This is me in my sweet Women's Day outfit, waiting to march in the parade with the Wives of People in the Medical Profession women's group. (That's the literal translation from the French; I'm sure I could think of something a little jazzier if I had the motivation.) International Women's Day is every March 8th, and in villages as out there as mine, it's really just an excuse for the women to get dressed up, parade around, then get drunk without having to worry about doing chores or cooking or watching the kids. The sad part is that in reality, they just work twice as hard the day before in order to have the freedom to leave their duties for a few hours. Women's Day ends promptly at 6pm, 'when the women return to their kitchens,' as the posters read, but luckily for me, I qualify as some sort of androganous anomaly that needn't follow the rules, so I partied with the women all day, then just continued with their husbands at night. One of my goals for next year is to attempt to turn Women's Day into a time for actual awareness of gender issues, instead of a rote festival with vague motivations that have been lost in the translation from the highminded government officials who created the holiday.