Resettlement of client

Last weekend Matilda and Grace took me with them when they reinstated one of the clients of the shelter in her community. I mentioned the client in the previous post. She recently became a widow and after her husband’s death she saw an owl on her hut. There is a lot of superstition around owls here. In particular they are associated with witchcraft. She told her father in law about it and he became worried. As a result she had to leave home. Now, it turned out the story was more complicated than that. Even now there are a lot of unanswered questions. But anyway, the plan this Saturday was to bring the client back to her home and perform a mediation between the father in law and members of the client’s family.

Before leaving Nebbi, we stocked up on some essentials for the client to bring with her (soap, detergent, blankets etc). We then drove the one hour trip to the region were her home is. When we arrived (at about 4 o’clock) the father in law was not there. We were told he was attending a funeral in Nebbi. In fact, the only ones greeting us were two of the client’s children and a relative of her. However, soon her father and brother showed up together with two other male relatives and the family of the client got the chance to tell their version of the story. Apparently the father in law wanted them to take her to a witchdoctor to confirm that, despite the owl, she was not affected by witchcraft in any manner. However, the family didn’t have money to do this. Since it didn’t seem like the father in law would show up the next hour was spent on creating a temporary solution. The client would move in with her father and we would leave a (resolute) message to the father in law that he should report to the local police station the following Monday were the discussion would be continued. A member of the local council was brought and briefed on delivering this message.

However, as this was being done the father in law arrived. He turned out to be really talkative and funny. He was wearing hat and sunglasses (nobody does that here) and joked about how surprised he was to come home and find a policeman and a mzungu (me) outside his house. It was pretty obvious that there was never any funeral and that he had been near all the time. He then delivered his version of the story. According to him, after his son died he was threatened by the family of the client. They had feared the death of his son was connected with witchcraft and said that if something would happen to the client, or her children, then they would blame him for not protecting them. This whole thing got amplified by the story of the owl. However, as I understand it, the reason the father in law sent the client away was only partly because of actual fear that the family would hurt him. Mainly it was because his pride was hurt. When a woman marry in this region, she become part of the family of the father in law. The father in law takes her in to his home. It is (generally) the father in law who pays the bride price and at this meeting, when referring to the wedding, the father in law would say “I married her for my son” instead of just “my son married her”. So there is a lot of pride involved in this and the fact that the woman’s family questioned his ability to take care of her seem to have upset him a lot. After suggestion by Matilda he actually agreed to take the client back in his home if her family apologized and assured that they trust him. 

Matilda with her 4 months baby Blessing and Grace during the mediation

Grace

Memorandum of understanding written up and signed in the light from mobile phones

It had taken us pretty long to reach this point. The discussion was carried out in Alur (the regional language) so it had to be translated. Moreover, as in all conflicts, it’s hard to get people to stick to the point. Whenever somebody get to speak they start over from the beginning and recount the whole story from their own perspective. When Grace had explained to the woman’s family that the father in law was prepared (after an apology) to take her in, then the father just stayed silent. At this point Grace was close to losing her patience. Finally, another relative of the woman stood up and said that the whole mediation was meaningless. That they would never reach an agreement. This was a mystery because it seemed that the family of the client was getting what they wanted. But I guess the conflict between the family and the father in law ran deeper than that. First of all, the main superstition and fear of witchcraft probably lied with the client and her family. They seemed to be the ones who were really afraid. For example, when we arrived on the day of the discussion and the client met her two children after being away from them for two months she didn’t touch them. Neither did they touch her. Both parties kept their distance. Probably because of fear that she was in some way affected by witchcraft and that it might transfer to the children. And this was a fear that both the children and the client seemed to support. There was also a problem with communication between the father in law and the family of the client. While the father in law was talkative and good at making himself heard, the family of the client was the opposite. The father in law was making fun of them many times and they didn’t seem to be verbal enough to defend themselves (probably because of differences in the level of education). At one point the client apologized on behalf of her family. The father in law then agreed to take her in and a contract, or a memorandum of understanding, was drawn up and signed. This was done in the light of our mobile phones because at this point it was pitch dark. However, fifteen minutes later, when we had packed the car and were leaving, the client came up to us and asked if she could move back to the shelter. Apparently she had changed her mind and didn’t want to move back with her father in law. Grace made an effort to sort out the situation and we left. But afterwards we learned that the client moved in with her father instead.

Now, this might seem like a long and confused story. But it illustrates that the cases here often don’t fit into a standard template. In this case it was hard to understand the actual intentions of the client and her family and when we left my sympathy for her was wavering. But still, there are these cultural structures and beliefs that always seem to hit the woman. There is the belief in witchcraft, which makes women targets of accusations. There is, like in this case, the problem of women’s right to property. The father in law had the power to send the client away from her home. He was the one who got to decide if she could come back or not. And this is a home which she, since her husband died, is the lawful owner of. Moreover, when discussing with Matilda and Grace afterwards I have learned of a number of possible reasons why the client, or her family, didn’t want her to move back in with the father in law. They are not all of the kind that makes you sympathize with the client, but they all seem to, one way or the other, trace back to women’s cultural status, the difficulty of women to support themselves, the perception of women as property, etc. And I think that if you want to change these things then you need to get into stories like this. You need to get your hands dirty, do mediations and deal with things in a case by case manner.