December 30, 2007 Black and White

Everyone here is black, a foreigner, or an albino. It's known and accepted. The Lebanese are the majority of the non-blacks, so I've been told. I haven't seen any, but I trust the people who've passed along that information. There is a word for white person in most of the local languages. In Susu, that's fotay. Everywhere we go, kids chant fotay, fotay, fotay. It's a fun game for them. I started out teaching them my name. I would ask their names, too. Pretty much everyone here is Mohammed. Makes it easy. There are several factors at work that have led me to change my strategy. First, other trainees started coming up to me to inform me they had been called David. Male and female. Apparently that telephone game has real-life implications. I can imagine how it goes:

1. I met this cool fotay named David. He asked me what my name was.
2. Mohammed met this cool fotay named David.
3. Mohammed said Mohammed met a fotay. Apparently we should call him David.
4. Mohammed said Mohammed said Mohammed said all fotays are called David.
5. Really? That's weird, because David is a name here and it's only for men.
6. No way, Mohammed part 5, if the fotays all want to be called David, so be it.

And by that point, we've covered everyone in town and the old people near me have decided it's better to call me Doudi (dowdy).

Factor number two:

I was riding my bike to the pineapple plantation and some kids near there started chanting fotay. I stopped and rode over to them to introduce myself. A little kid, maybe two years old, was the one who had gotten closest to me, so I rode up to him. I couldn't even tell him my name wasn't fotay, because he threw his bowl up into the air, raining rice all over his dirt yard, and he sprinted into his house, sparking a stampede of fleeing children. His mother had a pretty good laugh as I cornered the only remaining kid to introduce myself. Those kids still all call me fotay, but for the sake of saving rice, I just let it go.

And that's part three - when you call them fohray, which is Susu for black person, they find it hilarious. There is so little racial tension here, skin color is largely a joke. People are curious about white skin (and freckles). I made a group of teenaged girls laugh (at me) when I explained why white skin is a horrible handicap because I always have to put on sunscreen or I'll get burned.

That said, yes, white skin is a status symbol. In spite of everything it is in America, too. People make assumptions. Here, since white people are largely aid workers, the assumptions is that white people have come to give away money, seeds, or infrastructure for free. But it's not a question of tension or stress. Except for the rice boy. And several babies who scream and cry when they see me.