How Women are Reaping Benefits from Africa's Solar Revolution
For girls in Berta Massawe's Tanzanian village of Kibosho, every day was a race against the clock -- or, more accurately, against the sun.
When it was dark in this village on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, it was dark. There were no streetlights or headlights to break up the night. Work and study were impossible except by candle or kerosene lamp -- when they were available. If thieves came to steal livestock, and they did, there was little a family could do to stop them.
Boys like Massawe's two brothers had chores to do, too, but they usually involved moving their families' goats and cows from one pasture to the next and feeding them. They were finished before the sun went down and had more hours to study. Ritha Tarimo, director of M-Power Academy in Arusha, Tanzania, said it's a common story.
Steve Rainwater