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Published: August 28th 2006
Okay so I am the worst “blogger” ever. I am bad at keeping up and depend completely on my co-workers to update their blogs. I will try to keep this short but I wanted to write about my trips to the villages around Senegal and write a bit about Plan.
A few months back the girls and I had the opportunity to go to Theis, which is a town about an hour away where Plan Senegal has a few different community projects. We work in the main country office in Dakar working with corporate finance and do not get to see Plan’s programs in action on a day to day basis....so we were all very much looking forward to our day in the field.
After meeting with some people in the office, we went to our first community visit. It was to a school for adolescent girls of the community. These girls are chosen by their community leaders to get to be part of the program and learn ‘life skills’. While we were there they were learning how to sew. We had the opportunity to talk (through an interpreter of course) to a few of the girls and ask if
The boys
These boys were total hams for the camera. They loved it.they enjoyed the program and what they liked about it. With big smiles…they all said “yes” and one girl said “We were nothing, now we know what we can do and how to stay away from the things that are not good for us.”
Next, we went to another village where Plan had recently helped dig a pipeline to give a fresh water supply to the village(it really is amazing the things that we take for granted back home). The minute we got to the village we were surrounded by 60+ people…mostly children. They don’t often see Toubabs (a term we get everywhere we go, meaning Europeans…white people), so they ALL had to come out to see what was going on. The entire community was so happy and welcoming (Agnes had her camera, and they LOVED getting their pictures taken). The community leaders and the village chiefs explained how Plan and helped their village etc. It was really humbling to see what an amazing impact it had.
After this trip Kristin and I decided to sponsor children here in Theis through Plan. We both have sponsored children through other organizations in other countries but after working with Plan, falling
in love with Senegal and these children there was no way not to. This brings me to trip number 2.
About 1 month ago (2 months after our first trip) Kristin and I went to two villages around Theis to meet our sponsored children. Kristin sponsored and 8 year old boy named, Mambodj and I sponsored a young girl named, Ndague.
Kristin and I were so excited to meet our children and get to spend the day in our villages. We spent the night before shopping for goodies. We got coloring books, crayons, pens and paper, soccer balls, candies, rice, and tea for the kids and the community. We had planned to leave Dakar early the next morning to miss the horrendous traffic, but in typical Senegalese fashion…we left about 2 hours after we were meant to. However, we arrived in Thiess at the Plan program office without major problems. After some confusion (a common thing here) and a cup of tea, we finally transferred the goods we had brought for the families to the vehicle and were on our way. After driving only a few minutes outside of the city, I was in awe of how beautiful the
Ndague and Myself
Isn't she so pretty country side was. We kept saying, “this isn’t Senegal”…with the recent rains, there was grass everywhere, beautiful trees, etc….Definitely not the typical dirt and trash that we see in Dakar. After driving for approx. 30 min through the bush we arrived at the village of my little girl, Ndague. The village was quite small, consisting of 4 families (about 60 people). Upon our arrival, the entire village had come out to greet us and talk. Ndague, was all dressed up in a beautiful dress. She is so gorgeous and was so incredibly shy. We were fortunate enough to have Falilou (who is the manager of the Thies office) come with us, so he was able to translate. We heard about her family, the community, school, etc. I gave her the presents we had brought with us. This is a pretty remote and small village, I don’t think that they had seen white people or cameras before…because they seemed quite enamored with both. They were all very quiet, but also very appreciative and welcoming.
After talking for a while we got back in the car and headed to the village of Kristin’s sponsored child. It took a good hour of
off-road driving through the middle of nowhere it seemed, but we finally arrived. We first stopped to pick up the community volunteer (who works with Plan to translate letters for children, and helps to organize the visits) then we headed to ‘the meeting spot.’ We got out of the car expecting a similar set up to the last village, so we were completely shocked when we walked in and saw close to 200 people (about 75% of them being children) gathered. As soon as we walked up, they immediately started playing music, singing, and dancing. The father of Kristin’s sponsored boy came up to introduce himself and his son, Mambodj. They immediately pushed us toward the crowd of dancing villagers where we were greeted and hugged by all of the women of the village. They had set up this table in the middle for us to sit at with some refreshments (bissap juice - from a local flower, and baobab juice - made from the famous trees here), as well as peanuts (which is the main export of Senegal). We just sat there in the midst of 200 people like we were queens. We sat with the chief of the
Posed Picture #1
Kristin and Mambodj shaking hands village and a few other prominent community members. We just sat there in awe.
Mambodj is 8 and the cutest little boy. He was very sweet, polite and silly. Obviously there was the language barrier but he was no where near as shy as Ndague. Kristin gave him the presents that we had brought, including a new football. What little kid wouldn’t like getting all these gifts, but on top of it he was the center of all this attention….and really the cause of this whole celebration by the village. I think he enjoyed it. I can tell that he is not the first sponsored child in the village, as they had this whole program set up to show us their ‘way of life.’ They of course made us TRY and dance with them (which you all know how good of a dancer I am, so that gave them a laugh “Toubab can’t dance”), next they demonstrated some of their customs/traditions - a woman showed us how she makes couscous, young boys showed us how they separate dirt for farming, and they even did a mock marriage ceremony with a young boy and girl. It was all very cute.
The father and mother were so lovely, they (the mother often near tears) kept telling Falilou how thankful they were that out of all the children in the world, Kristin had chosen their son…and how even without all the gifts that we brought, they are so thankful and honored. The father kept saying, how he hoped we were now friends for life, and welcomed us back to stay with them (as we are now family) at anytime.
Mambodji’s village was far more “modern” then my sponsored child’s. It was BIG and had more modern facilities included running water. They had rigged up a boom box to a car battery and were playing music. The funniest part to me was when we were leaving Kristin’s sponsored child’s father gave Kristin his CELL PHONE number so she could call Mambodji if she wanted. I was thinking……hmmmmm……… that doesn’t seem right…..but all in all very funny. The education is also more developed in this village as Plan has had a longer presence so some of the older people (early 20s) spoke English. I got a few marriage proposals. One sincerely thought he could convince me to marry him and be his second
The excitement!!
Mambodj holding up his gifts for everybody to see wife, according to him every women needs a Senegalese husband.
Lastly the people in this village LOVED getting their photo taken. They were dragging me around with my camera posing for pictures, it was really funny.
We had such an amazing experience to visit these villages and understand how Plan operates and the effect it has on each community. I know we all have our causes or you may already have sponsored children…but in case anyone is looking for a good present in the near future, or want to see the cost of a dinner out each month go to a good place, I thought I would give you the link to Plan’s sponsorship site. Sorry, I know I sound like a geek…but after seeing those children and how you can make a difference in their lives, it is hard for me not to at least share with you. (http://www.planusa.org/sponsorachild/)
Miss you guys. I will follow this up with a more “fun” blog about our trip to Ghana.
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Chrissy
non-member comment
I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this! You'll never, ever forget this experience and you've inspired me! I think I might go see my little sponsor child in Equador!