Halfway Home

My time here at Starfish has been amazing so far. Yesterday marked the halfway mark of my trip. I’ve spent the last 3 weeks literally in paradise. Through site visits, time with students, and time with the mentors, I’ve been able to visit Gambia through my eyes.

The students have shown me so much love, it’s unbelievable. I’ve gotten to know a lot of them through just hanging out with them and playing games, through watching them present, and tutoring them in class. I’ve spent a lot of time with 7th and 8th graders. The first thing I noticed when I started tutoring the students was how smart they are. The education system here teaches students things that I didn’t learn when I was their age. I tutored an SES class (social and environmental studies) and the students were learning about West African history and the different empires that were around centuries ago. I didn’t learn this until my sophomore year of college. I spoke to my mom about it and she brought it up that I had learned about US history when I was their age and so they being African, makes it the same thing. It just took a little nudging for me to learn my first lesson: I had to see things from their perspective. Of course it would make sense that they would be learning about their own history in 7th grade. They will probably learn about US history when they get to university.

There has been a lot of down time with the students since they’ve been in their exam season. In this down time, I’ve been exposed to a lot of the games that the kids play. My favorite so far has been “Ride that Pony”. In this game, we all stand in a circle and one person is in the middle. We all clap and sing a song as the person dances around in the middle of the circle. When it gets to a certain part of the song, the person in the middle is supposed to pick one person and dance with them and then swap places. When we play this game, the students really love it. I think I make them play it so much, one of the students even calls me Pony 😂 Second lesson: they LOVE to dance and have fun. I see it as their way to express themselves and relieve stress. They have a lot of responsibilities at home, as well as responsibilities when they come to Starfish. Singing, dancing, and having fun allows them to be free and just release all their energy.

Finally, I’ve learned a lot just by being with the mentors. We each got to spend a day in the life of a mentor. I spent my day with Rene Moses and just seeing all he did at home and here at Starfish taught me the lesson of selflessness. The mentors dedicate all their time and energy on the students. Every waking moment is spent caring for the school and the girls and making sure that everything runs smoothly. It’s so beautiful to see how selfless they are. We rarely see the mentors eat! From 7am to midnight, sometimes later, they are all at the school preparing for the next days activities. A major way to actually make a difference here is to be selfless. It doesn’t benefit you much to just care about yourself. You’ll never make a difference if you’re just concerned about your wellbeing. It’s important to think of others and look for way to help.

All in all, the most important thing I’ve learned is to be present and be in the moment. I came here for the girls and boys of Starfish and nothing else can take up my time. I have to be here, in this moment, with them, because I don’t know the next time I’ll get this opportunity. I have already made up in my mind that it would be wrong for me to leave here and continue in life without keeping any connection to this place so I’ve already made a mental note to plan to come back sometime in the near future. I also want to introduce this program to my friends so that they can enjoy the experience just as I have.