Senegal is, in many ways, similar to Niger. It's hot. It's sandy. The people are friendly and welcoming. But what I've been sensing over the past two weeks is an underlying harshness in Senegalese culture, what I believe is the direct result of the improper meshing of Western and traditional culture. Let me further explain.
In Niger, life was very hard but simple. Up with the sun, down with the sun. Modern luxuries have been trickling in, such as cell phones and electricity, but most people don't seem to feel the loss of these in a place where family and friends are all within a half-mile radius, and forms of entertainment are few and far between anyways. In all certainty, life is difficult and often short. But it isn't complicated.
In Senegal, the people are currently caught between a more intense cross-fire of Western influence and traditional heritage. In my host family, we have electricity and everybody has a fancy cell phone/mp3 player. My older host sister is a tailor and runs her own business, while my father farms and my mother makes frozen juice pops to sell to kids after school. All in all, they are doing very well for themselves. Sometimes it's hard to remember that they aren't American, especially my older sister who wears tight jeans and fancy shirts, similar to clothing I own back home.
Unfortunately, this is causing a certain amount of strife between the more traditional parents and the trying-to-be modern children. Because my sister can sustain her habits through her lucrative tailor-business, she has no financial obligation to her parents. However, family is extremely important in Senegalese culture and she would be forever labeled if she abandoned her upbringing and religion. Which she is not inclined to do, in either case. A difficult situation.
Senegal is still a developing country, so while mobile phones and electricity may be more commonplace, water is still a precious commodity and so is food. Yesterday my Western clothing-wearing, educated, self-employed sister backhanded her younger brother viciously for dropping a plate of rice. He lay in the corner of the room with a hand-sized welt ever growing on his face and was refused dinner that night. I understand corporal punishment is more common here, and I was prepared. It's still difficult to stomach and made me very uncomfortable. He's probably upwards of six years old.
It's an inconsistency like this that bring out the underlying harshness to the culture, in which I find the people struggling to adapt to the new technologies; wanting the luxuries and the resultant status but retaining the same frugalness that is forever ingrained in those who know hunger. Sometimes it seems like a new piece of electronic hardware might be more valuable than a bag of rice, and so the food they
do have is preciously hoarded. It becomes worth hitting a kid over dropping a plate, because there's just so little to spare.
(There is a a slightly related article on
international development that I found very, very interesting. I think everyone should read it!)
I'd like to touch upon the horribly ironic story of Koranic schools in Senegal. An infuriating practice, and one that many a Peace Corps Volunteer has encountered.
In Senegal, as in many Muslim countries, it is considered an honor to have your child study the Koran from a young age until they have "mastered" it. Ultimately, this means sending your child away to a city to live with an existing Koranic master until a vague age in their teens when they return home, with theoretical honor.
In practice, the scholars who run these "schools" don't have housing or food for their students. Instead, they set them to begging for money all day long, so the streets are clogged with kids singing Arabic loudly and jangling bowls in your face until you submit and offer a coin. The kids return to the "master's" house late at night, surrender the money and are often beaten if it is not enough. They are then set to beg for their own food because they are given none by their teacher. Often they sleep in the streets. This, in theory, is to teach them "humility." Pardon my over-usage of quotation marks in this story, but I find this all incredibly ludicrous. How can someone identify himself as a Koranic scholar and treat children so inhumanely? The irony is obvious and painful. It drives me crazy!
When these now-adolescents return home, they are untrained in any skill applicable to village or city life. They don't even have the minimal education that all Senegalese citizens are entitled. Volunteers have started projects to try and train these students in gardening, farming, literacy, really anything and everything that they haven't been taught in the first eighteen years of their lives. And of course, many volunteers have tackled this custom head on. But, as I've mentioned, there is always culture to consider. It's just not easy.
As for me, details of my day to day life are fairly mundane. Today is the Gamou, Prophet Mohammad's birthday, so happy birthday I guess! All it means to me is that I don't have language class. That probably seems culturally insensitive, but after the past few days I'm feeling rebellious.
I found out that I will be posted in a city in the middle of the country come March 5th. I'm very ready to get out there and get going with my work. Training for five months is a
little excessive. This weekend I will travel to Dakar for the first time for an NGO/All Volunteer networking conference which should prove fruitful, as well as the West African Intermural Softball Tournament (WAIST) sponsored by American ex-pats in the capital. There will be four hundred volunteers in Dakar this weekend for both of these events, so I'm prepared to feel overwhelmed by social anxiety - but in the end, it will be nice to meet other Senegal volunteers and build some relationships for the remaining two years of my service!
Missin' everyone back home, and hope the snow isn't keeping you down. Literally!
<3 Phoebe
