Bongolistically,
By Mallam O.
Today, as I reflect on my journey from Warima to the wider world, one stark reality haunts me: I cannot name a single female cousin, nor any girl from my village during my time there, who continued her education beyond secondary school.
The pattern reveals itself clearly in my memory now. That female cousin in Part One, whose quick mind could unravel arithmetic problems faster than our teacher could write them, disappeared from school shortly after her fourteenth birthday. To the annoyance of my father, her father had arranged a marriage to a merchant from a neighboring village—a “good match” that brought pride to her family. Her exercise books, filled with perfect calculations and neat handwriting, were set aside for cooking pots and baby clothes.
My other female cousin, who recited poetry with such feeling that even the elders would fall silent to listen, completed primary school but went no further.
“What use is more schooling for a girl?” my uncle had said. “She knows enough to keep her household accounts and read instructions. The rest is wasteful.”
Even our Teacher, our pillar of possibility with her city education and trousers, had stopped at a teaching certificate. When I asked her once why she hadn’t become a headmistress or gone to university, she smiled a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“There are paths for women,” she said, “and then there are walls.”
I remember the day I received my secondary school examination results. My parents celebrated me, but my path forward seemed clear and unobstructed so long as there was money to pay for my education. For my sisters, education ended where adulthood began.
When I return to Warima now, I see bright-eyed girls in primary school uniforms, raising their hands eagerly to answer questions. I pray that their ambitions will survive beyond the village boundaries. How many hidden mathematicians, writers, doctors, and leaders have we lost to the invisible ceiling that hovers over the girls of Warima?
The boys I grew up with scattered like seeds in the wind—some to universities, others to government positions, businesses, or farms of their own choosing. The girls remained largely rooted where they were planted, their growth constrained by expectations as rigid as the compound walls.
This is perhaps the most glaring inequality I observed but failed to fully comprehend as a boy: the division of daily tasks or spaces and the systematic limitation of horizons. Education for boys was an investment; for girls, it was an indulgence—extended only until more important duties called.
When I consider my achievements, I think of my bright female cousins sometimes, wondering what mathematical insights the world has lost. I think of the poetry, never written down. I think of all my female classmates whose potential was measured not by their minds but by their marriage prospects.
And I wonder what Warima itself has lost by allowing only half its children to reach for the stars. How many Warimas are still there in Sierra Leone?
The progress the country has made in empowering girls and women in towns and cities must be made to reach rural communities.
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Oh it’s a Monday tomorrow, prepare well and God be with you.
