Cuture Conflict

The run-down taxi slowly rolls to a stop on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The driver jumps out, opens the hood, taps a wrench he hides under the hood a fewer time and gets back it. He figets with the gas pedal, clutch, and - for some reason - the interior fan. This process repeats 3 times on the 10 kilometer long trek to Ketao. Ah, the African quick and dirty fix.

My last post talked about the culture of chaos here in Togo. This time I want to go a little deeper into the cultural issues that, as the progam assitant here calls it, mettent le freign sur la developpement - that put the brake on development - in Togo and delve into that dangerous territory of the cultural things that need to change for Togo to develop.

I want to start out by looking at culture from an objective viewpoint. The director of this program in Togo is an anthropologist and constantly pushes us to see Togo trough the lens of evolved cultural practices that are atuned to the conditions they live in. The underlying message is that people don't do things randomly, all things are done for a reason.

I accept that premise, however, I don't think this neccesarily means that all things are done the best way they should (a dangerous word, I know), particularly for the current time and space. My thoughts on this boil down to two forces. First that inertia - continuing what you did yesterday even if times have changed - is a powerful force in all human beings. Second, over time some practices have clear mechanisms that reinforce gradual evolution towards a more effective endpoint at the indivudal. Others do not have such a mechanism, particular at the indivdual level.

Agriculture is a good example of a practice that easily evolves. Whether your crop does better or worse a certain way will affect what you'll do next year. There is no reason why you'd want less corn. For instance, in my village, isn't too reliable; sometimes there is too much and sometimes not enough. This is even more problematic if you're trying to grow a few different crops. However an ingenious solution emerged for how you grow both yams (which require less water) and sorghum (which requires more water) at the same time is by building these cute little mounds around the sorghum to give the yams a higher and drier place to grow. The culture here has been very receptive of fertilizer and people always complain about why it isn't cheaper.

A muddier case of an eveolved cultural practice is the afernoon siesta. Waking at sunrise and taking a nap from 12-3pm is a great idea when you are a farmer who doesn't want to be out during the hottests hours. But should this also apply to the microfinance office in Farende? Maybe... but for the banker in Lome with hardly a field in sight? I doubt it. I heard that Spain is working to abolish the siesta there but you can see how long that took. Inertia. But also the fact that there is no force to change this practice is everyone is doing it. Why would you keep the supermarket open from 12-3 if everyone else is taking a nap, even if you'd prefer not to close and reopen? The evolution to the culture can only happen collectively, not at the individual level.

And then there is the case of the quick and dirty fix, one that looks to the short term - completing that taxi trip - instead of the long term - not having to stop 3 more times on the way back or the rest of the year. An attitude that privledge the short term against the long term is one I've bumped up against time and time again here. Whether it has to with buying cigarettes one at a time instead of a pack, buying small cheaper per unit can, poorly organized meetings or making key investments by taking a loan or saving to start a business.

After hearing all about the power of microfinance, I was excited to see how it would work out here. I've talked to the office in the village and he says there buisness is very slow because people don't want to take risks and don't like saving. According to him, although they are poor, they prefer to do what they know works as opposed to saving an investing in a better future. Yes, if you are poor it makes sense to be risk averse. However; if you are trying to get out of poverty, it doesn't.

I imagine this short term practice developed because of the subsistence nature of farming. You live day in and day out and just try to make ends meet. This continues into other spheres: because you don't have the money to get a new engine, or transmission, you push it till it gets going. However when you extend this attitude to other question of development, it gets dicey.

Take those development meetings that start 2 hours late. Great idea, but they are also poorly planned, don't accomplish the main goals and have no follow-up. Sounds like a procrastinating student. But in the terribly difficult coordination task of development, you can't priviledge the short term over the long term. You have to do the hard work and focus so that you can see results in a year.

However what is so striking is that in a society that farms, the ultimate tale of delayed gratification as you spend months toiling for one harvest, this attitude hasn't transferred elsewhere. So perhaps there is the possibility to change this cultural practice in those instances when they need it to? I can only hope so as I see nothing imperialistic about focusing on the importance of saving and planning!

My internet time is expiring; but until next time?