Some Work I'm Getting Into..

Before coming to Senegal, I remember watching Oprah’s show and listening to heart breaking stories about the lengths some ethnic groups in developing countries go to ensure the purity of their young girls. Atrocities such as female “circumcisions” or genital cutting and forced child marriages seemed like distant tragedies that I would thankfully never have to face. Unfortunately for me and many Senegalese girls and women, my first months here taught me otherwise.

It all started when I was assigned to give a presentation in Wolof about female genital cutting (FGC). This entailed interviewing female staff members at the Peace Corps training center and spending some serious quality time with my Wolof-English dictionary. I learned about the Senegalese ethnic groups that practice FGC, why they feel is it necessary, what affect they feel it has on their communities, and whether or not they feel it is a practice that is good for Senegal. I met women that had been “circumcised” and women that weren’t. I spoke with them about why they are proud to be circumcised and why they aren’t, and whether or not they will do the same to their daughters. I then spoke to some men about how they felt the practice affects development in Senegal. After finishing my interviews, compiling the information I had gathered, and rehearsing in my broken Wolof, I gave my controversial presentation to a sympathetic language class. Luckily, that painful experience is over forever but I must say my interest was sparked.

It just so happens that after this presentation, I learned I would be moving to Tamba—a region with one of the highest percentages of FGC and child marriage in the country—and would have an opportunity to get involved with the campaign to end FGC, child marriage, and other practices jeopardizing the human rights of children in Senegal. It has taken a little longer than I had anticipated but at the end of this month I hope to begin working with Tostan, a nongovernmental organization conveniently located in my neighborhood that works on literacy issues in villages and organizes village declarations to end the practices of FGC and child marriages throughout Senegal. Just yesterday, I attended Tostan’s first ever departmental declaration to end FGC and child marriages with hundreds of villages throughout the Department of Tambacounda attending to declare an end to the practice of FGC and child marriage.

In the coming months, I hope to write more about the Tostan projects and declarations I am assisting with. These are issues I feel need to be addressed and I feel entries like this give you an insight into the kind of work I am and will be doing and the life I’m living here in Senegal.