my first REDES meeting

When I was in high school, what I wanted to do more than anything was host Saturday Night Live.

I sat down with my REDES girls, my girls youth group that I started a few weeks ago at the secondary school, and asked each girl to draw a picture of themselves in ten to twenty years.

There were big houses with pools and huge farms. Some girls drew themselves as doctors or architects. Some were married with children and some had two or three housekeepers.

The girls fought over who would get to share with the group first. Each was excited to show their peers how successful they would be. It was really fun to see them joke about how one would be the mayor and make sure her friends would be taken care of and about how the teacher would make sure everyone's children had a good education.

It was really just fun to see them looking toward the future. Manjacaze, since it has a secondary school, has lots of students who come from rural parts of the district to go to school. If they can pay their school fees, these students will most likely finish school and will have lots of opportunities. The problem, is so few girls make it to this point. The girls in my REDES group have already proven they are driven and are willing to work to get ahead. I hope that through our group, they have a support system to encourage them to stay in school, despite pressures from home to help with daily chores, get married, and start families of their own. One week, when not very many girls showed up to our meeting, I asked one where everyone was. She said they were probably home with the children.

When I was in high school, my parents supported nearly everything I did. I rarely made my bed, let alone harvest plants, wash clothes, prepare dinner, or care for the neighbor children. Being asked what I wanted to do when I got out of school was a question I grew tired of having to answer. I would go to college and then find a job (never made a timeline for that job part...) It was what was expected of me. Thinking about my future was normal.

For my girls, I am not sure if people really ask them what they want to do when they grow up. Since I shared my drawing first, and it included a world (because I hope to travel) and a clinic (because I hope to work in health), half of the girls drew worlds and hospitals on their drawings. I do not think they had thought about what they wanted to do when they grew up. No one had asked them.

One of the girls asked if she could keep her drawing and hang it up in her room. I hope its a reminder to her of the things she can do if she wants.

I told the girls I was going to save the pictures, if they wanted me to, and show them all in a year what it was they had wanted. I put mine in the folder, too, so we will see what it is I want in a year. I still would like to host SNL, but I am not sure how I will get around to doing that.