A few days ago an 11-year-old boy came to the maternelle on a motorcycle to pick up his little 4-year-old brother.  The boy barely reached the pedals and here the brakes on motorbikes are on the right-hand pedal.

It was the end of the day for the maternelle kids.  I was off campus with Paul - who is in charge of planting and taking care of the trees – taking a look at the ones we planted this year, when I saw the boy pass on the bike.  I couldn’t believe it.  And I was all the more surprised when I saw him stop in front of the maternelle. 

He got off the motobike, walked into the maternelle, and came out hand-in-hand with Salif, his little brother.  Before he had time to get back on the motorcycle, I went over and asked them to come with me to see Rihanata, the maternelle’s headmistress. 

I told her what I’d seen and she couldn’t believe it either.  We called the boys’ parents to tell them what had happened and to ask them to come and pick up the boys and the motorbike at the nursery school.  Their mother took more than two hours to arrive.  She had to wait for a neighbor to lend her a bicycle.  Their father was in Ivory Coast as of a few months. 

The mother told us that she had sent the older boy to pick up his little brother on a bicycle.  The boy responded that the bike had a flat tire, and as there was no one home to tell, he had taken the motorbike. 

We asked the mother if the boy often took the motorbike and she said sometimes, to do errands that were too far or too difficult to reach on a bicycle, like fetching water.

Rihanata, with that special way she has about her, explained to both mother and son the importance of stopping the practice.  The mother promised not to let the boy use the motorbike, and he promised not to take it.

This is only one example of the load of age-inappropriate responsibilities that fall to children in most sub-Saharan African nations. 

Girls have obligations like going to the well every day for water that they have to lug home; like cleaning the house and washing the clothes; bathing their younger siblings; going to the market for firewood to heat the water; or hand-grinding kilos of corn for dinner.  Boys’ obligations include doing some kind of work that brings money to the household so there is food every day (often including thievery).  These are the daily realities of African children.

It’s quite common to see girls no more than 7 years old entrusted with months-old babies they must carry all day on their narrow backs. 

I’ve even seen, well into the night at a stoplight, a mother on a motorcycle with a baby tied to her back, with a 3-year-old girl behind her, followed by a boy of 6 or so.  In the minute the red light lasted, I could hear the mother scold the boy for falling asleep when he had to stay awake to keep his little sister -who was already asleep – from falling. 

It’s not even that these children don’t have time to play like the kids that they are, nor the good luck to go to school and to do homework, especially in the girls’ case.  It’s that on top of that, their time is spent on adult tasks that shouldn’t fall to them.

I know it’s hard to fight these practices, above all because they originate from extreme poverty, which cannot be fought.  But I hope at least to have managed to keep Salif’s brother from picking him up on a motorbike!