A Little Piece of Home

This is indeed a true story, it just happened in August. I almost forgot about my self-promise that I would post it by Christmas. And here we are.

A little back-story must be given in order for this story to make sense to the less-informed readers. First, Charter. I went to the Benjamin Classical Charter Public School (B.F.C.C.P.S.) for 5 years, and I miss it dearly. The "Public" part was added in 2005. That building holds more memories of mine than you can shake a stick at, and I think about it every day. Every year it holds a "field day", which is a day near the end of the school year where the 8th graders assist in a variety of activities for the little kids. Also, every year t-shirts (made by the company Graphic Images) are given to the students, with the name of the school, the year, and sometimes an inspiring quote on the back.

Second, youth group. Though I'm pretty sure most of you know what that is, at Dakar Academy they do it a little different. It starts at 7:00, and it's basically a short sermon (1-1.5 hours) given in front of like 30-50 teenagers, and then people just kind of mingle outside until curfew for the dorms. Which is like 9 or something. Middle school is held in the library, and high school goes separately to the auditorium.

Finally, Saturday Market. Basically the mall of Dakar, Saturday Market is comprised of dozens upon dozens of basic little wooden tables. Every Saturday, salesman come out with their various wares (shoes, soccer jerseys, rear view mirrors, etc.), sets up on one of these tables, and sells things (or tries to sell things) all day. The whole of the "market" extends, quite literally, for several miles. The multitudes of salespeople and things to buy are overwhelming, especially so when you are white, because so many people try to sell you things. It's generally a place I avoid, for that reason. Anyways...

I bet you can't see where I'm going with these, but they are relevant, I assure you.

So, here we are at the 3rd week of youth group, near the end of August. Both middle school and high school has been let out, so I'm standing awkwardly alone and Sam is having a light conversation with some acquaintances on the basketball court. All of a sudden, Sam trots over to me with a shocked look on his face. "Will, that girl over there is wearing a Charter shirt!" Now of course, there's no way that could happen, right? The entire student population of B.F.C.C.P.S.'s grades K-8 is about 400 each year. And there's only about 300 in DA's K-12. And since there's about 365 million people in the States, and only 11 million in Senegal...you do the math.

But, I humor him and look over. From where we are, it really just looks like a dark green shirt. Even he agrees he could have been seeing things- its only been a couple weeks since the big move and we both miss home, and the lighting of the court was less than spectacular. We're both a little disappointed, sure, but none of us really expected for it to be a real charter shirt. He walks back to his little circle, and for 15 minutes I can't get the memory of B.F.C.C.P.S. out of my head. "I didn't really get a good look at it," I thought, "maybe I should walk over and check it again." It may even force me to socialize with other human beings.

After a few minutes I do kind of walk past, pretending I have some destination just beyond the wall and the route just happens to pass by the circle of girls where the one with the shirt currently resided. I was stopped in my tracks. On the back, clear as day, was an inspiring quote by Elanor Roosevelt. I practically sprinted to where I could see the front of the shirt, and there in bold white letters was B.F.C.C.S. and the numbers '03. Hardly able to string together enough words to make a sentence, somehow she understood that I was asking if she had gone there and responded "No, I bought it at Saturday market."

Now, I've tried to think how this could have occurred, maybe someone donated it, maybe Graphic Images sent a surplus of shirts to some charity and they trickled down to Africa, then stolen by someone and sold, then somehow that girl chose the charter shirt in the midst of hundreds of other options. There are a myriad of ways this shirt from that school could land in this school, all equally, astonishingly improbable. So I'm going to try to finally stop reasoning it out and let you take this story for what you want.

Merry Christmas!


-Will


"Christmas was on its way. Lovely, glorious, beautiful Christmas, upon which the entire kid year revolved."