Planting a Change
When was the last time you saw pure, unadulterated, inspiration in another human being?
Oumou is 15 years old, and she already speaks better French than most people I know. In fact, the reality is, her French is so good that I can barely understand her at times. I met her a few months ago when she showed up at the library I'm working on reopening in Donghol-Touma and she asked me if she could read some books. I was in a bad mood that day and I nodded at her and went back to my work- pretty much ignored her presence; but she came back the next time I was there. She then continued to come with me, learning how to organize books with me and reading everything I gave to her- which so far has included six different books, between Nancy Drew in French and a book about the French Revolution.
I applied for a training near Conakry with the Gender and Development Committee of Peace Corps Guinea and was asked to bring an adult counterpart and a girl student for the program. I knew after meeting her I didn't need to look any farther for the student. I asked her to come with me. Nervous, she accepted and we made the long, fourteen hour car trip down south for the week. It had been 5 years since she traveled outside of our sous-prefecture of Pita.
I'll ask you again, when was the last time you saw pure inspiration in another human being?
This week, I saw it.
Peace Corps is a hell of a lot of highs and lows, and I spend a decent amount of time questioning why the hell I am here. But this girl? Seeing her here this week, I remembered my purpose here.
The truth of the matter here is, Peace Corps volunteers in my position don't actually do a lot in the ways that you would think. For the most part, we're no longer build schools and we absolute hate the idea that people conceive of us "saving the world". We're not.
We are here providing small chances to other human beings to potentially broaden their horizons, give them the opportunity to learn something new, and in the end, realize the potential they have had inside of themselves all along.
The role of the volunteer isn't to plant an already grown tree and hand out the mangoes as gifts to those around them. Volunteers come with the seeds of change they want to plant into a community. They teach people how to plant and care for the seedlings, and then show them how to benefit from the literal and figurative fruits of their labor. We do this so that one day those we have educated will be able to show everyone else they know how to do the same, in order to eat the red and orange beautiful fruit hanging from the branches of change.
On our last day of the training, I look over at Oumou to see her writing down information from a manual we would be bringing back to site. I explained to her that the manual would be coming back to our village and we can use it to train others together. She shook her head and explained to me that she was writing down all the questions and all the points so that she could return to Donghol-Touma and sit down with her friends and ask these questions and have them write stories about them- stories about the dangers of child marriage, about gender based violence, and about the importance of education.
I told her I wasn't sure I had heard her correctly. With a smirk and an eye roll, she repeated her French words back to me again, slowly and pointedly to make sure I grasped the weight of her words so I could translate them correctly in my brain- words she spoke light as air.
"A faami?" Do you understand? She asked, switching to her playful Pular banter with me. Without waiting for me to answer, she put pen back onto paper and kept writing.
It took me a moment to realize what had just occurred: in that moment, I witnessed the sprouting of a kernel of change. Through this training, she was given the tools and the knowledge of empowerment, and it was transforming her. Whether she realized it or not, the last three days had changed her and had allowed her begin to realize all her own potential and worth. She had started growing from it.
And all I had done was given her access to the seeds.