Jump Right In

Jet-lag is real. But there is not enough time for sleep, so…whatever. I was excited to arrive at the Maison de la Gare centre today, to greet old friends, introduce my friend Vicki, and get a sense of how to organize our objectives for the next two weeks. Walking down the alley across from the soccer stadium and through the gates of Maison de la Gare always feels like coming home. 

Kalidou introduced me to a new group of apprentices studying in the couture program. Several girls from the surrounding community and two talibés will spend a year training and preparing for independence as tailors. Kalidou is helping to train and guide these youths. He also teaches a very popular English class every afternoon at MDG. Kalidou is a wonderful example for the talibés as he was a talibé himself for so many years. He never attended formal school. Nevertheless, he learned French, and to read and write in the MDG classes and taught himself English, becoming fluent over the years by learning from international volunteers. 

Kalidou with MDG founder when a talibé child himself

I met a little talibé in the dortoir. He is 9 years old, and politely introduced himself to me. A local social agency had found him on the streets after he had run away from his daara where he has lived and been forced to beg for the past 5 years. His family is in Dakar, not nearly so far away as for many talibés here. But they may as well live on the moon, as this little boy has not seen his parents since the age of four when he was entrusted to a marabout in Saint Louis and his abuse and exploitation began. When MDG receives or finds runaway talibés or other street children they are granted 72 hours from the authorities to discover the child’s story, investigate the factors that caused the child to run away, including possible (likely) extreme abuse in the daara, and to determine if it is possible to reunite the child with his family. No funds are provided from the government for this service, but MDG will never refuse a child. In fact, twice a week teams from the centre venture out at night, combing the streets in search of runaway talibés to rescue. One night later this week, Rowan, Vicki and I will join a Ronde de Nuit. 

Runaway Talibés we rescued when I was on a previous Ronde de Nuit

While at the centre, discussing with Lala the karate tournament I have planned for next week, a news crew from the television station tfm arrived to interview some staff members about MDG’s work with talibés for World Children’s Day. After interviewing Ndaraw Diop about the micro-finance program and the talibé calamity in Saint Louis they overheard my conversation and asked to interview me too. 

I was questioned about the karate program and the importance of sports to developing confidence and a sense of family to kids who have lots theirs. I was astonished to learn the segment featuring Maison de la Gare and my interview was featured on tonight’s 8pm national news.  https://youtu.be/pga0Dw-kBdI?feature=shared

This afternoon we attended the baptism celebration of the new baby of some dear friends. Mohammed received his name today. I was also able to re-connect with my lovely little Goddaughter, Sonia. 

Our friends recently had to move to a new house, just as Mohammed’s mother was ready to give birth, the roof of their rented home had collapsed on the family as they were sleeping! We are continuously offered opportunities to reflect here on how fortunate we are in the relative security of our our living situations in Canada. The definitions of “housing crisis” are quite different in our two worlds.

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Tomorrow we head back to MDG. And we can’t wait to jump right in.