Tranquille quoi and Volunteer

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Dear Family and Friends



I believe I had an idyllic experience last weekend. It was much needed to get me reoriented readjusted to Senegal. Now, the locals have an oft repeated phrase. When asked how their day has been etc, often the response is “tranquille quoi.” Meaning very relaxed. Adding quoi on at the ends of sentences is a popular indicator of the French-Wolof Senegalese accent. The popularity of quoi is even noticeable in wolof where this bastardized French as found its way into the indigenous vocabulary.

Now, when I mean tranquil or relaxed, I do not think that these words do sufficient justice to the new level of cranial inactivity that I achieved over the last weekend. I have been intentionally avoiding touristy things while here; mostly because I was wrestling with my nemesis, the existential crisis. Now that I have temporarily vanquished my eternal foe, having sufficiently bludgeoned him with a crude blunt instrument to stay down for at least a month or so, I feel like I can indulge myself. For those of you who can hearken back to my miniscule geography lesson of St. Louis, there is a river which meets a certain Atlantic ocean. The coast line is an uninterrupted continuous, virtually endless line of white sand beaches that stretch from here all the way to Morocco. An exquisite example of that vast expanse of white sand is the “Langue de Barbary,” which is a large sand bar separating the Senegalese river and the Atlantic. On this particularly beautiful sandy piece of coastal geography there is a very small resort nestled on the sand bar. It is only accessible by boat, which I and some friends took Saturday morning. The boat deposited us on a small dock, where to admire the resort which was a collection of bungalows, a bar, kitchen and restaurant nestled in the balm tree covered sand dunes. The side we arrived on was the river side which was a wide shallow expanse of muddy water sluggishly flowing to the ocean. On the opposite side of the sand dunes was the Atlantic Ocean, where large waves would crash down onto the white deserted beaches. With beer in hand, a djembe, and some herbal remedies I began rapidly unwind. Our small entourage encamped ourselves by this thatched hut which overlooked the waves. With my instruments of relaxation in hands reach I indulged and became one with the beach, sun, sand, and crash of waves.

My accomplishments for last weekend was a) being chemically “relaxed” at all times, b) eating mounds of food, often the scraps of others plates which they could not finish, c) sitting by a camp fire for an unknown amount of time and finally, insuring at objective a) was achieved d) frolicking in the surf and lastly e) building a large sand castle. All in all, paradise does exist and I found it, if only temporarily and alas you have to pay for it.

Now I feel that this small update does not merit a full blog, thus I will try to explain a couple of nuances around the volunteer/tourist industry. Now, I hope most of you have gathered from my blogs that if you do not pay for a preexisting organization to coordinate projects and work for you, you have to find work yourself, volunteer work, just like paradise does exist but you have to pay for it. Fortunately for me I have a good dose of stubbornness stupidity combined with a drop of manic energy that I find things, or organizations to work with. The majority of my x-pat friends that I have made in Senegal are in the Projects Abroad program. Most of these volunteers I have spoken with have all universally mentioned, with the exceptional case of Fallckolm(who is a development consultant), that they feel like they are doing nothing here and are not contributing to anything. I heard this exact story when I arrived, the two Belgian volunteers mentioned this and was ultimately the reason why they left Senegal 4 months early to return back to Belgium.

Now, when these volunteers told me they were unsatisfied with their work because it was dull, unproductive, or nonexistent I full sympathized. Yet something bothered me about this. These kids are paying substantial fees to an organization to hold their hand. The company provides housing with Senegalese families, work, transportation, extracurricular activities, French courses, you name it. All for a hefty price tag. Ultimately what is going on here is that the supply of unskilled, uneducated, inexperienced, naive, young, suburban aspiring philanthropists wanting to play volunteer has outstripped the demand. Thus company likes Project Abroad can charge an arm and a leg price to work for free. Yet these kids are unhappy with the product that they are paying for, which many of them are going into dept for

Lets do a little math here. Its costs upfront this much to go to Senegal, for two weeks is 2,145 once you stay for more than 3 months there is a flat fee of 845 a month. I feel that it is safe to assume that this capitalist voluntourist company is still making a profit on this flat rate. Which means the overhead to have volunteers in Saint-Louis Senegal is not particularly high. Apparently most of the money paid goes to the creation of new Projects Abroad regions. Thus you sell part of your soul to travel half way around the world to virtually sit on your ass. Furthermore even the money is not even going to the region you are volunteering at. I have to say that I have nothing wrong with voluntourism, for the obvious that I am a voluntourist at times myself, but as well that even if I did there is nothing I can do to stop it. However, what I do have issue with is the fact that a profit is being made of off people wanting to help and work for free. Isn’t this absolutely counter to what we are trying to do?

Ok so to play the devils advocate, organizations like Projects Abroad cannot be expected to overcome the main culprit, eg the nefarious monster known as African Time. Now this monster has multiple heads, or maybe similarly scaly skinned relative known as disorganization. It is quite easy to categorize disorganization and time one packaged phenomenon because it is often impossible to tell where the head of one starts and the tail of the other ends. Thus volunteering often ends up with a lot of idle time, from spent waiting for people to show up, or there are too many volunteers for the activity at hand, or sheer disorganization. For example at one particular well organized center for street kids, volunteers spend the majority of their time playing with the kids. A popular game involves volunteers standing on a roof and hurling down rubber balls down at the grinning faces of the Talibe, who if you remember are street children who beg for a living, that find it exceptionally entertaining to be bashed in the face by an inflated rubber ball and will eagerly return to ball to be pelted again. Obviously well money spent.

Yet, I strive for more. Look if we are stupid enough to want to squander our time in a remote tropical hell hole at least the locals should benefit/rip us off. Ideally volunteers should be placed in local organizations, which there are a plethora of. However, because of the nebulous African Time, these organizations struggle to get access to the large reserves of eager volunteers in Western society dieing to work in some squalor and make the world a marginally better place. Organizations like Project Abroad are filling a vacuum but they are not really promoting local development or initiatives. Local NGO’s need to develop the skills to tap into the large reservoir of goodwill, money, and youth that western society has. Volunteers provide for these small organizations much needed funds and labour. (I am currently in the talks with two associations in helping to start up their own volunteer program to potentially compete with Projects Abroad)

Alas, from most of the people that I have talked to, who are virtually unskilled, fresh out of high school, they are often bored. They do not have the skills and experience to help these organizations in more constructive meaningful ways. Almost all the “offices” that I have visited have no computer. A computer, internet, and office management skills would be huge assets to these organizations.

For my next adventure I am going to Dakar. Friday afternoon I have an interview/appointment with the president of the ADHA, an organization that has a Human Rights Internship that I am interested in doing. Also I will hopefully have some touristy updates from visiting Dakar as well.

Life as whole has picked up. I am becoming very busy, which delights me to no end. Each week has gotten better than the last. I hope all is well with you guys, and that the rat race of western society has not gotten to you!

Love Jan

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Photos

Talibe at talibe centre
grand opening of Maison de le gare

Comments

[Mør]

Nice, nice, very nice!
Glad you got some recreation in, are you sure you enjoyed it? Again a fascinating and thought provoking blog.