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Writer's picturepaskaline maiyo

As A GRADE 8 African Girl

Updated: Oct 20

In any African household, after finishing Grade 8 or rather as a Grade 8 student, you are expected to be herding cows and helping either in the farm activities, house chores or anything around the house: contrary to that i was the one doing all that. I grew up with three brothers and being the only girl i am supposed to be pampered, no chores and no bullying from anyone.

I woke up one morning and decided to be different, 6am in the morning and off i left, to 1 and half acres of land, i started harvesting the maize in the farm. All through the week and the following week, ventured into my daily norm of herding the cows. My best companions being the radio, my crafts and sometimes a novel.

The cows would get to the herding field, eat as much as they liked and after a while they would walk down to the river to have some water. The most peaceful flow, calming sounds and appeasing green vegetation. I could get lost just sitting by the side as i wait for them to finish up. Stroding back to the field one step at a time back to my home for milking time.

They knew what happens at each time and they were as calm as a baby in her mothers breast.

Some days in the course of they week, one would kick off and just roam around, cross over to a maize farm or just run aimlessly. I didnt understand this till later on on my journey as an artist.

The freedom to just be who you are is very essential. Some days we want to be quite, relaxed and just enjoy the day. Some days we want to be silly, wild and explore. And some days we just want to sit by ourselves.

Its in all those patterns that we get to understand that, each day is different and in every flip of a coin, it sometimes gives you the same side of the coin but not always.

The image is therefore a representation of my experience as a grade 8 african girl, yellow is a representation of happiness i felt in the field, black dots represents the cows roaming freely and being themselves with no limitation, the green is the beautiful vegetation and the blue represents the water flowing through and the orange is a representation of the soil i could collect on my legs and shoes at the end of the day.

That moment was the most beautiful stage of my life and wouldnt have wanted my time any other way, hence the stance of the picture.

Go on explore and adventure into what you can be each day. As Kipchoge said, # NoHumanIsLimited.



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