Not an easy life

Me with an "African umbrella" on the way to work one wet day.

Today on the walk home I saw a girl of six or seven with a 10L bucket full of water on her head. That’s about 10kg. Girls who grow up in the Tanzanian countryside can definitely have a difficult life. Tanzanian society is male-centred so women are expected to do all the cooking and cleaning. However, it’s often also the women that go and do a lot of the field work, sell produce, go shopping and various other tasks. Aside from their jobs (if they are lucky enough to have one), don’t ask me what the men do, although you can guess who you see filling up the bars and cafes.

There was an article in the paper the other day that brought to mind a conversation that Deo and I had had early in my stay. Given the lack of proper sex education, the social stigma of using birth control, and general boredom when you have few of the modern diversions we enjoy in the west, it’s not surprising that teen pregnancy rates are higher here than in the West. And what happens when an adolescent girl falls pregnant? She is expelled from school. Expelled! When Deo told me this, I nearly fell off my chair. Sure, in Canada many pregnant teens drop out of school because of teasing, bullying or the social stigma, but here they don’t even have the choice – the school expels them! “So how do they continue their schooling?” I asked Deo.

They don’t, was the answer. Rough. Anyway, the newspaper article that I read the other day was an editorial lauding the government for it’s recent move to allow girls to resume their schooling after delivery (though not necessarily to allow them to continue their schooling while pregnant). I guess it’s a step in the right direction.

Despite the rough go they have of it here, the women are tough, mentally and certainly physically. I’d like to see how many Canadian 7-year-old girls could carry a 10-kilo bucket of water on their heads!