30 mins drive outside the city is the little town of Marov. It is home to the Institutions of the surrounding 35 villages. There is a problem solving committee, a municipality, one of the Internal Security movements and the Womens offices. This is the story of the 4 women who knock on doors in the area to help men understand that women are human.
It was a cold winter when I first knocked on the door of the Womens offices in Marov. Inside, myself and the 4 women crowded around a traditional ornate diesel heater and sipped tea. Kurka was on guard duty so she popped in and out periodically to patrol the building as we talked. She wore a beautiful long white dress and hair cover. She was very very pregnant back then and when she sat with us, she lay the AK-47 on top her big pregnant stomach. She was quiet, calm with a big big smile. Urka sat next to me and poured me a tea. She, like many women in The City, wears black Doc-Martins boots, tight black jeans and a black t-shirt and has her long black hair on display.
Urka explained: “We do not believe it is their fault. They just don’t know. They were bought up in to this consciousness. This is why we approach them with friendship in our hearts“. “In 2011 in the old ex-Capitol of the region, it was normal for men to lead their wives around by a chain around their neck”. Within 5 years such an enormous social change had occurred that the practice had almost completely disappeared. Not because of law, but because the men themselves had a new consciousness. We were told that “10s of 1000s of men from the old system are now joining The Network”, the sweeping social change to help women in to roles of Responsibility throughout society. Indeed, when I visited the problem solving committee, a famous ex-commander was there from the old Patriarchal tribes, towering over me, who is now one of the biggest activists in the region for the role of women and womens ideas and consciousness. Social Change on this scale, in 5 years.
The Teal Diary 