Let them do their Rituals

 

Let them do their Rituals

 

 By Nabungolo Ibran

 

The contemporary issue regarding the position of women and girl children in society was inquisitive and touching until I attended my second lecture class regarding the same problem. While seated uncomfortably on a metal seat, favourably in front to get the plausible sound of my lecturer and also avoid distraction from crushes and friends who have just been out for a weekend holiday and have a full-packed narration of how they killed the weekend in pubs and how they nailed and laid innocent fresher, mine was to get the discourses of my lecturer prof Donald Oluchiri.

The contemporary issue is about how we handle our gender in our society. The impulsive way that we male gender, bear the blame for not empowering the opposite gender, came to my disagreement with the statement just minutes after the lecture as it kicked off.

The ritual power of a woman? Yes, how women use this charm offensive tactic to reach greater heights in marriages and relationships struck me. The power in them, the power of cooking favourite dishes and, of course, injecting in some body fluids - menstrual fluids, which are believed to have mysterious power in them that can make a man submissive, become a weaker link in the house and forever be entangled to that woman who is in love with without going astray bombard me,  but no that much like those campus couple goals which were seated just in front of me. The lecture, in fact, tipped the girls on what to do.

Waves of laughter and mixed reactions from those couples inside side-by-side sitting. The reminiscing of the famous Martha Wangari led women to march at Uhuru garden, daring to stripe naked in the event of assault from police brutality, vindicated how powerful the gender is compared to us men. That's why the Uganda government finds it hard to touch and whisk Human rights activist Stella Nyanzi despite the Hot peppered Museveni government.

My cognitive dissonance ran back to our tiny village in Western, how a mama Pima single-handled busaa and changaa brewing business was unstoppable and attracted teetotalers from five villages without competition. She could rub shoulders with chiefs and cops who were not topers. Still, those who wouldn't dare because the brew's power was stronger to handcuff you to the makeshift benches with a metal cup glued to the mouth than to the police land cruiser.

And for those cops who managed to raid that den, they found the reason why the flavoured liquor from that mama Pima was the best. Used inner clothes and other feminine private clothes were part and parcel of the chemical process of brewing the liquors, attracting drinkers from the south to the north.

 

That was the conglomeration, by extension, thinking of how the ritual power of Women makes them more powerful than men in society. As the lecture ended, the underlining issue of women's empowerment to me was no more. Let them do the ritual!