I've written before about the importance of little victories for any Peace Corps volunteer. The little victories really, truly are what get you through the tough times. You absolutely have to celebrate them and milk these little proud moments for all they are worth. They are what Peace Corps service is all about. Here is my latest one (hopefully this translates...I think it will):
First, two important bits of background information.
1) Gambian money is disgusting. Especially the small bills, which of course are what are used the most. Every once in a while you'll run across a crisp new one, but 99% of the time, these bills are grubby and a little smelly and crumbled and torn (tape and/or staples are commonly used to repair them). The bank seems to pay no attention to the state of the bills when you take out money, but many shopkeepers refuse to take the most tattered ones. This results in most Peace Corps Volunteers carrying around several disintegrating bills that they can't seem to get rid of.
2) The smallest unit of currency that is worth anyone's time here is a 50 butuut coin, which is worth about 2 cents. 50 butuuts will buy you a cheap minty (a cough drop that people eat like candy here) or two 50 butuut coins will buy you a small icy (maybe 1/2 cup of kool-aid frozen in plastic bag). However, left over from days when they were worth more, there are 25 butuut coins floating around, which no one ever wants, because they're really pretty useless. Like a penny basically, except most people don't carry wallets regularly here, and most of the coins are pretty big, making coins in general even more annoying than they are at home.
Ok, so now the story. I was in the market this part week buying some vegetables for lunch and when I gave the girl running the vegetable stall my D50 bill, she refused to take it because a small corner was missing. Now, in the past, I would have just sighed, given her a different bill, and made sure to fold up the bill carefully before I tried to use it again. However, for whatever reason, that day I decided to fight it. In my slowly-improving Mandinka, I told her in no uncertain terms that she knew perfectly well that all Gambian money looks like this and it's certainly not my fault and she was being ridiculous. To my surprise, she (and the other vegetable women) laughed, agreed that Gambian money was "not good," and she took the bill. As I was waiting for my change, I watched her dig around in the bottom of her container of money to give me by D2 change in 25 butuut coins. I swear she had a smirk on her face too...she was clearly messing with me. Usually I just roll my eyes and take the coins, but not today. Before she could even try to give me the offending coins, I called her out on what she was doing and said that I knew she had D1 coins in that container somewhere. Again, to my surprise, it worked! The women erupted in laughter again, told me I was a Mandinka woman now, and I walked away my vegetables and my two D1 coins on top of the world. :-)
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Why do I want to do international work?
Ever since I decided to go into international public health/development work, people have been asking me why I want to go work so far away and live in uncomfortable conditions when there are countless important problems to be addressed in my own country. There are a lot of ways to answer that question, but the simplest one starts with the following (from The Audacity of Hope, which, yes, I am still slowly working my way through):
"It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good Americans have it; even our poor take for granted goods and services - electricity, clean water, indoor plumbing, telephones, televisions, and household appliances - that are still unattainable for most of the world."
I would add to that list: emergency health care; social security; welfare; medicare/medicaid; affordable public education; libraries; the internet and the enormous wealth of information that comes with it; safe and reliable public transportation; a functioning legal system...the list goes on and on.
In most developing countries, someone who has even half those things is considered very, very wealthy and/or fortunate. Puts things in perspective a bit, doesn't it? Yes, there are problems in the US that affect a lot of people's lives and absolutely deserve attention, I don't deny that, and I'm very glad that they are smart, motivated individuals working on those problems. Someday, maybe I will even become one of them. However, I strongly believe in the importance of being passionate about your work, and right now, at this point in my life, the problems being faced by people in the developing world are the ones that speak to me the most.
I was lucky enough to be born into an extremely privileged life, and I feel a deep responsibility to give back by helping those who who were not so lucky. The way I see it, it's logical to start with the people in the world who are the most unlucky, and to me personally, that means people that are poor and/or underprivileged by the standards of the developing world, not the Western world.
"It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good Americans have it; even our poor take for granted goods and services - electricity, clean water, indoor plumbing, telephones, televisions, and household appliances - that are still unattainable for most of the world."
I would add to that list: emergency health care; social security; welfare; medicare/medicaid; affordable public education; libraries; the internet and the enormous wealth of information that comes with it; safe and reliable public transportation; a functioning legal system...the list goes on and on.
In most developing countries, someone who has even half those things is considered very, very wealthy and/or fortunate. Puts things in perspective a bit, doesn't it? Yes, there are problems in the US that affect a lot of people's lives and absolutely deserve attention, I don't deny that, and I'm very glad that they are smart, motivated individuals working on those problems. Someday, maybe I will even become one of them. However, I strongly believe in the importance of being passionate about your work, and right now, at this point in my life, the problems being faced by people in the developing world are the ones that speak to me the most.
I was lucky enough to be born into an extremely privileged life, and I feel a deep responsibility to give back by helping those who who were not so lucky. The way I see it, it's logical to start with the people in the world who are the most unlucky, and to me personally, that means people that are poor and/or underprivileged by the standards of the developing world, not the Western world.
We're back!
We just got back from a wonderful trip to Tanzania with my parents, which is why I haven't posted in a while. My parents came to our site for a few days, then we all went to Tanzania together to experience a completely different part of Africa. Among other things, we did several game drives where we saw elephants, rhinos, lions, leopards, cheetahs, giraffes, zebras, and many other animals. We also had an opportunity to spend some time in a Maasai village in a conservation area. It was a great trip for a lot of reasons (not least because I got to spend almost two weeks with my parents!), but the most blog-worthy part was seeing the similarities and differences between Gambian and Tanzanian cultures. Here are a few random things that stood out to us, in no particular order:
Similarities
- Communal cultures
- Importance of greetings
- English is widely spoken (particularly by civil servants and other educated people)
- Mud bricks are a common housing material, but Tanzanians fire them in a way that makes them much more resistant to rain than the ones in The Gambia.
- The cuisines are somewhat similar, with a lot of sauces and fish and beans, although they also have a stiff porridge called ugali (sort of like polenta) and plantains that they sometimes substitute for rice. They also have more curries and other spices, as well as chapatti bread, which are apparently more common near the coast where the Indian influence is stronger.
- Domesticated animals (goats, sheep, cows, chickens, donkeys) are everywhere.
- Tension between the increased influence of Western culture (in everything from education to clothing to entertainment to individual freedoms) and the desire to preserve the traditional cultures.
Differences
-Tanzania has two rainy seasons, making the land a lot of lush and fertile.
-Tanzania has mountains!
-Tanzania seems much cleaner than the Gambia (at least in the area we were in), possibly because there are enforced laws against littering.
-Tanzania generally seems better off financially (at least in the area we were in), partially due to a well-developed tourism industry, and partially due to natural resources and agricultural exports (coffee, cotton, cashews, tobacco, tea, sisal, gold, diamonds, tanzanite).
-Tanzania has 120 different ethnic groups!! They are united by a single language, Swahili, which is taught in primary and upper basic school - they switch to English in senior secondary school.
-Tanzania is equal parts Christian and Muslim. They keep the peace by equal representation in the government - even the presidency alternates Christian and Muslim!
-Even small markets take US Dollars (as well as Tanzanian shillings) in Tanzania, apparently because US Dollars are a more stable currency.
- People do carry things on their heads, but not nearly as much as in The Gambia. They also carry some things, like firewood, on their backs with a strap across their forehead, similiar to the technique used in Asia. I'm guessing this has to do with the difficulty of carrying things on your head over mountainous terrain.
Ok, that's enough for now, but feel free to post any questions you may have. I'll post a link to pictures as soon as my dad gets them up on Picasa.
Similarities
- Communal cultures
- Importance of greetings
- English is widely spoken (particularly by civil servants and other educated people)
- Mud bricks are a common housing material, but Tanzanians fire them in a way that makes them much more resistant to rain than the ones in The Gambia.
- The cuisines are somewhat similar, with a lot of sauces and fish and beans, although they also have a stiff porridge called ugali (sort of like polenta) and plantains that they sometimes substitute for rice. They also have more curries and other spices, as well as chapatti bread, which are apparently more common near the coast where the Indian influence is stronger.
- Domesticated animals (goats, sheep, cows, chickens, donkeys) are everywhere.
- Tension between the increased influence of Western culture (in everything from education to clothing to entertainment to individual freedoms) and the desire to preserve the traditional cultures.
Differences
-Tanzania has two rainy seasons, making the land a lot of lush and fertile.
-Tanzania has mountains!
-Tanzania seems much cleaner than the Gambia (at least in the area we were in), possibly because there are enforced laws against littering.
-Tanzania generally seems better off financially (at least in the area we were in), partially due to a well-developed tourism industry, and partially due to natural resources and agricultural exports (coffee, cotton, cashews, tobacco, tea, sisal, gold, diamonds, tanzanite).
-Tanzania has 120 different ethnic groups!! They are united by a single language, Swahili, which is taught in primary and upper basic school - they switch to English in senior secondary school.
-Tanzania is equal parts Christian and Muslim. They keep the peace by equal representation in the government - even the presidency alternates Christian and Muslim!
-Even small markets take US Dollars (as well as Tanzanian shillings) in Tanzania, apparently because US Dollars are a more stable currency.
- People do carry things on their heads, but not nearly as much as in The Gambia. They also carry some things, like firewood, on their backs with a strap across their forehead, similiar to the technique used in Asia. I'm guessing this has to do with the difficulty of carrying things on your head over mountainous terrain.
Ok, that's enough for now, but feel free to post any questions you may have. I'll post a link to pictures as soon as my dad gets them up on Picasa.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
The Freedom to be Left Alone
A few days ago I finally got around to starting to read The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. I’m less than 100 pages in, and to be honest, while it is an interesting and important read, it isn’t exactly light reading for someone who doesn’t come from the sort of family where you are discussing politics before you can walk (you know who you are). Anyways, that’s not the point.
In the context of a discussion of the central values that shape American culture, Obama describes Michelle’s reaction to her first trip to Kenya. He describes how, from an American perspective, “the demands of family ties and tribal loyalties can be [suffocating], with distant cousins constantly asking for favors [and] uncles and aunts showing up unannounced.” The trip gave Michelle a new awareness and appreciation for a specific type of freedom that is almost uniquely American; an individual’s freedom to be left alone. Obama argues that this is something that, as a general rule, Americans believe in, and tend to be “suspicious of those – whether Big Brother or nosy neighbors – who want to meddle in our business.” This value is not, in any way, normal, when you look at the rest of the world. We are the exception, not the rule.
This discussion was particularly poignant to me, given our current situation, living in a culture where life is lived in public, and the concept of privacy just doesn’t exist. People are baffled at (what seems to them) the excessive amount of time we spend in our house with the door closed, and even now, after living here a year, they call in to ask if we are ok, and/or what we could be doing in there for so long. Not to mention the fact that EVERY TIME we leave the village, EVERY PERSON we pass asks where we are going, what we will be doing there (and vice versa when we return), etc. I could go on for pages about this, but you get the idea. It’s like being in middle school again! What are you doing, where are you going, how are you getting there, who are you going with, when will you be back…you all know the script.
Obama’s book provided a much-needed reminder that in every society, there has to be a balance between the individualistic and the communal. In some cultures, the scale is tipped one way, in others, the other way. American culture is tipped towards the individualistic. Most African cultures are tipped towards the communal. As we have discovered, to transition from one extreme to the other is exceedingly difficult. It takes some of our most deeply ingrained values and turns them on their heads, which is not something the human brain deals with particularly well. Small wonder that sometimes we struggle with it!
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