How do you feel about child labor?

I'm going to have to take a stand against child labor despite the obvious complexity of the matter.

Walking around Ouidah, one is confronted at every turn by this issue. Children are at work performing numerous tasks: baby sitting, sweeping, clearing fields, selling food, sewing garments, and repairing cars and motorcycles. Africa has a vibrant "apprentice" system where pre-teens work alongside adults to learn a trade.

Many times, child labor seems unremarkable and innocuous, even if somewhat unusual for a westerner. A 10-year-old girl carrying a baby on her back or a similarly aged boy selling matches and candies in front of his house doesn't raise an eyebrow.

But the youngsters who appear 8-12 years old and who haul water atop their heads to a workshop, change tires on automobiles, or sell acasa as they stroll about town (fermented corn paste--see the picture above) seem to cross the line of acceptability regarding children's rights and protections.

On the face of it, child labor seems abusive in that it steals "childhood" from the boys and girls who work late into the night to earn a living. Scratch the surface a bit and you'll find that some of the apprentices cannot speak French because they haven't been (and won't be going) to school. The lack of formal education will lead to perennial disadvantage in terms of the perks provided by literacy and the language of the state. 

Finally, child laborers effectively displace adults who could be earning a living performing the tasks (perhaps for a higher wage) completed by children. Nobody knows the unemployment and underemployment rates in Benin, but nearly 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and 58 percent of the population is functionally illiterate. 

Conversations with locals will often lead to a defense of child labor, even when it means abandoning formal education and living a life as an illiterate. Thoughtful and intelligent people note that many children do not succeed in school and may not learn anything to help them land a job by struggling through the Beninese education system. They argue that Africa's apprentice system gives individuals an opportunity to earn a living and advance one's station in life. This may be the only hope for some of society's poorest people.

People who defend the apprentice system that employs children charge that opposition to the practice is yet again an instance of the imposition of values from the privileged west. Outsiders coming from a place of opportunity and comfort have difficulty walking in the shoes of a poor African, and they (we) never have to live the consequences resulting from the ethical and legal positions they would impose.

My friend Patrice, himself a poor young man working as a barkeep, defended the apprentice system in simple terms: "Poor kids and their families have no money. The job allows the child to have some money and to eat. Are you going to give the child money to eat?"

Obviously, Patrice's simple scenario ignores the possibility that social and political systems can provide better alternatives to child labor as a response to scarcity. But his perspective does convey a daily, urgent reality faced by thousands of children on the continent.

Thanks for putting me on the spot Patrice. I'm not sure where I stand now on the issue of child labor.

Confounded by Racial Otherness

 At the risk of self-indulgent overdramatization, I spend time every day thinking about what I've come to categorize as "racialized otherness." Any non-black person (and for all I know, even non-African blacks) living in Ouidah will be confronted with this dynamic.

That is, every day when going about their business, non-blacks  in Ouidah are the recipients of the statement, "yovo" ("whitey"). In my lived experience, this term is applied equally to Asians, Europeans, Latin Americans, Anglos, mestizos, and mulattos (amusing sidenote: the term "Chinois"--"Chinese"--is also similarly used).

The term is usually delivered in a schoolyard, sing-song by bouncy children, such as those pictured:

"Yovo, yovo.

Bon soir.

Ça va bién.

Merci."

The chant is ubiquitous and sung even by toddlers barely able to speak or walk. Occasionally, an adult will yell "yovo," from across the road. It's usually accompanied by waving hello and smiling, and if answered with a greeting, the interaction is typically a friendly one.

What to make of this experience? People react differently. 

Some people find it offensive, annoying, rude, and something to be actively discouraged. Others claim it is an innocent greeting that is merely descriptive; nothing to provoke an angry reaction.

I can't say I'm angered by the yovo chant, but neither am I sanguine about its implications. At minimum, it serves to demarcate "us" and "them," which I suppose happens in every social context, though with varying levels of clarity and intensity. It reinscribes a gap day after day that makes living here a little less satisfying. My preferred form of travel is, as the ethnographers say, "going native." That is simply an impossibility.

It has been a useful exercise to try to imagine this scenario from the sender's point of view. Ouidah, population 60,000, is surprisingly isolated and homogeneous, despite its comparative prosperity and proximity to densely populated Cotonou. It has no cinema or newspapers. There is very little advertising or marketing (a breath of fresh air to be honest). There are two local radio stations, though media use seems scant. Seeing a non-black person is simply a break in the monotony of everyday life. 

From the sender's point of view, breaking up daily monotony is a positive. The child chanting "yovo" seems to derive pleasure from both the chant and the returned salutation. It doesn't take much to provoke a dance, smiles, and conversations from the children and adults who call out "yovo." The racialized gap is easy to bridge. And who can remain angry at such adorable taunting?

While I wish I could move about Ouidah in an invisible fashion, I don't despair at standing out. I put myself in the shoes of Brad Pitt, Madonna, and Kobe and try to treat my public with the affection and warmth that I usually feel coming from them.

My Weekly Conversation Partners

 

Well, it's Sunday again, time to head to Ouidah's basilique for mass. I started going to mass with my roommate Julia who is a serious Catholic. I always told her that I was going to church to network and meet people ("Isn't that what it's all about?"). But church is always productive in so many other ways.

I usually wake up on Sundays and browse the "Vivre la Parole de Dieu au Quotidien" book that the church hierarchy authorizes for popular use. The book contains the readings for the daily masses held 'round the world. I dutifully circle the new vocabulary and phrases with the intention of using them on my friends later in the day, e.g. "vous ne devez plus vous conduire comme les païens" (thou shall no longer act like pagans!). This makes for amusing admonishments and observations, but also contributes to language learning--both comprehension and pronunciation.

Ouidah's basilique is located at an interesting intersection. It is fronted by the plaza of the Python Temple, a touristy but working site for followers of vodun (see the short, PT report produced by youth video students at CIAMO, where I've been teaching as a volunteer) . It also rests kitty corner to "Le Vatican" restaurant and bar. This presents an interesting scenario of imaginary conversations among these three structures. One can imagine a perturbed église catholique shaking her finger at the Python Temple's topless, serpent-clad, and scarified female statue who stares defiantly at the basilique. The statue luxuriates in this context and needles the church by winking at the beer swilling clients seated at le Vatican. The gravity of the situation has reached the highest ranks: Pope Benedict jumped into the symbolic fray last year during a Ouidah stop. By all accounts, a disappointingly small crowd turned out for the visit. Score one for vodun and beer!

Aside from being an amusing location, Ouidah's most profane intersection offers an interesting perspective on the reality of west Africa. The dominating structure continues to be Benin's colonial legacy; it marks government, school, and all other institutions of global interaction. It's characterized by ineffectual implementation and palpable elitism. Ouidah's Basilica houses virtually no traces of l'Africaine: Jesus on the cross is ivory white, as is the virgin rising above the altar (she looks pretty similar to Bolivia's virgen de Copacabana). The only vestiges of native culture are on the backs of about half of the parishioners, who display colorful African fabrics in their Sunday best.

When churchgoers spill out of the mass, they literally face the defiant, vital, and sensual traditions and practices that infuse everyday life in Africa. The stultifying edifice of "civilization" is tempered by the food, language, music, and dance that emerge constantly on my daily walks about town. Nevertheless, Sunday mornings at the basilique provide an illuminating weekly reminder of the challenges, pleasures, and amusements associated with living in Africa. 

"LA CLOTURE" Africana

One of the first things I learned while a student in Mexico was the need to build a "barda" or wall, as the first item on a home construction project. A barda is mainly put in place to keep people out and to protect possessions from petty thieves. A barda goes up even if the goods inside the walls consist of a small garden and a pile of bricks.

On my daily "commute" (walk) to my volunteer site, I see dozens of parcels that have started with a barda, or a "clôture," to use the local argot. African construction seems to follow the patterns observed in Mexico, but departs significantly in a way that reveals something of Africa's "fluidity of circumstance" and "complex and fundamentally ambivalent social conditions" as explained in an interesting little book titled, Invisible Governance. 

Mexican bardas are pretty severe, often hosting shards of broken glass set in concrete along the top ledge, an economical and ingenious sort of razor wire security system. Doors separating the interior from the street are typically fortified and outfitted with 3-4 deadbolts. The message of "keep out" is unmistakable.

In Africa, clôtures seem almost superflous. They are often times shoulder height, inviting passers by to look inside the walls and or to scale them in search of valuable merchandise. Gates and doors to the clôtures are often made of flimsy materials and are usually left ajar day and night.

One might think those irrational Africans just don't get the idea of a wall, but that would likely be a mistaken interpretation. The walls probably do function as security devices designed to slow if not completely stop a determined thief. But they also respond to the communal ethos and relaxed environment of coming and going that seems to typify both child and adult life. Locked gates and chunks of broken glass would seem to impede the back and forth, ebb and flow of people running in and out of walled compounds. 

Still, one wonders why go to all the trouble and expense of building a wall when its efficacy is so weak. Many of the everyday behaviors and conversations observed here result in that same sort of puzzlement as expressed in the exterior wall. This is one of the great things about Africa: the challenge it provides to simple analyses and explanations.

    

   

TRENDSETTING MARCHE

Anyone familiar with the history of "development" and "modernization" knows that poor nations are often described by Western experts as traditional and resistant to change (i.e. "Why are "they" unwilling to adopt "our" lifeways, values, and practices?"). Development experts typically blame this resistance for a slew of economic, social, and political maladies such as persistent poverty, illiteracy, and instability. In essence, those poor third worlders are responsible for their own ill fate.

Years later, these same experts often exonerate struggling farmers, merchants, and artisans as forward thinking practitioners. Ouidah's farmer's market might be considered a "cutting edge" example of the highly acclaimed sustainability movement with its fresh produce, local artisans, petit merchants.

The Marché Kpassé is held like clockwork every five days. An astute anthropologist might find that every five days is the optimal time to replenish perishables. Or perhaps the economic elasticity of local families typically extends a period of five days.

Vendors arrive with small quantities of produce, household staples, cloth, and other edibles. No wholesalers or other signs of economies of scale here. Whatever fits on the back of a motor scooter or atop one's head is the extent of merchandise stocked by most vendors.

Fresh, local, and in-season is great in theory, but the practice is a mixed bag. In Ouidah in June and July, you better like tomato, chile, corn, okra (okra!? Yeah, I know), onion, garlic, oranges, and pineapple. The flavors are all pretty sensational and the smells are intense. Another upside of "in-season" is the price. A small basket of tomatoes sell for 25 cents. Pineapples (really sweet and juicy) 40 cents. Oranges run about 5 cents apiece.

On the downside, the range of choices is pretty narrow for the spoiled Westerner. No blueberries from South Africa or summer peaches from northern Europe here. But with a bit of effort, intrepid shoppers can seek out risk-taking sellers who stock green beans, carrots, beets, potatoes, and bananas.

Living in the belly of the sustainability beast is great at cultivating anticipation among cooks and foodies, too. I'm looking forward to experiencing the changing seasons and tasting the next round of fresh and local flavors.

 

    

 SPEAKING IN SIGNS

Commercial signage always says a lot more than is evident on the surface. Signs not only indicate the goods and services of the establishment, but they also convey information about society, culture, and worldviews. And I discovered that they are great starting points for conversation during language lessons. The turns that our conversation took when discussing signs was actually pretty mind blowing. So, let's decode!

What sort of social structure conclusions can be ascertained by these signs? The most evident one regards literacy and language. Benin's literacy rate of tk percent means that business needs to communicate in pictures that clearly convey the goods and services rendered. These graphic devices are silent testimony, as well, to the fact that many Beninois speak no French whatsoever, but may be monolingual in one of the 50 local dialects native to this small nation. If you live in a big city, you might find similar signage techniques in poor neighborhoods with heavy concentrations of recent immigrants or high school dropout rates.

How about on the cultural front? Any insights conveyed here? A hint of gender relations are reflected in these signs. For some reason, one of the most prevalent business in Ouidah is the hair dresser and barber shop (they far exceed restaurants or convenience stores). In addition to cutting and styling, however, the shops also provide gift wrapping. That is the shops that are for and by women. Pretty paper and ribbon is not appropriate material for a man's hands. I wonder if an extension can be drawn, as well, regarding gift giving and gender. The stratification reflected in these signs can be seen across the city. Women's domains: the produce market, food vendor, itinerant sales. Men's domains: "zem" (motorcycle taxi) driver, mechanic, brick maker, construction.

Finally, what sort of worldview might be reflected here? This is a tuffy, but I'm wondering what sort of mind couples the activity of cutting hair and wrapping gifts. My language instructor, Eli, told me, "Because that's where you get a gift wrapped. At the hair dressers." OK, let's come back to that later. How about the store with all the road signs? A clever  and amusing sign for a sign store, right?  Eli: "Driving school?" Wha!? Why not a picture of someone driving a car? Eli, "Car rental."

So, what can we conclude here? I don't know if I'm on the right road (haha), but I'm thinking that all of these signs mean that the African worldview is characterized as strongly visual, concrete, and rooted in experience. We may be able to use this to help us relate to our community more effectively.

 

 

HAGGLING 101

I am finding that one of the most enjoyable experiences here is shopping, which is really surprising and uncharacteristic for me. The vendors can be tired and grumpy, but of course they're pleased when one makes a purchase. The haggling over prices is a good chance to practice language and people skills. I may be a little over zealous. I'm getting the sense that people probably do not haggle as much as I do. Still, I've really enjoyed chatting with the vendors and learning more French and culture. 

For example, many of the women in the market do not speak French. They use their children, a nearby vendor, or a helper to translate. They typically don't make eye contact. I'm guessing that they may feel vulnerable as being limited to their dialect in an exchange where the language is French. Once we finalize a price, however, I always ask for a cadeaux, which takes them by surprise. So far, no freebies have been tossed in but the vendors tend to giggle and sometimes even tell me to give them cadeaux.