Men and Mothers

a todo buenos día,

Yesterday evening a subject came up that is quite important. It relates to men and woman and the roles we take on. ¿How can I best start to reveal the subject?

Well, right now basically we have a lot of mother and woman volunteers and who cook for us, wash our plates, wash our clothes and keep the house clean. Eider was growing a bit annoyed by this fact, that woman were basically only in "woman's" roles and the men in "men's" roles.

She got the impression Vanesah was being surpressed. Well, hmm. She did ask her and she was indeed thinking to herself ¿why should I always be the one doing the cooking? (We know this because Eider asked and related this to us) Eider also noticed that I didnt always go to the kitchen to atleast wash my own dishes.

I also related in this discussio with Hugo, Eider, Josey (a volunteer) and myself that once I asked Esperanza to repair my pants because there was a hole in them and that after the trip the caves it had a hole in them again and this time I was growing weary of having to ask for help with this so I wanted to ask her to teach me how to fix my pants this time. I suspect Hugo translated it simply that I wanted to ask Esperanza to fix my pants twice without wanting to learn how to do it, because Eider took that as an example of a male dominated attitude toward woman.

And as I type this Vanesah is mopping the floor in the room that I am typing this in which makes typing about this all the more awkward. For me my mind is focused on this this morning. I was hoping to cook some breakfast but by the time I got to the kitchen Vanesah was already busy. So I need to wake up much earlier and not sleep in as much as I do. But I also need to learn some key phrases, because the language barrier is still hard. Hugo & Eider are not handheld translation tools for me. I did wash my own dishes this morning and a few other things that were lying around to be washed.

Whereas most woman feel like fish in water I feel like a fish in the afternoon desert for as far as the kitchen and household things are concerned, especially when it is not expected of me that I do these things and I dont feel confident to try and express my self in español.

This time also I saw Christian (a young 1-2  year old infant boy that Walter adopted) running around and I took some time to play with him and I smelled he soiled his diapers and I got afraid again because I would almost invariably embarass myself to no end if I´d try to ask if I could change his diapers. Even typing this sentence out is a hard task... so I move on the subject without further adoo.

This morning I remarked to Hugo "¿So, we're going to learn how to cook?". He replied laughing, affirming that we don't have much experience with that. He suggested we could make some fried potatoes with avocado :).

Another very embarassing thing that was mentioned was that the moms basically adopted me as their foster child (and I didn´t realize it until 2 weeks after I came here)

Tomorrow evening there is a group meeting. Now before I say anything else I want to mention that in 3 years time, Vanesah herself has never been invited to the group meeting where we talk about issues that we want to bring up. If we had an issue we would talk to Walter and Walter to Vanesah. And I suppose this also has the air of chauvinism. She is not a member of a spiritual teaching and is somewhat into "worldly" ways. I put "worldly" in quotes because I still think much of her and worldly seems like a deragatory word. Eider thinks and we agree that she needs to have a voice in the goings on around here and I personally think not indirectly through Walter.

I was so surprised to hear she had never been invited to this weekly group meeting where issues are discussed, not for a month or half a year but even 3 full years. She is very much a part of the group, even if she is not in the spiritual teachings we are in and even though she is not directly involved in the programs of YCEM. I feel she should have been given the opportunity to be a part of it a long time ago. So the next meeting I really hope she will be invited, I´ll try and see to it.

One barrier to her participation in the goings on was suggested is that she is not in the teachings. I also have a faint suspicion that we suspect she wont be able to understand our language because *I think* we tend to use too much ascended master language in these meetings which "outsiders" probably wont understand!
Muchas bendiciones a todos en El Elyons su Libro de vida!