Track 6

I was back in Lavender Hill, watching two students, local this time, struggle with a wheel-barrow load of sand. They are struggling partly because the barrow is heavy, but mostly because they keep having to take breaks to laugh at their inability to move it. Or giggle really, and point accusing fingers at one another about who is letting the team down. They're both pretty big, beefy guys, but as one of them explained in defense: "it's my winter body, Jen, I'm not yet in shape!" I laugh and tell him I understand, and I carryon filming because it's going to make great footage; the two of them with this seesaw wheel-barrow and the fits of laughter.

Earlier in the day I ran a workshop with them and thirty of their peers on development. It's kind of amazing to watch really. I remember being in that space a little while ago, feeling like the rose-water rain was gone and I was seeing clearly the injustices and inequalities that colour the real world for the first time. It's disarming, disillusioning in one way, but kind of exhilarating in another: the imperfections of the world give it purpose. Anyway, so it's on that edge that they stand, staring into this simultaneous abyss of a volcano. I wouldn't want to be back there, but it's kind of cool to be an invited observer.

In the small group discussion I led with eight female students, I asked them what they thought the relationship between development and gender was. I got a few blank stares, one or two nods, nothing emphatic. "Er ok," I start slowly, safely, "right. So, imagine there's a country ok, and it's really economically advanced. And it has roads and bridges and dams and everything else, right?" The women nod as they buy into my imagination. I continue, "Ok, and everyone is this country can vote, and everyone can marry who they want and practice whatever religion they want. Sounds good, sounds developed?" We all smile. Pretty idyllic really. "So there's this cool place, but in this country, see, men beat women. Their partners, their wives, their daughters, strangers." Everyone stops nodding. I give them a moment to process this reality. "So do we call this country developed? Can we call this country developed?"

I am reassured to see them all shake their heads. No, I'm relieved. I'm not entirely sure what I would have done if one of them had said "yes". But I'm not finished, not just yet. This isn't terrain I'm confortable in, not because I don't care--I care deeply--but because I'm really scared of saying the wrong thing. I have this opportunity here to introduce them to an idea; but it's like that old joke about the Jehovah's Witness not knowing what to say when she gets invited in, because all that she's practiced is the speech at the gate. I feel like gravity has multiplied, that I'm suddenly weighted to the ground, the only thing I can think about is how I'm probably going to insult every branch of feminism just to make a point to a bunch of non-feminists but hells, I've got this far and they're all looking at me now, eight pairs of eyes fixed to where I sit cross-legged on my plastic chair.
"You know, right, that around the world, in different development sectors, diverse projects, everyone says the same thing: if you invest in a women, her family and her community benefit, with a man, " I open my hands, palms facing up, "you invest in him. And that's where it stops." I talk to them about girls' education, about how if you can keep a young girl in school for just a few more years, really, the world is just a profoundly a better place. "You basically make a miracle, everytime a girl finishes school, that's how much better it is, for her, for everyone."

"So, the relationship between gender and development?" I ask again. Their responses are a little more emphatic now. It's a tiny victory, a speckle of a victory, a smidge.

I overhear a conversation later, between one of the women who was in my group and someone else, about her auntie who left her abusive uncle after 37 years. "We never thought she would be able to leave after all that time, after everything he did to her. But then one day, she just did and she got a divorce."

Change hey, what a cray-bean. Could be seasonal, winter to summer.
Could take 37 years.
I like to think it's inevitable.