au daara

Our rendezvous with the daara was scheduled at 10, but like most things here, we were unable to be there on time. Waiting in the office to hear the car horn honk to tell us it was time to go, I made lists and went over questions I thought to ask, preparing for the unknown and and assumed expectations. My idea of what would happen entailed a romantic vision of me as a new journalist getting to the quick and dirty of this daara world, exposing and questioning, making people uncomfortable but unable to escape without giving some sort of opinion! Yet, upon arriving I was stunned. 

We drove down some small alleyways, towards a cinder-block building that was still, essentially, being constructed. Through a metal gate into a courtyard area I noticed clothes drying on wires and typical bits  of rubbage that unfortunately characterizes the third world...mis-matched pairs of shoes, torn pieces of cloth, bones, broken bottles, shards of plastic, rubble, I could go on for days. The wall had holes in it that were stuffed with strangely colored clothes, one of which seemed like women's panties, but that sort of gender distinction is often lost amidst such poverty. Taking a few steps forward through dirtdust into the open-air common area, we encountered the students, separated into two groups (older kids in back at the desks, younger ones sitting on the floor in front), curiously eyeing our presence. 

After initial Senegalese greetings, the class recommenced and we were left to watch the progression of the lesson. French grammar and phonetics, reading, writing, math. All these little talibe children eager to attempt to answer questions, eager to be called to the front. All of them acting like young boys who, if evaluated only by their manners, would be untraceable to any specific culture. They were picking their noses, touching their neighbors, laughing, drawing on each other...all those charming things that 8 year old boys do. Every now and again the teacher would become upset at their hijinks and threaten them with a whip. Only once did he use it, which was hard for me to watch. My co-worker said that for the rest of the class he shouldn't do that and he consented. I figured it was because of me. 

My questions about the daara were answered by my co-worker. She said that the marabout was visiting in the village and left the 24 talibe children in the hands of the 20 year old Amadou. There were five rooms in the daara: one reserved for the marabout, one for storage and their sheep, one as a kind of catch-all kitchen/bathroom, and the last two were their sleeping quarters. On the walls of their bedroom hung their little bags of belongings, on the floors the thin sheets where they rested their heads. I took pictures of all this, of them, of their situation. 

Two of the boys were absent from class. One was sleeping, tossing and turning, really really ill looking and feeling. Another was pretending to study the Koran in the bedroom, but looked just as miserable and seemed equally as ill. We ended up skipping our lunch to take them to the hospital. The first boy was being carried to the taxi. He could barely stand and kept falling over, his skin burning to touch, unable to even drink anything. The other just weak and depressed. Upon reaching the clinic they were taken back and given malaria tests...the terribly ill boy had positive results. I am unsure about the other little one. 

After procuring their medicine we had them taken back to the daara, while we went in search of food. We bought bananas, sugar, limes, and a peanut sauce dish called mafe. Dropping off all these supplies and giving instructions to the head boy we left. . . I wanted to cry. I wanted to hold them. I wanted to give them everything. These children pushed into beggary by parents who were under the impression that this would be a way to provide a better life for their kids. These young boys who spent their time on the streets with little care bestowed upon their small frames. I began to realize that if we had not gone to the daara that day, that young boy would have died. No one was there with enough money to take him to the hospital, no one would have considered that the thing to do. 

That is life here coupled so indifferently with death. As if neither had any weight on the other, as if neither were worth the trouble of preventing or experiencing. Who cares to live when it is under such a neglectful eye, who cares about dying when living doesn't offer anything better than an existence so close to death that they are one in the same. 

I swallow my discomfort. I breath in deep my tears. I will go home and hold myself trying to prevent the sobs that surface from knowing I can only do so much...from knowing that their are so many many many more that will not be given the chance. I will comfort myself in Darwinism and feel guilty for my privilege. I will give alms to anyone that I cross tomorrow in a pitiful attempt to try and alleviate in some way the disparity that exists between my culture and the one in which I find myself, knowing that really it doesn't much help...anyone but me.