Money Palava was a song written by a Sierra Leonean band called Afro National in 1977, palava is a Krio word which basically means trouble, but it also means confusion, so the song Money Palava really talks about the problems and confusion that arise from money.
Money is a key issue in the lives of most of the world’s
population. I have to say that I have never given in too much thought
until now. I remember my mum telling me that she and my Dad had discussed
offering me a financial reward should I get good grades in my A Levels, they
decided that it would be pointless as I was not at all motivated by
money. I acknowledge that this is just more testament to the privileged
childhood that I had.
My stance has changed now; Winston and I have our own family, which
makes money somewhat more important, although not everything.
I am going to talk, in this post about attitudes towards money here and
the differences to European/American culture and why I think these differences
exist.
My experience in Sierra Leone has shown me that people think I am rich.
We are not, by European standards, anywhere near this description but
relatively speaking in Sierra Leone, we are. From buying oranges to
renting a house people here see my face and inflate the price of goods or
services two and sometimes three-fold (more if they think they can get away with
it.) This is not only in my case; if people hear the English inflection
in Winston's Krio he experiences the same thing.
When it comes to family here there is s a lot of responsibility placed
on the person who earns the most money to provide for the entire family, by
family I do not mean only their children, I mean their parents, their aunts,
uncles, cousins and not even necessarily only their blood relatives. This burden is especially put upon people who
have left Sierra Leone and work in Europe or America. Winston and I often have family members
approaching us for financial assistance. Even those not related to him are keen to tell
Winston how much they did for him when he was a baby and the phrase “do not forget about me” is often
introduced into a conversation to apply emotional pressure for this financial
or material assistance. The approach
that the family should progress together would be a good one if the burden was
not all placed on one member to solve everyone’s problems. A simple example of this is the following: Malaria is rife here - no one will deny that -
however it is proven that you greatly reduce your chance of contracting Malaria
if you sleep under a mosquito net.
Winston and I bought and installed mosquito nets for everyone in his
immediate family explaining the importance of using them. Now the whole family refuses to use the nets
saying that they find it difficult to sleep under them; however, when any
family member gets Malaria they approach us to pay for their treatment.
Now we have been here for some time people know us, at least once a
month someone will approach us and ask for some kind of financial assistance.
If we ask someone how their business is the conversation will inevitably
lead to a request for us to lend them money because “things are difficult”. Neighbours and members of our church
will come and ask us to provide money for medical treatment, their school fees
or for their food.
The money issue has made it quite difficult for me to make friends here,
many people are interested in becoming friends with me but I have found that it
is rarely for my company alone. Usually, in the first or second
conversation the person's financial situation is stated. Early into our
first visit here, out for a walk alone, a lady approached me and then led me to
her house and stated plainly "look how poor I am, you should start
giving me money to help me live better." Walking away I felt
ridden with guilt and, honestly, a little outraged, it’s like the extreme
version of being accosted by charity workers on UK high Streets.
Relationships amongst young people here seem to be based on some kind of
material or financial arrangement between the parties involved. Girls and
women look for a man who has money (or at least they think has money, read on, I will explain.) They will often have more than one boyfriend
and if one of these guys’ is not providing what he should he
will more than likely be dumped. Men who
have no money or job have little chance of getting a girlfriend, young men are
supplanted by older men who have jobs and money so you will see lots of young
women in their teens and twenties with middle aged men and more commonly now
with much older Chinese, Indian or European men (foreign investment brings
foreigners who will inevitably be seen to have more money). There just
doesn't seem to be much of that teenage love around.
Men with money exploit girls using their money to justify having a lot
of girlfriends. Also because they have
money, they seem to think it ok to treat these girls how they want. The other side of this is it has bred a trend
of something that is called “419” or “false life”. Young
men tell girls all sorts of things to gain their interest when they meet them, most
of these things are in order to tell the girl that they have a lot of money. The stories range from telling the girl that all
your brothers and sisters live in England to telling them that you have just
come from America where you are a famous Hip Hop star. This seems extreme I know but the aim is to
give the girl the impression that you do not have any financial problems.
There is a song about this - 419* - called ‘Buku
Talk’ – this means basically talking rubbish or “bigging” yourself up. The song tries to tell people that it is
stupid to act like you are something that you are not, it was a very popular
song here, but I just don’t know that people know what it means because all the
guys do it and all the girls fall for it:
An extreme example of the lack of teenage romance here there are ‘colonkos’ this is the Krio word for
prostitute. Once you know, it is easy to
spot these young girls, they stand together in night-clubs at the beginning of
the night and as the evening moves on they will identify their client,
negotiations will take place then they will spend the rest of the night dancing
for them before disappearing with them.
Now of course for some, this career choice is a matter of meeting their
basic needs, paying for food or for their school fees. For others it is about extra money to pay for
their hair, the latest fashion or for their nails. For some it is just an easy way to make
money. I do not mention prostitution out
of any kind of judgement, it is a career choice. I also want to state that there is a serious
lack of opportunities for women here, it is still a very patriarchal society
and for most girls have few choices that do not involve relying on a man to
provide for them in one way or another.
Now, whilst I am no social anthropologist I think that the country’s
modern history can give you a good clue as to why this attitude towards money
is the status quo. During the war women were brutalised beyond belief,
used by the rebels, soldiers and Kamajors
alike to cook for them and for sex, if captured, and not used as soldiers the
women were effectively slaves (this is another blog post entirely.) When the war ended food was scarce. Men,
including soldiers from the ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States
Monitoring Group) and UN (United Nations) forces that had money or food would
be the ones who got interest from women; it was a matter of survival for these
girls. This seems to have stuck but now, less than being about survival,
it is about clothes and hair.
I know too that relationships that are little more than a material or
financial transaction is not exclusive to Sierra Leone, if we look at popular
culture for reference Kanye West's Gold Digger it is pretty
clear that wherever you go there are women who are just in it for the money.
I know that in the ‘West’ we do not necessarily have the money /
community balance right, I think that people there are far too selfish, myself
included, and there is far too much focus on self-progression – I think that
the current trend for ‘anti-capitalist’ protests in England and the US show
that our selfish attitude has gone too far and people know it. I also acknowledge that the relative wealth
of opportunity in Western countries means that self-progression is a much more
viable option. However, it has to be
acknowledged too that some people are lazy; they would much rather that someone
else solved their problems for them than they do it themselves. Look at people who take advantage of the welfare
system in the UK or the attitudes towards family and money that I talked about
here. Whilst opportunities here are not
as available, there are opportunities
but they require a lot of work and because capital is lacking and you have to
make up for that loss with work. The
basic fact is that people are not willing to put this work in and would rather
that wealth was handed to them on a plate.
It can be argued too that NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) and
foreign aid have gone a long way to add to this imbalance but again that is a
different blog post entirely.
Sierra Leone is a far cry from the Capitalist countries of the West.
It's funny though, in a country where people are so poor few die of
starvation, there is always someone to help.
So does this approach to money work for society? Well, I think that I would have to say no,
even though in the West we are focused too much on progression of the
individual here it is too much the other way, everyone wants money and the
solutions to their problems handed to them if not from another human then from
God. The expression ‘By God im power’ is used so much here;
it means that if God wills it, it will happen.
People seem to think that God has not done what he is supposed to do by
giving you two hands and two feet and the strength to get up every day.
Living in Sierra Leone I have been able to see how lucky I have been in
my life, especially growing up, money was not an issue for me, all my needs
were met and more. People’s attitude
here to Winston and me and money has been difficult to deal with at times and I
have spent a lot of time feeling guilty because we cannot help everyone. But the reason we came to Sierra Leone to
start a business for our family and for our family’s future which means we have
to draw a line. In the matter of friends
I am learning that it is ok to say no to requests for help, people will accept
this and those who do not understand when I say no would probably not make for
very good friends. Family is more
complicated, but again we have to draw a line.
We help where we can but try to measures in place so that family members
can help themselves rather than maintaining the status quo. In the case of relationships here I think it
is really a shame that girls have to sell themselves to men in one way or
another to get the things they want.
They don’t get to fall in love
with a boy just because he’s gorgeous or just because he makes her laugh like
Western teenagers do. For the boys, they
suffer too, they don’t get to use their wit or their charm to get the girl they
want, if they don’t have money they have to lie and pretend that they are
something that they are not. I hope that
Sierra Leone’s future holds opportunities for its young people that mean the
boys don’t have to pretend that they are Hip Hop stars to get a
girlfriend. I hope that girls have a
future of opportunities that mean they can get a job, buy the things they want
themselves in the way that I did and that they can fall in love with the man
they want and together they can build their own future, the way we are.
