Senegal part 5

I learned a lot about tolerance during this conference. As stated below, I consider myself a tolerant person.

I was not prepared for "the African way" of doing things. They're not wrong, we're not wrong. We're just different.

I was shcked to realise how dependent on the clock we are in the west. If I'm not wearing a watch, I feel naked. If I don't have access to a clock, I panic. At previous seminars and meetings, everything was planned down to a T. Breakfasts, lunches, breaks, activities, discussions...all had a set start and end time.

I was not prepared for Africa.

Time operates differently there. We would spend so much time waiting for meetings to start that sometimes it felt like we could have accomplished what was eventually done in an hour instead of five. It was frustrated, sitting there, ready and waiting to work, while we waited hours for people to come downstairs. It was to the point where Jerri and I would arrive two hours late for meetings and even then, they would not have started yet.

We had a group meeting at 3:00 pm. We were supposed to discuss women and the media.

3:00 Arrive at meeting room
3:10 Am the only one waiting
3:20 Go find other team members
3:30 Find one of them asleep on the couch - he says that our team meeting has
been pushed back to 4:00
4:00 Go to meeting room
4:10 Am still only one waiting
4:20 Grab random people walking by and form new group
4:30 Have meeting
4:40 Member of team comes downstairs
4:50 Another member of team arrives
5:00 Meeting is full swing

Later on, all the groups came together to discuss our findings. Other groups did presentations on women and family, women and education, women and culture, etc etc. Since this was a seminar on empowering females, I expected to hear from "liberated" males arguing on behalf of their female colleagues.

Wrong.

One of the participants argued for female circumcision, saying that if it limits female pleasure and keeps her faithful to her husband, than it's alright. Not "full" circumcision, mind you, but enough to let her know her place. Another argued against higher female education because while female education is good, women shouldn't be too educated.

Eventually we got into a discussion about Islam and education. A lot of shouting voices later, all we concluded was that Islam encourages women to be educated, but not too educated. I contrasted this to the Muslims I met at university in France. The women were all extremely bright and educated while the men at least showed no outward sighs of resentment.