Ntaiya: "Well, my dream of becoming a teacher will not come to pass. So I talked -- I had to come up with a plan to figure these things out. I talked to my father. I did something that most girls have never done. I told my father, "I will only go through this ceremony if you let me go back to school." The reason why, if I ran away, my father will have a stigma, people will be calling him the father of that girl who didn't go through the ceremony. It was a shameful thing for him to carry the rest of his life..."
This part of Ntaiya's decision-making stood out to me since a situation where the child is the one making the comprimise for their parent's standing just seems unimaginable in America today. Living in Ntaiya's setting, I would have probably done the same, however in other common settings, its always the parents making the sacrifces for the sake of their children. Both my mother and father, take away so much from their life just to make me feel rich in the inside. But for one to sacrfice a part of themselves for the happiness of their parents, to me is very empowering. My father asked me the long ago that when I get a job and I'm stable, that we should all move out and live in a huge house together. The idea of buying my own house for the sake of my father still conflicts me today. It might seem like a very selfish thing to not do so, but it does pain me to have the oppertunity of living by myself thrown away. I don't know if I could make a decision like Ntaiya's, but when time does come, I hope to overcome self-conflict like Ntaiya did.
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