Females: A Strength in Guinea

Thursday 7 December 2006

A tree limb as thick as my forearm with a length of 15-20 feet long was carried balanced upon her head to the outdoor kitchen and then she took an axe almost as tall as her and split the limb into firewood. This eight year old smiled each time I would watch her lift the axe above her head hitting her target right on mark. It made me scared to watch her as we would make eye contact before her swing downwards. She was happily on stage though with her sole admirer. She never did miss.

I thought I was a tough, physically, aggressive, strong female. Playing football with some girls in Foreicarriah gave me a taste of the physically strong females of this country, but it was today as I sat with the family of my concession watching them cook that I really began to understand.

I was given a live chicken by one of my top student's family. My family offered to cook it for me. Women are not allowed to kill chickens. A man slit its throat while saying a prayer.

I sat outside in the middle of a ton of bustle. Four fires were going. One of the three mothers was preparing my chicken. The other two mothers were still at the market. The busyness was caused by 6 girls between the ages of 5 and 12 plus 2 babies.

Remember making mud pies, collecting leaves and flowers for yummy meals in our play kitchens? Well the 3 five-year olds had their fire roaring cooking a pot of collected scraps and peels that the other girls were leaving behind as they prepared the family meals.

The older girls, ages 7-12, were hacking away at a squash with a dull knife, sorting rice from rocks, washing the rice and cooking it in boiling water, chopping firewood, getting condiments for their mother, pounding cassava leaves with a pestle taller than they, and bring big buckets of water from the pump closer to my house than theirs (30-40 yards).

Remember carrying baby dolls in strollers and in baby backpacks? Well these girls took turns carrying the babies on their backs while working. The 5 year olds would sometimes take over playing with the babies and carrying them around too also on their backs. I am amazed that babies are not dropped. The only incident was an accidental grazing of a sitting baby, causing it to topple over when the girl brought in the 20 ft long tree limb. Those things are apparently hard to navigate.

It was non-stop hustle and bustle, and I just sat there in the middle of it watching, amazed, thinking, "Ummm... That 8 year old is chopping firewood with a dull axe. I don't think I would want to meet her on a rugby field."