The “T” Word

So, after a month at site, I must have a lot of great stories right? Yes… and no. Yes in the sense that my day to day has achieved a level of ridiculous that can’t even be put in words. Example:

My Homologue (French term for work partner): “What did you buy in market today?”

Me: “A machete… for my bike.”

My Homologue: “Why?”

Me: “Well, lots of Malians do it, and yesterday when I was riding back home on my bike a dog chased me and wanted to bite me. I bought it to stop dogs.”

My Homologue: “Of course, good idea.”

I could go on, and tell you about living in a 3 room mud hut with no electricity or running water, but I don’t feel as though I have any one story that encapsulates the day to day crazy that is living here. Instead, for this installment I’m going to dive into one of my favorite topics: Race.

Now, before I start this post let me say that what I’m delving into is, and will forever be an extremely touchy subject: The infamous “N word.” But, the parallels I wish to draw are not so much a philosophical critique of society, but a very visceral personal experience with a word that I think will provide insight, and allow people to gain an understanding of a culture surrounding a word in a way very few ever get to.

I speak of course, of the parallels between the N word and the word “Toubab,” a Bambara word that translates roughly into “white” or “French person.”

Now, in order to dispel the obvious holes you can poke in this parallel, let me qualify this argument. These words and their historical contexts and meanings are entirely separate. No Toubab has ever been oppressed in Mali, and probably never will. Every person experiences the word differently, and depending on the context its use can range from innocuous to a pretty heavy handed insult. For instance “Toubab Goyo” refers to imported eggplant, but it is also not uncommon for a group of children to chant the word in unison to get your attention. In this way the words themselves are only loosely similar, but the experiences that accompany them can hold similar emotions.

For example, you can’t go a full conversation with pcvs here without someone saying Toubab in just random conversation. Example: “I’m the only Toubab within a 3km radius of my site.” Or “Can we talk? I’m a little stressed at site and need a little Toubab time.” We use the word because it’s versatile, but I also personally feel as though I use the word because it allows me to take some form of ownership over it. If I use it in my conversation, it serves to lessen the blow when it’s used by others. Also, and I think more importantly, it acts as a bond between myself and my fellow pcv’s. We’re all here, living in similar situations and dealing with Toubab chants on a regular basis, so being able to use the word in a joking manner amongst ourselves helps lessen the sting of previous moments when the word was used in a much more jeering fashion. Quite simply: The word never bothers me when a volunteer says it, but if a Malian says it, it very often can rub me the wrong way.

This dichotomy is a point of frequent contest in the states: “You say it, why can’t I say it? Why can you say “cracker?”

But, coming from a white guy in Mali, I can safely say that all those arguments stand about as strongly as a cardboard cut-out of a straw man. I can be on top of the world at site, thinking that everything is going perfectly with my life, but a correctly placed “Toubab! Toubab! Ça va?” can let the wind out of even my biggest sails, and drive me back to questioning why I sacrificed what I had to come here in the first place. It makes you feel alienated. It makes you feel like an outsider. It makes you feel like no matter what you do, your skin will always be a barrier to acceptance amongst your community. None of these are positive emotions, and it does a number on your psyche, but using amongst your friends brings you closer due to the shared experience of… I guess what you could call “adversity.”

I will be the first to admit I do not handle the word as well as many other people in country, but it has driven me to come to a level of understanding of my home that I didn’t think it was possible to come to. I will never be able to fully understand the true depth of how much worse the N word is than Toubab, but I am extremely grateful for that. But, from here on in I will always have a somewhat stronger understanding of how a word can take on a dual personality.

A heavy handed insult can also be claimed as a bond of brotherhood. This may be a struggle that I face, but I face it hand in hand with my fellow volunteers, and though a Malian uttering it may come as a slap in the face, I will continue to use it conversation to make all those slaps sting a little less.

So, if you ever want to make one of those arguments about how the N word exists in English vernacular, I ask only that you think back on my fellow volunteers and my own experience with the word Toubab here, and realize what a colossally insensitive and bigoted mistake you are making. Never apply broad-based assumptions to the way sub-cultures identify themselves and operate, because at best you can only “get” that you “will never get it.” And only once you cross that bridge… will you actually come to true understanding.

Ala k’i segin iyere ma
(A blessing for sickness, but translated directly to “may god return you to yourself”)

“Change Your Attitude.” Remixed

Part II begins…

…Overwhelming has been the only real way to describe not only site visit, but the last three weeks of my life. Although I feel as though my emotions and mind were finally keeping pace, by the time I got sick at the end of my site visit my brain once again shut off and I was once again rendered incapable of processing what was going on around me. The issue with this, unlike the first time around, was not so much my inability to conceptualize myself living and working here in Mali, but conceiving myself within the weird and somewhat unique social sphere I found myself becoming increasingly aware of.

A few main things happened over the course of the weeks I struggled to come to terms with the experiences of my site visit: I met a large amount of the fellow volunteers I would be seeing the most of over at least the next coming year if not longer, I moved back into my homestay site to spend my final two weeks there, and I experienced both Christmas and New Years in a social context completely unfamiliar to anything I have ever known previously. Needless to say that trying to process all that while at the same time trying to navigate an illness made the entire experience not only overwhelming but at times acutely emotionally challenging.

That being said I navigated the waters successfully and emerged on the other side of the entire debacle with good moments, lasting memories and even better stories. Although I did not expect it nor at all feel prepared to deal with it, I made it through to the other side successfully and did so because of a few key things: presence, family and friends at home, friends here and the ever growing realization that I may be victim to the circumstances and unpredictability of Mali, but in the end I will dictate on my own whether or not my experience here is a good one based on the decisions I make about my actions and attitudes throughout  the course of the next two years.

When I refer to presence I mean it in the sense of being present in everything that I do here. Although, as I have previously stated I struggled with this concept and idea throughout basically all of my first month here and now feel as though I am here, I’m not here in the sense that I wish I was. Instead, the issue has not so much been alleviated as it has shifted from one issue to another. Although I now find myself present in what I do here, my ability to find a middle ground between where I am now and where I was 3, 4 even 5 months ago has become much harder. I’ve found that the weeks directly following my site visit have shaken any lingering sense of a honeymoon with Mali that I might have had, and forced me into trying to better understand not only who I am and why I came here, but also how I am going make it through the next two years taking on a split persona: Mali me, and American me. I think I can attribute a lot of my malaise over the past two weeks to trying to balance what is slowly developing into two distinct lives: two families, two distinct sets of friends, two/three languages and two homes. That being said, I think that I am slowly moving out of this malaise, realizing that such a lifestyle is not as improbable as I originally thought.

I said presence, but presence has taken on a new sense here, and one that is very hard to qualify in a direct and literal sense. On the one hand my success as a volunteer here and my happiness as a human being over the next two years will be in large part a direct result of how I interact with my community, accepting them as my own and getting them to accept me in the same way. Although this has been stressed over and over again in all of our training, the part that I didn’t realize, and what proved to be harder for me, was to take on this new persona with a grain of salt, not compare it to the life I left behind in the states, and just accept it in the same manner I have with everything in my life: love it for its very imperfections.

This seems like a simple enough task in the short run (ie: study abroad or living in a country with less stark differences from back home), the definition is much harder within the conceptualization of a (possibly) uninterrupted two year stay here in West Africa. It’s more difficult because it demands two things that other experiences haven’t: a deeper acceptance of the difficulties and realities of life here, and a much stronger desire/need to keep in close touch with those back home. Christmas and the week following were strong reminders of this. Talking with my parents and some of my closest friends has centered me once more, helping me to realize why I came here in the first place and why I made the sacrifices I did to do what I am doing currently. It helped remind me that although life was chugging along without me back home, I wasn’t missing as much as I sometimes felt like I was, and that regardless of my absence the people who I care most about were and still are standing behind me in everything I was doing, and willing to support me as best they could. Those conversations, those comments, those letters and packages en route keep me focused and present here because they are a constant reminder that this is not only what I was meant to do, but that everything that I am feeling currently is merely a temporary stumble, a “defining moment” if you will, that I will persevere through and emerge on the other side a better person for it. So, in a sense life here is a dual presence, a global presence, balancing a life flung far across the world and in the process enhancing the state of mind and knowledge of an increasingly growing base of open-minded and caring individuals in a way that would have never been possible if I had stayed at home and mitigated my personal risk. Remembering this, and staying present in this mindset will no doubt be essential to my success and sustained happiness throughout my Peace Corps service.

On the topic of mindset, there is one more piece of the last few weeks that I have left out of my analysis: how I view myself within the context not only of my Malian community but the small group of fellow PCV’s and expats that are my best cultural connection to back home. To be honest, I’ve feared on multiple occasions that I would run into issues and personality conflicts with other people, which is a very large worry to have when a small knit community of only a few hundred people is all you can really rely on, and burning bridges can lead to blowback, and you have very little control and very little leeway over the people you find yourself forced to trust and rely on here.

Although I still think this is a legitimate fear, I think I viewed it in a much more fatalistic light than I should have. I interpreted the situation from a position of no control, as if my own person had no impact on the social sphere I found myself trapped within. As if my own personality and actions would not have any effect on the people around me, only vice versa. Looking back on those worries and fears I expressed to myself in my journal in the weeks following my site visit, I realized that they were very one sided. I had forgotten in this trainee state of feeling like a child that I was still very much a master of my own fate, and that how I chose to define myself within the cultural and social spheres I found myself caught in here.

In the end, and I think in life in general, fate is a very easy way to relinquish control but also to shift blame. I think that in order to be happy not only here, but in general that a certain sense of ownership and decision-making capability must always rest in your own hands and in that sense I will re-quote the very same individual who was responsible for the title of the very first post I ever made on this blog:

 

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

-Maya Angelou

 

In the end I alone will dictate how I live, work and enjoy the next two years and in the longer run my life in general.

These concepts, everything I have just said feels as though it is very basic life philosophy, psychological mind vomit of no real application in the real world, but the Peace Corps training (which will officially end in under two days) has taught me that, much like international development work, what is discussed in Ivory Towers is extremely different from the realities on the ground. Only until you put your feet on that ground do you go from understanding to living, thinking to being, watching to acting. Until life forces you to come to terms you can only read those terms and try to understand them in a philosophical context.

This is, in every sense of the word, as real as my life has ever gotten, and it’s those moments, as cliché as the words I may use to describe them are, that will teach you the most about your life.

Site Visit, Etc. Part 1 of 2

12/9/11

Yesterday was the big day, the day that set the tone for the next two years of my life. It’s funny how the entire course of your life can be dictated by such small moments in time. As we sat in our large group, watching region by region announce the sites of myself and my fellow trainees, I sat patiently awaiting my name watching region by region disappear from my prospects. Finally, as we reached the end my name was finally called. I would be living in a small village outside the sub regional capital of San. (I am not going to get into specific details on a public blog, so you’re going to have to call me on skype (cell phone or when I have internets) if you want the full story on where I am heading).

(11 Days Later…)

I’ve found that life here can be exhausting, especially when bacterial and viral internal infections here are treated much like I treat the common cold back home (Disclaimer: I am fully on the road to recovery and feel spectacular as I write this, so no worries). And in conjunction with said exhaustion, I find it extremely difficult to sit down and write these. I know that if I continue to go back to this point my blog will become a broken record, but the reason why I reiterate this point again is to take solace now in the fact that I found my inspiration. Somewhere between reading Hemmingway, re-reading my journal and having a moment of silence for the envelopes in bookmark purgatory that were destined for America before I fucked up an address in the land of no white-out, I found the spark necessary not only to start this post, but the source that will continue to fuel my posts throughout my time here (though the list of authors will no doubt increase as time progresses since for the first time in four years I feel like I really have time to read and am regretting my lack of a kindle).

And, in honor of my newfound inspiration, I think it’s only fair that I try to write post #2/3 a little differently:

This week was one-hundred and ten different ways of completely overwhelming, and the only way to do it justice is to divide it up into two parts: travelogue and reflection. There is no way to contain the experience in one continuous story, because to do so would be a disservice to just how ridiculous this entire week has been in every possible sense of its terming in Webster’s.

My week started bright and early on Monday morning. Well, not so bright, seeing as it was 5:30 in the morning. My work counterpart and I departed the training center to get to the bus station for the 7am bus destined for San. So, overburdened with two backpacks and a PC-issued Trek mountain bike we bopped our way through a 7 hour bus ride to a random village on the side of the road of San before continuing the last bit on bike. After a difficult but short venture out into the African bush I arrived at the place I was going to call home for the next two years.

It’s funny how perspectives change here. Anywhere else, in any other experience you would tell someone who shows you a three room mud house with a thatch roof with a basic gas stove and very simple tables and furniture with an outdoor well constructed cement hole in the ground for a toilet where to shove it, but here it would have been inappropriate not to be extremely grateful for such things. After settling a little bit, I had my first experience with toh and sauce, the Malian staple meal that in texture resembles something most people would never put anywhere near their mouths (It’s a thick porridge made of either rice/corn/sorghum or millet – the corn one is damn good, like grits, but unfortunately sorghum and millet are much more common, and personally legitimately less appetizing). I muscled through the experience, but I think in the future I will learn to love it, since it will probably be at least one of my meals everyday for the next two years. After I was granted the luxury of a much needed siesta before greeting my host family and village chief in the African dusk. And as I fell asleep I prepared for day #2 that could only surpass day #1 in its awkwardness.

And of course, that it did. Day 2 began what I will refer to as the “Welcome Wagon Tour” in which I moved throughout the village with my work counterpart and, at least for day one, my site mate (another volunteer already installed that lives about 4 km down the road in another community). The afternoon consisted of chicken (a cultural means of welcoming me to the community – It was not the first chicken I was offered during the week), and a lot of napping. The day finished out strong by cracking into The Sun Also Rises and determining that my first pet here will be named Ernest Hemmingway.

Day 3 commenced with greeting tour #2 followed by a rather awkward lunch that reminded me of my ever-present fishbowl status. At this point I had still not attempted to venture out on my own, preferring a book over an adventure. I think in some part I foolishly assumed that I would run out of places to adventure to, if somehow such a possibility legitimately existed here.

Day 4 came and the cultural and social overload reached a fever pitch, commencing with greeting tour #3 with special guest Peace Corps staff members before departing to market day in a town a decent but manageable bike ride away. After meeting a third fellow PCV in close proximity to my site, I found my way through the market maze, ate lunch for 10 cents, witnessed the millet beer (dolo or cimicama depending on how specific you care to be) sellers hanging out in the Christian section of the market (though the millet beer consumption doesn’t really follow any sense of religious boundaries in real practice), and finally made my way back home before the sun set. It was only at this point so late in the game that I realized that from where I sat in my compound there was almost no real light pollution for roughly 10-20km in any direction, and that as such the stars lit up in the sky in the most spectacular way possible and decided that in lieu of reading I would instead sit down and just stare up at the sky for a spell. Needless to say it was a good choice.

Nothing of day 5 was of particular note, only that it began with more greetings and ended in illness. There was only one instance worth noting for further experiences: children in my village see a camera and decide that in order for the picture to truly be good they must pose like ninjas and then proceed to scrutinize the picture on the lcd screen and laugh hysterically at themselves.

Day 6 was difficult, but of particular note. After calming my stomach enough to make the trip into San I said goodbye to my village and made my way to the paved road to hitchhike into San with a fellow volunteer. After two hours of sitting on the road luck finally befell us when a Mercedes sedan pulled off to pick us up. As luck would have it the man already sitting shotgun just happened to be the representative in the National Assembly for the region of San, and I was able to check off one more line on my road to trying to be a badass in Mali. The day progressed from there with pork, M&M’s and pepto bismol, but managed to relax away the evening before getting up early and making the trek back Bamako way.

That’s my story, but the mindset I ended the week with is another story in and of itself, but I feel as though I have already rambled this post on for too long, so I will leave you all in suspense for a little while longer as to the rest of the story…

(To be continued)…