I got a request from my good friend Christine to photograph her and her collaborator, Casey, for their senior show postcard. Both women work with nature as symbols, and their styles, as well as imagery, are very organic.
Here’s what we came up with:
(Designed by Casey)
I must admit, I’ve lost much of my motivation to do. . . anything since I’ve been back from Tanzania. After a month of a poor attempt at decompressing, ignoring this blog, pouring over photos on Facebook, I’m ready to get back in the saddle.
Though I miss Tanzania and my work there, I am enjoying the area in which I live more and more. I have been making more of an effort to explore my home and get to know my neighborhood, as well as the ones close by.
Here’s a view from one of my days off this week. This field is one of the many drives I make to work and to visit friends. Though it was overcast, the purple popped beautifully against its green backdrop.
I promised a post on our trip to Mwanza a few weeks back. Of course I’m late, as seems to be the trend with my blogging habits. This post has a silly little diddy I wrote on the way to the city with intentions of mailing it off to my penpal in the States, as well as some photographs.
–You know that saying “go eat dirt”? Well, I have eaten a lot of dirt today. Literally. I am on the way to Mwanza with Megan and Edson. We have two priorities:
I am equally excited for both tasks.
Our tarmac road ran out about an hour into our trip. Now we are on the packed dirt roads so familiar from my first Tanzanian affair.
The wind blows so strongly through the hardtop that I can hardly keep my eyes open let alone breathe. Orange clouds of dust float along the road as we pass the lorries–large machines built for transport and kicking up earth. I coach myself to inhale on their approach, exhale during their passing.
Girls in cobalt blue skirts carry hoes taller than they as they run laughing to the fields. I presume school has started again.
As we continue, the sky turns dark and begins to drop the gift and burden of rain. The red road turns slick and brown. I reassure myself that Edson knows what he is doing, to let go and trust. He worked for the U.N., after all. I begin to contemplate how many near-death experiences I’ve encountered here–the risks of a midnight piki ride and 10 hour bus trips to the north. Then in my mind I am back home, thinking of and wondering how many near-death moments I didn’t experience. Maybe because my head was in a book, my eyes glued to a computer screen, my ears filled with songs from an iPod–all senses busy.
As the rain pours, and we rattle and weave around potholes, people, other vehicles, I continue to consider,
Trust Edson.
Trust.
–And now some photographs.
View from the ferry, my favorite part of traveling to and from Mwanza.
Shelves of fabric, khanga and kitenge, in shops throughout the city.
The mess we made while digging for the perfect fabric for this year’s products.
Hotel Tilapia – super fancy, don’t order the vegetable pie. It’s really lackluster for the price.
Lake Victoria from Hotel Tilapia.
The healthiest street-food I’ve ever come across – peeled fresh and salted.
This week’s Weekly Wind Up is woman-themed. I know, I know–Trust Women Week is over, but! Did you hear about the Planned Parenthood-Susan G. Komen fiasco?
Last week, the Susan G. Koman Foundation decided it would eliminate all funding for Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer screenings on the grounds that it does not want to be involved with any organization under congressional investigation. This led to outrage, and after three days of ranting and petitioning, SGKF has reversed its initial decision.
I’d also like to mention that Planned Parenthood received almost $3 million over the three days proceeding the announcement. Awesome!
Despite the reversal, I’d like to share some articles I’ve been reading on SGKF, its corporate ties, and the commercialization of the breast cancer awareness movement. I’ll also be listing some pro-PP links (listen, I won’t pretend to be unbiased) and information on organizations that are alternatives to the Komen Foundation.
Enjoy the resources!
Holy Google Reader–I’ve discovered another new blog! Hairpin is a female-run, female-written (though men are welcome to submit!) blog full of humor, insight, and some crafts here and there. It describes itself as “a low-key cocktail party among select female friends. Imagine like we’re pouring you a drink. That you can’t actually drink, because it is inside the computer.” Too funny! Here’s a post called “Are Women People,” on poems from the suffragist movement.
In another reference to Mother Jones, I’d like to share a compelling photo essay by Michael Francis McElroy and Noella May Hebert. Entitled Alone: India’s Farmer Widows, the essay features ten black and white images of women of various ages whose husbands have committed suicide because of an overwhelming water crisis throughout the country.
This leaves women in a vulnerable position, struggling “to support their children, working as landless laborers for as low as 100 rupees ($2) a day. . . “
While doing some extra reading for this post, I stumbled upon an NGO called Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative. It was started by Arizona State University alumnus, Heather Murphy, in 2008.
WEI seeks to provide “to impoverished women in the aftermath of social epidemics. . .”:
- vocational training
- micro-loans
- voter registration
- community meetings
WEI’s work further convinces me how powerful developing income-generating skills can be. As I’ve learned during my experiences at WomenCraft, women find not only financial independence through entrepreneurship, but also increases in self-confidence and leadership skills.
Women are, the world over, the future. Pay attention to them.
Mother Jones has published an account of the pre-Roe v. Wade era in commemoration of the law’s 39th anniversary.
In the article, Eleanor Cooney recounts her experiences as a young woman, just off to college, and pregnant. Cooney discusses a variety of topics relating to abortion and the pro-choice movement, including the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, which was enacted in 2003.
-See, (R-PA) Rick Santorum-
-Also see, (R-PA) Rick Santorum: Jerk for President-
Cooney expresses this moment as, “the first federal legal erosion of Roe v. Wade since its adoption in 1973.” She goes on to explain the harmful implications of the law, including the leaving out of exceptions for rape and incest.
Not shying away from the science of abortion, Cooney goes into the process of the partial birth abortion the procedural name of which is D&X. She also explains the difference between all three types of procedures, including D&E (an earlier, more potentially harmful version of D&X) and D&C.
Cooney then recounts tales of friends’ and strangers’ experiences with “back alley abortions”. One woman in particular was left “sterile, violently allergic to penicillin, and. . .’paralyzed and ashamed’ by the experience”. Another died.
At this point, the reader can say, “That’s what she gets,” but I’d like him or her to transcend initial judgment and continue reading.
Cooney goes on to talk about her experience as a young woman, alone, and looking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. She writes of the expense and difficulty of finding doctors to perform an abortion so late in the pregnancy (three months, I believe). Not only was the search difficult, but she also writes of the sexual abuse and uncalled for judgment delivered by those doctors to whom she reached out for help–inappropriate sexual questioning, no use of gloves, fondling, to name a few.
Despite laws, “demand for abortion continued to grow,” resulting in “several thousand American women [being] treated in emergency rooms for botched abortions, and there were at least 200 known deaths.” Cooney tells readers of the medical profession’s initial push to make abortion illegal, and the turn in opinions of doctors who decided to speak out.
She continues to write:
When a woman does not want to be pregnant, the drive to become unpregnant can turn into a force equal to the nature that wants her to stay pregnant. And then she will look for an abortion, whether it’s legal or illegal, clean or filthy, safe or riddled with danger.
The statement above is what we need to remember. Remember that pregnancy isn’t always a choice. Remember that the consequences of both bringing a child to term and having an abortion are abundant. Know that abortion is not a decision taken lightly on either side of the moral equation. Remember that abortion can be prevented.
This prevention not only includes abstinence (note - in cases of rape and incest, abstinence disappears as a viable option), but also the use of contraceptives like condoms and hormonal birth control.
It is legislation like Personhood Laws and the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, controversial for its specification of which kind of rape would be covered, that threaten the reproductive rights of women in the United States. By limiting access to birth control and putting limitations on the circumstances under which a woman can terminate her pregnancy, politicians (Can I point out that the majority of them are men, now?), the same ones who seek to implement Hands-Off-the-People government policies, seem to be “hands off” unless it comes to women’s bodies.
Don’t agree with abortion? Great. That’s your right.
But keep the option open.
Trust us.
Trust women.
This week marks the first-ever Trust Women Week. From January 20 (I know, I am a few days late on this post! Forgive me!) to January 27, an online movement to raise awareness of reproductive rights will be taking place. In light of repeated attacks on reproductive rights throughout 2011, it is, maybe more than ever in recent history, so important to make it known to politicians that women care about access to abortion and contraceptives.
In honor of Trust Women Week/Silver Ribbon Campaign, I’ll be posting on topics relating to women and women’s empowerment–from accounts from the pre-Roe v. Wade Era to photo essays by or featuring women to awesome legislation ruling in favor of us ladies.
For now, check out the Trust Women Week website and sign up to join the march for reproductive justice!
I am just over two weeks until leaving Ngara, and it’s becoming a bittersweet experience. On one hand, I’ve had more frustrations in the past three months-legitimate ones-than I’ve had in my entire life. On the other hand, I’ve learned an awful lot (about nonprofit work, about myself) in this short time.
Believe me, it has been short. I am only beginning to get some footing in my community, with the staff, with my Kiswahili (still polepole – “slow”), and with the artisans. It feels like no time has passed at all!
This week was, I am fairly certain, my last Route Week. I’ve mentioned it before, but Route Week is when we travel to villages around the Ngara district to deliver artisan payments, collect products, and give out orders for new shipments.
Up until this week Route has always been something I’ve viewed as exhausting and awkward:
This time was different.
Of course getting photographed is not something that happens for the ladies everyday, so it’s still tough to get them to relax.
I usually try to speak a teensy bit of Swahili (I can only greet, inquire as to how someone is, ask how much something costs, list off numbers, and say goodbye. What a boring conversation!) to them and be super Tanzanian friendly–holding someone’s hand as you talk to them or walk with them is common. I also have a staff member, usually Pastor Aaron or Mama Mpinzile, come with me and talk to the woman to make her laugh or at least loosen up. A big smile while posing for an image is not as common here as it is in the U.S.
My goodness! The images were so nice!
These ladies are truly beautiful, and I am so appreciative of their letting me photograph them.
Here are a few shots:
There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. day, take a moment to think about, remember, and appreciate the power of civil disobedience and nonviolent action.
Wish I could be home to celebrate!
