How to Celebrate Tanzanian Style

Many of my favourite memories and best stories of living overseas were things that happened because I was lucky in my timing like being able to attend a kitchen party on my second day in Zambia or witnessing the 2011 election. And good timing has struck again! Just the other week my director announced that she is getting married. In addition to being so happy for her,  I'm excited because we get to be part of all the celebrations that are part of getting married in Tanzania. To kick things off we went to Church for her engagement announcement.

Coincidently it was women's week at the church and for the first one hour or so of the service, the women's choir belted it out for the congregation. It was a bit like going to a rock concert at 10am. Everyone was up out of their chairs singing along and there were coordinated dance moves for the different songs. I never knew that going to church would count as a workout but there we were dancing it out with the women's choir.

Finally we got to the big announcement. I had been expecting our director and fiancee to just stand up together an announce their engagement. What was I thinking! The minister called them both up with their family representatives and he announced their engagement along with words of advice on marriage and specifically about our director since this was her church. I don't think the couple to be even spoke to each other at all during the ceremony.

After the minister spoke engagement rings were exchanged (through intermediaries because was again contact between the engaged is not allow) and then the entire congregation descended upon the couple to give them gifts and congratulate them.

We had been asked to take photos which we were happy to do. But we didn't expect to be fighting our way through hoards of people pulling out their camera phones also angling for a good shot. We were up there battling our way through with everyone else (all that experience battling our way on and off the buses here really came in handy). But it was really something to be in the thick of it all and to have a whole community so excited on your behalf, I think our director is really blessed.

What if You Could Help Write the Constitution of Your Country?

Tanzania is in the process of reforming its Constitution. I have to confess I was completely unaware that this was going on prior to coming here. However, its proven to be an important issue and I've found myself on a steep learning curve to bring myself up to speed.

Constitution reform is an important time for the women's movement. The priorities are two-fold; first to ensure that women are full and active participants in the process of constitutional reform and second that through that participation women's rights and issues are included in the Constitution. This is an opportunity to get women's rights enshrined in the highest law of the land and no one wants to let that pass by.

Equality for Growth is part of a coalition of women's organizations who applied to submit recommendations as a special interest group for women. But the goal is not to submit our own thoughts on the Constitution. We want to collect the thoughts and input of the informal women traders we work with. Which is why this week, we held a two-day dialogue session on constitutional reform with women from our market associations and other groups including women with disabilities and women living with HIV/AIDS.

Now, I thought that a workshop on Constitution reform might be a bit of a hard sell. After all, I can't imagine a group of Canadian women taking two days off from their work to debate women's rights in the Constitution. I think its hard for most people to see the impact of the Constitution on their daily lives. And on top of that, we are asking women to leave their businesses and livelihoods for two days to participate in these discussions.

Well, these women's passion and interest would put us all to shame. These women aren't just present. They are engaged, eager to participate and demanding to be heard. Even the facilitator, who has run countless workshops on Constitution reform during the past year is astounded by these women's energy. Over the past two days I have seen women stand up and passionately defend the importance of their participation in constitutional reform and the inclusion of women's rights. One woman stood up and called for all women in Tanzania to refuse to bear children for a year as a protest against the lack of reproductive health rights. She brought the entire group to their feet cheering.

Being at workshops like this one, full of local women cheering and singing about women's rights makes me wonder what would happen if our constitution was up for reform. Would we be as passionate about the process? Would we be up there arguing that women should have 50% participation and that rights to health and childcare should be enshrined at constitutional level? I'm not certain we would. In fact, I very much suspect we would all be in desperate need of an infusion of Tanzanian spirit.

Oh We're Half Way There

We are officially at the half way mark of our internships today. Its incredible especially when I feel like I've just gotten settled. I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, but just recently I noticed that life here seemed normal and I'm feeling pretty happy and grounded. Looking back, the past three months have been a mix of letting go of habits from home and adapting to the new environment. Here are some of the hurdles I feel like I've gotten over:

Giving up on My Hair (And Other Things Related to My Appearance)

We all want to look our best, especially when making first impressions. This is a bit challenging when your iron seems to be hot enough to burn fabric but useless at getting wrinkles out. Or when your hairdryer shorts-out in the first month despite being plugged into an adaptor. Its also hard to let go of your own personal style in favour of wearing culturally appropriate clothes. But coming to work wearing my hair in a French braid and following the style advice from co-workers (knee length but fitted skirts get a big thumbs up) always results in the biggest compliment of all; “You look so African today!”

Getting Around

There are few things that make me feel more stressed than not knowing where I'm going. On top of that stress, buses here constantly change their routes, most taxi drivers seem only vaguely familiar with the city, and I swear there is a really good video game idea about walking down Dar streets and dodging traffic in all its various forms. Eventually you just have to let go of the panic and go with it. You try to guess what the different money-making strategies are for the buses, work out the point system for the video game and know that the taxi can always ask people for directions once they are in the right neighbourhood.

Social Diversity

When I first got here, all four of us interns stuck together all the time. We only knew the few people we worked with and each other. This led to a lot of together time, which was a little intense for four people who didn't know each other before training. Now we've made friends with our co-workers, neighbours and a rather large group of Canadian ex-pats that would make you wonder if Canada is exporting its youth to Tanzania. Instead of having too much down time, we've switched over to trying to balance our social schedules among all the different demands. This has gone a long way to break-up the group a bit and give everyone a breather from each other (probably a saving grace for our friendships).

I confess I'm a bit surprised to find myself sad to be at this point. After counting down the days during the first few months, all of a sudden I want every week to stretch out and give me more time. I'm beginning to think I might just have found another place in the world where I feel at home.

A Common Story: A Shared Success

Today I want today to share some of the individual success stories from our market women. But as I go through them I find myself in a bit of a dilemma; the stories I really want to share are the ones where market women have overcome what seem like impossible challenges. They are all great stories, but I feel like I'm airing someone's personal pain all over the Internet without them really knowing.

So instead, I'm going to tackle this a bit more generally.

The women we work with are supporting their children and families which means meeting all their basic needs. This means food, housing, water, education and health. Sometimes they are the ones responsible for doing this simply because of low levels of overall household income but often there are other complications.

It seems like at least half the women I talk to have had spouses who walked out on them. A lot of women suffered from abuse or were abandoned for getting pregnant (or in other cases for not getting pregnant). For some of them circumstances were so bad that they had to flee their community and that is why they are here in Dar es Salaam. On top of losing the support of an income earner, these women lost the property they had invested in, were chased from their homes and in some cases had their businesses and livelihoods destroyed by angry or abusive husbands.

And so they started over. They scrapped together capital with savings and loans from friends to start a small business. However they often get stuck because with low capital they can't start a strong and profitable business. In addition, most of these women were never prepared by education (formal or otherwise) to enter business.

EfG helps women save as a group and then loan money to each other to slowly build their business and capital. Women buy “shares” at a set amount every week and then are able to borrow up to 3 times as much as they contribute. So far, there are 23 groups with a total capital of $39,000 among them. Pretty amazing given that most women only bring in around $6 a day and are still supporting their families. Loans provide for everything from business improvements and diversification of activities to buying property and paying school fees.

All the funds are self-raised. As a group the women can share business success and advice among each other. They support each other when they are sick and unable to work. These women are literally able to lift each other up. And at the end of the day they are the cause of their own success. That sort of empowerment can't be given through a workshop, it only comes from being the one to change things for yourself.

It's a Man's Market

All of the markets Equality for Growth (EfG) works in are male dominated but some of them are harder for women to work in than others. Ferry Market is one of them.

Ferry Market is one of the few local markets you'll find in a guidebook. It's the fish market for Dar es Salaam. On one side of the market fisherman dock their boats and sell their catch to wholesalers who then auction everything off. On the other side (pictured above), fish are cleaned and sold to customers. This picture was taken in the late afternoon, which is means this is a view of the market when it's quiet.

 Fish is good money here in Dar, and Ferry is where everyone buys from. Given that buying fish requires a large amount of capital to begin with and because fishing is a "male" activity, almost everything to do with fish at the market is also male dominated.

Now, that doesn't mean women don't work here. A lot of women are hired as labourers to clean and cut fish. They don't however own the business, which means they don't get a say in market affairs.

If you wander away from the fish selling area, you suddenly find yourself  in the only female dominated zone of Ferry. This is the food vendors area. Between all the men working in the market and the government offices located near by, these women's kitchens are very busy.

Other than the fact that their aren't many women here, you might ask what makes Ferry market so hard to work in. It isn't just the numbers. In fact, there are other markets with lower representation of women that aren't as bad or difficult to get involved in. At Ferry it's the attitudes about women working in a male-dominated industry. The market is aggressive with lots of fights breaking out all over the place. Men tend to throw their weight around and refuse to pay women for their work. Verbal abuse and harassment are every day issues, though most women are hesitant to report it.

So how do you address these issues? Well, helping the market leaders understand gender issues is a big part of EfG's strategy. It isn't an easy sell. The first time I went to visit the market I had an hour long conversation with the Market Secretary as he tried to explain to me why they couldn't have more than 2 women representatives on their council because women don't show up for meetings and don't contribute. This wasn't the first time EfG staff has heard these stories from the market leaders.

It is hard to help the men see what appears self-evident- women do double work with responsibilities at home, they are discouraged or even forbidden by family from socializing with men and their concerns may not be the same as male traders. While these talks can seem frustrating and repetitive, I think they are just as important as the work done to empower women. Men are half of the gender equation at the end of the day.

After several long debates and discussions, the market leaders agreed to help women stand for election on the market committees and the goal line was shifted to have 6 out of 18 representatives be women. Attitudes change slowly, but inch by inch its possible to gain ground. And I for one believe in celebrating every inched gained. If the election can go as planned it will triple women's representation. And all it took was being willing to engage in an ongoing dialogue around the issues and challenges. It can be the simplest things that make all the difference.