Estoy en la Huelga: International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day! In honor of this important movement in claiming equal rights for women worldwide, here is a post about how I spent last Saturday in celebration of Las Mujeres!

Although today is the official holiday, last weekend in Pamplona there were many events commemoration IWD. People sang and marched in the streets, painted aprons in memory of the women who died fighting for equal pay, passed out informational fliers and more. Early in the afternoon I helped paint a mural downtown that says "Nosotras paramos," which means "we stop." The expression refers to the women who influenced the commemoration of IWD--they went to their jobs but refused to work in the factories until they received the same salary as the men. Counter-protesters burned the building down, killing the women inside. One of my friends from Scotland, Maili, took this shot of us painting (I'm in the red jacket):

Camila, directly to the right of me in the puffy jacket, is making a feminist documentary and has been working hard to document not only our events in Pamplona, but she's also been collecting footage from around the world of how IWD is celebrated in different countries. Here is a clip of Alexis, my friend from Peru, and me painting:

After we finished the mural, we ate at a little restaurant called Al Norte Del Sur. In the window there was a sign indicating that the café supported the women's movement. I had an arepa with salmon, guacamole, and olive oil and a lemon and matcha tea cocktail. It was my first time having an arepa, and since a few of us ordered them, the owner cut the crusts off and put them on a separate plate for us to snack on. They were delicious.

We also made it to the Instagram page! The owner of the restaurant was incredibly nice; he's from Venezuela and he knew about UNC and Duke, which blew my mind. He also made sure we knew that if we used straws in our drinks we were killing baby sea turtles--a man dedicated to the important causes of the world! Here's the photo he snapped (I didn't crop the screenshot so that you can follow him):