Please donate to my Team Dayā fundraising effort – all funds go directly to building schools. If you are curious about Building Change with Team Dayā, please contact our Head of Recruiting Jaryd Knutsen.
By Terra Ingalls, Team Dayā member
“Travel is the antidote to prejudice” -Mark Twain
Your brain tries to apply categories it knows to predict your understanding of people. Labels like African, tribal, Muslim, etc. but then you go, and you realize these categories don’t help you understand people, they’re completely useless.
The Senegalese people were the warmest, kindest, happiest, hardest working, and most joyful I’ve ever met. They hit my soul in a way that makes my eyes water thinking about them. After dreading some of what I would have to do on the Team Dayā school build, I cried the day we left.
It’s so important in life to stay open, and travel opens the world to you. By leaving where you’re from, you don’t have to wholly inherit the life you were born with, you’re empowered to drop your inevitably limiting beliefs, ones that you don’t even know you have until you leave. This doesn’t happen if you just go to the instagrammable places, of course. In Senegal, what was beautiful and inspiring was its people: gems of human beings that have changed my life forever.
I know it’s a hard sell to say: give & raise money to go sleep on the floor without AC in one of the poorest places in the world, and do manual labor in the summer in Africa, but I’m telling you that if you’re ever depressed or lost in life, this would be a guaranteed cure. A rare joy that will live with you for the rest of your life.
For weeks leading up to the trip, I told myself: ‘It’s going to be rough, but if these people can live like this all the time, and I can help, then I can do anything for a week, to help make a difference in their lives.’ I thought it was me that was going to make a difference in their lives, but now, I’m quite certain that they made more of a difference in mine.
There were so many unexpected benefits: the deep friendships and conversations with the other volunteers on the school build, as well as the friendships and conversations with the local buildOn employees that would join us. I’m a ‘kids’ person, and well, I didn’t expect to fall for the adults in the village just as much as the cute little kids, but I did. I didn’t expect such candid conversations about our cultures and lives, and I certainly didn’t expect to learn so much about my own culture in this process.
We received the warmest welcome ever to the village, where we would spend a week living with local families to build the school. It was something so special, with signs, music, and lots of dancing. Little kids would endlessly invite you to dance. The village leaders had incredible speeches of gratitude, and they allowed each of us to speak as well. It really was a tribal party and more of a celebration that I was expecting.
In my speech to them (particularly aimed at the girls being the only women) I told them, “Thank you for such a warm welcome! Clearly, this village is not only kind and gracious, but fun! Education opens the world to you. It empowers you, and it gives you opportunities, but it’s not only the things you immediately think of as opportunities and benefits, but education also opens a whole new world of enjoyment. You’re able to dig deeper into anything you’re curious about, and learn lessons from thousands of years of human experience and existence should you seek it out. Women and girls, we are half of humanity. We owe it to the world to give our best 50%, because women are not only tough and strong, but incredibly smart.”
Our daily work consisted of making bricks by hand (great for anger management!), digging latrines and the foundation for the school (the hardest job in my opinion!), carrying bricks, making rebar, carrying gravel and dirt, and mixing concrete, all in 100+ degrees in the African sun without AC, power tools, or cold water.
We carefully monitored our fluid “ins and outs,” while we watched children and women with babies on their back, carrying bricks and heavy buckets on their heads busting their butts to build a better future for their community. The work was hard but shockingly satisfying. At the end of a long day working in the sun, you felt exhausted, but calm and accomplished. Physiologically, it was clearly more of a day that humans are meant to experience: moving and sweating, not sitting behind a desk.
I’ve always given to organizations around kids, but so often felt like a band-aid not getting to the root problem. This is the first one where you know you’re changing things at the root, and you can see them participating in their own change. The funds and work are a catalyst; the people then take that education opportunity and run as hard as they can towards a better future. The money and time at the start, clearly benefits generations to come, and their gratitude is beyond explanation.
The gender chat with local women was incredibly insightful. The women were so supportive of both me, and each other. The women asked if I had to get my husband’s permission and approval to travel there. I explained that we’re in an equal partnership and since I make my own money, I can spend it however I want without asking my husband, and that he doesn’t need to approve where I go, but just know about it. They said I was really lucky, because they have to ask their husbands’ approval for everything.
It became clear there are both positive and negative trade offs of both cultures. They get to spend more time with their children, and have more of them, but don’t have as much autonomy or freedom from their patriarchal system, for example. They had a lot of questions about birth control, and how hard my days are, as their days are full of hard work, from sunrise to sundown.
We discussed the cons of Americans not living in family units and having a village to help raise their kids. They really opened up, and so did I, to explore the role of women in each dynamic; how it differed, how it was the same, and where we could both exchange ideas for improvement in our cultures.
One of the moms of the cutest little baby girl, named Isadoh, knew we loved her baby, so she let us take her for cuddles all the time, even hooked me up with their African baby carrier, and told me I can be her second mom.
They asked me, “Why did you do this? Leave your family, spend money, and come all this way for people you don’t even know?”
I said, “Because we are a family of man, and I can, because my son doesn’t deserve education and opportunity in life any more than yours does.”
On the last day, the girls in my host family gave me a full Senegalese makeover, and it was so sweet and fun. They braided my hair, outfitted me with some of their clothes and a headscarf, and I even let the little ones do my makeup. Once again, the support shown for us was incredible. All the villagers that saw me came up to tell me how beautiful I looked.
Saying goodbye to these kids and new friends was incredibly emotional. I didn’t want to leave them, and I cried happy tears through the hugs. The mom from my host family said, “The next baby girl we have in this family, we’re going to name her Terra.”
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Watch Terra talk about the importance of the school in Nguiddine Keur Sara:
Three Ways You Can Help
- Make a Donation Online
- Example investment opportunities:
- $250 All the nails, nuts, and bolts to build a roof for the school
- $500 In-country mason during the entire construction of the school
- $1,000 Paint for a school
- $40,000 Fund an entire school
- Spread the Word
- Share our mission with your friends, your company and your industry
- Invite us to speak about our mission to your network
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- Join the Team & Travel on a School Build
- If you have a combination of fundraising chops, an adventurous spirit and the belief each of us has the capacity to be Building Change, get in touch with us and have a conversation.
Team Dayā 2024 Plans
In 2024, we plan to build schools in Nepal (March), Senegal (June 2024) and Guatemala (December 2024). These ground breakings will be our second school in each of these countries.
The exact start dates are:
- Sunday, March 17, 2024 – Nepal (arrive Kathmandu) [groundbreaking completed]
- Sunday, June 23, 2024 – Senegal (arrive Dakar) [groundbreaking completed]
- Sunday, December 1, 2024 – Guatemala (arrive Guatemala City) [limited availability]
- A 2025 schedule will be published by September 1st.
If you are curious to learn more about joining a build, please reach out to our Head of Recruiting Jaryd Knutsen.
Thanks again for your continued support,
All of us at Team Dayā