"Totally exhausted, sweating onto my notebook so much that my pen won’t work, and longing for a nice cool shower, we round up the afternoon by all meeting together in the main room again. It’s all I can do to muster up the energy to thank them. They are thankful too and – all things considered – the final recordings are pretty decent, with a good variety of styles and instrumentation. Then it happens: one of them pipes up with, “It was good, but we wish the workshop had been better organized!”
I’m defensive: “Better organized? What do you mean?”
“Well, so that we would receive some money from you.” Money?
They want money from me! This is a never-ending issue for the expatriate working in Africa: all too often, the issue of money rears its ugly head! To be fair, it does vary depending on location; the Bogo over in Sassanou never asked me for a penny and – in fact – gave me several gifts as a token of their appreciation! My theory is that the closer to the coast and/or to a big city you get, the worse it becomes.
“Money! What for?”
“For participating in the workshop!”
I pause for a moment, then continue:
“Let me ask you some questions.
Firstly, Ifè participants, did you pay for your transport here?”
“No, it was free,” they reply.
“And, everybody, how much have you had to pay for your accommodation during this workshop?”
“Nothing.”
“Right. And your meals?”
“They were provided free of charge.”
“And what about the hours of technical work I’ve put in to record your songs? Do I get paid for that? And my travel from Cotonou – it cost me 40,000 CFA. Nobody is paying me for that! Furthermore, I will go home from here and spend several days editing all your songs and making the cassettes so that you can benefit from them. You will then each receive a cassette of your songs, also free of charge. And still you ask me for money?”
The issue of per diems as they are called is still a contentious one. You see, I just spoke as a Westerner, from a Western viewpoint (and a particularly worn-out, fed up Westerner at that!) Now, the African viewpoint is very different: they’ve given up time to come and take part in this workshop, so should be ‘rewarded’ for this. They’ll also have lost several days’ income, which is not going to appear out of thin air, and they need to feed their families somehow. Finally, in Africa, if you have a friend who is richer than you, then it would be completely normal for the rich friend to give some money to the poorer friend. In the West, we try not to mix friendship with money, in case it spoils it; in Africa, friendship and exchange of cash often go hand in hand, almost as a way of cementing a friendship.
“That’s all I have to say on the matter.” I add. And we end the workshop. Just like that. I’m way too exhausted to continue debating this with them.........
Culture is a massive thing, and cultural differences – or misunderstandings – are at the heart of most friction and stress for an expatriate overseas. I’ve seen perfectly lovely people (Germans, Americans, French and – I have to add – Brits) losing their rag with Africans, because things didn’t happen ‘just so’. We are conditioned to seeking perfection, creating a world where everything is clear cut and runs according to certain rules (and woe betide you, should you veer from those!) Africa is not like that. Sure, there are rules, but things are often more fluid, negotiable, adaptable; and this is not a bad thing, it’s just how things are done here."
(Rob Baker. Adventures in Music and Culture : Travels of an Ethnomusicologist in West Africa)
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