by Kathryn Badalich
I was surprised when Sabuli told me that her new grandson’s name was “Khali.” Her grandson lives in the USA along with his older brother, and his father and mother. These children long for the times when their grandmother, Sabuli, or “bibi”, visits from Congo.
Khali is a nice sounding word, and makes for a lovely sounding name––but isn’t this the often soiled ring, the tightly rolled fabric that a woman wears on her head when she carries a colossal load sometimes approaching 70% of her own weight?
The practice of head carrying is ancient and continues to this day throughout the developing world. It’s an efficient way of carrying heavy loads where there are no other transportation options. Researchers say there is no evidence that head carrying results in injury or has a negative effect on the neck or spine. Of course this depends on a number of factors, most importantly, the weight itself. It’s said that if one carries only 20% of one’s weight, no additional energy is expended. Does this mean that the extra 10 pound weights I hold while walking the treadmill do no good? In any case, the majority of women carry loads far heavier than half their weight.
Researchers say the success of this carrying may be due to starting at a very young age. I remember seeing a girl, who could not have been more than four years old, carrying a large plastic container of water on her head, although I don’t believe it was full. Surely she was being trained as she needed her hands to balance it, unlike her experienced companions. I wondered if she initially resisted this head carrying or whether she invited it as it made her feel more grown up as she emulated the older girls and women.
There is clearly a head-carrying division of labor between women and men, between girls and boys. I rarely saw a man or boy carrying anything. Congolese women do the vast majority of physical labor. In addition to raising the children and keeping the home, they garden, harvest, and sell their harvest at the central village market, often walking miles with their heavy loads, singing along the way. The unemployment rate is extremely high, 40-50 percent, so many men are unemployed.
I remember pausing from our long and leisurely walk through Sabuli’s forty hectors of jungle and tropical gardens in the heat and humidity of the afternoon. A group of about ten women were carrying huge dented aluminum bowls, overflowing with mounds of plantains, cassava, and pineapples. The more one carries, the more one sells. Sabuli stopped them along our narrow and worn path, to shop, as she often did. We found a shaded clearing. The women stopped for a few moments, allowing Sabuli to select while they continued to balance the bowls on their heads. Sabuli invited them to take a break and purchased enough fruit for them to eat and enjoy as well. I imagine this rarely happens. The women helped each other lower their heavy loads. They took a break with us and we all talked and rested while we peeled and enjoyed the plantains. When it came time to get back to our walk, and for women to get back to their work, they helped each other hoist what was surely more than 50-pound loads onto their heads, and rested them on the Khalis on each other’s heads. How did a woman hold, balance and carry this massive weight steady on her head as she walked in the heat of the day, at a steady pace, with an infant strapped to her back and a toddler by her side clinging to her colorful batik dress?
The Khali protects the skull as the bowl, firewood, or other heavy load sits atop it. It supports the load and helps to balance and keep it in place as they go about their hard work of walking the rough, winding and hilly roads.
It wasn’t a coincidence that Sabuli’s grandson received the name, Khali. This tightly rolled fabric is valuable and treasured. It provides tremendous support for a substantial load––a load that brings life and sustainability to a family in a culture with a high unemployment rate; in a culture where women have little choice but to do the bulk of the physical labor and child rearing, especially in village life. Sabuli told me that a khali is highly valued. It protects. It supports. It’s strong and essential in a woman’s life. Khali is fitting for the name of a beloved son whose mother and father have the hope that he will grow into all that the name connotes.
©2020 This is an excerpt from K. Badalich’s upcoming book, “Congo Village Stories”.