Leymah Gbowee(Change in Her Life)

A-Change in life

Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian Peace Activist, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. She went through a remarkable change from Part One to Part Two of her memoir, Mighty Be our Powers. In part one, Leymahwas a young lady who was not going to school, had three children. She lacked money, self-confidenceand was not able to take care of her children. However, in Part Two, Leymah’s life changed significantly, and shewere able to live a reasonable life. Several people such as: Tunde and Geneva enabled Leymah to transform her life and her difficult situation.
The first person who helped Leymah to reverse the train of her life was Tunde, whom she met years before. First, Tunde reassured Leymah. In fact, when Leymah lose self-confidence, Tunde helped her with advice and encouragements. To illustrate, when Leymah met Tunde the second time, she said “she need some man who will pay her to have sex and then just be on his way” (78); However, Tunde stood against this thinking coming from Leymah by showing her how smart she was to lead that kind of a life. Tunde even said “I know you’re discouraged, but trust me, this time will pass” (78). “And he offered her the kind of encouragement that chipped away her feelings of being stupid and useless” (79). Second, Tunde asked Leymah to go back to school. Since Leymah was looking for a job, Tunde said that “Finding a job wasn’t what she needed to do right now, he said she would find nothing with a future unless she got more education; The most important thing for her was go back to school” (80). Therefore, Leymah took these advices in consideration and her life started to make sense. Also, Tunde said “Yes, you can” (80), whenever Leymah offered a reason why it was impossible to bring her life back. Third, Tunde gave Leymah some money. Since Leymah was broke, he had drawn some money out of his wallet for her. To illustrate, when he first started to go see Leymah, he gave her two thousand Liberian dollars and said “Get something for the kids. As a result, “Leymah was able to buy soap powder or diapers for her kids without having to ask to her mother” (80).
The second person who enabled Leymah to transform her life and her situation was Geneva, her sister. First, Leymah and Geneva made an arrangement. Since Leymah had to have her own space, she needed someone to watch after her kids. Therefore, these two single mothers, Leymah and Geneva, made an arrangement of forming a family unit and a relationship that in some way was like a marriage. To illustrate, Leymah would work and support them; Geneva would take care of most work in the house. Second, Geneva loved Leymah’s children as her own. On part of their commitment was love that was to give to Leymah’s children by Geneva. Therefore, Geneva took care of Leymah’ children as her own, and gave them all the boundless maternal love they needed. For example, Leymah said “she could see in Geneva’s eyes as she cuddled and talked to them” (96). Third, Geneva presence in the house helped Leymah with her work and school. Leymah had to work and go to school at the same time but needed someone to look after the kids. So, Geneva was there every time. When Leymah was at work or in school, Geneva was home with her children. She cooking for them, giving them love, and playing with them as their real mother. To illustrate, sometimes Geneva ran “intellectual night, which was a game with the purpose of checking the children’s spelling ability” (96).
To conclude, Tunde and Geneva was the people that enabled Leymah to transform her life and her situation. Sometime in our lives, we can face difficulties; however, there are always some people out there to help us. The message that we can take from this paragraph is that we should never give up when our life is falling apart.