Why I am attending a Girls’ School? I am writing this letter after sunset when the moon and the stars are high in the sky, It’s 9.30 p.m. The Ethiopian TV just gave the program called Female Horizon along with the songs of Abeba and Tigist who sing about the condition of females in Ethiopia. Before going to bed I reflected about it and put down on paper some of my thoughts.

These songs express the common feelings of all African women and I, as a part of them, want to add my own feelings. Why, for instance, am I attending a girls’ school? Well, first of all I get an education that has more value than all the money you can get. Secondly I feel more secure. For example. Just a few days ago in our town at a mixed school a girl was shamefully raped in the toilet, the boy was unpunished.

We have a proverb, applied especially in the rural area, that says that women must not be rude to men, they have to show ’sisterly’ feelings by sharing their happiness and sadness.

Let me tell you and Indonesian proverb: if a man lets a woman know what he has in his saving box she will marry him. Which translated into Amharic it says that women will marry for money and it means that women will be dominated by man and live in a backward way.

The disadvantage of attending a Girls’ school is that we have no chance of meeting boys. However we have greater advantages in comparison with the girls that attend the nearby mixed school as I mentioned before. Well, we are patient, after the eighth grade, if we continue schooling, we will go necessarily to a mixed institution.