Sunday, December 09, 2007

You know it's time to leave when...

Maybe it's like making the day's events fit your horoscope, but I feel like there have been some signs. First off, I opened my little butter packet the other morning and it was green and moldy. All the others were fine. Then, today, CLA opened a little jelly packet to find *it* crawling with mold. Again, it was the only one. Seriously, what are the odds? I know nothing about astrology (despite the number of times people asked me about their futures when I told them what I was studying in grad school), but even I can see the symbolism here.

On an even more obvious note, everything elastic in my possession has rotted...I'm talking right down to the "stretch" in my tee-shirts. I suppose it makes sense that the climate that produces rubber should also decompose it; I also recognize that my belongings have been put through the proverbial wringer this year, running laps between muggy Cotonou and nose-bleed-dry Niamey. Still, I'm down to my last hair tie, and even that was a gift from visiting friends 2 weeks ago.

On the practical side, work is done. It is officially the dry season, a local staff has been trained and put in place, and we just ate salad at the grand openings of the Kalalé solar gardens. I have to say, it was pretty neat to be 115km out on a dirt road eating vegetables grown by solar-powered drip irrigation. [Check out some photos of the installation and results here.] More incredible, however, was seeing the women's groups in the big market on their first day selling their goods. Even better than that was learning that they had sold everything...easily. And the cherry on top came the next day when the president of the women's group forced me to stay late into the afternoon so she could buy me pounded yams (the local specialty - think mashed potatoes and tomato-gravy). When I tried to politely excuse myself, she said, "All these times you come here, and I couldn't give you anything. Now I can finally buy you some pounded yam to thank you." I would have gotten teary, but she followed this up rather quickly with a "Sit down now, and EAT!" and then proceeded to haze us through our afternoon meal. My kind of lady.

So yes, there's the "moldy condiments" factor. There's the "belongings attrition" factor. And there's the "contract completion" factor. But more than those, there's also the "what-I-thought-was-concrete-right-and-wrong-is-feeling-less-so" factor. My existence here has felt, much of the time, like an incommensurability. So many of the things I take as premises -- unquestioned foundations -- for a rational system of ethics, are not true here. And for so long, I've felt the urge to fight these local premises themselves, fearing that any understanding on my part constituted moral relativism.

I think, however, that at least some of the point of an endeavor like a year away is to be able to see and understand the ethics in a different system...even one you think may be fundamentally flawed. This is tricky, because you have to let go a little bit...there are times when you have to be willing to allow for things you don't understand, or even detest, in order to make any sort of connection. To get over the incommensurability -- to be able to have a real conversation about values -- you have to temporarily assume the other person's premises. This is the only way to get at anything deeper, the only door to change.

This means that you have to allow for polygamy to be able to engage people without writing them off as either heinous patriarchal sexist bastards or foolishly unenlightened women. You have to allow that "tribe" -- something for which we have no analog -- frequently runs thicker than blood. You have to bite your tongue when someone hits a child because calling the person out only shames and confuses. You have to learn to draw different borders around corruption.

It's a terribly tricky line to walk because you *do* risk losing your footing entirely, if only out of fatigue from always doing the "affording" to everyone else's values. Grassroots work under a completely different set of ethical premises requires a flexibility that is exhausting. Neither of us has yet shown up late to a meeting, even when we know no one else will arrive until at least an hour after the stated starting time. And we have not yet willingly blown through a red light, even though everyone around us does. But both have gotten increasingly more tempting. It's one thing to bend in the name of understanding, connection, and cooperation. But before the elastic loses it's snap, it's time to go home.

...that and we've been dreaming about grocery stores and burritos.

2 Comments:

Blogger Torie said...

I know the feeling, and you have expressed it well. We all can't wait to see you again. Woohoo wedding planning!

9:14 PM  
Blogger Monica said...

welcome back guys! i've loved reading your blog and am looking forward to see you again

9:20 AM  

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