One culture can’t trump other. What is rude in one culture is the norm in another. When people have cultural conflicts who is right? No one? The majority? Here is an example of what I mean.
A husband and wife get into an argument in my village about the wife going to another village without asking the husband if it’s ok first. In my culture a wife wouldn’t have to “ask permission” for something like this but in this culture it is the norm. The argument persists until the husband is threatening to beat his wife. Everyone is standing around watching the debate with a hint of awe. Finally it becomes physical with the husband grabbing a rope and beating (aka whipping) his wife. In my culture we would be personally upset to watch this happened and a coward not to stop it. People would demonize the husband and tend to the wife. Domestic violence is so taboo in our culture that even witnessing it has a strong impact for a viewer. This personal affront is not felt in this culture. Beatings are literally a daily occurrence here whether it be children to children, people to animals, adults to children, or husbands to wives. But who’s right? Being American, when I see a fight or physical confrontation I want to stop it but here it’s culturally inappropriate for me to do so. Either I look like a rude meddler to their culture or feel like an cowardly bystander in my own.
Another example is greetings. Gambians can’t get enough greeting. Well, they can, but they are extremely offended if you don’t greet them. This means that I spend a lot of my time asking people where their whole family is, how work is, if they slept in peace, and if there “was no trouble there?” It all comes down to time. In the West it’s rude to waste some ones time. If I don’t know you, and I am in a hurry, why do I HAVE to talk to you? It’s rude to demand that I talk to someone that I don’t even know and will never see again. At least, for my culture. Now, I like to say hi to people. Even in the states I would say hi to people I passed on the street because it was just awkward not to. This is the best part of wearing sunglasses, no eye contact, no need to say hello. But here, it takes me 30 minutes just to get soap at a shop less than a football fields length away because I have to shoot the shit with everyone.
Ok, back to time. Everyone here says “toubob time” meaning on time. Everyone knows that us Westerners like to be on time, or at least not hours late to sometimes. We all know the phrase “5 minutes early is on time” but in Gambia 45 minutes late is early. Here it’s not a huge problem for me because I’m not often really busy with a lot of time constraint things to do. But sometimes there is stuff I want to do and I get mad when I show up to something at my rough estimate of when it will actually start and I end up waiting an extra hour to make any progress. Here, it’s rude to rush people but in the West it’s rude to waste sometimes time.
You just can’t win! The one time I saw Gambians in a hurry was Setsetal. This is always the morning of the last Saturday of the month when no cars are allowed to run, most businesses are closed, and everyone is supposed to “clean the land” (aka sweep everything into a pile and burn it). There is a small window of time in the morning for people to get from one area to another that is from about 6am till 9. I was trying to get from a place on the coast to the main capital area. I knew I would make it but by 8:15 the Gambians in the car with me were getting worried that they wouldn’t be making it to Banjul. I bet they never made it. Every time the geli would stop to let people off and the driver dawdled or apperante was bantering people would click their tongue and tell them to hurry up. The driver got mad about it and started yelling at the passengers “don’t try to condition me! This is my car, we are going. You will not condition me”.
It’s not that I want Gambia to become America. I can’t assume that Gambians will change their entire lifestyle to please me, but I can’t change my entire lifestyle to please them. This is the point. There is no correct way. Or maybe I say this because I am the minority, a Gambian might just say “you are in Gambia, here our way is the correct way”. There is a terrific Gambian proverb that goes with this though.“Yiri kuntoo si mee baa kono naa wo naa a buka ke noo bamboo ti.” If you cut a tree and throw it into the river it will never become a crocodile. It basically means that you can go into another culture, but no matter how long you are there you can’t become something you aren’t.
Excellent capturing of the little frustrations Americans tend to have in The Gambia. It's only worsened by the fact that by the time you're fully adapted and integrated, your service is reaching completion and you have to go home. In some ways, I miss the greeting system. Greeting people in America, especially strangers, can be extremely awkward because no one really knows what to say.
ReplyDeleteAwesome bird and fish ball pictures. Bana is HUGE!