ways of knowing

Sunday mornings are slow. I baked some eggs with fresh garlic and tomato and brewed fresh Ugandan coffee.
I have a moment to reflect and yet I can't shake this feeling of wanting to escape the process somehow. I have been thinking a lot about communication and its culturally embedded nature. Sometimes you think you are on the same page with someone but it turns out you are not. I had such an encounter yesterday with Lam, our connection in Atiak.
He was a generous host. He housed us, fed us, connected us to the chief of the village so that we could get his blessing, and helped us to coordinate the first meeting of the TBAs. We set up our first training for monday (tomorrow).
Yesterday I ran into Lam on my way to a workshop with the child mothers at St. Monicas. He was insistant that we meet that moment, even though I was rushing to begin the workshop. What came out was that he thought we should wait a week to begin the trainings because he wanted to be there for it and he had other obligations. I explained that I understood his frustration, however, since we are here such a short time, it is important to begin sooner and that he should rest assured there would be a place for him when he came. He then became very upset that I did not concede to him, stating a few times that my project won't be sustainable without him and 'This is Africa, you need to listen to the men". I explained that this sounded like it required a real meeting and I was running to a workshop so could we please meet later? He stormed off.

I left the room feeling shaky and uncomfortable. I spoke to Sister Rosemary who said he simply likes control and it is not a big deal, and ultimately, it is not- but it speaks to an overall issue of communication. We all have these different cultural narratives and ways of knowing that shape and shift the way we understand events- so the same conversation can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. I wonder how we enter into international dialogue in a way that nurtures some of these gaps and allows for perspective and listening. I wonder how women can navigate male spaces, and vice versa, I wonder what it will take to make it safe to allow men into womens spaces.

I saw Becky for the first time on Friday. For those of you who remember, she is the girl who lost her baby to an unmonitored cytotec induction last year. She came to the compound and we had a nice meeting, she is back in school and doing well. Then yesterday she showed up again. She said had been beaten by her landlords son, and kicked in the uterus and had been bleeding all night, soaking through pads. In reality she was bleeding very little and it came out later that this may have been her period, since she was expecting it. Not to discount her pain because I know it is valid and I believe she is indeed being beaten ( a cyclce I wish with all of my heart I knew how to stop), but I am interested in the need for women to present themselves as victims in order to get attention- even from other women. So many questions are coming up for me around how to advocate, how to heal, how to empower and how to represent in a way that speak to my earlier questions of communication and cultural difference. Robbie Davis Floyd has a great article on Ways of Knowing and thinking in midwery systems. She says that even cultural relativist thinkers (those of us who value each cultural belief as equal, not prioritizing our own), must move beyond to what she calls Global Humanism, a way of knowing that says yes your way is good and my way is good, but there are certain things, like the beating of women, which we ALL must move beyond, even if it is 'cultural'. I like this, yet the way into action is thickly layered and complicated.