Days 6-10

Day 6
Baaba Maal stadium show
Visit to Baaba Maal’s home

Day 7
Visit from director
Internet Café
Tama Drum lesson Massamba
Journaling


Tuesday, January 03, 2006

It felt like a regular school day today. Waking up to the alarm, and pressing snooze at least four times is pretty much how every school morning begins for me. Except today would not be quite the same.
Noussa and Echadji told us they would be here around 10 AM to bring us to the school in Yenne Kelle. We woke up around 8:30 to wash up and have breakfast. An omelette avec fromage, or omellette with cheese has been my breakfast of choice the last few days. Don’t forget the bread, coffee, sugar cubes, and occassionaly milk. They don’t always bring milk (or lait) because most people don’t put that in their coffee.
Noussa was here early, and Echadji showed promptly at 10AM. Many of the other group members asked to join us. We had a group of about 10 , including Robbie the filmmaker who wanted to do a piece on our visit for the film.
We walked through the village for about ten minutes an arrived at the l’ecole (school). The school was made up of 3 white concrete buildings, each about the size of our seminar room. They were arranged with like a sideways C, all facing the front dirt area. No one was outside except for 5 or 6 women who were peeling fruits and vegetables outside. I think Noussa was trying to tell me that they make food for the kids when school was over.
We started buy going into a room in the center building that was the director’s office. Communication was difficult, since they only speak French and Wolof, but Noussa and Echadji did a nice job of trying to translate. We were going to start with the youngest students, around 7 years old, and work our way to the oldest, which were about 14. There were 6 grades in this school. One room for each grade.
The first graders smiled and giggled when we walked into the room. But they were very cautious at first. We met the teacher, a young man, and gave him some school materials. The president of the school was with us as well, and he accepted a few gifts, but we wanted to give things directly to the teachers and students, since sometimes the administrators like to keep things for themselves.
We shook hands with the students and asked their names. Boys and girls learned together in the same classroom. They loved showing us their chalkboards with their letters on them. They seemed very proud of their work.
We didn’t have a lot of T-shirts, so decided to give the T-shirts to all the older kids in the 6th grade. They were working on conjugating verbs in French, and each student had a little paper journal. Their handwriting was very neat and they seemed very happy to see us. Once we got to about the third room, the students in all the rooms had gotten word that we were here. They all came pouring out of their classrooms, and soon we were all out in the front area. 2nd and 1st graders tried pushing into the sixth grade room to get T-shirts we were passing out. I felt bad we didn’t have enough, but we decided to give them to the oldest kids.
Two of the classes stood and sang the country’s national anthem. It was very cool. We took a lot of pictures and video.
The teachers were very kind and welcoming. Especially considering that we had created quite a scene by interrupting their classes. They were all men, which is very different from the U.S. We ended our visit in the Director’s room, where we exchanged contact information, addresses, and telephone numbers. I asked him what his greatest needs were. Through a translator, he told me that any “school boy materials” were greatly needed. Pencils, pens, paper, etc.
I promised more assistance. And I intend to follow through. I also invited him to visit in the U.S. and he seemed to love that idea.
The school experience was very emotional for me. Sometimes we focus so much on our differences, we forget that we have so many things in common. Kids especially seem to have universal characteristics. Curiousity, excitement, roughhousing, energy, big smiles, and wide eyes filled with laughter.
While this school seemed to be one of the more developed you would find in Africa, it still was nothing compared to schools in the U.S. But I was glad to see with the little that they had, they were making the best of their situation. Kids wanted to be in school there. They were proud of their schoolwork. They were respectful of the adults. It bothered me thinking of some of the things that happen in American schools. So many kids take education for granted. So many kids would stay home if they had the choice. As I sit here typing, I’m trying to figure out where we have gone wrong. Is it that we just have too much? I don’t know the answer, and I don’t know the solution. Perhaps if all young people around the age of 12 and 13 spent some time here they would gain a greater appreciation of their lives at home. But chances are, it would make an impression that would later be eroded as we become more and more weathered by our day to day lives.
Maybe we just need to continue putting ourselves in environments that help us readjust to the reality of our world. Although this experience is making a huge impact on me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, Im sure I will need constant reminders as well once the newness of it all wears off. All I know is that today I feel blessed to have met these wonderful people, to see their smiling faces, and to have been given so much in my life. I hope I never forget the lessons I learned in that school today.