I think that it was ‘93 or ‘94 and we really wanted to get to this village that was upcountry (beyond Parakou in Benin) before the end of the school day. The dirt road we took was horrible, muddy, potholed. In Benin, we don’t try to avoid potholes, we choose them.” We were tossed and exhausted. Several hours into the trip, we decided to ask for some reassurance. We saw a guy walking along the road and pulled up alongside of him.
“Hello there, how are you? How is the family? How long do you think it’s going to take us to get to XXXX (I can’t remember the name of the village)”
“It should take about two hours.”
“Oh shit!” (Well, I probably said “merde” considering that Benin is a francophone country).
“Okay, okay,” our friend answered, “one hour then.”
_________________________________________________________
It was ‘97 or ’98, and I had been staying for a few days in a village near Bembéréké, Benin. I was interviewing teachers, the school director, parents, and pupils at the local primary school for my dissertation. It was the only school in the area and children came from miles around. One day, the school director received an official letter from the Ministry and he was perplexed. He showed it to me and wanted some advice as to how to answer it. The ministry wanted to know what the school was doing to attract more girls to attend. The letter indicated that additional money (“additional” not quite accurate since they usually don’t get much to begin with) could be made available to the school if they had increased or planned to increase the number of girls enrolled. The director was a great person and had done a lot already to get all children in the community to come to school and to learn something. He had one question for me: “Should I report to the Ministry more or less than the number of girls we enroll in our school?” We discussed this for a while. The last answer he needed was, “you should report exactly the number of girls you currently have enrolled in the school”. After much discussion (and beers) we decided that it would be best to under-report.
Now, for those puzzled by these exchanges, I believe that they reflect the essential conundrum of information collection in places where power relationships are lopsided (which is almost everywhere, but starker in developing countries). Our fellow traveler in the first story (he on foot, us in a Landcruiser) simply wanted to make me happy. He saw that I was upset by the first answer he gave me. Rarely a good idea for a traveler of obvious wealth and probably influence to leave town pissed off. At the very least it wouldn’t have been very courteous. So the veracity of the information was less important than keeping our relationship on good standing. By the way, I did explain why we were in a hurry, which led him to reassure me that we would arrive in time. I don’t remember whether we did or not, but it probably didn’t matter.
For the school director, things are a little more complicated and require a little more context. Although his reaction seems to reflect a certain penchant for corruption, this could not be further from the truth. His professional dedication was exemplary. He was always scrambling to find additional resources to keep the school running – fix a leaking roof, buy chalk, get medicine for a sick teacher, or pay the women who made lunch for the kids. The Ministry of Education was always promising stuff (rarely money) that never arrived. So his concern, which was based more on cynicism and pragmatism than venality, was how to get his hands on extra cash for the school. In our discussion, we started from the following facts. 1. the Ministry could care less how many girls there were in the school. 2. if there was money given out for having a lot of girls in school already, the money would never arrive. 3. the letter clearly said that if the school was struggling to attract girls, it may be selected by an international NGO to take part in a project. NGOs are more likely to deliver than the Ministry so…. By the way, girls outnumbered boys in this school. A considerable accomplishment in this region of Benin.
True-ish Stories 
very interesting perspective michel on data and the veracity vis a vis relationships. good post.