People are just foolish and believe what they want to believe. They weretalking behind my back, accusing me of being a witch, pointing at me, andspreading all kinds of gossip. But all of this was just a plan by mybrother-in-law and his wife to kick me off the shamba because they knewthere was not enough land to support all of us. Even if I agreed to marry [mybrother-in-law] he would not have taken me as his second wife because itwas not possible to support us, and [his first wife] would not have allowed itanyway. It was good for him to say I was a witch and that I gave myhusband AIDS. I lost everything in this way...the shamba just rotted awaybeneath my feet. [Juma’s mother, November
One of the many culture-specific aspects of violence done to Juma is the patriarchal ideology this society seems to reside on. We see this occur over the ownership dispute of the shamba between Juma’s mother and uncle. In this passage, we see Juma’s mother’s account of her lifeworld crumbling once a man had accused her of infecting Juma’s father with AIDs and thereby killing him. It’s quite evident that women do not have equal standing in this society – especially when, as the study progresses, Juma’s mother becomes dependent and really has no other choice but to be dependent on a string of multiple “boyfriends” to be able to get some money. And we expect this kind of practice is not uncommon, considering the potential jargon “professional prostitutes” – which is possibly used by women just like Juma’s mother who try to cope with their awful situation.
This bias against women affects Juma because if his mother had an equal standing with a man, perhaps she wouldn’t have had her shamba taken away so easily like that – and maybe people wouldn’t have been so quick to turn against her over one baseless accusation. If the scenario occurred whereas they were able to live in that shamba, then Juma wouldn’t have had to turn to the streets and grow dependent on the streets for survival.