10 Things America Could Learn From Senegal

Yes that's right there are things we in the west could learn from the third world.  Not everything and not always but surely this time and surely some.  I just got back from a whirlwind 30 day vacation in the states during which I visited family, spent a few days in Yosemtite, ate a ton, and got engaged... among other things.  I'll upload a picture of the ring at the end.  Anyways with all of that plus several really long trips up and down California I've been thinking.  Then again when do I ever stop thinking.  Here's a new slogan for you, "Peace Corps: Two years of feeling really mixed and confused about everything".  But I digress.  During my time I had this same conversation probably about 50 times:

Them: "So how's Africa?"
Me: "It's good."
Them: "What did you learn?"
Me: "The world is really complicated."
Them: "Ah yes... did you see any wild animals?"
Me:  "Monkeys and birds..."
Them: "Excellent!"

Obviously that's an oversimplification but that's how it felt after a while.  In truth I've had some of the most stimulating and insightful conversations of my life this month, but they all seemed to boil down to the same couple of truths: the world is complicated and so are people, and by and large we have no idea how to manage either.  During my final dinner with friends Jason and Jodi Womack we got on this topic and I came to the realization that the art of sustainable success lies in walking the knife's edge between complexity and simplicity.  We can't oversimplify to the detriment of truth, nor can we over complicate at the expense of action.  It's a fine balance and good work comes from the struggle between these truths.  The world is full of conflicting truths.  Think about that the next time you get into a political debate because guess what, the Republicans and Democrats are BOTH right.  Conservatism and Liberalism are both necessary in our world, both bring valid points to the table, and the struggle between them is where the good work gets done.  That is only true however if we recognize it to be so and stop uselessly flinging mud.  Life's about the journey, the struggle, the in-between, not about destinations and absolutes. 

I mentioned my friend Jason Womack.  He's the author of Your Best Just Got Better: Work Smarter, Think Bigger, Make More.  I can't recommend it highly enough.  Truly interesting, insightful and inspiring.  There are lots of people who can tell you how to be more productive at work, but Jason does it in the context of getting what you want out of life not just work. 

I digress once again.  So America.  Tis a strange land.  Very strange indeed.  Being back showed me how so many of the things we take for granted are truly absurd and NOT inherently the ideal or better than the way the rest of the world lives.  We live within the context of our own culture and don't reach the absolute truths of what "Should" be any better than any other culture.  So with that in mind here we are, 10 things America could learn from Senegal (not in any particular order):

1. Greetings:  In Senegal people talk to each other.  I could walk up to any stranger and 9 times out of 10 (probably 99 out of 100 really) they would have a conversation with me, and ask me real questions, if not somewhat standardized, about my family how I'm doing etc...  Try doing that in America.  Try even making eye contact with a stranger for that matter.  So strange. 
2. Family: People here really have an appreciation for family.  It matters.  How many times in America do we toss our family aside because of inconvenience or distance.  Call your mother!
3. Community:  In Senegal it would be absolutely unheard of to not know and communicate or socialize with your neighbors.  Do you really know your neighbors?  And I mean all of them on the block not just the ones on either side of you.  If not why?  Are your differences really that great.  Make the effort. 
4. Child Rearing: They say it takes a village to raise a child... and IT DOES.  I suppose this connects with the previous item but still no excuses.  We are all responsible for the well being of children and for teaching them the norms of our culture.  Get involved in the lives of the children around you, not in an intrusive way, but you know.  Its not just the parents job to take care of them.  Oh and also breast feeding is a normal human need for Christ's sake.  Never make a woman feel uncomfortable for feeding her child no matter where she is.  God knows here they just whip out their breast wherever they are and IT DOESN'T MATTER.  
5. Forgiveness:  On Senegalese holidays everyone walks around asking forgiveness for anything they may have done and forgiving others for offenses to them.  Both ask for forgiveness and forgive more then you think necessary.
6. Generosity:  In Senegal if you start eating something in front of someone you offer it to them, if anyone stops by around meal time you feed them, if someone has problems you help them.  We kind of have this sentiment in America but when was the last time you offered some of your M&M's to the person next to you on the plane/ train/ wherever.  Just be nice and generous, its better then hoarding.
7. Waste:  America is incredibly wasteful.  I bet you'd all take a shorter shower if you had to full that water from a well, or carpool a little more if gas cost $7.00 a gallon (That's the price in Senegal).  Speaking of, it would be unheard of to have everyone drive with only one or even two people in a car here.  Cars get filled up.  Think of how many people go to the same places but take seperate cars.  Not easy to fix but easier once we tell ourselves that that isn't necessarily "Normal" or "Ideal".  Also American food portions are absurd.  We're all getting fat!  We don't need to eat so much just because we can.  
8. Religious Tolerance: Senegalese are by and large pretty religious, but I don't know many that would judge you based on your beliefs.  Islam and Christianity coexist perfectly well here.  If you believe nothing else believe that people are generally good and put that lens in front of your eyes next time before you judge someone else's faith or think that you understand more then you do.  Everyone's just trying to do their best in the context of their unique situation and back ground.  
9. The Siesta: Taking a long lunch break to reinvigorate yourself and socialize with others should be rewarded not punished.  It works great here and makes people happier, healthier, and MORE productive.  When I get home I'm napping every day.   
10. Respect:  Everything on this list is possible because of a general respect for the dignity and worth of other people.  Beyond that though Senegal has an incredible level of respect for age and elders.  In America we do not.  We must realize that the world works in cycles not just linear progress and thus the old are not useless and obsolete but rather the perfect guides to take us into the future.  

Well there you have it.  Go forth now and fix America before I get back.  In truth my biggest reaction to being in America was absolute amazement.  America is incredible and we all have so much to feel thankful for.  As many problems as we have just as much, if not more, just goes right: roads get built, electricity stays on, sewage gets treated, everyone can have an education, everyone gets food, etc.  Of course its far more complicated then that but in this moment I'm grateful. Its hard to feel good about paying taxes when so many of the benefits are unseen and taken for granted.  Let me tell you this though, none of that infrastructure is a given in this world.  It takes money and effort and a pretty well functioning government to maintain.  That's just one side of it though and as I've said its complicated and all my assertions are probably just as wrong as they are right.  In any case food for thought.  I love swinging the pendulum and trying one side and then swinging back and changing my mind.  That's where I am right now.  That and this:

Kinda puts things in perspective.

Cheers!

Garrison

Perspective

When one has gone as long as long as I have without writing a blog post there should be a myriad of things to say, stories to tell, revelations to share and general bloggery to explore... that is unless the one in question has been stuck in a cave with nothing to do but ponder existence or something similarly useless, in which case said person should be kept away from communication apparatuses at all costs lest they infect the general population with a malaise for which no one but a bored cave dweller (or PCV) really has the time.  In the great wisdom of Amtrak however I have a wifi connection right now so here's whats been happening in my cave the last couple of months.  Caution this post may have the following side effects: Malaise, Sentimentality, Ethnocentrism, Boredom, and Dry Mouth (It just wouldn't be a side effects list without dry mouth).

Things have been shifting lately.  When I first got to country I was the scared little American who knew nothing about his job, couldn't speak the language, got screwed over and taken advantage of in the cities, didn't particularly like pushy Senegalese culture and couldn't understand why with all of these wonderful attributes garnered zero respect or authority in his village.  If you look at the day to day its hard to see any improvement whatsoever but lately several experiences have given me the opportunity to step back and look at my overall progress.

1. Getting Shot.  Now that got your attention didn't it.  Ok well not shot exactly in the stereotypical sense with blood and injury and whatnot but shot in the sense of something that came out of a gun contacting with me...  Here's how it all went down.  There have been a lot of Belgians hunting birds in my village lately.  Being tourists they don't know what they're doing, don't follow any cultural protocols and are just generally assholes.  One guy thought he was out in the middle of the bush and didn't seem to realize he was right next to a community garden and a village.  It was just a nuisance at first, but he kept getting closer and closer and the women got angrier and angrier and then suddenly bird shot started raining down on top of us.  I got hit in the hand.  It almost left a mark.  This meant war.  I dropped what I was doing, stormed out and proceeded to curse out Mr. Belgian hunter man in my incredibly horrible french which was probably more of an insult then the actual words I used.  Luckily his guide spoke Serere so I was able to redeem myself by properly insulting them both in my now excellent Serere.  It was a proud moment.  When I got back to the garden the women all laughed and asked if I hit him.  The story spread like wildfire, how I had defended the village against the stupid toubab and how it showed that I was really a part of the village. 

2. NGO Ignorance.  My host dad works for an NGO that hosts French students as interns every year and this year the guy was a little... stupid... Ok thats kinda harsh, but I spent some time discussing Senegal with him and lets just say I didn't appreciate his views.  Now I admit I have said some bad things about Senegal, Senegalese people, Peace Corps, you name it, but I've done this in the way you would do it to a family member.  You know honest, cruel, and from a place of love and respect.  This guy who had only been in Senegal for a month was criticizing it left and right and I found myself vehemently defending the people here out of both out of a respect for the culture and a healthy amount of American pride and general contrariness to French arrogance.  The moral of the story is don't mess with MY Senegal.

3. COS Conference.  For those of you not accustomed to PC acronyms COS = Close of Service.   Yes due to some shifting around of things we had ours this month.  AHHHH!!!!! Sorry that's been happening a lot lately for some reason... Yes my training group all came together to write our resumes, talk about job possibilities, and learn how to cope when all of you lovely well meaning people inevitably stop being interested in our stories and experiences.  Aside from some freaking out over the prospect of going home it was fun.  Peace Corps Service for better or for worse starts to look pretty successful in resume format.  For example by the end of my service I will have helped to plant over 30,000 trees. What does that mean?  Nothing out of context but it looks good on paper :-).

4. Adoption.  For a long time my host family has been trying to convince me to bring home one of the kids to America.  I always joked back saying I could put them in my suitcase and whatnot.  Always joking, never serious...  Don't worry I didn't bring home a child in my suitcase, but for the first time I actually want to.  It's never going to happen but if I could adopt my two little host cousins, Moodu and Fatou, I would.  In a heartbeat.  I never thought I would be one of THOSE volunteers.  You know the obnoxious ones who are just a little too dedicated and integrated and take things a little too far... oops...

5. America.  As I write this I'm riding a train heading up to Chico, CA for some much needed vacation time.  This is vacation number two of my service and its absolutely amazing to me how different they feel.  Before vacation last year I was counting down the days until I could leave, wanting nothing more then to get out of Senegal.  This time I wanted to push back vacation to get more work done and immediately started missing the hustle and bustle of 3rd world life now that I'm back in meticulously organized and clean America.  It is nice to be back certainly, but I get the feeling I don't quite fit in here anymore.  I'm still incredibly jet lagged, but stay tuned for a post about my reflections on America once I'm more settled here.

Nothing too profound from my cave this time, just a few clearer interpretations of the shadows on the walls. Maybe if I keep going deeper I'll come out the other side someday... but then how do you ever really know whats real and whats just another cave... man... deep...

Cheers,
Garrison

P.S. I don't know about the other side effects but a glass of water should take care of that dry mouth :-p

Poop!

Poop: An enclosed superstructure at the stern of a ship... Oh how I wish I was serving in a country where that definition was the focus of this post, but that is neither here nor there.  No let's look at google's number two definition (oddly appropriate): Excrement.  Hehe :-).   Yes since the time of the dinosaurs poop has been funny.  George Carlin has a wonderful rant about it, and Peace Corps volunteers will often bring it up as part of dinner conversation or quite literally show you a sample that they're about to send to the Med Office.  We lead strange lives here.  Yes we can all agree that poop is very very funny. 

Unfortunately the poop in this post is no laughing matter.  I'm talking about poop out in the fields, poop outside your front door, poop on the bottom of shoes, on ropes, on animals and eventually in the human digestive system where it causes all sorts of problems most of which lead to more poop!  This is what happens when you live in a village where only 30% of the population uses latrines.  Where do they poop you may ask?  Refer to sentence number 2 of this paragraph.  In case you didn't get that, they poop everywhere, and animals end up dragging themselves and ropes through it... they aren't pooping on animals directly... although you probably got that already.  They don't mean to eat it either it just kinda gets on hands and.. ok right you get it, moving on. (I've been watching too much West Wing lately so I'm emulating Aaron Sorkin's comedic timing... or at least attempting to.  What's next?)

I just so happen to live in said village and it's about time I did something about it.  Now lest you think I'm trying to be the big bad westerner changing native culture when its not really necessary let me explain my motives.  I'm not doing this because I want to.  I don't want to in fact, its a heck of a lot of work and I really have other things I'd much rather be working on... hmmm that makes me sound heartless.  I just mean that while I love dealing with other people's sh... stuff, I have quite enough of my own right now.  The fact of the matter is, my village has been asking for this project and trying to get it done for 6 years.  They're the driving force behind it, I'm just the facilitator.

So what is the project you may ask?  Well I considered lessening the food intake of the village by burning down the gardens and thus reducing defecation, but something said that conflicted with my Ag sector work so let's move on to solution #2.  We want to build 62 latrines in my and a neighboring village to get universal coverage for the entire population.  Is that really so much to ask?  They just want a place to poop.  No gold toilets, no toilets at all for that matter, just a functioning brick lined latrine with a hole in the cover and a PVC pipe for insulation.  Most people in America wouldn't even consider that a latrine, but stick up a few meters of millet stalk fencing around it for privacy and it gets the job done.  And that job is important.  This is about more than dignity, this is about health and wellness.  With a place to poop, and almost more importantly a kettle and bar of soap for afterward, comes a general lessening of poopy bacteria spread out across the village.  That means fewer instances of diarrhel diseases, especially among children who can die from them, and a much lower chance of outbreaks of the really bad diseases like cholera.  Poop's funny, cholera isn't. 

Is a brick lined latrine really better?  Yes.  The bacteria is contained out of the general food chain and all the poop eventually breaks down.  They are slightly elevated to avoid flooding and have mosquito netting over the vent and a removable plug for the hole to prevent flies and mosquito from going in and out and spreading disease as they do.   It ain't glamorous by any means but its better than open defecation. 

Now that you're thoroughly disgusted and eager to help let my tell you how you can!  I have written a Peace Corps partnership grant which is essentially a grant that Peace Corps administers but that folks back home have to fund.  The total is a little over $7,000, which is actually pretty reasonable for 62 latrines, and I need all the help I can get.  I can be flippant and crack jokes on here but I really do appreciate everyone who reads and I feel a tremendous guilt for asking you all so many times for money.  There are a multitude of worthy charities in the world today and everyone is going through hard times, but if there's anything you can spare these folks really need it.  It doesn't have to be a lot.  If 1,400 give five bucks we're there.  If a few people give a little more we're there faster.  I'm young and a lot of you reading this are my friends just out of college.  Don't give more than you can, but if you can go without the Starbucks for a few days I'd really appreciate it.  I mean come on I'm going without Starbucks for two years!  That's a lie I have a pile of Starbucks Via packets in my hut courtesy of all your lovely care packages.  By the way as much as I love you all giving the USPS 50 bucks a pop for care packages I will be just fine without them.  Next time you feel the urge to give me something delicious, donate that money to the project.  Believe me you're still helping to make my food in village a little less shitty ;-).  Thank you all so much.  Here's the link if you're interested, and please pass it on if you can:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-196

Plastic Plastic Everywhere and not a...

Hi Folks.  Your friendly neighborhood Peace Corps volunteer here with a little itty bitty tiny question about just a wee little problem with some plastic...

This is a dump.  In and of itself not so bad, there are lots of dumps in the world.  You see the problem lies in the dump's location... right next to the delta... on a slope... that drains into the mangroves in the rainy season.  In the dry season it does this:

The Sahel gets kind of... windy... and the trash blows oh so beautifully all over fields and then out into the delta.  This is when it isn't just burned that is.  The entire pile is periodically burned and then restarted.  There are small piles of burned plastic all over the area along with aluminum cans, broken glass, and plenty of rotting organic matter as well.  Sigh...

I wish I could say that this is unique, but this is a fairly small site.  The larger cities do the same thing, only they are more efficient at burning it in massive piles that create terrible toxins.  So plastic is kind of a problem here.

This situation is particularly unconscionable here though because the source of all this trash comes from the hotels in Toubacouta.  One hotel is willing to work with us on the problem, the other threw a group of 20 some odd PCV's out on New Years Eve because we weren't the "right" kind of people and didn't speak French.  Don't worry lonely planet has been contacted.  

You're probably thinking that my question is what should I do about this problem.  Sadly no.  There are so many cooks in that kitchen already.  No my question is what do you do when none of the ideal solutions are possible and leaving the problem alone is abhorrent (abhorrent, unconscionable my vocab is on fire today).  At this point in my service I just don't have time to start a massive behavior change program to reduce plastic consumption and the hotels and the population aren't enthusiastic anyways.  The previous volunteer in my site tried a waste management project and the village just stole her materials and used them for other things and then continued littering everywhere and burning everything.  The non ideal solution is plastic incinerators which I've recently been told by several people are in fact much worse then just leaving the plastic where it is.  I've been told the opposite as well.  Everyone has their point of view and their personal priorities and agendas, not least of which the Senegalese people who quite frankly don't give a damn when they aren't food secure or would rather be making tea.  I don't even know if it should be one of my priorities when I could be working on any number of things from pumps, to improved gardening, to health, to Female Genital Cutting, all of which are problems in my village.  I just don't know (someone should go back and count how many times I've said that in blog posts throughout my service).  

Then again if we could start a program that used a somewhat cleaner incinerator (cleaner than burning on the ground) and combined it with composting the organic material and then selling it, we could at least start the process of people putting waste into a system instead of throwing it on the ground and forgetting about it.  That's the first step.  That would be at least something, and something that didn't have plastic flowing into the ocean.  Sure it's a higher impact being put on the world at large to protect this one area, but maybe the delta is worth it.  Of course there are a million problems associated with it and its very possible that I'm just being lazy and I'm too scared to try to do the right thing becuase its hard and I've lost my idealism.  Who knows.  I feel like a trauma surgeon with my patient bleeding out and only a butter knife and a dirty oil rag to fix it.

Plastic plastic everywhere and not a thing to do about it...

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

Shakespeare is brilliant.  Let me explain… no there is too much let me sum up.  The title of this post is a quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and is generally considered to be a nice proverb that makes lots of sense.   It is and it does but lets look at it in context.  There’s more there.

“My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
What day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time;
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. . . .”

- Polonius, Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 86–92

Yes the quote is a lovely idea but in this context Polonius is being anything but brief in his simple task of telling the King and Queen that their son is mad.   Brevity is the soul of wit but in real life, or Shakespeare for that matter, things are more complicated.  Take Peace Corps for example.  Yes this post is still about Peace Corps.   There is something brilliant about the brevity of our services here.  Two years isn’t very much time in the great scheme of things and in a way that ensures that this remains an experience rather than just a job.  Its long enough to dig in and get our hands dirty but short enough that we still have to work quickly and value each holiday, birthday, rainy season, etc… 

Now about that getting our hands dirty thing.  My hands are filthy.   Yes in the end I’ll be able to look back on my service with cathartic nostalgia, mixed with inspirational quotes, remembering forever that short time I lived in West Africa.   In the thick of it though, much like Hamlet, I’m not quite sure what to do and I’m going a little mad… or I’m faking madness to avenge my father… that’s probably not likely though.  I mean for me not Hamlet, but that’s beside the point.  Anyways, I had a dream the other day, and by the other day I mean 6 weeks ago because that’s how often I blog lately, that my service was over and I had to find a way to adjust back to America.  I was terrified, I didn’t want to leave, I didn’t feel like I did enough, and I had no idea how to relate to my own country.  Thanks brain… Gotta love those moments when subconscious thoughts and fears are so blatantly easy to interpret.  Yes these are my thoughts and fears as of late.  I’m trying to set up the rest of my service, write grants, start projects, hang out with friends before they leave, and right in the thick of it have a Family Vacation!

My Mother, Father, Brother and Girlfriend just came for a whirlwind 12-day family vacation to Senegal.  How can you sum up Senegal in 12 days?  In spite of the obvious answer you can’t, I think we did a pretty good job.  There was pick pocketing and culture clash, sheep eating and dancing, gift giving and gratitude, and finally towards the end even some rest and relaxation at the beach.  12 days of every emotion under the sun and the inevitable bitterness of fresh separation once again.  Brevity is the soul of wit.  This trip really was brief, and it was book ended on my side by a lot of work.  It’s almost like it never even happened.  It provided some much needed perspective though and fresh eyes to remind me why all of this is so important.  We can get pretty cynical about helping people here so its nice to have guests come in and remind us that the village standard of living really is bad and they do need help.  The finer points of development theory are important but we can’t get so bogged down in them that we sabotage our potential to actually do the work.  Speaking of work, this vacation also showed me that even after all of my worrying about putting work aside and not getting things done, nothing bad really happened and all my projects are still there right where I left them.  We need vacations, not just to recharge but to break up the stream of events in our lives.  I talk a lot about narratives, did I ever mention that I’m an actor, and in the course of narratives the action can’t just go up and on in one direction forever.  There is an overall arc to my service and that will be what I remember in the end, but for now while I’m living it I need those little wins, those little rises and falls, climaxes and denouements.  It’s what makes the day to day bearable. 

Not that the day to day is ever that bad really.  I recently finished watching Band of Brothers and was reminded how easy my life is.  No one is trying to kill me, I have plenty of food, and ultimately I have control over my life and can leave whenever I want.  Perspective.  Sorry this post has been a long time coming so there are lots of random thoughts I’m trying to work in.  Compared to life in America things here are difficult, compared to wartime it’s easy.  Apples and Oranges really but these things are important to remember when trying to make up excuses to be unhappy. 

After the family left I went straight to the 2012 West African All Volunteer Conference for Peace Corps Volunteers and was given even more perspective.  This was held in Thies and I presented on two projects, rope pumps and mangrove reforestation.  I also had the pleasure of watching several other presentations, which got me thinking about new projects that I could be doing but for which, in reality, I have hardly the time to think.  Yes I’m trying to set up the end of my service and yet I still have no idea what I’m doing or on what I should really be focusing my time.  The only thing for certain is that there isn’t much time: Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. . . .  But at least I’m enthusiastically mad.  Back to village my friends…

Personal Identity: Who am I, what and I doing here, and do I have to list Lamine Seydi on Government forms under “names I’ve used”?

Hello everyone.  I’m trying to get back into the blogging regularly habit so here’s another post!  This actually ties into what I talked about last time, but a little more me focused… because my blog usually isn’t all about me… Humility really is my best quality… humor me!

So last time I talked about rumors, and believe you me there are lots of rumors here.  What I didn’t really touch on though are the rumors that pertain to me.  Don’t get excited yet, I won’t be revealing any dark secrets today.  I’m talking about rumors of who I am and what I’m doing here.  There is an American narrative of what we think Peace Corps is and does, and just like other narratives it is somewhat… well… fake… Chris Hedrick don’t fire me yet, this is going somewhere I promise.   Fake isn’t necessarily bad; in many ways we do things a lot better than would be expected of a volunteer organization, and in some ways we’re worse.  It’s complicated.   That I believe is where the misconception lies.  Life, work, and personal identity here are so much more complicated than anyone realizes.  I talk with friends back home and the first thing they say is invariably, “What you’re doing is so amazing” or “You’re really making a difference in the world” or “You must be having such an amazing time”.  The list goes on.  This I suppose is the essence of the Garrison Harward Peace Corps Narrative.  It’s a rumor and well… its kind of false.  I have saved zero babies since arriving, most of my demos have either failed or fell on deaf ears, and in the long run my projects probably won’t be the tipping point of success and prosperity for my village.  On top of this, as much as I love my family and Senegalese culture… there have been times where I wanted to burn my village to the ground.  No not literally but you get the point. This is a rather cynical view of my role here, but lets face it denial isn’t healthy either.  I am under no pretense that I am saving anyone by being here.  It’s just not true.  

Now before I get a thousand comments boosting my ego and telling me my cynical views aren’t true, I will give myself some credit.  Yes this experience is hard and I’m proud that I’m getting through it and I understand why people identify with and support me.   The disconnect between the support and my own perceptions of my work here are just a little hard to reconcile. 

There’s actually a lot that’s hard to reconcile in terms of personal identity here.  I feel like a juggler, or maybe a master of disguises, or a con artist… In any case I wear a lot of different hats in Senegal and to a certain extent I’m not sure which one is the real me.  In village I’m Lamine Seydi: Peace Corps Volunteer, bringer of strange water pumps, tree sacs, and seed varieties, who kind of speaks Serere, but not quite as well as Adama Junko (the previous volunteer), and who doesn’t really like to sit around and talk, but who works pretty hard and wants to bring us latrines, which is generous, but they could be a lot better, which is just like most of his generousity which is a little stingy.  At least this is how I perceive their perceptions of me… Lamine Seydi is surely a part of my persona but he’s a pretty simplistic version.  I suppose this is why it so nice to be around other Americans.  It isn’t just about being able to speak English or eat American food, its about being able to just be without constantly thinking about forming your identity.  That being said though the Garrison with Peace Corps friends is different than the one around Peace Corps admin, which is different then the one around family etc… Who am I? 

Rumors boil down a lot of complex social dynamics into a sort of average truth.  I said that in the last post and I guess it holds true to me as well.  The rumors about me are true, but they’re simplistic and when so much of my life in Senegal is led with only the most basic transactional understanding of my identity on the part of those around me, its hard to really know who I am.  I believe in the theory of relativity: we (human beings, souls, bunches of molecules, whatever) are constantly changing in reaction to outside forces.  Yes there is a certain essence, which dictates some of how we interact, but essentially we are nothing in and of ourselves without the other.  Call it what you will: religion, philosophy, acting theory, natural law of the universe, the results are the same; being in a very different cultural setting where no one here or at home fully understands me is making me feel a little crazy.  Not that I’m going insane or anything… but my Myers Briggs scores are…

So last week I decided to take the test again, mostly because I was bored and a bunch of people were doing it at the house.  I was surprised to see that my scores had changed quite a bit.  I posted this on facebook and got a myriad of responses from some who have had this happen and others who feel that the core you doesn’t really change and the test may just be the wrong version or reflecting my reactions to stress here.  I don’t know what I believe about nature vs. nurture, or astrology or even Myers Briggs, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’m just not convinced that people stay the same over time.  We create the narrative of our lives, I believe much more deliberately than we realize.  We tell ourselves who we are, what’s important, what we want to be, what’s right and wrong.  Think of it like a building of personal identity with the foundation firmly rooted in our assumptions of culture, family, god etc…  Take away the foundation though (by going to Senegal for example) and build on a couple of strange guest room additions for new personas and the overall structure looks a lot less certain and sturdy than it did before.   I found myself during the test being completely unsure of who I am and what I actually prefer.  So many of those preferences seem situational and completely different out of the context of the United States. 

As a species I am utterly convinced that we are fantastic liars, at least to ourselves.  We end up saying “this is who I am” and believing it when things are probably not so concrete.  Surely Myers Briggs has value, surely there is intrinsic personal identity, but more important, at least for me right now, is the transactional and situational realities of identity.  Who am I with, when, if, etc…

I don’t remember why we were talking about this.    Maybe the overall idea here is once again that the world is really complex and we need to be aware of those complexities rather than putting everything is neat little labeled boxes. 

So time to wrap up this post and put a bow on it… We all wear different hats, each revealing various facets of our being with varying levels of truth.  Youthful crises of identity are plentiful, but perhaps more so in Peace Corps where our foundations are shaken daily by cultural differences, hallucinogenic malaria drugs, and the most shocking thing of all, the naked truth of who we really are at our core.  Lies are quite a bit easier to swallow than that. 

Cheers,

Garrison Harward

P.S. I’ve been assured that in the future I do not have to list Lamine Seydi, as a former name.  The split personality syndrome will come to an end! :-P  

Rumors

Where do you get your information?  Is it fact, hearsay, rumor, blasphemy, primary sources, secondary sources, apparitions from biblical burning shrubbery, and do you even really know the difference?  Dismount!   Thank you I'll take that, here's your tag.  That was all of us getting off our high horses, and checking our assumptions at the door to really think about this.  Don't worry you can ride off into the sunset with any manner of ideological superiority complex you want once we're done.  Now onwards and upwards. 

Living in a small African village with hardly any regular primary sources of information has taught me the power of rumors in a pretty profound way.  Information often passes through many mouths before it reaches Dassilame Serere and as such its pretty hard to determine fact from personal opinion.  As in any other society in the world though this is no hindrance whatsoever to my village's ability to be absolutely certain of what it knows... and this can lead to problems...  For example my host brother Omar recently tried to convince me that Osama Bin Ladin is in fact not dead and is a great learned person... let's digest this a little bit.  On first hearing this I was pretty shocked and more than a little uncharacteristically nationalistic.  We argued back and forth for a while and I ended up getting somewhat frustrated so I stopped the conversation.  Surprisingly what was frustrating wasn't my brothers views.  It was his certainty.   All his arguments were wrong but it essentially boiled down to the fact that someone he trusted told him this so it was true.  In the history of human story telling this is perfectly normal and understandable, but in our modern context of complex world politics its down right scary.  The final straw that ended the conversation was when I asked my brother if he wants Americans to die, because Bin Ladin killed Americans.  He flipped this right back at me though and asked if I want Muslims to die, because George Bush killed lots of Muslims.  Touche Omar, Touche...

As much as I want to say Omar is dumb and I'm smart he's got a point, and maybe here is a positive aspect of rumors;  while they can perpetuate a lot of untruths, they also help to boil down a lot of complex information into a sort of average truth.  Omar's information about Osama Bin Ladin is factually wrong, but its part of a complex social narrative that gets at a lot of the truth of American/ Muslim political and social interactions.  It shows the mistrust many Muslims have for western governments, and their bitterness at what can often seem like a hatred on our part for their faith.  Think of rumors as a kind of social barometer for international/ interfaith/ inter-anything relations.  Listen to the rumors and you can probably tease out the nature of the relationship.  So what do we do about this?  I said earlier that this kind of a rumor is scary and it is.  It shows the true importance of our image as a nation and illustrates just how much of the moral high ground we've lost in this "War on Terror".   Now more than ever we need that moral high ground if we ever hope to rid the world of ignorance and hate.  Those little compromises we make, sacrificing human rights for strategic reasons, or not being as generous as a nation in our situation should be, aren't really little at all; they add to the ongoing narrative that the world creates about us and that narrative is far more pervasive then any "facts" we try to spread .  It's in my little village so there probably aren't many places it isn't. 

This is why Peace Corps is so successful.  I wish I could say that our greatest gift is the work we do, but it isn't.  Our gift to the American people (notice not the countries we serve) is a positive image of the caring, hard-working America that whether true or not is part of our national narrative that we value and want to perpetuate.  I say true or not because once you start thinking in  these terms its really hard to tell where to draw the line.  As a species we tell stories, we speak in metaphor and simile, and regardless of our actual knowledge level we create a certain certainty of the world around us.  It's just not in human nature to humbly step aside and say we don't know; when we don't know we make it up.  Yes how we see the world is story, not fact, and I argue that it probably isn't any more truthful then the stories told in my village.  

Whoooaaahh there buddy, no jumping back up on that high horse yet.   I know this is pretty cynical but its a much healthier view then claiming absolute certainty of the righteousness and moral superiority of our actions.  We simply can't afford to be that nation.  We need to be better than that.  Of course everything in the real world falls in between and things are far too complex to be speaking in these terms. On the other hand look at the political discourse in America and tell me if its more based on fact or narrative.  Most of the time the overall political landscape is far too complex for the average person to take the time to digest and understand, so our news networks tell stories.  They paint the characters as hero's or villains, and create conflicts, climaxes and catharses enough to keep us watching when the true arc of the story is much larger and harder to understand.  The world is complex.  I guess that is the moral of the story.   Many of my blog posts come to that conclusion so it must be true.  We need to be skeptical of the views we hold and the things we call "facts" because in the end most everything is just a rumor to a greater or lesser degree.   But don't take my word for it.  Remember too that I'm telling you a story.  We started out with my brother perpetuating something untrue and I extrapolated that we don't necessarily know any more then him.  Tell a different story and my conclusions could sound like total BS.  Just food for thought.  

Cheers,
Garrison

P.S. Did you guys here that Obama is planning on mining for gold on the moon to solve the economic crisis and the Republicans are against it because it will attract the martian labor unions and their socialist influence!  Just saying :-)