Tribal Wives

8:35pm – Monday, July 23 on ABC2

In this final episode of the series, Anna De Vere from London is going to live as a ‘Tribal Wife’ with the Hamar in southern Ethiopia. Anna has a comfortable life in London, living with her partner and running her own business. But deep down she feels something is missing.

As Anna immerses herself into life with the tribe, she’s confronted with the harsh reality of life on the plains where it hasn’t rained for months…and where young Hamar women are ritually whipped in a celebrated tradition.

8:30pm – Monday, July 16 on ABC2

Six British women swap their everyday lives for life as ‘Tribal Wives’ in some of the most remote communities on earth. Like many women today juggling career, home and family, they feel that something is missing. By spending time in societies where female roles are very different they hope to find answers that could change their lives.

This week on Tribal Wives Jackie Davis from Bristol is going to live as a ‘Tribal Wife’ with the Karen, Thailand’s largest hill tribe. Jackie is divorced with two young children and grappling with life as a single parent. She knows that things need to change but can’t figure out how. As she settles into life in an all female household with four generations of Karen women she learns some simple but powerful lessons.

8:30pm – Monday, July 2 on ABC2

Michelle Frost from London is travelling to northern Mexico to live as a ‘Tribal Wife’ with the Rar�muri, an ancient tribe who live perched on the edge of the spectacular Copper Canyon. Forty-year-old Michelle appears bright, bubbly and self-assured but underneath the surface she suffers from a crippling lack of self-confidence which she feels is hampering her chances of meeting a partner.

Initially frustrated with the simplicity of life with the tribe, as events unfold Michelle realises that life with the Rar�muri is far from uncomplicated.

8:30pm – Monday, June 25 on ABC2

Six British women swap their everyday lives for life as ‘Tribal Wives’ in some of the most remote communities on earth. Like many women today juggling career, home and family, they feel that something is missing. By spending time in societies where female roles are very different they hope to find answers that could change their lives.

This week Linda Plover from Liverpool is going to live as a ‘Tribal Wife’ with the Babongo in southern Gabon. Linda is haunted by memories of a poverty-stricken childhood and feels an overwhelming sense of bitterness towards her mother. As she struggles with the demands of her new role as sidekick to tough-talking Babongo matriarch, Mama Tito, she begins to see her past from a whole new perspective – and for the first time realises that there are two sides to every story…

8:30pm – Monday, June 18 on ABC2

Tribal Wives returns for a second series. Six British women swap their everyday lives for life as ‘Tribal Wives’ in some of the most remote communities on earth. Like many women today juggling career, home and family, they feel that something is missing. By spending time in societies where female roles are very different they hope to find answers that could change their lives.

Charlie Brades, a 23 year old from Hampshire is going to live as a ‘Tribal Wife’ with the Y�r�k, a tribe of nomads who live in the remote mountains of southern Turkey. Charlie is fiercely independent but her life has been far from carefree. Her mother has a long history of mental illness and as a teenager Charlie was often left to her own devices. Living in a one-roomed tent with a Y�r�k family of seven – including the father’s two wives – proves quite a challenge for Charlie but ultimately forces her to confront some home truths.

8:30pm – Monday, June 11 on ABC2

The Mentawai live deep in the jungle on a remote island off the coast of Indonesia – a monogamous tribe where women are tattooed and sharpen their teeth. Their lives are dominated by the spirit world, and male sikerei, or witch doctors, watch over the village.

Living with them for the next month is 38-year-old Andy Wraith. Andy is deeply driven. Not happy with just being a dentist, she’s also qualified as a doctor and an anaesthetist. She has run marathons, rowed for her university and fenced for Britain.

But she realises that she has a problem. In her cluttered and successful world, she seems to have forgotten herself. Amongst the Mentawai, high-flying Andy is adopted as a daughter of the tribe, and is forced to revaluate just what success means.

8:30pm – Monday, June 4 on ABC2

The Maasai are one of the world’s most famous tribes, and also one of the largest tribes in Africa. They are polygamous, with men allowed to have up to ten wives, and women expected to marry and bear children from the age of 14. They still practise female circumcision and shave their heads and scar their faces as signs of beauty.

Living with them for the next month is 33-year-old teacher and life coach Dionne Braham. She’s single and lives at home with her mum in London. She hasn’t had any luck with men and has given up the hope of ever finding the right one. With no relationship and uncertain about whether she’ll ever have children, she feels stuck in a rut. Living as a Maasai woman and learning from their lives, she makes a radical choice.

8:30pm – Monday, May 28 on ABC2

Yvonne, a 36-year-old, single, working mother of three, spends some time with the Himba tribe, as the series in which six women each live for nearly a month with six different tribes around the world continues. The Himba are a semi-nomadic tribe of pastoralists who live on the harsh, sun-baked plains of northern Namibia. The women are striking, covering their hair and bodies in red ochre. It’s a polygamous tribe, where men can have up to five wives and marriages are arranged for girls when they are as young as 12. Like so many women, Yvonne feels ground down by her daily routine and by coping with the demands of family life.

She wants to discover just who she is as she travels to Africa to join these strong, powerful women. Theirs is a tough existence where food is scarce but it’s also a sisterhood laced with humour. In temperatures in excess of 45 degrees centigrade, Yvonne gets to grips with Himba life. But, as she struggles with the tribe’s deep gender divides and arranged marriages for young girls, she begins to make discoveries about herself … especially when drought threatens to devastate the village.

8:30pm – Monday, May 21 on ABC2

A former alcoholic Scottish air hostess experiences life with one of Ethiopia’s most fiercely independent nomadic tribes, as Tribal Wives continues. Twenty-eight-year-old Lana hasn’t touched a drop for over a year, but she is still deeply troubled by her alcoholic past. Ethiopia’s nomadic Afar tribe have a tough reputation, carrying guns to protect their cattle and camel herds from rival clans and wild animals.

For the women, female circumcision is common and their strict Muslim culture forbids alcohol. Anyone found drinking is immediately beaten and ostracised.

From doing house repairs to milking cattle and goats, collecting water from a river where crocodiles prowl to chopping wood, baking bread to walking miles to do the laundry in a lake, Lana discovers how demanding everyday life is for Afar women and learns some of their innermost secrets.

8:30pm – Monday, May 14 on ABC2

Six women get to grips with new lifestyles, families and communities in some of the world’s most remote tribes to find out whether ‘West is best’. The women are expected to spend up to a month living with their new families, fully immersing themselves into their new culture. Each woman must work, eat and sleep exactly as the other tribal women in order to experience what it is really like to live as a member of their community.

This week we follow Karen, a 46-year-old successful businesswoman and workaholic, as she joins the Waorani, a tribe isolated deep within the Ecuadorian Amazon jungle. Once known as an extremely violent people, they often attacked intruders who ventured onto their territory, but they greet Karen warmly, and one bachelor in particular makes a great deal of effort to impress her…