Sponsored by
Mum Yvonne is part of the tribe
It's into the jungle for Blackpool single parent Yvonne Power in tonight's Tribal Wives (BBC2, 9pm).Mother-of-three Yvonne, 37, spent a month with Namibia's semi-nomadic polygamous Himba tribe for a taste of the simple life in the hope that she might find some "inner peace".
What she finds is a tough existence with some unpalatable cultural differences so hard to accept that she breaks down in tears.
Like so many women, she's ground down by the nine-to-five routine and coping with family demands.
Blackpool mum's life in tribal Africa
But as she struggles to take on board the Himba's gender divides and arranged marriages, she makes discoveries about herself, especially when drought threatens to devastate the village, as temperatures reach in excess of 45 degrees centigrade.
When a Himba girl is dragged off, bawling, to be married against her will, Yvonne can barely watch – partly because of painful parallels with what she went through herself when she was younger.
Yvonne, was a 16-year-old in Ireland when she fell pregnant and had no choice but to marry. The marriage ended six years and another child later.
"I remember waking one morning in my early 20s feeling that I was suffocating.
"So I left Ireland and took the kids to the north west of England to start a new life.
"I had some qualifications and saw England as a place where I would have the opportunity to work my way up and provide a good life for my children."
There was further heartbreak to follow as her second marriage, which produced her third child, also failed.
However her courage and determination paid off. From starting out as a care assistant she progress has to territory business manager for pharmaceutical company and now has a lovely home in Blackpool, where she lives with her children Sylvia, 20, Eoin, 19, and Jennifer, eight.
Yvonne seized the chance to try the contrasting lifestyle of another world, after seeing a TV advertisement in the British Medical Journal.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing about this series has been the common ground Western women find with the remote tribespeople they are visiting. But bouts of weeping aside, this is an engrossing, insightful series.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Blackpool
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 12 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 12 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: West
