Sexy Bodies

At the end of March I finally began meeting with my Girls’ Club at the local primary school. During our first sessions, the girls were all tremendously shy; they did not want to speak in public for fear of being humiliated by each other. So for our initial sessions, I focused entirely on building group dynamics to make them more comfortable around each other. My patience was truly being tested as I would leave those first meetings wondering if the group would ever become cohesive enough to allow me to progress into discussing personal issues with the girls (such as familial problems, health issues, and perspectives on relationships). But this past Thursday, I had a breakthrough. For the first time, the girls were not afraid to speak in the group and they volunteered answers to my questions (initially they wouldn’t even answer simple questions like “when do you get out of school?” or “what’s your favorite color?”). So I left that meeting feeling pretty elated about things. I know that I have a long way to go with the girls, but I am starting to see visible progress which is absolutely wonderful!

In order to encourage my development on individual relationships with the girls, I gave them all journals to write their weekly assignments in. I respond to their entries to encourage them to continue sharing information with me. I’m also hopeful that their written English will improve as they become accustomed to reading my proper English responses.

Thus far, I’ve only had them complete two assignments. The first one was to tell me about themselves; they could write about anything they wanted but I just wanted to get them writing. I was a bit shocked by some of the answers I got. A few of them wrote “I have a sexy body.” One even elaborated on that statement to say, “I have a sexy body that boys will die for.” A few others wrote that they love to wear really short skirts that rise far above the knee. Now I fully recognize that I’m more conservative than many people when it comes to issues like this, but I was nonetheless completely shocked that the thirteen-year-old girls in my group would write things like that! I talked to Angela, my housemate, about it since she’s a teacher and has lived here for over a year now so she is quite familiar with the crazy things these kids do. She was rather surprised by their entries too but said that the girls were most likely just writing phrases they knew how to say…I really hope that is the case!