Veiling in Africa

Eight: "We Grew Up Free but Here We Have to Cover Our Faces”: Veiling among Oromo Refugees in Eastleigh, Kenya

eigHt “we grew up free but Here we Have to cover our faces”: Veiling among oromo refugees in eastleigh, kenya Peri M. kleMM tHe AdoPtion of the veil among Oromo refugees living in Eastleigh, Kenya, one the largest urban refugee communities in Africa, is a recent phenomenon. Women feel increasing pressure to cover their heads and bodies in accordance with the practices of their Somali neighbors and fellow refugees. More and more, as instability and violence escalate, Oromo women are choosing to adopt full hair, head, and body covering as a kind of urban camouflage with which to conceal their ethnicity. As one female resident acknowledged, “We grew up free but here we have to cover our faces” (B. B. H., personal communication, September 2011).1 Yet, just five years ago, Oromo women in Eastleigh proudly wore their cultural dress in public. For refugees with little in the way of material heritage, women’s dress, hairstyles, and jewelry have served not only as a vital marker of Oromo identity in their home country of Ethiopia but also as a fundamental assertion of Oromo nationalism in the diaspora. In the West, the emblematic removal of the veil by Muslim women is a testament to a woman’s sense of empowerment and liberation. For Oromo women, I will argue, the opposite is true, as only through veiling do women feel free and secure. And while the phenomenon of veiling by Muslim women as a public display of modesty has become a metaphor in Western popular media for female subordination and gender asymmetry, especially post–September 11, the Oromo example is one in which women veil to protect themselves from harassment, rape, and imprisonment.2 that they feel so threatened is hardly a recommendation for veiling. Yet whether it is viewed as empowering or repressive by the women themselves, they speak of this choice as a strategy. While women, as reflected in their deco- “WE GREW UP FREE BUT HERE WE HAVE TO COVER OUR FACES” 187 rated bodies, have always been viewed as those who create, reproduce, and transmit traditional Oromo consciousness (Oromumaa), the wearing of abaya (a long, full dress), hijab (hair, neck, and torso cover), and niqab (facial veil) is a recent and temporary tactic by refugee women to outwardly guard their ethnic affiliation (Figure 8.1).3 This chapter explores the ambivalent relationship refugee women have today to the wearing of this dress. the Veiling Phenomenon When I arrived in Eastleigh, Kenya, the refugee-dominated suburb of Nairobi, in spring 2010 to continue my research on Oromo women’s dress, I was disappointed. The situation I knew from 2004, where refugee women took great pride in recreating and displaying the traditional costumes of their homeland in Oromia, Ethiopia, had changed. Instead, these same women were now publically covered: a loose, long-sleeved, floorlength dress (abaya) and a small scarf to hold the hair in place (mandila) covered by a longer scarf or a sewn garment that fits securely over the head and reaches down to the knee, enveloping the head, neck, and torso (hijab). More and more, women are also veiling their faces (niqab).4 this entire ensemble is referred to as “that which covers the body,” jilabiya (in Arabic, jilbab), in Eastleigh.5 Today, as hundreds of drought-affected refugees stream into the Kenyan refugee camps and shanty towns near Nairobi on a weekly basis and a heightened sense of desperation and fear infuses the place, few Oromo women would dare don traditional dress.6 Sleeping in the multipurpose living/sleeping/dining/prayer room commonly found in most refugee households, I was pleased to find, however , that my hostess had kept the familiar trappings of an Oromo Muslim interior dwelling, including a carpeted room with pillows along the wall covered in intricate embroidery of flowers and leaves. These small and durable cases, along with her prayer mat, a clay coffee pot, and a Qurʼān, are often the only non-necessities an Oromo woman will carry with her when she flees her country. In time, she will strive to recreate the sitting rooms of Muslim Oromo families back home, complete with these handembroidered pillows, walls decorated with Oromo-made baskets, and imported items of prestige. These foreign items might include Arabic rugs, wooden trays stacked with porcelain demitasses for coffee placed on plastic grass, and a doily-adorned television set ready to play an assortment of videos of Oromo weddings, singers, and comedians when the power comes on...