Mr. Sarkozy in Africa

For anyone interested in the philosophizing about how Africa got where it is and how it could get elsewhere, have a read of the French President's first speech in Africa since his election:

In French:

Allocution de M. Nicolas SARKOZY, Président de la République, pronnoncé à l'Université de Dakar.

The speech hits on a number of fascinating subjects and even more interestingly many of Sarkozy's ideas and judgements seem somewhat philosophically scandalous, but scandalous doesn't mean wrong.

Here is a taste of the speech:

"What is tragic about Africa is that Africans haven't entered enough into the course of history. The African peasant who, for thousands of years, has lived according to the seasons, whose ideal is to be in harmony with nature, that peasant only knows the eternal cycle of time cadenced by an endless repetition of the same gestures and words.

In his imagination, where everything is cyclical, there is no room for the human adventure or for the idea of progress.

In that universe where nature controls everything, one sidesteps the anguish that torments the modern man, and our peasant remains immobile at the center of an unchanging order where everything seems prewritten.

In that system man never launches off into the future. The idea never comes to him to break out of his repetition and invent his own future."

Original In French:

Le drame de l'Afrique, c'est que l'homme africain n'est pas assez entré dans l'histoire. Le paysan africain, qui depuis des millénaires, vit avec les saisons, dont l'idéal de vie est d'être en harmonie avec la nature, ne connaît que l'éternel recommencement du temps rythmé par la répétition sans fin des mêmes gestes et des mêmes paroles.

Dans cet imaginaire où tout recommence toujours, il n'y a de place ni pour l'aventure humaine, ni pour l'idée de progrès.

Dans cet univers où la nature commande tout, l'homme échappe à l'angoisse de l'histoire qui tenaille l'homme moderne mais l'homme reste immobile au milieu d'un ordre immuable où tout semble être écrit d'avance.

Jamais l'homme ne s'élance vers l'avenir. Jamais il ne lui vient à l'idée de sortir de la répétition pour s'inventer un destin.

Neighbors Habilou and Missiliou

Neighbors Habilou (right) and Missiliou (left)
Originally uploaded by parisdelhi

Opposite my house are a family of neighbors who have added alot of laughter and smiles to village life. Missiliou, on the left, will begin elementary school next year, though just the thought of that makes us chuckle given his troublemaker ways... I don't know how Habilou, on the right, will make it through days without the big brother, maybe he will adopt the responsibilities incumbent on him as the big brother of a 6 month old sister named Rashida.

The three children and their parents, whose house and courtyard you see in the photo, have become my closest village family. We feel a bit bonded being all on the fringe of village culture, myself going to mosque but still hopelessly fringe, the wife being a non-Muslim and non-native of the village, and the husband not going to mosque married to a non-Muslim non-native... Even more fringe, unlike most husbands, this one accompanies his wife to the bush to cut and carry fire wood, but in order to avoid ridicule he carries the wood only while out of sight of fellow villagers and then has his wife carry it when they arrive back amongst the village houses...

How to explain where we're at or the birth of sorcery

The last couple blog entries, that I have partially taken down, were born of conversations with Togolese friends in which those friends attempted to explain how Togo and Africa came to find themselves in their current situation. I myself was and am confused but here is what I have come up with after further reflection:

As a professor told my training group a year ago, sorcery and magic are nearly always very sincere attempts to rationalize and explain the world. I believe that Togolese, as well as the Beninese and Nigerians that I have talked with, often blame the unexplainable difficulties that they encounter on jealousy and sorcery. Though I don't believe these explanations, I know that nearly all Togolese believe them and their belief in them does have concrete consequences.

I sat last evening with a friend in village and quoted what another African had told me, that "Africans are like crabs in a bucket, if one tries to climb out the others will yank him down to the bottom of the bucket." I asked him if he thought this was true and he immediately said that that was precisely what was holding back the village, jealousy and sorcery. As I looked for concrete examples, my friend couldn't give me any. He told a story of his cashew orchard getting burnt down even after he had cut the grass to protect it from fire. Other examples followed but they all sounded like UFO sighting stories, no real proof. So to conclude quickly, I will say that it seems as if Africans often blame each other for their difficulties, calling it jealousy and sorcery among other things and though I cannot find any concrete evidence for those arguments, I do see their consequences that come in the form of negative and oppressive social relations. Doing something new or succeeding could attract jealousy and dark magic. A while back the chief told me he couldn't enforce a law because he feared someone would kill him. Kill you with what? Answer: "through witchcraft."

Basketheads

basketheads
Originally uploaded by parisdelhi

Income generating activity: basket weaving. Mr Ségla, on the right, pays his school fees, necessities, and has pocket money left over through his basketweaving activites. He taught the youth and counselors at camp Espoir now we will try to take it back to village...

Inhabitants of Cabin "Les Lions courageux indomptables"

Camp Espoir, organized and funded by a number of NGOs, the US Embassy in Lomé, and the Peace Corps, confirmed my theory about the transformative capacity of "summer camp" type retreats.
It seems to me that the camp's effect on campers is similar to the Peace Corps' effect on Peace Corps volunteers in that it places the campers in a new socio-cultural setting, where certain positive behaviors can be encouraged and less productive behaviors challenged.

Project Idea: Fish ponds

After a year of testing possibilities and learning about community needs, strengths and weaknesses, it seems about time to passer à l'action.

Constructing fish ponds seems a feasable and beneficial initiative:

Pisciculture links:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/AC736E/AC736E01.htm http://cdserver2.ru.ac.za/cd/011120_1/Aqua/SSA/main.htm

I feel like I must first answer the following questions, all of which seem to be recurring ones in my work here:

Why, in all the years of cooperation with government and development agencies, has pisciculture (or other project ideas) not been pursued in the community? If it is a good idea why hasn't it been attempted? Or, if it has been attempted why did it fail? Or of course, if it did succeed where is it?