The Light at the End of the Tunnel

This post is part of Blogging Abroad's 2017 New Years Blog Challenge, week two:

The Danger of a Single Story.

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue,

but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” – Chimamanda Adiche

Check out her TED Talk on “The Danger of a Single Story” here.

Finding something to write about for this challenge took me most of the week, until it hit me square in the face. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before, because the single story I’ll write about today is something that I deal with every single day in my village, without fail. It is one of the biggest challenges (if not THE biggest) that I have faced during my service, but it is also one of the most gratifying challenges to meet when I’m able to successfully: gender roles.

Mayan culture is very traditional in terms of the gender roles that are employed. Women do specific things, men do specific things, and children do specific things depending on whether they’re boys or girls. There is very little wire crossing that occurs among those roles, though it does happen occasionally. The interesting thing though is that when it does happen, it goes completely unnoticed by everyone in the community. I think that’s mostly because it’s a temporary thing; if it were a repetitive breaking of gender norms like it is whenever I do something that would be considered “a woman’s job” (which I often hear about it from others as if it’s very strange), it would be very different. This is very hard for me personally, as I’d much rather think of these as “people’s jobs,” but this is the culture that I live and work in, so I have to adapt to environment around me. This has become the single story that the community I live in has about themselves: that your role and job in society is determined by your gender.

So what does that look like?

The river where I wash my clothes every week

Women in Mayan culture are the ones that run the house. They cook (chiq’oq), clean (yamnesink), wash dishes (chahok sek), wash clothes (puch’uk), mind the kids (k’u’uxla li k’okal), sew (bohok), buy food (lo’ok wa), and bake tortillas (xorok). Women generally don’t go to the farm (though there are exceptions to that – my own host mother will go occasionally to pull beans or get corn), chop the yard with a machete (some women do this, but few), chop firewood (again, my host mom is a rock star and does this too), or work in general outside of the home (there are a small handful of female teachers and shop owners, and some women work at a local banana farm, but not many). Women always serve guests and men first, are always the last to eat and then clean up after having cooked everything (which absolutely kills the Midwesterner in me – if you cook, you should eat first and not have to clean up after!). Most women don’t or aren’t allowed to make decisions without their husbands’ approval. In more extreme cases, they can’t leave the house without letting their husbands know, though I haven’t heard of that happening very often.

Building a small thatch house to cover the corn husks

Men, on the other hand, tend to do all the physical labor things like working (kanjelak), chopping firewood (siib’k), chopping the lawn (q’alek), going to the farm (xko’o se kaal), building things/construction (yiibank, usually thatch houses), and in general make most of the decisions for the household. Men don’t cook, bake tortillas, clean (some do this actually), wash clothes, or really do anything that women “are supposed to do.” They tend to relax when they get home from work unless there are chores to do around the house.

Children generally follow what their parents do. Boys often help their fathers at the farm or around the house. They tend to be able to play and relax more, because they usually have more freedom than the girls do. Most boys don’t continue on to go to high school after they’re either done with primary school after standard 6 or turn 14 and are allowed to drop out. Girls usually help out their mothers around the house, and are expected to help run things when they’re as young as 8 years old. If there’s more than one girl in the house, the oldest usually runs things and will eventually teach the younger ones. They have very little time to play or relax unless they’re too young to help out around the house. Girls tend to get married very young in Mayan culture, sometimes as young as 13 or 14, but usually closer to 16. More girls tend to go to high school than boys actually, but even that is rare as most girls marry young or stop school to help their mothers out at home. High school attendance is very low in Mayan culture across the board.

But why has all that been such a challenge? Well, for two main reasons: 1. I’m not expected or assumed to be able to do some of the things that women do because I’m a man, and 2. When I do those things are attempt to learn, I get looked at as if what I’m doing is strange or amusing by the men (sometimes I even get called a woman), and the women tend to think it’s either funny or that I’m incapable of doing those things correctly. It’s also hard for my job sometimes, as it’s not culturally appropriate for me, a single man, to visit the house of a married woman when her husband is not at home (which tends to be the entire day from 6a-5p while they’re working). If I’m  walking around the village and get hailed by one of the women during this time it’s acceptable to go visit, but this doesn’t happen too often. These few things make doing daily tasks, whether chores or working in my capacity as a community health educator, difficult sometimes. I have to wash my clothes every week at the river, which because of the culture, could damage my credibility with the men of the village if they don’t take me seriously for doing what they see as “women’s work.” That being said, I also go to the farm, chop firewood, (attempt to) chop the lawn, carry big bags of corn around, and generally help out with as much as I can to show the men that one person can work effectively in both the roles that they see. As a man, it’s easier for me to get along with the men, so I also do a lot of the things that women “are supposed to do” to learn, to work and live for myself, and to gain rapport with the women. I can successfully make tortillas, wash my clothes and dishes, clean, buy at the market, and watch the kids, which help show that I can work not just with the men, but with the women too. Eventually I’ll make it to cooking, but that’ll take some time yet.

That’s the part that I see as the most gratifying when my message comes across to the people of my community – it doesn’t matter what your gender is, everyone is capable of working and doing all of these jobs. Whether it’s my host mother chopping firewood, the rare single man or single woman cooking or working at the banana farm, or me baking tortillas, the exceptions  are there and they’re okay. They paint a much more complete picture of a person than the single story that many in this community believe define their roles in this society. The days that I make progress in breaking these gender stereotypes are my best and my favorite by far, because it tells me that I can make some sort of impact here, and that the people here aren’t just stuck in their single stories. They tell us in the beginning of training that Peace Corps is “the hardest job you’ll ever love,” and when I think about things like this, I understand why. Working through this challenge will likely be one of the hardest things I’ll do during my service, but I’ve already seen glimpses of the light at the end of the tunnel with some of the people I’ve touched. Those moments make the hard times worth it because I know I’m doing at least some good here, and that I can always do more.

Me baking tortillas!

Best,

Bryan