Chief & Big Boss Lady: Leaders of the Toubabs

(Thanks to Bennett Rea for taking this photo. One of my favs so far)

So one thing you should know about Africa (in general). Although you would think there is some post-colonial resentment about white people's invasion of Africa, Africans are no fools and they know who brings the money and the goods. Irony of life is that white people (and foreigners in general, but white people are easier to visually spot) are put on a pedestal when traveling in Africa. Everyone (well nearly everyone...I'm sure there are a few exceptions) wants to compliment and get to know the white people, just in case on the off-chance you like them and want to share your wealth with them. It doesn't really matter if you would be considered wealthy in your home country, the fact that you are in Africa means you have substantially more money than the average African will make in their entire life.

Africans are very perceptive and can almost immediately figure out who in a group of people are the important people. Sometimes it's easy; say, a much older Professor in a group of young students. But sometimes they sit back and wait and see who else might be running the show. This was the case for the last three weeks. Emil was easy to identify as the "Chief" based on his obvious life experience in comparison to the 19-23 year olds (that's my nice way of saying he was much older :)), and the fact that he generally has the attitude that he knows what he's doing since he has spent a lot of time in Senegal and The Gambia in the past 5 years. It would take them a few more minutes before they would realize that I was the "Big Boss Lady" in the group. They could deduce this by the fact that Emil would direct important info to me, students would look to me with questions, and also by the fact that I pretend to know what I'm doing, even if I am not always entirely sure (this is another post altogether...note to self).

Chief was also known as "Prof" by people who knew he was a Professor. This was especially prevalent in The Gambia which is a very small country and people tend to remember you if you are a frequent visitor. We had people coming up to us in random places, like the Ferry Depot, and talking to Emil and saying "You come every year! I always remember you!" and totally being spot on.

Chief and Big Boss Lady are the generic ways of showing respect in The Gambia. In lieu of knowing your name, they want to show you that they know you are an "important" person, even if that importance is just that you have more money than they do and they are hoping the by being nice and showing deference that you may bestow some gifts on them. Although it sounds cynical to us here, in Africa it is rather endearing and sweet in the context.

In The Gambia there is a local word that means "white people." It is "Toubab." No one knows for sure where the term came from, but according to Wikipedia here are the roots:

The name has many suggested sources, including: a corruption of the Arabic word Tabib meaning doctor; a verb in the Wolof language meaning "to convert" ( the early doctors and missionaries during colonial times, being whites coming from Europe ); or that it is derived from the two bob (two shilling) coin of pre-decimalisation United Kingdom currency. Another explanation is that is means 'from the sea' as the first whites arrived by ship.

What Wikipedia doesn't explain is the context and emphasis in which it is used (although they do note that it is not a derogatory term). EVERYWHERE, and I mean literally everywhere you go you can hear people shouting "Toubab!" The best is children. Kids are so overjoyed that they are seeing a white person they just can't help but scream "Toubab!" with the most overwhelming sense of glee you have ever seen. You can tell when someone has told them not to scream toubab at white people. They are literally quivering with excitement and usually they are not able to contain the excitement and an overwhelming urge to squeak out "TOUBAB!" usually escapes their lips. It happens more in the rural areas than in the capital, but every time it cracked me up.

More interesting was to the see the evolution of how the students felt about the term. I remember when I first went to China how we were always called "Lao Wai" which basically means "foreigner" but again, was used more for people who were visually NOT Chinese (white or black people mostly). It was interesting to see the social acclimation amongst the student on this trip.

At first you typically think it's kind of funny. First it's a funny word. Second the tremendous usage of the word (both in frequency and vigor) is surprising. It's something we are so unaccustomed to in our PC life. We would never dare think about calling someone out because they are visually different.

After a while you start to get irritated with it. Again, coming back to our societal expectations about how we address people, particularly those that are different, we can't understand why they keep calling us out. It usually around the point that you are dealing with other issues of culture shock and so in general hearing yourself called out all day long is just something that irritates you on top of everything else you are trying to cope with.

Finally, most people come to peace with the word and embrace it as just another funny quirk of this new culture you are learning about. Towards the end of the trip students were referring to each other as toubabs and on the off chance we would see other white people they had to contain their urge to jokingly yell "Toubabs!" to the strangers.

I think this pattern of adjustment happens for a lot of things. In particular on this trip the same thing happened with the street vendors who were trying to sell cashews to us every 10 feet, cab drivers honking at us to get our attention and hoping to get us to take their cabs, and a variety of other things that we are not used to in our culture. At first students are curious, then they are irritated, and finally they think it is funny and they accept that it is just a different way of doing things than they are used to.

This was one of my favorite parts of the trip; being on the "other side" of things. I have much more travel experience than most the students on the trip, and have done tons of thinking and processing about different cultural experiences that I have been fortunate to enjoy, but this is the first time I have been able to help lead a group of students to a new place with the express purpose of helping them learn about a new culture. In Nigeria I am often leading people through the process but in a less focused way. We are in Nigeria for a completely different purpose and my goal is to just help the volunteers survive the trip and have a positive experience while helping provide medical care to 3,000 people. Naturally I do a lot less of the touchy-feely "let's learn about a new culture" stuff than I did on this trip. So it was a new and rewarding experience for me. I have more observations about the trip, but I thought this was a good one to start with.