How many babies do you have?Posted by admin on September 15th, 2009
What is the meaning of life? From a biologist’s perspective, as I often tell my students, it is to reproduce and pass on your genetic material. If we take the premise as truth, then so far in my life at age 28, I would be considered a failure. This viewpoint becomes reinforced as I live and travel in Africa.
Living in Europe or North America, when meeting someone new the first question usually asked is where one is from or what is your profession. In Africa, the first question I am invariably asked, besides what country I am from, is if I am married or if I have a man as I am usually alone or traveling with a female friend. That is always followed up by the question of whether or not I have any babies. At first, I was confused; my answer was a very obvious no, I have no man therefore I clearly have no children. However, once better acquainted with local culture, I realize that for African men and woman, the two are not necessarily connected. Woman often have children out of wedlock and many have children while they are still teenagers. As Uganda is a very conservative and religious country, I was surprised to hear this, and even more surprised to see that these people are not forced to marry nor ostracized from the community in any way.
Uganda was one of the few African countries to handle successfully the Aids pandemic once the danger was recognized. It continues to be active in combating this disease; condoms are readily available and cheap. Campaigns across the country endeavor to educate people to issues that propagate the disease. My personal favorite is a billboard that shows an elderly man with the slogan “Would you want your daughter to sleep with this man? Then why would you sleep with his?” I realized that they were attempting to stop cross-generational intercourse, but the understanding of why came much later. It was after some reading into Aids that I learnt that this is a major factor in the spread of the disease. As homosexuality is illegal in Uganda, Aids, unlike during its early stages in the Western world, is a heterosexual disease in Africa.
To come back to my original point regarding having children, condoms are very widely available and affordable. Further, they are required protection to combat other factors such as Aids. Uganda continues to run very successful education campaigns that promote the use of condoms. The questions then becomes, why are there so many pregnancies if such methods are widely and cheaply available? Certain other factors come into play; a guide at Sippi Falls told me that he fathered a child (age twenty) when he was too drunk to remember to use a condom. I mentioned that birth control pills are 10,000 Shs (approximately $5 US) for three months and take care of problems like that. He only laughed. Although from the village, Joel works with tourists for a good rate, and is saving up to attend medical school. So if this is the attitude of an educated, forward thinking African, I mustcome to the conclusion that these pregnancies are wanted, and if not wanted, happily accepted.
In Uganda it is very important to greet people, and invariably the term of respect for a woman is “mama” or some equivalent. This highlights the importance Africans place on reproduction and having a baby for women; a girl is not considered a proper woman until she has given birth. African women show disbelief and horror when they hear I am twenty-eight and still have yet to give birth. The most recent, and probably most dramatic incident came very recently when my car broke down driving from the Serengeti to the Ngorngoro Crater. While waiting for my driver to change the tire, we were approached by two Masaai women. They did not speak English but wanted us to take their picture in exchange for money. We were happy to oblige as this was an authentic experience,rather than a set production put on fortourists, as is usually the case. They spoke no English, but luckily our guide from the Serengeti had asked for a ride to Arusha. This was a great symbiotic relationship: he got a free ride and we got the benefit of his local knowledge and language skills. Through him we were able to communicate with the women, and of course, they wanted to know if my friend was my mother, and how many babies I had. My answer was surprising to them, as was theirs to me: that at the age of fifteen and eighteen, they had respectively one baby and two babies. I was advised to get a man very quickly because I was very old, almost too old to have babies anymore.
Back in the car I jokingly remarked that I had two university degrees, and did that count for anything? My Ugandan driver stated that it is not the same situation. The Masaai live in a very big area and they need to have children to fill up the land. I realize that in Sub-Saharan Africa, having many children is beneficial to the parents as well as practical. Children are used as a source of labor; there is no Westernized notion that childhood is a time of innocence to be used for play. Children are expected to contribute the running of the household, with tasks like collecting firewood, taking care of younger siblings and for girls, cleaning and cooking, and for boys, herding cattle. Indeed, my two Sudanese students talk of their childhood job of herding cattle as the two oldest boys in a family that consists of six wives having seventeen children. Practicality comes from the knowledge that infant and child mortality is high; most children will not survive to adulthood able to reproduce families of their own. Diseases such as malaria, cholera, typhoid and accidents or myriads of other dangers that are rampant in Africa claim the weak: the elderly and the young. There are simply too many hazards to avoid loss of life, and parents look to their children as security for old age.
This is slowly changing, at least in Uganda, as people have access to more health care and education has become mandatory. My guard in Kampala recently asked to borrow money for school fees (a minimal charge) for his children for the new semester. After hearing that his wife in the village had just given birth to their fourth child, my roommate joked that we should buy him a box of condoms. However, I do not think this necessary as he has recently remarked that he will have no more children, as it is too expensive. Slowly the concept followed in the West is taking hold: have fewer children but invest larger amounts of energy, and more pertinent to Africans, large sums of money. Though the Africans I see live a day-to-day existence, they are slowly being forced to plan ahead for the future. Today half of Uganda’s population is below the age of eighteen. This contrasts sharply with Canada’s population that is aging. This it not to say we in the developed Western economies have all the answers. Our aging population comes with its own set of problems.
Despite the constant questions and subtle (and overt) pressure I feel here in Africa, I do not see babies in my immediate future. I realize my best child producing years are approaching, and the risk of infertility and birth defects rises every year I put off having children. However, for now the benefits of finding a suitable mate and furthering my own career outweighs the need or want for a baby. My priority is ensuring I have the means to ensure a safe and happy life for myself, and build up the security to one day provide for a family. If only Africans had the support that we enjoy and the same options open to them, the seeds of self-sustainment could be sown, changing the helplessness that characterizes Africa today. However, just as I too must balance the many pressures of my chosen life, so too must Africans, often with many other problems I can hardly begin to understand. So for now as I ponder these difficult questions,there is a surplus of African children to play with, many orphaned street children, whenever the maternal feeling overwhelms me.