Stand Together

Come closer, children. Come closer still. Sit where the fire warms your faces and the night wind cools your backs. Feel the earth beneath you; steady, listening; for she too remembers what I will tell you. Lift your eyes to the heavens. Do you see her? Yes, the Moon. She is watching, as she has watched since the first dawn. She has watched your mothers, and your mothers’ mothers, and all the women who came before. She will watch you, and the daughters who come after you, and the daughters of their daughters, unbroken until the end of time. Tonight, I will tell you the story of her covenant - the covenant between the Moon and her daughters. In the first days, when the world was still raw and trembling, the Moon wandered alone. She rose and fell through endless nights, waxed and waned without witness. Sometimes she blazed so bright that she turned the oceans into mirrors. Sometimes she hid her face, veiled in shadow, unseen even by the stars. But no one shared her rhythm. The Sun was too...

Most nights I lie awake thinking of all the stories I read in the day, of women and children being prosecuted and abused, and how I could do nothing to help them. Last night I lay awake thinking about the days when I didn’t have to struggle with such thoughts. The only time I didn’t have such thoughts is when I was in primary school. As always, one thought lead to another and I began to marvel at the fact that my school was run only by women – a diverse group of catholic nuns and women teachers. I spent 12 years at St. Ann’s High School Tarnaka, from the age of 3 to 14 – the foundation years of my life, and I spent them in the company of girls from different backgrounds, all of us being educated by the same set of empowered nuns and teachers. I had taken for granted their ability to run a school of about 3000 girls, because they always made it look so effortless. Today, as a working professional, I realise, what a mammoth undertaking it is to successfully run a large school and ensur...