For this week’s event, I attended my first Rose Cafè with guest speaker, Ruth Magreta.  She spoke about her childhood, her journey to get a doctoral degree and most importantly, her passion for helping the people of Malawi.

Ruth’s childhood was vastly different from mine as she grew up in a poor village.  Although she survived off the bare minimum, she still looked back on her childhood fondly.  She had an admirable mentality that basically could be summed up in three words: “it was okay.”  She was expected to cook for her brothers, walk miles in rough terrain to school and the market and care for the animals on the farm.  These weren’t hardships to her, as they might be viewed in today’s society- they were “just the way things were.”  She wasn’t bitter or playing victim, she was simply telling the story of her life.

Ruth’s dedication to school was her golden ticket to a new life.  She didn’t get pregnant at a young age like the rest of her friends and she took her academics very seriously because she wanted to help her village.  Her hard work paid off, as she went to one of the top universities in Malawi, in the working district.  Her dream to improve agricultural life in her home village and implementing storage for maize (Malawi’s top exported good) has always been her driving force and continues to shape who she is.  Listening to someone talk about their passion and hearing about how hard they worked to get there is always inspirational and I’m very happy I decided to make that Rose Cafè my first one.