Enekpe: African Goddess of Family

Goddess Enekpe: African Goddess of Family

Anna Msowoya-Keys was one of the women Lisa photographed and chose to be on 1 of the 5 banners to be displayed. Anna is from Malawi, and goes back and forth from Africa where her roots are, to Valley Cottage, New York where her immediate family resides. In her words, “I am a Malawian woman, happy to be in America. But as much as I love life here, I have not forgotten my roots, the small village where I come from in northern Malawi. The closeness of family and the importance of community I experienced in Malawi sustains me to this day. I now live in two worlds. One is not better than the other. They’re just different. Don’t ask me to chose, but do give me the space to live fully in both.” Anna is a wife, mother, friend, sister, development activist, and founder of Mzuzu Academy, the Northern Region’s first internationally accredited secondary boarding school. The schools vision is to provide the highest quality education for 400 children. Their goal is provide full scholarships to the brightest and most needy children so that they can receive an education that they would have never dreamed possible.  This is a woman that went after her dreams and with much hard work saw them come to fruition. She is a beautiful picture of strength, fullness of life, warmth and joy. I am proud to say she is a Woman of Rockland.

In two weeks Lisa will be traveling to Malawi with Anna to photograph the opening of a new school. Lisa will be there for ten days getting to know the Malawian culture and Anna’s hometown, along with taking many pictures of people and places in this African country. Stories and pictures will follow suit when Lisa gets back! If you would like to learn more about Anna and the Mzuzu Academy in Malawi, you can take a look at the website: http://www.malotoinc.org/index.html. Check in for another update on Goddess number 2 of the 5, and more on Lisa’s trip to Africa!