I want to write about something I’ve been thinking about for awhile, here. But it’s basically the topic of What Is Wrong With Africa, which is kind of a big question, so I’ve hesitated to put my scattered thoughts to paper before I really knew what I was talking about.
Unfortunately, I’m impatient, and have realized that I’m NEVER going to know what I’m talking about when it comes to the big, general, theoretical issues. Just the amount that my views on this subject have changed (especially over the last year) is evidence of how unsure I am about the political, social, and anthropological conclusions I make here. Certainly, I know that when I was younger I didn’t think there was anything wrong with Africa. It was just another continent that I didn’t know much about, maybe wanted to visit one day, and was stressed about learning the countries of for my Social Studies quiz. Gradually my conception of Africa became knowledge of the history of the slave trade, people living in huts, tribal dances, exotic masks, and, of course, crushing poverty. I come from a liberal school system and a liberal family, so don’t think I was ever under the impression that Africa wasn’t as good as the other continents. We the colonizers/slave traders/globalizing forces had screwed them over, and now they were all really poor and at war with each other, but they had rich traditions and cultures and would eventually catch up to the rest of the world, but it was our fault they were behind so maybe we should give some money to Oxfam at Christmas, yeah? Okay.
In high school things became a little more complicated. I knew that we were all too naïve and ignorant about Africa, but I was too naïve and ignorant to know what we didn’t know. (Get it?) I was pretty sure that everything good in my life came from the capitalist oppression of the third world and that most of the riches in the world had been extracted from the labor of poor men and injustice against women. (Still don’t think I was too far off about this.)
Obviously it’s one thing to think abstractly about a continent, and another thing to get to know a country intimately. Coming to Dakar last fall to study abroad showed me just how much I didn’t know.
Here is where I’m going to change from talking about ‘Africa’ to talking about ‘Senegal’. (And I’m going to link to This Blog: Stuff White People Like instead of going on a rant about how people (Americans and white people in general) refer to Africa and not the individual countries. I know I’m guilty of the same thing, so I’m making an effort to notice and stop.)
I don’t think I really understood the idea of ‘cultural differences’ until I came to Senegal. I tend to think of them as just a difference in language and history. Every country has different ways of dancing and singing and storytelling, but fundamentally we’re all the same: We want the same things, we feel the same emotions, etc. But I’m realizing that that doesn’t seem to be true. In the U.S., time is money, and we live very much in the future. Our goals might be long-term or short-term, but we tend to focus (obsess?) on making money and getting things done and advancing and progressing. In France it was pointed out to me that Americans don’t know how to go on vacation. Even when they do, they’re constantly working (Dad, I’m looking at you!) or planning their vacation full of museums and outings and, well, plans. Whereas the French go on vacation just to lounge around on the beach and relax. (I don’t necessarily think this is true, and if it is it’s certainly a generalization about the French. But when someone pointed this out to me it did make me realize that Americans are really bad at relaxing. We just don’t know how.)
Here in Senegal, they don’t live for the future, nor do they dwell in the past. The Senegalese families I’ve lived with and visited seem to live entirely in the present. From reading American self-help books, you would think that a country that lives in the moment would be very self-actualized, and fulfilled, and would have achieved some sort of clarity that we as time/money/future-obsessed Americans can’t seem to grasp.
And in some ways, yes, the Senegalese seem happier than us. That is, they seem to, on the whole, spend less time sweating the small (or big) stuff than us. However, that is not to trivialize the fact that on average their lives are far more ‘nasty, brutish, and short’ than ours. The fact that children die of preventable diseases or that women are denied equal rights is not something to be envied but to be fought against. And I was appalled to realize that Senegal is basically an illiterate country, in that even those who can read… don’t. Reading for leisure or pleasure is basically not done, and with your host family glued to their television 24/7, Dakar can sometimes seem like a free-thinking person’s dystopian nightmare. I think the reading is simply not a cultural value the way it is in the U.S. For one thing, Wolof was not a written language, and there are very few books in Wolof. As I mentioned previously, reading in another language is so much harder and less rewarding than reading in your first language. I mean, would you read the books you read for fun if they were in Spanish and French?
Although I feel as though I understand more about the cultural differences that originally surprised me, that doesn’t mean I accept them. Many NGOs work on translating books into Wolof, and founding village libraries or bookmobiles. It might not be directly saving lives, but I think encouraging children to read (in any country) is one of the most worthwhile things you can do in this life.
So that’s my spiel on cultural differences, I guess. And how I still don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, but now I have a lot MORE to talk about.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Everyone who works in development is crazy.
Here’s something I learned from the Americans, rather than the Senegalese: I love people who work in development. “Development”, of course, is the very broad term meaning everything from NGOs to microfinance to diplomatic work. It basically means the kind of people who enjoy travel so much that they have decided to do it for a living. Americans or Europeans who I met in Senegal, for the most part, tended to be open-minded, intelligent, intellectual, and generally left-leaning. So, on the whole, my kind of people.
For the most part, I got along pretty well with the other SEM and GENSEN interns. I didn’t always have a huge amount of time to spend with them, due to my travel. Still, when I was around, it seemed like I had hit the people jackpot. At Conn College (no, offense, CC) I have to meet a lot of people before I find a few with whom I really connect, or want to be friends with. The other interns already shared so many of my interests (French, Senegal, Microfinance, Sustainable Development, etc, etc.) that it was much more likely that we would have something to talk about.
I think that’s one of the reasons I’m considering doing something like microfinance for a living. No matter what I’m doing, or where I’m going, these are exactly the kinds of people I want to surround myself with. Even when we don’t perfectly get along, the conversation is certainly never dull!
Funnily enough, one of the people I met there, Josie, is from Irvington, which is about 5 minutes away from my house. I would travel to West Africa to meet my neighbors…
Lost in Translation
When I went to Bonnaroo, back in 2006, I was really excited to see that one of the groups playing was Senegalese. I’ll admit that I’d never heard of Orchestra Baobab before then, and probably wouldn’t have given them a second look if I hadn’t seen that they were from Dakar. My dad and I went to see them, and they were pretty fun. He bought me the CD, and I listened to it a bit, and was excited to learn that they were performing at a local restaurant/bar/jazz club in Dakar that I’d been to a few times.
To explain what the music is like, I will literally quote directly from Wikipedia. Ahem: “Orchestra Baobab is a Senegalese Afro-Cuban, Son, and Pachanga band. Organized in 1970, as a multi-ethnic, multi-national club band, Orchestre Baobab adapted the then current craze for Cuban Music (growing out of the Congolese Soukous style) in West Africa to Wolof Griot culture and the Mandinga musical traditions of the Casamance. One of the dominant African bands of the 1970s, they were overshadowed in the 1980s and broke up, only to reform in 2001 after interest in their recordings grew in Europe.”
Feel free to peruse the Wikipedia page and click around to find out what a griot is, or about the Mandinga… I’ll have to save those explanations for another entry.
Anyway, my point was that, although the band is quite good and I enjoyed seeing them again, it wasn’t the same kind of experience that I have with American music. For instance, when my mom asked if they’d played any songs I recognized, I had to say no. [Left: Orchastra Baobab at the jazz club 'Just 4 U'].
Despite being a compete music-phile, and loving the French language, I can never really “get into” French music the way I do music in English. The problem is that every song in French becomes background music unless I am making a concerted effort to understand what they are saying (preferably lyric sheet in hand). I’m basically fluent in French, but only get about every tenth word in most French songs. The few French songs that I really love to sing along to are pop songs that were drilled into my head by an over-zealous teenage French pen-pal when I was visiting her. Even despite hearing the songs zillions of times, I still had to look up the lyrics in order to memorize them. (Jenifer and Kyo are some of the French pop artists I’m talking about. Think Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys, if you will.) Of course I’m a sucker for Edith Piaf, but I mostly listen to her songs for the beautiful vocals and accent… not for the words themselves.
Perhaps this is stretching it a bit far, but I feel as though this language barrier applies to making friends and dating cross-language barriers as well. So much of the words, tone, and subtleties of language are lost in translation. As someone who talks way too much and way too fast, it’s harder (not impossible!) for me to make really close friends with someone who I only understand even 90% of the time.
To explain what the music is like, I will literally quote directly from Wikipedia. Ahem: “Orchestra Baobab is a Senegalese Afro-Cuban, Son, and Pachanga band. Organized in 1970, as a multi-ethnic, multi-national club band, Orchestre Baobab adapted the then current craze for Cuban Music (growing out of the Congolese Soukous style) in West Africa to Wolof Griot culture and the Mandinga musical traditions of the Casamance. One of the dominant African bands of the 1970s, they were overshadowed in the 1980s and broke up, only to reform in 2001 after interest in their recordings grew in Europe.”
Feel free to peruse the Wikipedia page and click around to find out what a griot is, or about the Mandinga… I’ll have to save those explanations for another entry.
Anyway, my point was that, although the band is quite good and I enjoyed seeing them again, it wasn’t the same kind of experience that I have with American music. For instance, when my mom asked if they’d played any songs I recognized, I had to say no. [Left: Orchastra Baobab at the jazz club 'Just 4 U'].Despite being a compete music-phile, and loving the French language, I can never really “get into” French music the way I do music in English. The problem is that every song in French becomes background music unless I am making a concerted effort to understand what they are saying (preferably lyric sheet in hand). I’m basically fluent in French, but only get about every tenth word in most French songs. The few French songs that I really love to sing along to are pop songs that were drilled into my head by an over-zealous teenage French pen-pal when I was visiting her. Even despite hearing the songs zillions of times, I still had to look up the lyrics in order to memorize them. (Jenifer and Kyo are some of the French pop artists I’m talking about. Think Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys, if you will.) Of course I’m a sucker for Edith Piaf, but I mostly listen to her songs for the beautiful vocals and accent… not for the words themselves.
Perhaps this is stretching it a bit far, but I feel as though this language barrier applies to making friends and dating cross-language barriers as well. So much of the words, tone, and subtleties of language are lost in translation. As someone who talks way too much and way too fast, it’s harder (not impossible!) for me to make really close friends with someone who I only understand even 90% of the time.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Count Your Blessings
I thought I’d actually jot down a few notes about work, as opposed to endless thoughts on cultural norms and hair styles. Most of my interviews were much quicker this trip than last trip. Having had some experience, I picked up what information I needed and what questions to ask (and which to avoid), which helped make the interviews run faster and smoother. I did, however, get sick of asking the same questions over and over again very fast.
Mainly, I started by asking basic questions about the micro-loan that the individual or group had received. When did they get it? How much was it? Was it divided up or used for a group project? When were the repayments due? What was the project they pursued? I’d ask some questions about the economic activities they participated in, trying to get a sense of what an average day was like for the entrepreneur. I tried to ask a lot of specific questions about equipment and prices and types of goods sold, so as to provide a more detailed picture for the reader. Then, I’d ask the interviewee if they minded me asking some personal questions (no one ever said they minded), and I would ask about the recipients family situation.
I liked hearing about people’s families and children, actually. I tried to stay mostly professional, but I’d often interject, ‘Oh, that’s how old my sister is!’ or to ask questions about if the kids were in school. The worst part was having to ask people how old they were, how many children they had, or how old their children were. About 75% of the time, the person I was interviewing didn’t know the answer to these questions. They would sort of shrug and look at my interpreter or village guide for help. They would put forward some guesses. How old is your oldest child? Twenty-four? Well, she was born in, um, 19….86…, no, 1987, so… [Here I might help them out – Oh, I was born in 1987, so she must be 21 years old, like me.] Yes, they would nod, yes, that’s it. Most ended up counting their children on their hands. Occasionally when I interviewed both a husband and a wife, separately, I would get different numbers of children. I eventually figured out some of the many reason that could have been responsible for what seemed to me to be a bizarre lack of awareness on their part.
I learned to ask these questions in an apologetic manner. I would explain why we liked to ask personal questions. I explained what the Kiva website did, and how the people who financed their loans were often not rich donors but average citizens. Us Americans, I said, we’re so curious! I like to write about your family and the foods you sell so that we can get an idea about what Senegal is like. Despite the fact that I demonstrated that I understood the cultural norms, I was still breaking them in asking my questions. However, not a single person ever appeared to be upset at my questions or imply that I was rude in asking. It gets rather repetitive in this blog for me to tell you over and over how kind, warm, welcoming, and polite everyone in Senegal is, I know. But I can’t imagine people in the States responding as kindly if I had asked something as culturally inappropriate as, ‘How much do you weigh’, to people I barely knew.
After a while it was less shocking to me to have someone look blank at the question, ‘How old are you?’. Still, I had to wonder at the difference between my life and theirs when I found myself asking, “How many children do you have… just approximately?”.
Mainly, I started by asking basic questions about the micro-loan that the individual or group had received. When did they get it? How much was it? Was it divided up or used for a group project? When were the repayments due? What was the project they pursued? I’d ask some questions about the economic activities they participated in, trying to get a sense of what an average day was like for the entrepreneur. I tried to ask a lot of specific questions about equipment and prices and types of goods sold, so as to provide a more detailed picture for the reader. Then, I’d ask the interviewee if they minded me asking some personal questions (no one ever said they minded), and I would ask about the recipients family situation.
I liked hearing about people’s families and children, actually. I tried to stay mostly professional, but I’d often interject, ‘Oh, that’s how old my sister is!’ or to ask questions about if the kids were in school. The worst part was having to ask people how old they were, how many children they had, or how old their children were. About 75% of the time, the person I was interviewing didn’t know the answer to these questions. They would sort of shrug and look at my interpreter or village guide for help. They would put forward some guesses. How old is your oldest child? Twenty-four? Well, she was born in, um, 19….86…, no, 1987, so… [Here I might help them out – Oh, I was born in 1987, so she must be 21 years old, like me.] Yes, they would nod, yes, that’s it. Most ended up counting their children on their hands. Occasionally when I interviewed both a husband and a wife, separately, I would get different numbers of children. I eventually figured out some of the many reason that could have been responsible for what seemed to me to be a bizarre lack of awareness on their part.
- It’s not cultural accepted to “count” your blessings. That means that traditionally in Senegal (so, very much in the rural villages and to some extent in Dakar) you do not tell how many children you have, or give your age in years. To do so would be to tempt fate, to dare God to cut short your life or take your children away from you.
- In Senegal you give your age using your year of birth, not the number of years you’ve been alive. (Possibly for the reasons mentioned above).
- Especially in the rural villages, the number of children that are ‘yours’ isn’t always a simple concept. Senegal is polygamous, and multiple wives can feel a kinship to eachothers children. Some families I spoke with were also helping out with taking care of their nieces or nephews, or had adopted children whose families had died or were unable to take care of them.
I learned to ask these questions in an apologetic manner. I would explain why we liked to ask personal questions. I explained what the Kiva website did, and how the people who financed their loans were often not rich donors but average citizens. Us Americans, I said, we’re so curious! I like to write about your family and the foods you sell so that we can get an idea about what Senegal is like. Despite the fact that I demonstrated that I understood the cultural norms, I was still breaking them in asking my questions. However, not a single person ever appeared to be upset at my questions or imply that I was rude in asking. It gets rather repetitive in this blog for me to tell you over and over how kind, warm, welcoming, and polite everyone in Senegal is, I know. But I can’t imagine people in the States responding as kindly if I had asked something as culturally inappropriate as, ‘How much do you weigh’, to people I barely knew.
After a while it was less shocking to me to have someone look blank at the question, ‘How old are you?’. Still, I had to wonder at the difference between my life and theirs when I found myself asking, “How many children do you have… just approximately?”.
Monday, August 24, 2009
hair
And for my next act, something completely different!
I got my hair braided a month and a half ago. It was much different than the time last fall when I got my hair braided in a village.
Here’s a picture of that time.
Basically, I had sort of thick cornrows all over my head. It didn’t take very long at all to do, and did keep me cool, but of course it looks a little ridiculous on a white person. (The scalp showing through the hair always looked little silly to me.) I wasn’t really going to do it again, but my hair this summer is very, very, very long. I was mostly managing the heat by keeping it in two braids or off my neck, but it was getting tedious to take care of. (I’m growing it out for Locks of Love. Probably.) So, when I got to Diourbel and my friend Ellen told me that she was going to get her hair braided (with weave!) the next day, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision.
Ellen teaches a business management class at a local hair salon/beauty school. Taco, on of the women in charge, started both of our styles, but then the women who are students at the school took over. They did an amazing job, and were super-fast. I’ll try to embed a video of us getting it done. Ellen got multi-colored weave, which actually ended up looking fantastic. I don’t know how she pulled it off.
I asked for really tiny braids, which end up sort of looking like normal hair from far away. It took a long time, three hours one day and three hours the next (I had to do some interviews, and they were kind enough to schedule around me), but it was completely worth it. Also, it didn't really hurt me at all. I guess me and my sister pulled each others hair so much as kids that my scalp is numb?
The shells we got braided in our hair are cowrie shells and they are good luck. I took most of my braids out a few weeks later, but I still have a few in, including the shell. (It’s not gross, I wash my hair frequently, jeez.)
Here are our before, during, and after pictures!
[Left: Ellen, before.]
Yes, all the posters have white models.
[Taco showing Ellen the weave.]
[Ellen, mid-braiding]
[Me, yes, my hair is hideously long.] [Mid-braiding, and then Ellen and I posing later with some kids. And the final 'After' picture, a few weeks later, at Ellen's birthday party.]
I got my hair braided a month and a half ago. It was much different than the time last fall when I got my hair braided in a village.
Here’s a picture of that time.Basically, I had sort of thick cornrows all over my head. It didn’t take very long at all to do, and did keep me cool, but of course it looks a little ridiculous on a white person. (The scalp showing through the hair always looked little silly to me.) I wasn’t really going to do it again, but my hair this summer is very, very, very long. I was mostly managing the heat by keeping it in two braids or off my neck, but it was getting tedious to take care of. (I’m growing it out for Locks of Love. Probably.) So, when I got to Diourbel and my friend Ellen told me that she was going to get her hair braided (with weave!) the next day, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision.
Ellen teaches a business management class at a local hair salon/beauty school. Taco, on of the women in charge, started both of our styles, but then the women who are students at the school took over. They did an amazing job, and were super-fast. I’ll try to embed a video of us getting it done. Ellen got multi-colored weave, which actually ended up looking fantastic. I don’t know how she pulled it off.
I asked for really tiny braids, which end up sort of looking like normal hair from far away. It took a long time, three hours one day and three hours the next (I had to do some interviews, and they were kind enough to schedule around me), but it was completely worth it. Also, it didn't really hurt me at all. I guess me and my sister pulled each others hair so much as kids that my scalp is numb?The shells we got braided in our hair are cowrie shells and they are good luck. I took most of my braids out a few weeks later, but I still have a few in, including the shell. (It’s not gross, I wash my hair frequently, jeez.)
Here are our before, during, and after pictures![Left: Ellen, before.]
Yes, all the posters have white models.[Taco showing Ellen the weave.]
[Ellen, mid-braiding]
[Me, yes, my hair is hideously long.] [Mid-braiding, and then Ellen and I posing later with some kids. And the final 'After' picture, a few weeks later, at Ellen's birthday party.]
So, how was Africa?
As a follow-up to my last entry, I want to talk about being back in the States. Most of you can probably imagine the responses I get from people when they find out that I’ve spent time in Senegal. The people I surround myself with tend to be the kinds of people who love to travel and are interested in countries outside of the U.S. and Europe. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t get a lot of ridiculous comments. Even when people don’t come right out and ask me if I lived in a hut surrounded by naked men with grass skirts and spears, I can usually tell from their looks and comments that they are trying hard to figure out if their perceptions are correct.
I don’t blame them. I doubt I could’ve found Senegal on a map of West Africa before I decided to go there. Senegal, particularly, is not often in the news. That’s a good thing for an African nation, but it means that you may have only heard a few things associated with ‘Senegal’ or ‘Senegalese’, or none at all. There’s so much mystery about what is fact versus fiction when it comes to Africa – even if we know that the starving children we see on t.v. are not all there is to the continent, it can be hard to know what else to believe. After all, the Disney movie about Africa that we were exposed to as kids [The Lion King] didn’t even have people in it!
Whether simply responding to, ‘Did you have a good time?’ or telling my friends in-depth stories, I find myself toeing the same line as I did in Senegal. I want to shock people’s perceptions, so I tell them what they don’t expect. I tend to mention the air-conditioned nightclubs with overpriced champagne first, then the amazing music scene, and how my host family is on Facebook. Of course, those aren’t really the things I want to share. My experiences worth telling about much more often concern travel and villages and my experiences without the things I’ve grown up accustomed to. Also, I realize that if I try to portray Senegal as ‘just like the States’ to encourage people to banish their misconceptions about Africa, I’m also being misleading. Senegal is mostly rural, and very poor. I did witness the kind of poverty we can’t imagine in New Jersey.
As in Senegal, I end up hemming and hawing and jumping from story to story, extreme to extreme. Maybe my narratives about Senegal don’t make much sense to those here who are hearing them, but it can be exhausting feeling as though your anecdotes will color someone’s perception of an entire continent. (Especially when you’ve only visited the one country.) I can only try to encourage people to visit for themselves, so they don’t have to rely on my stories!
I don’t blame them. I doubt I could’ve found Senegal on a map of West Africa before I decided to go there. Senegal, particularly, is not often in the news. That’s a good thing for an African nation, but it means that you may have only heard a few things associated with ‘Senegal’ or ‘Senegalese’, or none at all. There’s so much mystery about what is fact versus fiction when it comes to Africa – even if we know that the starving children we see on t.v. are not all there is to the continent, it can be hard to know what else to believe. After all, the Disney movie about Africa that we were exposed to as kids [The Lion King] didn’t even have people in it!
Whether simply responding to, ‘Did you have a good time?’ or telling my friends in-depth stories, I find myself toeing the same line as I did in Senegal. I want to shock people’s perceptions, so I tell them what they don’t expect. I tend to mention the air-conditioned nightclubs with overpriced champagne first, then the amazing music scene, and how my host family is on Facebook. Of course, those aren’t really the things I want to share. My experiences worth telling about much more often concern travel and villages and my experiences without the things I’ve grown up accustomed to. Also, I realize that if I try to portray Senegal as ‘just like the States’ to encourage people to banish their misconceptions about Africa, I’m also being misleading. Senegal is mostly rural, and very poor. I did witness the kind of poverty we can’t imagine in New Jersey.
As in Senegal, I end up hemming and hawing and jumping from story to story, extreme to extreme. Maybe my narratives about Senegal don’t make much sense to those here who are hearing them, but it can be exhausting feeling as though your anecdotes will color someone’s perception of an entire continent. (Especially when you’ve only visited the one country.) I can only try to encourage people to visit for themselves, so they don’t have to rely on my stories!
Sunday, August 23, 2009
skin
I want to elaborate on something I mentioned in my previous entry: about being watched all the time. I guess that sounds pretty creepy, which isn’t exactly the way I meant it to come across. To explain what it feels like, day to day, to be a toubab (meaning foreigner, but mostly white person) in Dakar touches on issues of race and class and "development". These are just some rough thoughts, sure to offend somebody, somewhere.
The closest thing I can think of to compare being a toubab in Senegal to is to being a B-list celebrity. When you walk across the street, or through the market, or into a store, all eyes turn towards you. People are curious to see what you’ll do, and what you’re wearing, and what you’ll say. You can tell that they have assumptions about you. One of the fun parts for me is speaking enough French or Wolof to prove people’s assumptions wrong. Or knowing enough of the cultural lingo/jokes/food references to prove that I’ve been in Senegal longer than the average tourist. However, having the same conversation over and over again is tiring. Much as celebrities must get tired of the fans asking the same five questions, it becomes painful to explain where you’re from, why you know Wolof, and that you don’t actually have any idea how to help people get green cards. (The ‘are you married’ question is just standard, Senegalese women seem to get that one, too. I’m talking about the ‘oh, you’re an american’ talking points.)
The major difference, of course, is that I haven’t done anything worthwhile. To have people stop you and ask you for your autograph because you’ve acted in a movie that touched them, or played a song that they like is one thing. To have people come up and ask you for your story simply based on the color of your skin is a weird kind of superficiality. To call it racism would be an insult to everyone who has experienced actual, negative racism. Still, it’s the closest I’ve come to feeling constantly uncomfortable in my own skin. Knowing that people are watching you and are assuming that you are smart, interesting, rich, connected and enviable creates a constant sense of guilt. I found myself in conversations trying to explain that us Americans were just like everybody else. That I wasn’t rich, and that I’d had to work hard to get to come to Senegal, where I was working, not on vacation. It felt like my duty to educate people about their misconceptions about the States. (Just like I felt the need to respond to the occasionally vaguely anti-Semitic comments I heard.)
However, after playing down my opportunities and singing my we-are-the-world, we’re-just-like-you song, I realized that that wasn’t entirely truthful, either. Of course I was richer than most of the people I was talking to. Maybe not in my own personal bank account, but I couldn’t pretend that my college education and study abroad opportunities were luck or simply hard work on my part. Their conceptions about Americans were partially right, and to deny the incredible advantage I’d had simply by being born a white American would also be ridiculous.
There’s no moral to this story – mostly I just sort of stumbled around the explanation of the division of wealth between the global North and South, mentioned that the riches in the US also appeared to lead to an increase in unhappiness, apologized for not knowing how to get them a green card, and confirmed that I was not, in fact, looking for a Senegalese boyfriend at the moment.
The closest thing I can think of to compare being a toubab in Senegal to is to being a B-list celebrity. When you walk across the street, or through the market, or into a store, all eyes turn towards you. People are curious to see what you’ll do, and what you’re wearing, and what you’ll say. You can tell that they have assumptions about you. One of the fun parts for me is speaking enough French or Wolof to prove people’s assumptions wrong. Or knowing enough of the cultural lingo/jokes/food references to prove that I’ve been in Senegal longer than the average tourist. However, having the same conversation over and over again is tiring. Much as celebrities must get tired of the fans asking the same five questions, it becomes painful to explain where you’re from, why you know Wolof, and that you don’t actually have any idea how to help people get green cards. (The ‘are you married’ question is just standard, Senegalese women seem to get that one, too. I’m talking about the ‘oh, you’re an american’ talking points.)
The major difference, of course, is that I haven’t done anything worthwhile. To have people stop you and ask you for your autograph because you’ve acted in a movie that touched them, or played a song that they like is one thing. To have people come up and ask you for your story simply based on the color of your skin is a weird kind of superficiality. To call it racism would be an insult to everyone who has experienced actual, negative racism. Still, it’s the closest I’ve come to feeling constantly uncomfortable in my own skin. Knowing that people are watching you and are assuming that you are smart, interesting, rich, connected and enviable creates a constant sense of guilt. I found myself in conversations trying to explain that us Americans were just like everybody else. That I wasn’t rich, and that I’d had to work hard to get to come to Senegal, where I was working, not on vacation. It felt like my duty to educate people about their misconceptions about the States. (Just like I felt the need to respond to the occasionally vaguely anti-Semitic comments I heard.)
However, after playing down my opportunities and singing my we-are-the-world, we’re-just-like-you song, I realized that that wasn’t entirely truthful, either. Of course I was richer than most of the people I was talking to. Maybe not in my own personal bank account, but I couldn’t pretend that my college education and study abroad opportunities were luck or simply hard work on my part. Their conceptions about Americans were partially right, and to deny the incredible advantage I’d had simply by being born a white American would also be ridiculous.
There’s no moral to this story – mostly I just sort of stumbled around the explanation of the division of wealth between the global North and South, mentioned that the riches in the US also appeared to lead to an increase in unhappiness, apologized for not knowing how to get them a green card, and confirmed that I was not, in fact, looking for a Senegalese boyfriend at the moment.
The Beach.
I've decided not to completely abandon this blog (just yet) but continue to post the memories/stories/rants/wise philosophical insights that I've been gathering and meaning to post this whole summer. It's a good idea for me to keep them all here together, where I canepr look back on them in one place. [Not required reading for anyone else, however, as it will probably be a little disjointed and ramble-y].
Let's start with a depressing story, shall we?
During the time I spent in Dakar, in between village trips, I tried to get to the beach as much as possible. I love to swim, but it was also nice just to be somewhere where I could see and hear the ocean. Very stress-relieving. Of course, nothing in Dakar is completely stress-free, especially for a toubab who is out in public. Walking down a street can be mentally hazardous, let alone hanging out in bikini next door to a mosque. Even so, it was worth it to have the brief respite from work and French and Wolof to head to the beach in Yoff with my fellow interns. Luckily for me, the beach was only about 15 minutes walking from my homestay, so it was easy to head over for a few hours after work or on the weekend.
I’ve been to quite a few beaches in Dakar, and all over Senegal, but for being so close to me, Yoff beach was beautiful and fairly clean. At the main entrance there seemed to be millions of people crowded into a few hundred yards, but head down the beach a ways and it was practically empty. My friends and I would “rent” one of the “huts” for the afternoon, to have some shade and a safe place to put our stuff. My friend Jane went to the beach practically every day, and we always went to the same establishment. They knew us very well, especially since it was the tourist off-season and they didn’t often have many customers. We’d buy food or drinks from them sometime, but mostly we just paid the $3 for the mat and hut and talked with them a little.
As I mentioned before, there is also a mosque on the Yoff beach. I don’t know if I wrote here about the time when I was exploring Yoff, walking near the mosque, and a woman came up to me and told me that “one didn’t wear pants here”. I explained that I wasn’t going inside the mosque, and she said, ‘No, the whole neighborhood. You can’t wear pants here.” I was coming from work wearing long khaki slacks that were neither very tight nor very revealing, and a “work” shirt, so I was completely taken aback and angry. However, when I went back to my homestay mom and complained about the whole thing, she told me that there was some sort of neighborhood ordinance that had just been passed banning pants on women. The mosque that I had been near is located just down the beach from the place where my friends and I spent our time. I’d never really noticed the irony of Senegalese and foreign young people cavorting about in scanty bathing suits right next to the mosque, I have to admit. And the area where my friends and I planted ourselves day after day was certainly more popular among tourists than Senegalese women. However, the beach was always covered in Senegalese men working out in the sand. Other than feeling awkward about being watched and approached all the time (which seemed no different than anywhere else in Dakar), I honestly hadn’t thought twice about our presence on the beach, or near the mosque.
That is, I hadn’t thought about it much until the beach burned down.
Sorry to be melodramatic. But that’s how the information was given to me, as well. I’d just returned from a village stay and proposed going to the beach. “Okay,” said Matteo, “but we can’t go to Yoff, because it burned down. How ‘bout a different beach?” [except imagine that with a really thick British accent, of course.] I was just as surprised as you, trying to figure out how a beach could burn down. I’ve always thought that sand and water were two excellent substances with which to put OUT fire.
Apparently, on the night of a semi-important Muslim celebration, some local men showed up at the businesses on the beach with knives and fire (Torches? Lighters? No idea, so I’m obviously picturing the mob scene from Beauty and the Beast. But it’s probably more like a drunken frat boy mob, actually.)
From what I can piece together, the owners tried to stop them, but were threatened with knives. So instead the owners took their stuff hurriedly out of the main building and watched as the men burned their livelihood to the ground. I thought maybe everyone was being over-excited, and it had just been a small fire. When I got to the beach, everything looked normal as I headed down towards our normal place – but a few businesses down from ours the hut/beach cabanas just disappeared. Instead, all I could see was some leftover burned logs, blackened sand, and torched shacks. Depressing, horrifying, doesn’t even begin to cover it.
My host mother told me that, on the positive side, they had caught the men almost immediately. She said it was the women who had grabbed three of the men that very night, before they could run off. Others had been caught later, and 22 men were in custody by the time I was hearing about it. When I got to our normal spot, the owners were cheerful and friendly as always. I heard their story and tried to tell them how sorry I was for what had happened. “Don’t worry!”, they said, “Please, don’t worry. We’ll have this all back up for you in no time. We’ll rebuild them very fast! Everything for you, we want you to be happy here!”.
Which, although an overwhelmingly nice sentiment, only makes you more guilty when you are already contemplating whether the arson was an act against scantily-clad swimming tourists like you. The owner seemed to imply to us that the men who had burned down his business were doing so on the orders of the marabouts (religious leaders). Obviously, I can’t say one way or the other. My host mother scoffed at that idea, and seemed to think that it was just unemployed young hooligans with too much time on their hands and violent tendencies. However, the businesses that were burned were next to the mosque, and the arson ended further down the beach, away from the mosque.
The upside to this story (okay, there isn’t really one), is that, as mentioned, the area was already being rebuilt by the time I was there. When we worried outloud about how they would pay for this (insurance probably not so much) someone vaguely said something about a relation in France helping pay for it. Although it was a pretty depressing sight for the next few weeks until I left Dakar, we kept going back to them. The Senegalese men and women in bathing suits did not seem deterred either, although the crowds were much less after the arson.
I don’t really have anything else to say about this, without getting too philosophical or tangential. It was certainly the closest to any kind of religious fundamentalism I’ve ever seen in Senegal, and it was completely shocking for me and the people I was with. I think it was fairly shocking to my Senegalese family and friends as well.
I can't seem to find many pictures from before the fire. Here's one from afterwards. The mural on the wall is still there, but you can see the building behind is all burned out. They've already constructed a few new structures for shade, as you can see, and one of the owners is sawing wood for more in the picture.
Let's start with a depressing story, shall we?
During the time I spent in Dakar, in between village trips, I tried to get to the beach as much as possible. I love to swim, but it was also nice just to be somewhere where I could see and hear the ocean. Very stress-relieving. Of course, nothing in Dakar is completely stress-free, especially for a toubab who is out in public. Walking down a street can be mentally hazardous, let alone hanging out in bikini next door to a mosque. Even so, it was worth it to have the brief respite from work and French and Wolof to head to the beach in Yoff with my fellow interns. Luckily for me, the beach was only about 15 minutes walking from my homestay, so it was easy to head over for a few hours after work or on the weekend.
I’ve been to quite a few beaches in Dakar, and all over Senegal, but for being so close to me, Yoff beach was beautiful and fairly clean. At the main entrance there seemed to be millions of people crowded into a few hundred yards, but head down the beach a ways and it was practically empty. My friends and I would “rent” one of the “huts” for the afternoon, to have some shade and a safe place to put our stuff. My friend Jane went to the beach practically every day, and we always went to the same establishment. They knew us very well, especially since it was the tourist off-season and they didn’t often have many customers. We’d buy food or drinks from them sometime, but mostly we just paid the $3 for the mat and hut and talked with them a little.
As I mentioned before, there is also a mosque on the Yoff beach. I don’t know if I wrote here about the time when I was exploring Yoff, walking near the mosque, and a woman came up to me and told me that “one didn’t wear pants here”. I explained that I wasn’t going inside the mosque, and she said, ‘No, the whole neighborhood. You can’t wear pants here.” I was coming from work wearing long khaki slacks that were neither very tight nor very revealing, and a “work” shirt, so I was completely taken aback and angry. However, when I went back to my homestay mom and complained about the whole thing, she told me that there was some sort of neighborhood ordinance that had just been passed banning pants on women. The mosque that I had been near is located just down the beach from the place where my friends and I spent our time. I’d never really noticed the irony of Senegalese and foreign young people cavorting about in scanty bathing suits right next to the mosque, I have to admit. And the area where my friends and I planted ourselves day after day was certainly more popular among tourists than Senegalese women. However, the beach was always covered in Senegalese men working out in the sand. Other than feeling awkward about being watched and approached all the time (which seemed no different than anywhere else in Dakar), I honestly hadn’t thought twice about our presence on the beach, or near the mosque.
That is, I hadn’t thought about it much until the beach burned down.
Sorry to be melodramatic. But that’s how the information was given to me, as well. I’d just returned from a village stay and proposed going to the beach. “Okay,” said Matteo, “but we can’t go to Yoff, because it burned down. How ‘bout a different beach?” [except imagine that with a really thick British accent, of course.] I was just as surprised as you, trying to figure out how a beach could burn down. I’ve always thought that sand and water were two excellent substances with which to put OUT fire.
Apparently, on the night of a semi-important Muslim celebration, some local men showed up at the businesses on the beach with knives and fire (Torches? Lighters? No idea, so I’m obviously picturing the mob scene from Beauty and the Beast. But it’s probably more like a drunken frat boy mob, actually.)
From what I can piece together, the owners tried to stop them, but were threatened with knives. So instead the owners took their stuff hurriedly out of the main building and watched as the men burned their livelihood to the ground. I thought maybe everyone was being over-excited, and it had just been a small fire. When I got to the beach, everything looked normal as I headed down towards our normal place – but a few businesses down from ours the hut/beach cabanas just disappeared. Instead, all I could see was some leftover burned logs, blackened sand, and torched shacks. Depressing, horrifying, doesn’t even begin to cover it.
My host mother told me that, on the positive side, they had caught the men almost immediately. She said it was the women who had grabbed three of the men that very night, before they could run off. Others had been caught later, and 22 men were in custody by the time I was hearing about it. When I got to our normal spot, the owners were cheerful and friendly as always. I heard their story and tried to tell them how sorry I was for what had happened. “Don’t worry!”, they said, “Please, don’t worry. We’ll have this all back up for you in no time. We’ll rebuild them very fast! Everything for you, we want you to be happy here!”.
Which, although an overwhelmingly nice sentiment, only makes you more guilty when you are already contemplating whether the arson was an act against scantily-clad swimming tourists like you. The owner seemed to imply to us that the men who had burned down his business were doing so on the orders of the marabouts (religious leaders). Obviously, I can’t say one way or the other. My host mother scoffed at that idea, and seemed to think that it was just unemployed young hooligans with too much time on their hands and violent tendencies. However, the businesses that were burned were next to the mosque, and the arson ended further down the beach, away from the mosque.
The upside to this story (okay, there isn’t really one), is that, as mentioned, the area was already being rebuilt by the time I was there. When we worried outloud about how they would pay for this (insurance probably not so much) someone vaguely said something about a relation in France helping pay for it. Although it was a pretty depressing sight for the next few weeks until I left Dakar, we kept going back to them. The Senegalese men and women in bathing suits did not seem deterred either, although the crowds were much less after the arson.
I don’t really have anything else to say about this, without getting too philosophical or tangential. It was certainly the closest to any kind of religious fundamentalism I’ve ever seen in Senegal, and it was completely shocking for me and the people I was with. I think it was fairly shocking to my Senegalese family and friends as well.
I can't seem to find many pictures from before the fire. Here's one from afterwards. The mural on the wall is still there, but you can see the building behind is all burned out. They've already constructed a few new structures for shade, as you can see, and one of the owners is sawing wood for more in the picture.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Back from Diourbel
I got back from Diourbel on Friday - been sort of busy recovering since then! It was a good trip, but Diourbel is incredibly hot and dusty and mosquito-y. Also my anti-malarial-induced nightmares were really acting up, so I wasn't seeping very well. As a result, I'm a little bit sick, mostly dust-induced allergies. But I'm happy to be back in Dakar, have spent a lot of time with friends at the beach this weekend. I can't believe how soon I'm leaving. Of course I feel like I haven't seen half of what I meant to, and there's so much left that I want to do. However, I'll be really happy to be home. I miss my family and friends a lot (not to mention air conditioning, American food, normal running water, etc, etc.)
Diourbel was one of the places I've been before, last November, so it was really nice (and weird) to be back there. I got to see Astou Ndoye, whom I interviewed last year. She's doing really well, and is basically just as awesome as she was last time. Her kids are, of course, a little bigger, which is always weird to see. And she's even more involved in the eco-village. Astou is really smart and driven, and last I talked to her she was talking to me about her micro-loan. Now, however, she is looking to take on more responsibility within the ecovillage, and maybe help organize micro-loans for other people, or help out with the solar ovens project they have going on. Really, I can't stress enough how awesome she is.
A really cool thing I got to do in Diourbel was that if I interviewed a micro-loan recipient at the ecovillage headquarters, I showed the recipients their Kiva page. It was ridiculously amazing and bizarre to show the borrowers their kiva page, and the little pictures of the kiva members who financed their loan. They were sort of into it, but not as much as I was. I was like, see, isn't this AWESOME!? The money comes from all over the world, but not from rich donors, but people like you and me! We are all helping eachother and it is a circle of life and beautiful global community and ...
And Astou, or whoever, would be like, yes, thank you, that's interesting - can you tell me why I haven't gotten my second loan yet? I've got peanut seed to buy, so it'd be really great if you could tell the people in Dakar to hurry up and give me another loan already.
Can't say I blame them, but it was still fun for me to make the Senegal - NGO - Americans - Kiva - Senegal connections.
Diourbel was one of the places I've been before, last November, so it was really nice (and weird) to be back there. I got to see Astou Ndoye, whom I interviewed last year. She's doing really well, and is basically just as awesome as she was last time. Her kids are, of course, a little bigger, which is always weird to see. And she's even more involved in the eco-village. Astou is really smart and driven, and last I talked to her she was talking to me about her micro-loan. Now, however, she is looking to take on more responsibility within the ecovillage, and maybe help organize micro-loans for other people, or help out with the solar ovens project they have going on. Really, I can't stress enough how awesome she is.
A really cool thing I got to do in Diourbel was that if I interviewed a micro-loan recipient at the ecovillage headquarters, I showed the recipients their Kiva page. It was ridiculously amazing and bizarre to show the borrowers their kiva page, and the little pictures of the kiva members who financed their loan. They were sort of into it, but not as much as I was. I was like, see, isn't this AWESOME!? The money comes from all over the world, but not from rich donors, but people like you and me! We are all helping eachother and it is a circle of life and beautiful global community and ...
And Astou, or whoever, would be like, yes, thank you, that's interesting - can you tell me why I haven't gotten my second loan yet? I've got peanut seed to buy, so it'd be really great if you could tell the people in Dakar to hurry up and give me another loan already.
Can't say I blame them, but it was still fun for me to make the Senegal - NGO - Americans - Kiva - Senegal connections.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Maids Literacy Course
Things have been pretty hectic here, recently. Some more GENSEN interns showed up a few weeks ago, so I've had a lot of people to talk to and hang out with, which has been great. Another SEM intern came a few days ago, as well, although we're not really sure what he's doing yet. As for me, I'm continuing my Kiva & SEM updates. However, the maid's literacy class is not going so well. It's been so long since I posted that I never really talked about the class.
In Dakar, maids are called "bonnes". They are mostly 15 (or so) year old girls who come from the rural villages to live with and work for Dakar families. Both homestay families in Dakar that I've lived with have had maids. They're not just for the rich, or even well-off. The maids cook, clean, and do laundry. Sometimes they help take care of the younger children, although that isn't their main role. Almost all of these young women are illiterate, and most of them do not speak French. Some come to Dakar for a season, during the vacation, so that they can make money to continue their studies and stay in school. However, most of them seem to have no better options than to work in Dakar for awhile, and then return to the village and marry. Most of them will never learn French, and never learn to read.
A Fulbright scholar a few years ago set up a literacy program for some of these women. Sounds great, but of course, unless a program like that is partnered with a very stable NGO, after the original funding dries up and the Fulbright scholar leaves things tend to go to hell. So right now, even though this program was sort of partnered with GENSEN, they are in danger of failing. Ibrahima, the teacher, hasn't been paid in months. (Although sometimes flaky and prone to not showing up for class, he's kind of a saint. He's told us that even if we can't get enough funding to pay him he will continue to teach the class for free, because these girls deserve an education.) The elementary school whose rooms they use (Class is 6:30-8pm three times a week) is going to start charging them for the space, and they can't afford that. The classrooms are falling apart as it is, the girls are great but don't always show up, and never on time, and they have no curriculum to speak of. GENSEN has decided they want to cut this program loose, so a fellow intern is looking to find another, bigger NGO to work with them.
Does anyone reading this blog have any connections with Oxfam, or big global NGOs that fund women's literacy initiatives?
I'm trying to help them out, in various ways. Mostly, though, when I go to the class to sit in on a lesson, I end up teaching the whole class. This happened twice last week, when Ibrahima didn't show up. I didn't have a lesson or anything planned but I just sort of improvised as I went along.
The thing is, I love teaching. It's not What I Want To Do When I Grow Up, but it's one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done. I'd love to come back here and teach these girls to read and help set them up with supplies and an actual curriculum. But I'm not sure, with only a few weeks left here, what I can do for them.
Anyway, I'm in Diourbel now, doing more updates for SEM & Kiva, and visiting my friend Ellen, who is a peace corps volunteer here. I wrote about her last time. It's nice to see her again, and Diourbel is hot but nice. Very mosquito infested. I'm going to get my hair braided. Appropriation of culture aside, it's too hot to have such long hair without braids. :)
Sorry for such a disjointed post, but wasn't sure when I'd get to update again!
XOXO,
Robin
In Dakar, maids are called "bonnes". They are mostly 15 (or so) year old girls who come from the rural villages to live with and work for Dakar families. Both homestay families in Dakar that I've lived with have had maids. They're not just for the rich, or even well-off. The maids cook, clean, and do laundry. Sometimes they help take care of the younger children, although that isn't their main role. Almost all of these young women are illiterate, and most of them do not speak French. Some come to Dakar for a season, during the vacation, so that they can make money to continue their studies and stay in school. However, most of them seem to have no better options than to work in Dakar for awhile, and then return to the village and marry. Most of them will never learn French, and never learn to read.
A Fulbright scholar a few years ago set up a literacy program for some of these women. Sounds great, but of course, unless a program like that is partnered with a very stable NGO, after the original funding dries up and the Fulbright scholar leaves things tend to go to hell. So right now, even though this program was sort of partnered with GENSEN, they are in danger of failing. Ibrahima, the teacher, hasn't been paid in months. (Although sometimes flaky and prone to not showing up for class, he's kind of a saint. He's told us that even if we can't get enough funding to pay him he will continue to teach the class for free, because these girls deserve an education.) The elementary school whose rooms they use (Class is 6:30-8pm three times a week) is going to start charging them for the space, and they can't afford that. The classrooms are falling apart as it is, the girls are great but don't always show up, and never on time, and they have no curriculum to speak of. GENSEN has decided they want to cut this program loose, so a fellow intern is looking to find another, bigger NGO to work with them.
Does anyone reading this blog have any connections with Oxfam, or big global NGOs that fund women's literacy initiatives?
I'm trying to help them out, in various ways. Mostly, though, when I go to the class to sit in on a lesson, I end up teaching the whole class. This happened twice last week, when Ibrahima didn't show up. I didn't have a lesson or anything planned but I just sort of improvised as I went along.
The thing is, I love teaching. It's not What I Want To Do When I Grow Up, but it's one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done. I'd love to come back here and teach these girls to read and help set them up with supplies and an actual curriculum. But I'm not sure, with only a few weeks left here, what I can do for them.
Anyway, I'm in Diourbel now, doing more updates for SEM & Kiva, and visiting my friend Ellen, who is a peace corps volunteer here. I wrote about her last time. It's nice to see her again, and Diourbel is hot but nice. Very mosquito infested. I'm going to get my hair braided. Appropriation of culture aside, it's too hot to have such long hair without braids. :)
Sorry for such a disjointed post, but wasn't sure when I'd get to update again!
XOXO,
Robin
Friday, July 10, 2009
Fake Blog Post
This is not an update! Even though I owe you, gentle readers, many. Baal ma! (Sorry). I'm having a bad day, though, with some computer problems and an uncertain prognosis for the Maids Literacy class I was helping out with. Still, I always find something interesting in the Times to take my mind off it.
Op-Ed Column, "Rebranding Africa", by Bono
Interesting article. I'm excited that Obama will be in West Africa, even though he won't be in Senegal. Here is the comment I posted to the article:
Dakar, Senegal
July 10th, 2009
1:41 pm
I am an American college student interning for the summer in Dakar, Senegal. It is my second trip to Senegal, which is the only place I have traveled within the continent of Africa. Reading over the article and the comments, a few things struck me.
I, too, was wary of the title of the article, and the concept of "branding" and "re-branding". However, I don't disagree with Bono on any one point. He is not suggesting that it is a good idea for Americans to make generalizations about Africa - only that since the "Western" population seems to make so many generalizations anyway, we might as well make them well-rounded generalizations. I agree with the people above who have remarked on the concept of speaking about Africa as though it were one country and not a diverse continent with many countries and a multitude of both problems and progress. Educating Americans, among others, about the positive happenings in African nations like Ghana will help lead to a further understanding of how different each nation is, and the diverse issues each state needs to address.
Second, the concepts of "aid" and "development" are often tossed around, especially when we talk about U.S. financing programs in "developing" countries. Dambisa Moyo has recently received a lot of attention for her book, Dead Aid, which criticizes, I believe, American foreign/economic policy towards Africa. Although Moyo comes on a bit strong, I think that an increased effort must be made to scrutinize where American money is actually going. When we supply mosquito nets, are we driving a local pharmacy that sells them out of business? Is the money ending up in the hands of corrupt local officials? Are NGOs starting well-intentioned programs that will founder if the NGO loses interest or funding? I have seen villages where NGOs had introduced solar panels - but once the NGOs folded a few years later, the villagers had no way to get broken solar panels fixed, or update their technology. We need to make sure that economic aid is creating local jobs, sustainable profits, and environmentally friendly business practices.
Lastly, full disclosure: I am interning for a micro-finance organization. While the micro-credit initiatives here in Senegal are not perfect, I have seen many things that give me hope for the future. Kiva.org and their local affiliates are doing an amazing job of making it easy to fund entrepreneurs all over the world with the click of a mouse.
I hope that President Obama makes mention of micro-credit initiatives in his speech, and talks about the need for bottom-up development. We, as Americans, can throw money at the worlds problems all we want (and, sometimes, I think we should) but the real "development" is going to come from within the countries, and the continent. The keys to this, IMHO, are education and empowering women. (I'd love to be a fly on the wall if Bono and Nick Kristof ever get to talking about those subjects!)
/rant&ramble. Hope to see more columns like this in the future. Let's not wait for celebrity guest columnists to see articles about these topics!
Op-Ed Column, "Rebranding Africa", by Bono
Interesting article. I'm excited that Obama will be in West Africa, even though he won't be in Senegal. Here is the comment I posted to the article:
Dakar, Senegal
July 10th, 2009
1:41 pm
I am an American college student interning for the summer in Dakar, Senegal. It is my second trip to Senegal, which is the only place I have traveled within the continent of Africa. Reading over the article and the comments, a few things struck me.
I, too, was wary of the title of the article, and the concept of "branding" and "re-branding". However, I don't disagree with Bono on any one point. He is not suggesting that it is a good idea for Americans to make generalizations about Africa - only that since the "Western" population seems to make so many generalizations anyway, we might as well make them well-rounded generalizations. I agree with the people above who have remarked on the concept of speaking about Africa as though it were one country and not a diverse continent with many countries and a multitude of both problems and progress. Educating Americans, among others, about the positive happenings in African nations like Ghana will help lead to a further understanding of how different each nation is, and the diverse issues each state needs to address.
Second, the concepts of "aid" and "development" are often tossed around, especially when we talk about U.S. financing programs in "developing" countries. Dambisa Moyo has recently received a lot of attention for her book, Dead Aid, which criticizes, I believe, American foreign/economic policy towards Africa. Although Moyo comes on a bit strong, I think that an increased effort must be made to scrutinize where American money is actually going. When we supply mosquito nets, are we driving a local pharmacy that sells them out of business? Is the money ending up in the hands of corrupt local officials? Are NGOs starting well-intentioned programs that will founder if the NGO loses interest or funding? I have seen villages where NGOs had introduced solar panels - but once the NGOs folded a few years later, the villagers had no way to get broken solar panels fixed, or update their technology. We need to make sure that economic aid is creating local jobs, sustainable profits, and environmentally friendly business practices.
Lastly, full disclosure: I am interning for a micro-finance organization. While the micro-credit initiatives here in Senegal are not perfect, I have seen many things that give me hope for the future. Kiva.org and their local affiliates are doing an amazing job of making it easy to fund entrepreneurs all over the world with the click of a mouse.
I hope that President Obama makes mention of micro-credit initiatives in his speech, and talks about the need for bottom-up development. We, as Americans, can throw money at the worlds problems all we want (and, sometimes, I think we should) but the real "development" is going to come from within the countries, and the continent. The keys to this, IMHO, are education and empowering women. (I'd love to be a fly on the wall if Bono and Nick Kristof ever get to talking about those subjects!)
/rant&ramble. Hope to see more columns like this in the future. Let's not wait for celebrity guest columnists to see articles about these topics!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Mboumbaye Micro-Management (and other news)
I've been quite delinquent in posting, I know. To make up for it, I've finally finished posting my pictures from Saint Louis and the Jazz Festival to facebook. (If you don't have a facebook and want to see them, post a comment and I'll put the link up.) It didn't take very long at all - I uploaded the pictures from work, while I was working on other things. I think the internet connection must be much better at the office than it is here in my homestay.
I have a new neighbor, a new SEM employee. Matteo was born in Italy, traveled all over, spent quite a bit of time in London and speaks fluent English with a very thick British accent. He met John Fay, founder of SEM Fund, in China, and found out about the organization. He's been hired as a consultant of sorts, for environmental initiatives. He just got here a few days ago, so he's literally still figuring out what he's going to do for the next six months. It's quite pleasant having someone to speak English to (I'm afraid I've basically talked his ear off for the past 12 hours, straight) and to show around. He lives in my homestay with me, in the room next door. I just helped him get his mosquito net put up.
Funnily enough, he arrives on the heels of two American girls who showed up at the office on Monday, asking for information about visiting the ecovillages. One of them, Meredith, has been corresponding by e-mail with John Fay, who told her to come to the office once she got to Dakar. I was instructed to tell them about the ecovillage I'd just come back from and the other ones I've visited, to see if I could help them figure out where they wanted to go. I ended up talking with length about the ecovillages, helping them plan their stay, taking them to buy appropriate homestay gifts, and getting a delicious western-style lunch with them (they wouldn't let me pay!). It was a lovely afternoon - I didn't feel at all guilty about playing hooky from work for an hour or so to show them around the neighborhood, because the ecovillages desperately need more tourists coming and visiting. I was happy that they decided to go to Mboumbaye and stay for a few days. I'm hoping to see them again this weekend, when they get back. The weirdest part? Over lunch I mentioned that I'm attending Connecticut College... both Meredith and her friend Danica have younger siblings that have graduated from CC. Meredith's brother just graduated this year, so we were both at graduation three weeks ago and didn't know eachother then. Only to meet in Dakar! How bizarre.
I'm leaving tomorrow for a village called Louly Ngogom and will hopefully be back on Saturday. Then I'm hoping to spend my weekend hanging out with Matteo, Meredith, Danica, and Ellen (my peace corps volunteer friend) who will be in Dakar for medical checkups, etc. It should be a wonderful weekend. Ellen is staying until Tuesday - I'm looking forward to introducing her to Matteo (got all these names straight, guys?) because he is interested in the solar ovens project that her Peace Corps site (the Keur Gu Magg ecovillage) is implementing.
So that's what's coming up... as for what I've been up to since I last wrote, I've been sick but also doing actual work! I spent about four days in Mboumbaye, interviewing/talking to the men and women who have received micro-loans from The SEM Fund. Most of them were financed by Kiva.org, so here are the links to their Kiva profiles. You can see that they have started paying back, but soon the page should include the updates that I've written. (I'm not sure what soon means... in a few days, or a few months?)
The interviews went well, although the village stay was far from perfect. I had a run-in with some obnoxious 7-10 year old kids, which somehow left me feeling humiliated and depressed. The "cultural difference" thing is hard to remember when you're trying to figure out why an entire country of kids seem to be brutally rude and poorly raised. However, the family I was staying with, and the young girls who taught me hand games and shell-tossing games were warm, clever, and kind, and more than made up for any trouble I had.
As for the actual micro-loan recipients, I found their stories very similar and positive, with one exception. Most of the groups divided up their micro-loan and the individual members used the money to advance their personal small trade, business, agriculture, etc. However, one group decided to use their loan for a group venture: building and stocking a chicken coop to sell poultry to local villagers. Thus far, the plan has failed spectacularly. It appears to have been thought out fairly well, and the chicken coop was well built, but there have been several economic problems (such as markets and storage for the poultry) that have been impossible to overcome. I think it is highly likely that they will default on their loan, the full sum of which is due in November. This loan was financed through SEM donors, not through Kiva.org, so you won't see my write-up of the situation online. I will post it here, if I get permission to, however, and anyone interested can ask me for more details. It's a little depressing, but the borrowers are fairly blameless and have learned a good deal about their local market from the experience. They have a better idea for a future loan (if they ever get one) that reflects what they've learned about the situation, and they are committed to continuing to sell what chickens they can to pay back the loan, no matter how long it takes.
So here's my question for you all: Who are you, and what do you want to read? It's hard for me to figure out if anyone reads this blog (besides my immediate family, of course) so I never know exactly who I'm writing to. If you read this, leave me a comment! Let me know what you'd like to hear about from Senegal (the food? the goats? the plumbing? interesting wolof idioms?) and what is boring you to tears. Should I stop linking to so many articles about kiva? (Wait, just ONE MORE, I promise!)
I really have to go to sleep now, but I want to put in a quote from the above article that I thought was sort of cute:
More pictures to come very soon... although I bet I'd update sooner if people left me comments and told me how much they loved me. What? A travlin' girl needs love!
Avec amour et persévérance,
Robin Mariama
I have a new neighbor, a new SEM employee. Matteo was born in Italy, traveled all over, spent quite a bit of time in London and speaks fluent English with a very thick British accent. He met John Fay, founder of SEM Fund, in China, and found out about the organization. He's been hired as a consultant of sorts, for environmental initiatives. He just got here a few days ago, so he's literally still figuring out what he's going to do for the next six months. It's quite pleasant having someone to speak English to (I'm afraid I've basically talked his ear off for the past 12 hours, straight) and to show around. He lives in my homestay with me, in the room next door. I just helped him get his mosquito net put up.
Funnily enough, he arrives on the heels of two American girls who showed up at the office on Monday, asking for information about visiting the ecovillages. One of them, Meredith, has been corresponding by e-mail with John Fay, who told her to come to the office once she got to Dakar. I was instructed to tell them about the ecovillage I'd just come back from and the other ones I've visited, to see if I could help them figure out where they wanted to go. I ended up talking with length about the ecovillages, helping them plan their stay, taking them to buy appropriate homestay gifts, and getting a delicious western-style lunch with them (they wouldn't let me pay!). It was a lovely afternoon - I didn't feel at all guilty about playing hooky from work for an hour or so to show them around the neighborhood, because the ecovillages desperately need more tourists coming and visiting. I was happy that they decided to go to Mboumbaye and stay for a few days. I'm hoping to see them again this weekend, when they get back. The weirdest part? Over lunch I mentioned that I'm attending Connecticut College... both Meredith and her friend Danica have younger siblings that have graduated from CC. Meredith's brother just graduated this year, so we were both at graduation three weeks ago and didn't know eachother then. Only to meet in Dakar! How bizarre.
I'm leaving tomorrow for a village called Louly Ngogom and will hopefully be back on Saturday. Then I'm hoping to spend my weekend hanging out with Matteo, Meredith, Danica, and Ellen (my peace corps volunteer friend) who will be in Dakar for medical checkups, etc. It should be a wonderful weekend. Ellen is staying until Tuesday - I'm looking forward to introducing her to Matteo (got all these names straight, guys?) because he is interested in the solar ovens project that her Peace Corps site (the Keur Gu Magg ecovillage) is implementing.
So that's what's coming up... as for what I've been up to since I last wrote, I've been sick but also doing actual work! I spent about four days in Mboumbaye, interviewing/talking to the men and women who have received micro-loans from The SEM Fund. Most of them were financed by Kiva.org, so here are the links to their Kiva profiles. You can see that they have started paying back, but soon the page should include the updates that I've written. (I'm not sure what soon means... in a few days, or a few months?)
The interviews went well, although the village stay was far from perfect. I had a run-in with some obnoxious 7-10 year old kids, which somehow left me feeling humiliated and depressed. The "cultural difference" thing is hard to remember when you're trying to figure out why an entire country of kids seem to be brutally rude and poorly raised. However, the family I was staying with, and the young girls who taught me hand games and shell-tossing games were warm, clever, and kind, and more than made up for any trouble I had.
As for the actual micro-loan recipients, I found their stories very similar and positive, with one exception. Most of the groups divided up their micro-loan and the individual members used the money to advance their personal small trade, business, agriculture, etc. However, one group decided to use their loan for a group venture: building and stocking a chicken coop to sell poultry to local villagers. Thus far, the plan has failed spectacularly. It appears to have been thought out fairly well, and the chicken coop was well built, but there have been several economic problems (such as markets and storage for the poultry) that have been impossible to overcome. I think it is highly likely that they will default on their loan, the full sum of which is due in November. This loan was financed through SEM donors, not through Kiva.org, so you won't see my write-up of the situation online. I will post it here, if I get permission to, however, and anyone interested can ask me for more details. It's a little depressing, but the borrowers are fairly blameless and have learned a good deal about their local market from the experience. They have a better idea for a future loan (if they ever get one) that reflects what they've learned about the situation, and they are committed to continuing to sell what chickens they can to pay back the loan, no matter how long it takes.
So here's my question for you all: Who are you, and what do you want to read? It's hard for me to figure out if anyone reads this blog (besides my immediate family, of course) so I never know exactly who I'm writing to. If you read this, leave me a comment! Let me know what you'd like to hear about from Senegal (the food? the goats? the plumbing? interesting wolof idioms?) and what is boring you to tears. Should I stop linking to so many articles about kiva? (Wait, just ONE MORE, I promise!)
I really have to go to sleep now, but I want to put in a quote from the above article that I thought was sort of cute:
Some guy in Mongolia needs feed for his cattle? You and 50 total strangers front him $25 each. A cabbie in Beirut needs to fix his taxi? Maybe 50 other people chip in online. A beauty salon in Tajikistan is running short on supplies? Point, click, loan money.
Metaphorically, it's not giving someone a fish, and it's not teaching someone to fish; it's helping a fisherman patch a hole in his rowboat so he can get on with life.
More pictures to come very soon... although I bet I'd update sooner if people left me comments and told me how much they loved me. What? A travlin' girl needs love!
Avec amour et persévérance,
Robin Mariama
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Quick and Shameless Plug...
I've been meaning to write for awhile. And now I'm sick, so this isn't the update. Really, update is coming, but I have a fever and was throwing up my anti-nausea medication (Irony?) all night, so I have a good excuse! This is just to say sorry for not saying anything. Er... and to give you this link to the Against Malaria Peace Corps Fundraiser for Senegal that is being organized by my friend Ellen. Well, it's being organized by the Peace Corps in Senegal, but she's the contact on the facebook event page. :p
I met Ellen last year when I visited Diourbel (I think I wrote about that visit and her on this blog) and she was kind enough to share her bed and mosquito net with me then. She was just moving in to her Peace Corps site... I saw her again in Dakar recently, which was lovely, and gave her the peanut butter I had brought from the states for her. (It's weird the things you can't get overseas.) She's recently gone vegan, not an easy thing to do in Senegal, so I'm gad to give her some protein. Hee.
Anyway, this is a good cause, and a cause I can vouch for in terms of money being well-used and going directly to people who need it. Plus I've given so many shameless plugs for Kiva.org (and more still to come) that I figured I should plug something ese for a change!
Okay. Really, more to come soon, once I am feeling better.
I met Ellen last year when I visited Diourbel (I think I wrote about that visit and her on this blog) and she was kind enough to share her bed and mosquito net with me then. She was just moving in to her Peace Corps site... I saw her again in Dakar recently, which was lovely, and gave her the peanut butter I had brought from the states for her. (It's weird the things you can't get overseas.) She's recently gone vegan, not an easy thing to do in Senegal, so I'm gad to give her some protein. Hee.
Anyway, this is a good cause, and a cause I can vouch for in terms of money being well-used and going directly to people who need it. Plus I've given so many shameless plugs for Kiva.org (and more still to come) that I figured I should plug something ese for a change!
Okay. Really, more to come soon, once I am feeling better.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
What I'm Doing Here
My internship here at The SEM Fund is going well. I thought I would update you all on exactly what I’m doing while I’m here. (Other than enjoying the sun and the music!) I’m hoping that most of the next 8 weeks or so will be spent traveling to the different ecovillages that GENSEN has here in the northern part of Senegal. (They’d love for me to go to Casamance, but traveling back roads to get to villages is exactly what toubabs are NOT supposed to be doing – I think my parents would have heart attacks.) I’m hoping to leave for Mboumbaye on Sunday or Monday. It’s just north of Saint Louis, apparently, which must make it very close to Mauritania, so I’ll have at least 5 hours in the taxi or bus to read Middemarch. Once there, I’ll be meeting with each group that has received a loan from SEM micro-credit. I need to gather enough information from them to be able to write an update for both Kiva.org and for SEM’s own website. (These updates are basically the same thing, and will probably be in English although I’ll also provide a French version.) I need to know background information on the village, the group receiving the loan, the business venture being attempted, and how the repayment is going. I’m going to try not to sugarcoat it – if there are problems then the Kiva journals are expected not to gloss over them. However, what SEM chooses to send to Kiva or publish to their website is up to them, so I’ll be interested to see if they make any changes to what I write.
I’m also charged with taking pictures (I know, do I have the best job or what?) of the businesses and ecovillage staff for the website and for Kiva. Basically all of this sounds like a lot of fun, but I’m anxious to get started. I knew things would be moving on Senegalese time, here, but having someone else paying for me to work here (namely CELS and CISLA and Connecticut College) makes me feel guilty about the pace of things. I’ve spent this week writing out the information that I need to know, having some refresher Wolof classes with my old SIT professor, Moutarou, and reading through the documents and guidelines for journaling that Kiva provides its field partners with. Sorry if this is unclear, it’s hard to keep straight all the NGOs I’m working with. GENSEN and CREPS are basically the same thing, and SEM micro credit is a integral part of their ecovillage system. Then when you add in Kiva, it all gets confusing.
While in the villages, I’m also tasked with figuring out how SEM could best be expanded to fit the ecovillages needs. I think they have in mind buying some equipment to lend out to their ecovillage members (equipment for agriculture, transformation of grains, fabric dyeing, etc). To that extent, they are going to (eventually…) provide me with a questionnaire for the ecovillage staff/members. I’m not sure how long it’ll take to do the questionnaire, so in the mean time I’m just going to go ahead and include it as a question in my interviews.
That’s enough work update for now – I have to get back to work! I’m trying to meet with a group from one of the two ecovillages located here in Dakar. We’re having some difficulty reaching the president on the phone, however… ::sigh:: Still, it’s nice to be back in the SEM office. Everyone is friendly (if exceedingly busy). I forwarded them Nicholas Kristof’s article on microcredit in Africa from a few days ago. Ata, who is from here but attended NYU, is teaching everybody English. Tuesday and Thursday are ‘English days’, and from the sound of it, everyone is really good! I don’t know how much of the article they will have been able to read/translate but I’m curious what they thought of it. Here's the link, for those of you who are interested – the comments are more interesting than the actual blog. He also wrote about microsaving in general before that.
Later I’ll try and post an update with my ‘walking tour of Yoff’, which is the neighborhood I’m living in. Ba ci kanem! (See you later!)
I’m also charged with taking pictures (I know, do I have the best job or what?) of the businesses and ecovillage staff for the website and for Kiva. Basically all of this sounds like a lot of fun, but I’m anxious to get started. I knew things would be moving on Senegalese time, here, but having someone else paying for me to work here (namely CELS and CISLA and Connecticut College) makes me feel guilty about the pace of things. I’ve spent this week writing out the information that I need to know, having some refresher Wolof classes with my old SIT professor, Moutarou, and reading through the documents and guidelines for journaling that Kiva provides its field partners with. Sorry if this is unclear, it’s hard to keep straight all the NGOs I’m working with. GENSEN and CREPS are basically the same thing, and SEM micro credit is a integral part of their ecovillage system. Then when you add in Kiva, it all gets confusing.
While in the villages, I’m also tasked with figuring out how SEM could best be expanded to fit the ecovillages needs. I think they have in mind buying some equipment to lend out to their ecovillage members (equipment for agriculture, transformation of grains, fabric dyeing, etc). To that extent, they are going to (eventually…) provide me with a questionnaire for the ecovillage staff/members. I’m not sure how long it’ll take to do the questionnaire, so in the mean time I’m just going to go ahead and include it as a question in my interviews.
That’s enough work update for now – I have to get back to work! I’m trying to meet with a group from one of the two ecovillages located here in Dakar. We’re having some difficulty reaching the president on the phone, however… ::sigh:: Still, it’s nice to be back in the SEM office. Everyone is friendly (if exceedingly busy). I forwarded them Nicholas Kristof’s article on microcredit in Africa from a few days ago. Ata, who is from here but attended NYU, is teaching everybody English. Tuesday and Thursday are ‘English days’, and from the sound of it, everyone is really good! I don’t know how much of the article they will have been able to read/translate but I’m curious what they thought of it. Here's the link, for those of you who are interested – the comments are more interesting than the actual blog. He also wrote about microsaving in general before that.
Later I’ll try and post an update with my ‘walking tour of Yoff’, which is the neighborhood I’m living in. Ba ci kanem! (See you later!)
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