Dindefelo, Reflections: Part III

11.05.09

Although Daniel stays in a compound with a well-off family, we did not have electricity or running water. It is not something we expected to find there and we managed well without it. The family was, however, able to watch TV or listen to the radio by hooking them up to Daniel’s host brother’s motorcycle. It’s pretty clever. We spent most dinners eating around the bowl outside watching the news on a small (usually black & white) television.

Wednesday night we were eating dinner with the TV on. There was some sort of conference or convention that we saw clips of on the news. Some African (likely Senegalese) religious or political leader was giving a speech (in French) about the millions of Africans who live in misery every day.

“It was just so weird!” Kate said the next morning as we sat on top of the waterfall. “There we were eating dinner around the bowl, watching television hooked up to a motorcycle, listening to this man talk. I mean, what can do people think when they hear that? They must think they’re talking about me.”

And she’s right. It was weird. We were perfectly content with our situation in the village that week. We didn’t lack food. We had enough water to shower. We had rather clean huts. We were living rather comfortably with very little. And yes, the family we stayed with had better-than-average-means. And no, I do not plan on living in Dindefelo or living that way for the rest of my life. Although we were in no way miserable.

Yet that’s what people seem to think when they hear about mud and straw huts with no running water or electricity. But that’s not how it is for the people of the village. Yes, they could do with more vegetables and variation in their diet. Yes, they could do with a clinic, hospital, or even a better poste de santé. Yes, the whole country in general could do with better roads, schools, infrastructure, etc. And Senegal definitely needs to U-Haul it’s entire political system. But no, the villagers don’t see themselves as miserable. They don’t think of themselves as poor Africans who live in misery. And that’s because they’re not.

I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have people think that about me and the way I live, and to have people say that about me and the way I live.

How dehumanizing that must be.