Welding and Learning About Gender Roles in Farming

Lohutok, Sudan

I wrote to Pastor John and Ruth Wilkens of Brantford Covenant Church in Kansas.  I asked them to show their letter to Delbert and Pearl Anderson.  I also wrote to Dave Ettestadt, a grad student in Physics at Cornell.

Last night, my stomach was rather uneasy and I had some diarrhea.  It was minor and seems to be gone now.  Samuel is still fighting something he came down with yesterday.  It may be malaria.  Malaria used to be a frightening word.  With modern medicine, it is not much different than the flu (except that it can recur).

I saw a guy walk past this morning with an automatic rifle.  Interesting!  A hold-over from the latest civil war I suppose.  Or perhaps it came out of Uganda.

I helped Samuel do some welding this afternoon.  It was a bit frustrating as the welder quit working part way through.  Its habit is to quit when it gets warmed up.

A guy named Ernes (spelling?) stopped to see what we were doing.  He said he was finished planting today.  He said weeding will start next week.  He said the women do the weeding.  "Men cannot weed", he said.  I tried to ask what the men do.  I think I understood him to say that men sit around and / or they will dig or plant cassava.  This opens up a whole new set of questions about who does what and will complicate any labor use studies.  Oh well, farming systems in less developed countries are supposed to be complicated.  I also see I have not gotten complete answers about what crops are grown.  I wonder if cassava is used as a famine reserve crop?