Urban Apprenticeships and Senegalese Narratives of Development: Mansour Sora Wade's Picc Mi and Djibril Diop Mambety's La petite vendeuse de Soleil

This essay examines critiques of Senegal's neocolonial political economy in two powerful films: Mansour Sora Wade's Picc Mi (1992) and Djibril Diop Mambety's La petite vendeuse de Soleil (1999). In addition to interrogating Senegal's position in the politics of development after independence, these two films bring attention to complex realities that are rarely examined by scholars outside of Africa: internal migration to African cities and the changing apprenticeships of the young urban underclass. Picc Mi explores the state of apprenticeship for boys who struggle to survive by begging on Dakar's streets, and examines the role of African political élites who collaborate with "global" institutions for their personal gain. La petite vendeuse de Soleil projects a vision in which a young girl courageously breaks the norms of gendered apprenticeships, reflecting the virtues of local determination and women's empowerment, and the hope for a brighter, more independent future. In their politically charged narratives of apprenticeship—which function in part as metaphors of national development—Wade and Mambety create protagonists who evaluate Senegal's social, sexual and economic hierarchies. Picc Mi targets Senegalese leaders who use the poverty of the underclass as tools to appropriate international aid, while La petite vendeuse de Soleil calls for a radical revision of Senegal's popular response to its place in the international economy.

One of three shorts included in the film collection Three Tales from Senegal, Mansour Sora Wade's Picc Mi depicts a day in the life of a young urban taalibe named Modou. Apprentices in the transcription and oral recitation of the Koran, taalibes are taken under the wing of a master marabout. Koranic schools, or daar in Arabic, are called daara in Senegal's main language, Wolof. Traditionally, Senegalese taalibes would spend seven to ten hours per day in the daara learning the Koran, and other parts of the day assisting their marabouts with agricultural production. In some cases, the youngest taalibes would go from home to home, asking for provisions for the daara (Wane 115). ¹ As Picc Mi shows, the daily lives of many taalibes currently dwelling in Dakar and other Senegalese cities have changed for the worse; although the tradition of a solid education in the Koran still exists, in an increasingly urban context, many young taalibes pass the majority of their waking hours begging for money on the streets and rendering their earnings to their marabouts.

Picc Mi can be read on a number of levels. Initially, the film recreates an oral tale about a little bird in its nest, abandoned by its mother and preyed upon by a voracious, sly crocodile. On another level, Wade explores the exploitative relationships between newly urban youth and the neocolonial "crocodiles" who impede their growth. On yet another level, Wade engages in dialogue with local debates over the plight of young urban taalibes, thousands of whom migrate to cities, or are sent by their parents to urban daaras. ² These journeys to the urban sphere are not necessarily free choices; as Alessandro Triulzi observes, the African city is "the space for migration and refuge for ever larger numbers 'banished' by hunger and/or the dismantling of agricultural production" (81). While some critics have called the film's connection between the threatened bird and the boy simplistic, Wade's careful selection of characters, plot, and scenes render Picc Mi far more complex than they acknowledge, especially to an audience familiar with the images and issues. ³

At the commencement of Picc Mi, a group of taalibe apprentices recite verses from the Koran as the master marabout eats greedily. He does not watch them closely or participate actively in the development of their learning, but concentrates on satisfying his appetite, stopping once only to signal the...