Actions Speak Louder Than Words

In the first story of Vera’s text, “The Girl Who Can” by Aidoo, Adjoa is a young girl who is frustrated with her communication with adults. She gives an example of how when she says something to a grown-up that she’s thought hard about, it backfires and ends up making the grown-up laugh hysterically or forces the adult to admonish Adjoa for what she said. She realizes that it’s useless to do such things, since “neither way of hearing [her] out can encourage [her] to express [her] thoughts too often” (p. 8).

Adjoa seems to be “afflicted” with thin legs. To most people, this doesn’t seem to be a problem, but it always seems to bother her grandmother. To her, thin legs signify infertility and weakness until she realizes that Adjoa is an excellent and fast runner. Adjoa’s grandmother finally realizes that thin legs do have a use and can be seen as a symbol of strength. Further, Adjoa realizes that people “should be able to do other things with legs as well as have them because they can support hips that make babies” (p. 13). She wants to express this to her grandmother, but is “afraid of saying that sort of thing aloud” (p. 13). She finally appreciates the fact that it is better to have acted it out to show them than to have said it aloud.

This sort of story reminds me of the saying “actions speak louder than words” and is something that I’m sure many people try to live by. I’ve run into many situations where acting would have been so much more useful than saying something. I can remember playing little league as a kid and always hearing my friends say how much they were going to beat my team by, not believing that my team was just as good. Instead of returning the trash talk, I simply went out on the field with my teammates and showed my opponents how good we were - good enough to win the city championship that year. This instance and many others have taught me that action in life is much more prosperous than words, and I’m sure Kaya learned something similar in her situation.