The Women of Bawodene

I can hardly believe it’s been over a month since I’ve been here! I feel like time has flown by, but at the same time I feel so at home here it feels like I’ve been here for much longer than just a month. At this point I’ve gotten to know some of the women at Bawodene pretty well—they are teaching me lots of Swahili and getting a kick out of hearing me say things. They tell me my accent sounds very Tanzanian and joke that I should just stay here. Initially, most of the women assumed I was Tanzanian, specifically Nyakyusa (a tribe from the Southern region of Tanzania I think, although I haven’t had the chance to read this yet). Whenever I meet someone new the women love to see the person’s reaction when I ask them to speak slowly and tell them I’m not Tanzanian. People always think we’re playing a joke on them and find it so amusing that I’m American.

We laugh a lot—mostly though, I think they are laughing at my inexperience with and questions about how they do the things they do everyday to live and to generate income like: processing cashew nuts (especially since I didn’t even know which trees were cashew nut trees), making baskets (they taught me a little), making jewelry, sewing, drying and preserving the fish, making coconut oil… the list goes on and on.

The women of Bawodene continue to amaze me—they are probably the most welcoming and friendly group of women I have ever met (next to my Sorors!:). Despite having dealt with things in life that I can’t even imagine, they are still smiling and optimistic and happy with the things they do have. It’s amazing to me how they all pitch in to help each other with things. They are all from very different backgrounds—different tribes, different beliefs (especially in the case of the Massai women), some are extremely poor while others are able to afford to attend secondary school and college—yet they all help each other with everything as if they are all family. When someone is successful at something, or someone sells something, all the women are happy for that person. I have yet to see any jealousy or negativity toward the women who are more successful.

As for the work I’m doing, I’m doing mostly office work and helping then get organized on the business side—helping them run the Bagamoyo office, helping them “advertise” and market their products locally and to tourists who are coming to Bagamoyo more and more. I’ve been taking lots of pictures of the women doing their crafts to include in brochures, the Bawodene website, and funding proposals.

Below are some pics of the women doing their thing... and trying to teach me to sew, LOL. The last pic is of the oven used to smoke and dry the fish…

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Women’s Day Festival

The opening ceremony for the Women’s Day Festival was yesterday, and it was very cool. It started with all of the women from the nearby villages marching into the festival singing songs and dancing. It was very powerful seeing all of the women together like that, especially knowing some of their backgrounds and what they have been through (see previous post). The Massai women especially are so beautiful with their intricately designed clothing and jewelry. I’m so glad I picked women’s empowerment issues for my placement!

Some answers to questions:
1) YES!!! my Raisinettes made it, thanks for asking!
2) I have on the spaghetti strap top in the pic with Jackson cause I was in a bigger city, Dar Es Salaam... I couldn't wear that here in Bagamoyo though without something covering my shoulders... good observation!

3) Frogger is a good comparison to what crossing the street is like, LOL.

First Day of Work @ Bawodene

Today was my first day working at Bawodene, and it was very cool. The org is quite disorganized, but the women are trying to do some really good work for other women who really need it. Bagamoyo is considered a town (although it’s extremely rural), and one of the things Bawodene does is help the women from the surrounding villages (even more rural) learn about their rights. This is VERY hard. Because of some traditional practices, particularly in the Massai tribe, most women here do NOT see themselves as having any rights and feel they are completely dependent on men/husbands to make all decisions regarding their lives or their children’s lives.

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...

What I'll be doing--about my volunteer assignment

Just got my specific volunteer assignment and I got my 1st choice--working toward women's empowerment initiatives. I'll be volunteering at an organization called Bawodene, which is in the town of Bagamoyo (it's on the coast of the Indian Ocean, above Dar Es Salaam).

The organization I'm volunteering through has been placing volunteers in this town since last summer, I believe. There will also be ~19 other volunteers from the U.S., Canada and Australia living in the house who will have other assignments (i.e. working in an elementary school, hospital, etc, etc).

Bawodene was founded by six Tanzanian women to help women and out-of-school girls utilize their skills to generate income. Some of the skills of the women in the community are making batiks, mats, bedsheets, handcrafts, embroidery, sculpturing, drying fish, processing cashew nuts, and tailoring. Bawodene is implementing a micro-credit lending project to fund these activities. (I started reading Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty which explains micro-credit lending and where the idea came from... it's been really helpful.) The ultimate goal is to help women in this community utilize the resources in their community to become self-employed and ultimately self-sufficient.

Bawodene needs assistance with the daily functions of the office, i.e. managing meetings, learning computer skills, and helping to identify (more) efficient ways of doing things. Me and another young woman from Houston will start on the same day and will be placed at this site together. We'll also teach basic English and help with marketing, finance, management, and grant writing.

...count-down: 2-weeks!