The sun is going down and the light is broken by the head-like hole in the window

Day 4 at CCS. September 28th, 2011. After lunch today, we visited WEECE, or the Women's Education and Economic Center. (Not sure what the other E stands for). One of our roommates, Janice, works there as her volunteer assignment. We were toured by a large, proud looking woman, Valeria Marema. She was not handsome. In fact, she looked very masculine, but like many of the women here, her beauty exuded through every pore, stemming from the way she carried her body, and her melodic voice which told story after story. In her organization, she teaches women to learn trades like sewing and cooking and she teaches them about their rights as human being. The phrase that is most often used here when talking about female rights is, "women's rights are human rights." 
The two vans drive down the narrow road lined with hushed laced with purple flowers touching each door. Like nearly all roads in Tanzania, the lane is narrow, bumpy and dusty, with speed bumps constantly impeding the drivers. Dan likes to zoom over them, while John tries as hard as he can to not make the passengers in his car uncomfortable. Our vans enter through the gate into a small courtyard surrounded by low-celinged buildings. Splashes of aqua and red permeate the brown that is trademark of every square inch of Tanzania. Valeria takes us back out of the compound to shops that look out into the tiny lane where a man and women make cloth and bags. W then tour the kitchen and office where she meets women who come to talk to her. Finally, we sit, some on green plastic chairs and others, including me, on cushioned couches under porches that have laundry lines running between pillars, while she talks of the inequality between genders that seem to lie in every relationship, not only in Africa, but in the world. She talks of female circumcision, of the expectation that women must clean, chop the firewood to cook the meals, take care of the children, while remaining submissive and obedient to their husbands who then in turn, come to the cities from small villages to cheat on their wives, and then go back to infect the women with HIV/AIDS. Abortions are illegal here, and men are allowed to leave their wives if they fail to proide children. Women are brought up to become good wives, rather than educated. There is little sex education outside of the few cities, and in the Masi tribe, men take multiple wives. 
I don't get affected by human rights causes in most cases, and perhaps it was Valeria's deep, sincere voice, or the slight Africa breeze, bringing with it particles of dust and wishes of change, but I found myself planning out how I could change not only the rights of women in this city, or even this country, but in the world. And for a moment, and maybe even still, I think that I can. Call me a raging feminist, a bitchy dyke, a hard lesbian, but I am convinced that once I get a degree, and financial stability, that I can change the world, one woman at a time.