bits and pieces of thought

Letter to a friend: "yeah, I've been having trouble expressing things in writing. But here goes nothing: I am in a Muslim village of 3000 people, 24km from very slow internet, a 1km walk to water that isnt cloudy, a 30 second walk to the mosque. Nextdoor is a teacher at the elementary school who makes 40 dollars a month and has 10 kids. An orphan girl helps me do laundry and I send her to school and pay for her food. In a district of 6000 inhabitants, 27 students are currently in 9th grade, of which only 10 are girls, and only 2 of the girls are from my village of 3000. Many boys are sent to Koranic school or French-Arabic school instead of catholic or state-run Middle school. My community counterpart is great, he was born in Ghana, and worked in Nigeria, we have fascinating and unexpectedly eccentric conversations. Most men have over 10 kids. Often the kids must leave school due to lack of funds or marriage or pregnancy, only to find small-scale farming as the only means to subsist, so they often go to labor-hungry Nigeria to work in the fields in hopes of bringing back money for a new tin roof on the parents' house or a chinese motorcycle. Those who go to Nigeria cannot go on roads where they might be seen by police, so they go through the bush where they encounter packs of dogs and even some lions, though deforestation and poaching have taken care of most of the lions. There is also human trafficking: the family with 10 or 20 kids has a leaky roof, or finds itself without food at the end of the dry season, or in debt, and a man comes by furtively to see if they might want to send a child to Nigeria in exchange for money, and what happens to the child? Also, due to rapid population growth and lack of access to national and international markets, aswell as poor access (24km on a difficultly passable dirt road) to existing markets for the harvested crops such as corn and soy, folks cannot afford fertilizer or leave their land fallow and the soil is less and less productive. Forest land is often cleared by burning in order to plant yams or other crops. These environmental consequences of the lack of balance between man and nature are where I come in. So as it seemed that high birth rates and unwanted pregnancies that halt education were the principal reasons for many of these issues, I have been teaching classes at the middle school on the connection between population growth and the environment IE: deforestation/ desertification, the productivity of the land, and by extension the amount of money in peoples pockets since every last person is a farmer, even the teachers. But damn, when I am in village life is great, and there is alot of hope, this is why I have troublewriting, if I rattle off the issues of the village it seems so grave,we laugh alot, and give gifts of food, drink, and I come to see the women have their babies weighed and vaccinated, we laugh at my bad local language skills but get through the salutation unscathed. Life is great but it isn't, 5 men in their 20s asked me if I could help them get to America while I was coming to the cybercafé. As my counterpart says, "the devil finds work for the idle man." Despite all this the students at the middle school still want to have many children as the man with many children is revered. " Another letter to a friend: "If I haven't been posting plentiful paragraphs about life and times in rural Africa, it has been due to not knowing where to start. As my impressions change from day to day as to what or who are the true factors and actors at work in African development, I write anticipating a new revelation that will render the past ones silly or naïve. But I guess it is naïve to think that I could come to a grand conclusion about such a complexe situation. And my other worry is that anything I say will be taken out of context, a thought from a moment of despair clouding the thought of great hope and joy. But here are a couple leads on development: Last week, In the space of 24 hours 3 people told me how they had planted a hectar or more of fruit trees only to find the trees burned by folks jealous of the enterprise. Later I talked to 3 high ranking individuals in the community and all said that indeed jealousy is the biggest obstacle for development in Africa. -The first, in the presence of elders, said that while he agreed, the phenomenon is not refered to as jealousy but as witchcraft. -the second said that personal initiative is completely blocked in Africa, that the moment you begin to "evolve" a bit past the others not only will people attempt to destroy your project, but they will first try to KILL you. In addition, this interviewee said that the affirmation of truth is also completely blocked in Africa. People dont like to hear anything that could be perceived as a reproach, so having good ideas is deemed bad and authority is never questioned. -the third agreed but added that in communities with multiple ethnicities there is a level of respect, while in ethnicly homogenous communities it is felt that when someone from your same blood surpasses you, you must be lacking...He also said that in Africa it is very easy to destroy things and very hard to construct things. All this might be exagerated or much more tied into witchcraft but this is what people said. The other revelation was about population growth, one man in my village has 34 children. It seems to me that a main source of poverty (financial/ environmental/ nutritional/ educational/ health) is simply having too many kids. I also think that the quickest route to development is through education of youth, but school seems like a deadend to many especially when middle school tuition is 30 USD for one year and the nearest high school is 24 km away and has 100 students in every classroom already, many of whom have never met someone who was actually all that better off thanks to education. The farmer who cant afford fertilizer has a hard time justifying why he should send his daughter to school when she will soon become pregnant anyway, better to marry her off now and use the money for fertilizer. But here I am again, things are that bad but they aren't, there are many incredible people in the communities that are working very hard for development in their communities, infact the majority is like that, but when all the issues above are thown at you at once what can you do? Lada Sourou, have patience... I have to say again that life is moving along despite all this, I have said alot here but what you should retain is that I will go to village and eat and laugh and pray and discuss, and life moves along like a meandering river, it isnt everything that I have said above at once, it is slower than that, happier and more beautiful. "