Widows' Village Tepesua

The notion of peace-building is broad. At its best, it involves diverse processes that contribute to building positive relationships, healing wounds, reconciling differences, restoring self-esteem, rebuilding communities, instilling feelings of security, and empowering agency. This past week, I visited one place that is a manifestation of peace-building. 

Tepesua is a widows' village on the road between Narok and Maasai Mara Game Reserve. It was established by Hellen Nykuraiya a Maasai woman who at the age of nine years, underwent female genital mutilation (FGM), was married at 11 years to a man much older than herself, and ran away to finish her education. She was shunned by her family and community. Within her cultural traditions she will never be allowed to remarry, nor has she any rights to inheritance. (Below is a photograph of Hellen and some of the other widows in Tepesua).

Early marriage is common in this community and girls are frequently traded for two or three cows and are not able to return home unless with the cows (and any of their offspring) are also returned. Due to the large age gap between husband and wife, women are widowed very young and have no inheritance rights - frequently cast out by the husbands relations leaving them to fend for themselves. But with no education, they have little skills to support their children and frequently turn to working in the sex trade to put food on the table. Hellen purchased some land and has created a village for widows to live who have been widowed or cast out by their families in some other conflict.

Hellen adheres strongly to her Maasai culture but believes even more strongly that giving a girl an education is important. FGM is a typical practice and a right of passage into womanhood in the Maasai community. Although illegal in Kenya it is still promoted by mothers and grandmothers throughout the country. It is a part of the culture. Hellen has begun to reconcile differences within the community by opening a boarding school where girls who have been brought to the authorities can live free from fear of FGM and early marriage. The children wear school uniforms on Mondays and Fridays and the rest of the week, they wear traditional Maasai clothing - a balance between traditional culture and new ideas of educating girls. To help with conflict within the community about what she is doing, the "rescue centre" is known as a school inviting boys in as well as girls. The only difference between the girls who are rescued and the other children is those rescued continue to live at the school when there is a break. Returning home would result in their circumcision and early marriage.  

Here are some of the children walking to school in traditional Maasai clothing . . .

And some of the rescued girls in school uniform

By providing these girls with an education and by challenging the traditions of her community the girls will gain agency, self-esteem while at the same time, instill knowledge and respect for their culture.

transforming rituals

 

Women play an important role in ritual and in community healing. In fact last evening one of my professors told me about a village in the north of Kenya in which the women didn't want the men in their village to travel to the next village and fight. In order to encourage them not to fight, the wives told their husbands that if they came home and had been fighting, they wouldn't have sex with them. The men stopped fighting and the communities began to get aong better!

This past week I have been researching and thinking a lot about ritual and the significance ritual plays in healing community. I am using the word ritual to refer to a ceremony, rite, or custom that has a performed set of actions in an ordered way. All cultures have traditional rituals that link community, limit violence and solve conflict. Some rituals are based in religion others are secular in nature; some have a long historic tradition while others are more spontaneous and improvised. While there may be formal or informal elements ritual is generally used to transform a community and are social in nature. Rituals are symbolic actions that are used to communicate and usually have a space associated with them.

Most recently I’ve been reading the book Critical Aspects of Gender in Conflict Resolution, Peacebuilding, and Social Movements edited by Anna Snyder and Stephanie Stobbe. She takes a look at many rituals within the global south. For instances Maasai women sing for peace. In conflict situations these women will walk into battles to separate warring people. In Judaism, the women kindles the Sabbath candles and says a prayer over them.  Lao women perform the soukhaoun - a ritual that brings together members of the community. The soukhaoun is apparently akin to the Lebanese suhla during which a pardon ritual is performed in the home of an injured person to reconcile and re-establish friendship.

Of course men play a role in rituals and in community healing, but it seems that there is more reliance on women to do so at a community level. When I was working with orphans and women in Sri Lanka I witnessed many acts of healing led by Tamil women post-tsunami. These women also performed rituals, driven by the community,  to make reparations to villagers divided during the civil conflict. Some of the rituals involved food - as so many rituals do - and some offered the community hope or closure to those left living through washing and burying bodies of the victims. 

Much of the ritual that promote community healing that women are involved relies heavily shared experience and stories.

Here's something to think about:

• Ritual is a unique space set apart from everyday patterns of life

• Ritual is a symbolic way of communicating that puts emphasis on emotion, symbols and sense rather than on a more patriarchal verbal communication

• Ritual affects relationships