| I painted this image in August 2002. Often when I look at it, I get sad and feel that I have to help women in their hard lives. |
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| I stayed for a long time with my mother, so I know how hard it was to make sure the basic needs for the family. That is why I painted a woman getting some water from the river. The water flows to the port and comes back to the river. I tried to show how a suffering African woman in the same situation as my mother. |
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| My father died when their common life was just beginning. He left his wife in a very hard time when she had to take care of us five children. In this time she also lost her daughter who was my sister. Often when I looked at her, I felt both happy and sad. |
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| I have painted a lot. But before I start working, I want to go sure that I make my mother happy first and thereafter I make myself comfortable. She is still very poor like I am and all my family. |
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| I have made many paintings about how my mother has influenced me in feeling solidarity with other women, too. Today when I walk around in Tanzanian villages and towns, I see many tired and overstressed women. They fail to send their children to school and so they become street children. I would like to help them and therefore now and then I spend my time after the art school in working with children. |
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| The place where I feel happy and powerful is where my father's and sister's tombs are. It is a cool and quite space where I can remember the ideas and ideals of my father. My father adviced me and my sisters how important it is to go to school and to love other people. With art I can join my family, the living and the dead, and so I feel well. |
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