Boys and Baby Dolls

I’m intrigued – and puzzled – by the fascination of a few small boys in Uganda for white baby dolls. I first saw the somber little guy in the top photo when I was visiting Prisca’s home back in November. He’s the child of a neighbor. When I returned for a New Year’s Day visit, there he was again. The doll was quite a bit more beat up – in fact its belly was slit open and spilling out – but the boy was still devotedly clutching his baby. He came inside with about a dozen neighborhood kids to watch videos and for a while he let an older boy hold the doll. Then he took it back and sat, apparently caressing the baby in his lap.

A few days later I spotted an older boy and two little girls playing with two Muzungu (white) dolls behind the coffee shop in town; they eagerly posed for me. This baby doll, too, was ragged and had ink marks on its face. The little Barbie-type doll was lily white – the only hint of it being an African child’s doll was the hair style – African braids. I was glad at least for that touch.

Now, that’s about all I have to present as fact – everything else will be conjecture and wonderings. Is it more acceptable for boys to play with dolls here than it is in the U.S.? It would be a good thing, but seems not to match this male-dominated, homophobic society. I do see a few boys caretaking their younger siblings, but usually that role belongs to the young girls of the household. Have these kids’ lives been so permeated by the violence in Northern Uganda that they are somehow, mysteriously, drawn to a moment in which they can give the nurturing they themselves crave? How do they feel about the color of these Muzungu dolls that someone in the U.S. probably donated? Are there no black baby dolls available here? There should be. Is there some way to engender in grown-up boys a similar loving, protective role with their real-life babies? Or will these boys become in a few years the all-too-common absentee fathers, sowing seeds and leaving several wives to care for the babies all alone?

Clearly I have more questions than answers. Anyone??