Straight-to-the-point detail on the OYO mini-van
Yesterday, we went out to a local school with the great people from OYO, the group that we had contacted before we left Toronto. They do HIV/AIDS awareness programs with youth via the arts. Luckily, the regional boss from Windhoek was in town so rather than hitchhike, we got ot roll out there in a really funky mini-van that has been painted with all sorts of slogans and images... It gets a lot of looks!
Uh, I think I get it... maybe...
6 of us went to a high school in a mining town some 60 kms away and after meeting with a rather harried principal, we showed a bunch of the learners (what they call students) a movie that OYO had recently produced on a gang-rape case... heavy stuff...
There was this one girl in the assembled crowd who totally impressed me. She made a lot of amazing comments during the Q&A after the screening and really stood up for women's rights and took a bunch of the posing moron guys to task for saying that "no doesn't mean no." She was really engaged in the movie and in the discussion and was getting pretty worked up and passionate about things even though she looked shy when she wasn't in the heat of the moment.
I tried to encourage her afterward by saying that I had really liked her comments and that she looked like she was going to be a leader. The smile on her face when she told me that was exactly what she wanted but that she knew that she had to overcome her shyness first gave me goosebumps. Man, thousands of kilometres away from being a teacher and the basic fact that a few words at the right time can maybe mean a lot to someone is underlined again... I hope that she goes far; she certainly looks like she will.
3 comments:
damn, check out the cut-eye she's getting from the girl sitting in front of her. that looks familiar...
you always were a sucker for politically-angry women, no?
gang-rape is pretty much the most horrific experience i can think of happening to a woman. except maybe being burned alive at the stake (probably FOR being gang-raped, no less). but it's a tough call.
Yeah, it wasn't hard to guess that she catches some shit from her classmates for being smart... The movie was tough but the worst part was how a bunch of guys started doing the posing gangsta shit and parroting the worst type of misogyny possible... depressing.
that photograph instantly brought back about 6 depressing years worth of memories from elementary school.
think of it this way - you were in Nowhere, Namibia. you get that exact same reaction from men in EVERYWHERE, USA, et al.
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