I Am a Woman

Who is a woman?

She starts of as a tiny little baby girl, dresses in pink or floral dresses.

As she starts to sit, she is commissioned into her future life as a woman. She is taught how to sit properly ‘as a woman’.

As she starts to walk, she starts noticing her surrounding; she starts picking up things  from her mother. She starts playing around with utensils associated with women.

As a young school girl, she starts noticing colours, knows how to mix and match clothes, she starts using accessories in her hair, wears bangles and pays attention to her looks.

She is slowly becoming a woman.

In school she works hard, despite facing pressures from men and society that negatively affect young girls and young women. As she sees other girls give up and succumb to the pressure she works hard to meet her dreams.

From her surrounding she learns strong life lessons that will carry her through as she grows up. Her experiences build her and make her who she is. As she fights her way through life’s challenges, she becomes a woman. A woman of integrity, a woman of strength, a woman full of courage and enthusiasm to face life yes as a woman.

She works hard to achieve her goals, when she gets there, after tears and sweat, heartache and disappointments, she remains a woman. Soft at heart but strong in mind, she carries a lot of pain and hurt from her past but she works hard to face the future with joy and does not lose focus of her vision.

Her vision is to be a woman who makes a difference. And no matter what she faces in life, she remains a woman.

This may be every womans’ dream, but there are challenges that can destroy this dream.

POVERTY. She does not know anything about girls dresses, colours and accessories.

Since she was born all she has known is a little cloth that she uses to cover herself.

 If she wears any clothes or dresses, it's either from donations, or what she picked up from the trash.

She would like to go to school like the other girls but she can’t because she has no clothes, no food, no resources, she has to help her parents to raise money to feed the family.

She is either sold as a child slave, sent to big cities to work as a nanny, or works in the farms.

She misses out on school.

She becomes a victim of rape, child molestation, war victim and child labour.

Her dreams are shattered, her dignity is lost, she remains a broken woman.

She loses her self esteem and confidence, she faces life without hope, all she knows is her pain. She is married off quickly to relieve the burden on her family but at the cost of her brighter future.

Let us work together to give young girls a chance so that they can be women of self esteem and strength. Let us help these girls to be women of the future, women who will make a difference and women who will face their future with hope.

MY PACIFIC DIARIES; At The Marina

A gentle breeze, the leaves shake gently, tiny waves sweep over the water creating ripples and patterns as the boats rock graciously on the water, just another afternoon at the bay.

Screams of children fill the air as they enjoy an afternoon at the swimming pool, as for me I am just sitting on a bench overlooking the sunset and absorbing every inch of the view.

A sail boat pulls into the marina, the people in the boat work hard to manouvre the boat around other boats scattered neatly on the water.

A Jet ski pulls in slowly leaving a white stretch of water behind him, creating waves that gently splash the rocks lining the bay.

Masts strech into the silver grey sky, each mast representing a sail boat on the water. From afar the masts seem to interlock and the ropes weave into each other. It's just an illusion.

Boats of different sizes sway to and fro, the catamarans spaciously thrown around the small and medium size sail boats.

As I turn my head I see Mamoora, Djewe, Strider, Grand blue and other boats which have no names but just numbers. Each boat is meticulously parked in front of the household, I am sure these homes don't come cheap.

As I turn the other side two men chat. They speak in vernacular language throwing in a bit of French here and there. One is topless, he holds a funny posture and is sitting on the rocks with his legs resting on the rocks. As I wonder what's with the funny posture, I take a closer look. As I scan his surrounding I see a bucket, seconds later  I see him pulling something then as the French say "voila!" it dawns to me he is fishing. I realise he is fishing without a fishing rod, comfortably with just a line .The other man in khaki shorts and a red cap  and beard with patches of grey, rests one leg on the rock with  one hand resting on his knee while the other rests on his back. He gazes at the water and once in a while throws a glance at his coleague as they chat away. They laugh away as the sails shake smoothly from the gentle breeze.

Behind me are two coconut trees. The leaves sway graciously from the breeze as they expose their fruit. The coconuts hang in bunches of two, three and six. One can notice that some of the fruit was picked.

An car engine goes off behind me, the man in the red cap is heading home and his friend continues fishing. A few minutes earlier a car had pulled in, it was three young boys, they chat away as a can of beer rests beside them. A young man in fancy sunglassses sits next to me on the other bench chewing on his mobile phone he gazes into the sunset.

 As I go home I realise this is a place where people come and have time with their minds.

I hope you can find such time in this new year 2012, a time to rest your mind, a time to search your mind, a time to relax your mind and most of all a time to count your blessings one by one.

Spend sometime with yourself, sometime with family, sometime with friends and most of all sometime with God.

Happy New Year to you!