Today I visited one of the most rural villages I have ever been to. The only other place that felt similar to me was the small fishing village, Qoornoq, I visited in Greenland on my study abroad program. The village had surprised me at the time for the way it seemed to spring up out of nowhere in between the rocky fjords as we speed through on our boat. The villages in Greenland can only be reached by water as there are no roads connecting them and held only a few dozen scattered buildings. The drive to Silale today was reminiscent of Qoornoq if you swapped deep icy oceans and for flat plains of tall grass. Once we turned off the main road coming out of Dodoma, we drove along a dirt road for around an hour surrounded by grass, scattered trees, and mountains in the distant for as far as we could see. Every so often we would pass a crop of maize or sunflowers, a herd of cattle, a few people walking, and the occasional hut. But as we kept driving down the road and further and further away from the highway I began to think about just how isolated we were. There was no development in sight for miles on either side. When we finally reached Silale it was almost funny how suddenly the houses popped up in front of us and how we had stumbled into a substantial village surrounded by empty plains. As our van pulled into the village, we noticed a group of women sitting next to the road in colorful lawn chairs donning Solar Sister teeshirts, waiting patiently for our arrival. To me, it seemed lucky that we were able to find this village in the vast Tanzanian plains but the women waiting for us in their incredibly rural home expected our visit. We got out of the van and greeted the five Solar Sister Entrepreneurs (SSEs) Ester, Christina, Martha, Selena, and Margaret. We learned that this Sisterhood group had named themselves Huruma which means sympathy in Swahili. Francisca, the Business Development Associate (BDA) who had traveled with us, began the Sisterhood Meeting. This month's module was focused on business planning. Francisca introduced the module to the SSEs and spoke to them about the importance of planning, refreshing them on what they had learned in the training when they first became SSEs. She then gave them paper on which they could write out their personal goals and plans for their business. We learned that all of the women had the same plan: to earn more profit through their sales in order to invest more in their VICOBAs (village community banks). When Francisca learned that this was their goal, she encouraged the women to put their plans into action and implement what they had told her they wished to do. In essence, she told them that now that they had "talked the talk" they needed to "walk the walk." "If you cannot develop a plan and achieve it, Solar Sister hasn't taught you anything" she told them. I hoped that when Francisca visited them again next month they would be on track with their plans just as she had encouraged. After the meeting was finished, Amanda and I were given the opportunity to interview the SSEs. We had crafted a survey with multiple questions that we used to interview the women that attended the SSE summit held in Arusha the previous week. At the summit, we took one SSE aside at a time throughout the conference and interviewed them using a google form in which each women had her own responses. We had planned to receive individual responses from each women in this group in a similar fashion and add their responses to our google form once we had wifi. However, we quickly learned that this would not be possible. All five women were sitting in a line and we sat beside them, forming a sort of L-shape. This open meeting setup felt wrong to break up by pulling one SSE at a time out of the group and to the side to interview while the others waited. Instead, Lumba, our translator, suggested that we pose each question to the entire group and they could answer one by one. It seemed like a good solution, so we began. Within minutes, it became clear that individual answers were just not going to happen. When Lumba translated a question to the women, one or two would chime in with responses and the others would offer signs of agreement. When we asked Lumba if any of the others had a different answer, they would shake their heads. It was clear that despite having unique names, ages, and previous jobs, when it came to Solar Sister, these SSEs functioned as a tight group. They did not individually purchase lights, but combined their money to purchase a box together and then divided the lights among them. They did not have individual customers but shared customers as a group and would divide and conquer in order to reach the surrounding villages. They shared marketing tactics as well. It was clear to me teamwork was the most integral success factor to this group of SSEs, they functioned as a collective unit and their bond was what strengthened them. When we asked if there were any problems that arose within the group or how they dealt with competition, they shrugged off the concern and told us that in their group everything was shared so no SSE competes with another. I was impressed by their unity and inspired by their strength; they didn't place personal profit over the wellbeing of the group. As we continued to interview the SSEs, it was clear their bond went deeper than business. They were cracking jokes, giving each other sly looks, and were seemingly having a blast answering our questions. One of the questions towards the end of our survey asked who their biggest supporter was. When we had surveyed the SSEs at the summit, we received a variety of answers from their BDA to a family member to their husband. However, when we posed this question to the SSEs of Huruma, they gave an interesting reply: myself. When the first woman responded that way, Lumba tried to ask her again, assuming she didn't understand the question. "Is there no one else, what about your husband? " she asked. The woman shook her head. As we went through the group, apart from one woman who said her children supported her, all of the others said they were their own biggest supporter. I was shocked. Maybe that was why the group was tight, I thought, because these women lack support in other areas of their lives.
As we moved on to the final question of the survey, a further insight was made. Our last question asks the women to talk about their biggest challenges of being an SSE. They explained that their three main challenges were transport, storage for their lights, and access to business permits. We had heard from many SSEs about the transport challenge and the other two did not surprise us as similarly, they had to do with the logistics of selling. But Lumba, our translator, pushed further. "What about your husbands?" she asked. "You did not say that they supported you, would you not consider this a challenge?" The women gave each other a knowing look and mumbled in agreement. In this village and throughout Tanzania polygamy is common and these women were one of several wives to their husbands. Therefore, women are tasked with the responsibility of providing for their children and are the ones who participate in income generating activities while the men are not expected to support their families because they are simply too large to take care of multiple wives and dozens of children. Two women told us that their husband's neutrality and lack of involvement in their business was something they were content with and did not pose a challenge. Another two told us that they were single parents and had no husband to support them. The fifth woman's story was different. Her husband is one of the biggest challenges to her business, she admitted. She told us that whenever she begins a new venture, she includes him in her plans. Time after time however, he destroys her business by being financially irresponsible and wasting away the profits so that she has to start from square one again. When she doesn't include him in her business plans, he gets angry and beats her. When I heard this response I was saddened, but found commonality with her in a way I wasn't expecting. I used to be in an abusive relationship and was controlled and manipulated. Although my experience was obviously vastly different from hers, the way she mentioned the abuse so casually reminded me of the way I used to feel, submissive and passive, stuck in a relationship I couldn't see a way out of. Of course, I cannot imagine how much more deeply embedded her challenges are as a grown woman, married, with children in a much different part of the world. Thankfully, despite my fear of the consequences, I was able to leave my relationship safely and with the support of others. Realizing the immense privilege I had to be able to step out of that situation and begin again has been one of the greatest insights of my time in Tanzania so far. The reality of women in rural villages in Tanzania is much different. They cannot walk away so easily, or at all. The problems of gendered oppression and abuse are deeply imbedded in their culture and society. Although this discussion in the interview was fleeting, it left a lasting impression on me. All of the women in the Huruma group were incredibly kind, welcoming, and cheerful. They shared a tight bond with one another and worked well as a team. They were their own biggest supporters and proud to be so because it meant that they didn't have to rely on anyone - especially their husbands. While they have limited power in their communities, they use it well. Not only do they work hard to improve the livelihoods of themselves and their families, but they are making a difference in their community by supporting other women and families through solar light distribution. With all of the privilege and agency I have been given as a college educated woman in the United States, I feel indebted to these women to use it well and continue to persevere, lifting myself up and the women around me however I can.
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AuthorI am a senior Environmental Studies major at Santa Clara University from Seattle, WA. To learn more about me check out the "About Me" page! To contact me you can email me at [email protected] or connect on LinkedIn. Archives
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