Watch this video on the President of The Gambia curing AIDS. This is so telling of... a lot here. Many people believe this because their president would never lie to them.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,30200-hurd_p2623,00.html#
The article that goes with it:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1252349,00.html
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Being away from America, on the outside of the bubble of American life, I've had some major realizations about the culture; the great American way is really bizzare. And it's not the only way, though from the inside it can seem that way.
Here's some major contrasts between here and there:
1. Here, petty/bratty arguing between kids doesn't seem to exist; the culture is not based on individualism and competition, so siblings, pre-teens, highschoolers, everyone communicates with everyone else with relaxed, comfortable respect. Not that there aren't fights, but they seem to be pretty cut and dry.
2. No one avoids eye contact when passing by; (you see this in small town America too) greeting everyone is a cultural must-do. I think it just adds to the friendly neighborly-ness, plus it's just kinda nice.
3. It is a classless society- everyone is on equal terms and everything is shared openly. Anyone who walks by a compound at meal time will be invited (ordered) to come and eat. .
4. People work hard and live off the land; they build their houses out of mud bricks, they grow their grains and veggies, they make tea from bush leaves, baskets from grass, lotion for leftover candles wax and oil, incense, henna, medicine from certain trees, tools from welded metal, furniture from local wood, etc.
All that been said, I see this mass desire for westernization! They ALL think America and Europe are wonderful, they all want modern things... they see money, luxury, 'the good life.' What they don't see is the massive ecological destruction that a consumerist culture brings. They want "development," but they see the replacement and assimilation of native cultures that comes with globalization.
Development: it is a dynamic process of improvement, which implies a change, an evolution, growth and advancement.
Ok, but by whose standards? How should we measure poverty? What is "improvement?" As development workers (if you choose to go that route as a PCV), we get to decide, based on the needs and desires of the communities we serve how we want to measure development. I say it's definitely not numbers in a bankroll or the number of paved roads a country has. To me it's not measured in economic growth but in a community's ability to live autonomously, replenishing the land they use, providing a stable, safe, healthy and happy environment for its population. Development should ensure that a community will be able to LAST, survive, thrive... not to grow in size or monetary wealth, or bring in factories and roads. The thing that America/ westernized civilization never questions is the standard of development... if the more we grow, the more energy we need, the more cars we drive, the more land we need to clear theennnn.... the more global warming we'll have, the more species we'll wipe out and the more resources (water, coal) we'll suck dry. Uh, right? So why would we all world-wide blindly agree that that's the MAIN goal?
My line of thought: money equal a class society equals inequality. Money will never be distributed equally and will lead to more imported goods- stuff people don't need shipped to them on huge petrol-consuming liners, in cardboard boxes whose production caused deforestation in some distant place that can be ignored, or in plastic packages whose production used more oil and gas and whose waste products were dumped into some distant river that can be ignored, all dyed with hazardous chemicals using cheap labor exploiting (probably native) people from another far away "developing community" somewhere far away, whom we can ignore.
I think I'll pass on that, as much as I can. It's not up to me to decide for my village what they want, but I can try my hardest to make them see the value and beauty of their lifestyle the way it is. I can try to make them see the value of their natural environment and the need to replenish and restore their own resources so that they can continue to self-sustain.
Hopefully I'll use the next two years to help replenish the local resources and encourage pride in self-sustainability. And chill out here, enjoying the beauty of this type of lifestyle- a place without money that can provide for itself is a place with no stress, no depression or anxiety. A culture without individualistic competition is a culture of happy, stable and respectful people. People who do physical labor everyday are healthy people who don't suffer from obesity, high rates of cancer, high blood pressure and other diseases of the affluent.
Here's some major contrasts between here and there:
1. Here, petty/bratty arguing between kids doesn't seem to exist; the culture is not based on individualism and competition, so siblings, pre-teens, highschoolers, everyone communicates with everyone else with relaxed, comfortable respect. Not that there aren't fights, but they seem to be pretty cut and dry.
2. No one avoids eye contact when passing by; (you see this in small town America too) greeting everyone is a cultural must-do. I think it just adds to the friendly neighborly-ness, plus it's just kinda nice.
3. It is a classless society- everyone is on equal terms and everything is shared openly. Anyone who walks by a compound at meal time will be invited (ordered) to come and eat. .
4. People work hard and live off the land; they build their houses out of mud bricks, they grow their grains and veggies, they make tea from bush leaves, baskets from grass, lotion for leftover candles wax and oil, incense, henna, medicine from certain trees, tools from welded metal, furniture from local wood, etc.
All that been said, I see this mass desire for westernization! They ALL think America and Europe are wonderful, they all want modern things... they see money, luxury, 'the good life.' What they don't see is the massive ecological destruction that a consumerist culture brings. They want "development," but they see the replacement and assimilation of native cultures that comes with globalization.
Development: it is a dynamic process of improvement, which implies a change, an evolution, growth and advancement.
Ok, but by whose standards? How should we measure poverty? What is "improvement?" As development workers (if you choose to go that route as a PCV), we get to decide, based on the needs and desires of the communities we serve how we want to measure development. I say it's definitely not numbers in a bankroll or the number of paved roads a country has. To me it's not measured in economic growth but in a community's ability to live autonomously, replenishing the land they use, providing a stable, safe, healthy and happy environment for its population. Development should ensure that a community will be able to LAST, survive, thrive... not to grow in size or monetary wealth, or bring in factories and roads. The thing that America/ westernized civilization never questions is the standard of development... if the more we grow, the more energy we need, the more cars we drive, the more land we need to clear theennnn.... the more global warming we'll have, the more species we'll wipe out and the more resources (water, coal) we'll suck dry. Uh, right? So why would we all world-wide blindly agree that that's the MAIN goal?
My line of thought: money equal a class society equals inequality. Money will never be distributed equally and will lead to more imported goods- stuff people don't need shipped to them on huge petrol-consuming liners, in cardboard boxes whose production caused deforestation in some distant place that can be ignored, or in plastic packages whose production used more oil and gas and whose waste products were dumped into some distant river that can be ignored, all dyed with hazardous chemicals using cheap labor exploiting (probably native) people from another far away "developing community" somewhere far away, whom we can ignore.
I think I'll pass on that, as much as I can. It's not up to me to decide for my village what they want, but I can try my hardest to make them see the value and beauty of their lifestyle the way it is. I can try to make them see the value of their natural environment and the need to replenish and restore their own resources so that they can continue to self-sustain.
Hopefully I'll use the next two years to help replenish the local resources and encourage pride in self-sustainability. And chill out here, enjoying the beauty of this type of lifestyle- a place without money that can provide for itself is a place with no stress, no depression or anxiety. A culture without individualistic competition is a culture of happy, stable and respectful people. People who do physical labor everyday are healthy people who don't suffer from obesity, high rates of cancer, high blood pressure and other diseases of the affluent.
So What Are You Doing?
So everyone asks what I'm doing, what I'm up to. I'll try to give some of the cool highlights of my days here...
You know I live in Jamagen, a small village of about 17 compounds- which are extended family groups, basically a u-shaped cluster of mud huts with a common area in the middle, space for small cassava and papaya gardens and maybe a few cows. Because The Gambia is the final destination for about 8 different tribes of Africa, my village is a cool mix of Woolof (what I speak), Pulaar or Fulas, Mandinkas, and another tribe similar to Mandinkas (both from Mali) called the Bambaras. There are also some Serers. My compound is Bambara, but they all speak Woolof and a little of everything like most Gambians. The compound consists of 3 brothers, two of them with one wife each and all their many kids, and their mom- my very old and very cool grandma. Madou is the youngest brother, unmarried now, about 25 yrs old, speaks fairly good English and is way cool. There are 11 kids in the compound, ranging from less than a year to about 18 maybe- they don't know their birthdays or how old they are and are confused when I ask (why would I want to know?)! I hang out a lot with the oldest girl (18?), Sabu, and the two second oldest girls, born 4 days apart from the 2 different wives in the compound (about 12 yrs old i think), Seneba and Nagale. I also hang out a lot with Roxi Bah and her family, (25 yrs?) in the Fula compound next to me.
So a typical day...?
Wake up at 7, push back the mosquito net, go for a jog or a seed-collecting walk, for my hopeful woodlot (more on that later). Come back, rinse off with water from my bucket... yep water I hauled on my head...water my little orange tree and baby papaya shoots. Go join my grandma around the fire-in-a-bowl where she heats water for tea- it's still a little chilly in the mornings here and by that i mean maybe 70 C. One child after another stumble out and wriggle in around the fire, poke each other and the fire with sticks. Two kids put on their uniforms and get ready for school (one girl, one boy, both about 8 or 9). The nearest school is 2 k away in Kuntair, where I will teach 2 days a week General Science to 7th graders- more on that later! I eat breakfast with the women, either rice porridge or coos porridge, in a big communal bowl. Coos is what we use as birdseed in the US (called millet) but it's actually really good, is a healthy whole grain with lots of fiber and anti-oxidants- it's the Gambia's main crop, along with peanuts. My mornings are free... I sweep my house, maybe do a little laundry, and usually hear Roxi call my name to come over. I hang out there for a while, they give me "sour milk" which is milk that has sat in a bowl in a cool place for a day or so and has become yogurt. You add sugar and sometimes coos and it is seriously amazing! Fula's are nomadic herders by nature and even the settled ones usually have a few cows. Some of them say they can talk to cows, which could be a useful skill for me to pick up while I'm here.
Sometimes I go visit the men working in their garden's along Jamagen's awesome tributary, or go with Roxi and my sisters to collect downed firewood from the forest around the river... yep I carry it back on my head haha! It's the season for "bush fruits" or forest fruits, and there's about 10 different kinds of yummy figs, plums, edible seed pods, ect... I've been collecting these too for a fruit tree section of my wood lot! My favorite is called Mam Poto it's sooo good- I also named Roxi's family's little puppy that since he likes to eat them too.
Lunch is always rice with "maffe"- a delicious sauce made from their delicious home made p-nut butter, fish, hot pepper and onion. After lunch it's hot... which means it's prime sittin-around-chattin-brewin-attaya-shelling-peanuts-time.
Attaya is worth describing if you don't already know what it is. All Gambians berw attaya. It's green tea imported from China, pre-crushed up, in a little box, at least a few ounces. They all have their attya sets- two small plastic shot glasses, a tea pot and a burner which is small metal cooker that they load up with embers from their cooking fires and set their tea pots on. A whole pack of green tea goes into the pot and is brewed with water. Sugar is added and the attaya is poured skillfully from pot to shot glass to shot glass to pot to mix in the (digusting amount of) sugar and then to cool it a little. Now half or whole shot glasses are poured, the nearest small child takes a tray with attaya shots around to each adult presently sitting around, who slurps it down and gives it back. 3 rounds can be poured from one batch. This is just a Gambian thing, a nice social luxury that they enjoy, tho it is addicting and can get to be an expensive habit. Some men brew three times a day!
So I chat and hang out till about 5. Then I haul water with my sisters and go to the big women's garden with all the ladies. We water everything (my little garden, plus their many beds of cabbage, tomatos, lettuce and onions). I love this time: all women and girls are there, the sun is setting, everyone's chatting, it's fun. They we go go home, all tired, just as the sun is setting. I take another bucket bath and hang out till dinner... ususally coos with a green sauce (maybe made from the stalks of onions, or the leaves of cassava or of the moringa tree). Often there's fried whole fish which I'm starting to like (protein is protein!) Chicken or goat are for special occasions only and I've never seen beef but peanuts and fish are actually plenty- I feel way healthy!
There's a day in Jamagen! Special days are Saturdays when I bike with another close volunteer in the nearest market, and buy eggplant and garlic and onions for our food bowl and eat been sandwiches and drink coolish Fanta sometimes. This is always an interesting time... but because it's a big market, people come from all over so you do hear "toubab" a little.
Toubab is worth explaining if you don't know about it. It's the term used I think all over Africa for white person, modern person, person with money, person not Gambian. Many volunteers HATE is and made a big deal about not being called toubab. My take is that... well, I am white, I do have money (relatively ok?), and I'm not Gambian so sure. It's usually little kids and I usually respond to their bird-call like squawk with an mimic cry "Child!" One time at the lumo a boy trailed me for 5 minutes squawking "Toubab" and I was so annoyed I turned around and began gretting him in Woolof, which embarrassed him a little and hopefully made him feel rude. The main point is that many tourists give out candy ("minties")/money/pens to the kids so they assume I'm a tourist. If I greet them, or say hey "greet me first" then they get it- they just want to talk to you and hold your hand while you walk around. Once, when I was in another bigger village (touristy) for a workshop, some girls were hanging around, saying "toubab how are you what is your name" and I started talking to them in Woolof- they shrieked and giggled and then one grabbed my hand and said something wonderful (in Woolof) "You're not a toubab, you speak Woolof nice!"...I was elated, I just wanted to hug her and give her minties and coins! So I'm a toubab.
So everyone asks what I'm doing, what I'm up to. I'll try to give some of the cool highlights of my days here...
You know I live in Jamagen, a small village of about 17 compounds- which are extended family groups, basically a u-shaped cluster of mud huts with a common area in the middle, space for small cassava and papaya gardens and maybe a few cows. Because The Gambia is the final destination for about 8 different tribes of Africa, my village is a cool mix of Woolof (what I speak), Pulaar or Fulas, Mandinkas, and another tribe similar to Mandinkas (both from Mali) called the Bambaras. There are also some Serers. My compound is Bambara, but they all speak Woolof and a little of everything like most Gambians. The compound consists of 3 brothers, two of them with one wife each and all their many kids, and their mom- my very old and very cool grandma. Madou is the youngest brother, unmarried now, about 25 yrs old, speaks fairly good English and is way cool. There are 11 kids in the compound, ranging from less than a year to about 18 maybe- they don't know their birthdays or how old they are and are confused when I ask (why would I want to know?)! I hang out a lot with the oldest girl (18?), Sabu, and the two second oldest girls, born 4 days apart from the 2 different wives in the compound (about 12 yrs old i think), Seneba and Nagale. I also hang out a lot with Roxi Bah and her family, (25 yrs?) in the Fula compound next to me.
So a typical day...?
Wake up at 7, push back the mosquito net, go for a jog or a seed-collecting walk, for my hopeful woodlot (more on that later). Come back, rinse off with water from my bucket... yep water I hauled on my head...water my little orange tree and baby papaya shoots. Go join my grandma around the fire-in-a-bowl where she heats water for tea- it's still a little chilly in the mornings here and by that i mean maybe 70 C. One child after another stumble out and wriggle in around the fire, poke each other and the fire with sticks. Two kids put on their uniforms and get ready for school (one girl, one boy, both about 8 or 9). The nearest school is 2 k away in Kuntair, where I will teach 2 days a week General Science to 7th graders- more on that later! I eat breakfast with the women, either rice porridge or coos porridge, in a big communal bowl. Coos is what we use as birdseed in the US (called millet) but it's actually really good, is a healthy whole grain with lots of fiber and anti-oxidants- it's the Gambia's main crop, along with peanuts. My mornings are free... I sweep my house, maybe do a little laundry, and usually hear Roxi call my name to come over. I hang out there for a while, they give me "sour milk" which is milk that has sat in a bowl in a cool place for a day or so and has become yogurt. You add sugar and sometimes coos and it is seriously amazing! Fula's are nomadic herders by nature and even the settled ones usually have a few cows. Some of them say they can talk to cows, which could be a useful skill for me to pick up while I'm here.
Sometimes I go visit the men working in their garden's along Jamagen's awesome tributary, or go with Roxi and my sisters to collect downed firewood from the forest around the river... yep I carry it back on my head haha! It's the season for "bush fruits" or forest fruits, and there's about 10 different kinds of yummy figs, plums, edible seed pods, ect... I've been collecting these too for a fruit tree section of my wood lot! My favorite is called Mam Poto it's sooo good- I also named Roxi's family's little puppy that since he likes to eat them too.
Lunch is always rice with "maffe"- a delicious sauce made from their delicious home made p-nut butter, fish, hot pepper and onion. After lunch it's hot... which means it's prime sittin-around-chattin-brewin-attaya-shelling-peanuts-time.
Attaya is worth describing if you don't already know what it is. All Gambians berw attaya. It's green tea imported from China, pre-crushed up, in a little box, at least a few ounces. They all have their attya sets- two small plastic shot glasses, a tea pot and a burner which is small metal cooker that they load up with embers from their cooking fires and set their tea pots on. A whole pack of green tea goes into the pot and is brewed with water. Sugar is added and the attaya is poured skillfully from pot to shot glass to shot glass to pot to mix in the (digusting amount of) sugar and then to cool it a little. Now half or whole shot glasses are poured, the nearest small child takes a tray with attaya shots around to each adult presently sitting around, who slurps it down and gives it back. 3 rounds can be poured from one batch. This is just a Gambian thing, a nice social luxury that they enjoy, tho it is addicting and can get to be an expensive habit. Some men brew three times a day!
So I chat and hang out till about 5. Then I haul water with my sisters and go to the big women's garden with all the ladies. We water everything (my little garden, plus their many beds of cabbage, tomatos, lettuce and onions). I love this time: all women and girls are there, the sun is setting, everyone's chatting, it's fun. They we go go home, all tired, just as the sun is setting. I take another bucket bath and hang out till dinner... ususally coos with a green sauce (maybe made from the stalks of onions, or the leaves of cassava or of the moringa tree). Often there's fried whole fish which I'm starting to like (protein is protein!) Chicken or goat are for special occasions only and I've never seen beef but peanuts and fish are actually plenty- I feel way healthy!
There's a day in Jamagen! Special days are Saturdays when I bike with another close volunteer in the nearest market, and buy eggplant and garlic and onions for our food bowl and eat been sandwiches and drink coolish Fanta sometimes. This is always an interesting time... but because it's a big market, people come from all over so you do hear "toubab" a little.
Toubab is worth explaining if you don't know about it. It's the term used I think all over Africa for white person, modern person, person with money, person not Gambian. Many volunteers HATE is and made a big deal about not being called toubab. My take is that... well, I am white, I do have money (relatively ok?), and I'm not Gambian so sure. It's usually little kids and I usually respond to their bird-call like squawk with an mimic cry "Child!" One time at the lumo a boy trailed me for 5 minutes squawking "Toubab" and I was so annoyed I turned around and began gretting him in Woolof, which embarrassed him a little and hopefully made him feel rude. The main point is that many tourists give out candy ("minties")/money/pens to the kids so they assume I'm a tourist. If I greet them, or say hey "greet me first" then they get it- they just want to talk to you and hold your hand while you walk around. Once, when I was in another bigger village (touristy) for a workshop, some girls were hanging around, saying "toubab how are you what is your name" and I started talking to them in Woolof- they shrieked and giggled and then one grabbed my hand and said something wonderful (in Woolof) "You're not a toubab, you speak Woolof nice!"...I was elated, I just wanted to hug her and give her minties and coins! So I'm a toubab.
Friday, February 23, 2007
You can click on the map below to blow it up. The main red line is the only road in the north half of the country... See Kuntair on the map there, right along the road in the top left part of The Gambia. Jamagen (my village) is just 2 K west of Kuntair. Kerewam is the closest place with electricity.
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