Whatcha got cookin'? Hi, 25. You're looking pretty fine tonight. Yes, yes you are. What's that? You're more posts than I wrote in the entire year of 2007? Why, you're correct! (Also, I can tell you're a little unsettled by that new Blogger tab that says "monetize," and I don't blame you, because I am too.)
This occasion seems appropos for a post with a little more narrative tension than usual, don't you think?
I went to see the African Children's Choir tonight with a friend who had an extra ticket. I walked in kind of hazy on the details of what we were about to see (and so was she; her tickets had come as part of a package deal) and I walked out confused and conflicted. According to the brochure, which is a big "according to" and I really need to do some research about the backing organization, these kids come from very poor parts of Africa and are often orphaned by one or both parents. There was a video showing some of their neighborhoods in different countries in Africa, and testimonials from young adults about how much the choir, which has been around since 1984, has changed their lives.
During the program, a few real-live graduates sang and talked about the program, as well as their current successes in college and the way the program had helped them rise out of poverty. They were interspersed between these incredibly adorable little kids in costumes, singing and dancing. About half the songs were traditional African songs in Swahili or some of the kids' native languages (again, assuming), and the other half were in English. Those were mostly things along the lines of "This Little Light of Mine" set to horrifying '80s synthesizer soundtracks.
The good: Clearly, the children's lives are better for having done this. They are fed and clothed and healthy and educated. For the most part, at least in the first half, the kids looked like they were having a great time singing and dancing and drumming and responding to the applause of the audience. They also are taking home an amazing gift to the kids who don't get chosen: the vast sums of money that keep open special schools run by this program. They claim they educate thousands and thousands of African children a year, just a fraction of whom are the ones who actually go on tour with the choir. (As an aside, it must be a total head trip to be one of the people who chooses the most talented and attractive and healthy kids to go on tour and leaves the rest behind at the schools.)
The bad: What is the ethical cost of this? These kids aren't remotely old enough to choose this life for themselves, and certainly not old enough to choose their religion (although I suppose no kids who are raised with any kind of religion are). But it's pretty clear that they are being used -- trained, in fact, a word they used freely in the video, to sing and dance for rich Western audiences. They are taken around countries they know aren't theirs and asked to stand up every night and look happy at the right times, sad at the right times, sing songs in multiple languages they may or may not understand. They are asked to dance traditional dances for money, to dress up for money, to sing for money, to look cute for money, to look needy for money.
I can't even figure out what I think about this. I mean, in balance, this is good, right? However they've gotten our filthy Western money, they've gotten it, and they're making children's lives better with it. It wouldn't matter if the kids were chosen to go on tour by lottery, or standing up on stage juggling puppies and fire batons, or taught to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster -- this money is good. And people wouldn't fork over the $30 if they weren't getting a ticket to something that would give them a particular experience.
This entire set-up is counting on some Western need for a transaction to take place, for us to get something in return for the giving of money, right? People wanted the experience; they didn't just want to give $30 for this program without going to see it in action.
But wow, did it feel horrible to me to be having that experience. The beginning, with the African dances and pretty costumes, was odd but manageable. At intermission, my friend and I talked about how weird this felt and how we weren't sure we were comfortable, but we didn't actually consider leaving. Halfway through the second act, during the video, I wanted to run screaming from the room. I have never been so consciously aware of exploiting something or someone while in the act of doing it as I was tonight.
I am going to be more conscious about it from now on, but I'm still completely conflicted about the whole thing. Is it good that I went, or was it just perpetuating the problem? If I'd known what it would be like, should I have just written a check instead and not made myself uncomfortable for two hours on a Friday night, or was that experience worth something in itself?
2 comments:
And that pretty much sums up how it feels to travel through the Australian Outback, right there. Word.
Yup. Same thing in Peru. Tiny Peruvian children dress in traditional clothes/costumes and do anything they can for tourist money. And you wonder if you should give them money, because you clearly have more (of everything) than they do... or is giving them money in response to what they're doing just encouraging more and more people to send their 4 year olds out into the street begging. I don't know.
But I do think that the experience itself is probably worth something. I mean, if you had just mailed in a check, would you be spending this much time thinking about the underlying problem? Probably not.
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