A typical township meal

Today the ladies from the Hand in Hand group prepared lunch for the volunteers at the Edge of Africa house. It was a typical township meal – tripe with potatoes and something that was a bit like rice but the grains were bigger. And all washed down with pineapple flavoured home brew. I can’t say I enjoyed the tripe that much – the texture was a bit weird for me, but the sauce that went with it was delicious and it was interesting to experience real township cooking.

The ladies are all single mothers, the youngest was 19, the oldest was 28. As we ate together and talked about our families and background some of the cultural differences between us became apparent. The ladies were all very surprised that none of the volunteers had children even though we were all in the same age range. They were also surprised that some of the younger volunteers didn’t have boyfriends or husbands. They talked very matter-of-factly about how their boyfriends are lazy and expect the women to do all the work in the house while the men sit around drinking and smoking and cheating on them. Some of the talked about previous partners who had been violent towards them or verbally abusive or just plain lazy and inconsiderate. It seems as though this is a common thing in the township (although I’m only basing this on the few people I’ve spoken to) but what bothered me was that these women spoke about it as though it was normal to be treated that way – as if that is just how things are here and they just had to accept it. It is certainly a very much male dominated society here but it’s hard to understand how or why they are allowed to get away with such a lack of respect for women.

I came to the conclusion that the difference between us is that I grew up in a society that taught me to respect myself as well as other people and this gives me the confidence to stand up for myself and not let anyone, male or female, treat me unfairly. But if you grow up in an environment where all your female role models just accept that men treat women badly, how would you know that it doesn’t have to be that way?