Womankind

When I travel by plane I’m always disturbed by turbulence, as if the presence of turbulence means something is wrong. When the plane is gliding along with no jolts it feels safe, while wind currents feel ominous. But turbulence is simply the result o

Antonia Case: Antonia Case is Editor-in-Chief of Womankind and Editorial Director of New Philosopher. In 2014 she was awarded the AAP Media Professionals’ Award for excellence in the presentation of philosophy in the media, and was shortlisted for Ed

Bad things aren’t meant to happen on a Saturday night out for dinner. That’s because the script for ‘going out for dinner’ is to eat, drink, talk, laugh, pay the bill, and go home. When bad things happen, we’re surprised at the intrusion. “It was jus

When I was little, I was a sickly kid. I went to school for two days only to fall sick. I’d be admitted into hospital, return home, and fall ill again. Sometimes blood would spurt from my nose, or I’d cough it up; other times I’d lose my balance and

My father was on a night shift when a lion escaped from a national park near his hospital - devouring dozens of people in nearby villages. We kept calling him. That night, I lay awake in fear counting down the minutes until I heard my father’s footst

My husband is a policeman. And a Tanzanian policeman’s wife soon learns to be resilient, especially when she has many children. The frequent call-outs outside rostered hours are part of her husband’s routine and she gets used to spending time at home

What was Tanzania like when you first arrived? When I first arrived in Tanzania in 1957 it was very undeveloped. There were not many roads, and there were animals everywhere. It was a wild place, the Africa of my dreams. Today, there are many more p

Drive around Tanzania’s safari parks and you may come across a scene all too familiar to guides: a heap of felled elephants, their tusks hacked out of mutilated heads, their bodies rotting and grotesque in the heat. “It is hard to describe the exact

For thousands of years, the Maasai people have survived the drought-inflicted, arid soils of Tanzania. But over the past decade, Tanzania’s vast wilderness has become a battleground, a land grab on a scale not seen since colonial times. Like many tou

Law Since I was a girl, I’ve watched schoolfriends marry older men without their consent. I’ve seen girls from my town marry before their minds and bodies were fully matured. But I was one of the lucky ones, for I had a mother who prioritised educat

Seventeen years ago, 10,000 metres above the English channel, I managed to talk myself into a minor panic attack. It started when I noticed a disconcerting change to the pitch of the plane’s engine. Then I (thought I) saw the stewards’ anxious faces.

On our bathroom shelf, next to a bar of French lavender soap, sits a relic from my past - the dismembered leg of a miniature gazelle. As my eye passes over this keepsake I sometimes think back to the little girl who collected it, picking through scra

Elizabeth Catlett was born in Washington, D.C., in 1915 and died in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in 2012, and in the 96 years she was alive she produced a body of work at once so formally varied and so committed to illustrating the lives of African-American w

Instead you state more prosaically: “To Dar es Salaam. To start a social media consulting company.” His face looks blank. Then confused. “A social media business?” He repeats politely, the air thick with unspoken questions: When Tanzania is on powe

November is a good month for a wedding in northern Tanzania. In November the rains come and the jacarandas turn blue, pushing out blossoms no bigger than your thumb; their masses of petals float above the rooftops of Arusha like puffs of blue mist. R

Sohini Chattopadhyay Kolkata, India Artwork: Catrin Welz-Stein Midwife. From old English. ‘Mid’ means with, ‘wife’ is woman; midwife: the one who is with woman at birth. When Susanna Roth travelled to America in the 1980s, she was eager to introduce

Elizabeth Oliver Sydney, Australia Artwork: Aida Novoa & Carlos Egan It’s either a very short consultation, or a very long one. Because it's often the first real question they’ve asked in their life, and the opener goes something like this. "It's a

Maria Sarungi-Tsehai Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Artwork: Marianna Gefen Maria Sarungi-Tsehai: The first challenge is the mindset - present in both men and women - towards the role of women and their place in society. For many, the fact that women in T

Rehema Chachage Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Artwork: Rehema Chachage If you hosted a radio program, who would tune in and listen to you? If you’re young, you may concede with some resignation that few people would be interested in hearing the worldview

Lucy Treloar Melbourne, Australia Artwork: Monica Barengo One morning not long ago, feeling low, I headed into the garden. I stamped about, deadheading spent flowers and pulling weeds. Gradually I slowed, finally stopping to watch bees tumbling in

Todd Sanders Toronto, Canada Artwork: Catrin Welz-Stein Seoul, South Korea Todd Sanders: When I arrived in Tanzania, I lived in my tent for the first few weeks. One village had three small colonial-era houses for local dispensary staff and one was v

Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize-winner and founder of the Green Belt Movement, offers a new perspective on the troubles facing Africa today. Too often these challenges are portrayed by the media in extreme terms that connote poverty, dependence, a