Friends & Family,

OK, I hope Part b didn't bring you down too much. If it did, here's a more positive message. Just a few days before my little mishap, I had actually done something of which I was quite proud, and wanted to tell you all about it. I'd already written it out for the Country Directors, so it's in a kind of "newspaper" format. I hope you enjoy it...

I'd wanted to start a Girls' Club at my school for a while, and I thought I was finally ready. Then all of a sudden, over the weekend, I realized that the upcoming Wednesday was International Women's Day. I kicked myself for forgetting - me, the big Girls' Ed Advocate, right? Well, since it was falling on Wednesday, and because another Tanzanian teacher and I had agreed on Wednesdays for the club meetings, a IWD kickoff would be ideal - If only I'd planned it earlier!

Well, no more time to lose! I went into action. I'd had the idea in the past to ask one of the two women who works at the bank to speak at an event; one of them is of the local Maasai tribe, like many of our students. On Monday afternoon, after getting the headmaster's go-ahead, I went down there to ask. The new manager was there, but the older Maasai assistant wasn't around; her child had become very sick and was in the hospital. The manager told me she would like to do it herself, but she would need to see what was happening with the other woman; if one was away, the other can't leave. I promised to check the next day.

Tuesday there was no change in the situation. I went to nearby Arusha and asked a woman I'd met through Peace Corps who I knew had done things like this before. She said she could come and that she would also ask another woman I knew through Peace Corps, who was doing a girls' self-empowerment program at her own school.

Wednesday - the day of reckoning. I got up early and went down to the bank. Both women were there but knee-deep in work, since one had been away for two days, and my preferred woman still had to leave early in the afternoon to check on her child. I was crumbling... I would feel a little lame, potentially having only one speaker, and someone I already knew.

But wait - what's this? The two women at the bank had been on the phone all morning to friends and acquaintances trying to find somebody else to go in their place! They had been trying hard to make sure the event succeeded, without any prodding or asking from me! Sadly, they'd had no success. As I was ready to leave as a failure, the Maasai woman accompanied me out the door and brought me down the street to the District Advisory Office for Women and Children (a place I obviously should have already gone to if I'd known what I was doing -- or if I'd known it existed!) and introduced me personally to one of the heads - a man. He said that actually, almost everybody from his department had gone to a big event in Mto Wa Mbu (also in the district) for the same holiday.

My heart was sinking again... but my friend from the bank stayed with me in his office and kept running ideas by him. They finally agreed that we should try a certain woman who had worked at the district education office for a long time. Satisfied that we had a plan of action, the woman went back to the bank, and the Advisory head brought me to the district education office. The woman came in, and it turns out she was the first woman ever to get an official leadership position in Monduli District, twenty years ago. She told us about how she ignored everybody's warning her away from the job, telling her being a woman leader in a predominantly Maasai area would be self-defeating. She said she would be really excited to come to the event.

Wow! Now I was riding high... but nervous. I went back to school in time to tell my headmaster that things were 'go'. He gladly announced it to the other staff at tea. Since I hadn't organized the whole thing very well, and since I had to go down to the school to wait for the guests, I put the girls from the student government in charge of setting up for the event. They were the ones who made sure the library was cleaned out, chairs were brought in from the classrooms, and the front table was decorated with cloth to make it look more 'official' -- all things to which I hadn't given much thought!

By 4:15, the girls were gathered and sitting relatively quietly in the library... fifteen minutes into the event, and none of the guests had arrived. Cleverly remembering I was in Africa, I was neither surprised nor worried that people were late... but I couldn't simultaneously keep the girls entertained and wait for the guests. I told people at the main school building to send a student when any of the guests arrived.

Then, I had to work my magic... I went up to the library and entered a room of 150 Tanzanian schoolgirls, most of whom I did not know, since I teach upper forms where there are fewer girls. I was not exactly a peer. However, I had one thing working to my advantage: I was a silly white man who didn't mind much making a fool of himself. As I entered, I noticed Jehovaness, a Form III girl, standing and shouting something at the some of the girls. Jehovaness is an absolutely obnoxious girl, one of the most troublesome in the school. She would be the perfect victim.

I called on her and asked if she would like to lead the girls in singing a song I felt sure she would know. She sang it with all the girls, in her obnoxious way... silly, but it broke the ice. When that song fell apart, I led them in another song, "Wasichana Msilale" ("Girls, Don't Sleep!") which they got into a lot more, especially with the crazy white guy dancing around -- well, I'd gotten their approval, at least!

Of course, persisting in my incompetence, I had run out of songs I knew. However, I knew I could rely on them. I asked them if there was anybody else who knew any songs about girls (I had already gotten them started in the right direction). The girls all "knew" who I should pick, a tiny girl in the back, who proceeded to lead the girls in a really fantastic song that I'd never heard before, but which they all knew. That was good to keep them going for a while.

I was called; the guests were coming. Mama Assenga had already arrived, and when I got down below I found that Mama Grace had indeed brought Mama Simba with her! I had three guests! Woohoo! To add a perfect touch, it turns out that Mama Simba had worked under Mama Assenga over twenty years ago and they hadn't seen each other since. They met with an embrace that gave me great vibes about having them all together on the panel.

The event went beautifully, aside from my nervously fumbled introductions. Wanting to be as low-profile as possible, I had the head girl facilitate the 'pep rally'. Each woman spoke at length about her respective past, including all the trouble she'd had in succeeding as a woman. Each speech ended with a moral, driving home the point that she had only succeeded because she had worked hard, studied, and avoided taking the easy way of just getting married and having babies... and an admonition that they should persevere.

The session was followed by a question-and-answer session that evoked more reinforcements of the same idea. A big hit was the idea of directly saying "NO" to sexual advances, instead of coy declinations that would only compound their problems. One hundred fifty girls shouting "NO!" loudly in the school library... If just one of them said it at the right time, that just might be the thing that sets her on the path to a career... instead of pregnancy, which pulls countless girls too early out of school; or HIV, which pulls them too early out of life.

Towards the end, many of the girls were asking questions revealing their desire for a place to discuss these issues on a regular basis; to carry forward the momentum they so badly wanted to hold on to. Right on cue, after the last question, I stepped in and told them about my idea for a Girls-Only English Club... it seemed to be exactly what they wanted... something that would help them academically towards their goals, but also something that would be fun, like all the singing and self-empowering they'd been doing today. They all cheered for the club - the pressure is on, now... I've committed myself to a hundred fifty hopeful, singing girls; that's not something I can let slide!

Somehow, through my stumbling, procrastinating incompetence, I had managed to do something right along the way -- but what? With all I'd done wrong, what had I done right?

First, before even having the idea for this event, I was already a part of my school community. I was recognized and supported by my headmaster and other teachers. I hadn't just run into my school straight out of training and started to organize something like this. Along with that, I was also familiar with my greater community. I already had in mind who I wanted to ask before I started. When she couldn't make it, she felt my friendship was valuable enough to leave work and take me around in person until I found somebody who could. Supporting me all the way through was my knowledge of Swahili and my general cultural awareness, without which I would not likely have been taken seriously. I was not just another foreigner with a crazy idea -- I was a local teacher working with or making connections through people I knew.

Additionally, it was a real need, valued by the community. Everybody to whom I talked agreed that it was an important thing to do: the bank women, the speakers, the teachers, and especially the girls themselves. Everybody involved felt like they had a stake in making this event succeed. That is what pushed people above and beyond -- more importantly than doing me a favor, they were doing 150 girls, and to some degree themselves, a favor.

Lastly, I'd actually done some implicit empowerment on my own. Since I was so poorly organized by the start of the assembly, I had to rely on the girl leaders, my woman counterpart, and the woman librarian for suggestions, and for implementing those suggestions. If I'd been more prepared, I might have tried to micro-manage the event from the start, taking away some of those important opportunities for added sustainability. It was their event, not my event.

So, while I don't recommend procrastination, incompetence, and disorganization to everybody planning an event, I will submit this as evidence that it can occasionally work to your advantage. Sometimes, if you've done your 'homework', all it takes to make an event like this happen is simply getting out of your house and doing it!

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