Womens Day March 8th

When JB told me that she had received a letter from our ward secretary inviting her to the women’s day event in Mnaviera, I felt a pang of jealousy. True, I had been out of village when the meeting was held and the invitation issued, but I still felt that I should have been included. It wasn’t until JB let me know that her 20K round trip bike ride to Mnaviera (in boiling midday heat) and back for the meeting resulted in her only seeing 1 person who told her the meeting had already taken place (in fact it took place 2 hours earlier than they said) that I felt WAY better – for JB had brought good news as well: I WAS invited to Women’s Day, and we could each make a presentation with our kids.
Upon receiving this information, I immediately looked up my Wascichana Wanaweza (Women Can) ladies who went to our ladies conference last June. I explained to the ladies that they would be given a chance to perform at womens day, that this would be their opportunity to teach people about women’s empowerment, and that they would be the hit of the day, considering that everyone would want to see their awesome performance. I added a little motivation to the end of the speech (in the form of GUILT and BEGGING), and finally the girls agreed that they would make a performance – enlisting the help of three boys, a netball, and a used gin bottle (filled with water).
When Miss JB and her ladies group (a mixed group of in/out of school young ladies 14-16) showed up to Makong’onda the following Monday, we were ready with our entourage, and we took off for Mnaviera. The stage they built was huge, and the crowd intense…the spectacle of both JB and myself was just mind boggling for the small children of the village, and so they maintained a 5 inch radius around us from the moment we arrived until the moment we escaped for home.
We realized that this would be a large event when the cars from Masasi showed up, and officials from the department of Education (including the ever-elusive district education officer) stepped out. Right on schedule (only 2 hours behind) we started the festivities, the drummers and dancers from Makong’onda kicking things off by parading into the circle, drumming, shrieking, and dancing up a storm. Village choirs from all over the ward (Namombwe, Manuli, Mnaviera, Makong’onda) danced and sang about women. They sang about the difficulties facing women, the lack of respect, and the strength that they had. They sang about how the government never funds their projects, how men never do any of the household help and yet demand so much, and how they wish they could put their daughters through school so that they could have better lives. During each song the women received money from the guests of honor, dancing to the head table and putting the “gift” money into an envelope for each group. It was a wild show, but very inspiring for all of the women there, who cheered and cried out their approval at the points they enjoyed in the songs, ESPECIALLY any point that referred to the laziness, stubbornness, or carlesness of men.
At the end of the 5th (and final) choir, the guest of honor began to get restless. By now it was 2 pm (we had been there since 9am) and he was ready to go. Though our kids (the final act) had not yet performed, the MC stood and announced that there was no more time and that the guest of honor had to leave, as per Tanzanian tradition, there would be no acts following his speech. JB, Amos (who was there on behalf of our headmaster) and myself were upset, our kids had missed school, stood in the heat for 5 hours waiting, and were now denied the chance to do their skits – despite the fact that women’s day is supposed to be about uplifting women – teaching young girls to have pride in themselves. No better way to show this to young girls than by telling them flat out that the male guest of honors speech and time is more important than allowing them 10 minutes to perform.
After making the announcement, the MC decided that there WAS enough time for he himself to sing a song, and so he did. 5 written pages and 10 full minutes of off-key, unaccompanied, noise. At this point JB and I started to be passive aggressive: after all – our kids were just denied the chance to participate in the contest, but the MC was given 10 minutes to show off his ability (or lack there of) to sing? Through the entire song, and JB and I whispered short asides to Amos and our kids, glaring at the MC through the entire song, and making a point of shaking our heads when he finally finished. At the end, the guest of honor turned to the MC and pointed over to the two of us. The MC then reluctantly announced that the groups of Makong’onda and Nakarara would be allowed 5 minutes ONLY to perform their skits, then the show would be over.
Not wasting a bit of time, JB and I launched the kids into action – filling the whiskey bottles and giving our leads their costumes. The group from the girls conference went first, portraying a family whose daughter had just passed to go into secondary school, but whose drunken father refused to let her study because she was a girl. The crowd loved it, and money was thrown onto the table (the MC didn’t get any money for his song – FYI). During the skit, the mother of the family asked the father if he could do all the work that she did, while HE was pregnant. He thought it over, and in his ‘dream sequence’, Jafari Issa – the head boy of my school – tried to do the housework, a strategically placed netball making him appear to be in his third trimester. THE CROWD WENT CRAZY.
The skits were both a great success, JBs ladies did great, raking in more gift money than we did (my pride-injured boys claimed that this was because people were laughing so hard at them they couldn’t throw money at the same time). Most importantly, all of the girls and boys who went with us that day benefited from the experience of seeing all of the songs and performances. They benefited from seeing African women sing about their rights and needs, and the benefited from showing the village and officials their perspective was on the issues.
We all went home hot and hungry, but most importantly we went home feeling happy, successful, and empowered. And THAT is what WOMENS day is all about.