24 June 2008
Yesterday one of my host sisters, who is about 15 years old, came to visit me in my hut. She is the first girl in my family, and probably in my village, to get an education. All the women who are older than her, even just by a few years, have never been to school. They can't even write their names. So it is a huge feat that this girl, my sister, has managed to make it all the way to middle school (most kids, and especially girls, drop out after primary school, if they go to school at all) and even to be one of the top students in her class.
So while my sister was in my hut, I asked her how school was going and her plans for next year (she will be in the equivalent of 9th grade). She's been living in a neighboring village with relatives during the school year, so as to have a shorter commute to the middle school. She told me she'd like to go to school in Tamba next year because the relatives she's living with now make her do so many chores that she never has time to study. But no one has offered her a place to live in Tamba so far, and there's no particular reason to think another host family would give her fewer chores. And in any case, in the next few years her family will most likely decide she's had enough education and they will arrange a marriage for her to a second or third cousin. And then, as my other sisters were teasing her last night, all she will do all day is cook.
So I started thinking about whether there is anything I can do. Pay to send her to school in Tamba? Wouldn't solve the problem of the chores, or the looming arranged marriage. Take her back to America with me? Her family would love it, but I haven't got the means to support myself yet, much less someone else. So I'm still thinking.
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