America's Careless Whispers

When I first came to Senegal, I remember being acutely aware of how much I was missing in any given moment.  Words flew by in conversation, people laughed, people screamed, and I grew accustomed to never knowing what was going on.  Eventually, I learned to listen for key phrases, smile, and nod, but at the end of the day, I’m still just trudging through, picking up scraps of knowledge like a starving dog.

I’ve noticed this pattern most with television.  At my house, the TV gets turned on before dinner and keeps us all company for the next few hours.  If I don’t have anything else to do, I sit with my family under the semblance of “watching,” but really, I usually end up staring at the TV with my mind everywhere else.  Lately this has backfired in a number of ways.  For instance, the other day it took me a good five minutes before I even realized that the soccer commentary I was watching was in English.  Even then, I found I was so used to blocking out the TV’s words that I could barely follow what was being said.  

Anyway, I give you all this background to illustrate how hard it is to come by news here.  Sure, I’m on the internet a few times a week, but reading all of the headlines at such sporadic intervals isn’t something I’ve gotten used to.  And I would love to know not only the news, but how Senegalese people see it: unfortunately, French and Wolof snippets can only get me so far.   So, ashamedly, I admit that I've mostly given up on keeping up.

Until.  A miracle happened.  And I stumbled upon a Saturday afternoon program called “E-Mag: English Language Magazine.”  THE NEWS, VIA SENEGALESE JOURNALISTS, IN ENGLISH. 

This picture has nothing to do with anything, but I realized I don't put a lot of pictures on my blog anymore.  I guess it does show Bigue, the child I taught about term limits.  This is us at Korite 2012.

Finally!  Finally, for the first time in my service, I had the chance to hear the nuances, biases, jokes, opinions, confusions, and perception of the Senegalese media in my mother tongue!  I fully admit that I’m a connotation nerd.  But after 19 months of prying for simple facts, understanding every single word would fascinate you too.

E-Mag started off by covering local events, such as President Macky Sall’s replacement of numerous cabinet ministers.  I knew it happened, but suddenly, in English, I understood WHY and HOW.  Amazing!  But E-Mag only got better from there.  The second segment was a commentary about Hurricane Sandy coverage.  Basically, the narrator criticized African journalists for dedicating so many days and so much airspace to an event so far removed from African lives.  And I have to say, I somewhat agree with him.  He spoke of the numerous floods and famines that had rocked the African continent all year, questioning why those events didn’t deserve as much, if not more, media coverage.  It was quite a passionate and convincing plea for local journalism.  It also made me wonder if sometimes when I passingly hear references to the “United States of America” on the news, if I’m not hearing a factual story, but a vitriolic cry of anger.  Hmm.

More unrelated pictures.  Tabaski 2012!  I don't know who took this picture or why it turned out this way... like all Senegalese parties with my family, no alcohol was involved.

The next segment moved into International News, and the only story was Hurricane Sandy.  So apparently the editors were willing to give Mr. Commentary a platform, but not indulge his ideas.  So it goes.

Hurricane coverage, from a Senegalese perspective, was pretty interesting too.  They approached it with the utmost seriousness, despite the fact that flooding in Dakar over a 6 week period this past rainy season was probably far more disease-ridden and destructive than Sandy’s aftermath.  No one on the Senegalese news mentioned that fact though.  Instead, they sympathized and surveyed Sandy’s damage and interviewed her disenfranchised just as any American network would.  It’s strange—personal catastrophe is just so much different in America than here: yet no one brought up the comparison, and no one presented a pertinent point of reference.  I watched the reporter interview a New Jersey man who lost all of his independent construction business supplies to neighborhood looters.  It was incredibly sad, and I felt for him.  But highlighting it and showing it on Senegalese TV did feel weird, I’m not going to lie.  Despite the concern my family and friends here have voiced about the hurricane, I can’t help but wonder what they’re thinking, secretly, as they watch.  Here, losing everything you own to looters is a slow Tuesday, natural disasters rip apart neighborhoods yearly, and no one has any carpet to replace, because they realize it would only get ruined anyway.  Consequently, I can’t figure out what they make of American problems.

But the last segment of the show was my favorite: American election coverage!  To discuss the elections, the show invited a University Cheikh Anta Diop professor of American Politics and English to answer some questions. 

First, they asked him, “Why is this election important?”  He responded, and I’ve tried to make this verbatim, “Well, first of all, this is the first time, you see, that a black American president is running for a second term.  Second of all, the world is in an economic crisis and recession.  Third of all, Hurricane Sandy.”  All of these are true facts.  But I love the fact that for all of the months and years of election mumbo-jumbo we are bombarded with in America, all of the analyses and criticisms and commentaries, this man sums up how Senegal sees all of it in one, plain sentence. 

Not done with pictures that have no basis.  This year for Halloween, I made a Rice Krispie treat ghost!  But the store only had Cocoa Krispies... so it was a Senegalese ghost.  My family ate that up.  Literally and figuratively.

Then they asked the scholar how the American election system works.  In what may be the best thing I’ve heard all month, he answered, “The system... it is... very sick.  It is a sick system.  It is a complicated system, and it is a sick system.  The system is sick.”  He then delved into a slightly more detailed description of the electoral college and the travesties it can inspire, pointing specifically to the case of Al Gore.  I tried to explain the electoral college to my host mom tonight too.  She made a disgusted face.  It is a sick system.

So thanks to E-mag, my horizons were properly expanded last week.  But the election-inspired enlightenment was far from over.  On the following Tuesday, Kathleen, Jenna (a new embassy fellow), and our Senegalese co-teachers articulated the key points of Romney and Obama for our English class in order to have a mock election.  It shouldn’t come as a surprise that on the whole, Senegalese, and most of Sub-Saharan Africa, are a little obsessed with Obama.  But, in an effort to talk about politics and making informed voting decisions, we decided to really articulate what each candidate stood for.  Immigration.  Economics.  Foreign Policy. Guns. Birth Control.  And perhaps most importantly...

Gay Marriage.

As much as I would love for all of Senegal to continue their unbridled love for Obama, I think a lot of them learned that he and American politics are far more complicated than they realized.  Senegal is a notoriously homophobic country, and homosexual acts can lead to imprisonment here.  Abortions are also illegal and hardly an issue for debate.  Kathleen and I did our best to articulate how most of these issues boil down to government involvement versus personal choice, and I told the class they needed to really consider which issues were most important to them: they probably wouldn’t agree with either candidate on every point.  When we tallied up our mini election after class, Obama was winning by merely one vote.   

Today my five year old host sister, Bigue, asked me if Obama’s next term would be for 20 years, not far off the crazy term of Senegal’s previous president.  I told her that American presidents get four and sometimes eight years at the most.  She didn’t believe me, but last April, the Senegalese people came out en masse to kick out their long-serving leader, 64% to 36%.  They understood what needed to be done.  They did it.  Eventually, and hopefully, they have started to ensure that Senegalese five year olds stop seeing 20 year terms as normal.

So in honor of Election Day, this is my contribution.  Here’s to everyone’s attempt to find out the real story, to hear the biases you may start to block out, to talk to people honestly, and to trust them to draw their own opinions.  Listen to different kinds of news.  Realize that no candidate is perfect.  Speak with five year olds and clarify misconceptions.  Perhaps most of all, accept the results of your democracy and your surroundings gracefully.  By the time I put this on the internet, the American election will most likely be tallied and decided.  If you voted, you did the best you could.  It’s all we can really do, but it’s actually quite a lot.

Sorry if this ended up sounding like a soapbox.  My next entry will probably be about how I found hundreds of maggots in my bathroom on Halloween, so don’t worry, my life is still weird.  Here, I'll also add some unrelated photos.  Until next time!

Final installment: Abby and I carved a watermelon in honor of American pumpkins.  This one was named SKY PUMPKIN.  Notice it's various sky images.  Moons.  Stars. Clouds.  Lightning Bolts.  SKY PUMPKIN!  Also notice how trashy my candy necklace choker makes me look.  Yay.