Little girls, big teachers…

***NOTE– something ‘funky’ is up with wordpress, and this is all condendsed into one. Looking into it as we speak.  

Hope is the only good thing that disillusion respects.It’s stories like these, that make me value everything I have everyday that I never give a second thought to.    The girls burst through the school’s walled compound, many of them flinging off head-to-toe garments, bounding, cheering and laughing in ways that are inconceivable outside — for girls and women of any age. Mirwais has no regular electricity, no running water, no paved streets. Women are rarely seen, and only then while clad in burqas that make their bodies shapeless and their faces invisible….   I happen to be wearing a tie today, (in a very girly way,) but my clothing choices are usually the last thing I’m thinking about as I’m multitasking for the Shiny and Happy. Sometimes, I’m sitting at my desk, my mind demands a break and I check fark.com for everything fail, (that usually makes me giggle and shake my head, equally.) Then, there are reminders, that I’m wearing pants, or a tie, and I went to college and I work for a decent company, making decent pay and can think for myself. Everything seems unnecessary.   I think of my little girl, the one who is, (hopefully?) exerting her independence, (in polite and sweet ways,) at daycare while she learns the benefit of play and numbers and colors- she learns. She comes home and points out ‘A’s’ proudly, like the two her name possess, and she always wants to know more. I hardly believe that all little girls aren’t the same. What should be giggles and wide-eye-wonder even today, is still being corrupted by such evil-minded people. It’s hard for me to look at her picture- with her brilliant face and her beautiful expressions and think, there is millions of other little girls out there who will never have the chances or choices my daughter has- by simply being who she is.   We aren’t rich. I’m a single mom who subscribes to the paycheck-to-paycheck anthology. Some weeks we make it, some we fail a little, but we go to bed warm, and loved. I need this- reminder that her closet may not have Gymboree clothes, or we may use Flavorite… everything- but the opportunities- the endless things that this child can be, ARE WHAT MATTER.  Please tell  me, because I’m coming up short—how is this fair? We’re so blessed, with CHOICES. We don’t have to sift through garbage or use the same water to drink we we bathe in. We don’t swat flies off our babies, and we don’t send our little girls out into a world where men on motorcycles might dump Acid on them simply for the want to learn, and achieve. The fears of disease are almost but all negated by vaccines, and famine to my child might mean that she cannot have the third cookie she is so desperately eyeing.  I was thinking this morning, as I turned the lights off in my house to go out into the Artic air, that I am probably going to die a little when I see this month’s heating bill. I started feeling the pity that rises up in moments like those when the troubles seem to slay away opportunity.  I sat on the bus ride up to Minneapolis thinking, how unfair life has been- with the curveballs and mortal, financial wounds. I never once thought about opportunity which is maybe, the most powerful and richest thing of all. The love of my life is three years old. As much as I try to teach her everything I know and have experienced about life, there’s so much she’ll have than others wont. To focus merely on our gifted-chance to be where we are, in the time we’re in, living in the country we’re at- is something she won’t begin to understand until much later. And to overwhelm her heart or her brain with stories of others being hurt would be detrimental. I see her beauty and grace in her eyes, but I know tonight when I pick her up, I might also see a million other faces- of those not nearly as ‘fortunate,’ (I hate that word- like that somehow makes it all ‘fair,’) as we are.  These are just words, but I believe that the typing and knowledge of them hold extreme power. My words cannot heal the face of Shamsia Husseini, or any of the others. But they can make others realize the effect we could have, should we take more pride in how we view everyone, and allow others to have the same opportunities as we are blessed with. I don’t have the authority to lock these men up, or the knowledge to battle them in court. I don’t even have extra money to send, though by the sounds of it, it wouldn’t help.  In the face of danger and fear, little girls are choosing education and opportunity over their lives. This is an incredible choice, and not one we should forget about lightly.  This to me, is more powerful anything I could ever say or write to you. And I’m proud, because I’m learning my strength and courage from girls much smaller than me.