For the Girls

Destination Motivation

Red dust everywhere. Ancient suffocating cruel red dust. It paints my face as though for war, and my hair, and neck, and arms, and clothes. With an overpowering dark force, it penetrates the doors and the trunk, and the zippers of our bags. When we open the bags at night to change into fresh clothes, these too are covered in red dust. It overtakes each barrier and claims and consumes every hidden away scrap. It clouds the air and obscures the world until everything is red dust, oxidized history, undying earth, evil choking dirt.

I wear sunglasses and a blue scarf wrapped over my hair and face completely. The world is blue and I wear a stuffy shroud. Still the dust comes through.

The roads are like the surface of an uninhabitable planet. We lurch and soar and plunge and break down on its craters. The dust-covered batteries, alternator, projector, and speakers in the trunk strain to remain above ground. They weigh us down like our suffering. We repeatedly bottom out and hit out heads, too weary to groan audibly.

And this, all to arrive at decrepit schools that seem to buzz in midday heat. Poor hopeless African children, poor hopeless African children, poor hopeless African children. I find myself repeating the label when they seem too evil, overrunning everything like hungry dogs, like flies, like red dust.

The novelties of a movie in a school without electricity, and white people send them into a frenzy. They shout, crowd, and push, climbing over benches and through windows. The laugh, scream, trample, and bang everything they can bang. At first it seems amusing that the boys are so desperate to break into the Girls’ motivational stay-in-school SeneGAD movie. But once we start and they repeatedly thrust open the windows and slats to stick in their hands and grinning faces from outside, I feel attacked on behalf of the girls. Of course, they don’t even know what they’re disrupting, but still it comes across as another step of battle.

I crumble more, all too easily when they express the patriarchal stereotypes that I knew existed and that are why we came. Boys are better students, girls don’t want to go to school, the girls aren’t here because they’re all sick today, they choose to stay home, it’s best for all of us, only girls can do chores, girls can’t succeed, it’s how we were made, it’s how it’s meant to be…

But I say, “Would you rather have a sister who’s a doctor or who’s a mother at 15?” and choke on from there. Often they just nod. What difference does it make? The few girls stay silent and sullen in the back. They will probably be teased for all this later. They don’t have to be told their lives suck and their choices are nonexistent. I ask for 10 boys and then 4 to sit down, to show the 60% who attend school in Senegal. It’s pointless to try this with the girls—I can’t even find 10 to stand up in the first place.

The boys giggle at ideas of equality. The girls are quiet. I’m choking on dust. But I must remind myself, these boys will be fathers one day, and maybe their daughters will get to go to school. And the quiet girls are listening. I was a quiet girl in the back once too. Must. Not. Lose. Hope.

But when the boys are so far gone that they laugh in my face when I tell them to step back, it’s hard. I find myself extending my arms against their throngs, like a police barrier while they poke at the procession of girls entering the class. It reminds me of the first black students entering the white schools. It’s hard not to lose hope. It’s hard to remember the feminist zeal I had at Hamilton. It’s hard to even convince myself that I’m equal anymore. Why is patriarchy so contagious? Men and women may be fundamentally equal, but patriarchy is stronger than feminism. (For those of you still incorrectly versed, “feminism” means “equality,” not “Amazonian man-eating”.)

We have a little speech down after talking about the AMAZING women in the film (made, by the way, by PCVs, completed just last year. It’s titled Elle Travaille, Elle Vit.):
We ask which boys have sisters in the school system. Do you want your sister to succeed? (Of course!) Is it possible to succeed if you don’t have time to do your homework? (No.) Is it you or your sister who does all the housework? (My sister. My sister. My sister…) Does she have time after her chores to do her homework? (No.) Is So if she doesn’t have time to do her homework because of chores, and you want her to succeed, what could you do? (Blank stares…. Have my mother do the work? Get hired help to do the work?) How many of you have a mother with enough free time to do that work, or enough money to hire help? (No one raises a hand.) (Wait for a timid voice to suggest that the boys could maybe possibly help their sisters.) Is it possible for boys to do this? (Some one will always say, No.) What are girls’ duties? (write on board the answers: pounding, cooking, washing dishes, sweeping, laundry, pulling water, caring for babies…) Is it possible for a boy to pound? (invite one of the boys who said, “No!” to come up front.) Is there a P.E. class here? (“Yes.” Consider his physique dramatically. Ask him to flex.) Oh, what strength! I think it is possible for you to pound! (Pause for laughter.) Now, raise your hand if you’ve ever swept… pulled water… etc. Aha! So it is possible! (Often a kid will now say it’s not what is done/ traditional.) OK, well, is it possible to change a habit? Let me share with you some American history. We had very much the same problem of inequality in the States. Women could only stay at home, and men worked. Then came WWII; has anyone heard of it? The men had to go fight, but still needed materials like weapons, clothes, and vehicles. But if men weren’t there to work in the factories, what do you think happened? Who worked in the factories? (Amazingly, they say, “No one,” almost every single time.) The women. And they worked well. When the men came back, they say for themselves it was possible. Up to that point, the economy had been advancing little by little. Bit once women joined men on the work force, it improved dramatically. Now, America is one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries. [Put your economic hysteria aside; it’s still true] Do you understand this? (No.) If there is a broken truck on the road, can 10 people move it? (Maybe, very slowly.) Would 20 people make a difference? (Yes, it would be easier and faster.) So you see, double the people working, and more can be accomplished. (Read the statistics of boys vs. girls attending school in Senegal: 60% vs. 40%, and area specific percentages—they are worse for Kedougou.) If you doubled the education in this area, do you think development would come more easily? (meek “yesss..”) Or would you rather wait for America, Europe, or some NGOs to help? (“noo…”) Would you rather have a sister who’s a doctor, or one who’s a mother at 15? (Dr.) Why? Is it good for your family? (Yes.) So it’s better for your family, the region, and Senegal for her to succeed? (Yes.) So every time you help your sister with her chores, it’s like an investment. Every time you say, ‘Leave it to me; you go do your homework,’ you’re not just doing her a favor, but your family, community, and country. Last question, for the girls: who has a dream (job)? Dr? Nurse? Teacher? Flight attendant? Lawyer? Business woman? Chauffeur? (clap after each one)

So despite the dust, the technical difficulties (try holding up a little laptop screen for 300 kids to watch), transportation troubles (I hitch-hike like it’s my job… because it is), having hordes of hundreds of horrid hooligans set loose by unhelpful teachers, language issues… Where was I going with this? Something positive, right?

Just kidding, it was worth it, absolutely. Just wipe away the dust...

and don’t make me do it again.