EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 32

March 2003


EDGES AROUND THE WORLD
mountain voices

As part of the Panos Oral Testimony Programme three hundred people were interviewed from such mountain regions as Nepal, Mexico, India and Ethiopia. The project is called Mountain Voices.

Edges Magazine shares some of the thoughts of these geographically marginalised peoples.

Tara – Aged twenty-five from Thakani, Sindhupalchowk, NEPAL

There are five of us in my family: my mother-in-law, one son, one daughter and two of us. My son is 8 years and the daughter is 5 years old. They both go to school. My husband is a farmer and he also treats the animals.

At home, I wake up in the morning and fetch water, sweep the house, prepare khole (meal), milk the buffalo, feed them, prepare and feed the children then I go and bring the grass, then I cook rice and send the children to school after feeding them. After watering the animals I go to the fair and work all day and come back home at 5-6 in the evening. Then I have to milk the buffalo and feed them then as usual prepare dinner, give food to children then we eat and after finishing all the work go to bed.

The men go to work but they don't have to do anything at home. They plough the fields, dig, carry goods and sick people and take them to hospital. They go to carry big loads, to plough the fields and go and buy animals, we [women] cannot go to such works. It has always been so; it’s our system. Nowadays, we both can discuss and decide, but the main decisions are always made by men.

They say that men are the wealth and women have come from away so they can always spend their wealth. I personally think that whatever I earn that belongs to me, but the men have a different attitude. In the village we hear men blaming the women of enjoying their wealth, they blame us of trying be superior to them, the women are suffering and the men are enjoying their life, they have the upper hand.

When we marry we do not have much, whatever we earn is ours, then the food we get to eat and some clothes that are brought for us. Everything we have is brought for us.

I feel bad that I was born a girl, because no matter how much we work we do not get enough. If I had my own property I wouldn't have to ask others, but I don't have anything and even if I beg they wouldn't give, then I have to cry. If I go to my parents' house and if they give I can have it with me and I can spend. But these people no matter how much you beg do not give, so it is better not to ask. They provide us the food and clothes and send the children to school, and if they don't we just sit back because we don't have anything. It's the same with everybody in this village, some have even worse situations, they go around crying. Sometimes the girls get married and come to the husband's house but after some years the parents-inlaw call her names and tell her to leave the house.

The men don’t give any money to the women to keep. They do not give even 4 paisa to the women to keep. They keep everything, every paisa they made by selling grains and animals and the women have only the flour and rice. We cannot sell the grains and flour, so, whenever we need some money we have to ask the men, that's what all the women of this village also say. But till now I don't have to ask the men, because we earn equally.

Those women who have small land go and work for wages. In Asaar, Srawan and Bhadra, they go to plough the fields, to cut the paddy in Srawan and to plant millet after finishing their own work in their land. Mostly the poor work for wages, like in Asaar, if they have small land they finish the work and go to others' fields, in Bhadra to weed the fields and to cut the paddy. Then in the time of wheat plantation people need help in the big lands so the people work in such places for wages. During ploughing and weeding both men and women go, so, in Asaar and Srawan they both work together. And in Bhadra and Asoj mostly men go to cut the paddy (harvest). The men are not used to looking after the kids at home and the animals, so the women have to work in the house. The work of the fair is mostly done by men, since the women look after the house and its work, they do not have time to go to the bari (field, usually un-irrigated). The children come home at four in the evening from school, we have to cook and feed them and the husband when he comes home in the night. If I don't cook the food he will be mad and will ...... me. He still blames me for cooking the food for children and myself only and not cooking for him. So I have to cook in time and make the food ready for him.

If the husband is a drunkard then he will beat the wife even if the wife has been working hard. This is a Brahmin neighbourhood so we do not have such incidents but around this village we have heard of wife beatings. In our village the men don't go around saying that the wife doesn't work, because the wife does all the work by herself and the men don’t at all.

The men go away to India to work but women cannot go away. Since the men go away to work the women have to stay back to look after the house, the children, the animals and the fields. No matter how difficult the life is we cannot leave our house just because men have gone away. There are cases where the husband had gone away searching for work and never came back, but the women have stayed back working in wages or doing odd jobs to look after their children because of the love for their children. The men can go away for 15 days without any information but for women they cannot go away even for a day, they cannot because they can't leave their house and children just like that.

Mesele, Aged fifty-five year old farmer from Jirlie, Ethiopia

In the old days, our fathers gave the orders, not the youth. People then had much larger plots of farmland and part of this was left aside for grazing. So there was more than enough fodder from this fallow land for the livestock to feed on. In those days there were also a lot of trees such as wanza, agam, qega. One used to pay land tax in honey and salt bars, but later this was changed to one tenth of one’s produce. At the time of Haile Sellassie one even paid about ten cents for a piece of land in taxation. Therefore, the tax burden was very light, but now the land tax is high. There was plenty of food around in those days for both the animals and the people.They could fill their stomach with what they got from the fields and needed very little from home.

The soil was not washed away by the floods in those days. The land was not reduced by the erosion, for the roots of the trees kept the soil intact. Nor were the roots so exposed then. Hence the crops we produced in one season used to feed us for at least two years. Now, however, what we produced this year could not even feed us until June or July. The regime is all right. In the name of equality both the young and the old are well dressed. There are plenty of clothes around, but there is very little to eat. In the days of Haile Sellassie, people knew their station in society and wore accordingly, with the clothes of the big and the small reflecting their social status.

Famine started during the reign of Emperor Yohannes. At first the drought killed a lot of cattle. People slaughtered them and hung their hides. Later people were forced by hunger to boil the hide and eat it. Eventually they turned to eating a sugar cane like plant such as wushish and grass such as muja. This famine lasted for five years. During the rule of Menilek and Zewditn, virgin land was cultivated and people got plenty of yields. During the Italian occupation, there was again a food shortage for about five years. A laden (sheepskin bag or weight equivalent of 30kg) of grain used to cost one birr. After Haile Sellassie returned from exile, all the land left fallow and more virgin land was cultivated. As a result, more than enough food was produced. As you yourself can see, things have now gone bad again. People have no food to eat. The land held by a farmer is too small and that itself has been redistributed among his children. So it doesn’t produce enough food to feed the family even for a whole season. The trees have been cut right down to the roots. The soil has been washed away and the rocks have been exposed. With such land you cannot feed even a family of two. That is why the market has died. Because there is little produce, there is little food on the markets. Gojam is far better in this respect. Food grain is brought from Gojam and used to feed the people. Since 1987 (in Ethiopian Calendar ie 1995), farmers have stopped cultivating crops and feeding themselves. They have become dependent on food handouts brought from abroad.

Our fathers used to hunt giraffes, water-bucks and antelopes and eat their meet. Goats were therefore not slaughtered often and they were left to breed. As a result a household used to own as many as 30-40 goats. Children fed on wild berries and rarely ate snacks at home. So the food was saved and lasted longer. The tree called qega, whose berry is eaten even by adults, used to grow abundantly along the banks of streams or rivers and sometimes even from one bank to the other and served as a bridge for crossing rivers such as Tekeze and Lenqei But all these trees are gone now. Children have very little to eat. They spend their days empty bellied and covered with a swarm of flies.


left arrowback button right arrow


This Document maintained courtesy of BS Web Services
. Material Copyright © 1997-2002 THOMAS (Those on the Margins of a Society)
Registered Charity Number 1089078