Imagine

Imagine you were a beautiful girl who lived in a little village - population 1,500 - in the middle of a rocky, desertous plain. The walls of your house were mud. Your day consisted of waking up at 6am to make bread, then you wandered about the scraggly, dry riverbed looking for brush for firewood to bake the bread. However, you had to be careful to avoid the main streets because only men were allowed there. When you did leave the house, you were covered in mass layers of scarves, shawls, coats and bulky sweater-pants to cover your feminine body from the opposite sex. Most of your skin never saw the light of day.


You had studied in primary school, but were not allowed to continue your education (even the equivalent of junior-high or high-school) because your family was both too poor to send you off to a larger village center to study, and it was shameful for girls in your village to travel or study outside the local village. In fact, in your seventeen years, you had left your tiny hometown four times, and that only included visiting family in two other villages within a couple hours' distance.


You rarely watched TV at other families homes, and sometimes saw fantastic visions of busy streets in big cities or women in suits discussing some current issue in world politics. An American Peace Corps volunteer had come to live with you. When her friends visited one day, you spent the afternoon playing cards with them, and quietly studying English as they all read books or studied themselves. You felt free among them. These new friends seemed to take for granted their privilege of independence. They were happy; they were individuals. You dreamed of living like them, of expanding your mind, wearing beautiful clothes and owning lovely things, sleeping in a real bed, and eating something luxurious - something besides the daily fare of bread. You wanted to walk down a busy street, proud to be yourself and hiding from no-one. But alas. It was all just a dream. You had never even been allowed to walk down the main street of your dusty little town.


I met this girl. Many days she weeps uncontrollably, and on one occasion even cried out "Why does God hate me? Why did he punish me by sticking me here - a place I can never leave?" Her name is Fatima.