Everywhere I go in the world, women continue to amaze me. In the community in which I am living, everyday I am awed by the strength with which they live their lives.

One volunteer told me her host mother is up at 4 or 5am and she doesn’t ever see her sit down again until dinner. When the volunteer expressed her admiration, her mother responded that it’s all she’s known since she was twelve. This seems quite typical of a woman’s life here.

One Sunday evening, my host mum came home. That day, after working a 6-day week, she had gone to Church, then gone straight to attend a funeral, followed by supporting a friend after a bus crash had killed 8 people including an acquaintance of theirs. She said how tired she felt as she walked in and sat down for dinner. Then her phone rang. Her good friend and colleague had just lost her mother. She wolfed down her food, packed a string bag, checked I was okay to lock up and put her daughter to sleep, and left to accompany the friend to her home village. She knocked on our front door again at 5am after staying up all night at Ella’s family home saying prayers. There was no complaint, it was just what you did for a friend.

A few days later, on the day Ella returned from the burial in her home village, a group of about 7 women, including my host mum and I, went round to Ella’s house. We each gave a small amount of money and in turn said something comforting to offer our condolences, with Ella responding to each comment. The electricity went out and so we sat there by the light of our phones comforting our friend. It was a true support network in action.

Then I’d like to single out my host mum herself. She is a working single mother. Both her parents are dead and she grew in very difficult conditions but is now a qualified nurse. As the only daughter growing up she had to fetch water every morning and cook a meal before heading to school in the afternoon. She refuses to take money from her baby’s father despite sharing a place of work with him and seeing him every day. Though she is not well off and is constantly battling late payments from work, she is also supporting her niece through school as her brother and his wife have little education nor means to support their childrens’. She believes it’s what she should do and wishes she could take in other nieces and nephews – when this niece has eventually graduated college she plans to take in another. She gives time from her weekend to being a teacher at Sunday school. She is bright and smiley with a hearty laugh and a loud booming joyous shout you can hear coming before you see her.

Living in a female-led household I am accessing the women’s lives far more than the men’s. However I have lost count of how many husbands/fathers/men I have now heard about who seem to cheat on their wives or girlfriends here. Beyond it being common, it’s as if it’s the complete norm.