Today was a rough day. I’m grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to have some of the experiences that I’ve had, but they were tough to swallow. Today was definitely a day full of eye opening experiences.
At the beginning of today we went to CRY’s headquarters. There was a young girl who turned out to be a 14-year-old widow and victim of child marriage. She was only 13 when she was married; however, in this case her husband was 14 so they were both children. It didn’t make sense to me as to why parents would marry two children because in our prep classes whenever we discussed the issue of child marriage - the marriage was typically between a child and an adult. It was explained to us that a child marriage like this one would be done for the dowry. The young girl continued to tell us that she was kicked out of her husband’s home when he died and that because child marriage is illegal, she wasn’t entitled to any of his property. It was also difficult for her to go back home because her family viewed her as a burden. It was truly heart breaking to hear her story. It was also inspiring because she was able to overcome and survive her situation. Not only that, but she is working to stop child marriages in her own village.
The children that we heard from were so inspiring and many of them were working to change their villages’ thoughts on many social issues such as continued education for girls, child marriage, the treatment of female children, etc.
Some of the children performed a routine that they had written themselves. There was a language barrier but the emotions were still there and it was very touching. The performance dealt with many of the issues facing their communities. CRY has done amazing work and has allowed girls to go back to school and continue their education in just one example of the work that they’re doing. I really love that CRY focuses on empowering people so that they’ll be able to get the change that they want to see instead of just building something and moving on. Their method is move involved but it pays off and has more benefit in the long run.
After our session at CRY headquarters, we went to a village slum. It was so humbling to find out that they had been waiting for 2 hours outside in the heat for us to arrive and they had all put on their best clothes. Not only that but it was interesting to hear that they felt a sense of pride in knowing that we had wanted to come to their village to meet and talk to them.
I really enjoyed listening to the villagers talk about their experiences. The villagers were very frustrated with the corruption and the disparity of resources between themselves and the wealthier villagers. This kind of disparity is something that exists in the US as well and people are very passionate about it too. However, in this village, the disparity exists because the wealthy villagers can afford to pay the bribes to get the ration cards.
Another point of interest for me occurred when one of the villagers admitted that not everyone has food, but everyone has access to a cellphone. This reveals the necessity for communication and easy communication. It would be very easy to cast judgment on this but from a monetary standpoint it gets easier to understand, but that doesn’t make the statement any less sad. A cellphone is typically a one-time, standard expense while food is a fluctuating, continuous expense.
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