So this morning, I'm walking home from the gym I just joined on Saturday, feeling as smug as if I'd just finished the Iron Man Triathlon, when all of a sudden this hella-hoofin' Kenyan "Mama" darts across the road and dang near knocks me down.
There I was feeling all "righteous and ripped" (after only about 40 minutes on the treadmill and a few reps of free weights, mind you) when this chick who looked old enough to be my mother and who was carrying a good 50 pounds on her back starts trying to racewalk a sister. I was fixin' to set it OFF on that stretch of Rhapta Road before managing to snap out of that temporary bout of road rage. She actually reminded me of all the Kenyan women I see on a daily basis working like pack mules caring for the homestead, the kids, the cooking...everything.
Those women are so damned strong. Physically and mentally, and many of them well into their 6th and 7th decades of life. Of course, I'm only assuming the woman in this picture was significantly older than me. Actually, she could very well be around my age, or maybe just a few years older. Access to facials, sunscreen, soy-based cleansing products and an occasionally healthy diet have graced me with a relatively youthful appearance--for an old bag.
I thought about that a lot while I was in Kisumu, talking to women younger than me who were grandmothers many times over. Decades of the kind of arduous toil I can only imagine had added an implacable thickness to their girth, and etched something like a mixture of abject resignation and stony resolve onto their leathery, sun-weathered faces.
Oh, and giving birth to 6, or 7, or 8, or more kids. And digging and scratching and clawing out a meager living every day, often while their husbands sit around in the marketplace, or at the local pub. And no, I'm not just being a feminist bitch by saying that. Sky high unemployment rates, coupled with a culture where women are expected to shoulder most of the burdens, results in the above-mentioned scenario, where women literally work like slaves while men don't. In fact, the husband of the woman in this picture was probably sitting somewhere under a shade tree, and she had probably been up and hauling heavy bags like these for 3 or 4 hours already.
There I was feeling all "righteous and ripped" (after only about 40 minutes on the treadmill and a few reps of free weights, mind you) when this chick who looked old enough to be my mother and who was carrying a good 50 pounds on her back starts trying to racewalk a sister. I was fixin' to set it OFF on that stretch of Rhapta Road before managing to snap out of that temporary bout of road rage. She actually reminded me of all the Kenyan women I see on a daily basis working like pack mules caring for the homestead, the kids, the cooking...everything.
Those women are so damned strong. Physically and mentally, and many of them well into their 6th and 7th decades of life. Of course, I'm only assuming the woman in this picture was significantly older than me. Actually, she could very well be around my age, or maybe just a few years older. Access to facials, sunscreen, soy-based cleansing products and an occasionally healthy diet have graced me with a relatively youthful appearance--for an old bag.
I thought about that a lot while I was in Kisumu, talking to women younger than me who were grandmothers many times over. Decades of the kind of arduous toil I can only imagine had added an implacable thickness to their girth, and etched something like a mixture of abject resignation and stony resolve onto their leathery, sun-weathered faces.
Oh, and giving birth to 6, or 7, or 8, or more kids. And digging and scratching and clawing out a meager living every day, often while their husbands sit around in the marketplace, or at the local pub. And no, I'm not just being a feminist bitch by saying that. Sky high unemployment rates, coupled with a culture where women are expected to shoulder most of the burdens, results in the above-mentioned scenario, where women literally work like slaves while men don't. In fact, the husband of the woman in this picture was probably sitting somewhere under a shade tree, and she had probably been up and hauling heavy bags like these for 3 or 4 hours already.
But this post is not so much about the seemingly unequal division of manual labor between Kenyan men and women as it is about me, and my own off-and-on quest for physical fitness and strength. I really wish I could claim a consistent commitment to it, but the truth is I'm most likely driven to the gym when I can't fit into most of my clothes. And that's got to stop. Not so much because I want to be working like a pack mule when I'm 70 years old, but because if I had to, I could.
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