L’école de la rue (School of the Street)

This is one of the informal schools we visited in a very poor area. I was very much so struck by it, possibly because of my own family. Because my dad was on the school-board most of my childhood, I learned a lot about educational issues. I remember reading Savage Inequalities and the Essential 55, and hearing all the research about education.

Going to this school, where young students led the class, where classes were held outside or in poorly conditioned baracks, where donated school supplies went unused because they involved paper, and chalk/chalkboards are more cost-effective and easy to share, was very difficult for me. You can read about these things, and even see pictures, but it's a whole lot more real when a little girl takes your hand and you have to stare poverty in the face. As we observed, two or three little girls were hitting each other, and I so badly wanted to separate them and say "Kay, toog" (come, sit), but another girl pointed out that this is every day for them.

As we walked around the area, kids just clung to me, all over, and I relied on the little Wolof I know to communicate. The first girl who stuck with me smiled when I called her, "suma xaritu" (my friend). I have to wonder what she saw when she looked at me, what they all saw. Was it just that I was white, a toubab, a novelty. Or have their minds already begun to believe that we can change things, that we, in some way are their hope. At one point, she was sitting on my lap and she wrapped my arms around her and clasped my hands. What did this do for her? Did it, for one moment, make her believe she had some sense of security?

There is the selfish part of me that wants to forget about my experiences there. And that other part of me is praying I never do. I pay thousands of dollars to go to school, and to complain about it. I told a friend, we say, "I'm too tired, this is boring, I don't feel like this, this is pointless", but these people don't have that option.

There are probably a million more things I should be saying, but I'll leave it here for now.