Neema, at 14 |
Neema (pronounced NAY-ma) means grace in Swahili. Neema’s first language was not Swahili; it was
Maasai, the mother language of her tribe. She was her mother’s seventh and
last-born. Her father had four wives and several herds of goats and cows.
Neema’s mother was the second wife.
Neema’s oldest brother never went to school. Her father
didn’t believe in education. But by the time Neema was six, her mother had
become an advocate for education and sent her off to primary school, a few miles
walk each day.
Neema sat in a classroom with forty or fifty other students
and listened to the teacher. She learned to read and write, and tried to
memorize the notes the teacher wrote on the board for them to copy each day.
In the evening, Neema walked home with her friends and
returned to her mother’s boma. She
took the goats out to feed at night, walked to the well half a mile away to draw
water, and collected firewood for cooking. She sat in the smoky hut tending a
bowl of ugali with greens for dinner.
As she got in the bed she shared with her sister each night, she took a candle
and stole a glance at her school notebooks. She loved to learn.
Neema always did well in school and the family said she had
brains. She finished seventh grade. She, with all her classmates around the
country, sat for the national examinations. She was neither confident nor
scared; it was a test they all had to take to determine whether they could
continue on to secondary school.
Neema failed the test. She would not be allowed to continue
in government school. And she did not have the money to pay for private school.
She continued day in and day out with her work around the boma, never complaining. She had more
time now so she made the tea in the morning and grazed the goats earlier so she
could get back to help with cooking, too. Sometimes her mother was sick.
At night she called her sister and brother in the city,
sobbing. “I want to go to school,” she cried. “I am afraid Father is going to
find a man for me to marry.”
A few weeks after the notice of her failure on the national
exam, Neema came home to find her father speaking with another village man.
“You are going to marry his son,” her father said.
The man Neema was to marry was sixteen and had no education
beyond the seventh grade. His family brought goats and sheep as a bride price
for her father. There were parties at the boma,
and all feasted on meat. There was going to be a wedding.
Neema continued to cry, and she called her brother every
night pleading for help. She didn’t want to marry a man with no education and
no future. A man who wasn’t a man. She didn’t want to marry at all. She was
fourteen. She wanted to find a way to go back to school.
The family of the groom brought local alcohol as a gift. The
wedding day was getting closer and all the plans were set. Neema’s father had
gotten all his bridal gifts. He took his two younger wives and moved to the
coastal region, hours away. He returned to finalize the matter.
Neema’s brother Meshak came in the middle of the day. He
walked up the hill in his shuka while
Neema was out hauling water. The family of the groom saw him and ran to the boma on the top of the hill to greet
him, to see if there was any trouble.
While they were speaking, Neema returned with water and
bowed her head respectfully to her older brother. She greeted him and quickly
went to bring chai for her brother
and the other guests.
They talked for a few minutes over chai, but then Meshak called Neema aside. “Pack your bag,” he told
her.
Happily, she put a few khangas and her old school
books in a small knapsack.
The groom’s father saw what was happening. He began to argue with
Meshak. “She is bound to my son already. We have eaten meat together.”
Meshak had grown up in the same boma,
the second born of their mother. He had passed the National Exam and could have
gone on to high school, but his father sent him instead to tend cattle in the
Serengeti with his uncle. He had been able to escape to the city finally, to
become a car mechanic, and he had joined a Pentecostal church there, which
taught that women had dignity. He was not going back to the city today without
Neema. “No. She will not marry your son.”
The groom’s father was furious, yelling, calling others in the village
to be his witness at the promise that had been made. Neema stayed quietly
inside the boma, heart pounding, as
the argument grew.
“Come now,” Meshak said to Neema, as a crowd began to gather around the
boma. The father of the groom tried
to block them, but Meshak pushed him aside and dragged Neema quickly down the
hill back to the main road.
They were able to escape, not without giving the father of the groom
some money. They boarded the bus for the city and returned to Meshak’s home.
Neema humbly took her place in his house, helping his wife with the
cooking and cleaning, and waiting for a chance to go back to school. She shared
a bed with Meshak’s young children and went about her daily tasks diligently,
faithfully. She was happy to be away from the village and her father’s
influence. Happy the next-door neighbors had a TV she was sometimes allowed to
watch. But she still wanted to go back to school.
By the miracle of friendship and generous hospitality, I moved into
Meshak’s home a few weeks after she arrived. I had met Neema and Meshak’s
sister through a friend, and was looking for new housing in the city while I
volunteered as an English teacher. The family welcomed me in with open arms.
I slept in the same room with Neema and ate from the same plate of ugali with her for three months. She laughed at my foreignness and taught me
how to properly tend the charcoal stove. We walked together to get fresh milk
in the morning. Whenever I left for school, she demanded I give her my dirty
clothes so she could wash them. Occasionally in the evening, she asked for help
studying her old school books. She never asked me for money, but as I came to
know her story more fully, it became clear that I could help her.
In the spring, I drummed up support from some friends to pay for the
private school fees Neema needed. Neema returned to school, and we have continued
to support her financially, in hopes that her success will eventually enable
her to support herself and her family. Four years have gone by, and Neema has been in a boarding school where she is at the top of her class. She is able to focus much better than in primary school, when she was commuting by foot and had no electricity in the village. She took
her high school final exams last November. The last I talked with her, she was waiting at Meshak’s house
for results to come back. A lot is at stake—the chance to go on to a vocational
college, or even university.
Meanwhile, she has learned how to live in the city. Her voice is deeper
and her English is better. She is eighteen now, older and wiser, more ready for
whatever comes next.
This post is a part of my Women’s History Month project, “Honoring Women’s Stories.” You can read more about the project and see other women’s stories here.
This post is a part of my Women’s History Month project, “Honoring Women’s Stories.” You can read more about the project and see other women’s stories here.
Thank you for telling Neema's story.
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