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.
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