“Slowly, slowly, one catches the monkey in the forest.” So
goes one of the proverbs I’ve learned here. Along with many others, the primary
lesson is patience; things in Senegal happen when they happen, and the urgency
of the American work environment doesn’t exist. Taking your time is valued over
rushing about. People will lounge in the streets with neighbors, chatting under
the shade of a tree while sharing ataaya—the
ubiquitous tea brewed in small pots over charcoal and generously amended with
sugar.
Such an environment is great for learning a new language, as
I have found an abundance of patient teachers to sit and talk with. Nobody is
in a hurry to get anywhere, and people are generally very open and friendly.
Senegalese also take lots of time for meals, at least lunch.
Breakfast is French baguette bread with margarine. Dinner is often rice with a
sprinkling of beans. Both are eaten fairly quickly and with little lounging
before and after. Lunch, however, is a social affair. Generally I eat with my family
and whatever guests or neighbors might be over for the day, usually between
5-10 people. There are two large bowls, which we all crouch around and eat from
with a spoon or hand. Lunch is almost always ceeb u jën—rice and fish with some veggies thrown in. It is
quite delicious although a bit heavy on the oil and salt. My strategy
(developed and perfected over the my several weeks with my host family) is to
ignore the rice and go straight for the fish and vegetables. Inevitably I will
end up consuming ample rice since one can only be so deft with a large spoon,
but if I wait to long the fish will be gone, leaving me essentially
protein-less for the day.
Having only one big meal per day has been tough to adjust
too, especially when I’m trying to focus on language class and my stomach is
eating itself. So I’ve recently been buying second breakfast in the late
morning, after my garden chores are done. A sandwich of beans and hardboiled
eggs makes all the difference. I also have a stash of oranges in my room for
snacks. Despite my father owning a fruit orchard we ironically eat very little
fruit.
Another exciting part of my life is the dramatic but
sporadic dreams I’ve had since being here. Partly I think this is a product of
the malaria medication I take, Mefloquin.
**Reader alert—the following recounting of my dream is
somewhat graphic (violence and scary monsters) so please skip ahead if such
content may be unsettling to you**
The other night I dreamt I was trudging through a snow
covered forest, with heavy flakes obscuring much of the blanketed undergrowth.
I happened upon a man covered in heavy furs, crouched by a fire under the
canopy of a sprawling conifer tree. As I approached the edge of his camp a
massive six-limbed monster thundered out of the blizzard and burst into the
clearing under the ancient tree.
The creature resembled a demonic blend of horse, man, wolf,
and ram. In place of fur was flayed skin, revealing ligament and muscles
covered in a sheen of bright red blood. The beast had four powerful legs and
two bulging arms terminating in wickedly sharp spikes of weathered bone.
Neither man nor demon had seen me yet as I crouched behind
the snow laden branches of a bush. Before the man could do more than turn to
face the fearsome creature one of its bony bladed arms was rammed clear through
the man’s torso and out his back. I didn’t stay to watch the gruesome scene,
but backed into the swirling snow and fled.
Uncertain of whether I was being pursued, I struggled
through the deepening snow searching desperately for some means of escape. My
random flight led me to a cave that appeared suddenly as gaping hole in the
earth, with a jagged slope leading into darkness. I could see remains of broken
metal struts, wood planks, and barbed wire haphazardly forming makeshift
barricades as if in a forsaken attempt to deter intruders. I began my decent
into the earth, more slowly now to avoid snagging the jutting metal scraps
littering the floor and walls. The cave gave me a foreboding feeling of
uneasiness, but I feared the demons above more. Thinking only of my immediate
survival I pushed onwards through the cave, deeper underground.
**The dream goes on—a post-apocalyptic underground society,
a desperate struggle for survival against demonic monsters bent on murder, and
other strange things—but I’ll stop narrating here for the sake of brevity**
**OK you can start reading again if you skipped my bizarre
dream**
Below are some photos of my host family in Mboro. I will be
spending one last week with them before heading out to my permanent site. They
have been such a friendly and caring family, I can’t imagine a better space to
have spent my first two months in Senegal learning the language and culture and
making friends. I will miss them when I have to leave, and will do my best to come back and visit.
My host mom with the youngsters
My younger sister Amicune, holding Mama Diaw (Hadi's son), in front of my sis's garden inside the compound. I've brought home several small trees that I grew from seed and a bunch of Aloe vera plants to plant here with my sister. The women love them! I made the mistake of bringing only one with me first time and all my sisters were arguing over who's it was. So next time I brought back enough for everyone to have their own--crisis averted.
One of the hobbies I’ve picked up here is seed collection. I
suppose it qualifies as work, but it is so fun I count it as a pastime. I’ve
been raiding every useful seeding tree I can find, building up stocks for my
permanent site. Already I have a collection of eight or ten species, some with
hundreds of seeds. My favorites are my guava seeds (scored them in Dakar where
I found a lady selling the fruit) Parkinsonia aculeata (an ornamental but also potentially useful as a live
fence) and Leucaena leucocephala
(one of the super-hero trees here in Senegal with a plethora of uses such as
animal fodder, nitrogen fixation, fuel wood, and live fencing)
Studying the language has been my priority for these last
two months. I’ve been trying my best to seek out teachers (at the Thies
training center) and neighbors/friends/family (at my host town) to speak Wolof
with. Its been helping significantly, and my language is coming along fast.
Still not up to par with my French but I think I’m learning fast. Most
volunteers chat with friends and catch up while back at the center, but I’ve
made friends with the language teachers here instead. They are an awesome
group, love joking around and teasing, and are excellent teachers. I guess I
might appear antisocial to the other volunteers because I don’t mingle with
them much—instead preferring the company of our Senegalese teachers—but that
doesn’t bother me. I’m having a great time making friends and learning the
language.
Wolof is difficult, simple, frustrating, tricky, daunting,
and comical all at once, depending on the context and my mood. The dictionary
we were given was made in the 90’s by a UCLA linguistics student. It is
frequently inadequate or erroneous (mostly because Wolof varies so much between
regions and the student worked only in the north of Senegal) and therefore many
volunteers here are not fond of it. It does, however, have some hilarious
vocabulary, anecdotes, and proverbs. For instance I’ve learned (and used, much
to my Senegalese friends’ amusement) how to tell someone to hold their horses and
how to swear an oath by the drawstrings of my father's pants. One of my favorite
words so far is the verb “bul,” which means: “to feed livestock (esp. camel)
finely cut grass, at night.” Maybe one of these days I will get the opportunity
to bul.
