YGSP Part 2: The Girls

So you know what we did, but let me say just a little more about these girls. They were amazing. Me and my friend were sitting down after the program and collectively realized that in this group of 11 13-17 year-old girls we couldn’t come up with a single negative thing to say about a single one of them. I didn’t see a single girl be mean or even snippy with any of the others, didn’t see anyone be snooty or bossy. Not only that but throughout the entire course of our busy program, not once did any of them complain. I was so grateful to them for their attitudes and just for them generally being such smart, sweet, and fun girls.

It was very fun also seeing the internal dynamics of the girls. While in some ways the difference in ages was a challenge for the program, it was also cool seeing the younger ones looking up to the older ones. And seeing the friendships that they were forming between each other was pretty heart-warming as well. They behaved like they had been best friends for years when they had really just been together for four or five days.

Anyways, here are pictures of a few of them. The girl with the green head scarf looking intense, Haoua, is in the middle of playing a game with Zelifa in the background. Hannatou is crouching in white with a notebook in her hand. Mourja is in red. The picture with three girls is Rabi, Maimouna, and Haoua (there were two). Haoua was particularly amazing. She’s been first in her class since she left her small village and started going to high school. She was nicknamed La Presidente because early on she made it clear she wanted to become “la premiere presidente de la republique”. She restated this intention on the radio on the final day, which was pretty great.

The final picture is of Seylouba and Balkissa. Seylouba is a girl I’ve written about before who goes to school in Matameye. I loved watching her during the conference. She’s pretty timid, but it was really fun seeing her bust out of that shell a bit, undoubtedly inspired by the examples of some of the other girls (la Presidente in particular). A brief side note is that a couple days before (maybe I mentioned this before), I surprised her out in her village. She was shocked and her dad acted like it was Publisher’s Clearing House. Well, not exactly, but no matter how much I resisted, he wouldn’t stop giving me small gifts to bring back to Matameye, and trooped me all through the village meeting any and everyone.