A New Take on "Women in Development"

            The subject of development often focuses on women. Popular topics include the role of women in society, politics, and the economy and the empowerment of women.  Despite the prominence of the subject of women in discussions on development, I've never truly noticed its importance until our trip to Keur Alioue Guèye, a small, rural village in the south of Fatick region, during our field trip to Toubacouta. It was here where I really saw that, because of their involvement in and unique understanding of everyday life, women must be recognized as key players in development.

It was the discussion on education that made me realize this importance. Someone in our group asked a question about the state of education for the people and their children.  Although it was the school teacher, who had been more or less leading the discussion, to whom the question was initially addressed, everyone immediately gave the floor to women. There was one woman in particular who spoke. So from the start, we could see the acknowledgement of the community that it is the women who are the most knowledgeable when it comes to the lives of the children.

She explained, with the strong support of the rest of the community, that everyone wants to send their children to school.  She also point out that, unfortunately, due to the village's location, it is almost impossible even to attend elementary school, particularly for girls. In addition, she stated that children can go to primary school in Toubacouta a nearby, larger village, but it is more difficult to go to high school, because it is Sokone. To clarify the significance of its locations, Keur Alioue Gueye is about 20 minutes from Toubacouta, and 50 from Sokone by car. Therefore children must walk or bike a very considerable distance every day for something that is, for much of the world, an automatic part of life, education.

She explained how the education of the children, or lack thereof, affects the village as a whole.  For Keur Alioue Guèye to become functionally integrated into the national economy and society, it is the children who will have to figure out how to improve the village's participation, so they must have at least a high school, and preferably a college level education.  Many of these observations were things that only women could know, thanks to their role as mothers and heads of the family. It was this explanation that revealed to me that when talking about the role of women in development, the purpose should be to ensure that, because the woman's role and point of view is so unique and important, it is not diminished or forgotten.

Feccal!

Dancing is a big part of Senegalese culture.  This I learned a few weekends ago, on our trip to Toubacouta.  After driving the familiar trail of potholes and cow-crossing delays, we arrived at the familiar village of Sokone (this is where we spent the vacances citoyennes).  Welcomed, once again, by the mayor and his family (the mayor is the older brother of Professor Sène, the director of the WARC), we were led into the luxurious living/dining room that we suspect is used only by guests.  After a delicious and filling meal of, what else, ceb u jën, we were reminded of the séance de danse scheduled for after lunch. Laying on the floor, desperately trying to speed up my digestion in preparation for public humiliation I was relieved to discover that, due to our tight schedule, we would have to skip the dancing.  Little did we know that our luck would quickly run out.

After eating a delicious meal of steak and potatoes (our hotel was owned by some rich French guy and his wife - who looked like Bill Nighy and had the highest voice I may have ever heard in my life), we were lead to the pool and divided into groups for what would become So You Think You Can Dance: Senegal!  Luckily, in our company of 26 Americans, three Senegalese, and our 5 staff members (Waly, Adji, Korka, Honorine, and Professor Sène), we were only privately humiliated.  However, after sufficiently embarrassing ourselves, we demanded that the 5 staffers enter the competition, regaining a smidgeon of dignity.

Photo credit: Lauren Ries

Of course that dignity was quickly stolen again the very next day.  We started with a dance in Sokone.  One by one (or two if we were lucky), we were pulled into the colorful center of the circle, led by the women of the family enthusiastically flaunting their practiced and passionate dance skills.  Although we paled in comparison (no racial pun intended), we were encouraged and welcomed just as much as the previously secret star danser, Idy, one of our 4 Senegalese companions.

Next, we went to Keur Alioue Guèye, a small village about 45 minutes to the south of Sokone.  After a very interesting meeting with the people of the village (Q & A type format, enhanced by the humorous interjections of the woman in front of us - translated to me by Idy), we were, naturally, invited - or forced - to dance.  This time a tight circle was formed, the center of which became a sort of battle ground for two or three dancers at a time.  This time only the women danced.  Later on, I asked Idy why he hadn't taken part this time and he responded, frankly, that he doesn't know this kind of dance.  Needless to say I let him know that this was a pretty lame excuse considering my situation. 

That night, we left the western comforts of our air-conditioned hotel rooms and over-chlorinated pool to attend - I'll give you one guess - why yes, in fact it was another séance de danse.  This time, however, we were observers.  This dance was performed by a group of professional dancers.  They performed a dance whose purpose is to prove who the strongest man is.  There were drums, stilts, unearthly singing, scary costumes that sent the children running from the inside of the circle, choreographed dances, battles - dancer v. dancer and dancer v. drummer - and fire.  It was quite a show.  I even got hit on by a 10 year old.  Of course, as we gathered our things and started toward the bus, we were pulled back to finish the night by dancing with the performers.  This time we had an audience made up by a solid 80% of Toubacouta (probably about 100 - 200 people).  Again, I questioned Idy's absence on the dance floor, and again was dissatisfied by his frank response that he doesn't know this dance. 

*Just to clarify the irony here, I'd like to point out that I barely know the Macarena, much less the various regional dances of the Senegalese countryside. 

Other, less embarrassing dancing throughout the weekend included the dancing that took place during the lutte we attended and the dancing and singing that we resorted to due to our incompetence in Wolof on the boat on the way to plant mangroves (unfortunately there are no pictures of this dancing and singing).  Lutte is a form of wrestling uniaue to Senegal, and is easily the country's most popular sport.  We attended a lutte at a nearby village one night, and in between matches boys and men would take the floor for a few short minutes before the next lutte started.  

            What struck me this weekend was not so much the lifestyle out of Dakar or the problems faced by the people, but the comportment of Idy and the other Students in the villages that were not their own.  Here, they too were strangers; they too were not at ease, despite their much superior knowledge and understanding of Senegalese customs.  The role of dance in Senegalese society is both paradoxical and completely logical.  Although it can be used to welcome strangers, as it was for us, it is more than anything a tool of identification.  Dance is one way that the people of a certain place define themselves as being unique to that place, unique to that style of dance.

La Solidarité

NOTE: This entry has been updated, the new section is written in purple.  There are some minor changes throughout, but the purple part is the important one.

29 days of solidarity, of giving, of faith, of sacrifice, of fatigue, of thirst, of hunger, 29 days of Ramadan.  The month of Ramadan is the month during which the Muslim world fasts each day, from about 6:00 AM until 7:30 PM.  The fast is a display of solidarity.  The elimination of food and water during the day allows those who are blessed enough to have these comforts to know the hunger of others. The fast includes extraordinary giving tendencies and extends past the basics of food and water, into the realms of everyday pleasures like playing sports, listening to music, watching movies, and even enjoying the company of the opposite sex.  The degree to which these are restricted depends on the person who is fasting.  Some people abstain from going to the beach for fear of seeing provocative bathing suits, while others dive into the water, openly accepting the risk of a few drops entering the mouth, breaking the fast.

          For 29 days, we awakened at 5:00 AM, groggily ate, in a sleepy silence, a breakfast of bread and chocolate spread, tea or coffee, and maybe a hardboiled egg, and slept for a few short hours before starting the day.  As the walk to and from school became more and more exhausting each day, it also became gradually longer, and taking a cab became more frequent than usual.  The air conditioned classroom of the WARC became a more welcomed work place and the hours of dusk became the most anticipated time of day.  Most days were easy enough - to silence a growling stomach one must simply remember that there would be food in it in a few short hours, much more comforting than hunger without a known meal time - but there were a few poignantly difficult days, which consisted of hours of lying down and sleeping as much as possible. 

            The hunger and thirst in themselves were a unique experience.  Although I wasn't actually starving, it made the reality that some people do deal with a constant feeling of emptiness in their stomachs much more realistic and understandable.  As for solidarity, I can't say that I have experienced it more than during these 29 days.  Solidarity is, according to the third edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, "A union of interests, purposes, or sympathies among members of a group."  This was evident in my family's appreciation and encouragement and in the reactions of others to the fact that I was fasting.  My fasting with my family and friends surprised and was appreciated by all who discovered it.  It irrefutably created a union of interests, purposes, and sympathies among me and the Muslim community.  Once someone who was fasting learned that I, too, was fasting, there was immediately a sense of appreciation and of common purpose.

            For 29 days, we broke fast around 7:30 PM, breaking with a date or two and then a small piece of bread with butter and a cup of tea or coffee.  Although this was the relief from the long day of hunger and thirst, it may have been the hardest, because to retain an appetite for dinner, the breaking must be restricted to a small amount of bread and water.  Dinner, usually about an hour or two after breaking fast, was always delicious and followed by various snacks and desserts, teas and juices.

            With the nightly meals came newfound bursts of energy, accompanied by a general mood of happiness and community, which were exemplified during the nightly power outages, when everyone congregated outside to talk, dance, and joke around - a somewhat ironic result of the power outages, which tend to cause strikes and demonstrations on a somewhat regular basis.  These nightly jamborees would serve as a preview to the celebration marking the end of Ramadan, La Korité.

On Est Ensemble

Ok so I found that for my week in Sokone, I couldn't write a good entry, so this is more like a photo album.  We spent our third week in Senegal in Sokone, a village just north of the Gambia, on vacances citoyennes with about 50-60 students from the university.  After a 5-7 hour bus ride through the Senegalese country side - literally through the country side, because at times the bus driver opted to navigate through the fields rather than around the pot-holes scattered throughout the road - we arrived at our home for the next two weeks, a building/compound thing.  There was a canopy-covered patio between the building and the front gate, and a tall cement wall surrounded the grounds, probably about an acre, complete with two grazing bulls, destined to the glory of our future dinner plates.  The building was made up of one big, central room, a bathroom with two stalls, and four smaller rooms.  The rooms were very bare, with the exception of the piles of 3-4 inch thick old foam mattresses that would be our beds.  The girls took the big room, and the boys divided themselves into the smaller rooms. 

The bus ride there.  This is Seydou,
 I think this picture says it all.

The reason we were there was for vacances citoyennes, or to help the local community.  We ran a medical clinic (about 1/4 of the 50-60 students with us weremed/pharmacy students), reforested local farms/forests, and educated people in alphabetization and information technologies.  I did the med clinic one day and reforestation the rest of the week.

Tying up mosquito nets

 Funny story.  So we had to use mosquito nets.  This picture is clearly one of us hanging up the nets sans string, nails, posts, and anything else that you could think of as necessary material.  But the really funny part actually happened both before and after this.  So we got our mosquito nets, and before we started hanging them, Alex and I decided to have some fun.  and reenacted Madonna music videos and scenes from Lord of the Rings, using the mosquito nets as props.  Unfortunately and unbeknownst to us, the mosquito nets were treated with bug-killing chemicals.  Needless to say, we both woke up after a few short and restless hours of sleep to burning sensations all over my face and Alex's arms and neck.  We suffered the consequences of the chemical burns for about the next 48 hours (explaining my red eyes in some of the pictures). In this picture, left to right: Waly, Adama (maybe?), Bity, Fatou, Korka.

This one's better 

(except that my eyes are blatantly 

battling the chemicals 

from the mosquito nets)

Some of the kids who lived down the street and visited often, also some of our first friends.  Left to Right: Basidi, friend (don't know his name), Me, Adama.  You can't tell from this picture but Basidi loved me.

BLOOD.  Or BLOOT, pronounced buh-lutt.  This card game is how i made a lot of friends.  The guys would play literally all day and into the night once we got back from our work in the morning.  The first day I thought I recognized it, so I ended up spending hours watching, asking, learning how to play, and meeting people.  After 

a day of learning and hours of playing with the help of onlookers, I finally had my first winning streak in the middle of the day on Tuesday.  

Getting my hair braided.
 This is Mamy, who is actually my cousin (I think),
 but most of it was actually braided by Fatou.

One night we went to a dance, a combination of traditional and more modern styles, organized for us by the village.

On est ensemble.  

Left to Right: Alex, Christian, Me, Assane.  

We were fast friends with Christian and Assane, as well as the other card players.

Célèbre

It's 9:00 A.M. Saturday morning and the 8 of us, accompanied by Waly and Adji, groggily make our way through the streets of Fann to the Université Cheik Anté Diop.  None of us are really sure what is happening, thanks to our combined interpretations of the French explanations we received in class.  We know that there is some presentation this morning, and that tomorrow we are leaving for a town called Sokone for a week with a group of university students. 

In my hand is a short speech written by Waly that my classmates generously volunteered me to recite.  I look over the speech as we walk, preparing to present it briefly to 10 or so American students from Boston, as Waly had explained to me earlier.  We wait outside a building of the university as busses and escorted vehicles pull up to the entrance, which gradually becomes the center of attention, news cameras, microphones, backdrop and all.  Finally I am ushered by Adji up the steps, into the building, and into a room full of professional looking people.  I am given a baseball cap with the name of the group on it, to pull together my ensemble of a turquoise paigne (wrap-skirt) and a child's size Ray Rice T-Shirt (waiting for laundry day).  We are all ushered out of the room onto the front steps, crowded around a set of microphones, facing about 200 people and multiple television and video cameras.  So Waly underestimated a little bit.  Did I mention that the speech is in French? 

So about an hour and a half later, after standing under the sun and in the middle of at least 20 people, listening to endless speeches that all said the same thing - "thanks for having us here with you, we look forward to helping the people of Senegal, blah blah blah," - I am introduced to the lackluster audience of students, directors, and teachers.  I briefly introduce myself, recite my speech, and am greeted at the edge of the stage by the enthusiastic handshake of the overall director of the program, a tall, light-skinned, jovial man.  After explaining a bit about the MSID program in hushed tones, I am released to go stand with the students.  Less groggy and more confused, we make our way back to the WARC, where we spend the rest of the day in the air conditioned computer lab, working on our papers that are due Monday.

The speech (Waly's home video version, so the quality isn't so great)

Later that evening, while playing cards with a neighbor, Luca, I explain to him what I know about my upcoming week, based on what I had heard that morning.  We are going on something called "vacances citoyennes" to Sokone for a week, but most people will be gone for two.  In Sokone, we will be doing various activities to help the community, including reforestation and alphabetization.  As I contemplate my next discard, Aby and Diallo rush into the house and excitedly rush through a sentence or two directed at me.  Advised by Luca to slow down, they repeat themselves, more coherently this time, "On t'a juste vu sur le télé! À l'université, t'était sur le télé!" - "We just saw you on TV! At the University, you were on TV!"  Laughing abashedly, uncomfortably aware of the multiple eyes and smiles upon me, I can't help but hope that my family is proud of me, and realize how much I will miss them during the coming week.

Les Premiers Jours

Off the airplane into the Senegalese night, through customs (after convincing the officials that we really are students who don't know our local addresses), and out the airport door.  A dark hand is shoved in front of my face, and I meet Waly Faye, a program coordinator and my teacher for the next three weeks.  Next comes a smaller, gentler hand that belongs to Korna, another coordinator.  We seven exhausted, pale students and our two alert Senegalese leaders make our way to the van, amidst a small swarm of self proclaimed tour guides and taxi drivers, more than willing à donner à nous un coup de main, to lend us a hand.  Still surrounded, we load our bags onto the top of the van, pile in, and pull away from the airport towards an unknown destination.  We pull off of a main highway directly onto a dirt road, lined with bare cinder blocks and finished buildings, one next to another.  Piling into the small reception area, we fill out some paper work, receive room keys from the hotel and folders from Waly, Korna and a thin, tall, young woman. 

Upon entering our rooms, Kianna and I realize that we will have no luck sleeping.  Luckily our neighbor, Alex, the only other Penn Stater, felt the same.  On the balcony we realize the drastic changes that have taken place in the last hour: we entered Senegal, a foreign country (not to mention continent); we made our way through relentless street vendors (for lack of a better word), arrived at our home for the next 30 some hours, and are now standing on a balcony overlooking a dirt road and a peach-colored house with indescribably architecture, including a clay spiral staircase from one balcony level to another, watching people make their way to work.  

From here, we meet Alex's new roommate, Kenzie (late because she's already been in Dakar for a month), get breakfast, and explore the streets of the Yoff quartier in search of the beach.  On our way we pass by street stands offering fruit, magazines, or phone cards, horse drawn buggies (meaning wooden pick-up truck style fixtures with big wooden wheels), stray cats, and lots of people.  As we make our way down the beach, we pause to watch soccer players, examine washed up fish bodies, watch fishermen empty their brightly painted boats with American flag stickered Yamaha motors of red, blue, orange, and silver fish of all shapes and sizes and women vendors take their shares, and, much to the amusement of the fishermen, help pull in one of the boats.  (comparable to the most intense game of tug-of-war ever, as one of us (Griffin, maybe?) pointed out, we spent about 10-15 minutes working on that rope, and the boat moved probably a few yards at best - when we left one of those pulling tried to convince us that it would only take 9 more minutes - yeah, right) 

On our way back we stop to ask for directions about 4 times, after to trying to learn the word for "sea urchins," which we saw being grilled and eaten by some boys on the beach, by describing them in French - try describing that to someone in your native language and then imagine that you have to take away about half the adjectives.  Shower, sunscreen, and back out again.  This time with Waly, Korna, and Adji, the thin, tall, young woman, who are all shocked that we even ventured outside the hotel, we venture to a house with high stone walls surrounding a wooden door.  We find our way to the roof balcony with a mosaic tiled floor and white, clay walls.  This is where we stay for the next five to seven hours, learning about the program, how to act in our home-stays, how to eat properly with our hands (yes, from experience - yum!) and drink the traditional Ataya tea, and taking frequent breaks to nap and/or move around. 

During these breaks we get a chance to look around and talk to each other and the coordinators.  Everyone's feelings at this point are still pretty ambiguous.  We are in a place that is unlike any we have ever seen before.  We are clearly toubabs, foreigners, and feel like tourists (a feeling that I particularly dislike), because we are new here.  We are physically in limbo, staying at a hotel for about 24 hours before we meet our families and new homes.  We are hot.  We are jet lagged.  We are excited.  We are nervous.  We are anxious, curious, wanting, ready.  All of our ideas, experiences, and values are stressed with this massive intake of new information.  We crave to understand this society, to be a part of its community, but we know that we are stuck here in limbo for a while. 

Around 6:00pm we leave the house, and make our way through the back roads (dirt roads, that it), passing groups of 5 to 10 year olds yelling "toubab!" and running over to touch us, eventually walking though a fish market that opens up onto the beach.  We make our way towards the water and the boats.  After a while, we walk passed an organized beach soccer game and back into the side roads, emerging onto a small beach, rocks lining the water.  We return to the house for dinner, an American meal of French fries, beans, and barbeque chicken, served in the Senegalese fashion, on a big bowl that everyone sits around and shares.  By the end of dinner, everyone looks and feels like zombies and welcomes the return to the hotel.  Sleep is a must for the night before we meet our Senegalese families.

Inspired by Tom, the basics:

Listening to:  The World Cup theme song sung by my new little brother and sister and a goat baaing in my living room.

Reading: Les Justes, Albert Camus

Looking up: "Sea Urchin" in French and Wolof greetings

Rule Breaking: Fazing myself into the tap water and avoiding bug spray