Changemakers Module Four: A Tale of Two Failures

A Tale of Two Failures

By Amanda Furness

There are two failures in my life that have dictated my present to me and which I am still working to overcome. I share them with you because I want people to see how much gender-based violence can create the conditions in life for women to fail.

As a child, one of the ways that my step-father punished me was to beat my legs, butt and back with his thick leather belt and then to sit me down on a burning butt to write and re-write my times tables. It created a connection between my abuse and math and numbers that I still sometimes struggle with to date. In high school, I graduated with only ninth grade remedial math skills. On my ACT, I scored a 34 verbal and 14 on the Math component.  On the day before graduation in 2009, I was told that I received a 40% on my Algebra final and would not graduate with my class. Instead of going to Haiti on Spring Break, my professor told me, I should have been at home studying. “I know you were praying for a miracle,” my Afrikaner professor told me. “It just didn’t happen.” I listened to graduation from my house across the street from campus and cried for days after.

It took me two tries at College Algebra and two tries at College Logic to pass my math requirement. The second try at algebra left me attempting suicide and landing in the hospital. All I could think of was how unfair life had been to me, and that my math trauma was so unjust. Still, I continued to try until I passed that requirement and in May of 2016 I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in Africana Studies. Persistence, I have learned, is the key to achieving much of what you want in life.

The second failure story I would like to share addresses GBV and also sexual assault. In 2007, I began visiting Haiti in an attempt to see if I might be able to be of humanitarian assistance to the people there. Since age 14, I had been dreaming of going to Haiti, so this was the fruition of a life’s dream to me. I went twice with no problems, but the last time I went after the 2010 earthquake here, I was raped and forced home by Americans. I learned many lessons from this experience. One, that humanitarian workers should never go it alone, but they should be backed by a group and equipped with their own security forces. Two, that my pale skin will always mark me as a supposed enemy, no matter where I go in the formerly colonized world. Lastly, that I needed training and skill sets to bring to Haiti, not just my love for the people and the country. As with other things in my life, I will persist until I am able to return to Haiti and to help facilitate a good thing there. Persistence, again, is always the way through those things that we think might kill us. We have got to have the will to persist, so that we may be a bit of good in a world that can often be terrifying. One day, I know, I will see Haiti again, and that I’ll be able to fight for the fruition of my other dreams, too!