Overcoming

By: Viktoriya Basina
Submitted: 04/08/2010

1. Rainy day at holliday market.

This market takes place once a year on a holliday known as Ustug day in a small town called Ustug the Great located in the harsh land of northern Russia. These women travel to the town from their villages on this day to sell their home made food or hand made decorative goods. The villagers dont have tap water or heat and even in the -50 winters they go for water outside and heat with firewood. The harsh climat limits the vegetation of the region, nevertheless they survive on the food that they gather or grow. Only on rare days like this market day they put on their best attire and leave their villages and make some extra income with which they can buy some fruits and vegetables in town imported from the south.

2.Slow Dance

At the celebration of the aniversary of the WWII victory veterans are dancing in Rostov the Great, a small Russian town. The life expectancy of the men is around 50 years old in the region and most of surviving veterans are women. But they dont pounder on their lonliness, poverty and hardships. When the sow music plays, they pair up for a slow dance.

3. Reading a travel guide

In Osiyan, a small town in Rajastan, India bordering the Thar desert women in a local home are amused at the pictures in the Lonely Planet travel's guide. Only 10 years ago literacy rate for women in Rajastan was the lowest for all of India. But it rapidly increases as the attitude about female education gradualy changes. The daughters of these women are literate and are learning computer skills and English.

4. Hairstyling

Even life in harsh bush conditions of the lower Omo valley in Ethiopian south does not prevent woment from cultivation of their beauty. These women belong to the Nilotic Hamer tribe. They are among the last on earth to live completly detached from main civilization. Nevertheless they are very proud and dignified people. Even though the women carry on almost unbarable workload they are very particular about their appearance and spend a lot of time to fit in the the beauty canons of their tribe.

5. Her Day

In the Nubian Villages of Upper Nile in Egypt women are confined to household work all their lives. They must be invisible to other men and never bring on attention to themselves. The only exception is their wedding day. It is the only day in the life of a Nubian woman when she becomes the center of attention. She can dress like a doll and put white powder on her face. She can dance and all eyes of the crowd will be centered on her. She must enjoy and cherish this day, because she will never get such attention again in her life.

6. Into the unknown

An Indian wedding is not always a happy occasion for the bride as she will step into an arranged marrige and will now see her husband for the first time. Everything will change as she will enter the house of her husband and her life will depend on his character and treatment by his family. It is a hard thing to go through but many of the Indian women step into the unknown with a good attitude instead of fear. They work very hard in trying to achieve harmony in their new family.

7. The Kiss

The women of the Nilotic Hamer tribe, located in the Omo river Valley of Ethiopia carry an unbarable workload in their society completly detached from civilization. But unlike their muslim and christian neighbours they have much more dignity and free spirit. They are passionate and happy in this ritual celebration even though in a few minutes they will be whipped with long sticks and thier skin will be scarred for the rest of their lives.

8. Another workday begins

Guatemala's lake Atitlan region suffers from poverty. Indigenous villages face epidemic disease, illiteracy and dicsrimination by the government. This indigenous girl is trying to break out of poverty. Every day she walks to the market trying to sell the hand made textiles that her mother makes at home.

9. Coffee

In Lalibella, Ethiopia a woman continues a century old coffee ceremony tradition. Ethiopia is going through some change as far as women's rights are concerned. Althoug it is still a very traditional country, child marriges and female circumsision is on the decline while literacy rate and education levels among women are rising.