Women’s Day

Today was Women’s Day in Cameroon. It’s not a public holiday, but it’s celebrated around the country. Here in Ndu, the women marched down the town’s main street as part of a town program. The day’s slogan is, “Whatever a man can do, a woman can do better.” There were some other cheers yelled out during the program, but I couldn’t discern them. Here are a couple pictures of the women marching, a women’s group dancing, and some children being children. Most of the women are wearing this year’s Women’s Day fabric, which came in purple, orange, and green. When I asked my tailor, he said that having my own Women’s Day shirt made would be an acceptable way to show my support for the Cameroonian women. Other Cameroonians, however, convinced me that it would be a social faux pas, generating widespread laughter over the white man wearing the women’s day shirt. I stuck with my polo shirt. As usual. At the bottom is a picture Charlie and I took with our friend Ally, sporting her own women’s day shirt. She wanted to have some authentic puffy sleeves sewed onto the dress, but her tailor told her it would not be proper, since Ally’s a white woman.

--women’s advocate in spirit, though not in attire, tommy grimm