Modern-day Fable

A little girl was selling peanuts and papayas for her mother. The sparse goods were arranged in piles on a rickety wooden table in the sun. The girl sat in a plastic chair in the shade facing the table waiting for a customer.

Along came a man dressed in the Senegalese flag. His hair matted, his clothes dirty, and his sandals broken. He hobbled as he walked, with a cane fashioned out of a metal rod. As he approached the table, he spoke to himself in Wolof, gesturing this way and that way. Audaciously he picked up a bag or two of peanuts and hobbled slowly away without paying. A group of boy beggars who had seen the man steal, started chasing the man, beating on their tins calling the man a thief.

The man hobbled past a stranger who had also observed him steal. He looked at her, shook his fist and carried on walking with the chanting boys trailing cautiously but aggressively behind him. The stranger looked at the girl, who looked incredibly sad and cheated watching the man make his way down the road. In her head, the stranger, or toubab as she is called knew that she had enough money in her pocket to reimburse the stolen goods. However, she thought, this is the way that people of this city handle their problems, who am I to interfere. Perhaps it is better to let this be a lesson.

This modern day story is something I recently experienced in my neighborhood. After much thought, I think I made the right decision when I did not run to the rescue and plop down the 50 CFA worth of stolen goods. It was a matter of morals and principles about the relationship between toubabs and the locals and the roles toubabs tend to play.

I say this often but I will write this once again. This time around in Dakar has completely altered the way I think about the world, about Senegal, about Dakar, about rich and poor, about development, about NGOs, and about who should be solving whose problems.
I encourage response, if one feels so inclined.