The first girl from my small village school to get to college

In a school in a small village in Kenya boys used to come to my back and poke my butt with sticks and their knees. I was not the only girl in that class but I was taller than the other girls. Being tall, the boys thought I was ready to have a relationship with them like the other older girls.

My sister who was my guardian, was strict and I had made up my mind early that I wanted to go to university. Boys used to take the top four positions and I would take the 5th position. When we did the national primary school exam,I did not perform very well but my sister wanted the best for me. She pleaded with the principal of one of the best girls school in the province. She took me in, in what was called a third selection…this is like the last of the last to be selected. I went in and decided I had to make my sister proud and show those boys that I can do it.

I realized I was so good in sciences and the teachers encouraged me. In the end I made it to campus. The first girl from that group. There was one other boy who made it too but he was not from my class. The following year a boy from our class joined and he almost fainted upon seeing me in the university. I had made it. I was training as a science teacher.

When I graduated I went to work with girls in an even remote village school. We were only two female teachers in a staff on 24 teachers. I was a testimony to the girls that it can be done. As I taught Biology and Chemistry I also told them that they are just as good as the boys in that school. Since then some have gone to campus and even doing their masters degrees. I am now in the US, I am a mother of three girls, a homeschooling mum and a blogger. I am blessed. I tell them everyday that they can do anything they put their minds on. I see it in them. I hope that when they get to be teenagers they will keep up the spirit and use it well into their adult life.

I started a blog on building self-esteem. It is a place where I share my heart on how girls can work on their internal psyche to bring out their best.

Thank you
Grace