International Women's Day

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March 8 was International Women’s Day, a huge fête in West Africa. For several weeks the villagers were planning a department-wide celebration in Satiri. Everyone from a dozen villages was invited to an all-day event.

All of the planning and organization was done by village women who met each week at the Prefet’s house. Naturally there were a couple of important village men that couldn’t stand seeing something be organized without their direction; they attended and pretended to run the meetings. The women let these men do their thing but directed their loyalty toward their female leaders: the new Prefet and a few women fonctionnaires.

Mme Sané, the doctor’s wife and the school secretary, was put in charge of organizing much of the ceremony. She is smart, trustworthy, and too nice to refuse to help out when needed. Mme Sané is kind-hearted and gifted with the rare quality that she never acts as if she’s above the villagers, even though her family is wealthy by comparison. She is one of my best friends.

Cécile, my teaching counterpart, was chosen to give a speech pertaining to this year’s theme: Women and AIDS. Cécile is my age, unmarried, a math and science teacher who finishes her training this year. She works hard and doesn’t take any crap. She is also a good friend.

Mme Golané, who lives in Balla and runs the best village restaurant ever, did a great job collecting donations from her patrons. Mme Dao, who sells dolo and loves to entertain friends, was in charge of the team cooking a feast. Mme Traoré from the local microcredit organization lent a hand. Our village midwife, who helped me earlier in the year with health sensibilisations at school, managed to help with the planning in her very little spare time. Many others women helped out with collecting donations, preparing the meal, and serving food and drinks.

So yes, Women’s Day means the women do a bunch of work and the men just show up and eat. I know. But at least the women ran this fête themselves and didn’t take direction from the men. The planning and the celebration gave them excuses to get away from their homes and their husbands to collaborate with women.

The March 8 celebration began with a bicycle race in the morning. Knowing that each participant would get a prize, women young and old signed up. Even those who had hardly ever ridden a bike participated, just for a laugh. Assita, one of my neighbors, said I should lend her my bike and she would race and win. I told her no because she was 8 and a half months pregnant.

One of the most exciting parts of Women’s Day is that everyone gets new outfits. Each year a new “8 mars” fabric is printed and sold in several countries, everyone buys some and makes a new outfit with the same motif. In the village another fabric is chosen as a cheaper option if you can’t afford the international one. The day of the fête everyone gets dressed up in new clothes and goes around complementing each other’s complets. I admit that was really fun.

After the morning’s bike race there was a women’s march to the prefecture, led by drummers. Convened in the Prefet’s courtyard, a ceremony followed. Village grand types welcomed the guests, prizes were awarded to the cyclists, Cécile gave an informative speech about women and AIDS. Meanwhile many of the women who should have been the focus of the ceremony were busy cooking the meal.

The women prepared a half dozen vats of rice, so large that each one required three people to carry it. There was fried fish in the bowls for important people, and a huge supply of bissap (sweet hibiscus tea) for everyone. Inside the Prefet’s house was an area reserved for important guests, but for this fête it was only the important women who got to come in. Griots and musicians circulated. Everyone ate and mingled and danced, reunited with friends from other villages.

That afternoon was a women’s soccer game: Women vs. young girls. Again people volunteered to play just for a laugh, since most women don’t play a lot of soccer. There was some debate as to which team I should play on: technically I’m a jeune fille because I’m not married; on the other hand I’m kind of old and I have a job. (It turned out the women’s team needed more players so I joined them.) Many of the players had never before worn pants, so that was amusement enough for everyone. None of us knew much about soccer but there was plenty of rivalry to make things interesting.

That evening we had a video presentation in town. Thanks to MAS in Bobo (Maison des Associations de la lutte contre le SIDA), I was able to borrow a video in Jula that focused on AIDS in the Bobo region. I worked with my village Major (the doctor that runs the health center) to get video equipment and a presentation together. He was motivated and pleasant to work with.

We paid the village griots to inform the villagers that a movie would be playing for free, but at the scheduled time not many people had come out. The Major knew how to handle this: start playing a Kung Fu movie really loudly. People heard the movie playing and rushed out to see “Bloodsport.” When enough of a crowd had gathered he put the AIDS video on. There were some equipment problems but the crowd was really patient since they were so excited to watch any kind of video. After the Major answered questions they left the generators on and had a dance party. Mme Sané and I went home exhausted from a long day.



Last Saturday my neighbor Assita gave birth to a healthy baby girl. When I went to see her at the health center she was in good spirits. Her one and a half-year-old daughter was there, sitting on the floor quietly playing with a tin can. Assita teased, “Now you can lend me your bike so I can race.”

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