Ashia - Empathy in Africa

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

So the other day I came in the front gate of the center where I live in Cameroon and noticed that Mama Maria was not there serving lunch under the shelter like she normally does every day for a dozen people. I went back and ask the guard at the gate where she was and he said that she was not feeling well and would not be in all week. 

I went on my way, but then turned back and said to the guard, “Meilleur Santé” – literally “better health”, or “get well.” I realized how perfectly natural that was to say to an African when someone ELSE is sick, but how unnatural it is in French or in a western context. 

If I were in Mali, this is where I would attempt to say the “get well blessing” that I always got wrong in Bambara and would stumble through anyway:  “Ala k’a nɔgɔya kɛ” which means “May God ease it (the suffering/sickness).” This can be said to the sick person but more off than not is said to the person who reports it to you. 

This got me thinking about the radical difference in worldview here and the incredibly empathetic nature of African culture, which is built on the fundamentally relational nature of their cultures.  This is one of the big cultural divides. Western culture is very individualistic, focusing on independence, self-help, self-realization, etc. African culture is a group-oriented culture that is “all about relationships”. 

Early on in my time in Africa, there was something that would always irk me - a sure sign of a cultural difference. I’d be out riding my bike and come up a hill or just be hot and sweaty and a Malian stranger would see me and greet me with a hearty “I segenna”. This literally is means “You’re tired.” To my western, individualistic ears, this sounded like someone pointing out that I was too tired to get the ride done -  “You wimp.  And you think you’re in shape. You can’t already be tired?” 

In fact, though, this was just the group, relational culture showing through in a way I came to love. Basically the other person is recognizing that you are doing something hard and joining with you in that. There is no judgment, just empathy. 

A similar Bambara phrase is “I ni baara” – “You and the work”. It is said when you pass someone who is doing some sort of manual labor - carrying something heavy, digging a hole, plowing a field, building a wall. Again, it is a recognition that that person is doing something hard and you join with them, just for a minute, by acknowledging that.  A link is formed to that person, even a stranger. 

These empathetic observations are not limited just to Mali. In Côte d’Ivoire, they say “I fo” in Jula, or “Yako” in Akan. You say this, if someone shares a difficulty they are experiencing, much like we might say “sorry” in English. I think it can also be used when you see someone doing difficult work.  

Likewise, in Cameroon, a very similar thing to say is “Ashia”, which is an English Pidgin word (proposed etymology is “hush ya”??). Ashia can be used to sympathize with someone in sickness or difficulty, or to appreciate someone working hard. (In researching this, I came across this blogpost on Ashia).  

Language follows culture. Some would say it is the other way around, but they are definitely intertwined. For those of us living between two cultures, we find ourselves borrowing words from French or Bambara or Pidgin and inserting them into English. Sometimes it is just laziness, but often it is because we are stuck between the cultures and we want to express a cultural concept that simply does not exist in English. 

“Ashia” is one of the few words I have learned and use since moving to Cameroon. I hear other expats say it a lot. Likewise, “I ni baara” and even “I segenna” where phrases I came to love using in Mali. There simply is no good ways to say these things in English. 

In looking up the definition of empathy, I found that oddly enough it did not even exist in English until 1909 when it was “coined by the psychologist Edward B. Titchener in an attempt to translate the German word ‘Einfühlungsvermögen’” [source: Wikipedia]. He took the greek morphemes “en” (in/at) and “pathos” (suffering/passion) and put them together to form empathy, a concept that was obviously missing in English.

Merriam Webster defines empathy as: 

“the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present…” 

Empathy stands in contrast with compassion (con=with ) and sympathy  (syn = together), though obviously there is a lot of overlap.  

Sympathy is a concern with the well-being of another and a feeling of pity or sorrow for what they are going through. Compassion is a sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.

While I think all humans, regardless of culture, experience all three of these feelings, our reactions to suffering in others (especially strangers) show an innate cultural preference:

• Western culture prefers to react through compassion and sympathy:  Feeling sorry FOR the other person and desiring to alleviate their suffering, without necessarily getting involved emotionally. We want to DO something.
• African culture prefers to react through empathy: identifying with the other person in their suffering and sharing in that. An African will try, of course, to help those in his inner circle, less so with strangers. But there is always a strong identification with anyone who is suffering.  This mostly just means verbalizing the joint pain and BEING with the other person. 

 Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

Some examples should make this clearer:

1. When there is a tragedy anywhere in the world, Westerners are the first to send money to help. We feel sorry for them, and want to do something to alleviate their suffering (partly so that we will not have to feel that suffering ourselves).  We might even organize a mission trip and go there and bring real physical help, but it usually about doing and giving. We end up feeling better. The community is helped but in many cases, an honest evaluation would show that what we brought was not what the community really NEEDED.  
2. When someone dies in America, if you can’t go to the funeral, then you send flowers, or you give money in lieu of flowers. This is an appropriate form of sympathy. If someone dies in Africa, well, you find a way to go. And you sit with the family, sometimes for hours, often for days. If you are absent when the funeral happens, then you are obliged to go and visit and sit with them upon your return months or years later.  I have been to a few funerals in Africa for expatriates who have died and heard Africans express surprise that some of our number did not make the effort to travel to the funeral.
3. When someone is sick in Africa, the thing that you do is go to sit with them. I know numerous stories of missionaries out in the village who were sick in bed and really just wanted to be left alone. And invariably, they have people come to visit who want to sit with them all day.  “He’s not accepting visitors” makes perfect sense in an individualistic, Western context. And very little sense in an empathetic, relational group culture.
4. If I have a problem in the US, the individualistic nature of our society leads me to try and solve the problem myself. Self-help and self-reliance are strong values. It is hard for a Westerner to ask for help, especially to someone outside his family or inner circle.

In a relational, group culture, it is not hard at all to ask for help even from strangers.  As a Westerner, you can get overwhelmed with these sorts of requests. Our culture predisposes us to fix everything and try to help every stranger who comes to the door. Usually we can’t do that completely, and need to learn to just BE with the other person, to empathize with them. Listen to them and share back what they are feeling. Pray with them.  

Jesus has something to teach all cultures in these matters. He calls us to have both compassion and empathy. He who “bore our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4) also had “compassion on the crowds because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36) and carried his compassion to completion by  healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and raising the dead. 

May “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3) help us to grow in these things!