Rising Above

It’s funny how easy it is sometimes to get caught up on the small things. The small stresses of the day that take away from the big picture, the greater things in life. This morning, over my regular breakfast of baguette and tea, I started thinking about the aspects of my experiences in Dakar (Senegal) that have frustrated me, left me questioning… especially along gender lines. But instead of just complaining about the realities of my experiences, it seems more constructive just to share my experiences and proactively locate organizations that seek to contribute to gender equality here in Senegal.

One thing I especially want to be aware of is the same old problem we seem to facing in the US: having someone or a group of people come in, feeling that they can impose their dominant perspective on gender equality on a very diverse population of people.  (—A dynamic that is not totally estranged from a number of volunteers and social workers from Europe and America that I met in places such as South Africa, who reinforced colonial issues of power by coming in, blinded by having more answers than questions, more leadership-based approaches than community/group oriented sustainable solution-building.)

Just because I see certain injustices or unfair treatment doesn’t mean that I have all the answers to “fix it,” (note the scare quotes) or that I even know what gender equality in Senegal, or more specifically, in Dakar should ideally look like. What I do hope to continue to advocate and interrogate periodically in the coming month are some basic rights that I feel at times are not being respected… (This is not to suggest that things are ideal back in the US or that these forms of gender inequality are unique to any one specific country or region).

And as I do this, I should acknowledge the fact that I come from the perspective of someone who is traveling in developing countries for the first time and who was largely raised in a household where I tag-teamed every responsibility—from preparing dinner to finding a way to support my college education—with my mother.

As I continue to come across individuals who seem, at times, threatened my independence and street smarts as a solo woman traveller, I will not be discouraged by the trials and tribulations they sometimes put in my way. Rather, I will use them as learning experiences and a stepping stone to doing whatever I was doing better than I was before.

Watch out, RAPtivists! More to come…

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