A Lot of Pain

April 02, 2023

ADJA SIRY MBAYE

ESL 100

FEBRUARY 25, 2023

A lot of pain

Poverty is a big problem in Senegal. A lot of people are trying to get their diploma and find a way to move out of the country. My father was one of them, He had a difficult education because he didn’t know his father he died early, so he was raised by his mother. She was doing her best to provide for my father and his siblings. After many years of hard work, he graduated and even married, and a lot of opportunities came his way. It was during the 2000s that my mother had just graduated from high school, and my father had just finished university. He studied business management, and he was looking for an accountant's job. He found a job outside of Senegal, but it meant he had to travel for his career, the decision to leave his family involves a lot of sacrifices. One of the decisions pushed him to not be able to live with his family for a long time, and this situation affected us emotionally.

At the beginning, when my father left the country, he was forced to live alone. It was so complicated for him. He didn’t know how to cook or clean for the first few months. He didn’t know how to take care of himself, just like some kind of things that some men generally do not know because is women’s duty that is what society expects. He needed to find his place out of the country, learn how things work because it is very different from Senegal. His decision to leave made him feel so bad because he only wanted the best for his family. He wanted to put his mother in better condition and make sure that none of his children would be disadvantaged in the future financially. He sacrificed his life for his family, he is earning money with the job that he gets which he does not really benefit. He is always between planes going from one country to another to start a new life each time because he is not moving back to the previous country, so he must start all over again. Loneness push him to marry a second wife first because he was alone, but he also had the option to take my mother with him, but nobody knew why he did not. The second thing was that he needed someone beside him, so that’s why he put her by his side and that decision changed my mother's life and now he regrets it nowadays.

The second effect of his departure was my mother. My mother is a very strong woman. She was a very good student, freshly graduated from high school and married. She wanted to continue her studies and get a job, but when my father was leaving, he told her not to work. If they have children because he was going to get the money for the family. He just wanted her to focus on our education and that is what she did. I was born on October 18, 2003. Before that she was working as a transit, but she stopped everything when I was born. One year after my birth my mother’s life completely changed. My father got a second wife and made her live with him in place of my mom. She was devastated emotionally, exhausted mentally and she kept a lot of pain in her because she sacrificed her study and future. Because she was now married and, in our religion Islam, when people get married the woman is in all responsibility of her husband. She has the obligation to do whatever he wants. For her, the problem was not the fact that he got a second wife, but the problem was that he put the second wife beside him and left her alone with my siblings and I that until now.

Finally, the most important part of this story was my siblings and me. This situation emotionally hurt us because we were expecting that this situation would change in the future. However, things didn't happen the way we wanted. My siblings and I grew up only with our mom. She has sacrificed all her life for us. It is not a bad thing because we all had a very good education. My father was trying and until now to come and see us as much as he can. I understand my father's decision but regarded what I am still hurt. I am 19 years old and a have never lived with my dad, he doesn’t even know who I am, what kind of person I am, what I want to become and anything else. It is the same situation for my brother, but it is much better for him than for me. The only person that I think will really have the chance to know my father very well and live with him is my little sister. She is 4 years old. Because of her, these last four years my brother and I have seen my father more than usual. He stays longer and he comes much more often. All of this so that the little one does not feel the absence that we in turn felt during our childhood. I really appreciate the effort that he is making to make us feel better, especially for my little sister. We all want her to have the best childhood that we ever had.

To conclude, these opportunities help my father to put his family in shelter. This situation is certainly complicated, but we thank God that so far, we are all together today. We live in very good conditions, and it could have been otherwise because we didn’t choose who would be our parents. At the end of the day my father is a wonderful dad who has two wonderful families and all of us are in good condition. We still do with this situation today and hope one day that all this will change, and we could finally all live together.