Saturday, May 28, 2011

Another Toubab/Segregation Issues???

So, my host dad told me that he'll be hosting a Canadian woman, from this NGO called, SUCO, for the next three-months. She'll be here sometime in June and I don't know how I feel about this. One, it would be cool to have another Westerner here in my family compound, who most probably speaks English. I could teach her a lot of the things that I've learned over the past 10-months. It could be fun, but I'm also worried about being treated differently by my family with another Toubab here.

My host dad has already asked me if the newbie could share my nyegen and initally I said yes, but I'm starting to wish that I had said no. It's PC regulation that my nyegen should not be used by anyone else, but there have been instances when my family has used my nyegen, without asking, and I've called them out on it and even called PC. So, if I allow this newbie to use it, what message does that send to my family? It'll totally be promoting segregation, because it's me saying that "This Westerner can use my nyegen, but you're Malian, so you can't." And why? The belief would be that I think that they are dirty.

But, it honestly makes sense for the girl to use my nyegen because there are so many people here and they don't want to inconvenience a guest. What to do, what to do???

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