Long, expository sermons.
I remember the sermons quite vividly, seeing the preacher in my mind's eye as he yells and jumps and screams at us. His beard is full, and in his passion, flecked with spittle. The men shout back in frenzied harmony. They have full beards too, or they are starting to grow their beards and often smell like male goats. The paste they rub on their dry chins has some element of he-goat in it.
The sermons continue for hours, man after man after man after man. Each repeating what his brother has said, the only competition is in the loudness of their voices, and the fierceness of their expressions.
The women sit outside, we do not sit with the men inside the house, that is the greatest of insults here. We sit outside from when the sky is a faint purple till when it is a blinding blue, and then some of us are released to prepare a meal for everyone, and continue sitting till the scorpions come out to play.
We do not think anything of it. It is the way of our world. We are content with it, we thrive in it. The men are the men, they protect us from others, the ones that try to bring their form of change to our society. The women cook for, birth children, and listen to the men.
Some people say women are doormats, too weak to say anything, and too timid to stand up for their rights, but that is not true. A man died one morning and no one knew why. But everyone knew he had beaten his wife mercilessly a month before. He had blamed it on the hash that all the men chew because smoking is forbidden. His brothers buried him without any fuss, and his wife was married to another man the next day. No woman stays unmarried for long in our society, it is wrong.
The children grow like cocoa trees, green tenderlings shielded by their mothers at first, then sturdy trees upholding our society and sometimes dying from neglect, feuds, or abuse.
I was a tree once, verdant, lush, and sturdy.
And then one day, I died.
This is inexplicable.
I understand if you don't understand too.
The photo is not mine
It's Johannes Plenio.
Show some love, y'all.
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