(EDITOR'S NOTE: Katherine Cox, a graduate of Abilene High School, is a senior at Davidson College in North Carolina. Interested in women's reproductive health issues, she is participating in a medical mission in Mwandi, Zambia. She is the daughter of Bart and Jackie Cox.)

(From an e-mail to family and friends on Wednesday, July 26, 2006)

Yesterday morning our group gave the talk at symposium to the staff at the hospital. During the discussion afterwards I thought they were going to ignore my topic all together until Mr. Chihana asked why women needed empowerment. I tried to explain as best as I could, but it was hard to find words to describe why women deserve basic human rights. It is just something I have taken for granted that women are equal to men. All the men in the room started laughing at Mr. Chihana's question like he was crazy for asking why women are equal to men. The head nurse spoke up and said that she thought change would have to begin in the home, but the men kept interrupting her. I am sure it took a lot of courage for her to speak up because women are taught to never speak back to a man in this culture.

As I sat in the room I felt incredibly frustrated. It was almost as if my whole body was going to start shaking and it was the least I could do to not jump out of my seat. I think I just assumed that this kind of blatant sexism does not exist anymore, but these men could never understand the rights that women have in the U.S. When we tried to explain how women were treated in our country one of the leaders said "well maybe women in the U.S. have too much freedom." I know it is going to take a long time to bring change to this place (probably generations), but it is desperately needed. If men can laugh about women empowerment in public, then who knows how they treat their wives at home.

Later that day I met with the hospital administrator to discuss my project. She really opened up to me about the treatment of women here. When she was 15 years old her grandmothers and aunts basically kidnapped her by throwing a cloth over her head and not letting her out of the house for 2 months. She was worked tirelessly and not allowed to speak throughout the entire period while the women taught her the "facts of life." She explained how terrified she was and that for the first week she refused to eat. Gradually she adjusted to waking up at 5 am and serving as the "lowest of the low." It was during this time that her relatives crushed the spirit of girlhood within her to train her to be an obedient wife. Although this was over 30 years ago, I could tell she was still very scarred from the experience. When she was finally allowed to "come out," her father threw her a big celebration and all the neighbors came over to decide who she would marry. Now that she had been through the initiation ceremony her one role was to marry well and not embarrass her family. She described the incredible stigma attached to virginity and how if a woman did not bleed on her wedding night she would be sent back to her family as an embarrassment. It was this fear that was driven into the girls so that they would be obedient. They did whatever they were told so that they did not bring shame on their families. She was married once, but I assume her husband must have died very young. She explained that it is only now that she is over 50 that women have stopped asking her when she is going to remarry.

Women still go through this initiation ceremony today although it might be for only a month on a school holiday. She explained that the situation has gotten a lot better since she was a girl, but that women are still very inferior to men. This tradition is embedded in the culture here and will take generations to change. However, she finds hope that some of the women here now desire change although they lack the courage to act. Some women will get together in groups and decided to rise up against their cheating husbands, but when they get home alone with him they lose all courage to his dominance. My hope is that they will teach these values to their children and although they might not be able to live them out, hopefully their children will. Some of these men can be pitiful and never work for the family's well being, but the women are strongly afraid of divorce because they will lose everything including their children. Although the law protects them, most women do not know how to use the legal system and if they did their women relatives would scorn them.

Sometimes I feel like I have stepped back in time. Were the women in the United States treated this way before the women's suffrage movement?

Anyway, this has gotten a bit long, but if you made it this far thanks for reading and please feel free to share your thoughts. I leave for a safari on Monday, so after that I will not be able to email again until I get back to Abilene on August 5th.