Super Women

I have recently started the third round of Polio vaccinations around my village. My crew consists of a local volunteer who knows the villages and homes inside and out. Second is my colleague Emmanuel, and then myself who give the oral polio vaccine drops and mark the children’s fingernails. We joke that the day is not finished unless we have crossed at least one river, there has been a marriage proposal, and I have made at least one child scream and cry in terror at my skin color. My crowning achievement today was convincing our community volunteer that my blood is blue. He was going on and on about how he wanted to marry a “white lady” and his defense was that our blood is all red and all the same it’s just that our skin looks different because of our environment. Without going into details about the circulatory system, oxygenated vs. deoxygenated blood, veins vs. arteries, etc. I point blank told him my blood is actually blue, not red. I wish I could have taken a picture of this 20-something year old man staring wide-eyed at the veins in my arm saying “I don’t believe it” over and over. I didn’t feel a need to clear anything up especially after this guy had been making chauvinistic comments all morning about the women in the village. For example, he was talking about this woman who was “not right” and when I asked what was wrong with her he went on to explain “oh, it’s because she is divorced.”  Women in Kenya are purchased with a dowry and I found out today that a woman’s value is based on education, physical ability, and fertility. How the fertility part is determined I’m not sure because a virgin can be worth as many as 50 cows, while a “used” woman is worth maybe one cow plus a goat and will be married to an old man. In my many marriage proposals I always tell the men who think they want to marry a “white lady” the same thing; they would not be able to effectively woo an American woman. I am so proud to have grown up in a time and place where I have rights to choose the kind of life I want and not be valued based on my womb. I do have a lot of respect for the women who build their homes, bear and rear their 10 children, cook, clean, work in the fields, and follow their traditions without a word of complaint. They are truly super women.