In Which I Buy the Best Book Ever

The time between the second and third visits to Guede-Chantier was somewhat flustered. So many preparations to make, so little time! And Emmanuel is a great project partner, but he gets tired easily. I was always saying, "Let's do this! We have to do that!" and Emmanuel kept trying to make me chill out. Finally he smiled and said, "Wow, Charlotte! You Canadians, you really love to be busy! Canadians, they never sit still."

This was really funny to me, because I'm not even a real Canadian. I'm used to saying, "I come from Canada!" all the time, because that's where my family lives now, but I was born in the USA and I study there. It just goes to show: when you go abroad, you're the ambassador of wherever you come from. Even if you're a total nonconformist, everyone will assume that your personality represents your place of origin.

The principal errand we did was to make a pilgrimage to the Bibliotheque Libre de Dakar. "Free Library," is a bit of a misnomer; they did charge us for the books. Nevertheless, as sustainable development folks, we got the cheap bulk rates. As far as I could gather, they were an NGO whose aim was to provide reasonable prices for people trying to equip African libraries. Most of their stock was donated by Canadians. I even found a brightly colored beautiful children's book that was donated by my Canadian bank-- small world, eh?

We were stuck in several traffic jams on the way there (the French call them embouteillages, or bottle-ups.) During one traffic jam a dusty street child came, jumped through the door on the back of the bus, and begin singing. It is not an exaggeration to say his voice was transcendently beautiful. I've never heard such gorgeous music in my life. He sang a prayer in Arabic, echoing, wailing, haunting. The divinity of it was such a contrast with the masses of ugly cars and sweaty people. People passed little coins towards the back of the bus to reward him for his efforts. Mere trifles-- the Senegalese equivalent of nickles, pennies, and dimes. He collected them in his hat. Then, when the traffic jam started to clear up, he bowed, jumped off the back of the bus, and was gone forever. It was good entrepeneurship, but risky; buses probably had thicker crowds than he could find elsewhere. Still, its a wonder he wasn't run over.

When you find talent like that, in the midst of poverty, its a little bit like finding a pearl mixed with the stones lying on the beach. It catches your eye, you stoop to admire its luminous glow, and before you can reach out to touch it, the waves have swept it away again. To be tumbled endlessly in the shifting waters. By chance, on that very same bus ride, I happened to be seated beside an interesting man who worked for an NGO that helped street children. They tried to organize volunteers to give them lessons on useful skills. "But we can never find funding," he told me. "We have no access to the higher-ups in government-- that's the problem. And we're always sending emails to all these foreign aid organizations, but they never answer." Having had much the same troubles with my library project, I nodded in sympathy. "My cousin adopted two street children," the man continued, "Gave them a room in his house and everything. But two was all he had room for. There are so many-- what can you do?"

I asked him something I had been curious about for a long time. I knew there were two categories of child beggars. There were those who were simply homeless, and there were those who worked for the marabouts. Since zakat (alms-giving) is an obligation of Islam, the marabouts were able to use street children quite easily to raise funds for their religious organization. I asked him which category of children had the harder life. He told me things were very hard for both kinds of children, but at least the ones under the protection of the marabouts were less likely to be abused.

After we came back Emmanuel and I had lunch together and I was flipping through our shiny new purchases (all of them in French, most of them with pictures.) All of a sudden, I came upon the most wonderful book in the world. It was entitled, "The Zloukch." It was simply epic. Its about a boy named Zachary who dreams he is not like all the other little boys. He dreams of being a breeder of dragons at a firework factory. He dreams of living under the sea with a noble sea-horse steed. He dreams of living in the trees and being friends with all the animals. You see.

At school, Zachary's teacher asks all the little boys and girls to draw their favorite animal. The rest of the children draw normal animals like horses and cats and dogs. But Zachary spend the entire afternoon attempting to draw something beyond the bounds of imagination, something that defies description. Something called...... a ZLOUKCH. The other children are very intrigued to hear Zachary is drawing a Zloukch. They ask him, "What is a Zloukch? Where does it live? What does it eat?" And then the teacher (what a bitch, in my opinion) shows up and tells everyone that Zloukchs do not exist. So everyone starts making fun of Zachary and decides he is "nettement nul,"-- a total loser. A real zero.

BUT ZACHARY REMAINS UNDETERRED BY THEIR CRUEL MOCKERY!!!!! ZACHARY HAS FAITH IN HIS OWN VISION!!!! ZACHARY IS TRULY INSPIRED, AND THE LAUGHTER OF THE IGNORANT MASSES CANNOT MAKE HIM FAINT OF HEART!!!!!!!!!! (Please note, this is not a direct translation. This is the tale of the Zloukch a la Charlotte.)

It was this part of the book that made me realize that Zachary and I are truly kindred spirits. I cannot count the number of times my ideas to change the world have been greeted with laughter and heartless mockery. But like Zachary, I remain fearless in pursuit of my dream. I give not a fly's whisker for all these naysayers. You can tell me that Zloukchs do not exist, but I will never, ever, EVER believe you. IF NEED BE, I WILL CHASE THE GLORIOUS ZLOUKCH TO THE VERY ENDS OF THE EARTH!!!! YEA, TO THE VERY ENDS OF THE GALAXY I WILL PURSUE IT!!!!!!!!!!

But anyway. In the book, the other children go to play with puppets, leaving Zachary all alone at the drawing table. He makes sketch after sketch, but none of them succeed in capturing the Zloukch. One by one he crumples up his sketches and throws them away, until he is surrounded by snow-drifts of ripped-up papers. He draws and draws until at last.........

"YOUPI" he screams (French for Hooray.) "I have it, I have it, at last I have it!" He leaps to his feet, scattering papers in every direction, and dancing around with joy. Everyone crowds around to see this Zloukch he has finally succeeded in drawing. I wish I could scan the page of the book for you, because Zachary's Zloukch is truly a thing of wonder. It's a friendly-looking giant rabbit-mouse with three ears, colored in blotches and stripes and polka-dots of orange, blue, and yellow.

I don't why, but none of Zachary's classmates appreciate his clearly great artistry. Quite the contrary, in fact. "Tout le monde avait le fou rire," says the book sadly. (Everyone had Mad Laughter.)

And so everyone leaves for home, while Zachary remains staring forlornly at his picture of the Zloukch. It is then, when everyone's eyes are elsewhere, that the miracle happens. The Zloukch peels itself off the page and comes ALIVE!!!!! IT'S ALIIIIIIIIVE!!!! The final page of the book is a picture of Zachary and the Zloukch walking happily hand in hand together.

I was so excited about this book that I started telling everyone I met about it. "I think it has a good moral," I said.

"What's the moral?" my classmates demanded, somewhat puzzled.

I shrugged. "I don't know........ If people laugh at your dreams, your magical friend will arrive and kick all their butts?" I imagined further, unpublished pages of the book in which the Zloukch uses its fire breath and laser eyebeams to demolish the houses of everyone who wished Zachary ill. Everyone agreed that the moral was indeed a good one and I should make every effort to share this book with the children of Guede-Chantier.

I think I'll leave you there..... The next entry will began recounting the events of the third and final visit to Guede-Chantier.