It’s raining men!

There are two pieces of news I would like to share today, and since I couldn’t pick which one I liked more, I figured I would just combine them together, hence the blog title.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, springtime has arrived, and with it has come the heat.  Though it is only the second week of spring, today the temperature reached 99 degrees Fahrenheit (37C).  Did I mention I don’t have air conditioning?  I was told recently that we needed to pray for rain. “If it rains in October it will be ok.  If it doesn’t rain until December we are in big trouble because the heat will be unbearable.” Apparently everyone got on their daily prayers early because last night we enjoyed some magnificent rain.  It poured and the lightning and thunder was amazing.  Hopefully this will continue and maybe they will ease the restrictions on water.  Currently we only get water 5 days a week, so it will be nice not to have to worry about storing water ahead of time.

My second piece of news: MEN. For more than a century we have been celebrating women.  The earliest women’s day observance on record was in Chicago in 1908, but it did not become a global event until a few years later.  In 1910 an International Women’s Conference was held in Copenhagen with 100 participants from 17 countries.  In an effort to promote a common platform in which to unite females across borders to promote equal rights and suffrage, and to protest employment based upon gender discrimination, the idea of an International Women’s Day was proposed.  A year later the first International Women’s Day was held on March 19, 1911.

Apparently the men are now getting their turn.  In an effort to be equitable the Women’s Affairs Department here in Botswana was recently renamed the Gender Affairs Department.  And in the spirit of fairness, Botswana has announced it will host the first International Men’s Day on November 19^th. Thus far, not much has been advertised about the event, but I will definitely keep my eyes open and report back soon because I am very interested to see this myself.