12. What's going on?

My last couple of posts here have been more about ideas and history than daily life, so I guess that I want to just have a nice simple post about what I have been doing here.

But there are so many things that I could say that I don't know where to start...

A friend of mine recently summarized his life in 3 sentences, and I thought it was great, so I will follow his model, and go from there.

I eat with my (right) hand and live in a house made of mud, grass and bamboo. It's always hot and I am almost always hungry. I plant trees and give people seeds.

And a good life it is.

Here we are leaving Kedougou

One of the coolest things I did (somewhat) recently was bike to Kolda with my friends Ian and Anna at the end of April to go to our Ag Summit (A meeting with everyone in the sector). 

Which is about the hottest time of year. It was usually beautiful, often challenging, and totally refreshing.

This was our route:

Approaching the Park

That splotch of green on the map that we passed through there is the Niokolo Koba National Park. That was probably the hardest, and most beautiful part of the trip. Late April is the peak of the hot dry season, and so we spaced broke the riding up with mid-day rest stops in whatever patches of shade we could find along the road. However, many animals tend to do the same thing. On one such stop, we were flanked by a large, squawking troop of baboons, and on another, a warthog ran off with my pannier (bike bag). I recovered the bag after chasing the warthog into the forest. 







But it was all worth it, when we got into Kolda, we threw a big party, and cooked up a close relative of the warthog:

It was good

And… it has started to rain! Which is a huge relief after 6 months of total, utter dryness. The change has been swift and it feels like a whole different planet. It has quickly become very green and humid here. It is beautiful.

However, when it starts raining a lot my normal route to Kedougou city floods, because I have to cross this creek along the way: (It gets much larger than this)

My rubicon, if you will

Mamadou working on the bridge

The only other option, without having to backtrack something like 10 km, is the stick bridge mentioned/pictured in my Dar Salaam post… Which also floods in heavy rains, and gets  washed out.

So, my village decided to build a bigger, stronger bridge that would still be crossable in high water. And one week everyone just got together and built the thing. Simple as that.






Now, if this new bridge holds, people will be able to get to Kedougou in about 1/3^rd of the time it would have taken them during any other rainy season. 

The new bridge

I also went to this thing called ‘Bassari Initiation’ recently, which is a ceremonial rite of passage undergone by boys who are coming of age in the Bassari community, which is a minority, mostly non-Islamised cultural group. Every Bassari village has their own initiation ceremony each year. We attended the one in Etyalo, which is the largest Bassari village in Senegal. (At about 1500 people)

First the boys had to march in a circle for hours on end one evening, while everyone around them got drunk on palm wine and mead and taunted them. Then they had to spend a night in the bush (It poured rained for hours). Then, early in the morning, the boys had to wrestle against these guys.

Needless to say, only two boys out of the group of 40 or so won. Each of these victories elicited ecstatic celebration. The wrestling is a very secretive event for the Bassari. It takes place in a small clearing removed from the rest of the village and ceremony. Only men are allowed to attend, and they do not allow any photos to be taken, at all. 

What else is new…? It is bush fruit season! Which rocks. Kids come in from all over the bush with different goodies that they are only too eager to share.

The long pods are called Netto. That’s actually Parkia Biglobosa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkia_biglobosa) The big round orange fruits are called Saba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saba_senegalensis) and the little grape guys are known as dembo. (Don’t know what it’s called on the Internet)

They are all pretty good. Saba is probably the best. It is like a sour Warhead. Remember those? Unless you let it get nice and ripe, in which case the sour gives way to the sweet.

It is a good life indeed. A great one even.

Often times I am struck by just how good it is.

For one thing, I love my work. It is interesting, challenging, and, I want to believe (with conscious naiveté), meaningful. I feel as though I am really starting to be able to help people help themselves.

 Right now, I have a few projects going on.

One is planting a live fence in the Master Farm. Live fencing, in my opinion, is about as good as it gets as an Ag volunteer. It addresses what is perhaps the single biggest issue with agriculture here; cows and goats eating your crops; in a way that lasts for a very long time, and can have other benefits too.

Basically, live fencing is planting certain species, generally trees, close enough together that they form an impenetrable barrier. Usually you do this directly behind a pre-existing fence made from non-living materials (metal or wood). As the dead fence inevitably falls into disrepair, the live fence grows into maturity, and only gets stronger and more impenetrable over the years. Live fences are a lot of work to establish though, and you have to know how to grow the right kind of trees, and grow them correctly, by pruning to encourage lateral growth. I have mostly been planting acacias, which are thorny, drought resistant, and nitrogen fixing.

When you have an established live fence around your field, it means that you don’t have to cut down trees from the bush every year to repair your dead-wood fence. Which is great news! Additionally, you can, in many cases, coppice the live fencing to harvest pole wood, harvest its fruits, and enjoy its quality as a wind/fire break.

So live fencing is really cool.

And obviously the goal is not just that I go and establish a bunch of live fencing, but that I create ‘demonstrations,’ so that the residents of Dar Salaam can dig it—see how effective and smart this technique is—and go about establishing their own.

But I have noticed that the Master Farm is not really on peoples’ radar so far. It is a little ways outside of the village, across a big rice field. It seems to me that when people are busy all day around the house, mosque, or their own fields in town, they just aren’t inclined to go snooping around the mysterious tract of land where the toubab works all day, way across the rice fields.

So, I decided to check out the real estate market near the center of the village in order to create a demo space that people would actually see. By this I mean that I asked around about an empty slice of land in an area near some women’s gardens. I learned that two women own the space. They are basically my (host) aunts, so I asked them what they were going to do with it, if they wanted to fence it in, or what. They basically said that if I wanted to fence in the whole thing, I could use half of it, and they would use the other half. It’s a rather big space, with very good soil, so I gladly agreed.

Cool!

Turns out building a fence is a lot of work! Especially when it includes going out into the bush, cutting all of the poles you need, (by coppicing—don’t worry) and returning the next day with kids and a donkey cart to bring them back.

Gathering gravel with my host brother Bassirou to bury the fence poles with more stability

But I must say. It is awesome. Especially because I now have a real taste for how hard these people work fencing in massive areas to grow corn, beans, peanuts and stuff. I also think that it has helped with my ‘credibility,’ to have people walk by all the time and see me hard at work.

Not that I think that everyone in Dar Salaam should bear witness to everything I do, but having some exposure is definitely part of what my job is about.

Here it is in progress:

Soon to be an Eden-like garden

My hope is to establish something of a ‘perma-garden’— basically, stuff that I won’t have to water every single day during the dry season, (hopefully only 1-2 times a week) but will still produce. I think it would be cool to show people that there are other possibilities than watering your lettuce and mint morning and night all dry season.  The garden will include lots of fruit trees, especially ones that are as yet underutilized in DS, chaya, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnidoscolus_aconitifolius Not to be confused with chia) moringa and sweet potato. Maybe I’ll try some beans. We’ll see.

But my biggest project right now involves bamboo, deforestation, and the future of Kédougou.

It all started a couple months ago when a couple friends visited Kedougou. They wanted to see my site, but did not have bikes. So we decided to walk from Kedougou. The women of my village do this walk, about 8-9 km each way, multiple times a week. But they are smart about it, and leave at dawn, the coolest time of the day. (When the mercury might fall to a brisk 82 degrees.)

Meanwhile, We managed to time it so that we made the walk right around noon, when the exposed, sandy trails were blisteringly hot. We quickly drank all of our water. Luckily the route passes through a village called Sithou Roudji (Pulaar for 'founded and settled'), which is about halfway between my village and Kedougou.

We wandered at random into a compound, begging sheepishly for water and a seat in the shade, and as is usually the case in the 'Pays de Terranga' (Senegal's nickname: land of hospitality), we were graciously welcomed. A man led us to a bench under a mango tree, and kids retrieved cups of water out of a ceramic pot, known as a landé, which, if kept in the shade, keeps water surprisingly cool even on the hottest days.

As I regained my wits, chatting pleasantly with the residents of the household into which we had just blundered, I noticed carpentry tools and a half built table under a nearby mango tree. It was made out of bamboo. I went over to check it out, and was impressed by it's strength and beauty the moment I felt it. Bamboo carpentry. Very cool.

The carpenter came over to introduce himself. Mamadou Sow. His French was perfect, and he immediately impressed me as a very earnest and intelligent man. I had to leave soon after with my friends to continue our walk, but my hut was severely lacking furniture, so I knew I'd be back soon.

So from then on I began stopping regularly on my trips to and from Kédougou, to chat, and discuss getting some furniture made.

My first impressions of Mamadou were quickly re-affirmed, and even surpassed. Every time I passed through Sinthou Roudji he was working; either on bamboo furniture, in his fields, or more often than not, helping someone else in the village with some of their work. I ordered a desk and chair, and we began having extended conversations about bamboo in Kédougou.

Bamboo is an essential, and ubiquitous component of life in Kedougou. It is used for everything. Fences, roofs, shade structures, tools, furniture, bridges, etc. In fact, it is so ubiquitous that goes basically unnoticed. That is until it started to disappear.

Until as recently as 10-15 years ago, bamboo could be found in great abundance no more than a kilometer or two outside of Kedougou City. But the city’s rapid growth has quickly increased demand for the stuff, and suddenly, the only dependable place to get bamboo is down near Segou, along the Guinean border, a 60 km round trip from Kedougou.

The result is that the price of Bamboo has gone from 250 CFA (50 cents) for a pack of 20 poles around the turn of the century, to 2500 CFA (5 bucks) today. This represents a huge cost farmers, who are thus forced to either pay, or make a 60 km round trip every time they want to build a fence or a roof.

During one of our conversations Mamadou produced a few academic articles about bamboo in Africa that he had printed off of the Internet, and then gave me a copy of a paper that he had been working on about the issue of bamboo depletion in Kédougou specifically. He gets straight to the point. This is the main argument:

"La bamboo est une plante d'une fort tenacité. Cependant, au present, il manque profondement d'une system de gestion. Celle-ci peux expliquer son raréfaction rapid dans la region de Kédougou."

Bamboo is a very tenacious plant, but presently it lacks any system of management whatsoever. This can explain its rapid rarefaction in the region.

Mamadou

And indeed, bamboo is very mismanaged here. I am tempted to say that it is perfectly mismanaged.

First, people cut all of the poles (known as 'culms') off of an individual plant, often in one fell swoop. Normally the plant would be fine. Mature bamboo plants form a large rhizome just below the surface, which is full of energy and ready to send up new shoots. (Hops are another example of a plant that grows from a rhizome.)

However, young, new shoots are un-lignified and tender, and are choice dining for cows and other ruminants, which, in Kédougou are only fenced out of certain fields, rather than corralled into specific place.

So cows roam all through the bush, and will return to the same bamboo plant, eating all of its new growths until the plant has died.

Another big issue is fire. More people in Kedougou has led to more cutting of the forest, and mismanagement of the land, which leads to higher rates of wildfire. Bamboo does not do well in fire, especially if the plant is already stressed for water, as is often the case during the dry season. Together, these factors; people, cows and fire, have devastated Bamboo stands here.

So Mamadou and I talked about all of these issues, and I began to realize; Woah, this is a big deal. This is something that really matters. This affects a lot of people.

Then Mamadou dropped the kicker.

He is a life long resident of Sinthou Roudji, and after years of appeals/requests to the local authorities, he has come to own, officially, 5 hectares of land next to the Gambia River that his family has de-facto owned for years.  And wants to use it, in whatever capacity possible, to grow bamboo in order to meet the needs of local farmers, and foster more bamboo artisans like himself in the Kedougou area.

Well, that sounds like a plan, I thought. And since that moment, the work has just taken off.

It is a complicated ambition. One thing that I have been trying to figure out is what exactly this thing would look like, the design. I’ve begun using the term ‘bamboo woodlot’ but I’m still not sure exactly how it will look.

But this is the coolest part of the whole project—nobody has done this before!

Obviously there is information out there, about bamboo cultivation in other parts of Africa, and other places with similar climates, species of bamboo, etc but nobody has done it here yet.

What we do know is that the bamboo will need to be fenced in, or at least protected in some form, and that it will need to be irrigated during the first dry season while it establishes it’s rhizome.

A big part of the project so far has been working through the bureaucracy of the Senegalese governing apparatuses to get recognition, support, and (hopefully) technical assistance. (The money will all come from US government grants…) Mamadou and I have been running around to different agencies and offices in town to get our project on the radar, and make us eligible for small business assistance type stuff. So far he has been an excellent work partner, better than I could have imagined.

The meetings have been, for me, a wonderful review of French administrative bureaucratic vocabulary, and a lesson in business skills, of a sort. Also, I must say, doing business in a town the size of Kédougou is pretty cool. I am literally getting to know an entire cadre of functionnaires, and so far they are all really into the idea.

One agency in particular— Eaux et Forets— is particularly grateful for this project. Eaux et Forets, meaning waters and forests, is pretty much the Department of Natural Resources of Senegal, except federal. And broke.

It just so happens that they have a law on the books that states that harvesting bamboo in the bush is illegal. But it is never enforced. For one thing they lack the capacity, and for another, are you really going to tell a peasant that he can’t do what he needs to do to build a fence this year?

But if some kind of woodlot model emerged, and people began cultivating enough bamboo to meet their needs in a sustainable fashion, enforcement of this law might become feasible, and the wild lands would be spared.

And this would work out well for everyone involved, including me, and the Peace Corps, because it just so happens that working with the host country’s government agencies to help accomplish their development goals is exactly what the Peace Corps was founded to do. How about that!

So… we will see what happens. This has all happened very quickly so far and I would hate to get ahead of myself. But, as it is, things seem to be falling into place, and I have yet to have anyone tell me it is a bad idea. Interestingly, the biggest roadblock thus far has been getting technical feedback from my advisors with the Peace Corps. They are yet to give me any advice, whatsoever so far. Obstacles come from unexpected places when doing work in a country like this.

At times like these I take recourse in a saying about work that is ubiquitous across all languages and cultures in Senegal: Little by little. Or as we say in Jaxanké; Dondiŋ dondiŋ. Pulaar: Seeδa seeδa. Wolof:  Ndank ndank. And of course, in French: Petit à petit.  

Anyway, I’ll keep you updated!

11. Ethnolinguistics of Senegal, or, ‘What’s a Jaxanké?’

The language that I ‘speak’ (read: stumble through) and am always learning here in Senegal is called Jaxanké, (sometimes transcribed as Diahanké, Jaxanke, and Diaxango). It is the same language as Malinké—we have the same dictionary, took the same language classes during PST—except not quite, as Malinké and Jaxanké are separate ethnic groups. For anyone interested, the following is a bit on how this ethno linguistic group fits into the socio-ethnic history and geography of Western Africa.

The subject matter of this post may not be especially riveting for someone who is not either personally or academically familiar with West Africa.  So to spice things up I have included pictures of babies from my village playing with fire, accompanied by Nietzsche quotes. Think of them as New Yorker cartoons. (Inspired by http://www.nietzschefamilycircus.com/)

Before arriving in Senegal, I assumed that all PC volunteers here learned Wolof. This is the common language for the majority of the country, a lingua franca. 
In fact, the Peace Corps teaches volunteers a handful of what we call ‘local languages,’ in order to match, to some extent, Senegal’s linguistic diversity.

Wolofs are about 43% of the population of Senegal. They are followed by Pulaars of various stripes, 24% (or perhaps more according to many estimates), Serers, 15%, Diolas, at about 5%, Mandés of many different types are somewhere around 4%, and a whole cocktail of various minorities make up the last 2%.[1] (The Wikipedia page doesn’t add up to 100% either)

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he
 himself does not become a monster. And when you
gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

Wolof is the lingua franca in Senegal for a couple reasons. First, since the Wolofs comprise almost half of the population of Senegal. Thus they form a plurality, which gives them an obvious head start as cultural hegemons.
Secondly, they are more concentrated in cities than other groups, especially the cities in the western 1/3^rd of the country, where 5/6ths of the country’s population resides. The Wolofs have capitalized on their position as well connected urbanites to dominate most of the business and industry in the country.

Economic preeminence tends to lead to cultural and linguistic hegemony. This is happening in Kédougou, a land that has long been Malinké/Jaxanké and Pulaar. An example of this is amongst the employees of foreign gold-mining companies here in Kedougou. These companies establish offices in Dakar, and subcontract security and labor to Wolof companies also based in Dakar, whose Wolof employees have thus come flooding into Kédougou.

Another Wolof economic foothold in Kédougou, and across the entire country is the public transportation system. This is comprised of a network of ‘garages’ where one can pay for a spot in a buses, mini-buses, or station-wagons that run to other garages in cities all over the country. The Mouride Brotherhood, which is a Wolof dominated religious group, has a total monopoly on this transportation network, and no matter where you are going to or from, your driver is guaranteed to be Wolof.

Thus, due in large part to higher rates of urbanization, and a dominant economic position, Wolofs have a more homogenous and widespread cultural identity than any other ethnic group in Senegal. 'Wolof culture,' many would argue, has come to be considered the national culture of Senegal. This is known as the ‘Wolofisation’ of Senegal, and some people are starting to complain about it.

The next biggest ethno linguistic/cultural group in Senegal is Pulaar.[2] This is probably the biggest ethno linguistic group in West Africa. In Senegal, they come in three flavors; The Pulaar de Nords are concentrated along the Senegal River valley in the north; The Fula Kunda, also known as Fouladou, pretty much all live in the Casamance, south of The Gambia; And the Pula Futa, emanate from the Guinean Plateau into Kedougou and parts of Kolda.

The Pulaars are a fascinating people, much too fascinating to attempt to discuss in any great length right here. They extend throughout the Sahelian region of Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia, and south through Guinea into Liberia and Sierra Leone.  They originated as a nomadic herding people, and have historically played a large part in bridging the Sahara desert, centuries before the arrival of Europeans, trading extensively with Berbers and Arabs in the north, and dozens of different groups in the south. Historically, because of their disparate nomadic lifestyle, the Pulaars formed only very loose political association. Before the coming of Islam, Pulaar states, beyond regional tribute based kingdoms were largely unknown.

We cannot help but see Socrates as the turning-point,
 the vortex of world history.

The Pulaar people are believed to have originated in what is now northern Senegal/ Southern Mauritania. Over hundreds of years they came to inhabit the vast territory of the Sahel through a series of migrations. These migrations took various forms. Generally they were slow, nomadic drifts into empty spaces in search of new pasturelands.

 There have also been instances of more intentional Pulaar migrations, specifically via what are known as the ‘Pulaar Jihads’. However, it is wrong to consider the ‘Pulaar Jihads’ to somehow be a distinctive, congruous event. They were entirely multifarious, and connected only loosely if at all, with highly variable, inconsistent levels of violence, tactics, and motivation.

Pulaar migrations have continued well into modern times, though the Jihaads are long since over. One of the most significant modern movements of Pulaar people took place throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s after Ahmed Sékou Touré took power in Conakry.

Touré was the only leader in Africa to deny France’s invitation to join the Communité Français. In doing this he seemed to represent a real hope for a truly independent post-colonial African leader, one who had the courage to truely stand up to former colonial powers. His early rhetoric in the 1960s was Marxist-utopian, and deeply inspired by the socialist hopes of the time. His writings are still standard in any study of Marxism in Africa.

Regrettably, the promise of a bright post-independence Guinea was not to last. It was torn apart when Touré began exploiting ethnic divides in order to maintain power. This was a dangerous thing to do in a deeply fractured, desperately poor, and economically dysfunctional post-colonial state. To make a long story short, Touré is ethnically Mandé, which is another broad ethno linguistic group (we will talk about them soon). The Mandés make up about 35% of the population of Guinea, while Pulaars make up 45%. As post-independence hopes of prosperity rapidly began to disintegrate, for myriad reasons, such as a lack of functional institutions or infrastructure whatsoever, Touré quickly began to militarize the state apparatus.

Mathematics would certainly have not come into
 existence if one had known from the beginning that
there was in nature no exactly straight line,
no actual circle, no absolute magnitude.

Because his state was failing Touré was quickly challenged politically by the Front de Libération Nationale de Guinea (FLNG), an opposition party. It just so happens that many prominent figures in the FLNG were Pulaars. Touré then decided that there was a Pulaar plot to assassinate or overthrow him, and he responded in increasingly erratic and vicious ways. His military forces began rounding up anyone suspected of being a dissident, especially Pulaars, and throwing them into, (no typo here) concentration camps.

The most notorious of these was Camp Boiro, located on an island near the capital, Conakry. Estimates of the total number of people killed by Tourés regime are hard to establish, but an organization called “Children of the Victims of Boiro Camp” has leveled an estimate of 50,000.

Pulaars all over the country were targeted in various forms by Touré’s policies of political paranoia, and thousands fled into Senegal, a more stable nation. Precise, or even semi-precise numbers of those who fled will never be known, for these migrations were both informal and illegal, and often motivated by factors other than the violence against Pulaars in Guinea. What we do know is that it made the region of Kédougou majority Pulaar, although it was probably primarily Mandé speaking as recently as 1960. Many of the Pulaar villages in Kedougou are named after villages in Guinea, having been founded by fleeing/migrating residents of the latter.  

The Serers (15% of the population of Senegal) are concentrated along along the coast from the region of Dakar south, into The Gambia, and northern Ziganchor. The Serer language is unique; it is not closely related to any other languages. These coastal fishing people are said to be the first people of modern Senegal, perhaps even sub-Saharan Africa, to have extensive contact with Europeans.

This initial prolonged contact between the Serers and Europeans (mostly Portuguese) took place very early-- the late 1400’s-- so early, in fact, that the Serers had not yet been converted in any significant proportion to Islam. They were therefore among Africa's first Christian converts, and continue to have a higher proportion of Christians than most of Senegal’s ethnic groups.

 These unique geographic and cultural circumstances have made the Serers disproportionately influential in the political affairs of the country. During the colonial era the French utilized religious cleavage and favored Christian Serers as colonial bureaucrats. The Serers therefore gained access earlier, and in greater numbers to the institutions that the Europeans brought with them, like education. It is no surprise then that the first president, the poet and intellectual Leopold Sedar Senghor, was a Christian Serer[3]. Many people maintain that to this day the Serers still enjoy much higher rates of governmental representation than other groups.   

Free will without fate is no more conceivable
than spirit without matter, good without evil.

So I learned much of this before the language assignments came. I thought I was pretty hip to the linguistic situation in Senegal. Then when languages were announced during Pre-Service Training, I was assigned ‘Jaxanké.’ I did not know what that was! Imagine, being told that you are going to learn and live in a language that you did not know existed. I had a million questions, and slowly I have been able to answer many of them.

 Jaxanké is a minority language in Senegal, spoken exclusively in the south eastern, regions of the country. It is probably the least widely spoken of all 7 languages taught by Peace Corps Senegal.

However, Jaxanké is part of the Mandé language family, which is one of the largest, most diverse ethno linguistic groups in West Africa. The Mandé family includes dozens of different individual languages that stretch across West Africa. [4] In Senegal alone, the Mandé family is represented by Mandinka, Bambara, Jalonké, Soninké, Malinké, Dyula and others.[5] [6] However, only a fraction of each of these groups live in Senegal, which is why, despite being a very large ethnic group, Mandés only comprise about 4% of the population of Senegal (according to Wikipedia).

The Mandé ethnic group originated in what is now southwestern Mali. The Mandé people emanated from this heartland in a number of ways, most significantly through the rise of the Malian Empire.

The story of the founding of the Malian empire is told in the tale of Sundiata. This tale was passed down from generation to generation by the story-telling musician class; griots, or in Jaxanké, Jali. It is still a widely known tale that almost any Mandé can tell you something about. It is considered ‘semi-historical’ by academics, who have reproduced the epic in various published forms, which is how I came to know it. I hope, someday, to hear the story straight from the mouth of a griot, accompanied by music. (Unfortunately in my small village there is no Jali)

Sundiata Keita amassed a great army and unified various West African Kingdoms into what was thus known as the Malian Empire, said to have been founded in 1230. It grew steadily for the first one hundred years of its existence, then declined and fractured slowly until it finally ceased to exist in 1600.

The empire at its greatest extent, circa ~1300.

The Malian Empire reached its greatest height under Emperor Mansa Musa, (Mansa actually means King, so ‘Emporer Mansa Musa’ is a little redundant) who came to power in 1280. Musa was an exceptional fellow, and he came to power at an exceptional time of an extremely wealthy, prosperous empire. He was also very ambitious, and a competent, strong willed ruler. He fostered and expanded the trade of his empire to the point where he came to control approximately one half of the worldwide trade in gold and salt.

It is stated by many sources that Mansa Musa was the richest person to have ever lived.

Wait. What?

It is obviously very difficult to compare wealth through different historical ages. However, if you take the most simple, straightforward and oldest measure of wealth; amount of gold one owns, Musa had more wealth, plain and simple, than anyone else. Ever.

He is best known for his pilgrimage to Mecca, a voyage whose extravagance may have no historical analog. He embarked with 60,000 people, including 12,000 slaves who each carried a four-pound bar of gold.

Art is the supreme task and the truly
metaphysical activity in this life

Every Friday, rather than simply stopping for a day of rest and prayer, he actually funded the construction of a mosque. He gave away small pouches of gold dust to beggars in Cairo, In fact, Musa spent and gave away so much gold throughout the trip that the world wide price of gold plummeted, effectively destroying economies throughout the middle east and north Africa. The records of merchants and historians across the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern remark on this precipitous decline in gold prices. It is speculated, by some that he may have ‘inadvertently funded the Italian Renaissance,’ as Genoan and Venician traders bought the metal at cost and brought it back to north Italy.

The Malian Empire reached reached all the way to the Atlantic Ocean (modern day coast of Senegal) long before Musa came to power, under the leadership of Abubakari II. This guy decided that he wanted to know what lay beyond this great ocean. 

An Egyptian scholar of the day, Al-Umari once asked Mansa Musa about this. The great leader responded;

The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (the Atlantic Ocean). He wanted to reach that (end) and was determined to pursue his plan. So he equipped two hundred boats full of men, and many others full of gold, water and provisions sufficient for several years. He ordered the captain not to return until they had reached the other end of the ocean, or until he had exhausted the provisions and water. So they set out on their journey. They were absent for a long period, and, at last just one boat returned. When questioned the captain replied: 'O Prince, we navigated for a long period, until we saw in the midst of the ocean a great river which flowing massively. My boat was the last one; others were ahead of me, and they were drowned in the great whirlpool and never came out again. I sailed back to escape this current.' But the Sultan would not believe him. He ordered two thousand boats to be equipped for him and his men, and one thousand more for water and provisions. Then he conferred the regency on me for the term of his absence, and departed with his men, never to return nor to give a sign of life.

—Mansa Musa (From Wikipedia)

How interesting. 

So, over the years, the Malian empire did all of the things that empires usually do. It expanded with lofty ambition, through both war and trade, and it spread its language, culture, religion, and people throughout its territory. This is a large part of how Mandé speaking people came to cover the entire area of the empire, which began a steady decline shortly after Musa’s extravagant reign.

Even in those days, ‘Mandé’ was a very diverse ethno linguistic group. Some Mandé languages were mutually intelligible, and some were not, and many distinct identities within this group emerged even before the empire spread the Mandé diaspora all over West Africa. 

This map should help confuse you

The Soninké (alternatively called Sarakolé), shown on the map, were a distinct Mandé group before the Malian Empire came to be. Out of the Soninké ethnic group, a caste of religious elites arose, Islamic clerics, who soon began to establish for themselves a distinct identity, living in ‘religion and tillage.’[7] These people were some of the very earliest Muslims in West Africa, and trace their lineage to Uqbah b. Nafi, an Arab who was “chosen by Allah to conquer Ifriqya as far as Ghana.”[8]  

These were the Jaxankés.

In the 12^th or 13^th century a man named al-Hajj Salim Suware led the Jaxankés south and west from Soninké lands into the Futa Jallon[9] (Present day Kédougou!) where he ‘established a clerical republic of enduring fame and prestige.’[10] When the Malian empire swept across the land, the “Jaxanké republic was respected as a holy centre over which the king’s edict had no force.” [11] Their towns were in many cases university towns, attracting scholars of the Koran from all over the region. I think that this is extremely cool. Al-Hajj Salim Suware emphasized pacifism as a tenant of clerical life, and rejected political involvement. As Wikipedia puts it:

The Jakhanke cultural ethos is best characterized by a staunch dedication to Islam, historical accuracy, rejection of jihad, non-involvement in political affairs and the religious instruction of young people.[12]

Over time, the Jaxanké came to be regarded as a fully independent branch of the Soninké people from which they sprang, and came to adopt the language of a neighboring people, the Malinké, which is also a Mandé group. This is what I meant when I said that Malinké and Jaxanké is the same language, but different people.

Everything which distinguishes man from the
animals depends upon this ability to volatilize
 perceptual metaphors in a schema,
and thus to dissolve an image into a concept

The Jaxankés also came to develop a trade diaspora that stretched from the interior lands of the Futa Jallon to a wide swath of the West African coast. They were generally successful in their business endeavors, thanks to hard work, effective networking, and a reputation, due to their piousness, for being honest in trade and commerce.

Over the centuries the Jaxankés have maintained a strong and independent cultural identity. Their dedication to pacifism and political non-engagement was tested, but ultimately uncompromised by the coming of European imperialism. Although some scholars maintain that this was largely due to their cultural and geographic isolation, rather than cultural conviction. The coming of Pulaars in the ~17^th century, who quickly became a culturally dominant majority in the Futa Jallon, was probably a bigger test of their cultural tenacity.

Today the Jaxankés enjoy, as I have mentioned, a reputation for hard work, religious piety, and a strong scholarly tradition. That is my village in a nutshell. Volunteers in Pulaar villages around mine are constantly blown away by how quickly and ambitiously people in my village go about their work. Senegalese everywhere, at least those who have heard of the Jaxankés[13] will confirm; Jaxankés work hard.

 I don’t mean to defend my ‘own group’ at the expense of any other, this really isn’t about that. I am just conferring my experience and the experience of other volunteers. And the Jaxanké reputation has its flipside, in the form of a negative stereotype. Many Senegalese, particularly those who do not actually live near Jaxankés, or even know any, will often claim that all Jaxankés care about are godo, muso, subo; money, women, meat; that they are greedy, and have an undue, disproportionate share of the country’s wealth.

Sound familiar? A trade Diaspora. A strong, relatively narrow religious tradition. A reputation for hard work and intelligence, and, simultaneously, greed. Considering these things, myself, and a few other academically engaged PC Sengegal friends, cannot help but think of the Jaxankés as the Jews of West Africa. There are of course numerous issues with this comparison, notably the much more urban-based history and culture of the Jews, but I think that this is something to it. (But note that I cite no academic sources here)

We are, all of us, growing volcanoes that
approach the hour of their eruption; but how
 near or distant that is, nobody knows — not even God.

So I live in a fascinating place, with a fascinating group of people. Knowing all of this history enlivens my daily experience. Now I see the long hours of drone-like reading from the Koran as the continuation of a long and successful tradition, and I have reconsidered my conviction that learning French is a better thing for the kids here than learning Arabic—although this is still a very difficult question for me.

Right now the rainy season is beginning. The first heavy rain came on the 15^th of May, and within 5 days my village had already planted many hectares of corn, cassava and peanuts. I have been looking and asking around, and know of no other villages that planted so much land so quickly/early. Most villages in the area are still repairing fences and have only planted small patches of corn. The farmers in my village will be the first people to have corn on the market, and will get higher prices for it. Planting so early was a gamble though, because sometimes the first rain is followed by weeks of dryness, but we got just enough rain in late May to bridge the gap, and now the rains are coming with increasing regularity. 

The village has also gotten together and is going to rent a tractor for the entire rainy season to facilitate the farming of rice. My host dad also purchased a horse[14], which plows land about twice as fast as donkeys or cows. The village is also building a big bridge right now to replace the stick bridge, which already broke in a flood.

These are just some of the projects that are underway in my village right now. I am consistently blown away by the work ethic in my village, and the ambition.  The people are diligent, motivated, and have a real sense of purpose. And they love their work. They believe in it too.

They believe in the power of work to improve their lives and the lives of their children. Unfortunately this is really not the case in much of Kedougou and Senegal. In many villages near the gold mines, people hear of miners striking it rich and decide to go try their luck, abandoning agriculture and other trades.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings —
 always darker, emptier, simpler.

 In other villages, the saturation of NGOs seems to have diminished people’s motivation.  Why would you work when the western donors are willing to dump all kinds of goods and money on your village? And sometimes things are quite literally dumped onto villages. One volunteer in the nearby town of Bandafassi told me of a time he was sitting with some people in town, talking, when a truck representing a Spanish NGO drove up. The truck stopped, and someone shoved about 20 new bikes, tied together with rope, out of the back onto the ground. Then the truck drove away. 

Needless to say, this volunteer was very frustrated with the people in his village, and had great difficulty getting them to cooperate on any manner of work project. This is an unfortunate but very real and widespread result of well meaning NGOs.

Meanwhile I feel incredibly lucky with the work partners I get to collaborate with. I get full support for almost any project I propose. With rainy season coming on, work is rapidly picking up, and I am spending many happy days out in the fields, living, amongst the continued tradition of one of one of West Africa’s most successful cultural groups. 

---

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Senegal

[2] Who are also known by dozens of other appelations such as Fulani, Peul, Fulbe, etc

[3] An amazing fact for a country that is 92% Muslim.

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mand%C3%A9_peoples_of_Africa Fascinating!!

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Senegal

[6] Classification of individual languages within the Mandé language family can be a very tenuous exercise. They tend to move along a spectrum, rather than having strictly defined limits, and many dialects that are officially considered to be separate languages are in fact fully mutually intelligible to the native speaker. I wonder very often here what officially defines a language.

[7] Futa Jallon and the Jaxhanke Clerical Tradition. Sanneh, Lamin. Journal of Religion in Africa, Vol. 1 (1981), pp. 38-64.

[8] Ibid.

[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fouta_Djallon

[10] ibid

[11] Mahmiud Kacti, Tarikhal-Fattdsht, and O. Houdas and M. Delafosse, Paris, 1964, 314, Ar. text 179.

[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakhanke_people

[13] When I am in Dakar or anywhere out west with other volunteers this is a source of constant hilarity. They will strike up conversations in Pulaar or Wolof with fruit sellers, who will then start talking to me. “Je parle Jaxanké”, I say, and they often have no idea what I am talking about. Sometimes they say, no no, it’s pronounced jaxatu, (which is the name of an eggplant like vegetable) and sorry we are all out.

[14] It’s the only horse I’ve ever seen in Kedougou. We have sleeping sickness here, and normally they cannot survive, but is vaccinated, and my dad has the supplies to continue vaccinating it each year. I named it Muktar and have been riding it around my village, to the delight of the little kids.