Complejo de especies C. gloeosporioides

Fantu’s figured world as a schoolgirl is a temporary space between being a small girl in the village and the unknown future. Ybema, Beech, and & Ellis (2011) define this temporal space in this way: “Liminality …[pertains] to a relatively time- constrained phase in-between two identity positions” (p. 21). For Fantu, this temporal figured world of being a schoolgirl is a liminal one in which her identity is solid but fleeting.

This liminality of being a schoolgirl in areas where schooling is not nor has been the norm is not unique to Fantu or to Sierra Leone. In a Kenyan study, Switzer

(2010) interviewed ninety-eight Maasai schoolgirls. She interviewed each Maasai girl once, providing a snapshot of what each girl considered her identity at that moment.

Switzer’s snapshots reveal the schoolgirl identity as an “emergent social category” that is “contradictory resistance to traditional gender norms and social forms” (2010, p. 137). Switzer sees the international development discourse

promoting “Education for All” (UNICEF, 2013) as pushing all girls into school, thus creating new gendered categories for the Maasai.

The social categories—- girl, initiate, woman, wife, and mother—- are all gendered. The schooling imperative thus alters the conventional Maasai progression across the life course and the meanings ascribed to various stages of this progression (p. 143).

Switzer’s research shows that the Maasai schoolgirls describe themselves in much the same way that Fantu and her cohort do.

However, Switzer finds that the Maasai girls describe themselves as

schoolgirls using a specific word appropriated from other circumstances. This allows her to illustrate positively the ways in which the schoolgirls themselves are

distinguishing this period of their lives from other stages. Fantu, her school-going cohort, and the community in general do not use a particular term to describe their school-going status as the Maasai girls do, however they clearly see this time in school as a limited period that differs from other girls’ time periods and other periods in their own lives.

Fantu asserts that her time as a schoolgirl is a limited period that will end when someone else decides it should end. Her father will end it if the money is not there to pay for her or by giving her in marriage. Other girls, like Isatou, have also expressed schooling as a liminal period that may be terminated by someone else. In sixth grade, Isatou acknowledged that being in school was not in her control or even

totally under her parent’s control. Instead, if she matured sexually faster than her classmates did, she would be asked to leave school by the headmistress. In the

following data sample, Isatou says that her headmistress will not allow girls who have gone through puberty to be enrolled in primary school.

168. Isatou: But Auntie Katie, I love this teacher, this head teacher. If she said, no, if that is why she won’t allow any girl that have, that have breasts very big to attend our school.

169. Goldy: ahh Wetin du?

170. Isatou: Because if . . . if we attending school. If she because of na

morni, na morni, if’n yu na say na morni na morni want. e no go get better school pikin, they will go learn, super na behleh xxxx can say, no want person whose booby done big, e de mature enough. E na say no want that.

(Translation: If she (headmistress, Auntie Katie) says she will

allow girls with big breasts in the school because of the fees, she will end up having so many girls that are pregnant.)

In this exchange, Isatou is accepting the idea that primary school girls should not be sexually matured because their sexual maturity will lead to pregnancy. In other words, the girls’ biology in some way determines her ability to study in primary school. Taking the time of being a schoolgirl as a temporal state which that will end when the girl is married or becomes pregnant, further refines the parameters of a primary schoolgirl as a girl who is not married and not pregnant and who has not sexually matured. Isatou’s headmistress confirmed that she does not allow physically mature girls to enroll in sixth grade; however if a girl matures during sixth grade, she allows her to stay in that school (Katie, 2010). Members of ISIS, a local education focused non-governmental organization, confirm that sexually mature girls are seen as risky as they may become sexually active and thus will not remain in primary school.

Therefore, this liminal period of being a schoolgirl is a nebulous time to be that may be ended by others in spite of the girls’ desires.

These findings concur with Switzer (2010) in her work with the Maasai in Kenya. In many ways, the category of schoolgirls in Kono echos Switzer’s findings. In other ways, Sierra Leone schoolgirls present a somewhat different perspective. For Switzer the Maasai schoolgirls must leave one path and walk onto another. Switzer writes, “For some Maasai girls, becoming a student means becoming a different person, one who will walk away from her current life in an effort to create a new one” (p. 146). In the interviews with Fantu, she does not indicate that her identity as a schoolgirl creates a fissure with her overall self- image. Perhaps the different cultural patterns of the two cultures may explain the difference in findings. As presented by Switzer, the Maasai girls have a more defined path from girlhood to womanhood, with precise time markers and transitional events. In contrast, much of Sierra Leone’s post-war culture post-war allows for a variety of paths toward womanhood and has less well- defined liminal markers.