It Cannot Be Imagined

I joined a friend for a fundraiser for a program called WISER, which is working to see that girls in Muhuru Bay, Kenya graduate high school.

The PhD who runs the program gave a brilliant PowerPoint presentation which included data proving that educating girls will improve the economy and public health of an entire nation, the impact the WISER school has had within the Muhuru Bay community, and how these young women now have a chance at a real future (i.e., don't have to have sex for money or get married at 12 years old).  I heard two truly remarkable facts in her presentation:

• The average resident of this community consumes about 400 calories a day, mostly from corn.  

For comparison, there are 310 calories in the large Starbuck's chai tea latte made with soy milk that I drink about once every 2-3 months.  This drink would comprise the "beverage" part of my breakfast and be accompanied by a further 300+ calories in baked goods.

• Most girls drop out of school during adolescence when they start menstruation because they don't have sanitary pads.  The blood stains their clothes, they are teased, and attempts to construct homemade pads made from newspaper and grass often leads to infections.  The need for this basic hygiene tool is the #1 reason girls at this age have sex (usually with their teacher, according to the slide show): to get the $3 to buy maxipads.

In five minutes, I can be at no less than 3 stores where I have my choice of brand of maxipads.  During her presentation, the speaker showed this image and asked what woman in the room had ever showed such affection for her 'feminine protection.'  She laughed when recalling the "wings" on the pads were lost, of course, on these girls who had no underwear to protect. 

The principal of the school said a few words, too, and was followed by their top academic student, a 16 year-old girl named Masi (sp?).  This brave young woman spoke about her past and how she came to be a student at WISER.  It was a galling story filled with the kind of discrimination and abuse that leaves me tight-lipped and ill.  I tried to picture the evening from her point of view: a  motherless girl in a foreign country, suffering from jet lag and a dinner of rich, unfamiliar food, trying to convince the 300+ mostly white shiny, staring faces of the endured horrors required just so she could attend high school.  It must be so incredibly daunting.  She choked up a few times, and I wondered if it was from recalling her losses or from the humiliation/frustration that her energy in relating her personal trauma would be wasted on us because we could not relate.

When we returned home from our camping trip last weekend, My Beloved and I expressed to each other our thanks and gratitude for the clean, hot water that pours from no less than 5 spigots on demand for pennies.  I try to be aware and grateful of these miracles, but my imagination of deprivation is not sharp enough to understand Masi's life.  I guess maybe that was the point of her story: to help me realize that an experience like hers cannot be imagined.