Eons ago, when I was an undergraduate a professor told me, “The only thing dark about the ‘dark continent’ is your ignorance of it.” This statement became real to me when I recently spent a month in South Africa surveying women from various ethnic backgrounds and economic strata about their health needs.
There is no way one can be prepared for the diversity and intensity of this nation. In Cape Town I met with members of both houses of Parliament. After lunch at Parliament, I visited a women’s group in Keilitsha, a township just minutes from the city. At Parliament we dined with fine linen and silver and were attended by servants. In Keilitsha we sat on makeshift benches and I spoke to women who lived in makeshift shanties so small and close together that if one house is on fire hundreds will burn. At Parliament, I was formally introduced and many shook my hand. In Keilitsha each woman hugged me in a personal greeting as this is the custom of the Xhosa. Most of the people of Keilitsha, and Gugulatu, another nearby township, are Xhosa.
Great Diversity
There are stores in the beautiful malls of Cape Town that remind you of Rodeo Drive in California and there are people who can shop in such places. Minutes away in Keilitsha, people buy staples from street vendors, the streets are mud, and the houses are shanties built from boxes, scrap lumber and whatever other materials can be found.
There is also a great diversity of races and cultures in South Africa. I was told there are three racial groups, black, colored and white. The population is in constant flux as people leave and others come because of the changing situations in bordering countries, called the “frontline states.”
The Common Fear
The people of South Africa — Zulu, Xhosa, Indonesian, Afrikans, Rhodesian, British — all share one common fear — AIDS! They are not concerned about easy access to abortion; they fear dying. The disease is spreading and killing them in epidemic proportions. Hundreds of children become orphans each day as AIDS kills their parents and more hundreds are infected with the disease themselves. Everyone fears AIDS. A rumor, started by the witchdoctors, claims that having sex with a virgin can cure AIDS. Needless to say, rape is also a fear!
Contraceptive Influence
In Gugulatu, I learned how the Xhosa have a long tradition of chastity before marriage and how the children play a game that illustrates this “keeping apart.” The older women worry about the influence the “contraceptive society” has had on their traditional ways. Their culture is being lost. These people understand the term “reproductive health” to mean safe motherhood and the ability to have many children. This is why they are so easily misrepresented by those who would claim that “reproductive health” is a need. The need is for maternal health care. They want children!! Children are their tomorrow.
The Etete
Farther north and inland from Cape Town, Amanzimtoti lies amid the areas dominated by the Zulu people. The Zulu are tall, expressive, soft spoken and musical. They sing in four-part harmony as they work. They are very open and loving to visitors and were willing to share their needs with me. The climate is hotter there and AIDS is even more prevalent than in Cape Town. Hundreds of children are “etete,” or AIDS orphans. They sleep in their homes (mud huts) at night and go to day care centers set up in each village. Pro-life doctors have set up these centers where the children receive instruction, food and clothing before returning to their homes. According to Zulu custom they must sleep in their home to preserve their inheritance. Nothing can match the joy of these children when a visitor comes, and perhaps brings some candy.
I surveyed women in different regions of South Africa, Cape, East Coast, West Coast, Central Inland, and Northern Inland and generally noted the same results in all. The women of South Africa are proud of their heritage. They are proud people and it is a little hard to get them to talk about their “needs.” They cherish their children, fear for their health and want more of them. They consider it a “shame” to be an “empty woman.” In general, the women on the lowest rung of the economic ladder are the least interested in limiting their children. They are the most interested in true health issues such as clean water, preventive medicine and treatment and prevention of AIDS. Also in general, these are the women who the US has offered contraception to rather than medicine for their children.
What They Need and Want
I would challenge those who purport to know the needs of the “women of the Third World” to go there and live among these women, stay in houses they live in, eat the same food and get to know them as I did. Really talk to them! I think it would be an enlightening experience. I wish the members of our Congress could have even a small snapshot view of Africa and her people, mainly the women, before they vote money for family planning rather than medicine. I am sure they would not be so blind and the “dark continent” would not be so dark as we erased our ignorance.
Pat McEwen is the ministry coordinator for Life coalition International in Melbourne, Florida. She recently conducted a survey of the health needs of South African women and families on behalf of Population Research Institute.
