"The education of a girl is the education of this new nation."

Last Thursday was International Women’s Day and in Yei, there were several activities planned for the day and even rumors that it was a national holiday (and therefore a day off from work).  While we didn’t get the entire day off, RECONCILE employees were at least given the morning to attend the morning program at Freedom Square, as advertised by the local CBO, Yei County Women’s Association (YCWA). 

Every minute is accounted for... and no: they don't keep their speeches to 5 minutes

Although the program was advertised to start at 8:00, I took my sweet time to wake up and eat breakfast and get out the door to meet one of my friends on the way to the activities in town.  To my surprise, some of the ladies that do casual work in the office were waiting for me, because I had joked with them in Arabic the day before whether or not they were participating in Women’s Day, including making their men do the cooking and cleaning for them.

By the time we actually arrived at the square it was already about 10:30.  However, I found it as a sign of my adjustment to “local time” that we arrived a few minutes before the singing of the national anthem.  The program was surprisingly easy to watch and entertaining, despite the often longwinded speeches given by South Sudanese and my lack of understanding of the language that often causes me to daze off.  It even included performances by local school children in the form of poems and dancing to songs valuing education and girls.  Some women in the audience found the dancing of some children so favorable that they starting ululating and slipping small bills into the hands and pockets of the smallest children, which is apparently a normal practice.

I left the morning program while it was still running around 2:00, even though it was supposed to end at 11:25, and returned later to play in the planned girls' soccer game at 5:00.  Because the organizers of the program couldn’t find other opponents for our team, they decided to pit us against the Abubas, or grandmothers.  One of the sponsoring organizations, South Sudan Organization for Development (SSDO) decided to outfit these older women in t-shirts championing their development cause.  SSDO had spent the day campaigning, hanging banners and passing out fliers to attendees which preached the gospel of the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.  Anyone who has taken a stroll around Yei will notice the ubiquity of trash in the streets, tangled in the trees or burning on the side of the roads. This means that waste management is a real need in the town, although it's perhaps a misplaced cause for which to advocate on a day dedicated specifically to women...

We started the soccer game against these older women, ranging in age probably from 30 to 50, with a large crowd surrounding the field and an announcer who insisted on repeatedly expressing his amazement that a kawajah had joined the game (aka, me). 

Unsurprisingly, the Abubas only played for about 10 minutes total, using their hands and whatever football rules suited their handicap.  They were replaced by “their children,” who were actually young boys from the Yei Central team.  Unfortunately, our team had to experience loss again with the final score at 3-1.  When one of the young boys scored, many from the crowd happily ran onto the field to slip money into his pockets.

The attendees, children especially, were constantly crowding the sidelines in earnest to the point that coaches had to swat peoples legs with sticks to make them move away.  A dog even ventured onto the field and it couldn’t escape because stones would come at it every time it came to the edge of the field to try to get away, wasting at least 10 minutes in the middle of the game.

Still, with the attention of so many people, the organizers of this event essentially wasted the forum.  SSDO instead followed its own agenda and insisted that people take responsibility of their actions and reduce trash in order to keep from “filling up our landfills.”  This is truly an irony in a town that doesn’t even seem to have public trash receptacles, much less a landfill.  What’s more is that this organization probably contributed to the complimentary waters and sodas for the meeting; the remains of which covered the field and the surrounding area of Freedom Square, along with their helpful pamphlets about the three R’s. 

The organizers got to display superficial support for the girls’ team and women’s causes without having to really take us seriously.  Although many of the activities earlier in the day were inspiring and positive, the sponsoring NGOs wasted how much money on these pamphlets, sodas, and giving sporadic gifts to the audience?  As a nice gesture, they offered the girls’ team 100 SSP (about 30 dollars), which is enough to buy two pairs of cleats and some bottles of water, but hardly enough to make a real difference for the team and entice girls to play.

Some of these girls are also harassed when they go home, shouted at by men on bodas saying, “Ita ma weledoo,” or “You won’t give birth.”  With so many people in the crowd paying attention, the organizers could have taken a moment to explain the false perception that if girls play sports, they won’t be able to bear children. Instead, the announcer made belittling comments like, “their heads aren’t just for carrying jerry cans,” when a smartly girl headed the ball.

Unsurprisingly, one of the local leaders in sport promised to talk to the girls team at the end of the game, but failed to show even though we waited past dark.  It seemed that International Women’s Day came to an end and things went back to normal when the sun went down.