Bawodene helps women—who in many cases are multiple wives of one husband, or have been shunned by their community for some reason—earn their own money. Husbands can leave their wives for any reason they see fit (i.e. they don’t like her cooking) and just marry a new wife. Female circumcision is also still practiced here (if you’ve never heard of this, just do a search on “female circumcision” and “African tradition” maybe…) but it’s not done in the open anymore because (some) women are starting to speak out about it. Those who speak out and those who refuse to have it done to their female children are shunned from the community. What ends up happening though is that the women and the children are left with no provider and no way to support their families.Some of the traditional ways seem so antiquated according to my Western view, especially with regard to how women are (dis)regarded. And it’s not everywhere; there seems to be a striking difference between life in the villages and life in the towns/cities… or the lives of educated women and lives of uneducated women…education is SO important, esp for the girls here!
So, Bawodene is having a Women’s Day Festival for the women in these villages to come and sell their crafts (baskets, handmade rugs, candle holder, sculptures, etc) to make money. Many of these women traveled for hours to get to Bagamoyo to have the opportunity to sell some of their crafts. They are just so happy and so grateful to be here. They are all sleeping at a local secondary school for the week, and none of them have complained about that at all…They have such an appreciation for things here... I can learn a lot from them...
