8 march 2010
I've officially been in Rwanda for 5 months today.
Today also marks the 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day - although I can almost guarantee it's a fairly new celebration in these parts of the world.
Being that I have a bit of experience working with girls, or young women - as we'd call them in America, I felt as though it was really important for me to put together an activity to share with the girls today - both to weld a bond between us as women but also to try and inspire them, or at least let them know that I think they're special.
I brainstormed for a bit last night, really wanting to do an activity around India Arie's lyrics to the song "Video":
Sometimes I shave my legs and sometimes I don't
Sometimes I comb my hair and sometimes I won't
Depend on how the wind blows I might even paint my toes
It really just depends on whatever feels good in my soul
I'm not the average girl from your video
and I ain't built like a supermodel
But, I learned to love myself unconditionally
Because I am a queen
I'm not the average girl from your video
My worth is not determined by the price of my clothes
No matter what I'm wearing I will always be the india arie
Of course this proved to be a challenge as it would require finding a room to host the afternoon event - a room that had both an outlet and electricity - and then there's also the fact that the school doesn't own a cd player - so we would have to move one of the dinosaur computers from the lab to this room big enough to hold 100 girls (I wish that I didn't feel the need to keep my laptop such a secret from everyone other than my close neighbor friends and a couple of the other teachers - I just don't want word to get around the village that muzungu has a laptop - don't need to give people anymore reasons to want to break into my house while i'm away on weekends/holidays), ect ect.
So - I figured that pulling together the song and lyrics was going to be too difficult - because even if I did have a way to play the music for the girls, I had no way of projecting the lyrics up on the board (it's a long song, I didn't want to write them all out by hand) and there's no copier or printer at school - so any mass production of the text is out of the question. With all of this in mind, I decided I'd better not rely on technology as the highlight of our Women's Day celebration.
Having received a packet of beautiful scrap-booking paper (thankyoucathy!!) I thought maybe we could find a good way to put it to use. I spent a long time last night trying to get my poor internet connection to load different patterns and instructions for origami flowers - and then I spent quite a bit more time cutting page after page of scrap-booking paper into 6"x6" squares until I finally had 120+ squares and a basic idea of what we could do.
This afternoon, we met in the hot room that serves as the school's church. We were able to bring in a computer from the lab - finding that the one song I really wanted to share with the girls wasn't playable for one reason or another, I was glad I'd come up with a Plan B. Once things were settled down a bit, I passed out halves of index cards I'd cut this morning and gave the girls instructions to write one question they had about being a girl or a woman - giving topic ideas such as health/body image, relationships, sex, HIV/AIDS, ect and to then place their card in the basket I had at the front of the room. I told them to do this anonymously, without writing their names on the cards, as to try and make them feel more comfortable about asking questions that - chances are pretty good - they really have no way of finding answers to (a lack of resources such as books, tv, internet as well as a lack of informed, trusted adults). I told them that I likely wouldn't have a response for all of their questions, but I was hopeful that I could at least offer maybe a bit of guidance, or find a way to help them find the answers themselves.
After all of the cards were collected, we wrote our poems.
The assignment, as I gave the girls today was to write a poem (in any language they wished). Their poem had to include their name, at least 1 thing they loved about themselves as a person, at least one thing they loved about their body(-ies?) and at least one goal they have for this life.
This is my "poem" I shared with the girls as an example:
Umunezero
I love my laugh, my honesty and my openness.
I think my freckles are beautiful.
I want to be a part of something BIG.
I want to change someone's world.
The idea was to have the girls write their poems and then later copy them onto their origami flowers (I decided to go with the "simple sunflower" - which doesn't actually resemble a flower much, but I assumed that we would have enough language and cultural obstacles to overcome today without needing to throw complicated folding instructions into the mix). After I gave instructions, I had a couple of students translate them into Kinyarwanda just to make sure that everyone understood at least the basic gist of the project.
I had a lot of success with a similar activity during what we called "embers" at camp this past summer - where I'd have girls write 3 things they loved about their bodies as well as 3 things they loved about themselves as people. Afterwards, we'd have a discussion where girls had the opportunity to share their bullet points as well as how they felt about the experience. Often times, many of the girls found that writing 3 things they loved about themselves as a person was much more difficult than identifying 3 things they liked most about their physical appearance. One reason behind this, we suggested, was that being constantly bombarded by the media in America (and most other parts of the world), we could tell you without a second's thought exactly what we both hate and find acceptable about our physique. The deeper stuff - like what about us makes us a good person, or what allows us to feel inner peace (if ever), is so often glanced over (people don't sell you fad diets or makeup - to cover your "blemishes" - by making you reflect on your heart and soul), often taking much more time to contemplate. Well, this was the idea I had going into today, but I also knew that without MTV - or just a plain old TV, or Cosmo available in the villages of Rwanda, that I would have to spin the assignment to fit the cultural - lack of media - context, as well as try to simplify it a bit to take into consideration the fact that most of these students are just beginning to learn English and may not have the appropriate vocabulary to express their thoughts.
While the girls were writing their rough draft poems, and then later after we'd made our origami flowers and they were transcribing their poems onto the fancy paper - with the markers I'd passed out (I got an incredible 50 pack of markers from Catalin and Matheiu, 2 awesome study abroad friends - who are both on adventure of their own at this very moment - I've got some really cool friends), I spent some time looking through the questions the girls had written on their index cards.
I tried to divide the questions into a few different groups, compiling those that were similar to see try and get a general feel for things going on in these girls' heads and hearts.
While some questions asked about Women's Day, "what is the importance of women?", or "why do we have periods?", I found a vast majority of the questions asked concerned one of two topics:
- why are girls/women inferior to men?
and
- violence (both physical and sexual abuse)
Woah.
Where do you even begin?
As an RA, we had loads of resources to provide our residents with and dozens of organizations on/around campus to help women who find themselves in such situations. But here, in the villages of Rwanda, are there really laws that give girls rights to seek help if/when they are beaten by their parents or assaulted by boys? Is there really somewhere/someone they can turn to? And where can I go to get answers to these questions because Lord knows I really just don't know. And who can I talk to about these things? Where can I find information for these girls? And even if there are organizations to help women in need, are they based in Kigali? Are they really capable of reaching out to girls outside the city, in villages?
At a loss for answers, the girls finished up their poems and I put the questions back in the basket, needing to buy time until I can figure out where to start.
I asked the girls to give back all of the markers/colored pencils/stamps they'd been using to create their finished origami poems. Trying to get those markers back was like pulling teeth and when i found that my grand total after they'd "all" been passed back was 44 instead of 50, my heart sank. Are they really going to play this game? I asked myself. I announced that I was missing 6 markers and reluctantly 3 more were handed back, but that still left 3 nowhere to be seen.
Okay, I know that losing 3 markers isn't really a big deal, what put me on the verge of tears was the principle of the matter.
I generally try to be as generous as I can be - without giving away money and/or the clothes on my back - with these students. I love to share, I love to make them feel like I really care about them (because i do!), I love to offer them the opportunity to use resources they don't typically have access to - but then for someone or a few some-ones to go ahead and keep my markers, stealing, after I'd just expressed to them how important honesty is to me as a person, as a whole, it really bothered me. I felt incredibly disappointed. And then a whole ruckus stirred up as older students took the lead trying to get the girls to return the markers - but no one budged and I was just left standing at the front of the room looking totally defeated. I felt like all of the opportunity for good was crushed by the uncomfortable, chaos of the situation and eventually I said "sit down", twice, quietly.
Quickly the room was hushed and I stood in front of the girls. Maybe I'm just overly emotional, but it took every part of my might to keep tears from spilling out of my eyes as I expressed my disappointment and said that I didn't care who took the markers, but just that I wanted them back and that if this was how it was going to be, that I will think twice about sharing with them in the future.
I wanted to overcome the sense of greed that lingered in the room, so I asked if any girls wanted to share their poems with the group. Several raised their hands.
As it turned out, many poems read something like this:
My name is Claudine.
I love to pray my God. I love my family and to study. (not exactly what I meant by "what do you love about yourself?" but I still felt that they were relevant details to the girls' lives so I didn't correct them)
I love my breast. I love my head. I love my teeth. (I did mention during my intro that I think I've got a great butt - so I'm wondering if girls really love their always-hidden-beneith-a-uniform-shirt cleavage, or what exactly they meant by that. Although one girl did say her favorite body part was her heart, I feel like maybe there are different body image ideals and issues that girls here face compared to all of the tummy-haters in America).
I want to be a doctor (or nurse, or pilot, or wife..).
Overall, I feel as though many of the girls took great pride in their poems and after class I snapped a few pictures of the girls gathered in the courtyard, all of them holding up their origami flowers with smiles stretched across their faces. So I guess that's good.
Being that our gathering had already lasted a couple of hours and that I didn't feel prepared to spend a couple more exploring some of the harsh realities of womanhood, at the end, I didn't much feel like diving into the question bowl, so I proposed the idea of starting a girl's club. The majority of hands went up in favor, and I said I would talk to the director about it and that if we had a girl's club, I thought it would be a really great opportunity to try and tackle some of the questions/issues faced by these girls. So - hopefully that will pan-out in the near future.
Despite the smiles in the pictures, I still felt really down about the missing markers and on my way home from the dorm area, I passed Adeline, my 9 year old friend. I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk. She did. I felt almost guilty for asking her to go for a walk with me when I was in such a bad mood, but being with her, practicing English and Kinyarwanda, yelling "ECHO" at the top of our lungs into the curves of the mountain sides - to find them not only echoed back by the nature of sound waves, but also by children camouflaged somewhere in the crops and bush as well, laying in the tall grasses of Musangabo as the sun set behind Muhaboula and laughing at the little boys showing off their karate moves in the distance - quickly took my mind and my heart off of the blues of greed and focused them more on the blues of the sky, highlighting my 4 favorite trees that stand alone, together, in the background.
Buhoro, Buhoro.
One step at a tiime.
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