My Year Among Salesians: Learning About Possibility (or, Thoughts on women's empowerment)

I have arrived back in Makuyu from Karare! Which means that I have consistent Wifi access again! Huzzah!

But yeah, I had a nice long car trip yesterday from Karare (we left at 4:15 in the morning) along with Sr. Placida, Sr. Cecilia, the school accountant (David), and the driver, Charles.

And while there are a lot of amazing things that I experienced while in Karare, there was one thing that really pulled at me in a negative way. I’ll tell my interesting stories at the end of the post, but I want to dedicate the majority of it to an issue that is extremely important to me, as a student and as a woman.

Exams in Karare finished on Wednesday with the physics practical, but most of the girls had finished the day before with home science. However, the girls were not supposed to leave until Thursday, on the bus to Marsabit together. So the sisters were very surprised to see a man and woman enter the compound late Tuesday morning when no one was suppose to enter until exams finished. They were the parents of one of the girls, Joyce, and they had shown up with no previous warning to tell the sisters they had to pick up Joyce that day so that they could go begin preparations.

For her wedding.

Straight from being a high school student to being a wife. No time to relax with the other girls after finishing exams, no time to wait for her scores to come back to see if she’ll make the grades for university.

The sisters were all very upset about it, and apparently Sr. Placida had some words with the father. But it didn’t matter. A visibly upset Joyce got into the car and left.

It breaks my heart, this buying and selling of girls as if their lives are equivalent to a few cows. Some of the girls are ‘booked’ for marriage within the first few years of their life, and grow up knowing that they don’t have a choice in who or when they will marry. A more disturbing thing I learned is that in some places, it is acceptable to steal a girl from her family, keep her for three or four months, and then the thieving family can go to the girl’s family and apologize. And it’s effectively forgotten.

The sisters have told the girls that they can flee to the convent if they ever need to, that they would protect them as best they are able. The problem is, if the girls did then they would be outcast from their community. As in, they would effectively become dead to everyone. Culturally, refusing your family’s wishes is committing suicide.

During the goodbye to the Form Fours, each sister asked the girls to wait to marry. They told them that they only had one life and it was theirs if they had the courage to take it. The thing is, for many of these girls, there really is no other option. It’s hard to even think about the number of girls I’ve come to love that got off that bus in Marsabit only to begin planning their weddings. I don’t know how many let themselves think, ‘I don’t want to get married yet.’ It’s tantamount to torturing yourself if you know that running would destroy your only support system.

In fifty years, the Diocese of Marsabit has seen many men be ordained as priests. They have had only one woman become a sister. And it’s not because the religious don’t encourage vocations or because there are no girls who want to become sisters. The reason is that culturally, it is unacceptable for women to make their own decisions about their life.

I want you to think for a minute about your life. About the decisions you’ve made, good or bad. Pick the most important decision you’ve ever made.

Imagine that you weren’t allowed to make it.

That is what these girls live with. Even with an education, they’re blocked in on all sides. Sr. Placida told me that during class one day, she asked the girls to write down things that girls were not allowed to do. Though no words were said, the words written on the page were vitriolic and full of anger, the girls noting all the things that they were not able to do because of their sex. They know their situation and they know more than enough to be angry about it.

The idea that women are lesser is perpetuated by people in the community, even people who should know better. At a seminar, one priest noted that “women’s brains are 80% water, which is why they are so scatterbrained and don’t think things through.” When one of the sisters relayed this comment to me, I could have punched a priest for the first time in my life and felt completely justified.

It’s nothing that hasn’t been said before. The same reasoning has been used for centuries by men, and even women, to put down women as a whole in a community. But for things to change, the people who hold the power, in this case men, have to support changing the way women are treated.

I have been afforded so many opportunities that my girls will never have. I was raised by one of the strongest and most independent women I have ever known and if she taught me anything, it is that if you want to do something, you can work hard and make it happen. I was encouraged to travel and learn and experience new things, and even if my mom would like it if I dated more (at all), she wants most for me to be happy. A thousand cows wouldn’t change her mind.

That’s what I want for the students of Bishop Cavallera Secondary School, the female students of Don Bosco Day Secondary School, and all the girls in Kenya. The opportunity to become the amazing women they are capable of growing into.

So I’m going to post the information about my Mazzarello Fund again, and I ask if you can donate even a little, please do so. The Salesian sisters are doing their best to do exactly what I said before: give the girls the opportunity. The girls living in their dorms, in their children’s home, and the ones attending their school. Each little bit counts towards something greater. And hopefully, we’ll give girls the chance to grow into the incredible women they are meant to become.

Donations may be tax-deductible. Send through VIDES+USA.  

Go to http://www.vides.us/donate.html

Be sure to dedicate your gift to "Kenya-Mazzarello Fund." 

(1) Use a credit card at PayPal or Network for Good on the VIDES+USA donate web page  

(2) Or mail a check made out to VIDES to: Sister Mary Gloria Mar 6019 Buena Vista Street, San Antonio, TX 78237 USA.

Interesting Stories of the Month:

I saw two deacons get ordained as priests the Saturday Advent started and even though it was hot as crap, it was still really moving. (I may have started tearing up when they put on their vestments for the first time. Just a little.) So have some pictures of that!

Kids from different parishes dancing like woah

It was so hot, they held umbrellas for the priests-to-be

Getting blessed by the bishop!

Getting blessed by literally every priest there!

They're so happy!!!

Thank you, thank you very much.

Dance of thanksgiving, as you do

No spoon at the afterparty, so, you know, fingers work

We celebrated Thanksgiving (because I’m American!) and even though we had no turkey, we were able to make shepherd’s pie after I stressed the importance of potatoes to my people (particularly my cousin Kevin). We also have to sing and dance when we present the cake, and since it was my holiday I was asked to do the honors. So I sang God Bless America. It was awesome.