Tonight was the second of two occasions I have witnessed the discipline of children, and let me tell you, it's not pretty. Both involved my middle school aged sister, Assy. The first incident involved her hitting her younger homonym, and tonight, phew, let me tell you about it.
I had put a nice nike tech t shirt through the laundry on Thursday. For those of you who don't understand runner speak, these are top-end running shirts. They are far more expensive than your average t, and I would never buy them for myself, which is why this one was a gift from my parents. I noted this weekend that I hadn't gotten it back. I went to look for it to see if it was hanging on the line. When it was missing, I told my sister Zeina, and she said she'd look for it, as our clothes often get confused.
Well, then I saw Assy wearing it. This probably wouldn't have irked me so much but she's been being a little punk, and I already had a number of other life stresses. I told Zei and thus began the disciplining. Coupled with this issue was the fact that Assy had missed her school bus last week in the afternoon (kids come home for lunch here) and instead of telling her family, she borrowed money from a boutiquier and took a taxi. Well this boutiquier confronted Zei about it, and of course she was clueless. Money is a weird tricky thing here, and this was a pretty serious issue.
These two things combined led to the following: First, Zei, reprimanded Assy about the shirt. It actually wasn't that big of a deal for me, but Assy had to give it back and was supposed to apologize. She refused, and so Zei apologized for her, and I kindly looked at Assy and said "balanala" which means, "I forgive you" very genuinely. So she earned another round of reprimands from Zei and then the second issue of the missing bus/having a debt came out. It was all tied into a lecture on carelessness which lasted at least a half an hour. But it wasn't over. Then she was sent to Mamy, who also gave a lecture. Assy was clearly ashamed and sat with her head straight down. Mamy looked at me and said Assy was young and dumb, but it wasn't an excuse for what she did - she has plenty of clothes and was just being greedy. This went on for approximately 20-30 minutes before Zeina re-entered the conversation and her and Mamy went back and forth. Then after all this, Assy's mother was called (she's a granddaughter from Guinea here just for school) and she had to tell her what had happened. I couldn't understand anything, as they were speaking Sou Sou, but it wasn't good. Assy was dead silent the rest of the night. I would be too, even if I'd just gotten the one lecture from Mamy. Mamy is not one to be messed with.
It was interesting to see the role the older sister plays in this family situation. A family is important as a single unit, so if one member brings shame or dishonor, it reflects poorly upon the whole family, which is why discipline is an issue for everyone.
All I can say is, this was one time I was glad not to have been raised in a Senegalese family.
No comments:
Post a Comment