First-Year Anniversary Trilogy, Part Three: How to Talk Gender

Well, this 3 week trilogy of posts has turned into more of a 2 month trilogy of posts, but that’s usually how work here goes. The more important part is that it gets done well. Just like a project here, I’d rather it take twice as long as scheduled and be good, than get rushed through and not be worth the time to reflect upon.

So here I am, having deviated drastically from the original planned trilogy, but hopefully better for it. This will be the final installment, focusing on gender here in Senegal as I see it based upon my personal experience. I know this will be by far the touchiest subject I’ve addressed in a while, so please take this all with a grain of salt, understanding that I have a experience here that is unique to the individuals I’ve met throughout my service, and therefore is not something that can be extrapolated to all of Senegal, let alone all of Islam.

A couple things have been spinning in my head as of late, about gender roles here, how they differ from back home, and also how they stand up to the grander dialogue between theory, culture and practice.

I understand to a degree that culture defines gender roles, but in order to think that the dynamic isn’t constantly shifting is to go a step further and assume that culture exists in a vacuum, is monolithic and static… none of which are true. Within the same country you have men who will refuse to shake the hand of a woman sitting alongside men married to women with careers. And, I hate to say it, but on the other side of the pond you have men who claim women should be forced to raise children conceived by rape alongside groups that light bras on fire.

The impetus for prefacing the conversation in this manner is due to the idea that writing this post came about during a recent discussion I had with one of my host brothers as we sat around and watched one of my host sisters taking care of all of the post-lunch chores. My host brother is Senegalese to be sure, but a young man enrolled in his last year of high school in one of arguably the most liberal regions within the country in terms of religion and cultural norms. Meaning: he does not quite represent the Senegalese norm, but is still very much Senegalese.

As we sat around watching my host sister clean up the dishes and sweep, I decided then would be a good time not only to practice my “conversational” Pulaar, but try to have an honest conversation about gender roles with someone who I knew had the capacity to be open to new ideas. I started out the conversation quite gently, and then posed the question that, when he gets older and finds himself a wife, why should she have to do all the chores and cooking while he just sits around and does nothing? Why couldn’t he cook/clean as well and share the burden? Surely he could learn how to cook? As we talked more about it, he came to understand my line of reasoning, but then took it into a realm where I faltered.

He said quite simply that he understood where I was coming from, why it seemed unfair… but if he was out working all day and she was at home all day, then shouldn’t watching over the house, the cooking and cleaning, be her responsibility? He was working all day to support the family; shouldn’t it be her responsibility to maintain the house in his absence? He also took it a step further, saying that if his wife was out working too, then it would only be fair that the burden be shared, or that they hire a housekeeper. But if the woman isn’t working, shouldn’t that be her job, her role in the family unit?

I stopped, finding myself unable to do anything more than agree with him. If my line of argument against her doing all the work was household burden sharing, then I couldn’t really fault him on that line of reasoning. The logic was sound and egalitarian, and rebounded the question at me, forcing me to think about the very issue I was trying to get him to think about: “what is fair?” If the situation demands burden sharing, then of course, but isn’t the role of a housewife to do those things, and is it really sound reasoning to say that he should help out around the house that much if he’s constantly working to support his wife?

Far too often I think we apply this broad brush of misogyny and gender inequality to both Africa and the Muslim world without giving due attention to the much deeper nuance of the issue. We treat the issue with a perceived moral superiority we only recently possessed, treating those who don’t think like us as dinosaurs of a bygone era who need to get with the program. While I understand that logic to a degree when addressing people in our good ole’ US of A, to export that attitude abroad is not only wrong and ineffective, but patronizing.

I’m not saying this as though it’s some new idea, but rather something that everyone who lives, works or travels abroad needs to forever keep in the back of their heads. It wasn’t all that long ago that we weren’t much better. Hell, we didn’t even deem women fit to vote until less than a century ago, and even more recently it was thought improper for women to have any job other than child bearing. It could even be argued that women gained those rights due in large part not to us realizing how misogynistic we were being, but by WWII and later by the eroding of middle-class factory jobs and the rise of dual income families.

And it’s only on those same strings that any true change is going to come here. Economic growth and diversification, and the slow arduous protest against social norms are the only way that these tendencies are going to change.  

But this isn’t to say that there is nothing that we can do, just that we need to temper our frustrations. Change doesn’t come over night, and we will continue to see things happen here and elsewhere that make us seethe. But we can still have these conversations, share our views, show people here how we do it, and why we think it works better. We can show them that men can cook and women can work, and how such an idea can not only make the world a better place, but make them more prosperous as well. What we can’t do is tell them that they’re wrong, inhuman dinosaurs, and that they HAVE TO CHANGE… NOW. Not only is it ineffective, but as I’ve stated earlier I also feel that we lack such a moral high ground on this issue.

This battle is still being fought on our own home front… and, just like there, we have to fight the battle with the humility that reflects morality, not the arrogance that proclaims it.   

First-Year Anniversary Trilogy, Part Two: Why We Keep Getting This Wrong in Mali

So, as luck would have it, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry… and this trilogy is no different. Thankfully for you, however, my plans have changed for the better. Instead of talking about tourism and school classes, I’m going to talk about Mali and gender roles! Enjoy this second installment, the Mali retrospective.

First-Year Anniversary Trilogy: Part Two – Why We Keep Getting This Wrong in Mali

Although I have settled into life about 90km from the country of Mali after an all too short and turbulent time within its borders, I continue to keep my ear to the news feeds, hoping and praying that one day the country that welcomed me so warmly would get back up on its feet so that I could make my return and say the proper goodbyes I wasn’t able to the first time. Needless to say, keeping an ear to events recently has been all too easy, but it is with very mixed emotions that I welcome this new-found international attention.

For those of you who haven’t been keeping track recently, Mali is officially at war with its aggressors with the north. Thankfully, they have heavy backing from France, growing support from ECOWAS (The Economic Community of West African States, “CDEAO” in French) as well as minor logistical backing from the likes of the UK and the US. France has been welcomed by the Malian people, and they have made great strides, pushing the radical factions of the north all the way back to Gao at the time of writing this.

Although I am glad to see security slowly return, I approach the outlook to the future wearily, as well as the coverage of this event thus far. After reading the Economist’s coverage of the events and its cover “Afrighanistan?,” I couldn’t help but grit my teeth. This situation has been devolving since the end of March last year. Nothing about this situation is new (in fact, not to toot my own horn but I was drawing the “potential terrorist haven in the Sahel argument” in May of last year, and that is what makes this current outpouring of news articles and international attention so utterly frustrating. Again, the international community has sat by, wishing and washing for almost an entire year, but when Mali finally starts to show signs of becoming a failed state everyone decides to spring into action. Again, we have chosen a pound of medicine over an ounce of prevention.

Although I could go on about how yet another failure of the international community to prevent a catastrophe from unfolding in front of their eyes only to jump in at the very last second to try and save the day (See: Rwanda, Sierra Leone, etc.), I instead want to focus on points I think have been glossed over or completely ignored by the international media in favor of buzz words and superficial analysis that gives rise to cover stories like “Afrighanistan.”

1. The Malian government (or lack thereof) is the reason this got out of hand so quickly, and the international community did little to stop them from botching the operation so quickly/badly.

Let’s stop giving undue credit to the MNLA, Ansar Dine and AQIM huh? The reason why they control the north is due mostly to the ineptitude of Captain Sanogo and the rest of his band of incompetents, who to this day continue to meddle in the political dealings of Bamako. Let’s keep in mind that right before the coup d’état everyone was fretting about the Malian army losing Kidal. Yep… Kidal.

See that little dot up there? That’s Kidal: A desert nothing 500 km from anything, including pavement. Barely a week after the coup, the MNLA and its extremist partners had somehow managed not only to take Kidal, but Gao, Timbuktu and were rumored to be knocking on the door of Mopti. Diabaly, a point of major concern now, was an area that was already thought to harbor AQIM bases before the coup ever happened. Only a few months after this, the MNLA was sidelined by the extremist groups, thus beginning the ransacking of UNESCO world heritage sites and the strict imposition of sharia law. The taking of Konna wasn’t the jaw-drop it was made out to be… just the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.

It is because of this that my skin crawls ever so much when these groups are made out to be so much more powerful than they actually are. Case-in-Point: the military intervention in Mali is less than a month in and already the French have pushed the rebels back to Gao and are now eying Timbuktu. These groups are a force to be reckoned with, yes, but it is important that we give credit where credit is due. Without Sanogo, the MNLA, AQIM and Ansar Dine may have never seen the territorial gains (and now losses) they have made this past year.

2. Malians hate… I repeat hate, extremism.

Any student of the recent conflicts in the Middle East knows all too well how foreign intervention can breed resentment and extremism, turning the local population against the very people trying to help. Although it can be argued that it’s just too soon to tell that in Mali, it doesn’t seem to be mirroring these other conflicts. A level of lawlessness in northern Mali is nothing new: the Tuaregs have fought rebellions before, and it would be safe to say this won’t be their last. What is interesting, however, is the fact that the presence in northern Mali has taken on somewhat of a “foreign invader” feel in the past 6 months. The MNLA, the only group in the region with any sort of legitimate claims to control or ownership in the Azawad, was quickly sidelined by AQIM and Ansar Dine, and what followed was a campaign of fear and terror against the local population.

To add to it, the populations that inhabit the areas surrounding and south of Mopti have never really much cared for their neighbors to the north, and would therefore be all too happy to see them move further away. Couple that with the fact that the local population despises the current strict rule of law imposed by these groups and the the only group who has any deep or legitimate claim has been sidelined, and the argument that this is any sort of entrenched movement becomes flimsy. Yes these groups have been acting in the Sahara for some time. Yes they are well armed. Yes they pose a serious threat to regional security. But to go that one step further, and suggest that this has the danger of becoming an entrenched Islamist wave amongst the Malian people is to again give too much credit to these groups. Malians don’t want this anymore than the rest of the international community does.

3. AQIM is not Al-Qaeda in anything but name and AK-47s.

Another problem I run into is the people suggesting that there is “Al-Qaeda” in the Sahara. There is not Al-Qaeda in the Sahara. There is a group of Islamic extremists from the deserts of Algeria who co-opted the name to raise money and avoid getting blinked out of relevance. Start kidnapping, ransoming and killing Europeans and the world all of a sudden gives you attention. AQIM is a dangerous force, but to liken it to its counterparts in other areas of the world in nonsense. Up until recently, the group conducted kidnappings more as a means of fundraising to fight back and prevent regional armies from engulfing it than anything else.

Again, the Sahara is known for a modicum of lawlessness, but to suggest that the Sahara is anywhere close to breeding the type of issues seen further east is still a bit melodramatic. If we continue to let the situation devolve and form an “open for business” sign for anyone looking to escape international scrutiny then yes we may find bigger problems brewing in the region, but as of now we’re giving to much credit (yet again) to a bunch of glorified Islamist bandits with a co-opted name and philosophy.

4. Mali is hurt much deeper than the conflict in the north lets on.

What should worry us about Mali is not AQIM or Ansar Dine, but rather Bamako. As I mentioned earlier, the rebels in Mali were fighting for Kidal before the coup d’état, and within less than a year were threatening the entire collapse of the country. The problem is, Bamako really has nothing to fear but Bamako itself. Mali used to be a beacon for a functioning democracy in West Africa, but in under a year has turned into a warning beacon for a failed state. Political squabbles anywhere in the world are commonplace, but Bamako dropped the ball big time, and the leaders of the March 2011 coup keep knocking it back down. Amadou Toumani Toure (or ATT), the president before the collapse, was only a month away from an election in which he had made publicly clear he was not running in. Everyone was looking to that transition of power to shift the nature of the leadership on the problems to the north, but instead, some punk kid from Kati decided to make his own literal run at the presidential palace, and has since been the overseer of a divided, unsure and problem filled transitional “government.”

France may fight until its heart’s content up north and stand on those borders, but the only thing that’s going to bring any true stability back to the country is going to have to start in Bamako. Sanogo holds the future of Mali in his hands, not France nor the rebels. Only the problem down south truly endangers the long-term livelihoods of the Malian people.

5. The only path to stability in Mali will be one that takes EVERYTHING into account.

I kind of covered this in point 4, but it needs to be reiterated. The international dialogue has boiled this down to another Afghanistan, or another simple case of Islamist extremists run amok, but the truth of the situation runs much deeper. This isn’t a new conflict; this is one that has dragged on for almost a year while continuing to get lukewarm support from the international community. Sanogo kept ECOWAS at bay for months, and then, when ECOWAS looked to be gearing up to intervene, the UN dragged its feet for months debating what has now become inevitable.

Mali is broken and will not be fixed easily, but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. The international community needs to stop buzz wording this conflict to death and stop comparing it to other cases of extremism around the world. The problem was home-grown, as will be the solution. Without a stable Malian government run by Malians any work done in Mali now will prove just as ineffective as it has in the past. Pressure needs to be put on the Malians and Sanogo in particular to reform the government and return to legitimate civilian rule, and stop pulling the strings behind the scenes. That, and that alone, will do more than an entire caravan of AK47s could ever hope to.

The international community has finally, over 6 months too late, taken a legitimate interest in what is going on in Mali, and is making significant inroads in fighting back the immediate threat. Now, they need to get this next part right in order to ensure that we don’t find ourselves back in the same situation again in a few years. Unfortunately, the current dialog is not the way to get there.

First-Year Anniversary Trilogy, Part One: City vs. Village

NOTE: Since I started writing this first post, the French military has moved into Mali and the country is now officially at war with the rebels in the north. Please, keep them all in your thoughts and prayers.

I think I owe whatever readership I have an apology. This blog has not seen an update in many months, and I think it’s time I rectify that. So, in order to recuperate for lost time, I will be writing a “trilogy” of sorts, with one post coming out each week for the following three weeks. I’ll also give it a cheesy name: “The One Year in Service Trilogy,” starting less than a week after January 6^th 2013, my “official” one year in service anniversary.

I’ll be honest, my lack of updates in the preceding months were not due to lack of resources as has been the case in the past, nor from laziness, but rather a lack of inspiration. I like to think that I save my events (from everything as interesting as volcano hiking to as mundane as my day to day life in Kedougou) for conversations and letters, whereas this blog serves to take the stories a step further, thinking about them in a more critical, albeit rambling, manner. Therefore, events aren’t enough to spark a post. Instead, something interesting and unique has to occur, have an effect on my life, and then translate into an idea that I feel warrants sharing with a wider audience. And, to be honest, until recently none such thing has happened.

I spent my first 4 months at site, went to IST and planned a vacation to Cape Verde. Nothing really sparked an idea, but thankfully the vacation, the aftermath, and the fateful 1-year anniversary sparked three ideas. The first will focus on City vs. Village Life, the second Tourism vs. Volunteerism vs. Peace Corps, and the third will focus on my first true feet on the ground work experience: starting a series of business classes at local educational institutions.

So…

First-Year Anniversary Trilogy, Part One: City vs. Village

As those of you who keep up with this blog/my life already know, my “First-Year Anniversary” is part emotional moment, part falsehood. My PC experience has been somewhat of a unique and modified one. I was sworn in as a PC Mali volunteer on January 6^th, 2012. After roughly three months at site and a coup d’état, I was evacuated to Ghana. I was sent home at the beginning of May, and transferred to PC Senegal in June, then “sworn in” by Sec. State Hillary Clinton in July, and “re-re-sworn in” in August. This time around I not only made it to In-Service Training, but I completed it, and have just now started to get into the real PC work, finally ready after a year of false-starts, feelings of failure and awkward moments to get my hands dirty (figuratively. I am, after all, not an agriculture volunteer). I love my work, and will talk about it more in coming chapters, but one thing that has struck me now that I have started work, was how different my first few months at site were in Mali.

Although Mali and Senegal are two different countries, they share much in common: similar linguistic traditions, food, cultures, etc. The main thing that has made my experience so different is that now, instead of being the village volunteer 30km outside of the regional capital and coming into the regional capital house every once and a while to do work, I live a 2 minute bike ride from the house. My life therefore has existed on the two opposite sides of the volunteer-experience spectrum for the past year, and puts me in a unique position to reflect on it and think about it, before my current experience begins to blur my previous one. To best describe this, I’m going to focus primarily on the differences in work and life habits of the two, and try my best to eliminate the variables caused by different cities, countries and support staff.

Let me start by saying something very clearly so as not to offend both city and village volunteers by this post: I think it goes without saying that city life is often closer in diet diversity, amenities and access to the world than village life is, and therefore inherently more comfortable than a village setting. However, after being blessed with all these niceties, I can also safely say that life as a city volunteer is not much “easier” than village life, but different. Both are the hardest job you’ll ever love, but both come with a unique and sometimes unpredictable set of difficulties that can lead to much animosity between the village and city volunteers over who has it harder. But honestly, who does have it harder?

… I’ll leave you in suspense until the very end of this post.

Now let’s talk about that wonderful place of English, communal living, freedom from cultural norms and free internet: The regional house. The regional house is the escape from site/work/communication resource. This is where most volunteers go when they want to skype with their friends and family, fill out reports, supplement their diet, take a break from site to relax, and have a day or two to get clarity before diving back into village life. In Mali, that is exactly what I used it as. I spent 3-4 weeks at site at a time for my first few months in Mali, expecting that in the future the more likely and reasonable stints for my sanity and work would be closer to 2-3 weeks. When I made it to my regional capital, I had escaped. I hung inside, played around on my computer, ate and drank to my heart’s content, before heading back to site a few days later. Now, with that same distraction only a five minute bike away, the nature has changed. Instead of it being a once/twice a month luxury and escape, I am there much more regularly, but more as a tourist than as a resident. I am there regularly, but more often than not I am there to do work for a few hours before returning to my home.

Instead of Kédougou existing as an escape like San was, it is inextricably linked to my life in more ways than I prefer. Unlike before, when I was able to lay aside some of my inhibitions and not have to constantly look over my back to see if somebody was watching what I was doing, I get no rest. Regional house or not, every moment I spend on the streets of Kédougou (a city by local standards, but still not that big a place in the grand scheme of global cities) I risk running into work partners, family members, or someone who happens to know who I am. I therefore find myself constantly checking my behavior, already knowing from my experience how easily a small social misstep can set you back both in work and social relationships. This usually doesn’t pose much of a problem, but due to the fact that I often find myself spending 5-7 week stints at my site, unlike in Mali, the feeling of constantly being under a microscope can get grating. Like most everything else I’ve noticed, the knowledge that an English break is ever only a 5 minute bike ride away is comforting, but like everything else, it comes at a price.

The nature of work has also changed. Unlike in my village, where I had a more clearly defined role of helping my community-at-large, I now have to find smaller groups within the larger community to work with. Although this gives me a small amount more freedom over whom I can choose to work with, it also increases the number of people looking to take advantage of the Toubab and his money.

In a semi-related note, I’ve also found that it’s a might bit harder forging relationships. There’s just a different mentality in a city than in a village, removing that same sense of community and making it harder to connect to people and prove to them that you’re actually doing something other than sleeping and eating. I used to be able to spend an hour or two most days just walking around my village, walking into people’s gardens and fields, talking with them, watching them work and sometimes pitching in myself once they realized I wasn’t too fragile for manual labor. Here I don’t have the same luxury. Walking around and greeting people and walking into a stranger’s compound isn’t seen as acceptable. At best it’s weird, and at worst it serves as a red-flag for someone looking to take advantage. Just like in a bigger city in the states, the more a population grows, the more impersonal it seems to become. Even in the US it can be difficult to connect with others in big cities, and in those situations tall cultural and language barriers don’t complicate the issue further.

Unfortunately the spike in amenities and drop in ability to connect with your community makes it much easier to become more closed off than you might be in a village. Both the push and pull factors are much more difficult to overcome, making the temptation to wall yourself off in your room and only come out for food is much greater. I found myself struggling much more in Kédougou than I did in Sebanso to go out and just sit around for hours and just spend time with people, both because I found it harder to find someone to sit with, and also because there were much more enticing alternatives to those sitting sessions.

I also feel busier and more productive due to the fact that the increased amenities and hustle and bustle allows me to stretch out more tangible work in one day than I could in brousse. That is not in any way shape or form, however, to say that I do more work than a brousse volunteer. In many ways I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever be able to make the same acute impact that someone in a village of only 200 people can make. My work makes me seem more “busy,” but at times I also feel much more uncertain as to whether anything I’m saying or doing is going to stick in quite the same way that it would if I was working on the ground level with individuals and grassroots organizations, instead of their city equivalents.

In the end, the move from village to city ended up fulfilling many of the same old clichés about life in a small town vs. life in a big city. More impersonal, more people looking to scam you, but on the other hand more things to do, more ways to work, and more modern comforts. In many ways I miss my quiet village existence, but in many ways I don’t. I definitely appreciate everything (work and amenities) I have at my disposal here in Kédougou that required extraordinary feats to acquire in Sebanso, but I’ll also never forget the quiet clarity and simplicity that came with life as a brousse volunteer.

So, back to that age old question of who has it easier?

Well, in my personal opinion, the city volunteer has it easier.

In many ways the life I lead here is closer to the one I led in the states, and therefore requires fewer feats of adaptation than my previous but way to short stint in the PC. The brousse volunteer struggles more with the day to day, but in that struggle can often find a more tangible reward in his work.

I think it’s funny, how different one’s experience can be in the Peace Corps based not only on the country of service, but on the site of service as well. But, in the end, we all struggle to adapt, fight feelings of isolation and failure, and all walk away from the “toughest job we’ll ever love” changed for the better. Regardless of how different our experiences seem on the surface, it’s our shared experiences that matter the most. We talk much more about what we struggle with together as a group than what we struggle with apart, and much like in our relationships with the local population; we try to find the many things that pull us together instead of the few things that set us apart.

For now, I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Everything else is just a detail.