Development

So, there is a huge debate about development that I like to busy my brain with. First of all, it should be known that ‘development’ might as well mean ‘westernization’, and westernization is everything from cell phones and computers to box-shaped houses, speaking French/English, and wearing t-shirts.
Second of all, it’s coming. The western world is quickly coming to Africa. In fact, you can see the difference every year. Apparently a year ago there weren’t cell phones in Boukoumbé, and the electricity only worked for a few hours every night. Now there is a fairly bad cell phone system here that is about to get replaced by another, even better one, and the electricity never goes out more then once a day, and not for more then a few minutes at a time… also, there are water faucets at many homes around town, and even sinks, though I don’t know how long ago the water system was installed. The water here is even clean enough to drink from the faucet though. This is because it comes straight from the water table. Who knows what will have developed after these next 2 years… hopefully at least my French will. Development in general is happening quickly though.
The other thing about development is that there is no stopping it. We’ve already shown these people the world. They see movies, they hear our music, they know how great the western world must be. Also, you have to remember the contact these people have… the contact with people like me. Here I am with my laptop and my digital camera that can show the pictures it just took, and my iPod that is smaller then a cd but can store 5,000 times more music… even my glasses are a sign of how great the western world is. Because of this they want these things too… I can’t say I blame them either…
The grass is always greener on the other side though. They don’t see how tied down, how addicted westerners are to their worlds. We can’t survive without it anymore, and we always need more… and they can’t see what it costs us… many of us slave away at a desk everyday, slaves to our credit card bills, mortgages, student loans, all paying for things that are western world told us we had to have. We spend our lives playing catch-up, don’t we? It’s a game, isn’t it? A risky one, a game where you are always teetering on the edge, but without that game we couldn’t have those things, those things that we so desperately need.
These people don’t see that. They don’t know what beautiful freedom they actually have. Freedom doesn’t seem like a fair word for it because these people do have to do 4 or 5 things at once to get by, but they do get by, and what bills they have are the electric and water bills at most. Plus, I can’t tell you how wonderful it must feel to pay those few bills and buy the food for the family and then still have money left over… free money… money that you can use to by a chicken with, money you could by a radio with… uncommitted money! Even if it’s just enough to buy each kid a piece of candy, it’s still free money! It’s that feeling of being ahead… I think the quote from the movie Blow embodies it best, “This is the way it goes; sometimes your flush and sometimes your bust, and when you’re up it’s never as good as it seems and when your down it never seems like your gonna be up again, but life goes on. Money isn’t real (George), it doesn’t matter.” … but I think the Beninese feel this more, because how often are we, with our thousands of dollars of bills, ever ‘flush’? Let me put it this way, most people I know at home would really celebrate if they were flush… and of course they would then charge the celebration to their favorite credit card. Heh. C’est la vie… la-bas (over there).
Another quote I like comes from Edward Abbey’s book The Monkey Wrench Gang, “When there’s nothing left to loose what’s there to worry about?”…but I think you got the idea already.
Anyway, back the issue of development:
The point of all of that was that they see our lives, the good things, and they want to be westernized.
But what about the culture here… their culture? They think ours is so wonderful, and it is, but theirs is so beautifully unique! We as westerners strive so hard to be original and different from one another (and yet we are all still, and always practically just alike), and here is this completely unique and different culture that wants nothing more then to be just like the rest of us. What do you do? What can you say that might make them see what you see?! And to top all of this off, they want me to help develop the tourism here… which is like leading the little Boukoumbé mouse to the cheese of westernization.
Okay, it’s not as bad as that sounds. There’s another side of it all I haven’t mentioned yet. What if I help them build up their tourism by helping them exploit their own culture… what says that they wouldn’t become proud of their individuality, and therefore feel a need to preserve their culture themselves? That is the point of the ever-so-fragile term ‘ecotourism’ anyway, isn’t it? Besides, the world does want to see Boukoumbé and it’s beautiful culture, and there is nothing wrong with helping them make a little money off of it, especially since it’s only a matter of time… if I didn’t help organize it to where they get some of the profits, then someone else will organize it and make sure that the majority of the money never sees the pockets of Boukoumbé.
There are many more pieces to this puzzle of course… more loopholes where something could go astray, but I won’t get any deeper than this. It’s a tricky subject though. Please, by all means, send me your thoughts on the subject… I would love to have more subject matter to befuddle my little brain with. (email: sarahinafrica@gmail.com)
….So that’s one of my big debates that I’m always mulling over…. I guess there are quite a few of those, actually.
Okay, there is one more thing to think about when mentioning this whole development thing… it’s really an irrelevant thought… but what would have happened if we never brought our ‘development’ and ‘aid’ to them? Yes, they would be even more hungry and poor and sick than they are now, but everyone would be like that and they wouldn’t know that anything else existed. Everyone would be equal in that sense, and there wouldn’t be the inequalities there are now where some people have western things and the rest just dream of them… would everyone be happier? They do say ignorance is bliss. If they hadn’t been told that their lives were hard and miserable in comparison to ours, would they still be miserable? I’m not saying development is wrong…. I’m just saying that there are a lot of interesting things to think about.

To all of you, best of luck. Any comments, thoughts or questions are more then welcome. Once again, my email is sarahinafrica@gmail.com.

Sarah