CHAPTER 1
On Staying Committed and Being Empowered
©️2022 by Solution Tree Press
If you educate a woman, you educate a family; if you educate a girl, you educate the future. —Q u e e n R a n i a
of
Jordan
E l s a ’ s S t o ry Elsa Donohue I was the eighth of nine children in a large, traditional Venezuelan family guided by strong Catholic values and directed by a father who ran the family as if we were in the military. Add to a strict and regimented upbringing the fact that I was a year younger than my peer group, the result of having skipped grade 2. So, in high school, my friends were driving, going out, and dating—activities that were out of the question for me because I was too young. In this context, there was little room for a young girl like me to have my own voice or my own ideas. Little Elsa, though, was spunky, zesty, and full of life. Through my actions, I let those around me know that I did have a mind of my own. I was a decent student who loved physics, a love that was inspired by my major cognitive crush on our teacher, Profesor Frontado, a heavy-set man in his sixties who was intelligent and highly regarded and had once been honored as a National Science Teacher of the Year. I did well in school, particularly in science. I was also, however, the giggly student who chatted when lessons were going on, who had to stand at the front of the row balancing everyone’s books on my head, and who got suspended in grade 10 for smoking a cigarette in the back of the school, two floors directly below the Mother Superior’s window. If only we had chosen a better spot!
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