Kids in Senegal

I feel like I have learned a lot both inside and outside of the classroom, but they are mutually educational. Without being in a homestay I doubt I would understand what the professors tell us about, and without the classes I wouldn’t have much of a forum to discuss what I notice around my house.

Today we talked about kids in my Anthropology class, specifically about how the Wolof ethnicity raises their children. For starters, while the woman is pregnant everyone in the community come by to visit to demonstrate that it is not just the mother who will raise this child, it is the whole community. There is a very strong emphasis against the individual, and raising an egotistical or narcissist child, which includes not getting too much motherly attention. Because of this, the day of the baptism and naming ceremony (which takes place one week after the birth) the baby is ‘stolen’ from the mother in order to demonstrate to her that this is not just her child, and it is not the nuclear family that counts, it is the whole extended family.

As the child is raised there is a great deal of emphasis placed on physical contact, whether through coming up to hug people at the house or via wrestling with their peers. Children are not given toys to play with because it is believed that this causes them to spend too much time on their own and not socialize. This also encourages the individual too much, which could lead to a child that is too proud and unlike the others (they want children to all grow up alike, so a month after being born they are taken to an old woman in the community to get massaged- literally in hopes of creating a baby that will have the ideal- and similar- body to all others. This includes massaging the female baby’s bottom in hopes of having a well-rounded bottom- sounds very funny, but it is quite true, still today).

Once children get to be older and might be in school they start playing more with toys, like mankalah (sp?) or with riddles. But for the most part they are really without any kinds of toys. Within my own homestay I have noticed this on multiple occasions. While this does keep a child from getting to be ‘spoiled’ there is a huge lack of opportunity for children to learn how to conflict resolve and problem solve. Their solution for everything seems to be hitting! Any kid of any age will hit one another and this seems to be because they have never learned to do things any other way.

Yesterday I brought out my crayons to color with my brothers, who are 3, 5, 7 and 12. The eldest, Cherif, took charge of passing out the crayons and I gave each kid one piece of paper. They did a good job of sharing the crayons and asking for other ones, which I found surprising because they can get to be a little rowdy and pushy about things. Nonetheless, I’ve tried to make things calm with me, so I think that they have sort have caught on.

What worries me is their lack of opportunity for personal expression. This sense of the individual seems to get very suppressed, and thereby individual talents are not encouraged at a young age when they are really important to be developed. For example, I’ve colored with Khadim, who is 7, before, and he seems to really like telling stories to go along with his pictures. Back in the states this would be a regular activity, and you would draw a picture and maybe help the child write the story that goes along with the picture (granted, his story was rather bloody/violent, but at least it was a story). Yesterday he was very frustrated because he couldn’t draw much of anything, and I think that is very indicative of the fact that he really wants to be able to express himself, but he doesn’t have any outlets. As a result he is a very aggressive kid.

The overall thought that I’ve had on this is that in many ways, countries that are doing well in Africa are still behind their potential because they are raising their children in the same exact way as they have been for generations, and not progressing in that arena. The most highly educated people in Senegal are actually educated in Europe or Cuba or Canada or the US, and never within Senegal (for higher education or rarely high school). I have been in so many circumstances when it is clear that people here lack in critical thinking skills- it sounds very critical to say, but it is clear that it stems from an early age. When we give kids problems to solve in the US, things that they have to think through, it gives them a very important skill set that just doesn’t seem to happen here.

Senegal is a relatively peaceful country, with developing democracy and heading in the right direction in many senses. They do a great job here of melding their traditional cultures with more modern things, but they are really missing out in the child development arena. It sounds so incredibly cliché to say, but their kids are their future, and parents need to be encouraged to have their children develop their talents and other skills earlier on in life. I don’t know how a whole country could possibly go about doing that, especially since it is something that needs to be developed not only at school but also in the home. It’s quite the dilemma, and has been a very interesting thing to observe. I think that what I will be able to contribute is continuing to color with my brothers and encouraging them. It is evident that my attitude towards the children is very different from everyone else, but they don’t seem to mind how I play with them, so I think that I’ll keep at it.