Salamata, Ndeye Coumba, Soukey, Erin, Safie, Ndeye Awa, and I
Erin, in the middle, an ag volunteer living in a small village outside of Thies, has started working towards a Peace Corps radio program. Other regions of the country work with local radio stations and volunteers' topics range from explaining American culture to talking about work/teaching even reading children's stories in the local language. We were brainstorming topics for this potential Thies radio show and I decided to get my girls' group involved.
When I mentioned that they could be on the radio all of my girls jumped at the opportunity! They immediately started brainstorming skit ideas which were eventually narrowed down to a single skit discussing AIDS, early and forced marriage, abuse against children, and the environment. After that meeting we decided to take a break and get back together the next week to start working on the script. The next week I showed them a basic plot diagram (intro, rising action, climax, falling action, conclusion) which they had never seen before. I was able to convince them to drop the multi-themed skit and do two skits with one theme each: abuse against children and forced/early marriage.
They started writing the abuse against children script to present to me. When they were finished they explained the plot and let's just say it was WAY too inappropriate for 14 year old girls to be talking about. I hated to censor them but I couldn't have them talking about things that were culturally inappropriate especially not under the Peace Corps name. We decided to take another week break and come back together the next week. The next Sunday they had two great scripts to present and we started practice!
The first skit was about a girl who's mom wants her to get married to a wealthy man so her family can have money. Eventually the girl's friends convince her mom to let her finish school and everything ends happily. The idea might seem far fetched but unfortunately, the only far fetched part is that the girl didn't have to get married. Sometimes girls are married off at really young ages because their family can't support them or doesn't want to anymore.
The second skit is kind of the Senegalese version of Cinderella: an orphaned daughter (of a second wife) is forced to do all of the housework by her dad's first wife until the first wife's friend comes over and points out that the orphan shouldn't be abused, that she has rights, and that the actual daughter of the first wife doesn't know how to do anything because she's never had to do any chores.
Erin came out to Bambey yesterday to record the skits and the girls' introduction. To make it seem like more of an event I bought a few bottles of soda and we had a little party. I've attached some photos from the day! Erin's going to edit the piece and I'll have a copy to play for the girls May 1st!
No comments:
Post a Comment