“…Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

“But how?” was the most common response I received at the first meeting of my Girls Club today.

After 10 minutes of telling the boys at the middle school they were not allowed to stay (Beninese boys are not used to being told no), I told the group of 13 girls assembled to complete the phrase ‘Because I am a girl…”

Most filled in the sentence with things they wanted to do at the club: play soccer with me, make dinner with me, hang out with me in general.

I filled mine in with “Because I am a girl, I can change the world.”

This threw them for a complete loop.

“How can I change the world?

“I can’t do that.”

“It’s God who changes the world.”

One just laughed.

I’ve written before about the differences in the Beninese and American mindset. I think very differently than my colleagues, but I usually chalked that up to them being mostly male and mostly 10 years older than me. I never thought that with a group of females with some of whom there is a less than five-year difference in our ages that we would think so differently.

I grew up in a family who told me I could do anything. I grew up thinking that I could change the world. But I saw the world, I learned about the world and I had the support system that could allow me to reach the world.

My girls have not and do not.

No on has told them they can do anything they want. No one has told them they can leave their village. No one has told them there is so much more they can want from life.

I guess an American telling them this now is better than no one ever saying anything.