Baback

 Today I left the lab early to go to one of the villages that MIS works with. I went with Yacine who works in the MIS office. Yacine works with churches to sponsor kids in the villages. Last week the two of us met to plan out activities to do with the 15 sponsored children. The children are sponsored by partner churches in the US and MIS plans activities and helps pay for school and health needs. Maxime, a high school student was also with us; he’s spending a week of ‘job experience’ with MIS. Our plans included having the kids act out scenarios, playing with some of the instruments we found, sharing some snacks and maybe some coloring to fill up the two hours we would spend in Baback, a village about an hour outside of Thiès.

 Plans had to change pretty quickly upon arriving in Baback. We stopped at the church, a small building with a pulpit and wooden benches. Next door, some women were learning how to sew and there was a tree in the corner of the yard where we set up a few of the benches in the shade. At 16h, when we started, there were already about 15 kids that weren’t sponsored and of course we weren’t going to send them away.

 By the time all of the sponsored kids showed up and we prayed together, our number had grown to 54 kids. Since we were outside and arrived in a 4x4 we drew a lot of attention and kids came to join us from all directions. We split into groups and gave some themes such as what happens if the fence breaks and animals get into the garden or a motorbike hits a kid in the street. This was mildly successful – the kids were really shy to start but with some guidance they were able to act out the scene and we got a few laughs out of it. 

Next was a game of tag, which ended with only 2 crying children out of 70 so I’d say it went pretty well.

Before breaking out the snacks we tried to sing a couple songs with the instruments we brought but again the kids were shy. We tried to get a couple of the guys to play the tambourine as a drum but couldn’t get anything started. I ended up singing some Wolof songs I remembered from my spring break trip. This also elicited a few laughs but unfortunately did not give anyone the courage to start singing.

Next challenge, feed 115 kids some pieces of cake and 15 mangos. Maybe this is what the disciples felt like when they wanted to feed 500. Managed to prevent a giant mob from forming which is a huge accomplishment in my opinion and the mangos ended up getting passed from hand to hand, sharing at its best.

What stuck me the most was the shyness, the lack of creativity. We suggested themes and tried to encourage the kids to make up a story, what would happen? Back in Dakar, one of the CIEE students started a program for girls called CIPFEM. The organization encouraged girls to become leaders, to be more confident. Talking with her and others that volunteered for CIPFEM revealed a similar theme; the girls were often searching for the ‘right answer’ when asked to draw something or play MadLibs rather than pretending and creating. I’m not sure why this is the case, one theory is that the school system doesn’t encourage creativity or critical thinking. I see students studying which means rereading notes word-by-word trying to memorize exactly what the teacher said in class. Also there seems to be a ‘right’ way to do many tasks here, which doesn’t leave much room for trying new ideas.

This has further confirmed the notion of community involvement. Of course it makes sense, the local population should be an active participant and when possible a leader of development projects. But when you’re there, in Baback trying to entertain 115 kids with 3 people, one of which speaks Serer (the local language) you realize the gravity of the term community involvement. Someone from the region, if not the village itself would be much better suited for this job – someone who knows the language, knows the songs to sing, the way to keep the kids attention. Training is definitely necessary but train someone that lives there, who is invested in the kids lives.