International Day of the Woman

March 8 is International Woman's Day. This has caused some confusion amongst villagers who were excited to incorporate American traditions of how the fête is celebrated in America. When I told them that Americans do not celebrate International Women's Day, many asked me then why is it called International Woman's Day. Hell if I know, it's your holiday, I wanted to say.

Anyhow, the celebration began on the 7th with an afternoon round-table discussion whose topic was "Investing in our daughters." I was not officially invited so I wasn't sure if I should go, because I still haven't figured out whether having an invitation is necessary for me to attend an event. I opted to come kind of late and sort of mosey by the venue to see if they'd just let me come participate. They did.

I kept mentally noting how something like a Woman's Day round-table discussion would have been really different in America. The discussion was directed by the sous-préfet and though he made an effort to include the women in the community who hold places of importance, a lot of the discutants were men and a lot of the discussion centered on how women were the matriarchs, the foundations of society because it was they who raised the kids who would become the next generation. Women needed to do their jobs, they said, keep the courtyard clean, do their laundry, take care of the kids. No slacking. It wasn't only the men who said this - it was the women too who expounded along these longs and who literally applauded this line of thinking. There was also some discussion of women needing to take the helms, to demand change if they wanted it, though this line of discussion was taken with less fervor.

Soon after I sat down, the sous-préfet broke out of his French to ask me in English if I could address the crowd with an American perspective, noting that he knew I spoke English, but it'd be better if I spoke in French so everyone could understand. I know he was trying to be accommodating and welcoming by acknowledging that French is not my first language, but I've been in Cameroon for almost six months and at post for three, and I've had conversations with him in French, so I was a little baffled and kind of miffed at his assumption that I couldn't address the crowd in French.

I quickly swung past my irritation, though, to focus on mustering up all of my Lit Hum bullshitting skills to develop a coherent speech on the spot. During training one day, one of the language trainers had asked us to come up with 15-minute long arguments in French on a topic without any preparation. She had warned that this might be demanded of us and it would be expected that we would be able to do this by our communities. At the time I found it irritating and impossible. Now, faced with the same demand, I still found it irritating, but I was at least kind of expecting it from the moment I sat down. Here was an opportunity to both share an American perspective on women's rights, and how I wished I could have had time to prepare something and tuned it to Cameroonian culture so I could have said something of value. I spoke for about five minutes, after which the audience applauded me. I mostly felt the praise undeserved because I wasn't sure I said anything of substance or value, but c'est la vie.

The round-table discussion lasted far longer than it should have and I was waning, not having eaten lunch, but immediately following the discussion was a series of sketches and dances put on by the women planners of the whole celebration, which I just couldn't tear myself away from. I made it home around 10 PM, not having eaten since breakfast nor having anything in my house to prepare for dinner.


The next morning, the schedule I'd received said the community should show up at 8 AM for the 9 AM arrival of the mayor and 9:30 AM arrival of the sous-préfet. When I went by the parade ground at around 8:30, Magloire's brother Kasimi, the resident electrician for the entire village, was just starting to set up the acoustics. No chairs were set up. I know that Cameroonian schedules are not always (read: never) followed, but I still can't quite figure out exactly how late to be. If I thought I was fashionably late showing up at 8:30 AM, then Cameroonians may as well be on the runways of Milan. Anyway, I went back home to hang out and came back to the parade ground at 10:15. The Sous-préfet decided to grace us with his presence at 11:15. There was a march and some speeches, and some what-seemed like chaotic dancing and chanting when that was all over. The afternoon brought a soccer match of two all-women's teams, which I missed.

The evening was marked by a dinner and dancing (and obviously, drinking). There were a several women who seemed to have been highly involved in planning the whole event and they were running around stressed out for what seemed like the whole dinner. After dinner, they started the dancing with a "Tournée d'honneur" in which the most-honored guests are invited to dance in pairs to "open" the dance floor. Each round lasts for literally all of 5 seconds, so I think it's more symbolic than anything, and I was assigned to dance with the sous-préfet and immediately I felt like I was at an awkward middle school dance for all excruciating five seconds of it. The dancing (I'm sure) went on til all hours, but I pooped out at 11 PM and caught a moto home.


One of the traditions at parties with buffet-style food like this is that the most important people (sous-préfet, mayor, village chief, notables, etc) get to serve themselves first and then the rest of people in decreasing order of importance. It struck me that this tradition was followed during woman's day. I kept thinking: these women have worked SO HARD to put together these two days of events - creating and practicing dances and sketches for over a month, having regular meetings for a month, attending daily soccer practices, slaving for hours preparing food, doing cotisations (pooling money) to fund everything... all to have just this one day of celebration. The least the sous-préfet and other VIPs could offer is to honor these women and their work by letting the women be the first-served. Just this once. When I made this comment to Magloire later, he said "but really, the women like to do all that work - it's them who want to do it and put together such a ceremony." Hmphhh. I'm seeing that one of my roles as a volunteer is simply to introduce new ideas and see if the villagers run with them. This is definitely something I want to try and introduce for next year's fete.

Here's some photos from the event:

Here are two women from the Friday night of sketches and dances. These two were pretty well coordinated (outfits and the dance itself). Notice the bowl of money in front of the "stage." One of the traditions I've noticed during any performance, especially dance and singing events, is to come right up to the dancers and press money pieces on their foreheads. Often the dancers barely react, and some other person runs around frantically collecting the money that fell on the floor into the dish before the petits can grab it. You dance, you get paid.

Along with the money tradition, some people decide to momentarily join the performance by dancing with the dancers. Sometimes they just dance along side the dancer(s), but sometimes they coopt the performance. Here the man from the audience was so taken with this lady's dance that he just had to jump in front of everyone and take a swing with her. Inevitably, this causes tons of hooting and hollering, which increases when he drops his cash in her bowl or presses it to her forehead before taking his seat again.

One of the dances on the evening's program was listed as "Tikar dance." I think it was this one with these three women, but my resident cultural translator, Magloire, wasn't with me, so I'm not sure.

Here is the actual day of the march. ALL of the women are wearing dresses made from the same "pagne" or fabric. (Again, more confusion when I was asked earlier in the day - "do they use the same fabric in America? Is it the same fabric the world over?") Some of them just do a kabba (what we might call a mumu in the US), but some ladies get really creative with their dresses. It appears that there were two different pagnes for the woman's day, though I don't know if the distinction between the two signified anything. This is some of the semi-chaotic post-march dancing and hooting and hollering I mentioned.