Women's Day 2011

A lot of planning and preparation went into the celebration of Women’s Day in Banyo – I was actually even at one of the meetings held at the Prefecture with women and delegates in charge of organizing events. Activities lasted an entire week starting with the first event on Wednesday March 2 - a ‘sport walk’ around town. The next day was kind of like community service work – women’s groups went to different places in town to do ‘public service’ aka clean floors and buildings.

The third day (and first activity I was actually able to take part in because I didn’t have class) was on Friday – we went to the prison to donate food and clothes. It was quite interesting. I had heard stories about the prison but actually wasn’t how I imagined. I mean it was stinky in some parts but the prisoners greeted us with some songs and we said some prayers-it was a nice little visit actually.

At the prison with our donations

Saturday there was a roundtable discussion on the following theme: Egalite d’acces a l’éducation, a la formation, a la science et la technologie: Sentier pour un travail décent pour les femmes. Basically the panelists spoke about how women are equals and should be able to do things like men. It was an okay roundtable but would have been better if it hadn’t started 2 hours late. Oh Africa time.

Roundtable...before it started

Sunday was the big sport day – there were handball and football matches between the girls football group and a women’s group. Activities on Monday included marching practice for the parade and a cultural party- women put together skits and dances basically and present them. However this activity was like the roundtable in that it started 2 hours late and after being at school since 7am I was a bit tired when it still hadn’t started at almost 5 and hence I missed this event.

But I certainly didn’t miss events the next – Tuesday March 8 – Women’s Day. I started by going to my classes which I was told that yes there was school but it was optional to come (only in Africa) so as I only had 2 hours of class anyway and finished by 9:30, I did go to school and wore my Women’s Day pagne so as to go straight to activities once I finished and I did just that. The parade was first at the place des fetes and actually started fairly on time. Different women’s groups and associations walked across the field and lots of people came out to see everything.

Parade

After the parade, I went with my postmate into town for a quick party with the nurses from hospital who she works with. Then we kind of quickly had to get to the Sous-Prefets house for the invitation cocktail. Got lots of food, chatted with the prefetand lamido (who told me I looked handsome- this was said in English and obviously English is not his first language). After the cocktail, we went off to another food event- different women prepared food from different areas that you could buy and taste. There was also music and dancing. By this time, it was ahbout the afternoon and I was also quite tired, sun burnt and had ripped my skirt so I was ready to go home. So the evening was not quite as eventful as others’ evenings were, but overall, I was quite pleased with how the event was celebrated...lots of fun and food.

Yay Women's Day

Holiday Season

Happy Holidays !

While holiday season may be over back home, here things are just picking up. I think this month alone there are 4-5 different fetes. And really I think pretty much year round there are all kinds of fetes going on- In the summer/fall, they are more Muslim holidays (like Ramadan) and now in the spring it’s more about national and international fetes. But no matter Muslim or non-religious, the big fetes are all just that- big- lasting anywhere from 3 days to an entire week. Here’s a calendar run through of recent fetes and upcoming fetes:

National Bilingualism Week: January 1-February 4

Youth Day/Actually an entire week: February 4- 11

Women’s Day/Actually an entire week: March 1 - 8

Commonwealth Day (kind of like Bilingualism Day): March 9

National Arts at School Day: March 11

Open Door Day (have no clue- guess I’ll find out): March 17-18

Francophonie Day: March 18

Labor Day: May 1

National Day: May 20

Celebration for fetes can range from big parades and soirees with the whole community to small things like maybe events just at the lycee. Sometimes there is no school for a fete (like Youth Day) and other times there is kind of school (like Women’s Day) which means officially there is school however most likely many students won’t come and neither will teachers (although no going to lie, that’s pretty much every day).

So in case you didn’t notice the dates, right now we are actually in the middle of celebrating Women’s Day. Activities started Wednesday and continue until actual International Women’s Day- March 8. Now I could write all about the activities butttt I will wait until after the 8^th when everything is finished but I will say it involves a visit to the prison, football, a parade and really cool pagne. But until then, Happy International Women’s Day! I think someone should celebrate back home for women, it is an international holiday.