First: what the pictures are: a) view of hazy Dakar from Ile de la Madeleine, with Cormorants taking off.
In Toubakouta, one of the two boats we took into the mangroves - we were having a competition between the boats as to who could sing louder and have more people standing up at once.
Also at the mangrove park - two friends from the trip.
I hope this picture shows up better on your computers than mine, but it's me on the beach at St. Louis.
A picture of the roadside scene on the way into Dakar - you can see people selling fruit and these buses waiting to fill up and go somewhere. This picture doesn't quite do the chaotic scene justice.
A very quiet, colonial St. Louis street - Dakar does NOT look like this.Well now that I got some more pictures up, a little more news. Yesterday for our Senegalese culture class we got to take a field trip to a Dara - a Koranic school for young boys. These schools are all over Senegal, and they are run often in a pretty horrifying way. The basic idea (and this was the case in this one) is that kids are sent by their parents for a minimal fee (about 2 dollars a month) and they live with the marabout (koranic scholar) and study constantly. However, this doesn't include food and doesn't cover the expenses of the Daara. Therefore, the kids from the Daara (talibés) spend hours every day on the street holding empty cans (usually of tomato paste, for whatever reason), and begging in order to get their food, and get additional money for the marabout. They are at every major corner and often will follow you for a while. People will give them money or food.
The place we visited was in a poorer suburb of Dakar - almost no paved roads, mostly very tight alleys. The daara itself is a small courtyard with only about two or three rooms off of it - somehow 60 barely clothed boys live there. We got to ask the Marabout questions for about 45 minutes and interact with the kids a bit. We learned the most though from just observing and from what wasn't said. The boys all clearly have pretty significant health problems - we could see various swellings, open sores, and chronically runny noses (a sign of malnutrition, not just a cold). I asked the kids (in front of the marabout) what they wanted to do when they left, the only person who was allowed to respond said he wanted to teach the Koran. Afterwards another friend asked another of the boys and he responded that he wanted to get out of Senegal and move to France. Anyhow, not all Daaras are like this, but it was a sobering look at this phenomenon that we have been seeing here every day.
Hey! You've really got the photo uploads down now (or downloads up now?)- these are great! And yes, that one of you on the beach magnifies really clearly. So nice! I love the pic of a St. Louis street - so many questions/observations, eg. with those extraordinary gutter spouts it must really be a scene in a heavy rain; and in the tree, are all those bulbous bits bird nests?
ReplyDeleteWasp nests? Which remeinds me: any interesting fauna or flora to report on?
Boy, what a sad story of the Daara. That's great that your teachers are not "hiding" this part of Senegalese culture. You read about such schools in Pakistan/Afghanistan, but in Senegal this is a surprise. So can one assume that this goes on throughout Muslim Africa? Dommage.
Now I'm looking forward to an upcoming report on Lent a la Maman Amitie.
Je t'aime beaucoup! oxoxoxoxox
I was just switching channels and stopped at TV5 and it was showing these kids begging on the street and it made me think of what you were describing and it turns out, it's an expose on Senegal and Dakar! I literally just watched kids studying the Koran and then being forced to bring back money and food to school. It's devastating! They were being whipped as they recited from the Koran and the narrator said they often didn't even know what it was they were reciting. Sad :( Sorry. That was a downer comment. I just, obviously, thought of you.
ReplyDeleteAlso I love you and the pictures are beautiful.
love,
maia
Thank you, dear Sonya, for the pictures and your ongoing updates. As a retired teacher, indeed, as a fellow human, I am deeply saddened by the conditions of the school at Daara and elsewhere. Thank you for opening my eyes and touching my heart.
ReplyDeleteI love you......Aunt Jeannie
It seems so backwards that someone who is studying all the time and becoming educated still has to beg for food/money. On the bright side, it was nice talking to you this morning!! Miss you girrrllll!
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