Once upon a time, there were two Senegalese village girls.
Outgoing, vivacious, confident - at every soiree, every wedding, they would
deck themselves out in their finest outfits and dance the night away. The
primary difference between the two friends was that one had moved to my village
from the Gambia for the sole purpose of learning French in school, while the
other had never been to school a day in her life.
Then, about nine months ago, they were both frequently absent from
the family compound, much to our family’s annoyance, and a few months later
they were both trying to hide their very own, very obvious baby bumps.
Maimouna, the one who was going to school, was kicked out of our house, pulled
out of school and sent back to live with her father, who promptly beat her. The
second, Binta, suffered few repercussions, with the possible exception of now
being the butt of every dirty joke and sly comment at the village well.
Months went by, Maimouna's father continued to beat her on a
regular basis and then did himself one worse by refusing to let her go to the
health post for prenatal checkups. Binta's family, on the other hand, pumped
her full of vitamins and monthly visits and took the situation in stride. They
were both 15 years old.
So after returning to village after the holidays, waves of gossip
started hitting me in rapid succession. A day apart from each other, they
had each had a baby boy. Now, regardless of the outcome and the children's
survival, in the eyes of their families and community they're both damaged
goods. The most that they can hope for now is to marry some old man as a 3rd or
4th wife. But while both girls had survived the delivery without any
complications, which was a relief given the high maternal mortality rate in
Senegal, one of the babies was small and in poor health. You can probably guess
which one it was.
The next morning, the news broke. Maimouna's baby had died in the
night. She won't stop crying. She's alone, in pain, miserable, ostracized, and
worst of all, her baby just died. And all her family has to say is that she
should have known better, that it's better that it died. She needs to shut up
and stop crying. Meanwhile, Binta is two houses down the street, walking around
and feeling pretty good about her life, basking in the attention that a healthy
baby boy brings. For Binta, her family’s attitude had made every possible
difference.
One thing that I can say about my family is that they're very
understanding people. When we realized that Binta was pregnant, we wished that
it hadn't happened, given the cultural implications. We talked about what a
problem teen pregnancy is in the village, but happily, nobody felt that
attacking her with a bamboo stick would have resolved the situation or done anyone
any material good. It happened, it was an unfortunate choice, but she still
needed to go in for her prenatal visits and get her prenatal vitamins. As my
host mom said, it's a problem in our village. These things happen. It's sad.
But we still need to be understanding.
My sister and I went to visit Maimouna the day after her baby
died, and her father was just sitting outside of their house - he wouldn't even
acknowledge our arrival, which is a heinous offence in Pulaar culture, where
greetings and hospitality are paramount. He just didn't care. He was making a
point, especially to me. I’m a twenty-something educated white woman with no
husband who does whatever she wants. I just don’t understand. Meanwhile,
Maimouna is curled up in a ball in her room, sobbing, while her relatives and
the women in the village cluster into her room to berate her. And there was nothing
I could say. My only comment before I left was to tell her to keep crying. It's
painful, it's sad, it sucks. She needed to acknowledge that pain. What she
really needed was a hug, which I gave her. But that's all that I could do.
So my reaction to this situation.... yesterday morning, in
cooperation with Peace Corps training staff, we held a training at my village
school with students and parents to address girl's education, gender roles and
respect. As I said, teen pregnancy is a huge problem in the village setting,
and is frequently the result of rape or coercion. It typically results in girls
dropping out of school and losing out on their only opportunity to obtain any
kind of education or exposure to anything other than pounding millet and
pulling water with a baby on their back all day. Hence, the push to increase
community awareness of the importance of communicating with their children, keeping
girls in school, and promoting women’s reproductive healthcare
Three weeks after going to visit Maimouna, we finally have some
good news. She passed the exam to continue on to middle school last term, and
now she's going to move to our road town and continue her education. In brutal
honesty, if the baby had survived, this would not have been possible. But at
least now she has the opportunity to move on with her life and get beyond this
whole experience. And at least now, we’ve created a semi-open discussion in my
village about women’s health and access to care and education. It's a
bittersweet ending to an all too common story, but it's something.
