The One You Feed - Dr. Tererai Trent on Incredible Perseverance

Episode Date: March 27, 2019

Dr. Tererai Trent is an inspiring and dynamic scholar, educator, humanitarian, motivational speaker, author and the founder of Tererai International. Dr. Trent is one of the most internationally acclaimed voices for women's empowerment and quality education. Named by Oprah Winfrey as her all-time favorite guest, Dr. Trent's latest book is called The Awakened Woman: Remembering and Reigniting Our Sacred Dreams. She tells her incredible story in this episode and you will be so deeply moved, so deeply touched, and so deeply inspired by it. We'ver never heard anything like it and are honored that she would tell us about her astounding life.Need help with completing your goals in 2019? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.But wait - there's more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It's that simple and we'll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Dr. Tererai Trent and I Discuss...Her book, The Awakened Woman: Remembering and Reigniting Our Sacred DreamsThe two hungers in our life - the little hunger and the great hungerThe hunger for a meaningful lifeAsking yourself, "what breaks my heart?"The rural community she grew up inThe wisdom of her grandmotherThat her grandmother was defined by her wisdomHer answer to the question she was asked - what are your dreams?The moment she was told that her dreams were achievableWhen her mother said to write down her dreams and bury (i.e. plant) them in the ground.How she broke the cycle of povertyThe baton of poverty, illiteracy, early marriage, and abuse that she redefinedThe baton of wisdom, that she receivedThe four dreams she wrote downWhen her mother said, "your goals in life will be more achievable when connected to the greater good of your community"The difference between culture and customsThe 8 years it took for her to graduate high schoolGetting into Oklahoma State University but not having enough money to fly to AmericaFeeding the deep hunger that says - you can achieve your dreamsWhen she reconnected with the woman who first believed in herWhen she finally earned her PhDShe worked 3 jobs and took 18 hours of coursework and took care of 5 kids getting her food from trashcansHow she is not a victim, she is part of the solutionWhere her kids are now"It is acheivable"How many girls her work has now impactedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Your dreams will have greater meaning when they are tied to the betterment of your community. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, Thank you. that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, And does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to really know really.com and register to win $500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead.

The really know really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I've got some really exciting news. You can now listen to our entire back catalog completely ad-free exclusively on Stitcher Premium. You can listen to literally every single of the 200 and I don't know how many 50, 60 episodes we've ever done as well as many episodes on Stitcher Premium completely ad-free. You can also listen to every new episode ad-free, as well as tons of other ad-free Wondery shows. Plus, with Stitcher Premium, you'll get access to hundreds of hours of original content, audio documentaries, and exclusive bonus episodes from some of your other favorite podcasts. You can sign up now for a free month

of Stitcher Premium by going to stitcherpremium.com slash Wondery and using the promo code Wondery. Then once you're signed up, just download the Stitcher app for iOS or Android and start listening. That's stitcherpremium.com slash Wondery and use the promo code Wondery. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Dr. Tererai Trent, one of the most internationally acclaimed voices for women's empowerment and quality education. Hailed by Oprah Winfrey as her all-time favorite guest, Dr. Trent is an inspiring and dynamic scholar, educator, humanitarian, motivational speaker, author, and the founder of Tererai International. Her book is The Awakened Woman, Remembering and Reigniting Our Sacred Dreams.

Hi, Tererai. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Eric. Thank you. I'm really excited to talk with you. Your book is called The Awakened Woman, Remembering and Reigniting Our Sacred Dreams. And it's a wonderful book. I've heard you speak so many times. And so this is going to be a great episode. Let's start like we normally do with the parable. There's a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.

And the granddaughter stops, and she thinks about it for a second, and she looks up at her grandmother. She says, well, Grandma, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Though it's a different parable, but it is the same meaning because, you know, when I was growing up, I would find myself sitting with my grandmother, my mother, would find myself sitting with my grandmother, my mother, and the elders of the village around and open fire and listen to these great stories. And there was one story that stuck so deep within

me, the story of the hunger. And my grandmother would always talk about the two hungers in our life. There is the little hunger and there is the great hunger. And she would always say, which hunger are you feeding? The little hunger is all about immediate gratification. The little hungers, they leave us craving for instant gratification, constant praise, material possession, and other things that create that false sense of self and leave us always feeling anxious, competitive, and ungrateful. But then there is the greatest of all hungers, which is hunger for a meaningful life. finding purpose in life, knowing that it's not the little hunger that's going to lead our life, but we find meaning when we tap into that great energy that comes deep within us. That's the

great hunger. So when I listen to your parable, I see the great hunger being the one we need to feed more than the little hunger. Yeah, that's a beautiful interpretation. And I love that story. The thing that I think is so interesting sometimes, at least this is for me, is that sometimes the great hunger and the little hunger are very close together. Listeners of the show have heard me talk about this before. other. Listeners of the show have heard me talk about this before. There are times that I approach what I'm doing here from a deep sense of love and service and all of that. And then there are times that I start worrying about downloads. And so I find that I have to watch because it's like I can look at almost the same thing either from the great hunger or the little hunger point of view. And the little hunger for me, if not manageable, sucks the joy out of the great

hunger stuff. Oh yeah. Because what the little hunger does is it creates that tape recorder in ourselves that says we are not good enough. That says I want that, I want this. But when we dig deep within ourselves and find that great hunger, we begin to ask ourselves, what is it that our soul yearns? What is it that we truly need? our soul yearns? What is it that we truly need? And I always say to the audience and to the women that I coach, ask yourself, what breaks my heart? Because it is in those moments of our brokenness, it is in those moments when we feel overwhelmed. Those are the moments when we listen very carefully. Those are the moments we begin to understand who we are, to understand what is at stake, to understand

what needs to be done. We begin to find solutions within us. Which is equally as prestigious, I think, as Oprah. No, that's very true. Because if I had not gone through the challenges that I had gone through in my life, and if I had not hold on to the belief that my dreams are achievable, I doubt very much I'll be here with you in your platform, in your presence. So I started way back. I was born in Rhodesia. My country is known as Zimbabwe, but I was gone during a colonial regime that never respected the black people and never respected women. never respected the black people and never respected women. So I always say I come from a long line of generations of women who were married when they were very young before they could define their own dreams. My great-grandmother was married off when she was very young. My grandmother would

follow the same pathway as my mother and as myself. And so by the time I was 18, I was already a mother of four children. Unfortunately, one of the babies died as an infant because I failed to produce enough milk to feed the child. I was a child myself, but all I wanted was an education. And when I look at all these generations of women before me, they were smart women, intelligent women, but because of their gender, they were denied the right to education. I always talk about my grandmother. My grandmother was this wise woman, the psychologist of the community. I grew up in a poor rural community with no running water, no electricity, nothing, nothing at all. I lived in these huts that were built out of poles and dagger and the floors were made out of cow dung. That's where I grew up and we were very poor. But my grandmother, what was interesting was every evening they would come,

the community members and people from far would come, knock at her door to ask her to go and deliver babies. And she would end up delivering so many babies in the community and far. And an interesting story that I always share, but I doubt I've shared it on podcast. My grandmother, as she was getting old, she would always shake her hands and she would shake in a way

that she could not control her hands. And she would lose, and her eyes were failing as well. And so my grandmother would always say, baby girl, baby girl, do you know why my hands shake? And I would say, no. She said, look at these hands. Look at these hands. The wisdom these hands bring. These hands, they have delivered so many babies.

And these eyes, they are failing me. But look at these eyes. These eyes, they are failing me. They are getting blind because these eyes, they have seen so many vaginas. No longer. No wonder why I am blind. And I would laugh. And I see in that moment of her vulnerability and trying to tell

her story, she was telling me that she was not defined by her poverty. She was not defined by illiteracy, but she was defined by her wisdom. And she wanted me to have that wisdom. So I never had an opportunity to go to kindergarten. I started my school when I was already late and got married, I guess, when I was about 14 years of age. And as I said, I had four babies when I was 18 and I realized I was following the same pathway that generations of women before me had followed. And then we gained independence. All of a sudden, there were these Americans, Australians coming into the community, and there was this particular woman.

She came and found me sitting in a circle with other women and asked me one fundamental question, what are your dreams? I had never heard anyone ask me that question. And I am looking at this foreign woman and thinking, me, black woman, marginalized, I'm supposed to dream? You must be kidding me. And I'm thinking to myself, and I kept quiet. The other women talked about their dreams of educating their children, of making sure that there was food within their household. I kept quiet.

household, I kept quiet. I knew I had dreams, but somehow I couldn't bring my voice to articulate those dreams. This tape recorder that was saving me from sharing my dreams. So I kept quiet. The woman looked at me and she said, young woman, you've been quiet. Tell me, what are your dreams? quiet. Tell me, what are your dreams? Maybe it was the way she looked at me. Maybe it was the way she kept on nudging at me. When I opened my mouth, I became a chatterbox. And I said, I want to go to America. I want to have an undergraduate, a master's, and a PhD. I want to have an undergraduate, a master's, and a PhD. There was silence. The other women looked at me, and I could feel their eyes on me saying, how dare you say that?

You don't even have a high school education. You even talk of America. What about the abusive husband that you have? How are you going to go to America? What about the abusive husband that you have? How are you going to go to America? How are you going to leave your children behind? And the stranger, I didn't know her name, but she introduced her name. But by then I didn't even record what her name was. But by then, I didn't even record what her name was. But she looked at me and right into my eyes, I remember that moment. And she said, Tererai, if you believe in your dreams and you work hard, they are achievable.

I couldn't believe it. I've never heard anyone, I've never heard anyone say to me, my dreams are achievable. Here I was, an abused woman, marginalized and silenced. How can somebody, a stranger from some other place, say that I can achieve my dreams, can say I can go to America? And she said to me, I think she saw doubt in my eyes. And she began to tell me about her organization and how she has seen women like me achieving their own dreams. I believed it. That's all I wanted as a poor mother, as an African poor mother. I wanted to hear that. wanted to hear that. She used the word tinobona, which means it is achievable. I ran to my mother and I said to my mother, I met someone who really believed that I can achieve my dreams. And my mother said something, Tererai, if you believe in what this stranger is saying to you. And remember, we had just gained our independence

and we had never seen so many white people and especially white women coming into our neighbors because we lived in an apartheid regime where there was a separation between white and black. So I'd never been in contact with white people. And to have this woman sitting right there next to me and touch me and look right into my eyes and say, yes, that's all I needed. So my mother said, if you believe in what this stranger has said,

and you work hard and you achieve your dreams, Not only are you going to define who you are as a woman, but you're also going to define every line that comes out of your womb and generations to come. And I realized in that moment that my mother was handing me an inheritance. My mother was handing me an inheritance. She realized I wanted to break this cycle of poverty, this vicious cycle of poverty that runs so deep in my community. So I told my mother, here are my dreams that I just shared with this stranger. To go to America, undergraduate, master's and PhD.

And my mother said, write down your dreams and bury them. The same way we bury the umbilical cord, the birth cord. In my culture, I come from a place where when a child is born, the elders of the village, the ones that I call the wisdom whisperers, my grandmothers, they would take that infant's umbilical cord, cut it off, and take the mother's dress, a piece of the mother's dress, which they cut and tie the umbilical cord and bury that umbilical cord deep down under the ground

with the belief that when this child grows, wherever they go, whatever happens in their life, the umbilical cord will always remind them of the importance of their birthplace. So my mother said, bury your dreams. Your dreams will always remind you of their importance, that you need to break this cycle of poverty. And my grandmother would always remind me of this rest that I always talk about, the rest of the baton. I would always visualize my great-grandmother because that's the last woman that I know of in my clan. When she was born, I would always think she was born in this race,

the relay race, holding this baton. And she's running so fast with this baton. She runs to hand over this baton to my grandmother. And this baton, I call it the baton of poverty, the baton of illiteracy, the baton of early marriage, the baton of abuse. But also, my grandmother would always tell me that it wasn't only the ugly baton that is being passed as she runs this race. There's also the baton of wisdom. So she runs so fast with this baton of early marriage, illiteracy. She passed it on to my grandmother. My grandmother grabs that baton. She runs so fast. She passed it on to my grandmother. My grandmother grabs that baton. She ran so fast. She passed it on to my mother.

My mother grabs that baton of poverty, the baton of illiteracy. She ran so fast with that baton. She ran so fast, and she hands it over to me. Something happened. I never wanted that baton. I never wanted that rest. It wasn't part of my rest. I wanted to receive only the wisdom that was part of that baton.

And fortunately enough, that's when Jola came in. And so my mother said to me, Tererai, even though you have received and taken on this baton, but you can change this baton, redefine this baton, and never pass it on to your own girls. So when I grabbed that baton, I knew I needed to change that baton. So when my mother said, write down your dreams, I wrote four dreams at first to go to America, undergraduate, master's and PhD.

And when my mother asked me to read back those dreams, she said, I only see you having four dreams, your personal dreams. But let me remind you this. Your goals in life will be more achievable when they are connected to the greater good. I had no idea what my mother was talking about.

And I looked at my mother. My mother saw the confusion in my face because I was an overwhelmed woman. I was poor. I lived in an abusive marriage. I wanted to change my life. And my mother said, your dreams will have greater meaning when they are tied to the betterment of your community. I would end up writing my fifth dream. When I'm done, I want to come back and improve the lives of women and girls so the girls, they don't have to go through what I had gone through. These women that I talk about, my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, and myself, we were all exchanged for a cow as part of marriage. And I didn't want my own girls to be exchanged for a freaking cow.

I know they say it's part of culture, but I am refusing. Culture is beautiful. Culture brings value. Culture builds us. But I think it's just customs. You know, when we build our own homes in America, we do a custom built house. So somehow, someway, men decided we need to pay a cow to get a woman. So it's a custom. It's not culture. I got that very clearly. So I didn't want my girls to go through that. I got that very clearly. So I didn't want my girls to go through that. So it took me eight years after I buried my dreams to get my high school education. Eight years of failing, but eight years of never giving up. Thank you. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you

and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us tonight. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park.

Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, Really. No Really.

Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you say that you buried your dreams, sometimes in America, if we hear that, bury your dreams means like bury them and give up on them. You're talking about burying them like a seed in the soil. In my language, the word bury and plant are the same. And my grandmother, when she says bury, she says you bury from the weather

so the termites won't get to your dreams. You are planting your dreams so you could see them grow and grow. And my mother would always say that. And she would say, go to that place where you buried your dreams so that you can invoke them. You can manifest them so you could see them grow and grow. So I would spend hours and hours sitting in that place where I had buried my dreams and make those mental images what my life would be if I achieved those dreams. And she would further ask me to say, feel as though you are already living in those dreams. So I would visualize myself getting into that aeroplane. And remember, I've never seen an aeroplane in my life. The only aeroplane that I knew were the helicopters, the war helicopters. I was born and bred during the war, the war that liberated my country.

So there would be these helicopters that would come and drop bombs into a classroom. And that helped me because it was fantasy, but it really helped me to believe and to ground myself in these dreams. And so after eight years, I gained my high school diploma. You know, it was a long process because maybe I wasn't smart, but we didn't have enough money to pay for my correspondence because I couldn't go to a classroom. I wasn't an adult and I couldn't fit into a classroom. So I would do correspondence and we were still under the British system of education where I would do my paperwork and send and go to this

rural post office and send these papers to this place somewhere in Britain called Cambridge. And I would wait three, six months for the results to come and they would always come in a brown envelope and I would open that brown envelope I remember the first time I opened that brown envelope and I see I have a U and an F. U ungraded. F failure. And I relied on my mother, who was a subsistence farmer. She would collect every penny. She would sell mangoes and any produce. I needed $20 to about $35 per subject, and I needed five subjects. And I would only take two or three, depending on my mother's income from whatever she sells. And I would go back to my mother.

And I would say, I failed. My mother would say, okay, let me sell these groundnuts. Let me sell the peanuts and the mangoes. And see, she would hand me another $40. I would go in and roll and write and wait another six months. And that paper comes again, that brown envelope comes, and I open it, and there's a U and there's an F, ungraded, failure. And I would go back to my mother.

And I was so emotional about it. Even when I talk about it, I was so emotional about it even when I talk about it I am I I become so emotional because my mother was my mother was very poor but she wanted me to change my life and she would sell the last grain and give me the $40 that I needed and I would would go and write, and after eight years, I would find myself opening that brown envelope and realize after eight years, I have a B and I have an A. And I applied at Oklahoma State University and got accepted. And I remember getting into that airplane.

And, oh, gosh, there was this feeling that I've been there before, just sitting in that aeroplane, that aeroplane taking me to this place called America. I arrived in America, it was wintertime and I began to take my classes and there was this joy in me. Finally, I am here.

Finally, I have achieved the first dream of going to America. It was the hardest of all because I didn't have much money to fund that trip. And I remember I used to do community development work and I was short $640 for my airfare. I didn't have any scholarship, nothing. And I went to my mother and I said, I don't think I can go. I can't pay. I can't pay my airfare. I am short $640. My mother looked at me and I could see tears in her eyes because she knew I had gone through eight years of trying to get my GED and failing.

And then finally I pass and then I can't get $640 to come to America. My mother, without me knowing, she would go to the headman, the village head of the village. And she tells the story that, you know, Tererai buried her dreams and she has worked so hard. I just don't know how to console her. She won't wake up. She won't eat. And the headman said, don't you worry, I'll do something about it. My mother comes back.

She never told me what had happened. And one morning, my mother woke me up. She said, come, come. And I said, no, I'm well. I didn't want to even to go to the kitchen. She said, no, I'm well. I didn't want to even to go to the kitchen. He said, no, no, come. And I went and I saw the headman sitting in my mother's kitchen. And he had pennies and dollars and he's counting.

And my mother is validating every penny and say, yes, yes, yes. And the headman looked at me and he said, the whole village came together and sold everything that they had. Some they sold their goats, some sold mangoes, and he has $640 for you. You can go to America. And that's how he came to America. Wow. That is so amazing. What is so staggering to me is that, you know, we talk about achieving

our dreams and it's so easy to get frustrated so quickly. And it took you eight years for the first one. I think because my grandmother would always ask, which hunger are you feeding right now? Is it that voice that says you're worthless? That voice that says you can't go? That voice that says you live in an abusive relationship you can't do? Or are you listening and feed that voice that is deep within you?

The great hunger that is within you that is saying I am seeking the great hunger that is within you, that is saying, I am seeking for meaning in my life. That's the voice that you feed. That's the hunger that you feed. And so I kept on feeding on that hunger. And I truly believe that when we feed that hunger, that great hunger, we tap deep into it. The universe is a way to honor us because we have remained loyal to our dreams. And I guess that's what happened in my life. Because when I came to the U.S., I came with my children. It was a tough time. It was a tough time, but despite the toughness, the challenges, I managed to go through all my classes and graduated my undergraduate in agriculture and my master's in plant pathology. And I went on to work and I worked for Heifer International.

And I remember applying for this job and I had no idea what I was going for. And when I got that job, one day I am walking and this woman, this white woman looked at me and she says, I know you. I think I know you. And I am thinking to myself, no, I don't. I've met so many American women. I don't. And she said, seriously, I think I know. I think you're from Zimbabwe. And then I looked at you and I realized, oh my gosh, that was the very same woman, the woman that I had met some 14 years in my village, the woman who had inspired me to believe in my dreams, the woman who never saw the marginalized woman in me, maybe she saw a champion. Maybe she saw something that I president of Heifer International.

And they just employed me as deputy director for monitoring and evaluation. And sure enough, my first trip back home with my job, I went back to the place where I had buried my dreams, the place where I had spent hours and hours meditating and visualizing the life I wanted. And now I am living that life. And I dug my dreams and check going to America, check undergraduate, check my master's and reburied those dreams. And I came back and I enrolled myself at Western Michigan University, where I achieved my PhD in monitoring and evaluation, which is a lot of statistics and measurement. For an old woman like me, I have always been the oldest student in every class that I took, and sometimes older than the professor himself and the professor himself.

But I didn't care because I had hunger, great hunger that I needed to feed, that I knew was going to be my passport to achieving my dreams. So I remember the day that I walked that podium where they were now giving me that paper that now says I'm a PhD holder. I truly felt like a lawyer who addressed a case a curse to himself as well as to the world to say that if we give opportunities to women and girls, and especially to those who are torn down and marginalized by the social ills of our times, they can also achieve their dreams.

And I also realized in that moment when I was walking that podium that to be where I am today, to be able to say now I am a PhD holder, it is because I stand or I stood on the shoulders of others, of many who gave me that opportunity, of many who in their own lives decided to feed on their great hunger and to be able to see the great hunger in others and inspire that great hunger. I've been inspired by many in my life. Thank you. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth.

Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir.

Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, Really. No Really.

Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Before you got your PhD, though, you almost gave up. Tell us about that.

Many times I wanted to give up. gave up. Tell us about that. Many times I wanted to give up. You know, when people see successful people, they always think that, oh my gosh, they never gave up. It was all easy for them, or they're so determined. But let me say that, oh gosh, there were so many moments that I gave up. there were so many moments that I gave up I remember when my children came to the US three months down the road they were brushing their teeth and I could see the gums were bleeding as they were brushing their teeth and they would call me mama we're bleeding and at first I thought well maybe because you know we never brushed our teeth we didn't we grew up in the village we never had toothbrush and toothpaste maybe that would be it but then I realized oh no when I came to

America before coming to America in fact my kids used to eat fruits, vegetables, and cornmeal. It's all food that we grew in the village. And all of a sudden, I'm in America. You can't afford fruits and vegetables. They're very expensive. So what do I resort to? French fries and burgers. Because I used to work at these places called McDonald's

and what have you on campus and I would bring leftovers, French fries and whatever and feed the kids because many nights we slept hungry and that was the source of food. And if there were pizzas or whatever, I would just gather everything. Even when people leave their pizzas, I would say, put them in a bag. I would take them home and feed my children because I didn't want my kids to go hungry. And I guess in many ways, it was new food to my kids

and it was affecting them. And I ended up going to the university and there was this guy, Dr. Ron Beer, who was the vice president of student affairs. And I said, you know, it's one thing to have a dream. I have a dream and I've worked so hard. You know, it's one thing to have a dream. I have a dream and I've worked so hard.

But it's another to see my own children going hungry. And he said, well, don't worry about that. As long as you don't mind if we go to the local stores, because there are some stores that can give you leftover fruits and vegetables that they would normally throw away because they are getting bad. And I said, no, I don't mind. I'll eat them. So we went to the store and this guy, he says, no, we can't do that in case you eat these fruits. And if anything happens to your kids, you might end up suing us. And I'm so emotional and I say, no, I won't sue you. Please just give me the fruits and vegetables so I can feed my kids. And he said, yes, what we are going to do instead of me,

rather than me handing you these fruits and vegetables, why don't I put them in a cardboard box and make sure that 4 o'clock you come here and we'll make sure the cardboard box is placed outside near the trash can. And you can pick your cardboard box and go home and feed the kids. So because I used to work three jobs because I didn't have any scholarship. And I used to take 16 to 18 hours of coursework because in my mind, I thought if I take more coursework, I'll be able to get out of the university system and find some work. But that proved to be very difficult. Three jobs, 18 hours of coursework and taking care of five

kids. That was tough. And I think the toughest time in my life. And I would always be at that trash can late. 99% I was late. And I would find the cardboard books is already thrown into the trash can. Some of the fruits and vegetables have already spilled into the trash can and I would collect everything, wash and feed my children and ask myself who am I to even complain that my own children are eating from trash can or from fruits and vegetables that are collected from trash can when I know there are millions of homeless children in sub-Saharan Africa who are eating from trash cans that are never washed. At least the American trash can, someone is washing it. And who am I even to complain that I live in a trailer house in Oklahoma with no air condition, with nothing. It's dilapidated when it rains. I find

myself in a corner with my children and praying that, oh gosh, I woke, the tornado is not going to come through. Who am I to complain when I know in America and in many Western countries, women and men, they are homeless. They live on the streets where they have no shelter. You know, when I began to think of that, I knew I had an advantage. advantage I was privileged to be in this beautiful country even to attend classes even to have food to feed my children because I could see homeless people people who had fought in the war displaying this placards that they were homeless they have no shelter people we have done great things for America. And who am I to complain? And those thoughts grounded me.

And even though I wanted to give up, but I always think, gee, if I give up now, am I saying my little girl who was now 10 years old, am I saying she was going to get married as I had been? The other three little girls, though they were younger, if I go and give up, am I saying they are going to follow the same pathway that my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my grandmother, and my mother had followed. No. No.

There's something beautiful about adversity. And I tell these stories not to say because, you know, I was a victim, because many of your listeners may probably think, oh, poor Tererai, she must have been a victim to be married young, to have gone through all that. But let me just say, no, I am not a victim. I am part of the solution. This great hunger within me gives me the solution. As long as I can tap into it, I am the mistress and master of my own destiny. That's beautiful. And tell listeners about your kids now. You know, I talk about this baton that had been passed on from my great-grandmother to my grandmother to my mother. I wanted to redefine that baton.

I have a girl that came here when she was hardly nine years old. She graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from Oklahoma State University. She's now in Oklahoma. And I have another little girl. She came when she was hardly four years old. She's now graduating this summer with a biomedical degree from Western Michigan University. And I have another little girl, my last born. She's at a college in Sacramento, and she has been accepted at one of the universities in San Francisco. And I can tell you this,

my grandkids, even my great-grandkids are now going to receive this redefined baton. I can visualize my girls running with a different baton, running in this race, and I call that the race of engineers, the race of artists, musicians, the race of whatever goodness you can think of. They are passing it on to my grandkids, and my grandkids are going to hold that baton, this baton that had been redefined, and passing it on to their own kids.

That's what opportunities does. When we are given that opportunity, we can redefine our lives. And that's the reason why I am doing the work that I am doing, because others have given me that opportunity. Opportunities others have allowed me that opportunity. Opportunities. Others have allowed me to stand on their shoulders. And I want the girls in my community in every way to redefine and run with a different baton. So when I finished my PhD and I am thinking, dear mother, why did you make me write down that

50 dream to give back? I have no money. How am I going to accomplish that dream? And that's when I decided to come up with my own t-shirts because that stranger, that woman, Jolak, it said, Tinogona, it is achievable. So I said, I'm going to redesign my t-shirts, have Tinogona on my t-shirts, it is achievable. And I'm going to sell my t-shirts, go back home like a champion, build schools.

My goodness, I only sold 20 t-shirts. And mainly to my American friends. And I realized I didn't have a marketing degree. And I was devastated, overwhelmed. And I kept on thinking, how on earth was I going to fulfill that 50 dream? I've done everything that I know of. I've designed t-shirts. I've tried to sell them.

And then I got a phone call from Oprah Winfrey and she donated $1.5 million, U.S. dollars, towards that fifth dream. And today we have built 11 schools and I just got new numbers from our schools. And I just got new numbers from our schools. We have impacted 38,000 kids that have gone through our schools. 19,000 are girls, which was unheard of to see a large number of girls sitting in classrooms with boys and competing and doing very well and i just came back from zimbabwe and walked seven girls into universities and colleges unheard of this school that i'm talking about

all these schools that we have rebuilt one of the schools is 60 years old because it was built during the colonial system, colonial era. And that school never had a child going to university, never. And now we have a child, we have a kid who is doing medical medicine at University of Algeria. Another child graduated from University of Zimbabwe. And now we have seven girls. It was never heard of. Seven girls into colleges enrolled. That's amazing.

It is truly wonderful. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on. We're at the end of our time here, although I could listen to you talk about this for hours and hours, I know that you are offering listeners some free lessons. And so I thought I'd give you a chance to talk about that. Yeah. So, you know, I wrote this book, The Awakened Woman. It helps women really to understand what silences them. It also helps them to gain the tools to their own awakening.

And it is exercises and tools. So what I decided to do was to come up with an online, offer online classes where individuals who are interested to learn more about how they can also achieve their dreams. The rituals that I also used, the science that I also used in achieving my dreams, it's all packaged in these lessons. So if you are interested to get a free meditational or audio or one of my lessons, meditational or audio or one of my lessons you can go to you can text on your phone four four four nine nine nine so three fours and three nines and then you wait and then you input feed f e e d and then you get access to the lesson. That's our own special code there, feed.

Yeah, it is. It is a special code because I believe some of your listeners, if they are interested, they can get some of my lessons. I teach about finding your great hunger by asking yourself, what breaks my heart? And I think in those moments of our brokenness, that's when we really find a yearning to heal ourselves and also to find solutions to our own problems. I also talk about healing from our soul wounds. When I talk about the baton, we all are coming from a place where we have been handed some kind of baton. It could be a baton of privilege. It could be a baton of

poverty. It could be whatever baton, but that lesson would really help you to dig deep and find ways to get out of that baton and pass on a different baton. And I will make sure we link to that in the show notes. I will also make sure there's a link to your foundation also in our show notes. Oh, that would be great. That would be great. Thank you. Thank you so much.

This has been a wonderful conversation. And I really appreciate you sticking around an extra day in the US to talk to me. That was very kind. Thank you. Thank you. Now I can start packing my stuff. Time to go home. Yeah. Thank you very much, Eric. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast.

Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast,

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