Tuesday, June 19, 2007

A couple weeks ago i had a conversation with some fellow volunteers about the work ethic of Senegalese as compared to Americans. We made some superficial observations and a few jokes poking fun at the stereotypes we designate to both sides of the Atlantic. Americans, as usual, were called work obsessive, high strung, innovative, reckless, experimental and lacked empathy for their countrymen who appear to all be competitors. We criticized the Senegalese for not being very creative with their business enterprises, conservative risk takers, foolish with business decisions, leeches when their family members start to make money. And that the heat plays a role in it all. Who wants to work when it is so damn hot all the time? The American south wasn't even close to being as developed as the north until air conditioning came around. As you can assume, there is not much air conditioning running in this part of the world.
What we were touching on is something that has been giving me considerable food for thought recently. I mean hey, i have time for thinking. So often as i look at the people in my village, and as i get to know them better, i see many comparisons to people i know in the states and i theorize what job they would have had they been born in the states. My counterpart, Ken, is a clown and a politician. He is my counterpart in the village, not because he is the best farmer and the most interested in learning new ideas and methods, but because he is a leader of the village without the title. A politician walking around laughing and making jokes with all the people and children, voicing his opinion loudly at every important meeting, and has a tremendous influence in the village so can therefore organize what i have trouble doing. He would no doubt be the mayor of a small town. My father, a quiet, reserved, sweet man with a strong religious inclination, would be from Colorado or Idaho. He would hold libertarian values with a sever distrust of Washington, be socially conservative, a card carrying member of the NRA, on a 200 acre ranch off in the middle of nowhere. And also the neighbor down the street who will help put in the dry wall in your new bedroom addition or help you move boxes as you move in to the neighborhood without asking anything in return. Some villagers are middle management, others are accountants, teachers, used car salesman, liberals, intellectuals, psychopathic, drunks, manic depressive, and on and on. It is fascinating trying to place them into American culture because it is so easy. Yet here they are all farmers, they are all practicing Muslims (except the 20 something year old men) they are all poor, and they will all be like this with no real possibility of climbing the economic ladder for the foreseeable future. Which does not mean they are not also what i project onto them.
I have started a theory that tries to explain cultural differences and takes into account personal quirks in the system. This is still an unfinished theory so will obviously be easy to pick apart. But anyways... It is as if there are cultural boundaries that the majority of the population, the masses, who have difficulty breaking from the crowd. They are the average people. They are me and nearly all your friends and family. They are the majority of this world. In America, because we have such a developed infrastructure and a cultural that nearly forces you to go to school, at least graduate high school, and get a job that pays enough for you to make ends meet. You might have some disposable income and go on a trip to florida every other summer. The truly remarkable people in our culture go on to create new products, build giant buildings, develop new mathematical theories, and start new trends and pioneer new ideas. these are not your average people. Across the Atlantic, the status quo is a couple years of schooling, a job at a boutique or taxi driver or tailor or a farmer. Only the truly remarkable (or rich or lucky) go on to college and get a high level job. they have the opportunity to emigrate to Europe or the States. These people exist in all cultures, but they brake the norm and are not defined as easily by their culture. In the states we encourage a do it yourself attitude, try new things, do what you want to do, pull yourself up by the boot heels and get going. In Senegal they are not as experimental. They are more conservative and do not embrace uniqueness. "To make money i will go to Dakar, by loads of sandals, and sell them at the weekly market right next to 5 other people who did the same thing." In america we are told to say "I'm going to contact the maker, by it in bulk and sell it at a lower cost, I will put up a fancy sign with a friendly smile, and i will ask the customer what he wants." That does not happen in Senegal. Blame it on them for this or on colonization or on the dependency the developed world has forced on to them by NGOs and foreign aid: i don't know. maybe it is all of the above. But i do know that it takes a truly remarkable person to go to college here, loosen his cultural ties, and try to seize the money dream. In America, our culture fosters those ideas and so even the more average of us are capable of doing big and great things. But it is true that the American dream has filtered throughout the world and has become the dream for everybody. It is rather unfortunate, though, because it literally is OUR dream. The boys in my village dream of emigrating to the US. It is heartbreaking to be in a country where the dream is to leave this place.