There is another side, yes -- but do you not already know it?

Quelle joie mais aussi quelle incroyable coïncidence de recevoir ton message ce soir,j'ai bien sur lu ton blog et ce soir je viens de terminer ton long récit qui décrit si bien Djenné. Je n'ai pas de mal à t'imaginer là car quand je travaillais à l'Unesco j'ai été envoyée au Mali et plus précisément à Djenné en mission avec deux collègues.
Je dois dire que mes impressions ont été bien différentes des tiennes et du coup je suis impressionnée par ta description détaillée et si vivante de tout ce que tu vois d'une façon générale. Contrairement à moi, tu sembles toujours admirative et enthousiaste, où tu vois les couleurs, l'animation du marché, j'ai vu le laisser aller, la crasse, les ordures partout, l'eau stagnante au milieu des ruelles les enfants qui attrapent la malaria faute d'hygiène et les conséquences dramatiques de l'Islam sur le progrès, le travail des jeunes, le rôles des vieux rétrogrades etc. Mon rapport au retour à Paris n'était pas du tout optimiste et rien n'a pu se faire tant l'inertie est grande en Afrique
En lisant ton blog, et tes impressions si fraîches et neuves, je me suis sentie vieille et désabusée, tout ce que tu découvres, dans des conditions bien particulières et passionnante, je l'ai vu il y a des années au cours de différents voyages en Afrique et cela me semble familier, le Maroc et plus particulièrement Marrakech (heureusement vous avez visité à temps), que tu sembles découvrir pour le première fois et qui est si familier aux Français;
La suite de votre périple me permettra sûrement de découvrir avec tes yeux, si ouverts et précis, des pays que je ne connais pas encore et de toutes les façons dans un autre contexte, dans une Afrique qui bouge pour le meilleur et le pire.

I received this lovely note from my good friend, Brigitte yesterday. She writes how her impressions of Africa, and in particular of Djenné, were so very different from mine, when, some years back, as an official of UNESCO, she was sent there to write a report about -- I believe, the state of the education in the city. She saw the poverty, the lack of hygiene, the stagnant water, the rubbish in the streets, the children working, the old people locked in their religious and traditional bias.
The note struck me as I read it. Already, in the group, the youngsters are making fun of my passion for Africa and for everything we see and experience. "Wonderful" and "beautiful" are two words I have since tried very hard to keep out of my writing, albeit almost - if not completely impossible to do in describing our daily fare of experiences. A few times I have wondered to myself whether I am being unrealistic in the impressions I convey to my readers -- whether I am being too one-sided in my accounts.

But then I decided 'No' -- everyone who reads this blog, I know, also reads the daily newspapers, watch the TV news, listen to the radio, attend seminars and lectures about a vast range of issues, join discussions where the poverty, the disease, the corruption, the discrimination, the intimidation, the cruelty, the inhumanity, the silent Chinese invasion of the continent.. is the focus point. Everyone who reads this blog already has a substantial font of informed knowledge and opinion about the continent. But not everyone who reads this blog has had the privilege to travel in person to all the countries -- and particularly to all the regions where we go through or the outlying and remote villages we visit. So my reasoning was that what my readers want to read is not what they readily get in the media. What they want to read is what I see and hear and smell and feel - my personal experiences and my personal impressions.

And yes -- I do see the poverty, the filth, the desperation, the hardship and the suffering. But, as I mentioned, before leaving Nici had sat me down and made me promise that I will NOT get downhearted or depressed about the suffering, the abuse, the cruelty, the ugly side of this continent; she made me promise that I will NOT go into a slump every time I see a child or an old person, or a beggar homeless and starving and covered in flies; she made me say out loud:"I canNOT save every maltreated animal. I canNOT change the lives of all the street children in Africa. I canNOT eradicate singlehandedly the prejudice, the unfairness of it all." And what that promise did was to not blind me to all those things -- for yes, they are there and I do see them, but to rather look for all the good, the beautiful and the wonderful -- and believe me, it has not been hard to find those aplenty. Even in the most dire circumstances you can come across the smiles and the joy and the sheer pleasure to be alive. When I found it hard to find anything beautiful and positive in my surroundings and amongst the people I encounter, such as in Marrakesh and in Mauritania, I wrote about my observations - candidly and honestly. And when Yaya took us around his city of Djenne and I saw where he had grown up and how he had taken himself out of that environment and into a competitive world where he has no problem proving himself to be as good, if not better than most of his contemporaries in Europe or the States, and I saw the ancient city through his eyes and the conditions and the children who came up to him to greet him with joy and the groups of young boys who clamoured around him to be in the presence of their role model and the old people who came to shake his hand and show their beaming pride in this young man from their community, and I heard him speak of the economic situation of the city and the traditions and the folklore and the medical and educational facilities and opportunities -- then I had to write about the wonderful impression this beautiful city had made on me. All of that far outweighed the dust and dirt and heat. I wrote what I saw. I relayed what I had experienced.

And I never presume to speak for anyone but myself -- my observations and my impressions are mine and mine alone.

Perhaps this would be a good place to make mention of the matter of bribery in Africa.

I have quite a few friends who have travelled on business through certain parts of Africa and their warning was: You are going to be asked for bribes and 'cadeaux' (gifts) as far as you go. Old people have their hands out, children have their hands out, every official has his hand out -- everyone wants 'gifts' and unless you pay or give handouts as far as you go, you will get nowhere.

What a sad picture this paints of an entire continent.

But then you get a person like our leader, Mark. "I don't pay bribes", is his categoric response. "What about border officials? They as for a 'cadeau' to stamp passports. How can you refuse to pay? They are the ones with the power."
"I don't pay anything because I don't need to. Their job is to stamp the passports and that is what I expect them to do. And when anyone asks me for a gift or for whiskey of for money I just say to them: I am a guest in your country. You should be giving me a gift. Where is my gift? Usually the official is so taken aback he just smiles and backs off.
And time and again we witnessed exactly this -- not once did Mark pay a single official or policeman -- and believe me, every border post we went through and every single police or army roadblock -- and we lost count of those but they were in the region of one per every 5 kilometres - where we were stopped, our papers examined, the truck's papers scrutinised, each passport paged through again and again -- at every one of these the official in question asked for a gift, for whiskey, for money -- and each time Mark's had the same reply: No-- sorry mate, I don't have a gift. But what about you, do you have a gift for me? And each time it worked -- we were waved through en went on our way. At one roadblock the police officer wanted payment for stamping the passports and Mark refused as there should be no payment for this service. He had no choice but to accept that we would not be giving him anything and let us through the barricade.
The first time I was approached by a child with an open upturned hand and the question:"Cadeau?', I smiled and returned the question: "Cadeaux? Where is my cadeaux?" This encounter ends each and every time with a smile, a giggle and a happy little discussion about gifts and who should be handing them out and who should be receiving them. If it is a garibou - a young Quran student with a tin, I would have him indicate where to find a place I am looking for and in return I would have a coin or two for him -- so that he would be 'earning' his payment rather than losing his dignity by begging for a handout.

If everyone did the same, perhaps we could stamp out this deplorable indictment against the officialdom and population of this continent? It IS possible, you know!