STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

Time in memorial has shown us over and over again the power of having a giant in your life. This giant might be someone you know personally or a public figure. I remember sitting through the Still Harbour session at Yale during my GHC Fellowship Training. The session was titled “Standing on the shoulders of a giant” and the first question that was thrown in the room was: Who is your hero/role model? And the first person that came to mind was Nelson Mandela and the second one was my mother. 

But as the session unfolded, as the facilitators shared more on their own personal giants it became more and more clear for me how I have been seeing it all wrong. There was a stress, an emphasis of how ordinary people that surround us every day can be our giants, our very own heroes. Our very own Nelson Mandelas. Nothing wrong with having public figures as our heroes but  honestly speaking I would not do half the things that Mandela did and went through, if it was up to me at that time to choose between life imprisonment and giving in, well let us just say South Africa would have still been under apartheid system right now. Simply because I don’t have the guts. This same thing applies to all these iconic figures we all admire and look up to the likes of Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou, Oprah, Kwame Nkrumah, Steve Biko and the list goes on and on. For me what all these folks have in common is that they are extraordinary beings that defined their own destiny and sacrificed so much for others. Something I am not most times. Same applies to my mother, the hardships she has been through I wouldn’t have survived half of them. One day I will write about her.

But what I got from that session that stood out for me is how I have had ordinary people all my life that I never really looked to as heroes. People that have one way or the other influenced my life and given me that nudge in the right direction or simply patting me on the back for doing a good job. It also took me back to a moment in my life when I was in primary school which I remember vividly when a female teacher openly scolded me in a room full of my peers, she said “Iwetu ndiwe ochenjeletsa ngati uzamalize Std 8 usanatenge mimba ndi mwayi, uzandifuse” which loosely translates to “You’re too clever, you will not finish primary school you will probably get pregnant and drop out.” Those words cut me deep and hurt me a lot. I lived through my primary school working hard and trying to prove her wrong. I would love to meet her now, but I don’t know where she is and if she’s alive. I would love to meet her not to say “Look at me now” and stick out my tongue (though I would love to..LOL) but more so I would love to know WHY she had picked me out and choose to embarrass me and call me out like that in a class full of my peers. Why did she not choose the other method of calling me aside and talking to me as a girl.  Why? Why? Why?

And I wonder to how many girls she said that to and what sort of impact it had on them. With all this at the back of my mind it made me think if I am a giant/hero/role model to any of the girls and young women in my life. How I would love to play that part and how I can make myself more available to such opportunities. So when my friends Lusungu & Chikondi called and asked me if I wanted to be part of the mentorship program of girls and young women at Kauma I did not hesitate. We sat down and planned for a workshop which we named the ‘Back To School Girls’ Workshop’ The aim was to have a safe space and time to talk with the girls. We had about 20 participants some of which are teen mothers and are being enrolled back to school. It was a full day of fun, laughter and just being girls :)  

I am a bit envious of the girls because I never had that in my life when I was growing up. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t too, I hope they are also inspired to be each other’s giants and keepers. The program is not a once off thing, we are planning to have monthly check up meetings with the girls and expand on topics we touched on at the workshop and basically just talk about ANYTHING. Just letting them know we are here for them, whenever they want to talk, rant or simply just be girls, we are here for all that. We are not here to teach or tell them how life goes because truthfully we are still learning too and we don’t know it all. We want to share our life story with them, and them with us. To let them know their life story and experiences are VALID.

This comes at the right time as well as there is discussions happening in the African Feminist discourse about the lack of space for girls and young women amongst in the larger women movements. The existing intergenerational conflicts between older and younger women and the lack of mentorship programs where both older and younger women learn from each other, where the former does not look down on the latter simply because of age and lack of experience. But rather an appreciation and respect of both generation’s struggles and definition of feminism.

And to my own personal giants, I SAY THANK YOU, you know who you are :)