Turns out, i'm not a domesticated woman

I recently realised I’m not the domesticated woman I thought myself to be.

It was brought to my attention pretty early on into my trip to Cote d’Ivoire, but this day that I will go on to document was confirmation of the fact. 

The first moment I realised was when my aunty managed to cook an entire meal for six, on a one burner gas canister. Yes, I helped chop the onions and tomatoes, even stirred the pot a few times, but she was the one who knew the exact amount of ingredients to bring with her and what pots to use for what, and the order in which things were to be cooked in. She knew when to take each concoction off of the fire and what needed covering whilst it sat and waited to be cooked. 

Then she graciously served everyone before she sat and fed herself. 

Today serves as final confirmation, as her daughter, my cousin, was sent over to help wash my clothes. In all honestly I have no idea if Noura helping with our chores happened regularly, after all I’m not sure how the majority of sh*t gets done around here in the Mother Land, and if my Mother were to send me to a family member’s house to help clean, it would be followed by something along the lines of “Do I look like a maid?”. 

Even getting around on the minibuses for example, this isn’t exactly a country with labeled street names on each corner and a red button with ‘STOP’ written on it for you want to signal the driver that it's time for you to get off, but when the bus driver beckons you, the customer, towards the bus and says he’s going “ A droit” or “A gauche” - I guess everyone that boards is destined to arrive at one of the two former options.

But back to me being undomesticated. My cousin, who is no older than Sixteen, came over and asked me for money for soap (the one thing I can always assist with, I know how to chuck money at the situation) just after she tactically set up two shallow, but big, basins of water side by side in the garden grounds right outside my room. 

Whilst she got the soap from the local corner boutique, I gathered the bag of dirty clothes I had in the corner and discreetly added to it, as I had some events later in the week that I needed certain garments to complete the perfect outfits for my attendance (you can see what’s important to me right?) She returns, and separates the dark colours from the light and the big from the small before placing them all in the first bucket to begin the process of soaping them up with the solid soap stick, similar to a dove body bar of soap. 

Now, let me pause here for context, at home in our Stratford flat, my mum usually handles the washing, as I’m ashamed to say that I’m still getting acquainted with our washing machine. 

It’s outdated, I’ll check in with my mum to find out what year we bought it in, but the other day, I put two towels in there on the silk setting. The cycle took two-and-a-half hours and they came out sopping wet because apparently silks need more water than cottons. 

So, my cousin started the lathering process, beginning only with the whites. I think in total there were three white t-shirts, and honestly, I’ve never seen a white sparkle as it did once she was through with it, those laundry detergent/ washing machine  commercials have nothing, and I do mean nothing on my cousin Noura! 

Similar to her mother, or perhaps identical to her mother which I observed when cooking, is that everything was done standing, with this incredible ninety degree tilt forward of the hips. Backs straight as boards, posture maintained throughout the process. Shoulders aligned at the base of the neck, firm ready to grapple, eyes locked on the task at hand. After lathering, she scrubs, holding the garment in her left and using the right clenching another area to pass over the left, there is rhythm in her movement and each of her movements purposeful. I watch her deal with the first two shirt and then get stuck in after feeling satisfied with her tutorial. 

I pick up my Orange Cote D’ivoire football jersey, as I knew for a fact it had no stains on it, and was really just in this batch of washing to come out smelling fresher than when it went in. I copied her motions meticulously, I try to mimic the bend in her hips though I felt my spine hunched over Quasimodo style, my neck misaligned and my thighs crumbling at the pressure of my own weight. After scrubbing away at the armpits of my fluorescent jersey for a good forty- five second, I reposition to a squat. Noura’s position unchanged right up until she is satisfied with the cleanliness of the White tee, the one with the leopard on the left corner of the chest. Then comes phase two: The wringing. 

Look, I have had to wring out clothes before in the bath, the night before an event when you forgot that what you wanted to wear isn’t clean, you know what I means? - When its not acceptable to place one article of clothing in the washing machine? This is not my first rodeo, but I am about to bring out my violin here, in an attempt to distract you from the fact that domestic duties have never been imposed on me and I am a victim of my own first world comforts!

Clear throat

First world problem 1: 

I was woken up at 8am and had not eaten.

First world problem 2:

After praying my morning prayers, which started at around 5am, (not good around the house, but at least I’m God fearing) I was not able to get back to sleep because the night was spent  hallucinating that I had not gotten rid of all of the Tamagotchi sized cockroaches in my room. These hallucinations consisted of them charging towards my bed wearing puffer jackets and side bags that nestled shanks. One may have even been wearing a balaclava, but it was dark, so who's to say.

First world problem 3:

I was wrongfully dressed for the task at hand, wearing a long sleeved nylon jersey in thirty- plus degree weather. 

Tired, traumatised and improperly dressed. I don’t need your sympathy, I sympathise with myself!

Rant over, she repeated this process with each garment, sparing no quality of intensity for the specific needs of each item. Garment sizes getting bigger each time, from cropped top to towel, to bed linen, ending on my favourite pair of baggy jeans. She wrings these dry, dryer than a tumble drier (I’m exaggerating, but an excellent job for oversized denim, I was and still am very impressed). 

Before she had got to the denim, I was already sat down - I gave up on the towels, I did. Accepted defeat, accepted that I was not as domesticated as the western standards had allowed me to believe, all because I don’t party on the weekends and I am a “homebody”. 

It was at the towels when I realised that perhaps I was getting in her way, and that taking a step back would give her the space she needed to complete what she had been sent here to do. I was also too week to wring them out, but thats not the point!

At that point I grabbed my laptop out of fear of looking like a complete waste of space, and decided to document this observation. For at least if anyone asked, I could lie and say that I was working. (Ahh, hunching over and using a technological device, a skill that my body was created for and will live on to endure…)

So this is the part that I’ve been building up to. 

Is she a better woman than me and am I less of a woman than her?

She’s younger than me, I cant take that away from her. I have at least 10 years on her, she cleans, she cooks, she’s mild, she’s obedient and most importantly she is disciplined. And she’s also more than that, she represents her family well, she speaks kindly to her parents. I can’t image her to ever speak back to either of them, even if she was certain that she was in the right. She studies as she is supposed to and she learns through observation. 

Me, I cook pasta frequently, and can be very handy with Uber eats, but often go to bed hungry because most of the time I just cannot be bothered. I put my own clothes in the washing machine maximum once a month when the laundry basket is bursting at its seems. Then leave them in the washing machine, and reluctantly hang them to dry after 2 - 3 business days. I meet up with my friends, girls and guys and we order whatever is to our taste on that particular day, plus we are more than happy to pay the service charge out of sheer delight that we don’t have to do the washing up. I browse the web and order whatever I think I need and mentally blacklist the company when I pay for next day delivery and it arrives the day after. I do clean though, mainly my own room, but I do clean. 

Perhaps this is part of a wider conversation about the was that culture instils discipline whilst you are young. As much as I would like to believe that I am both domesticated and independent, perhaps this is only true to the specificity of my location. To put it simply, my efficiency only spans my bubble, and outside of said bubble, i am in a constant state of learning how to remedy my needs.

If we are talking marriage, she is a shoe in for meeting the needs of any man in Cote D’Ivoire, any man anywhere really, she meets all the criteria of what a good woman should be, in her ability to be nurturing attentive and efficient.

And then I think about all the feminist texts I’ve read, most recently “Women don’t owe you pretty”  by Florence Given, and how women have been reduced to their looks and utility when defining their value in society, and the defining factor in the quality of relationship they are allowed to have. 

What are the things I bring to the table for a man that is more aligned with the life that I currently live and want to live? It feels gross to measure my self worth to my ability to be utilised for a man's convenience, but I’m approaching spinster territory, and the mind starts to wonder.

Oh, you thought I had the answer? This is as far as I can lead you, i'm still figuring it out for myself.