“The privilege of historic
backwardness permits, or rather compels, the adoption of whatever is
ready in advance of any specified date, skipping a whole series of
intermediate stages. Savages throw away their bows and arrow for
rifles all at once, without traveling the road which lay between
those two weapons in the past”
While I am not calling anyone here
'savages', this quote does tie in rather well with the observations I
made in Sierra Leone, regarding the abandonment of public
phone-boxes in favour of mobile phones. Colonialism, and now
globalisation, has allowed (or forced) West Africa to skip
'travelling the road', and while that has led to many clear
advancements, it has of course presented problems as well. Few
countries are self-sufficient in terms of food, importing much of the
basic food carbs they need (rice and wheat), and have lacked the 'green-revolutions' that much
of the rest of the world has gone through – although Sierra Leone
used to be, before the diamond mines attracted all the farmers.
Industrially as well, things have barely changed from the colonial
period. The area still exports raw materials, and imports at great
cost the finished products, although Senegal is certainly ahead of
Sierra Leone at least, with a factory in town assembling Indian made
buses. The contrasts between former colonies couldn't be greater.
Senegal seems to import much of its rice from India, along with Tata
bus parts, while Senegal only seems to export despite young migrants.
Fun French language word of the week.
The French word for jellyfish is 'meduse', which I can only assume
comes from the mythical story of Medusa and her deadly hair.
Fun Wolof language word[s] of the week.
“Wow” is yes. And “honka-nob” = red ears, the gentle (ish)
racial slur against white people. Following very similar lines to the
“ak-kulak” (white ear) title for the Russians in Kazakhstan.
So as with the last blog, I will
attempt to write these on a weekly basis, updating on Mondays,
although im already off to a bad start, so my apologies.
The final day of training in Dakar saw
us visit the UK Ambassador for a semi-formal meeting, discussing ICS
and Senegal over delicious pain au raisin. The official residence is
beautiful, and differs from many embassies I have seen, where the
ambassadors residence is in a separate part of town from 'embassy
row'. Here both are side by side, and the residence is used for such
events as ours. John was interesting and civil, taking a genuine
interest in us as a group and what we would hopefully achieve. In
typical African style, we were two hours late, but he didn't seem
phased at all, after three years of being here, one has to become
used to it I guess. We were invited back to see him before we leave,
so we can't have left too bad an impression.
The drive to Thies, for much of the way
on a newly built, Chinese toll road, was about an hour, although it
took the first third of the journey to just pass the extended sprawl
and suburbs of Dakar. The feeling of dryness, desert, and space is
rather overwhelming, and it is hard to see how any food is grown here
in the sand, especially after John has told us of UK agribusiness
efforts to grow seasonal European vegetables here, year round for
export. The rains are a month late, and people are starting to
grumble. The heat aside, it has the advantage of less standing water
for the mosquitoes to breed, which certainly isn't a bad thing. But
this heat! It is a noticeable five degrees hotter than Sierra Leone
(although much less humid).
My host family is lovely, and much more
in line with my Kazakh experience, with a rural village setting, and
a huge and welcoming extended family, speaking little in the way of
English. It is unclear how many of the people I see around the house
and compound are actually direct family members or cousins, or where
everyone sleeps, but the noise and bustle is infectious (and
exhausting). Very different from my urban, two working parent,
apartment based experience in Sierra Leone.
(Near the train station in Thies)
I have less time to write up my notes
as in Sierra Leone, as I actually have to go out in the field and do
physical work rather than office work, so I apologise for the
distinct decline in snappy prose.
Breakfast = half a loaf of French bread
and Nescafe coffee. I feel very continental.
My new neighbourhood = About 20mins
taxi ride from centre of Thies. Strikes me as the former lower caste
part of town, given the large abattoir, lack of infrastructure (only
the highway passing through is paved) and the still thatched huts of
one of the tribal groups living here. Despite a few street lights,
once off the highway, it is still very rural and basic – squat
toilets, no indoor plumbing, and a heck of a lot of sand. There are
regular power cuts most evenings, which means we can see the stars
with amazing clarity, and has the added benefit of turning off the
TV.
I live with a catholic family, and much
of the neighbourhood seems to be catholic also (none of the
evangelical upstarts here- crossing before eating, and pictures of
saints abound). Crosses painted on walls seem just a simple statement
of belief, but I can't help remembering similar historic instances of
painted minority religious affiliation, and what that meant for the
inhabitants.
People in Senegal are much more likely
to have natural hair, especially compared to Sierra Leone where wigs
were ubiquitous amongst the ladies. By natural I mean that fake
strands are woven into natural hair, making very fine dreadlocks. I
much prefer it to the clearly non-natural wigs. Men also are not just
consigned to closely shaved heads, with a lot more having both short
and long dreadlocks, although some of that is due to their Sufi
Islamic practices. People are also very tall and thin, again in
contrast to the shorter and most buxom shapes further down the coast.
I'm not sure what has caused this geographical anomaly, as the
location so close to the Sahara, bringing its Arab/Taureg/Berber
influence can't have had too much effect, given the extra dark skin
tones here. I'm sure someone has written about it somewhere, I shall
have to search.
Food- Rice and fish for lunch, dinner
of a different carb and fish, all eaten around a communal bowl.
Spoons at least, not hands (for me at least, half of the family use
their hands, something I never got the hang of in India, and won't
even try here, spoons and forks were invented for a reason!) More
variety in the food, and certainly more vegetable here, but less
'green', so not sure there is much more nutritional benefit. It is
certainly tasty though, so I can hardly complain. Dinner tonight was
fried potato, sausage and onion, with lettuce and bread. French bread
is incredibly common, forming the main snack item during the day, and
the only constituent part of breakfast. There are French bakeries,
producing all the pain-au-chocolate and croissants a French colony
could demand, and its interesting to see how this legacy of French
rule has lingered. I couldn't help but notice the lack of fish and
chip shops, or Cornish pasties in Sierra Leone. Mangos are still in
season here, so I am able to feast on them again, lucky me!
The work done here is of a very
different focus to Sierra Leone. There, the volunteers slotted into
existing YMCA organised projects based in the slums, and while it
meant a lack of influence in the planning stages, it did mean
constant work and supervision (and resources such as YMCA jeeps).
Here, however, work is very much on a 'find it and do it' model.
There is a programme called 'Act2Live' in place, but what that means
in practice has not yet been made apparent (yes, it week three of me
being here). We are hijacking the RELIV education programme, which is
designed to teach both French and Health awareness at the same time,
by doing English lessons alongside. And that has largely been in for
organised, regular work. Visiting NGO's present here in Thies is the
task for next week (I am still struggling to understand what the last
group did for 10 weeks), in order to scout out potential useful and
interesting projects that we can assist on.
(Malaria and French lessons at the same time)
We visited a Daara – Quranic school –
a system of education that is theoretically useful, but in practice
socially damaging. The Human Rights Watch report offers a greatintroduction. I wasn't allowed to take photos, which was a real
shame, as not only was the lighting fantastically emotive, but the
subject matter heart wrenching. So will have to make do with the
notes taken on my phone.
“Boys, dirty, and packed full of
them. Being taught [by us] how to wash hands. All looked hungry. Only
spoke tribal language, not French and certainly no English.
Daily timetable:
6-9 class
9-10 – Begging for breakfast
10-1- Class
1-5 Begging for lunch
5-7 Class
7-8- Begging for dinner
8-10 Class
When begging use the phrase “Give me
money or give me dinner”
Will study like this for 5 to 7 years
All kids want to be either an Imam or
similar teacher – many wearing football shirts but no desire to
play themselves. The irony being that the teacher himself went to
school, spoke French and even a bit of English. He was clean, had a
mobile phone, and a teenage wife.
Housed in a half built 'school', more
like a hovel, in the shadow of the city stadium, and in a pretty nice
part of town.
Boy in Barcelona jersey, with its
UNICEF sponsorship. Filthy. Struck me strongly.
Marbles the only toy. Some boys a young
as three.
Wondered if there was any Quaranic
command to wash, as it is clearly being denied the boys.”
It was a really tough environment to
witness, with thin mats covering the bare concrete floors, no glass
in the mostly bricked up windows, and the filthy state of the kids
giving the overall impression that this was a collection of homeless
boys, squatting in a half finished house. The contrast between the
students and teacher was striking, especially as so much of the money
that the boys collect goes straight to him. It is unclear what role
the local Islamic community has in supporting or regulating the Daara
system, but something urgently needs to be done, especially as
Senegal's rising population is only going to produce more poor rural
boys in need of some sort of education.
Today (Saturday), we went on an
HIV/AIDS sensitisation drive, visiting two rural villages and
conducting free testing. The meeting place before heading off to the
villages was in the north east of town, in what was clearly the
colonial French residential area, with large terracotta tiled houses,
a beautiful school, and the giant catholic cathedral not too far
away. The train station, which sits on the Dakar to Bamako (Mali)
line, is a grand structure, and shows how important the railway was
to colonial France. These days, there is a daily commuter train into
Dakar, and the much fabled Bamako train apparently still runs once a
week, but I have yet to see evidence of this.
(Rural life....and sand)
We must have organised for 150 people
to be tested, and all came out negative. I even had a test, and nice
to know I am still ok! With 0.5% of the population being HIV
positive, the number is thankfully very low, but is still twice that
of the UK. With little in the way of intravenous drug use, the spread
is mostly from interaction with sex workers, and contamination via
medical procedures.
And there we have it, week one of work.
Due to working on Saturday, Monday is officially a day off, but as
Tuesday is the Eid festival for the end of Ramadan, all of the UK
volunteers, and one of the local volunteers are going to work as
normal, visiting the Catholic St. Anne's medical clinic.
