women’s empowerment
Fanta
Fanta is so freaking amazing. I had this great conversation with her last night after dinner. It always stems from food. She’s always asking me what food I like in Senegal. But then she stops me halfway through and says, “Okay okay. What don’t you like in Senegal?” And this happens all the time. That’s how all our conversations after dinner start. But this one just kept on going. We started talking about her history. We talked about what jobs she worked. We talked about what she wants to do in the future. Just talking to her, it made me respect and love her even more. I had no idea she was such a traveled, accomplished woman. Let me just give you a profile of her.
Fanta was born in Kaolack, a city in the middle of Senegal. She has two brothers and two sisters, and I don’t exactly know where she is in the age hierarchy, but I know she’s not the oldest or youngest. Somewhere in the middle. Her parents were Malian immigrants who came to Senegal because of the commerce. She grew up speaking Bambara (a Malian ethnic group) first, but quickly learned Wolof since you really can’t go through life in Senegal without speaking Wolof. She attended school and learned French there. She also learned a little English. Even today, she can say simple sentences like, “I am Fanta Cisse. I am Senegalese. I am a mother. I live in Sangalkam. My father is [blank]. My mother is [blank].” She really enjoys saying, “I am old. I am too old.” But the education system of Senegal, and actually of most of Africa, was much better back in her time. Her generation speaks the best French. It’s because after she was educated, there was a fiscal crisis due to the expanding production power of Africa, but a stagnant demand of products. But anyways. Today, she speaks EXCELLENT French. The best French out of every Senegalese woman I’ve met. In fact, people often ask her, “What school do you teach at?” In which she responds, “Oh I’m not a teacher! I only sell fabric!” What’s amazing is Fanta never finished high school. Because of early marriages in Africa, she got married and got pregnant with Pape, so she had to drop out of school before she finished high school. But she was so good at French that she went to Cote d’Ivoire and taught French at a school that her uncle opened. She taught little kids the basics of French. After two years, she returned because of her ailing father.
After he died, she didn’t return to teaching French. Instead, she became a merchant, like her parents. She’s worked a whole range of jobs. › Continue reading
Green Thumbs Up
In November, I came up with the idea to start a “square-foot garden” in one of my schools with the help of the mothers group. I thought it would be a good idea because the school gathers donations of vegetables every week to give them and the garden would be a simple and self-sustained way to augment that program.
Then I turned it over and over in my head, finding deficiencies and insecurities to hang on to such as: these women probably know how to plant a garden already, they probably won’t want to make one in their homes, what do I know, this isn’t going to work, I’m 17 fresh out of high school, there’s no way I can lead them…
The garden started seeming like a failure before it was even in existence. Every part of it seemed like such a chore– buying the wood in the market, putting it together, finding soil, filling it, planting it, explaining it. The hardest part of all was believing in it. I have found that I’m very good at discouraging myself.
But in February I finally bit the bullet and bought the wood in the Antigua market by myself– in the section behind the vegetable vendors and the dusty parking lot , where off-duty bus drivers and their ayudantes (helpers) wash the ever-present dust from their flamboyantly painted buses. Usually (and unfortunately) they are shirtless. I don’t enjoy haggling and I still didn’t know how I was going to carry the heavy and bulky boards with me onto the bus and to my school. My anxiety level, needless to say, was high.
Diverging Personalities
Round, giggly, and full of life, my host mother is a real character. Her two daughters describe her as cheerful and kind to everyone. While this is true, figuring out how to spend so much time with her without, frankly, going crazy has been very difficult and involved much frustration for me. As the woman of the house and mother of three children, I expected her to be mature and confident; however jumping up and down with glee when her husband gives her money and throwing the occasional temper tantrum, she sometimes seems much more a child then a 32-year-old woman.
The first month I was expected to be her fourth child but having that relationship proved to be extremely difficult. It took a good month and a half for me to adjust, find that I could make my place as a third adult in the family and make things that used to annoy me about my host mother funny. Little things tended to get to me: once, she tried to explain to me that in Senegal burping is acceptable but passing gas is rude, whereas in the U.S. passing gas is acceptable and burping is rude. Since she does not know the word for either in French and I do not know in Wolof she proceeded to belch every time she wanted to say the word burp and because she can’t pass gas on command act like she was pulling something out of her rear end every time she wanted to say that. To balance all that, I give her every opportunity to teach me something she is an expert at such as washing clothes, ironing with hot coals, and Senegalese cooking.
Getting to this point has been the most challenging part of my GCY experience thus far but now that I am there it will also probably be the most valuable. As well as having forced me to learn how to adapt both to personalities and cultures living with this woman has given me an inside view at the life of a young, uneducated, Senegalese mother.
Since almost everyone I know before this year has gone to or will go to college until this experience I had never truly known what being uneducated means and grasped the importance of education. My host mother and many of her friends quit school when they were around the age of twelve, some because they had to work, others because they just did not want to go. It is amazing to me to see the great differences in their demeanor and actions verses that of my friend’s mother who lives across the street and finished high school. Understanding that this is greatly the reason to my host mother’s naiveté and why she does not understand things such as you can not believe everything you see on TV has been eye opening and possibly one of the most important lessons I will take away with me.
Finding Their Voice
On Friday and Saturday, the Antigua fellows and Ximena went on a combination vision campaign/ training session with Yoly (Marguerite‘s host-mom) and Clara Luz, two regional coordinators at Soluciones Comunitarias.
The training of the new “asesoras” (community “advisors”, or women entrepreneurs) began on Friday. We were trying to fit the training all into one day because traveling to Conguaco is a long and expensive trip. When we arrived the women were already waiting, but as the training began I saw something that worried me. It worried Yoly and Clara too. And what was this worrisome thing? Utter silence. Silence on the part of the eight women that Yoly & Clara had come to train; Silence that really got in the way of teaching them to give eye exams and explain about products, that got in the way of them even expressing their thoughts or questions. They wouldn’t make eye contact, wouldn’t even raise their hands when Clara asked “Who is interested in becoming an asesora?” I don’t think I’ve ever seen such timidness in grown women, much less eight grown women who had already agreed to dedicate an entire day to this training. As I said before… things did not bode well. › Continue reading
BROWSE BY FELLOW
BROWSE BY COUNTRY
TAGS
- RT @MiddlesexSchool: Meaghan MX'10 begins her Global Citizen Year n a few weeks. Want to learn more abt her gap year? http://bit.ly/9pp8qs
