International Women's Day 2012: Solidarity Among Mayo Sava Women

My first Women's Day in country was a little rough. I didn't know what to expect. I had the experience of two other fêtes, Teacher's Day and Youth Day, but for some reason I thought Women's Day would be special. However, when I was invited to a meeting of the female teachers at my school to plan the festivities, and I was surprised to find out that we were not only expected to pay for food and drink for all the teachers, but we were also supposed to shop, cook and clean for the entire party. Moreover, I discovered that many women in rural areas did not have money to buy the fabric and travel to their district capital to participate in the parade, and so they were left behind.
Even before we knew that the theme of this year's Women's Day was The Autonomy of Rural Women, my cluster and I decided to do a Mora Cluster Women's Day Tour 2012 in which we would travel to each of our posts as a group to do an activity and involve as many women of the Mayo Sava as possible. We ended up choosing to do a demonstration on lotion making and the properties of Neem, a local tree. We went to Catherine, Liz and Jess' villages, and also did it in Mora. Loftus was the lotion guru and wrote up information for us beforehand from her previous experiences. Each person took charge of planning the event in their own town- venue, time, who to invite, buying the materials, setting up, etc, and we all went out to the villages to support the women and make it festive.
The project was a big hit. We had about 100 women participate between the 4 groups. They really enjoyed learning about Neem, and about how to make a lotion that is anti-bacterial, bug repellant, and great in the dry heat. Everyone got to go home with a sample of what we made. More importantly, it was also a good way to come together as women and celebrate the fête.
On Women's Day in Mora,I marched in the parade with the other female teachers and some students. We all got outfits made out of this year's fabric. Each year, for each holiday, they design a special fabric. A lot of times they print it in a couple different colors. So I had a romper made, and because I am cheap I took a leftover piece from Louise in pink and a leftover piece from Jess in blue. The top half of my romper was blue and the bottom was pink. It was awesome. Pictures available on Facebook.
The best part of the week was on Saturday, when Jess launched her trash project (which involves putting out trash cans, finding a dump site thats not in the center of town in a river that has no water, and getting uniforms for the sanitation workers so they don't have to pick up trash in flip flops) she had a big ceremony and invited all the elites in the town. She also had environmental clubs from 2 schools come and we all paraded at the end through the center of town chanting CLEAN MORA TOWN CLEAN MORA TOWN. I was in 2 parades in one week and it was great!