coffee and couches

it's a beautiful crisp morning here and (again) i treated myself to a coffee and croissant at le palais on my way back to the compound. as i was sipping my coffee, my mind was wandering (as it often does) to the life that awaits me in milwaukee and i found myself (shamefully? randomly?) thinking about the couch that we'll no doubt buy for our new house and how the cost of the couch could probably fund 5 nursery schools here in the gambia. and i got to wondering how i would ever rid myself of the guilt of spending money. ($120 for a pair of jeans? OR pencils and paper for an entire school for a year?) and then i got to thinking that perhaps somehow i might be able to at least continue to support the sarr family with whom i am living, and allow their kids to get to upper basic school, and then maybe even college, and then maybe with the condition that at least one of them must get abroad as part of their college experience.

but then i also started thinking, for what? so that they can see what they do not have, what they are missing, what they are unlikely ever to have in the gambia? so they can leave the compound and disrupt the cycle of family, leaving their uneducated mothers and grandmothers to fend for themselves in old age, to create a desire for more, when they are so perfectly content with what they have? to encourage fast living and the idea that more is better, bigger is better, money is king? so they can see that eating with their hands and running naked is not commonplace?

so it's a dilemma that i'm not sure how to view. i'm as yet undecided about this idea of progress. ebrima was telling me of a plan the government had to ban the import of crappy old cars into the gambia - but the people protested and the government backed down. because with these cars, and vans, some people are able to make a living (as taxi drivers) that they otherwise would not be able to make. same with the 'dead toubab' clothes i wrote of in the the previous blog. someone is making a buck from those, however small the buck.

perhaps by the time i leave here, i'll have a better understanding of what progress means in africa. perhaps they have a different definition of progress, of success, of happiness. i've seen glimpses of this.

and now i'm back to the compound for an afternoon with the children. tomorrow is independence day, so ebrima is taking me into the capital to see the celebrations! no school, no work, possibly a chance to see the president speak! maybe even some fireworks!