the life of a teenage boy in Senegal

So on the flip side the life of an average teenage boy in Senegal. Senegal culture is male dominate and I am not going to lie there is spousal abuse, as well as a lot of harassment. Boys grow up thinking that they should have at least have two wives if not four and if they don’t it is an insult to your manhood. Men view themselves as the providers and in most village settings they are the ones who “go out to seek money” then give what they want to their wives.  In this society you can do anything you want as a male and nobody will care, minus the obvious religious laws that you should not break. Of course with great power comes great responsibility, one that most men in this country abuse. Growing up you look at you’re elders sitting under a tree drinking atttya and doing nothing all day you start to think that it is acceptable. Of course since you are higher on the food chain this means you can assert your dominance over anyone younger and all females.  I have known several instances were younger males will just sit around and in the hot part of the day, then go play soccer when it cools off.  Through in some catcalling and discussions about music and who has the biggest butt in the village and you got a day. Also another disturbing aspect of this culture that I have found out is the conceptions that if you have trouble with your wife you don’t work it out you get a new wife.  Add to this trying to study by flash light and if someone needs the light then they will take it from you leaving you to study in the dark.  All of this puts a lot of demands on the boys to fit into the society’s norm and to study really hard in school.  Like I said before humans are diverse. My brothers will sweep their room, do laundry, ect. As well as my village has a very equal guy and women’s work.  Men take care of the animals, make fences; make huts, do home repair, go fishing, prepare the fields, and plant the fields. Women do the rest of the work mention in the former post. There is not giant movement to facilitate change among the boys in Senegal because everyone is focused on girl’s education. For me my work in this area is very informal. Most of the time the boys in my village will ask me why I don’t have a wife this opens the door for discussions on how you could help your feature wife, for example collecting fire wood for the day. We talk about some traditions you should break and the others that don’t really matter. At the end of the day, just like with all my work, you cast your idea into the moment in time. All you can do is hope that the ripples will catch on something or be noticed when they wash up on the shore.

in the life of a teenage girl

I figure since I have been here a year I should start in on some cultural aspects of this culture. First up what it is like to be a teenage girl in this society. First off this is a male dominated society and some women are subjected to harassment on a daily basis. The women do all the house work from cooking to cleaning, doing laundry, taking care of the kids, pulling water, and other miscellaneous tasks. As you can imagine this is hard work. Cooking dinner alone is over a four hour process. With all this work it leaves no time to study for school and no free time to yourself. Add on top of that some men will be very insensitive, to making bad jokes, catcalling you, making you fetch them a glass of water when all they are doing is sitting under a tree drinking attya. Plus add the fact that once you are married then school is over and you are to work in the house and have babies while your husband works for money. It is no wonder that most of the girls in the villages over here never get passed a middle school education. Yet life is life so what are you going to do but put on a smile and keep trucking. As the human race is a diverse population this is not the case across the board. For example my village is very progressive. My brothers will do their laundry if they need it the next day or if their soccer gear is dirty they will wash it. They clean their room and are respectful by telling my younger brothers to get them stuff instead of my sisters. My village doses wait to marry their daughters off until they are 17-18 years unlike some more remote parts that practice 12 year old marriages. To offset this problem we do a lot of women’s education, for example we in the Kaolack region are putting together a girls camp. This is weeklong leadership camps were we teach the girls about gardening, the environment, women’s health, business, and have motivational speakers throughout the week. All in a camp like setting at a hotel in the delta outside of Sokone. As you can imagine we could always use donations use the link below to navigate to the web page. Yet that is not all that we do. In my village I do my own laundry, talk to the young men in my village on what they can do to help their future wife. In my opinion this is the only way you can change things you have to get people thinking about what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes only then can you slowly get things to change.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-198 

Poop and dirt

So the work has been going slowly and the large dent in my hut wall has been growing steadily, as well as my head concussions, I also know I complained about this before but you will hear it again. The women in my village decided to ask me for my help so I did a couple of demonstrations on proper gardening techniques. Of course when the day came all the women were shelling peanuts and refuse to go. So I had to strong arm 7 women into coming and after words they decided that it was too hard and got an "expert" from my road town who knows nothing, yet of course all the women listen and do what he says because it is easy. Witch this is the hardest part of my work people don't want to do what I point out, for example why are you not taking your baby to the health post, oh you don't have the money because you just bought attya, well then maybe you should not buy it. Apparently that is just crazy talk but this is just the difficulties of the job. Of course over here you find the little things that are funny like watching your little brother running over to me with cow poop in his hands asking if it is good to put in your garden bed. Or feigning ignorance when my brothers are pantomiming the french word for kissing, turning down my grandmothers propositions for sex by saying she dose not have a big enough butt and she needs to eat more rice before she comes back, or learning my counterpart is an evil genus by giving me my own plot in the women's garden so I can rub the better gardening practices in their faces. Either way it is all about the little things in life, you could dwell on the negative or translate Sir Mixalot in to Seereer and let them enjoy.