In the past Cotton was a source of cash for families in my area but with the fall in the sale price of raw cotton and the costliness of fertlizers and pesticides, cashew production is looking like a better source of cash income, the 100 kilo sack of raw cashews currently selling at almost 50 US$.
What is more, cashew apples, as seen in the adjacent photo, can be rather easily transformed into juice, chutney, jam, wine and liquor. For the moment some of the apples are eaten by children but many just rot in the field, becoming unused bi-products of cashew nut production. We're attemping to change that.
Another notable way folks are finding important sums of cash income to help out their families is through emigration to Nigeria, Ghana, the US, Europe, or elsewhere abroad.
Kofi Annan on migration to the developed world:
"the evidence on migration’s potential benefits is mounting. With their remittances reaching an estimated 167 billion dollars last year [2005], the amount of money migrants from the developing world send back to their families exceeds the total of all international aid combined. And money is far from being the whole story. Migrants also use their skills and know-how to transfer technology, capital, and institutional knowledge. They inspire new ways of thinking about social and political issues. They form a dynamic human link between cultures, economies, and societies. As a result, we are better positioned than ever to confront the challenges of migration, and seize its opportunities.” ADDRESS TO THE HIGH-LEVEL DIALOGUE OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, NEW YORK, 14 SEPTEMBER 2006.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Monday, February 04, 2008
thoughts on my francophonie
My interest in Africa was born out of my thirst to learn the French language and discover all of the countries in which that language would allow me to communicate, known as la francophonie. That interest in Africa has now grown and eclipsed my interest in the French language and in la francophonie, for reasons that I will discuss here, but I thought that the "francophone situation" in Togo deserved a blog entry.
Why was I first interested in the French language? It was because French allowed me to take part in another culture and exist in the medium of that culture. Well, French only allows me to take part in Togolese culture to a limited, but sometimes suprisingly great, extent. When you speak French in Togo you aren't speaking French as much as you are speaking, what is and what is perceived as, a "white" language. So when you speak French in Togo you don't really get the feeling that you are participating in someone else's culture, rather you may feel that you are just grazing the surface of their culture incapable of fully participating or worse reinforcing French culture at the expense of the local culture. Those facts do not fuel my enthousiasm about the French language, or my ability to speak it, that I have when elsewhere in the francophonie. On the other hand, you are, I fave found, highly regarded by Togolese who have attended school if you speak a French well.
Senegalese writer Boubacar Boris Diop describes la francophonie so well when he says that it is divided into two parts, the areas where it is imposed and is not the language of hearts or minds, and the areas where it is the native language of the inhabitants. That division weighs heavily on my perception of la francophonie now, not because it is bad to impose a language on others, afterall the major european languages like French were only regional languages until being imposed on whole countries, but because a language is really interesting to learn when, as I have said, it allows you to truly participate in another culture, and a language can only do that if it is the language in which that culture dreams and thinks and feels...so bring on Hausa and Kotokoli and Ewe and Tchamba and Ani...the local languages that surround me...languages that inhabit the hearts of the people I live with in Togo.
Maybe one day French will become the language of the hearts of the Togolese, like spanish seems to have done in Latino America and afterall my ancestors surely didn't have English flowing in their vains as I do, but I think a majority of Togolese would say that French will never be the language of their hearts and minds. What is interesting is that when Togolese or Francophone Africans travel away from areas where their native languages are spoken, French quickly sounds much more like the language of their hearts. I believe this is because when they travel away and speak French, they are just trying to transmit their feelings as sincerely and accurately as possible in the language that can be understood. If they were to speak French in their native languages' areas of dominance that would not be the case, they would be speaking their second or third or fourth language, IE French, and thus their words would not be as sincere or as accurate as they could be if their words had been spoken in the languages that their hearts and minds operate in. Outside the areas of dominance of their native languages, French becomes the most sincere and accurate way available for "francophone Africans" to make themselves understood.
La Francophonie is still interesting and French is still an important language to learn, as was proven to me last evening as I translated between two Senegalese and a Ghanean customs officer, but la francophonie and the French language aren't as rich as I had thought them before...
2006-2008 has been an period of change for the Francophonie, in France Jacques Chirac, a mainstay of the old school Françafrique leaders influenced by Jacques Foccart, has left power. In Africa, the African intellectuals that brought French Africa into independence are quickly passing away, both Ousmane Sembène and Aimé Césaire have been buried, and Léopold Sédar Senghor preceded them by a few years in 2001. A few old school Françafrique leaders remain in power however, among them Omar Bongo and Paul Biya. It is also worth noting that Radio France International, a key entry point of France in Africa, expanded its FM coverage in Togo during the period 2006-2008. I am a die-hard listener of RFI and I am not proposing that it has a negative effect but one can be aware of its influence in Africa.
Why was I first interested in the French language? It was because French allowed me to take part in another culture and exist in the medium of that culture. Well, French only allows me to take part in Togolese culture to a limited, but sometimes suprisingly great, extent. When you speak French in Togo you aren't speaking French as much as you are speaking, what is and what is perceived as, a "white" language. So when you speak French in Togo you don't really get the feeling that you are participating in someone else's culture, rather you may feel that you are just grazing the surface of their culture incapable of fully participating or worse reinforcing French culture at the expense of the local culture. Those facts do not fuel my enthousiasm about the French language, or my ability to speak it, that I have when elsewhere in the francophonie. On the other hand, you are, I fave found, highly regarded by Togolese who have attended school if you speak a French well.
Senegalese writer Boubacar Boris Diop describes la francophonie so well when he says that it is divided into two parts, the areas where it is imposed and is not the language of hearts or minds, and the areas where it is the native language of the inhabitants. That division weighs heavily on my perception of la francophonie now, not because it is bad to impose a language on others, afterall the major european languages like French were only regional languages until being imposed on whole countries, but because a language is really interesting to learn when, as I have said, it allows you to truly participate in another culture, and a language can only do that if it is the language in which that culture dreams and thinks and feels...so bring on Hausa and Kotokoli and Ewe and Tchamba and Ani...the local languages that surround me...languages that inhabit the hearts of the people I live with in Togo.
Maybe one day French will become the language of the hearts of the Togolese, like spanish seems to have done in Latino America and afterall my ancestors surely didn't have English flowing in their vains as I do, but I think a majority of Togolese would say that French will never be the language of their hearts and minds. What is interesting is that when Togolese or Francophone Africans travel away from areas where their native languages are spoken, French quickly sounds much more like the language of their hearts. I believe this is because when they travel away and speak French, they are just trying to transmit their feelings as sincerely and accurately as possible in the language that can be understood. If they were to speak French in their native languages' areas of dominance that would not be the case, they would be speaking their second or third or fourth language, IE French, and thus their words would not be as sincere or as accurate as they could be if their words had been spoken in the languages that their hearts and minds operate in. Outside the areas of dominance of their native languages, French becomes the most sincere and accurate way available for "francophone Africans" to make themselves understood.
La Francophonie is still interesting and French is still an important language to learn, as was proven to me last evening as I translated between two Senegalese and a Ghanean customs officer, but la francophonie and the French language aren't as rich as I had thought them before...
2006-2008 has been an period of change for the Francophonie, in France Jacques Chirac, a mainstay of the old school Françafrique leaders influenced by Jacques Foccart, has left power. In Africa, the African intellectuals that brought French Africa into independence are quickly passing away, both Ousmane Sembène and Aimé Césaire have been buried, and Léopold Sédar Senghor preceded them by a few years in 2001. A few old school Françafrique leaders remain in power however, among them Omar Bongo and Paul Biya. It is also worth noting that Radio France International, a key entry point of France in Africa, expanded its FM coverage in Togo during the period 2006-2008. I am a die-hard listener of RFI and I am not proposing that it has a negative effect but one can be aware of its influence in Africa.
Friday, February 01, 2008
How rich the world is! and how poor we are making it.
This man can teach you to read and write arabic. He can teach you the Hausa and Fulani languages. He can introduce you to Muslim paths to enlightenment. He can show you how to be a nomad. He can teach you to laugh more often and be light hearted. He is a wealth of knowledge, life, and love, and everyone in the world is. We will soon become dust again my friends but the world is such a precious and beautiful thing, let us be interested in it! May our interest in it lead us to love it, and may our love for it lead us to care for it.
The big picture agricultural situation (as I understand it) in Africa can be rather simply summarized:
In the past folks burnt patches of land to clear them and farm on them. When any given patch became less fertile it was left fallow for a period of time in order for it to regain its fertility. Population growth has made land more scarce and has shortened or eliminated the fallow periods, thus soil fertility has suffered. Overfarming, or under-fertilization, has been the result of population growth and it has left soils poor, less able to produce good yields, and less able to feed people. Thus, new ways of fertilizing the soil must be invented. There are many very effective economical agroforestry and manure fertilization techniques that have been researched by many an African agronomist. But until now expensive chemical fertilizers have been the 'solution' pushed on African peasants. Soils have become even poorer with the use of chemical fertilizers. Many soils have become dependent on chemical fertilizers in order to obtain even a half decent yield. That expenseive chemical system, which is out of the financial reach of many farmers, is failing. Soils are becoming dangerously poor..........
The big picture agricultural situation (as I understand it) in Africa can be rather simply summarized:
In the past folks burnt patches of land to clear them and farm on them. When any given patch became less fertile it was left fallow for a period of time in order for it to regain its fertility. Population growth has made land more scarce and has shortened or eliminated the fallow periods, thus soil fertility has suffered. Overfarming, or under-fertilization, has been the result of population growth and it has left soils poor, less able to produce good yields, and less able to feed people. Thus, new ways of fertilizing the soil must be invented. There are many very effective economical agroforestry and manure fertilization techniques that have been researched by many an African agronomist. But until now expensive chemical fertilizers have been the 'solution' pushed on African peasants. Soils have become even poorer with the use of chemical fertilizers. Many soils have become dependent on chemical fertilizers in order to obtain even a half decent yield. That expenseive chemical system, which is out of the financial reach of many farmers, is failing. Soils are becoming dangerously poor..........
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