Week 2

“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.