One of my best friends sent me an article to read. And it made her cry. And it made me cry. Because there is despair. And there is tragedy. And then, also, there is hope. (Read The Women’s Crusade - NYTimes.com)
Yesterday in my class we began talking about AIDS and the outrageous rates of HIV prevalence among pregnant women in the state of Karanatka. Two of the young women are studying at a nurse's training college, and casually they relayed first-hand experiences, of doctors re-using unwashed surgical utensils, of another student who accidently pricked her finger with a needle used on an HIV patient and now lives as an outcast, and of the abortions. Of baby girls, baby girls, baby girls.
You should see the women here. They are vibrant, not in color of dress but in spirit. It is impossible not to fall in love with every sparkling set of eyes you meet.
And yet girls in India from 1 to 5 years of age are 50 percent more likely to die than boys their age.
In the face of this the harassment and cat calls and misogynistic comments and ass-slaps of my own experiences dim into shadows. I have LIFE. How many women have been denied even that?
Slowly, as your read, as you breathe, fragments of hope appear.
"As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long." - W.E.B. Du Bois.
We cannot move time but we can move our feet. Move our hands, move our hearts, join together for the girls both born and lost.
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