In Senanga she started to drink and smoke heavily so in December 1978 she failed again and went back to Lichaha. Her parents decided she would have to go and stay with her second born brother in Ndola, the Copperbelt. In 1980 she qualified to go to grade 11 but she was pregnant and got expelled. Her brother opposed to a marriage with the father of her child as he was a Bemba. Agatha stayed single, she gave birth to a son, Boyde Mutale (a Bemba name). She managed to get a job as an untrained teacher and worked at a primary school in the Ndola from 1980 to 1983. She applied for college but was not accepted. In 1984 she decided to go back to Lichaha and continue her studies there privately. Back in Lichaha she soon met Itwe Mulemwa, who was working for the Masese Agricultural Project. They got married, it was after the wedding that Agatha found out ltwe was not divorced, as was generally believed. Itwe had a senior wife who was living in Sesheke. Nowadays Agatha claims she would never have married him if she had known this before the wedding. Luckily the senior wife lived quite faraway. In Masese Agatha organised a women's group. This group (four women) started a vegetable garden to earn some money. The garden was a success and they even got a loan from the Masese Agricultural Project to buy more seeds. The profit they gathered from the garden was invested in a maize field. The project provided the women with a plough and oxen. The harvest was good and the women shared the yield. The project noticed the group's enthusiasm and stimulated this by offering the women an opportunity to follow a course on group management, formation and leadership, only Agatha was willing to take the course. Itwe did not interfere with Agatha's activities and he let her keep the money she made. 22 Jn 1989 he was transferred to Sesheke, for a while Agatha and her co-wife lived in one house. However Agatha only lived there shortly as she fell ill and returned to Lichaha till 1991. April '91 Itwe died, his relatives grabbed all his property and did not leave anything to the widows. Agatha decided to settle in Lichaha and make her own living: she built a hut for herself and her son, cleared a field and started farming. Her parents did not support her, they felt she should take care of herself. Jn Lichaha she also tried to organise a women's group to generate more income, however the group never became as successful as the one in Masese. The sorghum in the garden was eaten by cattle. The women did not find it profitable enough to continue working together. She never considered remarrying because it would mean the end of her freedom. At the moment she does have a friend, the headmaster of Lipumpu school, they have a 'liberal' relationship and she can do what she likes. They both have their own houses in Lichaha village. Due to her illness she could only have one child but she sees this as an advantage because she can bring him up the way she wants. Her household consists of six dependants: her son, an uncle and four nieces. The uncle is her late father's brother, a very old man, he has been herding cattle in Zimbabwe all his life and never really settled down. Agatha has given him two cows to look after, and he can keep the milk the cows produce. Two of the nieces are the children of a deceased sister and two are staying with her because their mother is married to a man who does not want to take care of his wife's children (of an earlier marriage). Nowadays Agatha is one of the successful farmers in the village, she has a big field. The headmaster, her son and two of her nieces (the other nieces are still too small) are helping her to do the work in the field. Apart from being a farmer Agatha is also a business woman. She deals in snuff tobacco, self-brewed wine, kacipembe 14 and salaula, second-hand clothes. Sometimes she would also brew beer or bake scones (white bread rolls). Her courtyard is always full of people wanting to buy one thing or the other. She is encouraging the children to earn their own money to pay for school necessities. Boyde "brews" wine (made from tea, sugar and yeast provided by Agatha) and sells this to teachers at Lipumpu school. The money he earns, he invests in tobacco which he sells. This pays for his school shoes. The eldest niece, Mulambo, goes to a secondary school in Mulobezi and lives there with another aunt. Every holiday she stays with Agatha because the aunt in Mulobezi does not support her. During these holidays Agatha gives Mulambo the opportunity to earn some money through brewing beer (from ingredients Agatha is providing). Agatha also pays Mulambo's school fees. Sometimes Agatha will also give business advice to other women within the area. Whenever we were visiting a village she would always be busy buying and selling things. Agatha feels her educational level contributes to her sense oftrading and she knows how to keep records. 14 Locally produced illicit gin. 23 Often people from the community come to Agatha for advice. It is common knowledge she is not afraid to try new things and she attracts a lot of attention. This attention can be negative and tum into envy. I will elaborate on this in the next chapter. Agatha Mufuti's influence lies largely in the economic field. She is completely independent and able to generate an income through different activities. These business ventures are an inspiration to others; she likes to advise other people on starting a trade and teaches her children to carry on business. Her initiative has given her a lot of knowledge on various things. The project has supported her in this and has given her the opportunity to do various courses and try new things. Agatha was present at the influential women's conference she was accompanied by Edith Mubita who is also living in Lipumpu. Together they made an action-plan to promote gender-equality in Lipumpu. To put this action plan into practice Agatha and Edith formed the Lipumpu Gender Promotion Group. This group consists of ten members, they inform people on inheritance rights, organise meetings, play role plays to show the people the advantages of co operation between husband and wife and demonstrate how to plough to women. Within a small community it is immediately known who are participating in a group. Through being active group members people acquire authority. They are valued for their activities and it appears that many influential women are active members of a group. The attention the project gives to Agatha is a source of influence to her. The Masese Agricultural Project is well known in the area, the community is often involved in their activities. Especially in the 1980ies the project would support people with a lot of material resources such as seeds and loans. The community feels they profit from the project so project activities are eagerly followed. This is not very difficult as the project car is quite conspicuous in an area where there are virtually no cars. And of course the white girl who was staying with Agatha caught the eye a bit. Whoever is involved in project activities has valuable things to mention, so Agatha was listened to. However my presence did not always do her good, I remember on one occasion in Mushukula it did harm her business. In Sampuo village Agatha continued to sell her salaula. She took a bale of cotton skirts with her, women and sometimes men would come to buy the skirts of their choice. One woman however did not want to buy, she was convinced the skirts belonged to me, so the money she paid would go to me and she did not want to give her money to a rich person. Another characteristic of Agatha's influence is the fact that people come to Agatha for advice, as the following case shows: 24 Edith Mubita was born in 1969 in Lukuku village. She married at the age of 18 to a man who was already married to a woman in Katima Mulilo. The husband said Edith could stay in Lukuku, he would often visit her and stay a while to help her in the fields. In 1992 when their third child was born Edith's husband decided it would be better if she moved to live with him in Katima Mulilo, he· would have a house built for her. Edith agreed but she did not want to come before the house was finished. From then on she saw less and less of him and the promised house was not built. Over the last years he only visited her once a year to collect a part of the harvest, which Edith had been working hard for, all by herself. Because she did not get any help from her husband she had to use a hoe to make her fields ready for the rainy season. She lacked the resources to get her field ploughed, this is why she came to Agatha. She wanted some advice from Agatha on how to earn money to be able to pay men to do piecework for her. Agatha advised her to brew kacipembe, which would enable Edith to earn money quickly. Edith should also consider to start selling snuff as there is a lot of money to be made with tobacco. Edith would try to arrange for this after the harvest April this year because a starter's capital is required to buy the raw tobacco material, which is needed to produce snuff. Edith was one of the participants of the conference. She is a woman who has gained influence through her group activities. She was the treasurer of the co-operative and the sales' lady in the co-operative shop. The co operative gave her the opportunity to take courses in bookkeeping and addressing meetings. She is also an active member of the UCZ women's group. These activities have enabled her to contribute in village meetings, people knew what she was doing and valued her opinion. She was also actively involved in the Lipumpu Gender Promotion Group. Agatha's advice is also sought in marital problems, like in the case ofthe Ndele family. Mr. Ndele is the deputy headmaster ofLipumpu school. He has two wives. Lucy is his senior wife, they married in 1984 and they have three children. In 1990 Mr. Ndele married Martha as his second wife, because he felt "Lucy could use some help in running the household". Martha and Mr. Ndele do not have any children. The whole family are living together in a teacher's house in Lichaha village. The house is not big, the children sleep in the living room and each wife has her own bedroom, sharing the kitchen. He spends two nights with one wife and the next two nights with the other, the wife he sleeps with cooks forthe family. Next tothe house each wife has her own vegetable garden. 25 Mr. Ndele's favourite wife is Martha, wherever he goes he takes her with him, so Lucy has to stay home with the children. Lucy and Martha often quarrel. Once they even fought in front of the school over a big dish which they had been sharing till Martha claimed it was hers. Their husband had bought it to be used in the kitchen so it really belonged to both of them. Mr. Ndele felt Lucy is not taking proper care of herself and her children. He was thinking of divorcing Lucy, but first he wanted some advice on the matter. He invited Agatha, the headmaster and a teacher to discuss the problem with him, Lucy and Martha. Mr. Ndele gave Lucy and Martha the same amount of money per month to buy things like soap, clothing and sugar. Lucy however has to pay the subsistence of her three children as well, she cannot spend it all on herself like Martha. So Lucy' clothes are a bit older and she does not use a lot of soap when washing. Agatha and the other people who were called to advise tried to explain this to Mr. Ndele. So he would understand why Lucy has trouble to manage on the money her husband is providing and does not wash as much as Martha is. This prevents her from taking proper care of herself and the children. Mr. Ndele said he would consider this. (Agatha told me later that if the situation continues the best solution for Lucy would be to get a divorce and leave the children with Mr. Ndele and Martha. I was surprised she would advise leaving the children. Then Agatha said: "at least the children will be fed"). It is clear Agatha's influence exceeds the economic field. She is not only a good business woman and farmer. Her advice is sought in the social field as well: in case of a marital dispute or by the SGG. 4.2 The 'Male Woman' Within the economic field I also include agriculture, because generally farming is the way people make their living. Often women are the first to clear their fields, then the men in the village will follow their example and start clearing as well. But when it comes to ploughing, the men are always the first because they own the oxen and have the skill to plough so the female headed households have to wait for a man to help them or use a hoe. However some women refuse to depend on the help of men. One ofthem is Mrs. Nobula Nakambola. Mrs. Nebula Nakambola from Mukuwe village was born in 1941 in Mabumbu and lived there with her parents and her brothers and sisters (13) till she got married in 1957 and moved to Simongoma. Her first husband died leaving her four children. In 1964 she married her second husband in Senanga. They had three children but they all died. Her in-laws, his mother and sisters were very tough on her, so after 6 years they divorced and Mrs. Nakambola returned to Mabumbu. 26 In Mabumbu she married again but the marriage did not last very long, her third husband died after a few years when she was mother of seven children. By this time her father had died and he left her oxen and a plough, but she found the land very poor, the produce of her field could not support her and her children. She decided to move to Mukuwe village where her mother and a brother were living. She hoped Mukuwe would give her a better possibility to take care of her children and send them to school. As ploughing is a man's job she asked her brothers to plough her fields, but they did not assist her. Other relatives were not much of a help either, so Mrs. Nakambola decided she would to it herself. Just by trying and with the help of her children she managed to plough her own field. At first people did not approve of this initiative but when they saw she was successful and they realised that her brothers did not want to help her the community accepted it. Now she and her brother are taking turns in herding the cattle. One week Mrs. Nakambola will be on duty her brother the next. She has built her own kraal (kraal building is a man's job as well) because the kraal she and her brother shared was in bad shape, and animals used to escape at night. She also dug her own well this is a men's job as well and it is believed that this can cause a continuous flow of water from the private parts of a woman. She feels women who are afraid to break taboos are just lazy. Mrs. Nakambola is hard working, this has earned her a lot of respect. Recently she was elected to be a member of the Parents-Teachers Association (PTA) at Lipumpu school because people thought she could handle it. Again initiative is the source of the influence, as it was in Agatha's case. After Mrs. Nakambola's male relatives had let her down several times she decided to learn the skills in agriculture and animal husbandty she has now. This initiative is exceptional and Mrs. Nobula Nakambola is generally admired for her hard work and the things she gets done. Still it should not be forgotten that she had one very big advantage: she possessed the resources she needed. The oxen and the plough she inherited from her father enabled her to take this initiative. Many people spoke very highly of her, she was often mentioned by men and women as an influential woman in the village. The fact that she was chosen to be in the PTA shows the respect she had gained in the community. She was mentioned in two essays of ten year old girls as the most important woman in their village. The essays were written in Silozi and roughly translated by Agatha, these are the main points they mentioned about her: "She is a very hospitable person and encourages people to work together. She is good at informing people when there is a meeting and what the meeting will be about encouraging people to attend. She is the only mother in the PTA". Her ability to organise a meeting is obviously a sign of influence. Hospitality is also an element of influence which will reappear in this thesis again and again. The Lozi people highly approve of a woman who is hospitable. 27 Even very conservative people esteem Mrs. Nakambola's activities highly though she is breaking taboos. People like Mrs. Pumulo for instance, a single woman living in Lichaha village who would never do a man's job. She keeps very strictly to the traditional gender roles, but she does admire women who are not held back by the fact they are women: "These women are strong, powerful and eager to work". Mr. Nawa mentioned Nobula Nakambola as an influential woman because she is a good farmer and herdswoman. Like Mrs. Pumulo he approves of her activities because she has no choice. Most of the influential women Mr. Nawa indicated were single women and good farmers. He thinks single women have more of a chance to be influential than married women have, due to the fact that they do not have a husband who is holding them back. 4.3 The Nurse Mrs. Mwanza was born in Kalomo in 1954. Her father was a mechanic who worked for the forestry department. At the age of 6 her father got posted in Machili, this is where Mrs. Mwanza went to primary school grade 1 to 6. Then her father was transferred again, to Masese this time. Mrs. Mwanza went to Sesheke secondary till she failed the last grade. She decided to go to the Sichili mission school to do home economics. Her parents supported her in this decision, they saw to it that all their daughters got an education, they did not have to get married. After graduation she became a home-economics teacher but she did not like her first posting. She heard Yeta hospital was looking for women to be trained as a nurse, she applied and got the training at the hospital. From 1975 to 1983 she worked at the Masese clinic then she got transferred to the Mushukula clinic. Jn 1986 she married Mr. Mwanza, he is the Jnduna of Mwanza village. Together they have one child, Mrs. Mwanza already had 3 children before. She thinks four children are enough because children are expensive nowadays. She is encouraging the education of her children, at the moment her first born (1974) is training to be a nurse as well. Mr. Mwanza did not stop his wife from working in the clinic. He says: "I profit from the income she is generating, it enables me to pay for piecework I have done". Mrs. Mwanza was mentioned in many children's essays about the most important woman in their village. Prisca Amukena, for instance wrote the following essay: The most important woman in my village (Mwanza village) is Mrs. Mwanza, she treats people complaining of headache, coughing, malaria, tooth- and earache. She can attend to maternity cases. She is fond of giving things to beggars and she can give an orphan clothes to wear. She has good 28 hospitality. She is married and has four children, all girls. She is 41 years old. She is working as a nurse in Mushukula clinic (Prisca Amukena, grade seven, Mushukula school). So apart from her activities in the clinic she is also considered influential because she is a religious and generous person. However the main source of Mrs. Mwanza's influence are her skills as a nurse. Her educational level enabled her to gather these skills. She is aware of this and values education highly. Her daughters are all given the opportunity to become well educated. This is quite extraordinary as Mrs. Mwanza put it herself: "In Mushukula people don't value education, girls are supposed to marry and be looked after by their husbands. Most parents discourage a girl's education". However according to Mrs. Mwanza the educated girls are much better off, as it often happens that a husband leaves his family, so a woman should be able to take care of herself. Mr. Mwanza shares this opinion with her: the most important thing he wants to give to his children is independence so they can take care of themselves. All his children from his first marriage are well educated and have good jobs in the city now. One son is even working at a university in South Africa. Mrs. Mwanza has authority within the village, people value her because of her skills as a nurse. She is able to organise meetings like Agatha is. Mrs. Mwanza's influence can also be contributed to her activities at the UCZ. Mrs. Mwanza claims her religion helped her achieving the things she is doing now and it kept her from marrying early. Now she is the treasurer of the United Church of Zambia (UCZ) in Mwanza village. 4.4 The Benefactress Churches play an important role in the society. There are many different Christian church communities in both Lipumpu and Mushukula: the UCZ, the Seventh Day Adventists (SDA), the New Apostolic Church and the Catholic Church. Within each church community there are groups, men's groups, women's groups and children's groups. These groups have various activities. They study the bible together, grow vegetables and sell them for the benefit of the church, especially the women's groups do good deeds for the community e.g. attending to the sick or handing out clothes and food to the poor. These activities have a positive impact on the community, consequently the women are known and respected. In most of the children's essays good Samaritans were mentioned. According to the children the most important woman of the village helps orphans, takes care ofthe sick or feeds hungry people. One of the women mentioned is Mrs. Wambulawae, the wife of the headmaster of Mushukula school. She is a Dorca leader at the SDA in Mwanza village. The Dorcas are the women's group of the SDA. They are a 29 very well organised group who even have their own uniforms. As a Dorca she is helping a lot of people by providing food. Whenever the church has visitors she cooks them a meal. A pupil at Mushukula school, wrote his essay about her: The most important woman in my village is Mrs. Wambulawae. She is living on the Mushukula school campus. She has a vegetable garden, she is the one supplying vegetables in Mushukula. She also helps other people fetching drinking water, and pounding when needed. She is good at visiting people in other villages and helping them as well. She has very good hospitality. She is married to Mr. Wambulawae, they have seven children (Crescent Mubita, grade seven, Mushukula school). Not only children respect her, adults do as well, although for different reasons. People think of her as an example because she is a good farmer and a good mother. She is the only person in Mushukula who sells vegetables. Her advice is sought in case of marital problems, she is well known as a marriage councillor. Mrs. Wambulawae was born in 1948 in a village near Lusaka. She is the mother of seven children, all of whom have passed their final exams at secondary school and are now working in town. Mrs. Wambulawae thinks education is the most important thing in the upbringing of a girl. It will enable her to be independent. Mrs. Wambulawae herself only went to school up to standard 2 (grade 6 of primary school). She did not get the opportunity to go to school any longer. She married Mr. Wambulawae in 1964, who was working as a cook for a white man in Lusaka. Later he worked for the same man in Livingstone. It was in town that Mrs. Wambulawae saw what education could do for a woman. She admires the independence of educated women. Mrs. Wambulawae indicated that the fact she had been living in town changed her views, it made her realise that education is very important to the life of a girl. She also discovered that women should not hesitate to express their opinion. Her opinion is valued, and adults and children respect her for her activities. As in the case of Agatha it is a sign of Mrs. Wambulawae's influence that people come to her to ask for advice on various matters. Not only in case of marital problems, as I mentioned earlier, but also for advice on growing vegetables for instance. Still Mrs. Wambulawae was in a fortunate position because her husband is the headmaster of the school. He was very much in favour of providing a good education for his children. After he had been a cook for ten years he decided that he wanted to be a teacher. He quit his job as a cook in 1973 and went to a teachers training's college. He is a man with a wide interest and was always willing to assist me in the research. 30 4.5 The Healer One of the women present at the conference in Sesheke was Elisabeth Nalishebo. She was born January 1947 in Samwali village, Mushukula. She went to Mushukula school up to grade six, then her parents took from school. They thought education would lead to prostitution. In 1965 she married a teacher of Mushukula school and in 1966 she bore her first child. Wherever her husband was posted she followed him, but in 1986 he died leaving her with eight children. Her in-laws gave her all his possessions so that she could take care of the children. The state is paying her a widow's pension till the last born is 20 years old. After the death of her husband Elisabeth moved back to Samwali. At the moment her household consists of five children and two grandchildren. She does not feel being single is a limitation, she manages to take care of her family through hardworking in her field. She is free to do everything she wants and has got herself involved in many activities. She is a very popular Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA). She gathered knowledge in this field through her own experience and an additional course at Yeta hospital. She also works as a health worker at the Manyeme unit, a rural health centre with only outdoor patients. She has to go there three times a week, the unit is one and a half hours walk from Samwali. The community should pay her 5000 Kwacha per month for her services (Fl.l 0, -) but for the last three months she did not get paid, however she continues going there. Ifthe medicines she prescribes at the health unit do not work she refers people to the Mushukula health centre. Nalishebo has a knowledge on the use of herbs as well. She acquired this knowledge because she was treated herself by a herbalist at a time when she was mentally ill. The (female) herbalist taught her which herbs to use in case her illness would come back. Nowadays Elisabeth can even cast off demons, still she would not call herself a nanga 15 because she is not registered as one and only practices her skills on friends and relatives for free. Her skills as TBA, health worker and witch doctor have earned her a lot of respect. People come to her for various illnesses. Mrs. Kangombe, the mother of the family Agatha and I were staying with in Sarnpuo village, is one of those people. She was seven months pregnant of her eleventh child when she got terrible toothache. The clinical health worker at the Mushukula health centre said he could only give her paracetamol because it would endanger her pregnancy to extract the tooth. Mrs. Kangombe decided to go to Nalishebo to ask to be cured with herbs. A week after her herbal treatment the toothache was indeed gone. 15 Witchdoctor. 31 Elisabeth Nalishebo was also involved in the Mushukula women's club. This club was making money through knitting jerseys and selling them. Sometimes they would brew beers and sell them at a 'Sundown', a place where people paid an entrance fee. Once entered they could drink as much as they wanted. The money they earned was put together to start a shop, as there still is no shop in Mushukula. Unfortunately the president ran off with all the money, so ever since the women have been in doubt about starting a new club, afraid it might happen again. Just before I left Nalishebo and some friends decided they would start a garden group. As I mentioned earlier these group activities are a source of influence. The community elected Nalishebo to take part in the conference. The invitation came as a surprise to her because she was not even present at this meeting. I think this is a sign of her influence, she does not even have to be present to be elected. On another occasion she was chosen to be a member of the PAM committee. This committee is distributing free and subsidised maize, because it is such an important task which must be done objectively, the people in this committee are all absolutely trusted by the community. A schoolgirl from Samwali village wrote her essay about her:"The most important woman in my village is Elisabeth of Samwali. She is fond of treating many African diseases such as demons and toothache, also traditional maternity cases. She can heal or treat a person without payment. Initiating girls is one of her favourite practices. She is good at brewing bitter beers. She is not married and can treat a mad person. She has eight children"(Petronela Pumulo, grade six, Mushukula school). 4.6 The Mulena Hae Miss Pumulo was born in 1947 in Lichaha village. She has been married to five different men, but at the moment she is single again. She was widowed twice and three times the marriage ended in a divorce, the last ending three years ago. She is the mother of seven children, her eldest child is 27, her youngest is six years old. Her household in Lichaha village consists of her elder brother, her eldest son (25) and two girls aged six and eight. Two of her children are living with their father not far away, she sees them every now and then. Miss Pumulo does not know where her two other children are, she has not seen them for a long time and she does not have the money to go looking for them. Miss Pumulo advocates very strict gender-roles, she would never do a man's job. Unfortunately her elder brother and her son are not helpful in the household, they do not help her in the field or at home and she is carrying the burden of the household alone. I remember one time the fence of her courtyard had collapsed, because making fences is a man's job, she would not repair it and had to wait for her son or brother to fix it. It took a very long time before they did, in the mean time the wind was blowing dust in the food and livestock roaming in the courtyard. 32 Miss Pumulo cannot plough a field, so she has to hoe her own plot, managing to produce just enough to support her household. She is not forcing her son and her brother to choose between contributing to the household or leaving. Her brother is three years her senior. He was sent away by their eldest sister earlier this year, so miss Pumulo thinks she compelled to look after him as he is older than she is. And it is clear to her that her son needs her. In the old days when family ties were much stronger, men would assist their single mothers or sisters. But nowadays it is different, men often think they are wasting their time doing so. A single woman has the choice to either pay for the job, do it herself or wait a very long time. That is why miss Pumulo feels that marriage would make her life a lot easier, then at least her husband would help her and she would not have to look after her children by herself. At the moment she feels restricted by the fact that she is a woman, tradition is keeping her from doing everything necessary to support her family. Unlike miss Pumulo some women do not feel restricted and can do everything themselves, like Mrs. Nakambola. She does not disapprove ofthese (gender role breaking) women. Miss Pumulo considers these women to be very strong and hard working and says they have no choice but to do everything themselves. She does not feel strong enough to do the same. It is obvious to everybody in the village that miss Pumulo knows how to behave as a woman. This makes her a popular mulena hae. She has initiated many girls and is highly appreciated. According to her this is due to the fact that she gives "... the malanguo strong rules to live by, so they are good wives to their husbands". Showing respect to the husband is very important. An example: ifthe husband asks for a glass of water, the wife should get it for him, kneel, give it to him and then clap. Kneeling and clapping is the utmost sign of showing respect, this should also be done to show regard to elderly people. Apart from good manners in public, Miss Pumulo also teaches the girls how to 'dance'. This dancing has a purely sexual meaning, it concerns dancing in bed. It is known throughout the village miss Pumulo's malanguo are good dancers. Miss Pumulo is very well mannered, many people in the village consider her to be an example to others, she is good at initiating girls. Because miss Pumulo has the reputation of a good mulena hae she is often asked by parents to initiate their daughter. To be asked by a mother to be a mulena hae for her daughter is a sign of trust and respect. To initiate a girl is a very serious job which, according to some people, will largely determine the behaviour ofthe malanguo once she has become a woman. This has of course given her a lot of influence, the community values her opinion. As Nalishebo from Samwali village has pointed out: "to show respect is to gain respect". Several people in the village, mentioned a mulena hae as an important woman in their village: "The mulena hae is important, she really teaches about having a family and a husband. She is responsible for the behaviour 33 of the girl once she is a woman". (Miss Kawana in interview 28/09/95). The mulena hae and the malanguo have a special bond. In case of marital troubles the mulena will be asked by the malanguo to give advice, in their relationship they are not at all bothered by taboos, they can talk about everything. It should be remarked that especially women and children mentioned miss Pumulo to be an influential woman. Only two men mentioned a mulena hae. The explanation can be found in the fact that in the Lozi community it is the women who are concerned with the upbringing of the daughters, whereas the men concentrate more on their sons. The initiation of a girl is purely a woman's activity. In 19 of the 44 essays the children mentioned initiating girls as an activity of the most important woman of their village. It shows the importance of initiation in the life of children, both of girls and boys. The following paragraphs are quotations from two essays to illustrate what the children think of a mulena hae: She is always helping the puberty trainers, by teaching them (E.J.: the malanguo) how to dance, how to behave when they will have their own home, how to respect their husband and parents, how to dance during sexual and how to dance traditional songs. Men are not allowed to go there and if they see what they are doing the hair of that person will tum red. That is what I was told by my grandmother (Joe Liswaniso, grade seven, Lipumpu school). This woman is famous for her importance. She is the one who trains the puberty or those girls who have reached the maturity stage, she guides them how to behave successful in marriages and how to become good wives. She also teaches them to respect so that they will not disappoint to their parents to the place where they will be married (E.J.: parents-in-law) (Boy grade seven, Lipumpu school). According to Agatha miss Pumulo would be able to organise a meeting for all the important mulena hae in Lipumpu. The puberty trainers would all come because they respect her skill in this field. As I explained earlier I consider the ability to organise meetings a sign of influence. 4. 7 The Traditional Birth Attendant Rabecca is about 60 years old. She is a widow, her husband died in 1989. She has lived most of her life in Lichaha village and is the mother of eight children (Agatha is one of them). At the moment her household consists of her youngest daughter, Gilnard, her son-in-law and their baby Sunday, the brother of the son-in law and two grandchildren. Except for the two grandchildren (children of a deceased daughter) everybody within the household is taking care of themselves. Rabecca is a very hardworking woman, she still has her own fields and is completely independent. 34 Rabecca is a traditional birth attendant (fBA) and a herbalist. It was her grandmother who taught her the use of herbs. Rabecca has composed her own herbal mixture in which she bathes her grandchildren from birth up to their third month. Every day she bathed Sunday, she made arm- and anklebands for him and around his neck he is wearing a little pocket with herbs. Rabecca believes her herbal mixtures determine the character of the child: all her grandchildren are stubborn and will be strong "fighters" when they are grown up. She became a midwife through her own experiences. Once she gave birth to a child when she was alone and had to do everything herself. Later she attended other deliveries and was able to help. Now Rabecca wants to pass her knowledge on to one of her daughters. Agatha does not feel up to this, but Gilnard has proved to be willing to succeed her mother's position. Only women can be traditional birth attendants, men are not even allowed to be present at a delivery. Most women with a knowledge on herbs are TBAs, because it is believed they can better stand the blood the woman in labour loses. This blood can hurt the eyes of the woman present at the delivery, herbs can stop this harmful effect. Rabecca's age has given her considerable knowledge of the Lozi traditions. She believes these traditions are necessary for the well-being of the community: "Nowadays people get sick and die often because of the changes in beliefu". She tries to conserve the traditions and brings them under the attention of the community. Generally elderly people are consulted on a household level. They advise people on housekeeping, family business and marriage. In case of a domestic quarrel old men advise younger men, and elderly women the younger women. Elderly people remind the community of the norms and values that should reign in a village. Rabecca and her brother-in-law (who was staying with Agatha) would show great appreciation when I wore a chitenge 16 as women are supposed to. And I was sure to get a remark when I wore pants, it was simply not done for a woman to wear them. When someone dies in the village, Rabecca will go to the house of the deceased and sleep the night before the funeral in the dead person's courtyard to prevent the spirit of the deceased from coming to bother her. She also gives all her children and grandchildren a necklace with a piece of wood on it as a token of mourning. The community knows they can ask her to help the family of the deceased. She will go into the bush to find the herbs that the partner of the deceased needs to prevent the spirit ofthe dead from troubling the living. This is a highly respected job as the following phrases from the children's essays prove: Miss Ireen Linyanda is considered to be the most important woman in Sampuo. She is fond of helping people in many cases assisting women whose husband has died, giving them herbs to wash. 16 A piece of cloth women wear as a skirt. 35 In case their husband may come to visits them at night and they dream of the deceased (Nakwezi, grade seven, Mushukula school). Mother of Nawa is considered to be influential ( ..... ) She knows the bathing herbs for babies. She also has a knowledge on bathing people whose wives or husbands have died (Melvin, grade six, Mushukula school). It is quite common for elderly people (men and women) to have some knowledge of herbs. According to Rabecca the herbs can treat diseases, the clinic cannot treat; the fits some babies have when it is full moon were mentioned as an example of a such a disease. The following case illustrates Rabecca's knowledge in traditional cures: A few years ago Agatha had trouble sleeping, mostly she was lying awake in her bed and when she finally fell asleep she would be disturbed by bad dreams. She consulted her mother, Rabecca told her that ancestors were troubling her. They were keeping her awake at night, however there was a remedy: to keep the ancestors outside the bedroom, Agatha should put a cup of water with a hot charcoal in it on the doorstep before going to bed. The ancestors would think it was a river they cannot cross so they would stop bothering her. The remedy worked and Agatha could sleep peacefully again. Not all elderly women have knowledge of herbs, however. It depends on their interest. I met one woman who was definitely not interested in herbs even though she was very old: 4.8 The Old Woman Nakabeta Maria Samate was born in Manyati village, maybe in 1924. Her father did not allow her to go to school, school was something for boys. Her first husband worked as a teacher in Njoko. His school gave her the opporttmity to become an assistant-teacher, teaching girls to knit and to make brooms and mats. Her husband allowed her to keep the money she earned, she could spend it on whatever she liked. This gave her considerable independence. As a teacher her husband was often transferred so the family, they had four children, lived in many places, in villages and in towns. After the husband retired, he started working in a shop in Livingstone. When he died she moved to Sampuo village where her two youngest children live. They are now taking care of her, the two eldest having died. Nakabeta's advice is sought in many different cases. This is not due to her age but to her personality, respect has to be earned. She has earned it and now she can 36 rest, because she knows she will be fed by her children. She likes to think back of the old days when everything was plentiful, there was no drought and it was easy to grow things, it was easy to survive. She is aware of the fact that nowadays it is important for a young woman to be self-sufficient, independent. Women have to be very hard.working and develop many activities, they even have to learn to do men's jobs. She complains that some children are lazy, they go to the city and only come back to look for food. They do not listen to elderly people, they break taboos and this can have bad consequences. Sometimes people even get hurt, when for instance a pregnant woman eats dried meat she will get an obstruction at the delivery. However Nakabeta does not know a lot about herbs. Not all elderly women know about herbs, it depends if they want to know. Herbs do not interest Nakabeta, when she is ill she goes to the clinic. Nakabeta has always striven to be independent and managed to do so as an assistant teacher. The transfers of her husband have given her the opportunity to live in many different places. Travelling has often been mentioned as a quality, providing the opportunity to observe the attitude of women in other places and helping to develop new ideas. Nakabeta is very much aware of the fact that respect has to be earned and will not automatically come with the years. Her own personality has gained her the respect she enjoys. People come to her for advice, they respect her for the things she has done in her life and her view on life. She thinks it a duty to give her opinion on the actions of others, she will warn people if they are about to break a taboo, because she feels it is important taboos are respected. This interview took place in mid October on a very hot afternoon when it really felt there might be a thunder storm soon. Nakabeta's daughter in-law was collecting empty maize combs to start a fire. Nakabeta prevented her from taking the red ones, because once burnt these would certainly cause terrible thunder, and she was right: there never was a thunderstorm that day. 4.9 Two Politicians At the time of the fieldwork elections would be held a year later (October 1996) and the community did not seem very occupied with politics yet. No political activities were to be witnessed, however I did meet some women who were said to be politically active, but it remains unclear what their political activities encompass today. They speak mostly about their past activities. The women politicians have one thing in common: they all contribute the skill they have in public speaking and their involvement in decision making processes on village level to experience they gathered in politics. Miss Kawana was born in Mongu in 1945. The grandfather on her mother's side was the son of the Litunga, who ruled over Sesheke. In 1946 Miss Kawana's family moved to Sesheke district. Together with her parents, 37 her brother and two sisters she lived in Mwandi. Here she started her primary school and after standard six in 1963 she decided to go to Sichili to study home-craft at a boarding school. She feels her royal descend has given her the opportunity to enjoy education up to such a high level, preventing her from a early marriage. Still her parents did not agree with her wish to become a teacher so she matriculated secretly. In 1965 she started working as a teacher in Senanga ever since she has been working. She married in 1968 and was very fortunate her husband agreed with her wish to continue working. They had two children a boy and a girl. In 1985 miss Kawana was divorced. At the moment she is living in Lukuku village, together with her mother, a sister and the children and grandchildren of the sister. One of the daughters of her sister is a teacher in home-economics at Lipumpu school and miss Kawana is assistant home-economics teacher. At the age of 25 she became politically active for the UNIP. She went to meetings and participated in campaigns of candidates of the party in Loanja. Once she even organised a UNIP workshop in Lipumpu to promote co-operation. At the moment she is supporting the Movement for Multi Party Democracy, the ruling party. Her political activities involved her in the Lipumpu women's group where she was chosen to be chairlady. This group, however is not very active at the moment, because they were once cheated and are afraid this will happen again (like Agatha said earlier). All the same the project has recently given them three sowing machines, the women, however, can not agree on the use ofthe machines. Miss Kawana attributes the shyness of women in meetings to lack of knowledge, they fear they are wrong and people will laugh at them. She herself is convinced of her own knowledge and has a clear goal: she wants to develop herself and others. Her royal descend gave her the opportunity to be well educated. This education has given her confidence in her own knowledge, it enabled her to be an active member of the UNIP. Her profession and her political activities gave her the opportunity to travel a lot, she saw what the input of women can be in political meetings and as a teacher she has the skill to express herself in public. She is an active participant in meetings, this has given her considerable influence within the village. For instance in the case of the micro project meeting about the renovation ofLipumpu school: The school had been given 41 million Kwacha by the project on top of that the community had to contribute money and labour. The meeting took about five hours, especially the contribution in money and labour expected ofthe people in the area was a point of much discussion. Four men were presiding the meeting which was held in a very crowded classroom with about 80 people present. All the front of rows of the classroom were taken by men, in the back the women could be found. Though there was a lot of discussion only three women contributed something, miss Kawana was 38 one of them. One of the men behind the table asked specifically for her opinion, which she was only too glad to give. Upon her suggestion it was decided the villages in the area would take turns in collecting sand, every morning another village. In the case of Mrs. Siswaniso political activities were also a source of experience. Experience in skills such as public speaking and organising meetings enabled her to contribute to decision making on village level. Mrs. Siswaniso was born in 1940. She is the mother of nine children, she gave birth to her first child in 1958, the last one was born in 1984. In 1963 she fought for the independence of Northern Rhodesia as a member of the UNIP. After independence she continued her political activities in Livingstone and was chosen by the ward councillor to organise a group to encourage women to go to the Mahatma Ghandi clinic for ante natal care. Mrs. Siswaniso is well known for her organisational talent, she is involved in many different group activities. She is a preacher at the United Church of Zambia and a member of the women's group of the church. She is also a member of the Sampuo garden group. Since she moved to Sampuo she has attended five village meetings and she noticed that only two women contributed to the meeting. She says women need to be made aware ofthe value oftheir opinion. During her marriage her husband was hardly ever home and he did not support his family. Mrs. Siswaniso was the one who paid for the school fees and uniforms, she even took care of the children of her husband's girlfriends. Of course this is quite extraordinary and has gained her a lot of respect. Mr. Kangombe put it this way: "Mrs. Siswaniso in Sampuo is an influential lady because she is a business woman with many fruitful ideas. She really is the boss in her family, her husband did not contribute anything". Recently she divorced her husband because she finally got tired of him proposing to other women and not taking proper care of her or the children. It was the second time she divorced him, the first time they reconciled on request of the children. Many women would be afraid to divorce their husbands because they have the idea a husband provides security, Mrs. Siswaniso knows she is better of by herself. Her organisational talent has given her the possibility to be involved in many different groups. Not only in the political field but also in the social and economic field. As a preacher at the United Church of Zambia she has gathered respect. At village meetings she uses her skill in public speaking to express her opinion to the community. People speak highly of her and are eager to invite to participate in group activities: for instance by the Sampuo garden group. At the time this group was called into existence Mrs. Siswaniso was not even around, still she was included; the women in the group decided that she would be a great help in the group. 39 The fact she took care of the children of her husband's girlfriends earned her a lot of respect. It is a sign of great hospitality and beneficence as we have seen earlier the Lozi highly value these virtues. 40 CHAPTERS SOURCES AND CONSTRAINTS OF INFLUENCE As I mentioned in the introduction there are certain elements which keep returning in the life-stories. I will now elaborate on the corresponding sources of influence and on the forces within the community which determine whether a woman can employ these sources or not. 5.1 Sources of Influence Age My main hypothesis was that age would be the main source of influence. The literature I studied explained why this would be the case. Rosaldo showed that in many parts of the world the radical break between men and the life of their domestic groups enables them to develop authority. The same situation could be expected with the Lozi people because they have such strict gender roles: Men in the Lozi community can distant themselves from their families, women being expected to do most of the household tasks. "The rituals of authority are not available to a woman; only when she is old and free of the responsibility of the children, when she is dissociated from child rearing and also from sexuality, can a woman build up the respect that comes with authority" (Rosaldo 197 4 :28). I expected that elderly women would acquire authority and power acknowledged by the community, since they too can distant themselves of the household tasks. Elderly women have lost their reproductive capacities and this explains why the symmetry is restored: together with the biological differences the power differences get smaller. There are still other theories which explain the authority of elderly women. One of them is the "purity theory". In Sri Lanka menstmation is regarded as an impurity, when women have reached menopause they are regarded more like men and their power increases. They have a lot more status and authority because they are considered pure (Schrijvers in Postel-Coster: 1987). In view of this one of my hypotheses was that as soon as a woman reached her menopause and stopped menstrnating she would have more possibilities. This is indeed the case: women who are having their period are not allowed to prepare the food for their husbands, the food will spoil. For the same reason they do not brew beer, the beer will go weak, and they cannot enter the palace of the Litunga. A very important lesson during initiation is the menstruation taboo. When a woman is menstruating she is not allowed to sleep with a man, because the blood is potentially dangerous to him. If, in the old days, a woman broke this taboo, her husband could go to his wife's mulena hae and ask for a satisfaction. Nowadays it is no longer considered a failure of the mulena hae but generally menstruating women do not have sex. So menstrual blood is indeed considered unclean, but it was not proved women in the 41 menopause have more possibilities to become influence, in fact most of the influential women I met are still fertile. Younger women can also succeed in becoming influential and obtaining authority. In the conference evidence was given of women being able to acquire status and authority before they were elderly. Contrary to my hypothesis I found very little evidence of age being a major determinant for being influential. Apparently times have changed and different kinds of female authority exist nowadays, no longer is authority only based on old age and the so called 'women's culture', now it can also be achieved on the basis of activities. Women with a special expertise (e.g. healing, trade or politics) are respected. Many of these women are independent, they can take care of themselves without the help of men. But more importantly: they are able to determine their own destiny of life. "A person is autonomous if; in comparison to others, he or she can largely decide independently on matters concerning the own destiny of life" (Schrijvers 1985: 19). Autonomy and influence are closely related. All influential women have autonomy, but not all autonomous women are influential. An influential woman can determine her own life and influence other people's lives as well. Raphael suggests that women in most societies become politically active at an older age because it is only then they have time for it. "The position of women in terms of power is argued as largely related to the time- /\ con~~g reproductive and child-rearing functions" (1975:4). I only vaguely found support for this view. None of the influential women I interviewed was breastfeeding but most of them were heading a household. This means they had a heavy responsibility and they did not have much time because they were always struggling to survive. Still elderly women did have a special position in the Lozi society. Stirke wrote in 1922 about the special position of the elderly women with the Lozi in case of a funeral: "The oldest women being very old and near to death can therefore get no harm from the dead. So she is chosen to affront the dead by bringing back from the grave, those people who were employed in filling up the grave, and who having entered the grave were as dead or as property of the dead" (Stirke 1922:70). This ritual no longer exists but elderly still have a special role in death rituals: they go into the bush to find the hetbs necessary to protect the living from the spirit of the dead. In other articles I found the special position of the elderly related to the fact that they are close to death. Kopytoff speaking in general terms about Africa, writes: "... an elder's social role does not radically change when he crosses the line dividing the living from the dead, and [ ... ] African ancestorship is but an aspect of the broader phenomenon of eldership" (1973 :140). According to Chandoka (1988) at marriage in the Lozi society the husband to be has to propose to the grandmother of the girl, the grandmother will then inform the parents of the girl. This is no longer the case, 42 but elderly women do have a task in case of a marriage elderly women bring the bride to the groom, this way they earn some money. However one old lady complained the reward (2000 Kwacha, FL 4,-) is not enough. Overall it appears traditions are changing, the respect elderly poop le used to earn just because of their age is diminishing, but it is still considered to be a sign of disrespect to argue with an elderly person. Respect towards elderly was definitively shown in the initiation ceremony. Elderly women played a key role and they were the experts in the organisation. Initiation As soon as a girl starts menstruating she can be initiated, so she will be about 13 years old when her mother starts looking around for a suitable mulena hae, the mistress of the ceremony. Mostly this will be a woman like Mrs. Pumulo, a oman with a lot of experience in initiating, although nowadays people are more and more inclined to invite a relative to the girl, her aunt, cousin or grandmother, because this is cheaper. In 1931 Audrey Richards witnessed the initiation ceremony of the Bemba, the dominant people in the north-east of Zambia. La Fontaine (1982: XXV) remarked in the introduction of Richard's book about the mistress of the ceremony: "[ ... ] she will become the girl's adviser throughout her married life, instructing her in all practical and magical details of care of her spouse and children". With the Lozi the mulena hae has a similar influence, as is shown by the authority of Mrs. Pumulo. Once the mulena hae is found the lessons can begin, from then on the malanguo is kept in a separate house, her mother cannot enter this house and no men are allowed in either. Nowadays a malanguo does not have to be in the house all the time, she is allowed to go to school but she can only play with her friends in a secret place and she should be seen in public as little as possible. The lessons are given once a week during one to four months. "[ ... ]but also emphasizes another: authority of age. The subordination of the initiate to older women is an overt theme of the ritual" (La Fontaine 1982: XXXI). The malanguo also has to show great respect to women who are already initiated, especially to elderly. This respect is expressed in her whole attitude, she only looks to the ground and moves like a shade. fu the presence of elderly women she always keeps her thumbs folded in her hands "to prevent the wisdom the elderly gave her escapes". A malanguo and her mulena hae have a special bond. The mulena hae explains to the malanguo the sexual matters that come with marriage. A mother and her daughter cannot talk about this, so the mulena hae gives lessons to the malanguo in absence of the mother. Again this is similar to the situation Richards met: "The mother's role ends when she 'gives her daughter to the nacimbusa' who tests the girl's fitness for motherhood and admits her to the community of married women" (La Fontaine 1982: XXV). Still the mother will keep an eye on her daughter, she will ask friends to attend the lessons and test her daughter to find out if she is 43 learning enough. This test takes place in the bush to prevent boys spying. Women dance with the malanguo bumping into her to test her strength, elderly have the lead and decide what songs are sang. When the malanguo has proved her skills she is taken to the river covered under a blanket, there she undresses completely. An old woman blesses the water by drinking some of it and then spitting it out again. A girl, not yet initiated, washes the malanguo. After the bath the girls are told to kneel and the women put stones on their heads and they had to wiggle them off. This stone teaches the malanguo to help others carrying a heavy load. After they bathe some more, they are dressed and taken back to the village. The way back is different from the way there to prevent they run into bad charms hidden by witches. Now the ceremony can begin. The festivities start in the evening and continue to the next morning. All night long the people dance and drink. At seven 'o'clock in the morning the malanguo makes her debut, the mukiti mwa malanguo. Before she is shown to the public she is invited to have a meal with elderly women. The first three bites of bohobe she eats from a knee of the eldest woman present, the first bite she spits out to the left, the second to the right and the third she swallows at once (no chewing). Then the old woman touches her chest and back with an iron piece. These rituals are believed to make the girl's heart strong like the old woman's heart is, she does not eat the food so she will know how to refrain. Then she is taken out of the courtyard and shown to the community, she is covered with red paint and ashes, only wearing a new chitenge and a bra. After her father has tied a belt around her hips, a siwamba, she starts dancing. Again she does not dance alone, but together with a young girl who does not yet know the meaning of the dances. If the malanguo dances well the guests donate money to the mulena hae. After this dance the malanguo and the mulena are brought back to the house, bathed and dressed in new clothes. Then they are taken outside covered under a blanket, the parents of the malanguo remove the blanket using their 'attributes'. The mother uses the handle of a hoe, the father of an axe. The malanguo and the mulena hae are seated on a mat and the rest of the day relatives come to visit. Now the malanguo has turned into a woman and can be wed. The Lozi in the project area consider initiation absolutely necessary. Without it, a girl will never turn into a woman. It is similar to the idea the Bemba have of their initiation (the chisungu): "The chisungu aims to transform girls into responsible young women" (La Fontaine 1982: XXXVI). With the Lozi some believe a girl who is initiated will be more aware of her responsibilities, will know how to respect people and obey her husband. Others claim initiation is purely a tradition with no merit whatsoever, a girl does not change through the ceremony. Still all her daughters have been initiated because otherwise they would not be accepted. On the other hand the ceremony itself is a way of creating a space where women are autonomous. Through secrecy women can keep it that way and men will not be able to intrude this female field of power. The elderly women rule in the initiation. They see to it the girl is taught the proper lessons, knows how to dance 44 and how to behave respectful. In short, they have the knowledge to organise a correct initiation ceremony, especially among women this is very much respected. Women's Groups In most cases one will find younger influential women active within a (women's) group. They have managed to organise themselves and to co-operate to achieve common goals. These goals differ; some groups try to improve the position of their members, others try to improve the position of others in the community. Many of the influential women I met are said to be able to organise meetings, this is proof of the respect they have earned in their community. Again this leads us back to autonomy; According to Touwen autonomy has two aspects: In the first place "individual control", meaning control over body and destiny of life. Secondly she is talking about "collective control", in this she means to be able to organise and stand up for shared interests (strategic gender interests) and thus to take part in shaping a social environment (Touwen 1991:69). Mrs. Siswaniso, one of the politicians mentioned earlier, is a good example of a woman organising women's groups to stand up for shared interests. She has been involved in a group to encourage women to go to a health clinic for ante-natal care, she was a member of a women's group of the United Church of Zambia and she joined the Sampuo garden group. In the Lozi community interdependence is a valued strategy to secure benefits. Personal relationships, kinship ties and social networks are often indispensable for gaining access to resources. The participation in women's groups enables a woman to take part in a social network providing resources, goods and services (Stone 1989). The participation in such a network is accepted by the community and apart from the economic functions the groups also wield political power. Almost all of the earlier presented influential women mentioned their group activities had taught them to voice their opinion publicly. Not only because they were used to express themselves in a group but also because they felt the community is interested in their views. This is indeed the case since the women are now part of an accepted social network. Hospitality and charity Two characteristics are very much appreciated in a woman, namely hospitality and beneficence. It is often religious women's groups that carry charitable activities, they help others in the community, providing food or a helping hand in the household. Individuals who have a reputation of being very helpful and hospitable are much admired in the community, this became clear in the cases of Mrs. Wambulawae and Mrs. Mwanza. Mrs. Wambulawae is known to cook the meals for the visitors of the Seventh Day Adventists Church. She is very generous and often gives vegetables or eggs to friends. Agatha said the following about her: "She is fond 45 of giving presents. She is like that". In the case of Mrs. Mwanza her church activities and her ability to help sick people has earned her a lot of respect. They are considered an example to other women, this is probably related to the fact that caring activities fit the gender role of Lozi women perfectly. Men, women and children clearly showed their approval of benefactresses. This approval has given them an influential position in the village. People in the community are likely to tum them for support, consequently they know what is happening in the community. It must not be forgotten that not everybody in the village can afford to be generous or helpful. Some women do not have the means, simply because they need all their time and resources to survive. Apart from being a sign of good character, hospitality is a sign of prosperity. This brings me to the other side of hospitality and charity namely envy. Richness often causes less fortunate people to be envious. Hospitality and generosity are ways to reduce the danger of envy (see 5 .2 under Envy). Children All the influential women had been married at one time or the other and all of them had children. In most developing countries children are considered a valuable asset to women, they help their mothers in the household, and enable them to increase their productivity (Dasgupta 1995). But maybe even more importantly, children strengthen the position of women within their family-in-law. In this case Wolf (1974:168) is talking about the 'uterine' family a woman builds in the patrilocal and patrilineal Taiwanese society. This way a woman legitimises her place in the family through the children she has. The loyalty of the uterine family to their mother is threatened by the daughter-in-law. Lamphere writes about the authority structure of a patrilocal, patrilineal extended family: "As a mother-in-law, she has authority over her daughter-in-law but she also sees her as competing for what little influence she has been able to achieve" (1974:105). I also found that in some cases the relation with the mother-in-law had been so bad that it destroyed the marriage (for instance Mrs. Nakambola). Successful children give their parents status. In the case of the Mwanza family or the Wambulawae family the parents have proved to be good parents. The children of these families all finished a proper education and have jobs in a city. Of course the parents themselves were also very proud of the achievements of their children. I can think of two women who were definitely not considered to be influential, especially not by men. They were single and did not have any children. One of them, the eldest woman who lived in Sampuo village, had been married several time but all her husbands divorced her because she stayed barren. A year ago she started to take care of two oiphans, her niece and nephew, they were the children of her late brother. This slightly improved her position in the village because it was an act of charity. 46 The younger woman went to live at her father's home again after her husband left her. Even though she was spontaneous and not shy at all (she informed me about some intimate lessons taught to the malanguo), she would never speak at a village meeting. Agatha confirmed to me that the villagers would not listen to her, because they do not respect her. Education and Travelling Both travelling and education improve the self image of women, which will enable them to unfold initiatives new to the community. Many influential women (e.g. Agatha, Mrs. Wambulawae, Mrs. Mwanza, Mrs. Siswaniso) mentioned that travels, having lived in town and having seen other places had contributed to their position in the community. They claimed travelling helped them realise their opinion is of value, and to learn to express themselves in public. The fact that women in general do not contribute in meetings, increases the influence of the few women who do speak in public. Public speaking is related to the educational level. Some influential women have enjoyed training given by different organisations (UNIP, Co-operatives, the Masese Agricultural Project). A woman who obviously has profited from training possibilities is Edith Mubita. She was appointed to be a Sunday school-teacher at the United Church of Zambia. To acquire teaching skills she was given a training in public speaking. Nowadays this comes in handy in village-meetings and in the meetings organised by the Lipumpu Gender Promotion Group, she was the person who explained inheritance rights to the village. The women who are or have been teachers are another example of the merits of education. The knowledge they have because of a high educational level enables them to participate in village meetings, they do not doubt the value of their opinion and do not fear to be laughed at. Knowledge on special skills for instance in the field of health care give a woman influence in the community as we have seen in the cases of Mrs. Mwanza, Rabecca, and Elisabeth Nalishebo. Their skills make them highly respected. In some of these cases the women educated themselves, in others they took a course. Education is generally considered to be one of the most important factors enlarging the possibilities to arrive in a better position within society. Knowledge is directly related to power (Boesveld in Postel-Coster 1987:47). 'Maleness' Contrary to elderly women, younger influential women are found to resist gender roles. The mam determination of influence found during the conference was skills that are normally only ascribed to men. Some of the influential women know how to thatch a house, maintain a pump or how to fish. There are only few homes where job-segregation is non-existent. One of them is the home of Rabecca: Gilnard and Agatha are two of the few women who know how to plough in Lichaha village. Rabecca thought it would be very 47 useful for her daughters to be able to do a man's job, because it would make hem independent. Most women who know how to plough, tend cattle or have the courage to speak in public, developed these skills due to their own initiatives. They felt at one point they did not have any alternative but to do the job themselves because there was no one to help them as was the case with Mrs. Nakambola and Mrs. Siswaniso. They needed to be independent, through this independence they withdrew from the power of the men in their environment. Amadiume noticed that in the Western society women are reclassified when they are in a powerfuL public position (normally attributed to men). "[ ... ] as a result of the rigid gender system, women wielding power tend to be reclassified, or present themselves as 'manly' or 'manlike"' (Amadiume 1987:185). At first sight this seems to be the case with these younger influential women who possess these 'male skills'. It explains the Silozi saying to praise a woman: Ki muna musali, meaning she is a man and a woman. It looks like an independent woman is indeed reclassified. However Lozi women who manage to acquire men's skills do not present themselves manly or manlike. They keep wearing skirts and chitenge, they would never wear trousers like men do. The community would show great disapproval of a woman in trousers. Not the fact that the woman behaves like a man by having such skills is important, but the independence which she achieves through the skills. Through this independence she manages to withdraw from the power of her male relatives. "The possibiL.~; of withdrawal from the exercise of power by others is indicated by the term autonomy" (Schrijvers 1985: 19). Autonomy is a key concept to influential women. Economic success Economically successful women are independent like the 'male' women are. They have access to different resources: e.g. land, capital but also information or transport. Their success enables women to be autonomous. Lamphere also recognised that in many African polygynous societies women gain economic control through trading (108:1974). However in the Lozi community women can gain more than economic autonomy through trading. Amadiume writes about the Igbo in Nigeria: "[ ... ] in the traditional title system there were both social and political rewards for economically successful women" (1987:49). Like in the Igbo title system in the 19th century, economically successful women in the Lozi community will be socially and politically rewarded. This is especially clear in the case of Agatha. She is a successful trader and farmer. But people did not only come to Agatha for advice in the economic sphere and her influence was not restricted to this field. To extend her economic activities she formed two women's garden groups, the groups conduced to further autonomy. She was invited to participate in activities in the social and the political sphere. The project recognised that she was a clever trader who was able to stimulate other women thus they invited her to join project activities, now her influence moved to the social field as well. The Lipumpu ward councillor 48 politically rewarded her economic activities asking her to run for the next elections in his ward, out of fear of envy she could not accept this award (see under 5.2 Fear of Envy). 5.2. Constraints and Obstacles of Influence Negative self-image A group of four men and five women discussed why so few women contribute in village meetings. The following arguments came up: Husbands resent their wives' contributions and will show disagreement and give negative comments. In some cases a husband may even forbid his wife to go to a meeting (see under lobola). Secondly village meetings used to be purely a men's business, women were not allowed to attend. This has changed rather quickly but the women are not yet used to contribute. Up to today the traditional authority still mai.rtly rests wilh men. All the village indun.as are men, and so are the indun.a silalo and the Litunga. In the group discussion it was also suggested that the fact that women are not allowed to preach in churches contributes to the fact they do not speak in village meetings. The only church allowing women to preach is the United Church of Zambia and it is true that the experience women gain as a preacher can help them to participate in decision-making processes on village level. This is clearly shown in the case of Mrs. Siswaniso who is a preacher at the United Church of Zambia and who does not fear to voice her opinion in a village meeting. Finally the group discussion made clear that many women fear they do not have enough knowledge to contribute, and people will laugh at them. This is related to the negative self-image they have (the group agreed that "women suffer from a inferiority complex"). As I mentioned earlier this self image can improve through travelling but also through education. Lobo/a It is remarkable that most of the influential women I met were single, either divorced or widowed. According to Mr. Sakwiba, the clinical officer at Masese clinic, single women are independent, there is no man oppressing them. In the conference many women mentioned men to be one of the obstacles in their activities. Married women can be hindered by their husbands, he can keep his wife from expressing her opinion in a meeting or joining a group. Groups often aim at generating an income which will enable women to be less dependent of their husband. However some husbands do not fancy this idea. They have paid a high price for their wife, so she should only be working for him. 49 The lobola is very high nowadays, if the bride is still a virgin the brideprice can be as high as 150.000 Kwacha (Fl.300,-) and it can no longer be considered as a token of appreciation like in the olden days when an axe, a pot or a hoe was given to the parents of the bride. The fact that some husbands are under the impression that they have bought their wife has a negative impact on the gender equity within marriage: "She is mine and should do as I tell her" is the point of view some husbands expressed. lfthe woman does not obey her husband, he can give her back to her parents and the lobola should be refunded. Sometimes parents force their daughter to stay with her husband because they cannot or do not want to pay back the money. It is a circle which is difficult to break When I suggested to give daughters away for free to secure a more equal situation within marriage, people explained to me that she would then be seen as a bargain. At every small mistake her husbands would say: "That is why your parents gave you away". The general opinion is that a proper wife is expensive. The few influential women who were married had husbands who were influential themselves (Mr. Mwanza and Mr. Wambulawae), besides they are both educated and some people claim only educated men allow their wives to be influential. Fear of Envy During the conference the women mentioned envy to be a major constraint to their influence. In the field the effect of envy, or rather the fear of envy, became more and more clear to me. According to Foster, who wrote a paper on ''the anatomy of envy", real envy of another person implies: "[ ... ], ifnot the wish to change places with the person envied, at least the willingness to make a real effort to achieve what desired or, if this goal is impossible, to deprive the envied person of the object of envy" (1972:168). The loss of the object of envy is indeed often the result in cases ofreal envy and social levelling is the main effect. Social levelling "denotes the actions of field participants to 'pull down' a social climber who, having gained more access to resources than themselves enjoy, threatens to disturb the status quo" (Hekken & Thoden van Velzen 1972:58). The following case illustrates how an envied person is deprived ofthe object of envy: Agatha Mufuti inherited a field from her father. Because the field was very big she cultivated one side of it and never got round to clearing the whole plot. However in August 1995 she felt she was up to cultivating the whole field and she paid three men to clear the other half. Then she put manure on the field. It was ready to be planted in the rainy season. However her neighbours envied her big field and they set fire to the manure on the new field. 50 Envy can be directly or indirectly expressed toward the person envied. The above case is an example of direct aggression: Evidence to link the fire to the envious neighbours had been found. However in many cases the envier uses indirect aggression. Gossip is indirect way of expressing envy. Again quoting Foster: "In peasant societies envy is expressed to third persons by gossip, backbiting, and defamation, potent weapons for dissuading people who seek to rise above their level" (1972: 172). Another indirect expression of envy is the use of witchcraft. When someone, who is successful, is suddenly struck by illness or other misfortune, the suspicion of witchcraft rises. This was also noticed by Reynolds who did a research into the practices of magic, divination and witchcraft among the Lozi people: "Beliefs in witchcraft and in supernatural intervention provide an acceptable explanation of the causes of misfortune and indeed of anything mysterious or inexplicable by normal means" (1963: 161 ). In such cases the victim fears to have been bewitched by envious relatives or acquaintances as happened to Nalishebo: After the conference Nalishebo (the healer) was taken home by the project car and she was often visited by project workers from Sesheke. This of course attracted a lot of attention in an area where only once a fortnight a car passed by. She feared the attention she had been given by the project would lead to envy. When she ended up in the Mushukula health centre with a heavy attack of malaria, she was sure she was being bewitched. She had organised several meetings to follow-up the Mushukula action-plan made at the conference, this had drawn some extra attention to her. On top of that she was ill on the day a meeting on gender was held at the Mushukula school, a meeting which she had been organising. Obviously some people envied her because of all the attention she got. Nalishebo decided it would be wiser to stop all gender group activities. A political leader is also the centre of attention and thus fears the envy of the community. The ward councillors of Mushukula and of Lipumpu both felt they did not manage to reduce their vulnerability. They had been suffering from mysterious illnesses and it was clear to them these were the result of witchcraft practised by envious people. It made them decide not to run for re-election. When Agatha was asked to run for ward councillor she decided not to because it costs a lot of money to campaign and involves a lot of travelling around the ward and to and from Sesheke, but the main reason she did not do it was the fear be bewitched. It is clear the fear of envy is a factor which deters women to be influential. The attention the community pays to an influential woman can be negative and harmful. However some tactics exist to fight the fear of envy and to prevent social levelling. Foster mentioned four types of behaviour which maybe initiated by people fearing the consequences of envy of others, and who wish to reduce their vulnerability: 51 "(1) concealment, (2) denial, (3) the 'sop' (i.e. symbolic sharing), and (4) true sharing" (1972:175). At the conference the women suggested true sharing was the best way to avoid envy. However in the field I ran into the other types of behaviour as well. Whether people were concealing their wealth and good fortune I cannot tell on the basis of this research. However concealment would be very hard to achieve in such small communities and people will soon be forced to switch to denial. Denial was common practice in the villages, nobody admitted they had plenty of resources. Symbolic sharing did not occur, it seemed people always accepted what was offered and true sharing was inevitable. Sharing has a levelling effect, excessive well being is redistributed among those less well off. The uncle of Agatha, her father's brother, has been her dependent several years now. All his live he had been herding cattle in Zimbabwe, all the money he earned he had spent on beers. When he was to old to take care of himself he decided to return to Lichaha village. He built his own hut and asked his relatives to feed him. After a while Agatha refused to give him any more food. But then she started to feel ill, she even had to rest in bed all day. She consulted a witchdoctor. The witchdoctor told her she would get well if she accepted her uncle in her household. Ever since her uncle has been living with her and Agatha's illness was cured. The above case shows the levelling effect of sharing. In the Lozi community it is very common relatives share food, they provide each other with social security. A family that runs out of food can pack their things and move in with their relatives. The relatives who are better off are expected to take care of the poor family. The gifts of Mrs. Wambulawae can also be seen as a method to reduce envy. Only in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Mwanza it was clear they did not give in to the pressure of the community. Mrs. Mwanza continued working in the Mushukula health centre after she married Mr. Mwanza. It took the community a while to accept this. As Mr. Mwanza put it "Nowadays the people have stopped talking about it, they are getting used to it and they realise that the profit from her presence, the jealousy is lessening the villagers are happy about her. Civilisation is coming bit by bit". The fact that Mr. Mwanza is the village induna helped the people of Mushukula learn to accept that Mrs. Mwanza as a married woman continued working in the health centre. During the conference the women suggested another solution to the problem of envy was ''to have a long suffering heart". It means they only can be brave and just continue doing their activities, however the fear of envy often turns out to be too powerful to ignore. 52 CHAPTER6 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 6.1 Conclusions The main objective of the research was to explore the role of influential women: What influence do they have in the community? What is the basis of their influence? What is their role in guiding other women and in changing and maintaining traditions? It became clear that women have many possibilities to exercise their influence. Within a community it is possible to discern four fields in which women can exercise their influence namely: 1. Economic, a trader or a successful female funner can have influence in this sphere. 2. Social, women involved in developmental issues, education, health care and churches are often socially influential. 3. Cultural, a puberty teacher and elderly women can be considered culturally influential, they are mostly trying to preserve beliefs and taboos. 4. Politica~ women who join political parties gain influence through public activities. Generally women do not keep their activities within one field, so they are influential in two or more fields at the same time. Because it is through activities they create their influence. The activities depend upon the initiative of a woman but also upon her resources and the possibilities her social environment gives her. Some of these possibilities are related to a 'women's culture', as is often suggested. "[ ... ] 'female power' is seen to be executed through female styles of action that occur in female domains of social life" (Sullivan 1989: 103). Jn these domains I include the initiation ceremony and skills such as healing and midwifery. Some elderly women have managed to achieve a powerful position within the 'women's culture' because they are well known for their manners and really know how a woman should behave. The initiation ceremony is a source of influence to women, especially in the eyes children. The mulena hae is the malanguo's adviser in marital matters. Consequently a mulena hae has a big influence on the position of women within a marriage. Jn the ceremony respect towards elderly is taught, however this respect only turns into influence when the elderly women themselves try to preserve traditions. Then they will lead an initiation ceremony, or give herbal treatments. None of the elderly women was influential just because of her age. This is remarkable since in most of the anthropological literature age is mentioned to be the major determinant in the influence of women. I also think the activities of religious women's groups are a part of the female domain of social life. Caring for the sick and distributing clothes to the poor are socially very acceptable things to do. Jn the case of charity and beneficence, alone or in a group, the community will show her approval which results in influence. 53 Some women have managed to organise themselves and to co-operate to achieve common goals improving their own position. As soon as women can organise themselves they are able to stand up for shared interests. The use of social networks is a valued strategy for securing benefits. Individual women also have possibilities to become influential and these are directly related to activities which articulate with those of men in wider social processes. Most influential women had achieved to reach a certain level of gender equality in access to resources, e.g. money, land, human resources, services. They are independent, their independence enables them to withdraw from the exercise of power by others, in short they are autonomous. The respect the community shows towards autonomous women will give them the possibility to be influential. Education, special expertise and economic depend on the possession of skills and contribute to a woman's autonomy. These skills can be technical or educational, each field of influence has its own skills. Many different skills were mentioned: e.g. trading, healing, herding cattle or teaching. All these skills give women the possibility to determine their own destiny in life. Women who earn an income and make their living independently possess autonomy. They are not subordinate to men and the community values their opinion. From here one gets to the next question: How do these women manage to acquire these skills? In most cases this was due to their own initiative. This initiative was based upon the resources which were available to the woman. These resources can either material (e.g. the possession of a plough) or intellectual (e.g. a positive self image). Various forces in the community can prevent women from becoming influential. Lobola, fear of envy and a negative self image have destroyed many a good initiative. It is up to the influential women's creativity to overcome these obstacles. Influence is based on positive reasons and can be exercised on two levels. In the first place the interpersonal level: when an individual seeks the advice of an influential woman. In such cases the help-seeker thinks the influential woman's opinion or expertise can change the existing situation. The help-seeker may look for a healer, a mulena hae, or ideas for a trade. Secondly advice can be thought on a community level. In this case you will often :find the women have been elected to be a member of a village committee because the community trusts her opinions. Especially on a community level it is important if a woman knows how to express her opinion in public. The self-image women have is determining whether a woman is participating in a meeting or not, whether she can express herself in public. This self-image improves through travelling and education, knowledge is directly related to influence. 54 Influence is not ascribed to women in the Lozi community, it has to be earned; it is what a woman does that counts. This means that all women in a Lozi community can be influential if they have the proper resources. During the Mutuwapafa Gender Survey women indicated they would like to have more access to resources to improve their produce. Pending the field research men and women suggested several tactics to do so. The SGG hoped the influential women can serve as an example to others and to improve gender-equality in access to resources. Having elucidated the position of influential women I shall now try to give recommendations to approach women and provide them with the necessary resources to increase the gender equality and thus their produce. The recommendations came into being in co-operation with the people in the research area. They are based on suggestions they made. 6.2 Recommendations Especially the women who exercise their influence in the social and economic field are interesting to SGG. Influential women such as the trader, the healer, the nurse and the 'male' woman are the most willing to change and learn new things. They seem to be able to use their resources extensively. They have adapted to their new situation as influential women and are not afraid to attempt new :initiatives. They are the ones who are showing interest in change and like to be working for the community. Already they are the ones people tum to for advice. 'Politicians' will have difficulties to organise a meeting on gender because the community would presume it is a programme aligned to the party she is representing, this might prevent people from attending the activity they organised. However in the research another side of politics was shown: The political activities of the two women mentioned in this dissertation have been taken place too long ago to do any harm to goals they are pursuing nowadays. On the contrary, the experience they have gathered in their political days enables them to express their opinion nowadays. The women who are influential in the cultural field, especially the mulena hae can be of much assistance in case of an AIDS prevention or family planning programme as they are involved in the sexual education of girls. The way a new topic is introduced can make the difference between success and failure of the idea. Introducing the idea of gender equality to the people should be done by already existing authorities like the SGG or a camp officer. This will help to get the idea accepted in a village. People are interested in a topic as long as they feel they are benefiting from the time they put in. To promote gender equality the profitable sides should be very much stressed, otherwise attention will fade. 55 Groups Working in groups brings a lot of advantages. In a group people are more willing to try new things, people are easier to reach and can be trained and educated more efficiently. It is also an effective approach to circumvent envy, because within a group people feel less threatened by negative reactions. Especially because interdependence is a recognised strategy for access to resources groups can easily create a social network in which goods and services are easily available. To be involved in decision making on village level women should be able to contribute in village meetings. The women who already participate in meetings can be an example to other women. If the chairperson of a group is aware of the problems some women have expressing their opinion, she can coach the members to participate. In a small group it is impossible to keep quiet. The women will be forced to contribute, through this they will learn to express their opinions in meetings. Being a member of such a group will also give them authority, people will accept the women have something to contribute. Training Group management training and bookkeeping, administrative training all can give a lot of strength to a group. Members of already existing groups should be trained in these skills. These trainings should be given in the village so people who are not participating still are aware of what is going on. Teaching women skills like ploughing, kraal shifting, building a granary and new farming methods can better their position. By being good farmers women earn a lot of respect, good farming is very much appreciated in a village especially in Mushukula. This training will also enable them to increase their production. The need for these skills is especially high in a village with 50% of female headed households. For example in Sampuo village where only two men can plough with oxen, all the other people in the community lack the implements and the skill. In this village an ox-plough training would help to increase production, having no longer only two people to plough for the whole community. Because public speaking is such a major determinant of influence, training in this skill can definitely improve the participation of women in decision making. Whenever a training has been given the participants should be provided with a certificate proving their participation. Such a certificate will help the participants to convince others of their knowledge. If the community is aware of the training and can decide who is to participate, the participants will find people more interested when passing on their knowledge. So whenever a course or a workshop is given by the project, the participants should be elected by the community. This can also, to a certain extent, prevent the fear of envy. My impression is that still more should be done to inform women farmers. I found they are often not reached by the camp officers or the project because meetings are held at the wrong time and in the wrong place for 56 women to attend. The infonnation they lack has a negative effect on their production. To give women the possibility to attend, meetings should be organised to their convenience. Children After school children have outdoor activities. During these hours they learn practical things like thatching and making latrines. In these outdoor activities the gender roles are strictly observed (e.g. boys thatch and girls mould). By breaking these gender roles at school and giving the children the opportunity to do all the outdoor activities, without regarding their gender, children would get used to the different activities without segregation. In few of the past experience with mixed outdoor activities (see Gender roles p.11) the co operation of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is necessary to make these changes in the outdoor activities. Their support can be won by including members of the PTA in the local gender group. Through informing the parents of the many merits of mixed outdoor activities it might be possible to overcome the objections they have. Another option is a slow changing process, instead of making all activities accessible to all the children at once, just slowly introducing mixed activities. To increase the gender awareness of children and their skill in public speaking debating competitions in schools could be organised. The winner of such a competition could be to be ''junior mayor" and may be send to attend (and participate) in council meetings. Traditional Government The indunas did not seem very eager to make an effort to strive towards gender equality in traditional government on village level. Still this can also have been due to the fact that not much care was given to the follow-up of the workshop. Often indunas delegate their duties to other men in the village, it is recommended the SGG also gives attention to these men. Some women said it would be best to go to the silalo induna and explain to him through a role play that women want to be involved in decisions on village level and ask him to elect women to join the indunas in the local court. Further Research Further research should be done on women's groups within churches. The problems which arise in women's group outside a church do not seem to occur. Probably a lot can be learned from the way groups are set up within a church. The outcome of this research might give insight on how to strengthen women's groups. It might also give an suggest ways to involve church groups in strategic gender interests thus broadening their activities from only charitable to the empowerment ofwomen. 57 I also think it would be interesting to do a research on envy since it has such a big impact on the community. Jn some cases fear of envy is the reason a good initiative is stopped. On the other hand people speak with much admiration of a hard working woman with a lot of initiatives. They obviously respect her very much but apparently the influential woman fears the admiration turns into envy. Why, what is the mechanism? What is the border between admiration and envy? 58 GLOSSARY OF SILOZI TERMS Boho be Very thick maize porridge Chitenge Piece of cloth women wear as a skirt Induna Village headman or a judge at the Royal Court in Mwandi Kacipembe Locally produced illicit gin Ki muna musali Silozi phrase to praise a woman: "she is a man and a woman" Kuta Traditional local court Litunga The big chief in Mwandi, the king ofthe Lozi people Lobo la Brideprice Lubile Beer produced by women in exchange for labour Malanguo Girl to be initiated Monzauli tree A tree producing edible red beans MulenaHae Mistress of the initiation ceremony, puberty trainer Mulonga Council which advises the Litunga Musali hanna munzi Silozi saying meaning: "a woman does not have a home". It refers to the patrilocality which obliges women to leave their family when they marry. Mukiti mwa malanguo The coming-out of the malanguo, her debut Nanga or Naka Witchdoctor Salaula Second-hand clothes Silalo lnduna An induna who has control over several villages Siwamba Belt worn by a malanguo when she shows her dancing skills to the community. 59 APPENDIX REPORT CONFERENCE FOR INFLUENTIAL WOMEN 26th-28th of July 1995 1. Introduction In August 1994 the Sesheke Gender Group did a survey to get more infonnation on the gender situation in the Sesheke District. One of the recommendations that were made on the basis of this survey was that a workshop for influential women should be held. Later the Gender Group decided it would be better to organise a conference to give the women themselves a better chance to give input and express their own views during the meeting. The main objective of this conference was to strengthen women's leadership skills. Other objectives identified: a. Explain what gender is. b. Find out what makes these women influential, what role they play in society. c. Build confidence in the women themselves by meeting each other. d. Hear the participants' experiences being influential (successes and failures). e. Find out how they overcome their limitations and constraints. f. Formulate an action plan per camp. Two days before the conference Ms. Liswaniso came to coach the SGG in making a programme for the conference: on Monday 24/07/95 the SGG looked at the objectives again and redefined them. On Tuesday these objectives were made operational, the methods to reach the objectives were discussed. Methodology and desired result were matched. At the end of this second day the programme was finished. In the process of making the programme the objectives and methods became much clearer. The influential women who participated were identified by the camp officers, the following criteria for selection were used: The women should generally be very active in participating in development, coach other women, lead others in their community and talk freely. There had to be some evidence of them being active. The conference was held at the Farmers Training Centre from the 26th to the 28th of July 1995. 60 WEDNESDAY 26/07/95 2. Opening The conference started with the singing of the National Anthem followed by the District Planner opening the Conference. He stressed that the participants should be free to talk and discuss their position and the problems they face. lnduna Limba concluded the opening remarks with a message from the chief: he wished the conference to be a success. lnduna Afungateka then led prayers. All participants introduced themselves, 19 women were present. 3. Hopes, fears and expectations To find out what the participants expected from the conference all the participants wrote down their hopes, fears and expectations. It was found that some people did not know what gender is, they expected to be given seeds at the conference. Others hoped they would learn at the conference and that they would be able to take home the things they learned and enlighten others in the village. 4. Research team The research team, Ms. Ernestien Jensema and her assistant Mrs. Anjanganjanga presented themselves. They will be doing a research on the role of influential women in the Sesheke district. To learn more about these women they will visit the villages. The research team hopes the resuhs of the research will help to improve the position women have in the Sesheke communities. 5. What is Gender? To create a gender awareness with the influential women, the participants did a role-play to show that men and women have different roles in society. The woman in the play was working hard, her husband did not do much; he never helped her. When the man died his relatives came to take everything away, the wife was left with nothing. After the role-play the participants listed which activities men do, which activities women do and which activities both do. It was found that women do much more then men, but still they are subordinate to them. Women can only use tools and resources, they never own them, even in this way (tools) men are oppressing women. In case of a divorce a woman has to leave everything behind, she possesses none of the things she worked for. The participants discussed why the work is divided this way and came to the following conclusions: the division of activities is due to 1. tradition, 2. lack of co-operation and unity within the home, 3. the women 61 lack muscle strength and 4. it is the way children are brought up, they are taught there are men's and women's activities. Mrs. Matakala tells the group what their inheritance rights are and how to make a will. It was stressed that it is important for women to know their rights, as relatives of the husband no longer have the right to take everything away from a woman after her husband dies. Mrs. Maliti informs the women on risk factors in pregnancy, pregnant women and under 5 children as well as elderly do not have to pay in the hospital. Many women were not aware of that and took big risks because they thought they had to pay. THURSDAY 27/07/95 The day started with reflections on the first day of the conference, to refresh the memory. Some had trouble reviewing what happened Wednesday. Induna Limba: access to land. Nowadays women can also have land. A woman can go to the village headman and ask for land to live on with her children in case she has troubles with her relatives. As she is the first on the land she can also become a village headmen. A women has a right to inherit land, if she is denied this right she can go to court. 6. What role do influential women play? To find out what role they play in society two women told their life story. They told how they became influential: both have skills that are normally attributed to men. Mrs. Munene knows how to service a well point, and when her husband went away she taught herself to make a court yard, granaries and catch fish with a basket. She was completely independent and could do everything without the help of a man. Mrs. Mwenda also knows how to service a well point, beside that she is a member of a nutrition group. What do influential women do? The women discussed on skills that influential women need; the following were found: 1. they are not shy, they speak out. 2. they give advice to others 3. they work for development and progress. 62 4. they know how to approach their husbands and make them understand their problems 5. they know how to solve their own problems 6. they value unity and co-operation highly Still it remained unclear why these women have acquired these skills and why other women do not obtain them, what role the women actually fulfil in society, if they are leading other women and if so, how. Neither did the different types of influence get analysed. All of this will need further attention in the field research. Jnduna Afungateka: How to become an lnduna. First she was given tasks by the village headman, she fulfilled them without a problem. Since she was found to have leadership skills, she was chosen by the people of the village, the village headman and the other Indunas to become an Induna. An Induna has to be chosen, you cannot fill in an application form. 7. What limitations and constraints are there to their influence? Discussion in two groups: married and single women separated. What are the constraints and limitations they encounter in daily life? *The married group came up with the following: Constraints: -Their husbands, who are hindering the women in their activities. -Their own behaviour when they are a leader. They tend to become leaders without respect for their members. Limitation -Fear of divorce. *The single group came up with: Constraints -Lack ofleadership powers. -Favouritism Limitation -Discouragement by the community *Both groups found: Limitations -Shyness -Lack of knowledge -Poverty -Lack of strength -Lack of power to organise Constraints -Lack of understanding -Jealousy, other people are jealous of the influential women's activities. -Gossip 63 One could conclude that single women experience more limitations in public life, whereas married women feel limited in their private life. 8. Tree analysis on causes, institutions and results of the limitations and constraints. The tree analysis is a tool to analyse problems. Society was portrayed by a tree. The causes of the limitations and constraints are values and attitudes, they are found in the roots, so to address the problems faced by the influential women some traditions should be changed. Institutions are the trunk and the outcome is to be found in the leaves. Unfortunately it was very hard to do a proper tree analysis on the limitations and constraints found. It was agreed that some traditions were at the root of the limitations and will have to be changed. In the analysis it remained unclear how this was supposed to be done. After the tree analysis Mr. Lishibi gave the group a workshop on public speaking. Traditionally women are not used to speak in public, in this workshop they were taught the basics in public speaking. One woman from every camp came forward to show her skills, it was then evaluated by the group. Especially starting a speech was identified as a problem. The group was given a checklist on how to speak in public. 9. How to overcome the limitations and constraints? The group decided that the best way would be to first inform the Induna and explain what the conference was about. They will then support the meetings that will be held to overcome the limitations. To make the meetings a success different representatives should be present: -Silalo Induna -Village Induna -Church leader -Councillor -Headmaster How to combat bad leadership? - It should be avoided to elect people without leadership qualities. - The women leaders should have tolerance. - A leader who has no respect for her people should be informed to change her behaviour. 64 In analysing these solutions the research team came to the conclusion that only the first way (avoiding to elect bad leaders) can really solve the limitation. The second one is a quality of good leadership, whereas the third is an advice which has little chance of being followed as it is the people she doesn't respect that will inform her. How to handle men to achieve what you want? - Women should not forget that husbands are sometimes jealous of their wives. - Women should inform their husbands in time about plans they have. - A wife can remind her husband that it is time to give a token of appreciation after about 20 years of mamage. - In some cases a woman should be patient. - The influential women should tell their husbands about the proceedings ofthe conference. How to avoid fear ofdivorce? - Women should have confidence in their marriage and trust their husbands. - A wife should work freely and must not fear her work gets wasted after a divorce, because all her good work will be a remembrance of her. Analysing these ways of addressing the limitations the women meet, the research team found that the influential women will try to adapt to their husbands. The women will try to change their own behaviour they do not expect men to change their actions. FRIDAY 28/07/95 The reflections that were done Friday of the day before were more clear than those done on Thursday. It seemed the women really had started grasping the idea of the conference. 1O. Voting on which limitations and constraints to address first. The following constraints and limitations ofthe single and the married women were put on one poster: -Gossiping - Fear of divorce - Shyness -No Respect - Husbands hindering their wives in their activities 65 The women voted on which were the most pressing. Gossiping and husbands were found to be the most pressing. In this it should be noted that most of the women were married, only one of the single women mentioned husbands as a constraining factor. Shyness was a limitation that was found a pressing problem by the single women, the married women did not seem to be limited by shyness as much. To discuss solutions to these problems the women now split into two groups (single and married mixed). Both groups reported back, they found the following tactics to address the constraints and limitations: GROUP 1 To address their husbands: - Women should humble themselves - Women should love their husbands - Women should follow the home laws To address the gossiping: - Love the person who is gossiping of you - Have tolerance - Give people assistance if they need any - Remember the person that is gossiping of you in your prayers GROUP2 To address their husbands: - Women should respect their husbands - Women should plant good fruit trees -Women should be given gifts in meetings (?) To address gossiping: - Leaders should be courageous - Leaders should have tolerance Most of the solutions mentioned above seem to be cliches, repetitions of things the women heard earlier. Where did they hear them first? Do the women really regard them as solution? They sound like they were taught to the women earlier. Where did they learn this? Do the women really see these ways of addressing the constraints and limitations as a strategy or are they just repeating what they learned before? These are some things that should be looked into in the research. 66 11. Action Plan per Camp The participants split up in camps and made a plan of action and presented it to the group. They could request for assistance by the Sesheke Gender Group if necessary. Most camps wanted to form a group to work together and explain about gender, inheritance rights, land access and will enable people to learn a skill. Most ofthe activities in the different action-plans are promoting the co-operation between men and women. In groups the women will undertake activities that traditionally are not done by women, like making a fence and building a toilet. As a group it is easier to break through gender-roles. 12. Concluding Ceremony The women all signed a big poster (appendix 4) by way of a symbolic contract, they did this by printing a painted hand. The text on the poster was as follows: WE HA VE AGREED TO ENCOURAGE WOMEN AND MEN, BOYS AND GIRLS CO-OPERATING TOGETHER IN ALL ACTMTIES IN THE SESHEKE DISTRICT, 26 TH OF JULY TO 28 TH OF JULY 1995. In the evening they all received a typed certificate that confirmed they had participated in the conference. Unfortunately a group photo could not be taken. 13. Were the objectives met? It is impossible to determine at the moment if the main objective of the conference, to strengthen their leadership skills, has been met, yet this will depend on the success of the follow-up of the action-plans. Most of the other objectives have definitely been met during the conference: (a) The women are now aware of gender. (c) Since the following-up of the different action-plans is going well we could conclude that the conference succeeded in building confidence in the women themselves by meeting each other. (f) An action plan per camp was formulated.(e) It became clear how the women go about overcoming their limitations and constraints though the research on influential women will give more certainty on this. However two objectives were not met: (b) What makes these women influential and what role they play in society remained vague and was not answered sufficiently. Another objective the conference failed to fulfil was to hear the participants' experiences in being influential (d), only few experiences were being shared and the different types of influence did not get clarified. This will be followed up in the research. 14. Recommendations The research on influential women can contribute in reaching the objectives that were not met during the conference. To do this the research should look into the following questions: 1. Why have influential women acquired skills other women do not obtain? 67 2. What role do the influential women actually fulfil in society? 3. Are they leading other women and if so, how? 4. What different types of influence exist? 5. Where did the women learn the ways to address their most pressing limitations and constraints? Where did they hear them first? Do the women really regard them as solutions? Or are they just repeating what they learned before? The execution of the action-plans should be closely monitored, to give the women really the opportunity to achieve what they planned, this will give them confidence and strengthen them in their leadership skills (the main objective of the conference). 15. Conclusion It can be concluded that the conference for influential women was a success. It was good to organise a conference instead of a workshop, the women enjoyed giving input to the conference and informing each other. 68 REFERENCES Amadiume, I., 1987 Male Daughters and Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society. Avon: Bath Press. Boesveld, M., 1987 Vrouwen Wereldwijd: Feiten en Cijfers. 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