I glanced at my calendar and realized that it is International Women’s Day today. It is meant to be a day to celebrate the rights we enjoy and to bring awareness to the struggles of women, in a hopeful manner.
While this day seems to slip by unnoticed in Canada, I have been lucky enough to celebrate this day in other parts of the world. I first celebrated this day when living in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006. I arrived at work on March 8th and was presented with an outfit to wear on this day. The ladies in our office had bought some special fabric that was produced especially for this day and had an outfit made up for each woman at the office. We were so proud to wear these outfits, to show that we belonged to a group, and that we had the support of each other.
The culmination of the activities celebrating this day was a parade down the main street which continued to the town’s sports field (fyi - the 'town' population is about 200,000). We marched in, in groups, each group wearing matching outfits, and sang songs together.
(Note the muddy streets...and that's the prison in the background that we walked by)
Some presentations and speeches followed, celebrating this day and the achievements of women, but also talking about some of the struggles that these women, and their daughters, still faced. It really was an inspiring celebration and what an honour to be surrounded by these women, the heart of their families and their communities.
(Photos are a serious issue in Congo - note how I'm the only one smiling!)
Besides my fetching outfit, which I still own, I still have a few scraps of the fabric in my stash of African pagne (pagne = (French) a piece of fabric).
I really should remember to make a wee project with these scraps next year.
Happy International Women's Day to each of you!
