Born a refugee in Tanzania to a family that fled Tutsi persecution in 1959, Emma Furaha Rubagumya remembers her grandfather scolding her father for allowing her to start high school instead of getting married. Her grandfather, she says, feared that "she (was) not going to be a good woman" if she continued her studies instead of marrying and having children. The "big fight" between the two men before she entered college was another episode "that I cannot forget in my life."
艾瑪·弗熱哈·盧巴高米亞出生于坦桑尼亞一個(gè)難民家庭,她的家人逃過了1959年的圖西族大屠殺,她還記得爺爺因?yàn)楦赣H允許她去上高中,而不是逼她結(jié)婚而斥責(zé)了她的父親。她說她的爺爺擔(dān)心如果她繼續(xù)學(xué)習(xí)而不是嫁人生子的話,她會變成一個(gè)壞女人。兩個(gè)男人在她進(jìn)入大學(xué)前的這場爭論,成為她生命中又一件不能遺忘的事情。
Today, Rubagumya, 52, is a first-term parliamentarian. Elected in 2018, she leads parliament's Committee on Political Affairs and Gender. Her grandfather, who died in 1997, did not live to see her elected to parliament, but he did meet her husband and three daughters.
現(xiàn)在盧巴高米亞已經(jīng)52歲了,正在國會擔(dān)任第一任期的議員。她2018年當(dāng)選,現(xiàn)在領(lǐng)導(dǎo)著政治和性別事務(wù)委員會。她的爺爺死于1997年,沒能看到她當(dāng)選國會議員的那一天,但是他見到了她的丈夫和三個(gè)女兒。
She remembers that during the battles over her education, her mother did not intercede on her behalf because "the way society was set then, she wouldn't go in front of her father-in-law to argue for me." Her mother and grandmothers were "just women in villages, cultivating lands, taking care of their children. They never went to school." But today, she says, "do you think I would not argue for my children to be educated? Do you think that my children would not argue for themselves to be educated? Even many women villagers would tell you that... they see educating their children as their first priority."
回憶起關(guān)于教育問題的那場爭論,她說她的媽媽并沒有為她說話,因?yàn)楫?dāng)時(shí)的社會背景下,她不可能為了我違背她的公公。她的母親和祖母都是村里很善良的女性,她們種地,照顧孩子,從來沒有去過學(xué)校。但是今天她說:“你覺得我不會為了讓我的孩子接受教育而去爭論嗎?你覺得我的孩子她們自己不會為了接受教育而反抗嗎?甚至很多女性村民都會告訴你,她們把讓孩子接受教育當(dāng)作第一要?jiǎng)?wù)?!?/p>