23 January 2008
Don’t stop early marriages, especially in places with limited access to condoms and well equipped medical facilities. Marrying your girls at the beginning of their sexual awakening gives them a safe, committed partner with which to explore themselves sexually. Most people who willingly partake in their first sexual intercourse, do so between the ages of 16-19, regardless of marital status. If a person who becomes sexually active between 16-19 doesn’t marry until between 24-27 there is a very high likelihood that they will have several partners before being married, which greatly increases the risks for STI transmission (including HIV/AIDS) and unwanted pregnancies. Some f these socially detrimental outcomes can be mitigated by omnipresent access to condoms and birth control and their consistent and correct use, as well as comprehensive and easily accessible treatment for STIs, unwanted pregnancies and all the subsequent conditions. In places without these services or with poor quality of and access to these services, it is in the communities best interest to marry their girls young. This is not to say that once married, one becomes immune to the problems of STIs and unwanted pregnancies. Marriage alone doesn’t ensure faithfulness, especially in places where one partner has to travel to find work or the housework is too strenuous for a monogamous couple leading to polygamy or the child mortality rate is so high that one woman alone cannot bear enough children to meet the demands of the workload of the society, also leading to polygamy. All of these circumstances lead to non-exclusive marriages, which increases the risk for STIs and unwanted pregnancies, however, to levels not as high as that of an unmarried sexually active person. This is in addition to the ordinary risks of extramarital affairs faced by all married couples. Nonetheless, an early marriage is still far less risky than a late marriage. Early marriage is further supported by the health benefits of bearing children while still in your active youth (18-25 years old). The argument that while an 18 year old maybe in better physical condition to bear children, she is by no means mentally or financially prepared to raise that child, is true in a place where most 18 year olds don’t have enough knowledge to support themselves physically or financially. In a place where an 18 year old is fully equipped with all of the skills she needs to support herself and her family and succeed in her environment, there is no reason not to use her physical prime to do the most physically demanding work (bearing children). Not so coincidently, in places where 18 year olds aren’t equipped with the skills they need to support a family, the resources needed to mitigate the risks of STIs and unwanted pregnancies until those skills are acquired are available. Likewise, the places in which 18 year olds have the skills necessary to support a family, access to condoms, birth control, and quality health facilities are limited or non-existent.
One of the greatest public health risks to a society is when 18 year old girls no longer has the skills, or is told that she no longer has the skills, sufficient to support a family in the absence of omnipresent, accessible family planning and health care to mitigate the risk for STIs and unwanted pregnancies while she acquires those skills she lacks. This is a very dangerous situation which is ripe for an epidemic of STIs and unwanted pregnancies which leads to cancer, infertility, unsafe abortions, death, single mothers, and unprepared mothers with consequences on the next generation. This situation is exemplified in impoverished inner cities and trailer parks across the US where not even graduating from you local (also impoverished) high school at the age of 18 prepares you physically, mentally, or financially for supporting a family. And where you have limited or no access to healthcare. (Thanks to programs like Planned Parenthood, family planning has become more accessible in places where they operate. Unfortunately, they don’t operate in every inner city, near every trailer park, nor do they provide comprehensive health care). Because of this Catch 22, the transmission rate of STIs and number of single mothers is exceptionally high in these areas leading to the current generation being disadvantaged by disease and the next generation being unproductive because they weren’t invested in.
Even more frustrating than the skills-healthcare Catch 22 in impoverished America is the illusionary Catch 22 in The Gambia. In The Gambia it is not the natural transition into the mechanized world that has caught some people unable to support a family and unable to protect themselves from having a family, it is the foreigners and their organizations that have convinced people that they don’t have the skills necessary to support a family, when they actually do. IGOs such as UNICEF and IMF, NGOs such as Tostan, and even PCVs teach women and girls to liberate themselves from the culturally dominant, oppressive men who have trapped them in chairs of housework, obedience, and fear. This women’s liberation theory has permeated (or tries to) the government schools and programs, the non-formal non-profit sector, the private sector and the informal discussions. They have promoted these ideals of women following their dreams, furthering their education, gaining financial independence, and dressing and talking like men. Those are all fine things to promote in a place with a high enough quality of health care and access to family planning, and mechanized house chores and family that would enable a woman to plan her family in such a way as to allow her to follow her dreams. Convincing people to marry late to learn things that are minimally beneficial in a society without mechanized labor and whom don’t have the resources mitigate the risks involved in marrying late, is dangerous to the public health of that society, and unnecessarily so!
Friday, January 25, 2008
The End of Aide
23 January 2008
It’s frustrating, sometimes infuriating, to watch the president or one of his ministers parade by in an H2 followed by a convoy of new American SUVs throwing pens and candy out the window on his way to his indubitably lavish mansion, while you stand next to a hand pump that has been broken for 3 years at a school with a teacher/student ratio of 1/40, no paper, pencils, nor chalk, and only ½ the World Food Programme rice & beans they were promised. The government is so corrupt. How can villagers put up with this blatant stealing? Thomas Jefferson once warned the American people not to let the government keep you so busy making a living that you don’t have time to hold it accountable for its actions. Are people too busy to care? Too lazy? Or aspiring to be a thief like them? Whatever the reason it is a culture of corruption and complacency and the culture has to change before this country can develop. The only way to do that is to completely stop foreign aid, at least temporarily. If you do that, then the whole country will go to shit and loose the little development they did have, then realize how much foreign aid money helped them and change their ways to get it back. Also, with no money to steal the corrupt government will crumble and the people will elect a more transparent, responsible government in order to restart foreign aid money flowing. And, since most of the aid money doesn’t make it to the lives of the average villager, it won’t really affect them.
Often times frustration over the economic disparity leads people to that conclusion. My challenge to everyone who has reached that conclusion is to look around the country and note where the money came from to build the pumps, schools, roads, hospitals, and processing of raw materials. Look closely. Was the new government hospital construction actually paid for by national revenues or a donation from an outside institution? If you find that the majority of the development in the country (including the services once working, but currently broken) was funded by foreign money, then freezing foreign aid would only affect the average villager. The corrupt leaders are already so much richer than the rest of the population, they would be the last to suffer and aren’t easily deposed.
Additionally, contrary to American recollection, it wasn’t the strong work ethic and financial foresight that made the country the developed metropolis that it is today. America piggybacked on the Industrial Revolution in Europe, which was only a great success because when they ran out of their own natural resources, they raped and pillaged the currently underdeveloped world of their natural resources and raw materials. It is machines that made the West and it is the developing world that made machines successful.
It’s frustrating, sometimes infuriating, to watch the president or one of his ministers parade by in an H2 followed by a convoy of new American SUVs throwing pens and candy out the window on his way to his indubitably lavish mansion, while you stand next to a hand pump that has been broken for 3 years at a school with a teacher/student ratio of 1/40, no paper, pencils, nor chalk, and only ½ the World Food Programme rice & beans they were promised. The government is so corrupt. How can villagers put up with this blatant stealing? Thomas Jefferson once warned the American people not to let the government keep you so busy making a living that you don’t have time to hold it accountable for its actions. Are people too busy to care? Too lazy? Or aspiring to be a thief like them? Whatever the reason it is a culture of corruption and complacency and the culture has to change before this country can develop. The only way to do that is to completely stop foreign aid, at least temporarily. If you do that, then the whole country will go to shit and loose the little development they did have, then realize how much foreign aid money helped them and change their ways to get it back. Also, with no money to steal the corrupt government will crumble and the people will elect a more transparent, responsible government in order to restart foreign aid money flowing. And, since most of the aid money doesn’t make it to the lives of the average villager, it won’t really affect them.
Often times frustration over the economic disparity leads people to that conclusion. My challenge to everyone who has reached that conclusion is to look around the country and note where the money came from to build the pumps, schools, roads, hospitals, and processing of raw materials. Look closely. Was the new government hospital construction actually paid for by national revenues or a donation from an outside institution? If you find that the majority of the development in the country (including the services once working, but currently broken) was funded by foreign money, then freezing foreign aid would only affect the average villager. The corrupt leaders are already so much richer than the rest of the population, they would be the last to suffer and aren’t easily deposed.
Additionally, contrary to American recollection, it wasn’t the strong work ethic and financial foresight that made the country the developed metropolis that it is today. America piggybacked on the Industrial Revolution in Europe, which was only a great success because when they ran out of their own natural resources, they raped and pillaged the currently underdeveloped world of their natural resources and raw materials. It is machines that made the West and it is the developing world that made machines successful.
Milling Machine
14 January 2008
If milling machines, which mechanize the pounding of the staple food, millet, into its useable powder form, are the first step to women’s liberation, as I argue they are, then why is it that so many milling machines aren’t well maintained and/or lay dormant while women pound by hand? (I argue that they are the first step to liberation because they relieve women of the physical burden of hand pounding and free up significant time with which they can pursue their other interests and develop themselves in whatever way they want.) Many volunteers go through lots of trouble to help their host villages obtain a milling machine because villagers themselves recognize their immense value, and are then baffled when less than one year later they find the machine collecting dust because a relatively inexpensive part broke and either people weren’t paying to use the machine or the user fees collected were eaten elsewhere and nobody can afford to fix it. A detailed community needs assessment was performed and the leaders of the community, both men and women, met to discuss the community’s development priorities, both of which determined the community needed a milling machine. The community members even raised the cost of transporting the donated machine from the capital; a prominent elder offered his spare storage shed as a home for the machine free of cost; 2 people were trained in its regular maintenance. It was a sensible, reasonable, entirely community driven development project that seems to have failed. Why didn’t the community, who seemed to value the service the machine offered, take more steps to ensure its proper maintenance? Is it, as many baffled volunteers conclude, that their culture needs an infusion of financial foresight, intolerance for corruption and a ‘do-it-yourself’ protestant work ethic before any development projects can really be sustainable? Does their need to be a cultural change before their can be a physical change? Should we withhold aid from people to teach them that people in the world won’t help you unless you help yourself? They need to be taught, just like we teach our children, that if you don’t have respect for your things and take care of them properly, then you won’t be able to enjoy them for very long, don’t they? Or, is there an other reason, a non-cultural reason the project failed?
I argue that there is an other reason. For any given woman, the service that the milling machine provided was very helpful, but not essential. During the time the machine was running, it freed enough of her time that she could spend an extra hour shooing cows from her garden (which secured her financial investment for that day), or taking her child to the health clinic (which prolonged his death by one more illness), or taking a well earned nap (which saved her sanity for one more day). The milling machine was not running long enough for women to fill their newly freed time with new responsibilities, only to better complete the responsibilities they already have. Had the machine been running so long that people had become dependent on it, filling the time saved with new responsibilities like literacy programs, starting businesses, etc., the community would have repaired it at all costs. So while the machine is incredibly helpful, it just isn’t a big deal to live without it. My advise to baffeled volunteers is to continue to help maintain the machine, irrespective of the incompetence and negligence that disrupted its usage. The dependence on the machine will create the demand for fiscal responsibility and the cultural/value changes.
If milling machines, which mechanize the pounding of the staple food, millet, into its useable powder form, are the first step to women’s liberation, as I argue they are, then why is it that so many milling machines aren’t well maintained and/or lay dormant while women pound by hand? (I argue that they are the first step to liberation because they relieve women of the physical burden of hand pounding and free up significant time with which they can pursue their other interests and develop themselves in whatever way they want.) Many volunteers go through lots of trouble to help their host villages obtain a milling machine because villagers themselves recognize their immense value, and are then baffled when less than one year later they find the machine collecting dust because a relatively inexpensive part broke and either people weren’t paying to use the machine or the user fees collected were eaten elsewhere and nobody can afford to fix it. A detailed community needs assessment was performed and the leaders of the community, both men and women, met to discuss the community’s development priorities, both of which determined the community needed a milling machine. The community members even raised the cost of transporting the donated machine from the capital; a prominent elder offered his spare storage shed as a home for the machine free of cost; 2 people were trained in its regular maintenance. It was a sensible, reasonable, entirely community driven development project that seems to have failed. Why didn’t the community, who seemed to value the service the machine offered, take more steps to ensure its proper maintenance? Is it, as many baffled volunteers conclude, that their culture needs an infusion of financial foresight, intolerance for corruption and a ‘do-it-yourself’ protestant work ethic before any development projects can really be sustainable? Does their need to be a cultural change before their can be a physical change? Should we withhold aid from people to teach them that people in the world won’t help you unless you help yourself? They need to be taught, just like we teach our children, that if you don’t have respect for your things and take care of them properly, then you won’t be able to enjoy them for very long, don’t they? Or, is there an other reason, a non-cultural reason the project failed?
I argue that there is an other reason. For any given woman, the service that the milling machine provided was very helpful, but not essential. During the time the machine was running, it freed enough of her time that she could spend an extra hour shooing cows from her garden (which secured her financial investment for that day), or taking her child to the health clinic (which prolonged his death by one more illness), or taking a well earned nap (which saved her sanity for one more day). The milling machine was not running long enough for women to fill their newly freed time with new responsibilities, only to better complete the responsibilities they already have. Had the machine been running so long that people had become dependent on it, filling the time saved with new responsibilities like literacy programs, starting businesses, etc., the community would have repaired it at all costs. So while the machine is incredibly helpful, it just isn’t a big deal to live without it. My advise to baffeled volunteers is to continue to help maintain the machine, irrespective of the incompetence and negligence that disrupted its usage. The dependence on the machine will create the demand for fiscal responsibility and the cultural/value changes.
The Disco Didn't Come Tonight
22 December 2007
The disco didn’t come tonight. It is a great night for a disco. It is the second night of Tobaski, the moon is bright and the temperature is mild. Last night all the girls got dolled up in their new outfits and high heels. Bolokas, a sequency, see-through fabric, was the style to have this year. All the rich girls had extensions braided into their hair; other girls slicked their straightened hair back and decorated it with glitter. 360 days a year they work in their dirty, grubby clothes, sweating and laboring under the hot sun, but last night they scrubbed the garden mud from their cracking feet and painted them with henna. It is one of the 5 days a girl gets to look and feel beautiful. Last night even the 20 somethings and 30 somethings were out strolling in their new outfits reliving their carefree teenage years. Tonight, the second night of Tobaski, is a great night for a disco because all of the beautiful African gowns have already been displayed, but the new denim skirts and trendy tank tops need their venue. But the disco didn’t come tonight because the village is mourning.
This afternoon, just as people dove wrist deep into their lunch bowl, wailing broke out in Kamara Kunda. It wasn’t a big wail like I usually hear when a person dies. When I caught word of what was going on, I myself found it hard to wail. Siren Kamara, more commonly known as ‘Auntie’ because she was named after her somebody’s aunt, was a young girl. She was maybe 13-14 years old, not yet old enough to marry, but fully grown. She hadn’t been feeling well for the past week, but was well enough to sit out front with her friends, brew green tea and chat. Just yesterday she stood out on the road and greeted the people passing by on their way to Tobaski prayer. Two days ago I was at her house visiting my very good friends, her older brother and his wife. She was certainly lacking energy and her beaming smile was missing from her conversation, but she was cordial, chatty and moving around. She did not look like she was 2 days from death.
As I approached her compound, I found the village congregated. They divided up all the chores of a death: notifying all the relatives, digging the grave, washing the body, preparing the charity, etc. The silence of shock pervaded the meeting. She was a young healthy girl, who had been a little tired for the past week. Just before lunch her step mom came into her room and found her severely ill. Auntie’s dad hurried across the village to ask the owner of the only car n town to take his daughter to the health center in Basse. The owner immediately obliged, but by the time he drove to the house she had already died. It was so fast and shocking. It was hard to believe and hard to cry. But, when Auntie’s brother’s wife came home to the horror, she erupted in wailing tears. “Oh my mighty and merciful God. Please, no. Not my little sister. Oh, my little sister. Oh the all mighty and all powerful God.” Her tearful plea to God shattered through the shock and broke the crowd into tears. How could it be over so quickly? Someone can just be dead like that. No good byes. I was balling. Every time I went to chat at her house, she was the one who brought me water to drink and brewed tea and lait for me. Her mom and my mom were best friends. They learned to walk together; they learned to cook together; they got married together; they raised their kids together. My mom’s kids were her mom’s kids and visa versa. My grandma had even secretly dated her granddad in their youth. Auntie was my sister. She was my sister and there I was pounding millet for her death charity. I couldn’t stop crying. What was worse was that her mother wasn’t even there to cry for her. Her mother, my mother, died 2 years ago during child labor. A young girl dies and her mother isn’t even there to cry because she, herself, is dead.
Be it the numbness, the pending workload, or dehydration, the crying eyes dried, including mine. We had fetched water to wash the body and started the fire to cook the charity when wailing broke out in the compound next door. My heart stopped. I can’t bear another tragedy at this moment. A woman and her baby came running from the house screaming “Fire! Fire! Oh merciful God.” In response people yelled “Water! Water! Oh merciful God,” as they scurried to find water. We grabbed the buckets of water we had fetched to wash the corps of the 13 yr old girl and rushed them over to the burning house next door. The men tore down the fence, climbed up on the heap of burning dried groundnut hay and tossed the buckets over the flames. The women scurried to find buckets and rope to throw down the well to pull more water. Women from 2 compounds away hear the call and were brining buckets of water from their well. Although the rooms were smoky, the fire had been contained to the heap of dry hay nestled between two of the buildings in the compound. The men on the top of the heap announced that the fire was black and we didn’t need any more water. The head of the compound came for inspection and found the cardboard inserts from a child’s pair of new Tobaski shoes burnt, laying nest to a burnt match. Children playing with matches. Why do women have so many kids that they can’t watch them? I though frustrated. After we squatted down, raised out hands to God, recited the Fatiha, and thanked God for helping us put out the fire, we returned to preparing for the burial of the young girl. That’s why people have so many kids they can’t keep a close watch over them- many of them won’t live to adulthood.
The body was buried at sundown and, as is customary with all deaths in the village, a one-week village-wide moratorium on loud music and big parties was issued, even on Tobaski. The disco didn’t come tonight. I couldn’t have brought myself to dress up and enjoy the second day of the biggest holiday of the year anyway.
Rest In Peace
The disco didn’t come tonight. It is a great night for a disco. It is the second night of Tobaski, the moon is bright and the temperature is mild. Last night all the girls got dolled up in their new outfits and high heels. Bolokas, a sequency, see-through fabric, was the style to have this year. All the rich girls had extensions braided into their hair; other girls slicked their straightened hair back and decorated it with glitter. 360 days a year they work in their dirty, grubby clothes, sweating and laboring under the hot sun, but last night they scrubbed the garden mud from their cracking feet and painted them with henna. It is one of the 5 days a girl gets to look and feel beautiful. Last night even the 20 somethings and 30 somethings were out strolling in their new outfits reliving their carefree teenage years. Tonight, the second night of Tobaski, is a great night for a disco because all of the beautiful African gowns have already been displayed, but the new denim skirts and trendy tank tops need their venue. But the disco didn’t come tonight because the village is mourning.
This afternoon, just as people dove wrist deep into their lunch bowl, wailing broke out in Kamara Kunda. It wasn’t a big wail like I usually hear when a person dies. When I caught word of what was going on, I myself found it hard to wail. Siren Kamara, more commonly known as ‘Auntie’ because she was named after her somebody’s aunt, was a young girl. She was maybe 13-14 years old, not yet old enough to marry, but fully grown. She hadn’t been feeling well for the past week, but was well enough to sit out front with her friends, brew green tea and chat. Just yesterday she stood out on the road and greeted the people passing by on their way to Tobaski prayer. Two days ago I was at her house visiting my very good friends, her older brother and his wife. She was certainly lacking energy and her beaming smile was missing from her conversation, but she was cordial, chatty and moving around. She did not look like she was 2 days from death.
As I approached her compound, I found the village congregated. They divided up all the chores of a death: notifying all the relatives, digging the grave, washing the body, preparing the charity, etc. The silence of shock pervaded the meeting. She was a young healthy girl, who had been a little tired for the past week. Just before lunch her step mom came into her room and found her severely ill. Auntie’s dad hurried across the village to ask the owner of the only car n town to take his daughter to the health center in Basse. The owner immediately obliged, but by the time he drove to the house she had already died. It was so fast and shocking. It was hard to believe and hard to cry. But, when Auntie’s brother’s wife came home to the horror, she erupted in wailing tears. “Oh my mighty and merciful God. Please, no. Not my little sister. Oh, my little sister. Oh the all mighty and all powerful God.” Her tearful plea to God shattered through the shock and broke the crowd into tears. How could it be over so quickly? Someone can just be dead like that. No good byes. I was balling. Every time I went to chat at her house, she was the one who brought me water to drink and brewed tea and lait for me. Her mom and my mom were best friends. They learned to walk together; they learned to cook together; they got married together; they raised their kids together. My mom’s kids were her mom’s kids and visa versa. My grandma had even secretly dated her granddad in their youth. Auntie was my sister. She was my sister and there I was pounding millet for her death charity. I couldn’t stop crying. What was worse was that her mother wasn’t even there to cry for her. Her mother, my mother, died 2 years ago during child labor. A young girl dies and her mother isn’t even there to cry because she, herself, is dead.
Be it the numbness, the pending workload, or dehydration, the crying eyes dried, including mine. We had fetched water to wash the body and started the fire to cook the charity when wailing broke out in the compound next door. My heart stopped. I can’t bear another tragedy at this moment. A woman and her baby came running from the house screaming “Fire! Fire! Oh merciful God.” In response people yelled “Water! Water! Oh merciful God,” as they scurried to find water. We grabbed the buckets of water we had fetched to wash the corps of the 13 yr old girl and rushed them over to the burning house next door. The men tore down the fence, climbed up on the heap of burning dried groundnut hay and tossed the buckets over the flames. The women scurried to find buckets and rope to throw down the well to pull more water. Women from 2 compounds away hear the call and were brining buckets of water from their well. Although the rooms were smoky, the fire had been contained to the heap of dry hay nestled between two of the buildings in the compound. The men on the top of the heap announced that the fire was black and we didn’t need any more water. The head of the compound came for inspection and found the cardboard inserts from a child’s pair of new Tobaski shoes burnt, laying nest to a burnt match. Children playing with matches. Why do women have so many kids that they can’t watch them? I though frustrated. After we squatted down, raised out hands to God, recited the Fatiha, and thanked God for helping us put out the fire, we returned to preparing for the burial of the young girl. That’s why people have so many kids they can’t keep a close watch over them- many of them won’t live to adulthood.
The body was buried at sundown and, as is customary with all deaths in the village, a one-week village-wide moratorium on loud music and big parties was issued, even on Tobaski. The disco didn’t come tonight. I couldn’t have brought myself to dress up and enjoy the second day of the biggest holiday of the year anyway.
Rest In Peace
Change the World
15 December 2007
People don’t change the world.
People change people.
Things change the world.
People don’t change the world.
People change people.
Things change the world.
Brainwashed by Truth
12 December 2007
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if I have been brainwashed or enlightened with truth.
Sometimes I wonder if they aren’t one in the same.
My upbringing in America taught me to always follow my dreams, to strive for professional success, and to never let a man get in my way of achieving those things. I have, therefore, never had a problem visualizing my successful life without a man in it. I went to college, then came to Peace Corps. From here, maybe more time abroad, grad school, write a few books, start an organization that helps a lot of people, give a few lectures, become an expert in whatever field I choose…and then I’m 35, successful, and single. But then what do I have? I’d have a long list of accomplishments, maybe public praise, maybe not, and a sense of pride that I never let a man stand in my way. My post-feminist-revolution American upbringing never taught me to marry (unless I am really, really, absolutely, positively sure it is what I really, really want and we have dated for a long time and are both financially secure) and it certainly didn’t teach me to sacrifice anything for marriage. Marriage is hard, very, very hard and it takes a lot of hard work and it isn’t for everyone. That’s all I knew about marriage…oh, and that sometimes you’ll want to kill each other. And kids? Only if you are rich.
My Gambian re-education has taught me something different. Family is the foundation of life. My Gambian coming of age tauht me to never cut ties that are tied in blood, to strive for honesty, humility and peace in life, and that without kids, your legacy dies when you die. It is not possible to realize these lessons without marrying and having a family. While nobody in my re-education claims that marriage is all easy, they celebrate it and focus on all the wonderful benefits it brings. When you are dead and everyone stands to judge the entirety of your life, you are first judged by what you did for your family and then what you did for the world.
Now that my upbringing has brought me up, and as my re-education here in the Gambia winds down, I find myself pondering where the truth lies. Have I finally seen the truth through all the lies engrained in me since youth or has my isolation in this foreign land temporarily brainwashed me? Or, is there even a difference between being enlightened by truth and brainwashed? Can you be brainwashed with truth?
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if I have been brainwashed or enlightened with truth.
Sometimes I wonder if they aren’t one in the same.
My upbringing in America taught me to always follow my dreams, to strive for professional success, and to never let a man get in my way of achieving those things. I have, therefore, never had a problem visualizing my successful life without a man in it. I went to college, then came to Peace Corps. From here, maybe more time abroad, grad school, write a few books, start an organization that helps a lot of people, give a few lectures, become an expert in whatever field I choose…and then I’m 35, successful, and single. But then what do I have? I’d have a long list of accomplishments, maybe public praise, maybe not, and a sense of pride that I never let a man stand in my way. My post-feminist-revolution American upbringing never taught me to marry (unless I am really, really, absolutely, positively sure it is what I really, really want and we have dated for a long time and are both financially secure) and it certainly didn’t teach me to sacrifice anything for marriage. Marriage is hard, very, very hard and it takes a lot of hard work and it isn’t for everyone. That’s all I knew about marriage…oh, and that sometimes you’ll want to kill each other. And kids? Only if you are rich.
My Gambian re-education has taught me something different. Family is the foundation of life. My Gambian coming of age tauht me to never cut ties that are tied in blood, to strive for honesty, humility and peace in life, and that without kids, your legacy dies when you die. It is not possible to realize these lessons without marrying and having a family. While nobody in my re-education claims that marriage is all easy, they celebrate it and focus on all the wonderful benefits it brings. When you are dead and everyone stands to judge the entirety of your life, you are first judged by what you did for your family and then what you did for the world.
Now that my upbringing has brought me up, and as my re-education here in the Gambia winds down, I find myself pondering where the truth lies. Have I finally seen the truth through all the lies engrained in me since youth or has my isolation in this foreign land temporarily brainwashed me? Or, is there even a difference between being enlightened by truth and brainwashed? Can you be brainwashed with truth?
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Blind to the Poverty
3 October 2007
After experiencing the joy of living here and reveling in the uniqueness of your experience, it is easy to see how one could be blinded to the poverty and suffering. The people you lived with ate 3 meals a day and they got a new outfit for the Tobaski festival once a year. All the laughter and smiles distract you from the endless exhaustion.
After experiencing the joy of living here and reveling in the uniqueness of your experience, it is easy to see how one could be blinded to the poverty and suffering. The people you lived with ate 3 meals a day and they got a new outfit for the Tobaski festival once a year. All the laughter and smiles distract you from the endless exhaustion.
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