Women

After reading a section in Dancing Skeletons about the Mali belief in circumcision for both male and female children and their surprise that Americans don't circumcise their females but do circumcise their males I became curious. Do Christians believe in circumcision? I asked and was told that originally the apostles all believed in circumcision except Paul who fought them and believed against it. I was also told that in Africa circumcision helps prevent against AIDS in male children so they sometimes do it for that reason. What about Jews? I asked and was told that of course male children are circumcised but when asking about female children I was told that that was considered genital deformation. Why is it considered genital deformation for females but not for males?

Upon meeting with Krisztina today we started talking about things like circumcision. She told me in Hungary they aren't religious and don't believe in circumcision for either male or females, believing that it doesn't help or harm so why should they do it. She also told me about their ways of childbirth. She said that the woman goes to the hospital at least 3-4 days before their due date and in cases of high risk up to a month before the due date and live there. They are allowed to be visited by family members but no family members are allowed to stay with them in the hospital and the partner and family members are only allowed to view the birth from afar. There's a camera in the delivery room that connects to a waiting room where the family and partner watches the birth. The mother also stays in the hospital for a week after the child is born during which time the mother is taught how to breastfeed and what to do if the child gets a cold/cough/fever. They don't do very many shots. She believes that they take the same shots we get here in America as children and spread them out over the years so the child doesn't end up getting as many shots at once. She said that in the first couple of months the only people allowed to visit the mother and child are the mother's family members. Friends are not expected to come visit the mother, in fact they find it strange if the mother invites them over in the first month. Also the mother doesn't take the child out in the first few months. Both of these are done to prevent the spread of germs from the general public to the child who is more suseptible to infections and disease in their first couple of months. Also in the first year the child is not expected to eat certain foods like broccoli because they are too difficult to digest. She said in Hungary no one gives their infants formula because the majority of people breastfeed and if they can't breastfeed they can go to a milk donation center and get breastmilk from other mothers which they believe is much better for the child than any formula could possibly be. They also don't believe in going out to buy baby food and start making their own baby food (by boiling apples and mashing them into applesauce or mashing bananas) one or two months before the baby is born. That way they can store their own baby food, by freezing it or putting it in the refridgerator and won't need to buy baby food unless in an emergency situation. They also believe in boiling everything that the child is going to put their mouth on. This reminds me of the belief of not eating the skin of fruits and vegetables and boiling everything in India because the skin and the outside is dirty (a belief mostly held by foreigners).

This stuff really fascinates me. I remember being in India and noticing after noting the every day behavior of one family that every now and then certain women wouldn't cook and wouldn't eat with the other women for a couple days every month. Noting this I asked them and they said that they were having their period, a way of being punished by the Gods for being a woman, and cooking food would make it dirty for everyone else. This family had obviously grown from the belief of keeping the women in a small hut away from the family while the woman went through her period but they still hadn't grown away from the belief that they were being punished by the Gods and hadn't grown from the belief that their cooking at this period would be dirtying the food for everyone else.