Throughout my high school career, which ended only months ago, I never even approached an understanding of the value of an education. I, like so many other American high school students, would complain about everything. The fact that I have recognized my previous misunderstanding perhaps makes obvious the fact that I have attained a new understanding. The enlightenment that I have found is the direct result of a year of service to the Baha'i Faith that I have undertaken in the developing central African nation of Chad from September 2000 to August 2001.
It is a common practice amoung Baha'i youth to leave their country for an unbroken year of service. Baha'u'llah, the prophet-founder of the Baha'i religion, raised the station of service to humanity to that of worship of God. My desire to serve humanity and to worship God helped me to make the decision to come to Chad, a French-speaking country, where I hoped to combine my interests in journalism and French. I thought that my year of service would be a fun and educational experience, like an extended field trip. I have since learned that I was only right about the educational part. What I did not realize was that my experience in Chad would rip away my years of happy American ignorance, much like a mother rips an old Band-Aid off of a skinned knee.
I was simply not ready for what I would see. I wasn't ready for the poverty,
the gaunt children, the polio victims, the bullet-riddled homes and public
buildings. Being white here makes me as conspicuous as Michael Jordan is
whenever he goes anywhere in the U.S. The children yell
A few weeks after my arrival in Chad, I was relieved to receive my work assignment from the Baha'is so that I could start working and helping these seemingly hopeless Chadians. Just as I had hoped, I was sent to the Village of Moissala, in southwestern Chad, to work at Radio Brakoss and to teach English. From a personal point of view, this assignment has only furthered what can best be described as a process of re-education.
Moissala is a very large, old village that lacks all modern amenities. And when I say "modern amenities" I refer to indoor plumbing, electricity, telephones, and the ability to quickly communicate with the outside world. It is a community begging for education. My work at the radio station producing educational programming, and at the local middle school as an English teacher, is quite rewarding and puts me in a place to observe many of the social problems at work in sub-Saharan Africa. In conversation and interview I've become aware of a smalle-scale genocide that took place in Moissala sixteen years ago. During a moment of governmental strife and famine, the largest ethnic group, the Mbaye, began a mass slaughter of all Muslims in the village. Extreme prejudice exists here among the different ethnicities. In my role as a teacher, the poverty of the village has manifested itself plainly to me. Children who have not registered at the school try to sneak in and study. They steal what, in most countries, is taken for granted as a right.
Despite all of this, the locals and myself remain relatively content. From an objective standpoint, my goals here have been met. I speak French, I am learning a lot about journalism, and I am performing a valuable service. I can never return to my old way of life. I can never again toy so frivolously with something so invaluable as education, the sole remedy for the world's vast economic and social strife. My faith and my conscience, two elements that were previously only passively associated in my life, have become integral parts of the process that forms my thoughts and transform them into actions. Baha'u'llah said that "Man is the supreme Talisman. Lack of a proper education hath, however, deprived him of that which he doth inherently possess." I want to study to become a journalist and, through my work, educate the people, thus helping them to fulfill their inherent potential.
- Ian Blood