The Men of Otoxha/Vent Session

The men of Otoxha are a very, hmmmm a macho bunch. For example the culture certainly is paternalistic and the gender roles are well defined. The men farm and during planting season are constantly busy, out nearly every other day in the early morning to mid-day. You'll see them all with a machete and rubber boots tired from certainly a long walk from their farms which are far from the village. This is because they use slash and burn tactics and don't want their city to become the next ash farm. I would say from some discussions with the men I've had on the whole farming business, in total it takes about 8-9 months of the year. Right now from June to September the men are idle while waiting for harvest.

The other tasks men have consist of fishing and hunting gibnut, playing football(soccer) going to church and on occasion some will go to town to get drunk. Actually it's not a bad deal for them, I would say it's extremely rare not to find a man laying in his hammock while his slave(wife) works. His slave which in Otoxha is a rather miserable bunchworks constantly all day, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and taking care of the children. The only kicks the slave has is talking about people behind their backs and laughing about someone getting seriously injured or just telling lies about people to create community division (which in Otoxha there is many). After two months the women almost violently refuse to help each other, and when offered an opportunity to benefit the community will possibly yell at you. All the while the man bosses from his swinging throne.

I wish I had a better outlook of the men and women here, I wish I had more time to be here so I could really penetrate their culture and fix some colonial and religious deviations that severely effected them in past history, Of course not all are really that bad, Adella an amazing person, who is motivated and really wants to learn everything we offer is actually not from Otoxha, which doesn't surprise me. And some families once you get them one on one and help them with the garden or other projects and compliment them, really for an instance seem very nice. And after this task they usually ask you "hey can you show me how to do this" or "yea teach me this now" and we say "well why were you saying no to this at the community meeting or saying nothing at all?" It's clear to see they want to benefit themselves to one up their neighbor, which in principal I stand firmly against.

After two months many of our hopes have been crushed. Some still glimmer with a fading light. But at least now we know the people more and aren't blinded by ignorance. Still we are determined to help, knocked down by reality none the less and ready to stand back up.