All women have a power in them
by qwayrod | September 15, 2012 at 9:57 AM
An excerpt from ‘Child of Destiny” a book by Rodney St Clair Ballenden
WorldPulse user name qwayrod email qwayrod (at) mweb (dot) co (dot) za
My idea is to submit the full chapter for a critical overview regards the historical-social-family dynamics-social life and structure details and whether they are correct or need to be rewritten. So I am looking for the best forum to do this and how to go about it? Please help if you have a linking address or submit your own suggestion.
Thank you: Rodney
Dawn rises over the village of Asadiyeh in south eastern Iran, the sun climbing slowly from behind the massive mountain ranges far away across the Afghanistan border. The journey ahead will be hard as the climb across the heavens becomes steeper and steeper into the summer. The village folk below rising earlier and earlier in order to be done with the outdoors before the sun warms to its given task.
Ferra is already up. At nine years old she is a fellow conspirator of the maddening sun rising early to take her light out into the open countryside, but like the sun still a wisp of a thing her real warming still to come. She revels in the daylight and cannot wait to be outdoors collecting the wood for the midday meal and bringing water from the qanat well running through the village.
Ferra can only manage one small container at a time and would have to make several trips in order to bring in enough water for the Nahita household. Their dwelling is on the outskirts of the village, not that they were the last to arrive, because grandfather had been there for years, but his stubborn insistence that the Nahita family remain private and outside of village politics to concentrate on their religious practice and personal relationship with God the Almighty.
Mankind is born to steal, he warned Ferra. He will steal your heart and steal your mind leaving nothing behind. If you ever lose your way nothing will bring you back to God the Almighty.
Grandfather’s world was only inhabited by men. He spoke to Ferra only in the masculine gender teaching her his wisdom as advanced only by men. Ferra came to believe that a woman was only skin and bones tied together by two useful hands with a secret part to her for bearing sons. The blood that flowed through her veins was empty. She had no record of any kind and the beat of her heart was only there to keep that secret part of her alive. Ferra was too young to understand the exactly teachings of her grandfather, but she knew instinctively that were she to lose her way then as a woman the mistake would be fatal. No record inside meant the only way back would be from the outside.
The countryside around the Nahita home is barren and bleak so collecting wood is a tough enough task without the windswept sand in her face. Ferra loves her face. She cannot see it, but she can feel it and when she is alone she can touch it. She hurries down the shallow bank of the depression between two giant rocks careful not to twist her ankle on the rough stones hidden in the sand and drops the shawl from around her shoulders rubbing her cheeks hard to bring the feeling back into her face. The sarig covering her hair is not a problem. She likes her sarig. Grandmother had sewn it and it reminds her of the days they searched amongst the rocks and sand for the early flowers of spring. Life was much easier when grandmother was alive. Grandfather was more kind and less commanding. Mother smiled more and even father laughed occasionally his beard wobbling like a cock’s crest under his turban. Then it all changed. Now mother insists Ferra wear all of the traditional clothes and cover her face that only her eyes be visible.
You have dangerous eyes, she whispered to Ferra one day when clipping on the hajib.
I am too small to be dangerous, Ferra replied.
All women have a power in them, her mother warned Ferra, your eyes speak of that power.
Then I will keep them closed, and Ferra ran off her eyes closed yet never colliding with any of the rickety sticks holding up the old sail or the rocks strewn along the pathway.
