This is a letter from Nicola telling us about her time as a volunteer
for Trade Aid in Mikindani, in southern Tanzania.

After eight months in Mikindani I am preparing to depart with a mild
sense of apprehension about returning to cold and grey Old Blighty, finding
work and somewhere to live and dealing with the fact that the Little Chef
breakfast I’ll be treated to on the journey back to Norfolk will
cost the same as a week’s wages here. Oh well, Qué sera sera.
Homeless and jobless, but plenty of tales to tell the girls over a few
glasses of wine and a pizza.

I think they’ll be surprised to learn that despite the daily toil
required of rural women in Tanzania they do not appear to allow themselves
to be overcome by any negative spirit of bondage. Life is incredibly hard,
no doubt about it, but the ‘fairer sex’ dominates hardship
by accepting it as necessary for survival and embracing friendship and
humour as a way of enriching their lives.

It has been with a rather embarrassed awkwardness, so typically English,
that I have donned my kanga and flip-flops and taken part in women-only
activities.

Despite this, the fact that my Kiswahili is still appallingly bad and
that their encouragement was largely for the entertainment value of seeing
a ‘mzungu’ woman display her incompetence in performing basic
tasks I definitely experienced a deeper sense of what is called ‘female
bonding’.

I have learnt to cook chapattis, mandazi, ugali and coconut rice and
to prepare an exquisite dish of pilau rice under the patient guidance
of Mama Mohamedi, Mama Abuba and her 13-year-old daughter Fikira. Standing
outside in the midday sun stirring a pot of sizzling oil over red-hot
charcoal left me light-headed and parched, but whilst I fussed about the
heat the others just wiped the sweat from their faces with a corner of
their kangas and laughed and gossiped.

I have been to a couple of funerals, but visiting Mama Abuba as she lay
swathed in a kanga in a darkened room grieving for her father on the day
of his burial was an especially significant occasion as my own grandmother
had died just a week earlier. Many women resplendent in a myriad of colourful
kangas lined the street where the deceased had lived. Most were just chatting
or reminiscing, but a group of about 12 women were standing and swaying
in time to the deep, guttural mourning chant redolent of primeval times.
It was International Women’s Day and being one of them felt hugely
symbolic.

A morning’s work at Zainabu’s shamba caused much hilarity
amongst our neighbours, but left me tired and my hands blistered. Five
of us walked a kilometre to the shamba, hoed out the weeds between the
maize and picked cassava leaves and pumpkins whilst being attacked by
armies of ferocious ants. Zainabu had lent me her boots, but they were
so badly split that my feet were filthy. So, before we headed back to
the village she brought me some water and washed my feet for me, not out
of deference, but friendship. Walking back we shared the load of the fruit
of our morning’s work and carrying firewood on my head I (almost)
felt part of one of the hundreds of thousands of small groups of women
on whose labours so many people depend.

More recently I finally plucked up the courage to get my hair braided.
I sat on the stone seat of a crumbling colonial house and as Mama Fatuma
meticulously braided each strand of hair three or four other women took
turns to hold down the rest of my unruly locks. While I enjoyed the chat
of the women as they gossiped about what they’d done the night before
and commented on every passer-by I realised that this was not so dissimilar
from a visit to the hairdressers at home!

At the risk of seeming naïve and sentimental I have to say that
I am happy to have been able to break through some of the cynicism about
cultural barriers with which I arrived in Mikindani and shall leave with
an enduring respect for the resilience and strength of spirit of the women
of Tanzania.

Thanks to Sherie at Trade Aid. For more information on the work carried
out by Trade Aid in Tanzania, see their website www.mikindani.com