The day I talk about privilege…

The day I talk about privilege…

The basic human rights that we as people of the first world don't think twice about, but are abundantly absent here in Senegal. 

I've been back in Senegal for over a month since my vacation to the States. I heard a lot of varying explanations of how it would feel to be go back to the United States after living in Africa for almost a year. Most people said there is reverse culture shock. I am familiar with the concept of reverse culture shock and I have experienced it, minimally, after coming back from my first extended international trip to Bolivia when I was 17, and after I came back from living in Luxembourg in college. When I came back after living in India, I can say that my shock was not minimal, but striking. The way I lived there helped me prepare for the way I live here, in Senegal as a Peace Corps Volunteer living in the African Bush. So, when I came back to the States, I was prepared to feel overwhelmed and sad at the materialistic focused mindset that consumes us. And, I was... to an extent. But, it was amazing how easily I fell back into the groove of my old life...It was too easy. BUT, that didn't stop me from reflecting each time that I had a newfound perception of privilege. 

Privilege: 

noun

a special right, advantage of immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people

New Oxford American Dictionary

Eating Whenever You Want:

There is no pantry or refrigerator that you can grab your snack of choice when you are hungry in-between meals or just bored and want to munch on something. There is no electricity so there is no way to store perishable items. The sun is hot and spoils most things in a third of the time. Ice is hard to get outside of the cities so not only are you stuck without snacks you’re stuck without a nice cold beverage to cool you off in the middle of the day. 

When I first got here I ate rice each and every day, and I complained to my friends and family back home about it. Now, I get excited when I have rice in the bowl because rice with leaf sauce is a lot better than ground up corn with leaf sauce, which is what I have had for the past few months. You eat three times a day: Breakfast is around 10am, Lunch is around 2:30pm and Dinner is around 9:00pm. If you want something in between those times, you have to scavenge the forest for roots, nuts, fruit (if you are lucky and it is in season), or kill a bird or bush animal to snack on. I have had the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner for four days straight. FOUR DAYS with NO VARIETY. (fyi- the name of the dish is “Gosi Gerte,” rice porridge with peanut sauce) I would go to sleep and dream about the restaurant menus’ that previously gave me anxiety because all of the food options, cherishing every moment that I had so many options to choose from. Then I woke up, and ate the same thing again. 

Privilege is having electricity, having a way to store excess food, having excess food to snack on, knowing and understanding the food pyramid to have a variety of vegetables, proteins and carbs within each meal, not eating the same thing day-in-and-day out, and just being nourished so you are not anemic and nutrient deprived causing children at the young vulnerable age to not be as intelligent as they should be. 

Having a Bathroom & Washing Your Hands

Where is the bathroom you ask? It is out back..

No flushing, western toilet? Only if you are in a city and are really financially well-off. If not, you do your business in a hole. No shade over your hole and it is 120 degrees and the sun is pounding on your back? Sorry, make sure you don’t have to go during the middle of the day. Only in the early morning and in the evening can you avoid this problem. 

Looking for the TP? Think again—it is too expensive—You use your (left) hand.

Oh, you want to wash your hands after wiping with your hand? Hm, sorry, you need to pull the water from the well before you go to the hole. 

Oh, you don’t think just water is going to cut it, you want soap? Well, soap is too expensive. 

Oh, that isn’t hygienic? Well, then will you buy me the soap? 

No? Ok, well they look clean to me! 

Privilege is having a room, inside a building, with a locking door, and a flushing toilet, with toilet paper, where you can do your business in private without having someone talk to you through the fence as the suns melts off your back flesh.

That about sums up my experience with latrines and washing practices. I am currently doing a hand washing station and soap training project that helps to promote a behavior change shift to washing hands at the five critical times. (After going to the bathroom, after changing a baby’s “diaper,” before breastfeeding, before cooking and before eating) I recently did a training where I started out secretly with glitter on my hands, I greeted about a third of the group, transferring my glitter to them, and they greeted the others. After the first lesson, I had them look at their hands or their bodies and see if there was any glitter on them. Every single person had glitter somewhere on their bodies. I told them that is how bacteria is spread and how even though they didn’t have feces on their hands, if they shook someone hands that did then it will be transferred to their hands through that act alone. This was a visual technique; glitter can be seen, but microbes cannot. Later, I had six people come in front the group. I asked them if their hands were “clean” they all said “yes” then I had the first person in the line take hot peppers and rub her hands together really getting the juices out and warming up her hand. Then, I had each person shake the person to their right’s hand (starting with the person who had the pepper on her hands). After they were done greeting each other, I told them to touch their faces. No one would.They were all too scared because they knew the pepper would burn their faces. I asked them if there hand were clean. They responded “no.” I, then, I acted confused because they LOOKED like they did before the activity, why are they dirty now, but look the same as when they were “clean.” This technique is the same as the glitter for transmission, but showing that just because your hands look clean, you still need to wash them during the five critical times to live a proactively healthy life. It was a great training that really helped the people understand microbes and hand washing techniques. 

Privilege is growing up knowing that you need to wash your hands, understanding bacteria even as a child, and having running water and soap to wash your hands (AND a CLEAN towel to dry your hands).

Soap is “expensive” when they have so many other necessities to buy. I am teaching two villages how to make soap to replenish their hand washing stations’s soap when it is depleted. I am also going over a business plan for them to make excess and sell the excess for profit ensuring that they have enough money to replenish the supplies they need to make the next batch of soap.

Privilege is being financially secure to not have to choose between washing your hands with soap and drinking your afternoon tea.

Going to School & Graduating High School 

Most of us have complained about going to school at least once in our lives, but, we had nothing to complain about. Imagine going to school in a country that has a national language that you do not speak, but that is what the classes are taught in. How are you expected to learn anything if you haven’t even learned the spoken or written language? Immersion is the best way to learn? Not always the case. They are not taught critical thinking skills, but there teaching practices are reputation and regurgitation. If you ask them how to apply what they learned in a situation different than the one they were taught: 9/10 times, they won’t be able to do it. 

Privilege is going to school and being able to understand what is taught. Privilege is the opportunity to learn. 

If the students make it to middle school, most are held back for not passing the exam to pass their grade. Most of these students are girls. Girls do not get to study like the boys. Girls have to return from school, cook the lunches and dinners. Girls have to wash all the clothes and pull the water. Girls have to sweep and do all the house chores. I am not saying that the boys don’t have to do anything after they finish school for the day, but they have “boys’ jobs” like tying the cows or goats up at dusk. The boys get to study while the girls are doing the boys’ laundry and cooking the boys’ meals. Then, when it comes to pay for the tuition for the year, the parents don’t want to “waste” their money on the girls’ education because they are “just going to get married” and “they aren’t passing anyway.” Well, if the the girls had equal opportunity to study and had a positive home environment that encouraged studying, then, they very well could do better in school. It is a ruthless cycle, because if they don't have the education they won’t see the importance/value of education and won’t want to waste time, money and resources for their children to be educated, either.  A very, very small percentage of children make it to high school to graduate. 

An example inside my host family: NONE of my family made it to high school, and the women never made it to middle school, and some never finished their primary education. As for my younger teenage sisters, of the ages 18, 16, 15, only the 15 year-old is still attending school, but my family was refusing to pay for her education because she was too “dumb” and spent the past three years in the same grade. I gave them a guilt trip, but it is very likely that my dad will give her away to a man after I leave to relieve himself of the financial burden. The other two girls, both are betrothed to get married [as soon as their future husbands get enough money to have the marriage celebration] and one of them is pregnant [hopefully with her future husband’s child] and will be giving birth later this year, so they both dropped out of school last year, never making it past a ~6th grade education. My brothers are younger than my sisters, but my second dad gives them a lantern to study after the sun goes down, when my sister is cooking dinner. Although, I do not foresee them making it all the way to high school, because of the expense, I anticipate them finishing their middle school education. That being said, if they wanted to go to high school, I am sure my family would find a way to get the money for the boys to attend high school, which is not the case for the girls. 

Privilege is having your parents nag at you to do your homework and want you to succeed, whether you are a boy or a girl. Privilege is being able to do your homework.

Privilege is having enough money for school supplies and having the government pay for you to attend school.

The school are in different villages and the roads are laterite or bush trails. There are no school buses to pick you up to make your life easier and ensure you get to school. Here, the kids have to walk to school sometimes up to 7km. (From my village to the middle school is 5km) They do not serve lunches at the school, so they have to walk back to their houses in the dead heat of the day to eat lunch with their families and return to school later that evening. (That is walking 30km a day just for classes, in my village’s case!)

Privilege is having school transportation and not exhausting yourself walking 30km a day to school. Privilege is having excess time to study and do things that you want to do. Privilege is a proper education. 

Childproofing 

There is no concept of babysitters outside of older siblings, that in our world, should have a babysitter themselves. There is no idea of playpens to confine children in a certain area so they don’t get into something they shouldn’t. There is no such thing as childproofing here. I often find children playing with dull knives, putting them in their mouths and walking barefoot where the goats dispose of their bodily wastes. There are wells that are surface level without covers that children can fall into, and have no way out and drown. My most recent heartache of the lack of childproofing is open fires. The women cook over an open fire— think campfire. There is no walls to make a barrier between the flames and the people around it. The fires are on the ground, at the same level as little children. 

Two weeks ago, FOUR children fell into fires in one week. FOUR. All were under the age of five and are suffering immensely. (This in itself starts the topics of privilege in gender equality, in access to medical care, and in financial and self independence.) The mom of the three-year-old that tripped into the fire was balling, wanting to placate her child’s pain. The boy had third degree burns on his chin, chest, arms and hands. He was one giant pussing, blistering, skin peeling mess. He was screaming in agony. The mom wanted to take him to the hospital. She had to wait until her husband got home to ask him to take him. That took a whole day. The next day, still in agony, the dad says they won’t be taking him to hospital because it is too far away and they don’t have any money. The mom was furious. She didn’t agree, she wanted to take her child right away. But, because she is a woman and his wife, she can’t disobey him. I go to talk to them, trying to explain the severity of the situation. Telling them that they need to make sure he drinks ORS to replenish his electrolytes. They took that advice has his medicine. The husband told me because I didn’t have kids, he didn’t trust what I had to say about his kids. I explained it isn’t about having kids, but knowing how to deal with medical issues. 

Privilege is being able to protect your kids from harm’s way. Privilege are those annoying cabinet locks and door barriers. Privilege is having childcare. Privilege is having universal medical care. Privilege is having gender equality where you can choose to save your child’s life even if your husband doesn’t want to be bothered with it. Privilege is being able to go to a hospital in such emergencies and knowing there are charity cases and payment plans if you don’t have money. Health Insurance is a Privilege. Privilege is not taking your on flesh-and-blood’s life for granted. Privilege are pain killers and reliable transportation to obtain medical care. Life is a Privilege.

I am very aware that I need to write shorter blog posts so I won’t continue on my privilege rant. Just, be thankful for what you have and step back from any situation and realize that it could be a lot worse.