Strong Girls, Strong World

“I am not the product of my circumstances. I am the composite of all the things I believe and all the places I believe I can go. My past does not define me. I can step out of my history to create a new day for myself. Even if the entire culture is saying no. Even if every single possible bad thing that can happen to me does, I can keep going forward” — The Starfish Pledge

I am writing this post from my room at the Center for Himalayan Environment and Development in Paro, Bhutan where I will be studying sustainable development for the next three and a half months. Already a few days into my journey here I can barely fathom how less than two weeks ago I was sitting in the upper hall of the Starfish campus for my goodbye ceremony, distraught over leaving the students, mentors, other volunteers, and welcoming culture all behind. When I got back to Connecticut, although I was obsessively recounting my experience to my friends and family, I immediately felt as though perhaps I was just crazy, everything seemed so normal. I wondered whether I had even gone to The Gambia.

I expected to arrive in Bhutan with some sort of emotional awareness and maybe even spiritual engagement with the fact that I am about as far away from the United States, both culturally and physically, as I can possibly get, isolated in this palace-like research center perched in the hills of Paro. I really thought I would be overwhelmed taking in the sights of the sweeping landscape and ancient temples, smells of burning incense, and once again a new population of people that I have had such little exposure to throughout my upbringing in the United States. But I just didn’t. That isn’t to say I’m comfortable because I’m not. Once again I have to go through the ups and downs of both learning how to live in extreme proximity to a whole new group of people as well as managing the physical demands of rigorous field work at such a high altitude — all in a country that like The Gambia, most of my peers in the United States have never even heard of. However this time I am energized, inspired to address this culture shock with greater flexibility, a more nuanced lens to understand disparities and similarities, a commitment to detach myself from people, places, ideas, and amenities that I rely so heavily on, and most importantly the resolution to be kind and accepting. I attribute this attitude and approach almost entirely to Starfish, the Global Fellows program, and all of the people I have interacted with in the past few months. Here I will attempt to explain how.

The students enrolled at Starfish exhibit some of the greatest strength, maturity, and curiosity that I have ever witnessed. The girls selected to participate are considered to be at a high risk of dropping out of school due to financial circumstances, susceptibility to child marriage, or any other conflict at home or within their family. Despite this they are all incredibly determined to be educated, many walking several hours per day just to get from home to school, school to Starfish, or Starfish to home. The culture they live in is one that struggles to overcome female genital mutilation, child marriage, and domestic violence and also one that openly accepts institutions such as polygamy. None of them use any of this an excuse for their oppression as women though, rather it inspires them to improve their communities for their future and the next generation. Learning all this almost forced me to make no excuses for any petty thing that I struggle with in my life. If these girls can go through all this and still devote so much time to helping others in their community as well as invest valuable time and energy on a virtues-centric education, then I have every reason in the world to work harder at committing myself to service.

I have stated numerous times that Starfish prioritizes instilling virtues in their students, the most important being independence, courtesy, knowledge, service, and nobility. Throughout the day an emphasis is placed on expressing gratitude, self reflection, and personal development. I didn’t walk away from this experience an entirely different person, I was never the most pleasant person and I still am not. But what guides me is the new awareness that when I interact with other people I am mostly interacting with myself. My kindness is a reflection of my commitment to how I want others to treat me and my anger at others is mostly an anger within myself. The good and the bad that I see in the world is a projection of the good and the bad that I see in myself. Daija and Sam talked about how other people are just mirrors and now I completely agree. This is something I think most of the Starfish girls already know, but took me a journey to another continent to figure out.

Yassin told us a story of how growing up school was not accessible to all children in her community. At one point in high school there were 1500 kids in her grade but only the top 1000 could move on to the next year. This meant everyone was competing for one of those spots but they almost all went to the boys. She explained that after school her male peers would go home and study all night but the girls would have to do all the house chores and look after their siblings. Yassin being Yassin would go home at 7, do all her chores until 11, and then wake up at 3 am to study. That’s what girls in this society have to do to get ahead. The diverse forms of sacrifices that the students and mentors make to assert their value to society is something I really hope to never forget.

Girls education is extremely important beyond the ethical problems associated with unequal access to opportunity on the basis of a social construct such as gender. Women are the primary educators in society, typically spending more quality time with children. The hope at Starfish is that even if any of these girls get married off early and are unable to complete their eduction, they are equipped with enough information and powerful personal convictions that they can guide the next generation towards a better future.

I often contemplated how I contributed to Starfish’s vision in doing this. I’m sure that the majority of my time, including in my class, worked to benefit me more than the students but the moments where I felt that I actually provided some valuable information were incredibly rewarding. For instance following graduation instead of classes we had a series of workshops led by guest lecturers. During Absa’s workshop about racism and micro-aggressions she asked me to lead a discussion about LGBTQ rights. This is an extremely controversial topic in The Gambia and one that had been shut down every time I brought it up in the past. Even Absa didn’t feel comfortable teaching about it, but thought is was important for the girls to learn. People who are openly gay in The Gambia risk being assaulted or arrested; it is highly frowned upon and completely unacceptable. Even at Starfish, a place that promotes progressive values and a climate of addressing diverse social justice issues, it is often viewed as something very wrong. I learned throughout my time in The Gambia to consciously avoid projecting my cultural values onto others, but this is something that needs to be discussed. There are girls at Starfish who are gay, and they deserve to exist without harassment, judgment, or a fear of being their authentic selves. I tried to just explain what being gay, lesbian, or bisexual means and asked the girls to justify their belief that other people’s private lives should result in violence or oppression. I told them that they can uphold whatever beliefs they want for whatever reasons they want, but if they make certain comments they are going to really hurt someone eventually. Later in the day two girls approached me and thanked me for teaching them about LGBTQ people; they had never heard of that before. They didn’t realize that many people in their lives are likely gay and just don’t feel comfortable ever speaking openly about it. That was one of the moments when I knew that I came to The Gambia for a reason and helped me better understand how I can educate people appropriately within a specific cultural context. I also better understood why educating these girls is so important. Hopefully one day they can influence their society and their children by teaching them about issues such as this one.

Sometimes the girls seemed to function so normally that I would forget the situation they face outside of Starfish. But then I remembered the pledge: “I am not the product of my circumstances or my history”. I would think of colonialism and slavery and how we are both products of our polarizing histories, but somehow we are so essentially similar. People are people everywhere, all with the desire to end suffering and experience genuine happiness. Now in Bhutan I feel very little removal from either The Gambia or the United States. We are incredibly interconnected in every decision we make; there is no separation between me and anyone I have ever met.

When I first arrived at Starfish I found myself feeling somewhat discouraged knowing what so many of friends and classmates were doing around the world. Many of them were also working at non profits and social enterprises in developing countries, but seemed to be living out a much more glamorous lifestyle. I wasn’t reforming an entire business or able to go to bars on the weekends, but it my experience was still incredibly significant. I think most people can agree that the success of a society relies hugely on education. Well that boils down to each individual student and that’s who I was there to collaborate with.I could keep going on and on about how critical educating women is to sustainable development and there is a lot that I still don’t understand, but I know for sure that strong girls make strong women, and strong women make a strong world.