My thoughts are with you often, Mademoiselle. I pray for you and your family. I pray too that you have not already returned to America and that this letter will reach you soon. I apologise for the length of my letter and for the untidiness of my writing. It has been quite a while since I have had the opportunity to hold a pencil at all.
I would like to thank you for all you have done for my family and me. Sometimes, still, I dare to dream that one day, just like Monsieur Boubicar I will stand proudly in front of a classroom full of children, and teach them many things, and that the spirits of my mother, my grandmother and my brother will draw near me and smile.
God bless you. Affectionately yours,
Haoua Boureima
***
Vision Corps International
443 Ashley Old Road
Manchester
M10 4NB
United Kingdom
12th May, 2001
Mr Noel Boyd
Member No. 515820
Ballygowrie
Co. Down
N. Ireland
BT22 1AW
Dear Mr Boyd,
Thank you for your letter regarding the marriage of Haoua Boureima, and also for your willingness to continue to support VCI’s child sponsorship scheme. I have enclosed details of a boy from Niger, as requested in your letter.
I appreciate your feelings concerning this matter and want to assure you that we are endeavouring to change the thinking of the people in these cultures by stressing the importance of education for girls in our projects. However, this will take time and perseverance, but hopefully the children in our care will start to think differently and eventually be instrumental in changing cultural attitudes.
Unfortunately the girls who marry cannot continue their education because a girl at school is not allowed to get married; therefore reluctantly we have to release them from the project. It might be helpful for you and your daughters to know that the initial stage of marriage is just a celebration and although the child will live with the in-laws, there is sometimes a waiting time for her to mature before being given to the husband.
I hope you find this information helpful. Once again, many thanks for your continued support.
Yours sincerely
Winifred Quinn
Supporter Services
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This is a story that I first suggested my daughter try to write for a school project. I am thankful that she found such a life unimaginable. The story, however, would not go away. Such stories – featuring real individuals rather than fictional characters – continue to unfold every day, not just in Africa but all over the world.
I would like to thank the following people for their support, expertise, encouragement and enthusiasm in helping ensure that this particular story has been told:
Eilish Bergin, Dr Joseph Boyle, Viv Burnside, Craig Campbell, Dr Drew Cannavan, Alan Cargo, Cate Conway, Rosemary Crawford, Panos Dalakas, Beverley Green, Ed Handyside, Kerry Hiatt, Ian Lewis, Anne McReynolds, Jim Maginn, Steve Mallaghan, Stafford Mawhinney, Ciara May, Clare May, Kate Nash, Amuda Oko-Osi, Nuray Onoglu, Jan Orr, Naana Otoo-Oyortey, Mona de Pracontal, Naomi Reid, Catherine Smith, Hope Smith, Katie Smith, Adam Weston, Hazel Weston, Holly Weston, Dr Paul Young.
The following texts were immensely useful and I am indebted to their authors: Africa on a Shoestring by Geoff Crowther Le Niger Aujourd’hui by Jean-Claude Klotchkoff The Samaka Guide to Homesite Farming by Colin M. Hoskins Marriage in Maradi by Barbara M. Cooper West African Lilies and Orchids by J. K. Morton Myths and Legends of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean/Bee Willey When Sheep Cannot Sleep by Satoshi Kitamura Africa: Traveller’s Literary Companion by Oona Strathern. I am also grateful for the support of Ards Arts, The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, The Tyrone Guthrie Centre and staff at The Africa Centre, London.
The Foundation for Women’s Health, Research and Development is an African Diaspora women’s campaign and support charity that works in the UK and in Africa to eradicate harmful practices and to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights as central to the wellbeing of African women and girls.
FORWARD’s work focuses on female genital mutilation (FGM), child marriage and obstetric fistula.
If you would like to know more about the work of FORWARD please visit www.forwarduk.org.uk.
GW
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gavin Weston is a visual artist and writer who lives in his native Ireland and is a former aid worker in West Africa. Harmattan is based both on first-hand experiences of Niger and its people and his continued involvement as an aid sponsor.
More World Class International Fiction from Myrmidon -
TAMING POISON DRAGONS by Tim Murgatroyd
Western China, 1196:
Yun Cai, a handsome and adored poet in his youth, is now an old man, exiled to his family estates. All that is left to him are regrets of a growing sense of futility and helplessness and the irritations of his feckless son and shrewish daughter-in-law. But the ‘poison dragons’ of misfortune shatter his orderly existence.
First, Yun Cai’s village is threatened with destruction by a vicious civil war. His wayward second son, a brutal rebel officer seems determined to ruin his entire family. Meanwhile, Yun Cai struggles to free an old friend, P’ei Ti, from a hellish prison- no easy task when P’ei Ti is the rebels’ most valuable hostage and Yun Cai considers himself merely a spent, and increasingly frightened old man.
Throughout these ordeals, Yun Cai draws from the glittering memories of his youth, when he journeyed to the capital to study poetry and join the upper ranks of the civil service: how he contended with rivalry and enmity among his fellow students and secured the friendship of P’ei Ti. Above all, he reflects on a great love he won and lost: his love for the beautiful singing girl, Su Lin, for which he paid with his freedom and almost his life.
Yun Cai is forced to reconsider all that he is and all that he has ever been in order to determine how to preserve his honour and all that he finds he still cherishes.
Only then can summon the wit and courage to confront the warlord General An-Shu and his beautiful but cruel consort, the Lady Ta-Chi.
‘A riveting story.’ John Green, The Morning Star
‘An evocative and epic tale of love,honour and valour in the midst of civil war.’
femalefirst.co.uk
HARDBACK 978-1-905802-28-9
PAPERBACK 978-1-905802-39-5
E BOOK 978-1-905802-46-3
Harmattan Page 37