Through the Eyes of a Child: the Peul Bande

I'm sorry for it being over a week wince I last updated. I have been busy this week with my last week of classes and other various activities that I will update you on soon. :-) Anyways, in other ways I have been putting off my next entry because I knew how much time and effort it was going to take. So now, the Peul Bande through the eyes of a child.

“Only those who look with the eyes of children can lose themselves in the object of their wonder.” – Eberhard Arnold

Children’s eyes are the windows to their souls. If you look into their eyes you will see the innocence of youth and their admiration of the world. I spent much of my time in Bounda Kodi learning how life appears to those children. From Monday October 18 to Thursday October 21^st I lived with the Peul Bande people of Bounda Kodi. The Peul Bande is really a smaller branch of the larger ethnic group the Fulani or the Fulbe. They are primarily a nomadic tribe that is based mostly in West and Central Africa. They speak language Pulaar, and the Peul Bande embraces the Islamic religious tradition. The Peuls inherit their name from the French, who borrowed the term from Wolof (“Pel”).

The children in the village seemed like one large family. Personally I had a difficult time occasionally differentiating between which children belonged to which family. Everyone took a hand in looking out for other’s children and made sure they had food to eat. One small girl took a particularly strong role as mother for the other children. Her name was Fatou, and she was only six years old. She was always holding a child’s hand or would respond quickly to another that was crying.

Even though their village did not even own a soccer ball to play with, each of these conversations was trimmed with the same hope that I saw glow in the eyes of the children. The hope that they help them have these dreams and thoughts that thing will work out. It is their children’s wonder that helps them continue to dream and find ways to make it work. Their value of hope is one of the key bonds that bring them together as a family. They are all working together towards the common good of a better life. It’s their hope in life and their hope in each other that cause their eyes to shine with the wonder of a child.