Ghaya is able to fluently speak English, Hindi, and Swahili, and, at the time she was selected as an S4Si scholar, was working towards a reading proficiency in Arabic. Ghaya (pronounced Rye-ah) credits her ability to speak so many languages so well to a steady work ethic and a complete lack of bashfulness. She never misses an opportunity to practice her languages with teachers and visiting tourists. The eldest of three children, Ghaya attends the Sunni Madrasa School where her instructors marvel at her natural gifts and performance in the humanities. She is actually rather famous among Peace Corps volunteers and study abroad students as “the fifteen year old who can argue with us in English” and who “can translate Hindi television shows for us and her family.” Ghaya is invariably dressed in colorful clothing and lives with relatives in the old Stone Town district of Zanzibar Town, where minarets and coral-rock facades can be seen from every street.
When a girl in the developing world has received seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.