Rudo Gore

Published May 29, 2009 @ 03:39PM PT

When I completed my primary education in 1989, I was looking forward to secondary school, but unfortunately my parents could not afford to pay my school fees. I asked them if they would allow me to go and work as a housemaid and they agreed. I worked for two years from 1990 to 1992. That was when I started to see what the world was and what it meant to me. I was being paid Z$20 a month. I spent Z$15 and kept Z$5. That Z$5 I was putting in a tin as my security. In 1992 I explained to my mother that I wanted to proceed with my education using the money I was keeping.

It's unfortunate that the secondary school was very far from home so there was a need to become a bush boarder, living in a hut I built for myself. My mother sold her only cow to help me. I still remember its name - Marooro. My mother said, "Do you see that I have sold this cow for you, Rudo? When you go to school you should work very hard."

During the rainy season, my hut, which we built with small poles of dagga and grass, fell down. We did not go to school that day while mending our hut with two other girls I was sharing it with. There was also the problem of not having decent clothes. I was going to school wearing the barmu-barmu skirt which my mother exchanged for ground nuts, and was also going to school walking barefoot. One of my classmates who came from a rich family gave me her sandals and the first day I started wearing them, the whole class clapped hands for me. I was very intelligent in class, but due to lack of decent clothes I was too shy to stand up and speak.

When I was in Form Four, my father passed away and this was during the drought. There was nothing to eat at home or to take to school. I and my young sisters and mother used to go and cultivate other people's fields so that we could be given maize to eat at home and to take to school. When the maize was finished, I spent a week and a half borrowing and eating other girls' food. At the end of the second week, I was really shy to eat others' mealie-meal. So I was waking up very early and if I saw others preparing porridge, I ran away or said, "You can eat. I am satisfied." At lunchtime I was remaining at school while others went to prepare lunch.

I thought of going home, and that is the time that CAMFED provided me with a uniform and porridge at school. I will never forget it.

After school I received training on cutting and designing, and I came back to my community to train other girls and young women. At first, the young women were not coming for the training, so then I had to go round to find out what the community wanted because some of the girls in Mola were not allowed to come and be trained, because their families thought that the girls would become prostitutes. But I continued to motivate the parents of the girls.

Now we have big meetings in the community and all the people come. The attitudes of the people in the community have really changed and they now want to be involved in all the activities. I have motivated the community to believe in girls' education and pay school fees for their children.