CBT (2nd of
May)
I have moments when I feel as if the potential of young
people in Senegal is being completely and utterly wasted.
During my counter-part workshop, I had an extensive
conversation with a French elementary school principle posted in a Serere
village near M’bour. During my Volunteer Visit to Dassalami Soce, Venchele and
I had many a conversation about the French and Arabic schools in my village.
During CBT, I’ve been able to make careful note of my host brothers and
sisters’ activities. Together, these observations and conversations have
started to give me a idea of the challenges facing the Senegalese educational
system.
Parents in Senegal overwhelmingly choose to send their
children to Arabic school over French schools. While attending Arabic schools
may help shape children into virtuous human beings according to the Quran, they
are inevitable dead-ends in terms of furthering children’s educations and
bettering their career prospects. Sadly, even children who do initially attend
a French school do not finish. Most drop out long before taking the BAC,
especially girls. They are expected to help their mothers around the house, and
those not married off by age 20 are few and far between.
There are moments when ever the best and brightest, those
most likely to succeed, must set aside their dreams in order to meet their
families’ more immediate needs. For instance, my language instructor says that
he would love to go back to school; he’d want to be a doctor or an interpreter.
But he can’t afford to be out of work, or to give up a secure job. Now, he has
to take care of his entire extended family, and he’s pretty much alone in doing
so.
He says that he is unflaggingly generous towards friends and
family members, in both time and money. Even ex-girl friends, including those
who have betrayed his trust, still call him for advice. And because he works
for Peace Corps, people think he is a wealthy man. Few, however, are ever generous in return. He says that he
has only one friend in Gambia who has always come through for him.
Today found him critical of and disappointed by the people
in his life. Like most Senegalese people, he deals with life’s downs through
humor and immoderate amounts of teasing. Any signs of obvious frustration,
particularly towards family members and close friends, is pretty rare in my
experience.
I listen to him quietly, while my thoughts go haywire. They
settle first on money matters. How could I help him? I can already imagine
myself setting aside a monthly sum to send to him, or drawing funds out of my
American bank, or even sending him money from the states 20 years down the
line. Then, I wonder how someone so generous can be shown so little generosity
in return. I see a tendency to accept kindness without reciprocating it in some
of the new volunteers in my stage. It is definitely the source of many
frustrations for me. In the end, however, I have to remind myself that there
are many ways to be generous, and that I can’t possibly spend the next two
years giving away my meager volunteer’s pay. So for now, I’ll listen; later, I’ll go buy him a few of his
favorite green apples.
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