Chapter 4: So I had time to turn in circles

So I had time to turn in circles. So I walked home after school every day. I had told myself I would limit my extra activities this term, as I always ended up too busy, so I told Vday I could “help” only. None of this “in-charge-all-by-myself” nonsense. Besides, the organizers of the previous year’s Vday wanted to make sure Ethiopians had a say in the Vday process. This is an event designed to help Ethiopian women after all, so an Ethiopian director, or co-director, would be ideal, they believed. As such, when a woman who worked with women with HIV/AIDS, Selam Tesfaye, approached the Vday committee, they were ecstatic.

“Great! We encourage you to run with it! This is your performance this year!” last year’s coordinator said. Why they said this to her I will forever wonder, but Selam told them she had seen the monologues the year before and was behind the show.

Turns out, she lied. 

I met with her a few days later to discuss the details and realized quite quickly we were in trouble. Not only had she never seen the show, she’d never read it and didn’t know the first thing about its vision.

My Coochi Snorcher is a very bad place, a place of pain, nastiness, punching, invasion and blood. It's a site for mishaps. It's a bad-luck-zone. I imagine a freeway between my legs and I am traveling, going far away from here.

“So,” Selam said to me at that first meeting. “I hear some of the monologues are bad. I want to get rid of the monologues dealing with homosexual issues.”

“What? Why do you want to do that?” I said, feeling rather shocked. Did she know I performed Coochi Snorcher, about an underage girl who had a homosexual encounter, last year?

“Because homosexuality is illegal in Ethiopia and I don’t believe that’s an issue women here deal with. It’s not cultural,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Well,” I hemmed tentatively. I dug for some diplomacy. This woman sounded very sure of herself, and I could tell already, after knowing her for five minutes, that her smile hid something nasty beneath. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I knew something wasn’t right. How can a person want to direct the Vagina Monologues and silence such an integral part of a woman’s sexuality? I may not be homosexual, but I know enough to know this has nothing to do with being a “cultural issue” that only “western nations” deal with. “Well, Vday deals with all issues of women’s sexuality. Silencing one part is not so much about culture as it is about womanhood itself. We are sexual beings, whatever our orientations, and traumatizing experiences, such as what the Coochi Snorcher deals with, can affect that!”

“Becca,” she said, “it doesn’t matter what the Coochi Snorcher deals with, it is not appropriate for our culture. Vday is about supporting women’s rights, and we should stick to that. I also want to take out the other one with the moaning. Not acceptable.”

            I gaped at her, flaring my nostrils because I couldn’t help it. How do you even begin to perform The Vagina Monologues without those integral pieces? “Why?” I finally said.

“Because it’s encouraging rude behavior in our women. And because she could also be a homosexual,” she replied, sipping her tea. My macchiato was untouched and getting cold.

“It doesn’t say she’s homosexual! This is art, and it’s open for interpretation, and it’s certainly a hilarious, and also a poignant, part of the show. You can’t perform Vday properly without this monologue!” I tried to tell her she was ridiculous without actually saying those words. Apparently, she didn’t care.

“Well, maybe we can change it, or take out the moaning part. But as it stands, she’s a ‘sex worker’ the text says, and that’s not good. That’s not what Vday was about.” Obviously she didn’t have a clue what Vday was about, and she also obviously didn’t care to be educated by me, some western women who was trying to impose my views upon her.

“Becca,” she continued.  “I am a published author. I work with women who have AIDS. I am very educated in all things women-rights related and I take my work seriously. I want Vday to be a serious affair and one that speaks to Ethiopians. The way it is now is just disrespectful. I plan to write a few monologues of my own to add to the mix.” She sat back with a smile, smoothed her hair, and looked very pleased with her abilities. I kept my eyes averted, as they always gave me away.

“I agree with you that Ethiopia should be considered,” I said.  “But Vday is an international event too. We have a responsibility to keep the text authentic and speak using Eve Ensler’s vision. We need to keep those scripts in, if for nothing else than as a way to begin discussions on women’s sexuality.” I couldn’t say anything else without angering her and her enormous ego.  She shook her head at me a few more times, made sure I knew I had no power in any of this, let me pay her bill, and walked out awhile later.

I walked back out into the bright December sunshine and shoved my sunglasses over my eyes. I put in my headphones and scrolled through my ipod until I found Avril Lavigne. I needed loud and dramatic for my walk home. People jostled me on the sidewalks, but I walked faster. Cars swerved on the busy road, and I swerved around people as quickly as I could. Beggars held out their hands to me, dirty little children ran alongside asking for money. Fancy women wearing heels and hairstyles that baffled walked past me. Men in suits and jackets nudged me. The sun got hotter. I turned my music up. Avril’s “Complicated” blared in my ear. “Uh huh…Life’s like this…chill out, it’s all been done before…”

I felt confused, angry, and at a loss as to how to move forward. After I finally got home and threw off my dusty flip flops, I poured myself a drink and decided to contact the other women coordinating the event in order to call a meeting with Selam. I called Jessica, one of the coordinators, and told her what had happened. “We need to meet with her to get this worked out,” I said.

“Oh. Ok Becca. I’ll talk to Marisa and we’ll get this squared away. No problem.”

“No. I think there is a problem,” I said into the phone. “A big problem. She’s not budging and wants to cut scripts and add random scripts she’s written,” I tried to warn her.

“Oh really? Ok. Well yes, I’ll call a meeting soon then.” She said breezily, totally in control. She sent an email to all involved the next day and we agreed to meet at LimeTree restaurant for dinner on Wednesday. This was Monday.

For the next few days, I taught my novels, listened to my music, walked to and from school, socialized, and I tried to ignore the fact that this woman, this Selam, wanted to get rid of Vday with a few slices, cuts, slashes, and personal additions that had nothing, in the end, to do with Vday’s vision.

NOT-SO-HAPPY FACT

This is a not-so-happy fact found in UNICEF’s 2005 Report, “Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting.  A

Statistical Exploration.”

Female genital mutilation has been inflicted on approximately 130 million girls and young women.  In the 28

countries where it is practiced, mostly in Africa, about three million young girls a year can expect the knife

—   or the razor or a glass shard — to cut their clitoris or remove it altogether.

—    

Chapter 3: The Vagina Monologues changed my life.

The Vagina Monologues changed my life. Or at least, I’m pretty sure they will. You see, I am a woman who believes in equal rights for all, and I have annoyed those around me with my independence since I first learned to talk (you doubt me? My first sentence was, “I dude it mineself!”). As such, when a woman approached me to direct The Vagina Monologues in Ethiopia, I thought the opportunity could prove fabulous. I am easily excited by women’s issues and just as excited when given ways to say something important, something that matters. I tell myself I’m into what matters, but I admit that sometimes I also like to stir the gender politics pot.

“My vagina’s angry.  It is.  It’s pissed off.  My vagina’s furious and it needs to talk.  It needs to talk about all this shit.  It needs to talk to you.  I mean what’s the deal — an army of people out there thinking up ways to torture my poor-ass, gentle, loving vagina.  Spending their days constructing psycho products, and nasty ideas to undermine my pussy.  Vagina Motherfuckers.”

The Vagina Monologues

In my spare time, I’m a teacher at an international school in Addis Ababa. I go through phases where I love what I do, love my teaching, but lately I’ve wondered why I do it. Why do I spend my energy teaching kids stories they tell me they care about? I just finished teaching Soltziniszen’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denesivich, a book so powerful in the eyes of the Soviets that the author lost his right to his Russian citizenship. But I found it hard to help students sink that into their brains. My students form the top ring of Ethiopia’s elite individuals. Their parents know how the system works, and as a result they are rich and powerful. I am not rich, and I’m not powerful. I’ve just got a loud voice, a somewhat educated, very opinionated, sort of world-traveled voice. I use it in the classroom, though the power seems sometimes nonexistent. “You’re just a teacher,” my students tell me sometimes. “Does it really matter?” “Yes!” I tell them, waving my arms in exasperation. “You’re learning about the human condition! Through these stories, you get to see the world through someone else’s lens! What’s more important than studying humanity and its motivations?” I’ve usually lost them by this point, but at least they’re quiet.

I use my remaining energies in the extras. Like an appropriately geeky teacher, I stay after school and do the programs designed “for student success!” I overachieve because it makes me feel like I’m making a difference, regardless of whether I actually am. And then this year, I took on what I thought was the relatively small task of helping to direct Ethiopia’s eighth edition of The Vagina Monologues. I was too busy, I told the coordinators, to do it all myself. “I’ll help, but I can’t direct on my own. I have too much else going on.” Famous last words.

I bet you’re worried.

We were worried.

We were worried about vaginas.

            Every day after school, I throw my laptop and books into my black bag and get out my ipod. I walk home most days, which takes about forty minutes and, if I don’t listen to my music, all my patience. Some days I choose Dixie Chicks and stride home to “Earl Had to Die!” and “I’m not ready to Make Nice” because after the day I’ve had, I need to feel in control for a few minutes. I ignore any man who dares look at me and brush past those who harass me meanly. “Men!” I think disdainfully, and I continue down the roads. The sun shines almost every day here and the breezes and altitude keep it cool. I love that I can keep a tan year round, and I lift my face upward and try not to smell the sewage that wafts up my nose intermittently.

            Some days I don’t walk home to Dixie Chicks, or any country music for that matter. I don’t want to be reminded of my years in the Southwest because on those days, I feel one hundred percent a part of Ethiopia. Someone listened to me on those days, or I to someone else. Something that mattered happened on those days and I choose my lyrics accordingly. India Arie or Sarah Bareilles, Corine Bailey Rae or Colbie Collait, with their soft voices and strong poetry inspires me and reminds me that potentially, maybe, I do matter. For me, it’s all about the artistic expression of the moment. I get all-dramatic and literally turn myself in circles and giggle until I suddenly lose my energy and decide to stop. Usually nobody catches me at this, but sometimes a teacher walks by and looks in, or a student who gets embarrassed and pretends like she didn’t see me dancing and singing to myself. What can I say? I’m an emotional creature. When I started directing Vday, I found a new channel for these emotions, a new vision for these moments of inspiration. And with that, suddenly I could dance in front of a room of women and, because we were defining “the rules” anyway by daring to talk about our vaginas, it was okay! I think they might have even liked me…

Chapter Two: I come from conservative Christian stock.

I come from conservative Christian Stock, a missionary kid who grew up with her family in Ethiopia. My parents worked hard to spread the Word of God (and proper health and hygiene) to everyone they met. I know the Bible. In Ethiopia, this is a lucky thing, because it helps me understand why, at four-thirty in the morning, the church loudspeakers get turned on and the priest starts praying over it. It helps me understand these daily chants, and it helps me grasp the reason why people living near the loudspeakers don’t burn the church down so they can go back to sleep. People are scared. Ethiopians grow up with a strong fear of God and the knowledge that, if they don’t follow God’s commands, they will burn in hell forever. Their God is not a forgiving god. This is a very ancient, very proud, very religious culture.

            Ethiopia is also a culture where FGM, child marriage, fistula, and prostitution flourish. The UN estimates that up to 80% of Ethiopia’s female population has been circumcised. Thousands of women each year suffer from vaginal fistulas, and thousands more die in childbirth. In the post-missionary world of today, NGOs are sprouting up to offer assistance to women’s issues. The Department of Women’s Affairs has claimed that number two on its list of five-year goals is to get equal rights for the women of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a “Donor’s darling,” so it seems something good might happen. But as I drive down the streets of Addis Ababa in the early evening hours and see the lines of young girls waiting for men to pick them up for a night of “fun,” I see Ethiopia’s reality as much less optimistic. Dr. Hamlin’s Fistula Hospital down the road is still overflowing with women who need surgery to fix the holes in their bladders, and I know that outside of the cities especially, girls are pulled out of school at young ages to get married so their families don’t have to deal with them anymore. Yes, we should support the causes for women’s rights. But we should do something ourselves in the meantime. Last year, I was introduced to a grass roots movement that tried to do just that. We raised over 60,000 birr, about 6,000 dollars, to give to three women’s charities in Addis that needed it. This year, I was going to do more to help. With this in mind, I went to my first meeting of The Vagina Monologues.

Chapter One: I sat in jail that Friday night and thought about my vagina

Gender and Vagina Politics

OR

women’s rights in a historically religious society

I sat in jail that Friday night and thought about my vagina. I wondered if it was really worth it, all this vagina talk? I wondered why I insisted on living in Ethiopia at all. I kicked at the dirty floorboards. They threw me in jail because I tried to talk about vaginas, particularly ones who had goals, aspirations, who knew themselves and wanted more than this country, at present at least, was willing to offer.

We were worried what we think about vaginas, and even more worried that we don’t think about them. We were worried about our own vaginas. They needed a context of other vaginas—a community, a culture of vaginas. There’s so much darkness and secrecy surrounding them—like the Bermuda triangle. Nobody ever reports back from there.

The Vagina Monologues

Seven of us had been arrested that day and driven to a police station for interrogation. Now, hours later, I looked at the fat policeman sitting across the table from me in this dingy place and felt a tiny moment of pity. But he was laughing at me because he was convinced I was some sort of radical, so I refocused on what he was saying. He readied himself for his next question.

“Are you encouraging our Ethiopian women to be homosexuals?” the cop asked in Amharic. The woman next to me translated, although I understand pretty much all of what he was saying. Nine years spent in a country will do that to you. I looked at him incredulously.

“No! I’m not! I’m encouraging women to learn who they are, to learn about themselves.”

“No. You’re teaching women that they don’t need men. Good Ethiopian girls will leave your play and decide they don’t need men! All because of you,” he pointed, sitting forward and looking sternly at me.

“I am not doing that,” I stared back. “I am directing a play. I am creating art. What people interpret is up to them, the same as any song, movie, or other play shown in Addis.”

He laughed at me again.

“Are you married?” he probed.

“No. I am not.” I decided it was probably a bad idea to tell him I was divorced.

“Well, you should be. Your husband wouldn’t let you do this kind of thing,” he said. I sat back and tried not to think of my father the missionary.