Stranger Danger
“Before I built a wall I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offense”. - Mending Wall by Robert Frost
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“When I say the following word, say out loud the first word that comes to your mind, ready...Stranger”. I gave these instructions to a class of 11th grade Americans in the fall of 2014 while presenting to them about my Peace Corps experience. It should come as no surprise to the Americans reading this that their immediate choral response was “danger”.
I posed the same instructions to my literature class of first year college students here in Sierra Leone a few weeks ago and received a variety of responses vastly different from the American classroom. The responses will not be surprising to the Sierra Leoneans reading this, or anyone who has spent time in Sierra Leone. They were - “Protection”. “Hospitality”. “Kindness”.
Sierra Leoneans are world famous for their hospitality. At the root of this hospitality is a word that illuminates the difference between American and Salone culture, stranger. In the US we have a very negative connotation associated with the word, informed by creepy elementary school videos of strangers seducing young children with enticing offers of candy. The definition is re-enforced by parents who repeatedly remind us not to talk to strangers.
In Salone the word has quite the opposite connotative meaning. A stranger is someone to take care of, someone unfamiliar with the area, someone that needs to be fed, clothed and protected without hesitation. In even the most modest homes throughout the country a room will be set aside as a “stranger room” where a family will reserve the finest bedding and furniture for those who visit. As a stranger you could walk up to any home in this country unannounced and at the very least be offered a meal. To be turned away would be unthinkable.
In American terms a stranger is like a guest. But instead of hospitality being extended to only people who are known, in Sierra Leone, anyone who you don't know that comes to visit you deserves the treatment of an honored guest. There is a deeper cultural disparity here that goes beyond just a difference in definition. Namely, the issue of trust. In the society that you most identify with do you judge a new person first and then later trust the person, or do you trust first and take time to judge whether or not s/he deserves that trust? Which way is better? Is one way better than the other or just different?
I posed these questions to my literature class during a discussion we were having about the poem Mending Wall by Robert Frost. What are the effects of living in a society in which we so openly trust strangers? The responses were somewhat surprising to me. I had made a positive and negative column on the board and many of the responses were falling into the negative column. My students made the point that during Ebola, sick people were given shelter and that perpetuated the spread of the disease. Note: This claim is merely anecdotal and is not necessarily supported by public health data. However, I think the perception that it is true, is important to note. Similarly, I heard anecdotal evidence about Sierra Leone's civil war in which rebel soldiers, who were given shelter in villages, were then able to pass on information to the opposing side. We decided that in times of crisis caution has merit.
Notably the examples my students gave in the positive column all related to interactions of everyday life. For example, greeting and conversing with someone while sharing a mini-bus could lead to a conversation about common friends or family. Inviting a stranger to eat could lead to a relationship that turns into a business opportunity. Meeting new people allows you to learn about a different way of living in another part of the country. None of these positive daily interactions would occur in a society that had erected social walls around new encounters.
The point that my students and I reached together was that one cultural framework is not necessarily better than the other. The real world is not black and white. Reality is a tapestry of beautiful shades of gray, of positive and negative interactions with both strangers and those that we know well. In certain situations where our health or safety is threatened, we need to be careful of those around us. On the other hand, throughout most of our daily lives, being open to new relationships and ideas can bring immeasurable value. Diversity has value. An array of opinions brings strength, not weakness to arguments. What we learn from other points of view can bring insight to our own point of view.
I recognize the limitations of stereotyping, that not all Americans or all Sierra Leoneans behave in the ways I've mentioned above. However, I believe that by polarizing the issue, separating Americans into one group and Sierra Leoneans into another, my students and I were able to arrive at a place where we both had learned something about the other group, and crucially, in the process learned something about our own group.
If I had not come to Sierra Leone, if I had walled myself out of this experience, I could never have come to these conclusions. I would never have had the opportunity to learn that the word stranger could be thought of in more than one way. I would never have been able to reflect on my own society through the eyes of another. I would never have felt the kindness of being offered a plate of rice by someone I'd never met. Walls come in many forms both physical and metaphorical. In uncertain times the choice to erect walls can seem like the best option. Yet, before we build walls we need to ask ourselves, what it really is that we are protecting ourselves from.
We need to quell the culture of fear by understanding what it is we don't know about people different than us. In the last three years I've come across so many more qualities that unite rather than divide Americans and Sierra Leoneans; Namibians and Sierra Leoneans; Namibians and Americans; Christians and Muslims; Gay people and Straight people; Africans and Westerners; men and women; Group A and Group B. With a little effort, conversation and listening, I've witnessed common ground being achieved. I vehemently reject the notion that the solution to a problem is to hide behind a wall. Instead, I propose that we learn from the Sierra Leonean definition and think of the word stranger in a positive way. We should shift our cultural needle of trust just a little to find out that what it is we have in common vastly outweighs what divides us.
