Sunday we went to visit our new friends
Stephanie (aka, Youma) and Pierce. Youma stayed in my host family for
part of the semester after I was here and after a lot of facebook
communication it has been really nice to get to meet her in person.
Getting to their house was our first real Bamako transit adventure
involving a sotrama that did not go where we thought/hoped and an
overpriced taxi, but we made it. Youma is staying with her cousin who
is a high level UN official in Mali in a beautiful house in a
neighborhood of beautiful houses filled by soldiers, ambassadors,
Malian millionaires and others. We ate delicious breakfast and had a
great conversation about politics, aid, Mali, etc. that prompted the
(somewhat disjointed) thoughts of this post.
It is always humbling to remember how
little of the massive amount of information surrounding my immediate
situation I have a grasp on. I am, of course, reminded of this
everyday by the conversations I do not understand in Bambara and the
bazillion little events which seem to make no sense whatsoever. It
can be a little overwhelming to remember that in addition to all of
that, there is an entire superstructure of aid and government
politicking going on that we have no more access to, in our current
position, than most of the Malians we live with. We watch the TV news
every night at my host family's house, but ORTM (the government TV
station) seems to mainly cover the latest great things that ATT (the
president) has handed out to Malian citizens in elaborate ceremonies.
Through her internship and her connections, Youma has the opportunity
to be plugged in to the expat/aid circle and hear what those power
brokers are saying. Mali has elections coming up in 2012, and the UN
in particular appears to be pouring massive amounts of money into
ensuring that those elections are conducted fairly. Apparently in the
last election (which reelected ATT by a substantial majority), people
would show up to the polls and be told “You can check this box
(ATT) and receive 3,000 CFA (about 6 USD) or check where you want and
receive no money.” This sort of behavior is not uncommon for
African elections, but in one of the continent's most successful
democracies, it seems particularly alarming.
As a small digression, our discussion
on the fraudulent elections, the “news” produced by ORTM, police
corruption, and the Malian government officials (mentioned in an
earlier post) who stole 2/3 of a Global Fund malaria eradication
grant had me seriously worried about the quality of my senior thesis,
which discussed the reason's for Mali's relatively successful
democratization compared with it's long suffering neighbor, Niger. Is
Mali a success at all? The at once sobering and hopeful truth is that
success is relative and so, compared to its neighbors, Mali is
successful. There is graft, grinding poverty, electoral misconduct,
and a HUGE variety of other problems. After all, this is one of the
poorest countries on earth. But it is possible for Malians to access
independent sources of information, and they can be fairly sure
(inchallah, inchallah, inchallah) that their next election will not
be followed by a military coup. The Malians we know will in the same
breath lament corruption and express their pride in the stability of
their government, which seems to me as good an assessment as any of
the situation.
Back to our discussion with Stephanie
and Pierce, we also talked a lot about the difficulty of trying to
find the source of Mali's many problems. Stephanie pointed out that
while studying in Mali with SIT it is quite popular to hate on expats
and aid organizations, blaming their disconnect from Malians and
their faulty and patronizing practices for Mali's situation. This, of
course, ignores the role of greedy and corrupt Malian politicians who
steal from the people, and situations like the oft cited example of a
parent who refuses to pay 500 CFA (approximately 1 dollar) for a
vaccine and then states that it was God's will that the child died.
As with anything, the answer is that it is complicated. Corrupt
Malians (or for that matter aid organizations) reduce the flow of
much needed support into the country, organizations “build
capacity” in the Malian government while at the same time providing
the basic services that we would hope a government would provide.
Malian parents who don't buy vaccines care deeply about their
children, and their insistence on the will of God is not some
irreversibly “backward” cultural practice (as some people are
quick to suggest), but a context created phenomenon. All of these
factors interacting is enough to make a person's head hurt, a lot. I
come back over and over again to that idea of context because (as we
discussed so often in some of my best classes in Claremont) culture
is not ahistorical and neither is aid, or Malian politics, or UN
politics or any of the other factors at play here. All we can do is
try to take in as much information as possible, form and re-form our
conclusions, and be wary of anything that seems too cut and dry.
This whole discussion also had me
thinking about our own personal decision about our 6 months in Mali.
We are, by our choice of neighborhood and most of our friends,
largely unplugged from the discussions of the big power brokers and,
it must be said, the fun of the expat community's life. Talk of
billions of dollars and programs developed over decades makes our
effort seem impossibly small. However, I remain satisfied with the
choice for a few reasons. First, the Mali I missed so much while I
was gone was this corner and the people in it. To be back in Bamako
but far from them would seem silly. Though I do not think expats are
evil, I think that they are generally quite disconnected from the
people of this country, which is a shame. Second, I still believe
that it is Malians themselves who will have to find the solutions for
the problems facing their country and that this will have to happen
one neighborhood at a time. Trying to work this out means making a
lot of personal judgement calls, straining personal relationships,
and working with very little resources or in-country support, but it
means keeping things personal and in the neighborhood, which does
seem to be the Malian way. Finally, I think this is where we can do
the most good. I do not have the expertise or the experience (yet) to
work at any kind of high level in the aid world, nor do I have a lot
of resources at my disposal. I do, however know some Bambara, and a
lot of people who I think are smart and driven and capable of doing
something for their neighborhood. Which to me is, still, the best
place to start.
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