Gomes introduces the visitors and talks to the women about their work.

Gomes introduces the visitors and talks to the women about their work. She describes the accomplishments of the group-how they have worked together to learn 'to survive their lives.' "Today," she says, "these women know they have value."

In Chadpur the women's main projects are doing embroidery and casting concrete latrines. Use of the latrines, Gomes explains, can prevent seventy-five different diseases.

The group has decided to perform a play for the visitors. Several women hang a sari across the back of the pavillion and, laughing, disappear behind it. The women on the floor move to create an open space.

Suddenly the actors emerge, transformed into village characters by a few twists of their saris and a bit of charcoal and powder. The crowd of villagers pushes closer in anticipation.

"Ah-ee! Ah-ee!" The story begins with the shrieks and wails of a young wife who is being beaten by her mother-in-law. She can never do anything right. Her husband wants more dowry from her family, but her father has already sold his land to get her a husband. He has nothing more. The village moneylender tells the husband that, for a small fee, he could easily find him another younger, wealthier wife. So the wife is thrown out. Abandoned.

The story is a familiar and ancient one, and everyone laughs at the women's lively portrayals of the evil moneylender, the arrogant husband, the cruel mother-in-law.

But in scene two, a new figure emerges. A paralegal from Banchte Shekha explains to the wife that what her husband is doing is illegal. He cannot ask for dowry or abandon her without support. She can take him to court.

Together they confront the husband's family with the threat of a lawsuit.

Suddenly, it is all a misunderstanding! They love the young wife very much! Nothing could make them happier than to have her back! And so the wife and husband are reunited.

The audience claps and cheers. The eyes of the young girls are especially intent as they watch their mothers and sisters and aunts-women who once seldom left their homes-bowing to the large crowd.

After the performance, the women quickly resettle themselves and turn to the visitors. They have shared the story of their lives, now they want information in return.

"What is it like for women in your country?" they ask. "Are women tortured there too? Do women go to school? Do you have divorce? Can you inherit?" They lean forward eagerly, awaiting the answers.

"Some things are better," says one of the visitors, "but in many ways we have exactly the same problems. Women are still not treated equally. Many are still beaten and abused."

The women nod knowingly as they discuss this news among themselves.

It is time to go. Angela Gomes asks the women to join her in a song she has taught them. It is a song the visitors know too.

"We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome someday. O, deep in my heart, I do believe, that we shall overcome some day.

"Women shall be free, women shall be free, women shall be free someday. O, deep in my heart, I do believe, that women shall be free someday."