Now listen again to Meg Burkina explaining
how a traditional family in her country works. Check the
transcription of the interview while you listen.
MEG:
As far as a
traditional family is concerned, er, the man
may, can have many wives. So if he has many
wives, the children call them, all of them
are their mothers, you say 'my mother', you
don't specify if it is your real mother or
the wife of your father. And, er, the first
wife, I mean the one who is the first in the
house is the mother of every child. And even
the youngest wives, those who arrive later,
call her their mother.
Yes. And everybody in
the family knows that she is the eldest and
she is respected. If there is something, a
problem to be settled, you go to see that
lady, and she is the one, who is going to
tell her husband that there is such-and-such
problem in the family and now the, the
husband can call the others to settle the
problem, to solve it.
And, er, if a child is
sick for example, for example it is this
woman, the first one, who takes care of the
child. And the other women don't know, they
interfere but they are not responsible for
them as such.
DAVE:
How many people live
in one ...
MEG:
In one house?
DAVE:
... house?
MEG:
You, you can have 10, 20, 30, more
than that, it depends. If he has many wives you have the
wife ... the wives, their children, they may have their
sisters and brothers, I mean the sister and brother-in-laws
of the husband. They come to live in the family and you may
have, er, the father and the mother of the husband.
You see. So the grandfather and the
grandmother also live in the same compound. And, er, very
often those two people, those two old people don't do
anything. They, they are there to look after the children
when their mothers are out in the fields or when they go to
the market to sell little things to get some money. And, um,
they just take care of the, the children, they look after
them and they just stay in the house, they don't do
anything.
And when the, the first wife is old,
she doesn't do anything. It is the younger women who do it
for her, everything for her. And she's, er, respected as
well as the grandmother and the grandfather.
DAVE:
In the traditional African family who
is the most important ...
MEG:
The most important ...
DAVE:
... person?
MEG:
... person is the, the father. If you
don't have a grandmother or a grandfather in the family, it
is the father. And then comes the first wife.
DAVE:
But if you have a grandfather and a
grandmother, they are the most important?
MEG:
The most important persons in the
family. And everybody who comes has to see them first, tell
them what they have to say. And then they call their child,
I mean the husband, to tell him what is going on.
