Day to Night In the Life of a Starfish Girl
Even though we have not started teaching our official classes yet, the past four weeks at Starfish have absolutely packed to the brim with amazing national sites, memorable cultural experiences, and unforgettable moments with the Starfish students, mentors, and other volunteers. As almost everyone here at Starfish knows, I have trouble containing all of my thoughts and am almost always blabbering on about my love for the girls, The Gambia, and pretty much everything here I experience but those horrifying flying termites that I am pretty sure came back from prehistoric times just to terrorize the other volunteers and me. However, for the sake of you lovely readers stateside, I’ll try to contain my excitement just to a few key moments and experiences.
If you’re short on time, for a quick wrap up, here are some highlights of the past two weeks since my last blog post: experiencing the prayer service and bountiful feasts of Koriteh, one of the most important Muslim holidays and feasts of the year, going on a trip up country to the beautiful Kaur and experiencing the beauty of the countryside and the people there, the trial and errors of my first week officially teaching Youth Leadership and Videography, shadowing one of my amazing students, Wuday, in “A Day in the Life of a Starfish Girl,” and helping to facilitate yet another successful sleepover retreat for the girls, this time on personal growth and change, and how to enact societal change.
I would say that the most significant experience of all of these for me was being able to shadow one of my amazing Youth Leadership students, Wuday Jaiteh, in my “Day in the Life of a Starfish Girl.” It was probably one of the most humbling experiences, not to add that it was one of my favorite days at Starfish thus far, in which I learned more about myself, and what it means to grow up as a Gambian girl-child versus one in America. I was really excited to shadow Wuday because she was one of the most exuberant students in my class. That girl is an explosion of sunshine. She has this confidence and spirit about her that are unmatchable. She reminds me a little bit of myself, actually, and so I was really interested in seeing what her home life was like, and what it was like to live her routine and life for a day.
My day in Wuday’s life began bright and early at 7 AM where Starfish mentor Awa and I made the trek to Wuday’s compound that luckily for me is super close to Starfish and was still in Lamin Village. When we arrived at her compound, Wuday was her usual nothing-but-sweetness-and-pie. In true Gambian fashion, she was extremely hospitable, warm, and friendly. Right after we arrived, she promptly brought us to a local shop where we bought her usual breakfast, tappalappa bread with butter spread on it, and the ingredients for morning tea. Once at Wuday’s compound, I learned the best method for building and maintaining the little fire stove for the teakettle. At breakfast and throughout the day, I constantly had to remind Wuday that I was there to shadow her and help her with her chores as she was continually and so graciously treating me like a guest. Here, Gambians pride themselves on hospitality, and as guest in someone’s home, you often feel like visiting royalty, which is pretty awesome, but also extremely frustrating sometimes when I honestly don’t feel like I have done anything to deserve the Gambians’ abundant generosity. Finally, the three of us were able to enjoy the morning with a tappalappa and cup of tea in a relaxed manner that has been characteristic trait of my moments here in The Gambia.
It’s funny, here, I am able to simply sit and enjoy the moment; me, a girl who can’t usually bear the weight of silence at home, so much so that I am often struggling to fill it. But with here, especially with Wuday, in between our chats about who she is and her abundant dreams for her life and the world, I was able to simply enjoy the moment and the unknown. After breakfast, I finally got Wuday to let me assist her in her chores and day. We washed all of the dishes, swept the entire compound (which I am still learning to do the proper African way after endless teasing from almost every mentor and Gambian I have demonstrated my lack of sweeping prowess to), mopped the floors, visited the local markets with Wuday and her grandmother to buy the ingredients for the awesome fish ball domoda we cooked, and cleaned up all over again.
Throughout the day, I was absolutely in awe of how many chores Wuday had to do for a Saturday morning. Between cleaning the entire compound with the help of her aunts and cooking lunch, it took almost three to four hours for her to do all of her chores. I did chores when I was growing up too, but nothing to the extent of what Wuday does every weekend and day. I was so incredibly humbled by the responsibility that this almost fifteen year old has in her household. But more than anything, I was so impressed by her attitude and graciousness towards her many family members who all seemed to demand her attention. It was so fascinating to see her in a different light, to see Wuday being quiet, focused, and so attentive to her personal responsibilities and family’s needs. Seeing Wuday react that way, I recalled my oh-so-recent days as a teenage girl and what an absolute brat I was. If we’re being candid, I remember my mother asking me to do something, probably the tiniest of tasks or chores, and responding with the utmost sass and attitude. And then here was Wuday, literally doing more than my tiny teenage mind could have imagined possible for another teen girl at that age, and conducting herself with the utmost patience, graciousness, and respect for herself and her family.
Needless to say, I was totally humbled and impressed. Wuday’s maturity and awareness of her responsibilities and role in her family inspired me to step up and grow up. I hope that throughout my life, in the future, I am able to have half the patience, maturity, and respect for my family and myself as Wuday does. Truly, that girl is an absolute inspiration to me in the way that she carried herself with focus and spirit, discerning when each was appropriate and energizing through what was an extremely long day at Starfish already, not even including her abundant chores. The student and teacher roles were truly flipped Being able to live a day in the life of a Starfish girl was the greatest gift for me because I was able to experience true solidarity, and develop an extreme respect for one of my students, and all of them truly, that is built on a deep understanding and knowing of the life and experience of a Gambian girl, beyond the confines of the Starfish walls. I believe now that to truly walk in the shoes of another person and live an experience so radically different from your own is one of the most profound experiences that one can have in life, and how lucky am I that I was able to do that with one of the coolest students I have ever met in one of the most complex and beautiful countries I have ever encountered.
