GBU Professor Mamadou BA

Dr. BA lectured today(Sunday) on "Peaceful Coexistence between Muslims, Christians, and Animists in Senegal". He went to school at GBU with our Professor Ngom. He laughingly mentioned that there were some stories he could not tell. Fallou then mentioned that his nickname was now "snow" for the patches of white hair he now sports. He focused on a variety of things, most interestingly, the Senegalese "joking relationships"---complicated needling between specific ethnic groups and even between specific family surnames. These family to family "jokes" are often about food and/or eating. The ethnic group jokes can often involve calling each other "slave", injecting a rather dark humor into the talk.

 

The lecture was interrupted by what is now the standard Powerpoint malfunction, in my view the scourge of teaching everywhere.

 

Dr. BA told a very poignant story to demonstrate the real existence of interfaith trust and goodwill. When he(a Muslim) was at GBU, there was a point where his mother could not pay his fees(his father died in 1985). He was distraught, reading "Devil on the Cross" at a bus stop here in St. Louis. A priest happened to be at the corner, noticed the book and engaged him in conversation and asked him why he was not in school that day. Mamadou told him. The priest said---"come to visit me in Kaolack on Sunday". He did. On the visit, the priest paid for his next four months of school and did so for the rest of his schooling. That is what defines interfaith harmony in Senegal. Nice story.