Johanna Gorman-Baer
Country Analysis FOR #1
12 February 2010
Follow Through
On the class field trip to Toubacouta, the strongest example of development that really stuck with me was the solar panel in the first village. Someone from our group asked about it, and if the village was thinking about environment or alternative energy- just a pretty basic solar panel sticking up out of a rooftop on the side of a building, next to what looked like an electrical antenna made of twigs. From what I understood of the reply, an Italian program that partnered with the Senegalese government made it possible for any town or village that wanted a solar energy panel to get one- but they didn’t come with batteries.
So, essentially, everyone can have free access to electricity in an environmentally sustainable way- but no one has any way of storing or using it. You can see the panel, count how many have been sent out, congratulate the Italians on reaching out to a developing country. You can salute the government for being able to provide each village with electricity. But the solar panels just sit there, visible signs of a system that has invisibly failed to reach its goal.
I was reminded of this when we were talking with the groupement des femmes, visiting the fields and the marigot the next day. Once again, the most prominent fixture in the fields was a giant water storage tank, and once again it was provided in part by some European country (probably Italy- but I’ve forgotten by now), made possible by the globalization of our modern world. And once again, the pump didn’t work. There was no way for this village to use the resources that had been so “generously” provided. We stepped over what seemed like miles of bunched up, cracked, dry plastic tubing that now served as a boundary line between plots of dry land, to see the wells that actually were in use, and making our way to the wetland and natural source of water only a few yards away.
This idea of working despite development rather than working because of development really stuck with me. It seems that everywhere we went there were signs of well-intentioned but abandoned projects. So much energy, it seems, is poured into starting a project, but the energy drains away before reaching completion. It’s relatively easy for a developed country to buy a bunch of solar panels, stick them in small villages, and never think about it again. But for those panels to work, they need the resources to collect and maintain that energy. An organized group of women certainly deserve a pump to make watering their vegetable plots easier, but those women instead use the wells that have worked for them even when the mechanical pumps fail. And even if the pump worked, the condition of the roads, and the available transportation for their crops makes the whole system difficult from start to finish.
In the end, the only thing that stays the same throughout the villages, and the work these people do, is their own hard work and motivation- humans work, and keep working until the job is done. Despite development.
Country Analysis POR #1
12 February 2010
Secrets and Strangers
I still can’t figure out how I feel about Raïssa’s secret boyfriend. To begin at the beginning, she apparently for the last three or four weeks has had a boyfriend that she talks on the phone to every night, they text constantly, she’s always running out of credit. They sometimes see each other at school, but he’s eighteen and she’s fifteen. And because she’s only fifteen, her mother still sees her as a child and absolutely too young to be in a relationship. She can’t imagine her daughter having a boyfriend yet, and that’s the end of it.
Or rather, it should be. But Raïssa continues to see him in secret, and talks about him to me whenever we’re alone. She is always asking to borrow phone credit, transfer it to her phone and she’ll pay me back later, so she can finish talking to him before bed. According to her, they’re going to get married as soon as they’re both old enough that our family will approve. His family already does- she’s spoken to his mother and sisters on the phone, and they like her. I asked if anyone in her family knows- she told me of course, there are cousins who know. And Honorine knows, and Honorine’s sister knows. I figured, if family and friends know about this guy, then at least she isn’t doing anything dangerous, and if it were a serious situation they’d do something by now. So I thought nothing of it. This was the only reason I agreed to sneak out of a family party with her to meet this secret boyfriend.
Let me explain. What I understood, based on her hurriedly whispering to me that morning, was that she had a petit copain, whose name was Papis, who had seen my profile on facebook because I had posted pictures of Raïssa. I understood that this petit copain, whose name was Papis, wanted to meet me because I was her sister now and seemed nice. What I understood was that we’d leave the family gathering in Baobab that Sunday, an all-day event, go meet this petit copain, whose name was Papis, and then come back to the party. This was what I understood.
What happened was that we left the all-day family gathering and walked to her school, where we met two teenage boys. One was her petit copain. The other was named Papis. My sister and her petit copain walked into a classroom, closed the door, and left me and Papis to talk and get to know each other while our respective friends were talking alone in the classroom. It was, in a word, an awkward misunderstanding to realize I had made. After what probably seemed like longer than it actually was, Raïssa and I walked back to the family gathering, which was a celebration for a baptism which I had been glad to take a break from, actually, because it was exhausting to be around so many family members that were welcoming but ignoring me.
The following week she asked to borrow 500 CFA to take a taxi that weekend to see her boyfriend’s family. I lent it to her, hesitantly, because I was going to be gone on a field trip to Toubacouta that weekend and wanted to make sure she had a way to get home if it was late. But to meet his family? They’d only been seeing each other for a few weeks, and they were still teenagers! Does she really believe that she is going to marry this guy? And if so, does his family also believe that they’re going to get married? Why does his family take this adolescent relationship so seriously? Or maybe, I should be more worried about where this is going. I figured they were just texting “I love you” and maybe holding hands- I try not to worry about things like unwanted pregnancy in this case. But should I? I couldn’t imagine my fourteen year old American sister back home planning the rest of her life with someone, but the way my fifteen year old African sister was talking, they were deeply in love. (Of course, any hormonal adolescent first relationship is probably like that).
In Toubacouta, I remembered that she told me Honorine knew about this boyfriend. I asked her after lunch one day about it. She told me what I had felt I should be doing all along- she told me to do nothing. To not get involved. To not be responsible if anything happened. I replied that that’s what I thought I should do- I want to help my sister, but I’d never want to get between a mother and daughter, especially on such a topic as this. Especially with so much secrecy involved.
But at the same time I wondered, if Honorine knew and didn’t approve, why didn’t she talk to Mama Binta, or at least talk to Raïssa? Isn’t knowing, and doing nothing, also a way of being responsible, of being involved? I wouldn’t want to insert myself into the situation of course, but to know, and not approve, and do nothing made me uncomfortable too. Is this an example of the lie that unites is better than the truth that separates? After all, Honorine by not doing anything is helping a mother and daughter get along, and also helping two young people have a relationship. And she’s also very conveniently not accountable for either.
This is an uncomfortable situation, and I guess doing nothing is the lesser of two sticky situations. Especially since I’m an outsider. But I’m glad I asked Honorine about it- after all, I don’t know the cultural norms regarding how old someone has to be to start having relationships, or how secrecy is treated regarding these kinds of things. I know that in Midwestern America a mother would know right away if her daughter had a secret boyfriend- that’s what neighbors are for. Witholding the truth, I was always taught, is lying. And don’t parents in this culture as well have an overwhelming right to know what their kids are up to- even more than in the United States? I doubt this would ever happen in a smaller, more traditional town.
This is to tough a knot for me to untie. I’m not covering for her again, that’s certain, and I’m not telling Mama Binta about this whole affair, that’s also certain. I’m doing nothing, which is what I wanted to do in the first place but was convinced to help anyway because I’m a confused toubab who wants to be nice and help. If she’s old enough to have a boyfriend, she’s old enough to take her own taxi, and she’s old enough to call him on her own phone. I just hope, for her sake, this doesn’t explode in her face. Because at this age, in this culture, I can only imagine the consequences. ***
*** This is a Personal Observation Report that, even though it happened before the field trip, was haunting me the entire weekend, and was resolved with my discussion with Honorine that Sunday- even though it was about an experience I had in Dakar, the Personal Observation happened in Toubacouta.
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