Next week, I
turn 25. It’s subtly shocking, at least to me: 25 years is a milestone, a
measurable number that means diamonds and reunions. Often, it’s the kind of
milestone that prompts people to re-remember the existence of things or remaster and reissue classic rock albums. I am now basically a VH1
special.
But I feel
good about 25. It could be worse. I could be turning 26. Or turning 24, like Benjamin Button. On each birthday, I like going back through
my old ones and reminiscing. For instance, I’ve spent birthdays on beaches with gallons of
Coldstone and birthdays crying as friends forced tequila worms down my throat. I’ve had limo rides and bowling alleys and
basketball tournaments and brunches and garage fiestas and luaus and parties
that ended with neighbor children somehow slamming their faces into our
mini-trampoline. I turned 21 touring the
European Parliament, which is never how I expected to spend that milestone, but
hey, I remember all of it! And of
course, last year, I turned 24 wearing a pair of Senegalese princess pajamas
and eating chicken with my hands.
Through it
all, on birthdays and in life, I find myself consistently asking the question
“How the hell did I get here?” For example, “How did I end up in Ugandan prison
after watching Wyclef Jean cry on a forklift last night?” or “How did I end up
climbing across this roof at 6am in my favorite party dress?” or “Why is this
woman yelling Spanish at me and thrusting a communist flag into my arms?” Some questions have no answers. This year, I’ll be on my way to Germany,
stopping to have a Mexican celebration with my American friends in Senegal. What? How?
I don’t know.
But then
again, I do know. I do know how I’ve
managed to fall – happily – into most of these experiences. It’s a combination of opportunities, luck,
privilege, and geographic location, not to mention the continuous support of
loving and inspirational people every
step of the way. With that kind of wind
at my back, anything less than adventure would be abnormal. Moreover, in my life, I’ve been allowed – and
encouraged – to find my own way. For that, I am thankful.
Lately, I’ve
been stopping by the middle school more to work with the English Club. Their latest project is an English-language
theater piece, “Creating a Better Senegal.”
In the skit, everyone comes late to work, steals money from the company,
and sleeps with the boss. They wrote the
skit themselves, and the moral comes at the end, when one character exclaims,
“It is time to change these habits!” As
for my role, I merely gave them suggestions like, “Maybe the secretary should
call the boss ‘my chocolate baby’ when she’s bribing him for money. That’s a fun English phrase!”
But truth be told, I love the kids I work with there. The middle
school students in Senegal range from about 12-16 years old. For many of them, finishing middle school is
an extraordinary achievement in and of itself, and when they receive their
completion certificate, their education ends. When I think back to my life and
how a college degree was more an inevitability than vague hope, I find myself
unable to imagine a world where life ends and begins with 8th grade.
What would my life would be like if I had grown up here? Certainly, it’d be different, and maybe not
different in a bad way, but without a doubt, different. I start thinking that if I had grown up in
Senegal as a Senegalese girl, maybe I too would be content and proud to finish
middle school at 16 and follow it with marriage and a family. Sure, I’d be missing all of those years and
birthdays that American Lisa had – the learning, the living, the leaving – but
such is the give and take between cultures.
Maybe Senegalese 16 would be enough for me.
But then I
think back to conversations I’ve had, with everyone from teachers to students
to friends and neighbors here. The girls
who want to be stewardesses, the girls who want to be doctors. The teachers who want to go back to
university just to learn more, the students who want to study abroad just
because. The unmarried women I know who
aren’t ready to settle down, and the ones who are but still insist on
completing high school and college first. As anywhere, there are plenty of
people in Senegal, some out in the open and some hidden in crevices, who want
more, who want something different, and who are willing to work for it.
Bigue wants to be the Senegalese Minister of Health. She's starting by staying hydrated at preschool, clearly
Some
families pull their girls out of school because it just becomes too
expensive. Some stop girls early so that
they can help around the house -- watching children, washing clothes, cooking, or
working at the family business. I don’t
criticize those reasons in the least.
But when those reasons stop the education of a motivated girl who wants to be a
doctor, or a teacher, or a nurse, who wants to keep learning – well, maybe that
should be changed. Senegal has a lot of
girls like that. But at the moment, Senegal
also has a 56% literacy rate for girls between 15-24 years old.
Anyway, with
all that in mind, I’m currently working with that same middle school to select
nine girls for Peace Corps Senegal’s Michele Sylvester Scholarship
program. The scholarship covers school
fees -- $10 for a year – for all nine girls.
Three girls are chosen as overall winner for their grade, after writing
essays, submitting teacher recommendations, and passing an interview, and they
get an extra $30 to buy school supplies. Eventually, the nine selected girls
will be invited to the camp I’m helping to organize in my region, and I’m also
hoping to form a girls’ health group with them (by disguising it as a prize...
muuahahaha). This program has been going on in Peace Corps
Senegal for almost 20 years now, which means it’s almost as old as me, but I
still win.
Coming in as an American representing an organization of the American government and
telling a family that their daughter is smart, capable, and deserving of praise
makes a lot of families reconsider the education of their daughters, not to
mention all their children. Moreover,
coming in as an American and telling a girl that she herself is smart, capable,
and worth the investment motivates her even farther. And at the end of the day, it’s crazy that supplementing
a school fee of $10 can change someone’s life so drastically. Maybe not all of these girls will go on to
accomplish each and every one of their goals.
But they deserve to try and they deserve the chance to find themselves.
So you may
have seen this coming, but yes, for my birthday this year, I call upon all of
you to donate a little bit to this fantastic program.
Granted, your donation can be a little bit of constructive thinking
about the state of education worldwide, but I’d especially appreciate it if
you’d donate a few dollars to my middle school. If you choose to make a donation, please write
“Lisa Floran, Michele Sylvester Scholarship, Thies” in the comments box to ensure your funds go directly to my
girls. Also, keep in mind that any extra
funds I receive will go to one of the other 50 scholarship sites around
Senegal, so it's a win-win situation.
I never imagined
myself in this life I now lead at 25.
Who knows where Senegal’s girls will be at this age? Who knows... but maybe, just maybe, they’ll
end up in the last, perfect place they never expected.
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