On Sunday (July 21), I arrived home from Dakar, Senegal, after a craft camp held at the School of Hope, which was organized and supported by the Afrika Máskén Alápítvány, two primary schools in Budapest, Kada Mihály Primary School in Kőbánya and Imre Nagy Primary School and Elementary Art School in Csepel With the help of school student donations.
The packages became lighter on the way home, but my soul was filled with lots of positive feelings, memories, and energy.
Dakar, the capital of Senegal, the westernmost tip of West Africa, is a contradiction in itself. As Vándorboy wrote in one of his blogs, if you get here, you will experience real time travel. This is true both literally and figuratively, as we are two hours behind as we enter the West African time zone. As the taxi leaves the airport and we drive on the otherwise high-quality highway, one gets the feeling that one has stepped back thirty or forty years into the past.
The traffic is congested, the KRESZ only exists on paper, the cars range from the luxury category to the almost falling apart. As we leave the toll gates and turn off the highway and head towards the outskirts of Dakar, towards our accommodation, the chaos on the roads is getting bigger and bigger. Where there is a way. There are no basic things like road painting, zebra crossings, traffic lights, or traffic signs, everyone goes where and how they want. The endless sand is everywhere, the suffocating smell of diesel pours in through the rolled-down windows, behind us, next to us, one-horse carriages avoid the buses painted with dilapidated but spectacular colors and patterns. Motorbikes, with 2-3 people sitting on them, honking alternately with the yellow-black Touba taxis, everyone wants to get in and out of the roundabout at the same time. Sitting behind the driver, I keep pressing the invisible brake pedal with my foot, I just hope that the driver sometimes finds it. In this chaos, however, they drive with dead calm, as if this is the most natural way of transportation in the world, no fist-shaking when someone steps in front of you - and pedestrians and street vendors often run in front of and beside the cars - no swearing when a truck is packed to the brim with construction materials drives in front of you. All this is natural, customary, African.
Our destination is Rufisque, a new part of the city that is currently under construction. Everywhere, the two- or three-story houses with flat roofs are built of gray brick with reinforced concrete columns. It's as if we've wandered into a huge construction site, there's everything from empty lots to half-finished and fully finished buildings, from small market "stalls" to a supermarket. The street scene is again a cavalcade of crowded colors: women dressed in wonderful colorful clothes, with children on their backs, carrying their luggage on their heads, men in work clothes, or elegantly, with phones in their ears, sunglasses, a total contradiction compared to the dusty street scene. Trade is going on, blacksmiths are touching each other, the smell of fresh baguettes from the bakeries hits our noses, but only for a moment, because the fish market is already here, and let's face it, the smell of fish is not so pleasant.
Since it's summer vacation, the children help their parents in the market, run around in the sand, play soccer, which has a long tradition in Senegal, along with wrestling. There are many orphans and half-orphaned children, and many young people can be seen around major junctions, begging with small plastic buckets in their hands. I heard that, unfortunately, this is practiced in an organized way, forcing children to beg is a big problem here as well, and there is no effective solution to it.
School is not compulsory at the state level, it is not free, and because of these very many children do not get to school. The public schools are overcrowded, two hundred people can study in one class, and the training is not very good, because of the strikes, teaching is not progressing. Fee-paying private schools are better only in that they operate with smaller staff and the teachers are better qualified, but even in these conditions, to put it mildly, leave something to be desired.
At the school in the Yeumbeul district, with which the foundation cooperates, a window opening in each classroom lets in light for the lessons, two rows of dilapidated wooden benches with tables await the children. A blackboard on the wall, a small table with a chair for the teacher. This is the equipment of a private school room. The plaster is peeling from the walls, there are spots of mold here and there, the floor is full of holes, and occasionally ten-centimeter cockroaches run between the legs. During the break between the two sessions, while the children are munching on the mangoes, the painting on the opposite fire wall in the school yard appears: a Donald Duck. Again, a strange beauty that doesn't fit here, and it fits here, since we are at school, but compared to the other conditions of the environment, this small mural is like an inverted antique find.
As part of the craft camp, we provided paper, colored pencils, plasticine, paint, and developmental toys to children who would not have had a chance to get these on their own. The saddest experience and also the most touching was when I taught them to paint with watercolors. I thought of my daughters and their contemporaries, to whom we already show in kindergarten what it's like to create and make creative things. What is fantasy? When the thought soars freely, and the soul leaves an imprint on paper or a piece of plasticine.
"Use your imagination!" - I said to the many pairs of shining eyes, but it was difficult.
They did it anyway, they got wings with the colors and the crayons. One after the other, the drawings, flowers, trees, symbols and colors of Senegal appeared on the sheets of paper.
I held slightly more serious drawing classes for the older children and young people, they already had some basics, but they often did not dare to let go of the compass and ruler. It was seen that the aid provided security, imagination was often lacking here as well. However, there are many talented young people, and you could see that they would open up quickly with a good vocational training.
The only "bigger" room in the school building, which had two windows, was made up of rickety wooden benches and tables. Hard plaster on the walls, rammed floors, rubbish bins, and the blackboard on the wall with the French literature curriculum in cursive letters.
Despite the circumstances, the school walls are buzzing with joy, this is the only chance for a better life for the many little ones. So, I carried nearly 40 kilos of school supplies, I got a bright smile, lots of kisses, lots of warm hugs, thousands of thanks, joy, fun in return, so I think it was worth it. I am sending this many thanks to the two schools in Budapest, the Hungarian children, and the Hungarian supporters, with whose help African children who would otherwise be unable to learn can learn. I'll keep sending kisses, smiles, gratitude in the eyes. Thank you, thank you!
The contradiction experienced in the school also continues on the street, the walls of the barely finished, not yet plastered houses already have a couple of decorative tiles, the gate is made of wrought iron, as are the balcony railings and the window grilles. You can see that when it is finished, it will be beautiful, just like the whole city. In the streets, next to the freshly asphalted roads, however, garbage is pouring out, goats and thin cattle are wandering among the cars, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. But this picture is also just a small piece of fluff, a tiny piece of a puzzle from the huge puzzle of Senegal. Time has stopped, or at least slowed down, "We'll get there..." says the African man, and this is a very strange mentality to European eyes. They don't rush, they don't hurry anywhere, as an African saying says: "Africans have time, Europeans have a watch."
After the two slow weeks, I'm going back home. And although I am full of experience, full of mixed emotions - the children and the Senegalese people will remain in my heart forever, and I have the desire to do more - it is good to return home. When the plane flew over Budapest, the morning sunlight glinted on the winding blue strip of the Danube during landing, I knew I was home. But a piece of Senegal also landed with me that day.