Back from Palmerin

I'm back in Dakar, as of a few hours ago. (No internet in Palmerin, so no blog updates.)
I'm very busy trying to work, and also I got up at 3AM this morning to get here, so this is just to say that I had a fantastic time there (beaches, palm trees, baobabs, sunsets and such...) and I want to take everyone I have every known back there to see it! My interviews went well as well... I was getting sort of bored by the end, to tell you the truth, asking the same questions over and over, and I was mostly thinking about all of the final putting-together work I have to do, but everyone was very nice and welcoming. The women are phenomenal. The stuff they're doing ranges from small to sort of medium-size enterprise, but everyone thinks big. Ah, too much to say, too little time!
Happy almost-Thanksgiving!

For Poppop's men's discussion group!

SEM Fund Kiva Page

I have found the SEM Fund profile on Kiva.org, for anyone who is interested! And here is a link to some of the groups from Keur Gu Mag in Diourbel (wolof is spelled out in many different ways, because it's not originally a written language, remember). The site is the SEM site, but each group links to their kiva loan page. I met with groups from Jabbot, Propaf, Tocossone, and Kheweul. (And maybe others, but those are the names I recognize.)
SEM Fund Diourbel page

I also found that a Kiva Fellow (volunteer) who visited Senegal to meet with Kiva's partners in the area visited Keur Gu Mag, too. Ibrahima Faye showed me a picture of him that he had in an album, so I was surprised to see the same picture when scrolling down the Kiva Fellow blog... here's the link to the Fellows Blog for Senegal. The picture I'm talking about is in the entry called 'Happiness'.
Kiva Fellow Senegal Blog

Wow, that's lots of links. I'm clearly procrastinating, but at least you, dear readership, get to reap the benefits of my web-surfing!

the beginning of the end

I'm quite happy to be back in Dakar. It felt like a homecoming, much more than the other times when we have come back from trips away. I finally feel at home in this city, like I could say that I lived here for a short while without qualifying it as "well, sort of" or "not really". Of course, this realization comes at the same time as my realizing that I have no mental (or actual) map of the city and can't get anywhere without a taxi. Oh, well.
My schedule seems to be somewhat figured out for the rest of the ISP period. I leave Dakar again on Saturday (hopefully very early in the morning) for Palmerin. I should have Saturday afternoon and evening and all day Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to do more interviews and research. I haven't decided if I'll come back late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, but I'll be back in Dakar for the Thanksgiving dinner that one of the other students is hosting. (Her family is coming and apparently her mom is going to re-create every aspect of a traditional thanksgiving dinner. Fear not for my holiday meal!) Then I'll stay in Dakar after that, doing some more research, interviewing people from my NGO and writing my final paper and preparing the oral presentation. We have a few days down in a nice hotel near Mbour, as a sort of exit-orientation period, where we give our presentations and relax by the beach and say goodbyes. We go back to Dakar on the 13th and grab our bags and those of us who leave together on the group flight will head to the airport! I'll leave with the group but stay over in Paris for a few nights and be back in the states on the 17th or so, I think. It's all very fast approaching and sort of exciting. Given the mini-breakdown I had in front of the ice-cream section of Casino the other day, I'm finally starting to feel homesick! (Breakdown in a silly way, not in an actual breakdown way)(Casino is the French chain of supermarkets here, so it's like a slice of western/pre-packaged/expensive/organic/air-conditioned/materialistic/clean goodness in the middle of the goats and dusty streets of Dakar. We all sort of lose it when we're in Casino. I won't tell you how much I spent on cheese the other day...).

Anyway, that was a grammatically convoluted paragraph, but what I'm saying is that I miss you all and I'll see you sooner than you think!
xoxo,
Robin

diourbel, day 5...

Still in Diourbel but leaving tomorrow morning for Dakar. Won't I ever be pleased to get back to my computer with the keyboard that doesn't stick and such! Had, I think/hope my last interview today. At least for diourbel. Tonight I'll try and squeeze some more information out of Ibou and photocopy some eco village paperwork and then tomorrow morning i'll stay just long enough to go to their meeting with the UN group that is helping them with their solar oven project. I'm planning on leaving right after, 1pm at the latest, so I'll probably leave around 3 at the earliest. Senegalese sense of time is quite different, you know.
I'm a little stressed about getting my audio files back to dakar and getting them translated and transcribed and everything, especially since I'm planning on only spending one or two days in Dakar before leaving for the second eco village in Palmerin. I also need to go to a tailor, just for fun and shopping purposes, but what with all my meetings and tabaski coming up (big muslim holiday) i dont know when i'll have time to go or if they'll be too swamped with work to see me.
Despite these little stresses, I'm doing well and having fun. I'm feeling much better, the cold persists but no more sore throat. Also there is a magic plant that cures colds and athsma here. I'll try to bring some home with me...
xoxo,
robin

So far things here have been pretty up and down. The food is amazing! Last night I had this crazy salad with pasta and apples and saucisson... my friends in Dakar would kill me if they knew what I was eating... really good ceebu jen for lunch every day, with lots of stuff in it. The focus groups/interviews are going well, I think, but Im going to have a lot of work to do when I get back to Dakar. I hope I don't go back and think of something I needed to do here.
The people are nice. I had a sort of bad experience while trying to find a cyber cafe Ibou's daughter, Khady, because we ran into some of her guy friends and they were a little bit obnoxious and rude. Not intentionally, but they dynamic between them and Khady made my feminist hurt. Hard to explain on this crappy keyboard. Did I mention yet that cyber cafes SUCK?
But things are going well here and I just got some e-mails from back home that made me smile. And Ellen is very nice and good company... it's always nice to have someone to bounce things off of. And she likes Buffy. Enough said.
ahhh gotta go

Diourbel is fine. Not as hot as I was scared it would be. The focus groups have started... whether or not my consent forms are good enough for Conn IRB remains to be seen, but I'm attempting to do everything by the book. I had BOW TIE pasta on plates with silverware last night!!!! crazy!!! and french cheese!!! The peace corps volunteer's name is Ellen. She's very nice. Cyber cafe keyboards suck.
robin

Delays

I haven't left for the Diourbel yet, although I was supposed to. I've been sort of sick (mostly a cold/throat thing) for a little while. I was hoping it would get better, but it was worse, and I couldn't imagine doing four hours in a crowded taxi over bumpy roads while I was feeling feverish and nauseaous. I'm feeling a little better now, however, so I'm leaving tomorrow instead. I'm also trying to get lots of paperwork sorted out for college, which is proving to be quite a hassle. I've already submitted all my information about 'human subjects research' to the SIT IRB board, but now Conn needs me to do all the same stuff over again. Which also means I'm going to have to translate my informed consent form and questions back into English. I need to be able to use this research in the future and at Conn, so I'm trying to get them all the information they need... but since I could be doing interviews and focus groups as soon as tomorrow, I realize it's getting into a bit of a gray area.
So I'm going to go translate and explain and add new signature lines on the consent form and such technicalities and take some more meds and drink lots of water and hope that it all works out okay!
I've moved out of my homestay and into a small apartment (if you can call it that) with my two girlfriends here. It's two rooms and a bathroom, a rooftop place that another student's homestay family regularly rents out to SIT students during the ISP period. (ISP = independant study project). We pay to eat with the family, too, so it's practically like another homestay, but it gives us a measure of independence that's really nice, and there's wireless internet here. However slow, it's very nice! I'll only be here on and off when I come back to Dakar from traveling, but the other two girls, Zoe and Jaime, are living here for the whole month.
Bye for now, wish me good health!
Robin

Microfinance in Senegal and a long technical blog entry

Just got back from the 'Jardin Thailandais' here in Dakar. If you've got a copy of Lonely Planet travelers guide for Senegal, you can read about it. It's not necessarily the best Thai food ever (although it's very tasty) but the atmosphere is fantastic, and the gorgeous patio out back where we (as a large group) tend to eat, is very oasis-like.
I splurged a little more on food and dessert (caramalized lychees!!!) than I normally would do, but it was our last dinner together as a group before we all disperse to pursue our various ISPs. ISP is independant study project, and we all have developed our own projects during the course of our semester here. We get 300,000 cfa for the month, so it's both an excersize in doing our own research and doing our own budgeting! Because I'm hoping to come back to Senegal next summer and do a bigger research project, I'm going ahead and using my time and project here to provide a basis of study that I hopefully will be able to work off of in the future. I'm going to copy-paste my long and boring ISP proposal here, for those of you to whom I haven't already explained at length my project. Sorry it's so long, but feel free to skim/skip as you wish!


Abstract/Project Summary
For my independent study project I will do a research paper on the topic of microfinance. I am specifically interested in micro-credit, and the impact of small loans on financial development in Senegal. The bulk of my research will be done while visiting Keur Gu Magg in Diorbel and Palmerin, two “ecovillages” supported by GENSEN. In my final paper I will present information a out what an ecovillage is and how it functions, as well as look at the implications of the micro-loans given by The SEM Fund to women in these ecovillages. (The SEM Fund is another NGO which works with GENSEN). I am especially interested on micro-credit’s impact on women’s financial and social situations in rural Senegal. Microfinance is an inherently gendered movement. It focuses on loans to women, who are both interested in and capable of bettering themselves and their families through these loans and repayments. I want to study how these loans and microfinance institutions (MFIs) impact communities as a whole, and especially on gender roles within a society. My ISP will hopefully provide a base of information from which I can pursue further research (possibly next summer) on the impact of micro-credit on gender relations and women’s self-esteem.

Background to the study
The concept of microfinance was recently popularized by Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladashi banker and economist. While visiting the very poor village of Jobra, he realized that it would only take a small amount of money to help the women there break the cycle of poverty and become financially stable. He founded the Grameen Bank in 1983, to serve as an institution which offers small loans without demanding collateral. Instead, the Grameen Bank relies on a system of ‘solidarity lending’, in which every person who receives a loan must belong to a smaller group of borrowers, whose job it is to support and oversee the lending process. This diminishes the bank’s risk and makes it possible for them to offer access to credit without demanding collateral. The Grameen Bank has expanded rapidly and, along with Muhammad Yunus, it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. The microfinance movement has attracted so much positive attention that the United Nations named 2005 “The International Year of Microfinance” to raise awareness about the movement, which has spread across the globe.
Micro-lending is a relatively new concept, and because of this there haven’t been many long-term studies of its effects. There have been some criticisms of the industry, some of which I would like to address in my research. It is important for microfinance organizations to look at the long-term well being of the participants, and monitor how the loans are actually being used. In some cases in Senegal, women who receive loans do not know what to do with them, and end up lending the money out in smaller sums to relatives or trusted friends, or letting their husbands take control of the loan. This, in many ways, defeats the purpose of micro-credit.
Microfinance has also rapidly spread to the digital world. Many of the microfinance organizations around the world have begun expanding their services online, linking lenders and borrowers half a world away. Kiva.org is a powerful example of a website which allows users all over the world to lend money to projects in developing countries and then monitor how that money is used.
Although Senegal is more politically stable than many of its neighbors, much of the population lives in poverty. Its highly rural population makes it a good candidate for microfinance ventures. Senegal is also a country where the majority of the population practices Islam, while the government remains officially secular. However, polygamy has been legalized, which makes Senegal an interesting study in gender relations. Microfinance has existed in many forms in Senegal, including a tradition of ‘tontines’, which are women’s lending groups and have deep roots in Senegalese tradition. Senegal also has a number of growing microfinance NGOs, one of which is The SEM Fund. The SEM Fund is a non-profit which began in 2004 with a pilot program of microfinance tested in a rural subsistence farming village of Louly Ngomone in Senegal. With the success and expansion of the program, the founder, John Fay, created the SEM Fund in 2006. Although the program is relatively new, its documented success is inspiring. It has opted to join forces with the Global Ecovillage Network, Senegal (GENSEN). This is an organization that supports village that are attempting to live sustainably. The SEM Fund provides socially and environmentally conscious loans to groups of villagers seeking to improve their individual financial situations and that of their village.

Specific objectives
I would like to witness first-hand how the microcredit industry works, and the effects it has on a population. My research will look into how microcredit has been used in the past, and ask questions about the effectiveness of the micro-loans and possible means of improving the microfinance system in Senegal. By researching and working in Keur Gu Magg and Palmerin, two of GENSEN’s Ecovillages, I will be able to study firsthand this developing industry which holds such promise for the third world, and especially for women. I will also include in my final ISP information about the specific ecovillages, including how they work and the effect they have on the financial and social well-being of their inhabitants.

Methods
My research will consist of participant observation in the daily life of an ecovillage, as well as archival research about microfinance and women in Senegal. I will conduct focus groups with the women and men’s groups already formed in the ecovillages, and use those focus groups to determine which participants would be good candidates for individual interviews. I will also seek out information from SEM Fund and GENSEN employees to round out my research, and, if relevant, conduct individual interviews with loan officers in the villages or in Dakar. I will then translate relevant portions of my interviews into English for my final paper and presentation.
Microfinance is a hot topic these days, as much of my background research showed. Yet it has not been around and popular long enough that there are many specific case studies of specific states. This is true especially in Africa, where microfinance initiatives are just developing. Many books and articles attempt to shape the current discussion of micro-credit, and influence the future of this growing movement. I hope that by doing research in the field, the information I gain from the focus groups and individual interviews will make up for any difficulties I encounter doing archival research.
I envision the most difficult part of my research will be to maintain neutrality in the ecovillages. I will be accompanied by a ‘facilitator’ from the ecovillage, who will serve as my informant and possibly my translator. It is important for this not to influence my research or my informant’s responses. I imagine that writing the ISP I will also come across ethical dilemmas, such as we discussed in class, in terms of being critical of an organization with whom I worked closely. In addition, I will be hoping to come back next summer to work again with SEM Fund. However, in being up front with the organization about my research and my open-ended research questions, I can hope to avoid any future awkwardness.

Project Calendar:
November 8-12: In Dakar, preparation for Keur Gu Magg, meetings with SEM Fund and GENSEN personnel, and moving into living space in Fass-Casier.
November 12: Depart for Keur Gu Magg, via taxi sept place.
November 13-16: Orientation in Keur Gu Magg, exploration of the village, focus groups and individual interviews.
November 17: Depart for Dakar
November 18-20: Preparation for Palmerin, meeting with advisor.
November 21: Depart for Palmerin
November 22-25: Orientation in Palmerin, exploration, focus groups and interviews.
November 26: Depart for Dakar
November 27: THANKSGIVING
November 28- December 9: Archival research, interviews with SEM Fund employees in Dakar, writing the ISP, arranging future study.



So anyway, if my blog entries are a few and far between for the next two weeks, it's because I'll be traveling. I will be back in Dakar for good around Thanksgiving, though, so hopefully I'll have much to say. I'm really excited about this, but obviously the project is still coming together. If you're really really really interested in all of this (and why wouldn't you be?) here are the websites for the two NGOs that I'll be working with:
www.sem-fund.org
www.gensenegal.org

Okay, more interesting updates to come, inch'allah!

Love,
Robin

p.s. inch'allah means god-willing, and it is used CONSTANTLY here as a sort of 'knock on wood' thing, and I've become quite fond of the expression.

pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/rcm1030

Here is where I will be uploading ALL my pictures from now on. I'm going to try and label some of them, so if you want to wait for some of the commentary, hold off on checking it out. Facebook just isn't working at all for my pictures and I want to put them online so people can see them, so up they go! It still takes a long time to upload, so sorry if they don't all come at once, but at least it's working!

Love,
Robin

Si, Nous Apparemment Pouvons

Heather asked me, via facebook, what it was like finding out in Africa. The truth is that the finding-out of it was all very american, despite the fact that we were all very aware of where we were. It's the aftermath that is incredible to experienc here.

Here in Senegal, we are required to carry around an ID at all times. (everyone is). When I got to the university cheik ante diop today to print some stuff out at the cyber cafe where I am writing this now, there were some uniformed officials at the gates of the university checking IDs. It's the first time I'd actually been checked, so I was sort of nervous. (Once an SIT student didn't have her ID and there was a check at a nightclub and they spent the night in jail before SIT came and brought their passport! Unless that story is just a scare tactic by SIT...).

Guard: I.D.
Me: (not understanding) Do you have to be a student to get in?
Guard: I.D.
Me: Oh, okay, I.D. Um, I have this. Is that okay?
Guard: ...
Me: Is it enough?
Guard: (nods)
Me: Ca va?
Guard: (handing it back) You're an American, then.
Me: Oh, yes, American, yes, me, right.
Guard: (seriously) Maintenant, nous sommes tous les freres, eh? (Now, we are all brothers. but it sounds silly in english). Obama, eh?
Me: Oh, yes, Obama, thank you, I'm so happy, we're all so happy, here, see my pin? It says Obama!
Guard: So you're American. How does one get to the states?
Me: I mean...
Guard: Is it easier if you have an American wife?
Me: I mean, Senegal's nice, too, why not stay here?
Guard: Because my brother has an American wife.
Me: Isn't that nice. Um, go Obama. And, ah, I'm going to the cyber cafe now.

So things change but they stay the same, too. I still talk politics with everyone I meet here, like the guy sitting next to me waiting for me to finish writing this so he can talk to me some more. I have no idea who he is but I just finished explaining the theoretical differences between democrats and republicans versus the actual differences now. Then I ranted about church and state and the evangelical south. All because he started talking to me about Obama. The difference now is that instead of talking to people about politics because I feel the need to excuse my country, they come up to me and say 'Hey, american! Congratulations!'. All this is just to say that I have NEVER been so proud to be American in my life, and I hope to keep this feeling for a long time.

Gotta run back to school now. More later I hope!

My African Feminist Manifesto: Rated R for strong language and "western" content

In some ways I just cannot BELIEVE that it's taken me this long to get angry here. I log into my computer to write this, with hands shaking with anger, and the Buffy screenshot that is my desktop background reminds me once again how very far away I am from home. From the easy feminism of Joss Whedon. Even Grey's Anatomy seems like a radical feminist manifesto right now.
French class today. Where to start? The conversation didn't even start until the very end of class. Let me try to explain how it developed. Keba, our French professor, decided that after a long class of subjonctive grammar, we would spend the last half hour doing Senegalese riddles or some such. We didn't get past the first one however, so let me tell it to you to try and convey what sparked this rant. Please excuse the poor translations from French. The riddle is: What one thing can you tell a family that will make three people happy and proud at one time? We guessed around a little bit. Evie suggested that if you tell the family that their child is handsome or smart, it will make the parents happy as well. Keba said that was close. I suggested that the child resembled his parents. Keba said that I had gotten it, but to be more precise it was that the child (let's say a son) looked like his father. When we asked why the answer was that the child looked like the father, specifically, he pointed out that sometimes if a wife cheats on a husband and becomes pregnant, it's possible for her to keep the child and pretend that it is her husband's. Therefore, to tell a family that a son resembles his father is to make the father happy with his wife's fidelity, and to make the wife happy that she has given her husband proof of her fidelity. And I guess the kid's just happy that he looks like his dad. Whatever. We got the riddle, and it makes sense, of course, but we pointed out that there was a little bit of cultural sexism hiding behind the theme of the joke. Keba disagreed. (I mean, that's the understatement of the century, because that's what sparked the half-hour long charged discussion that left most of us incensed and, I have to admit, me near tears.)
To provide a little background: The French classes are separated by proficiency, and my class is the most advanced. But that doesn't mean that it's always easy to discuss big political and social theory in a language that's not our mother tongue. Keba is a pretty good French teacher, but tensions of the passive-agressive variety have often flared over teaching methods or disagreements or misunderstandings. He can be a little condescending, to be more clear. Understandably so, since he's the teacher.
ANYWAY. I explained that I didn't think that the joke or Keba himself was sexist, but that the idea behind the joke is that the man is made happy, and the wife is made happy by making her husband happy. That happiness, once again, for a woman, rests on pleasing her husband by giving him children. (To say nothing of having so little faith in your spouse that you need physical proof of their fidelity.) After much discussing and beating about the bush, and throwing about of the terms 'sexism' and 'feminism', Keba kindly explained to us that sexism and feminist were western notions that had no relevance here in Africa. That if you told a traditional Senegalese family about inequality and sexism they would throw you out of their house. Later he changed that to 'not know what you were talking about'. When we brought up women's movements in Africa, he pointed out that the women heading these movements were the educated, intellectual women. That is, who had been subjected to Western influence. That a traditionally family, and in traditional Africa these ideas didn't exist.

"Traditional" here is doublespeak. It means rural. It means poor. It means uneducated. It means happy and hard-working, but struggling nevertheless. Where Keba sees 'untainted by Western values', the rest of us see socio-economic difference. Which, YES, does come with increased exposure to America and Europe and 'western' values. What we could not seem to impress upon Keba was that EQUALITY and INEQUALITY were not "western" values. It's true that the United States is more advanced in terms of women's rights than Africa. That doesn't mean that the United States invented equality, though. The fact that the "west" has given African women words with which to describe a concept and practice that has existed since the beginning of time is not a bad thing but instead a step in the right direction. I think it's time for the people of Africa to take responsibility. When we pointed out that 'western' countries had to struggle to understand and accept the inequality that existed within their borders, Keba tried to use colonialism as an excuse for why Africa was 'different'. Colonialism and it's effect on Africa was horrific and debilitating. But it is not an excuse. There is no excuse for abandoning the struggle towards human rights. Senegal contains within it the vestiges of colonialism, slavery, inter-ethnic tensions, traditional Islam, and the fundamental inequalities of social structure that have existed since, as Keba put it, Adam et Eve. That's fine. We can agree that that makes the fight that much harder. But it is no reason not to acknowledge the fight at all.

I am SO TIRED of being culturally sensitive. I am SO TIRED of women's rights and human rights movements here having work within the traditional social structure. You know what? FUCK the traditional social structure. Traditional social structure SUCKS. Just because people in this country try to right the wrongs they see in their own "traditional" lives doesn't mean that they are submitting to outside influences. The woman sifting cornmeal in the rural village with the baby on her back knows that she is working really hard. She knows that her brother got to go to school and she doesn't. She knows that Islamic tradition says that she can't pray out loud, even though her husband can, for fear that her voice might seduce him into impure thoughts. She knows that, although her husband works hard in his eggplant fields a lot of the time, she works hard every minute of every day just to feed the kids and when the white study abroad students come to stay with him he has miraculous amounts of free time to talk to them and show them around and drink endless cups of tea with them. She can't talk to the students, though. Because she doesn't speak French, because she didn't go to school. Because she never stops working, even as her brothers and young sons and uncles and fathers sit around her watching her work, doing nothing. She doesn't have time to talk to me because she is 20 years old and has three children, the oldest of whom is 5.

But here's what I think. I think that if she did have the time, energy or language to talk to me, and we talked about western values like 'feminism' and 'sexism' and 'inequality' and 'human rights' and 'family planning' and 'solar-power' and 'historical subjugation of women' I think she would have a lot more to say about it than Keba imagines.


Sorry for the cursing. And sorry to be posting this when I have so much other work today. And sorry that just for right now, I love Africa a little less than I normally do. That will pass. But I think it's sort of fitting that today is election day, and the culmination of an election season fraught with issues of race and gender. Today, no matter your political beliefs, we have a historic election day, with the significant possibility of the USA electing an African-American president, or a female vice-president. Those, competence aside, are huge things. I can only wish milestones in the fight against sexism just as big and encouraging and historical for Africa one day.


Robin