Speaking Malingo, Being Malingo

Malinke is a funny language in that it has immeasurable meaning expressed through a limited number of words, the result of which makes it a little like Legos; blocks of standard size and color are put together in varying directions and quantities to create awesome masterpieces of art (“Everything is awesome!”). The example that I always give to non-Malinke-speaking Senegalese people when discussing the complexity of the language is the word “ba”. This one-syllable word means: father, big, powerful, goat, river, sea, and lake (potentially among other things). The contextualization is further complicated by the fact that both inseparable possession and description are formulated by lining up two words together. So, “ba-ba” could mean: big father (head of the household), big goat (goat of the household?), father’s goat, goat’s father, father’s river, goat’s river, river’s lake, lake’s goat, etc. Every phrase you create has some nPk potential of meaning. Thus, you really have to pay attention.

Recently as my ability to communicate has blossomed into a new level of fluency and comfort, I have been receiving what I believe to be one of the higher compliments of toubab-foreigners – “Diabou le kourata malingo!” Loosely translated it means, “Diabou is done with Malinke!” This is about a million times more encouraging to hear that the tired old, “Diabou ma malingo me foloo” or “Diabou doesn’t hear Malinke yet” that I heard repeatedly through my journey of learning and grew to truly despise as it was a confirmation of my weakness and insecurity.

I find the phrasing of the compliment interesting through. The word "malingo" is the Malinke word for the name of the language, Malinke, but it has another meaning. "Mali" is the country to the east of us where the Malinke ethnic group purportedly originated from, and "ngo" means "person".  So when they tell me that I finished "malingo", it can also mean that I finished becoming a "Malinke person".

This idea has been further corroborated by some other recent compliments from some of the same people who have told me, "Diabou mu malingo sayiin" or "Diabou is Malinke now" and have referred to me as "Malingo mousso" or "Malinke lady".

I don’t know whether there is some causal correlation between being able to speak the language and being accepted as a member of the tribe, or if both are merely the product of the same independent variable: time. But both compliments I accept with the highest level of internal flattery (because it’s taken so long to get here but it feels so good to have made it) and the highest level of external suppression or denial (because being Malinke, this is how one is expected to receive compliments publicly).

Recently I had the opportunity to show off just how Malinke I could be in celebrating Tabaski (known as Eid al-Adha in other parts of the world), the second, more important of the two holidays following Ramadan in the Islamic religion, and the biggest party of the year in village. The Malinke Tabaski celebration is a kind of combination of prom and Thanksgiving with religious undertones and a river of blood seeping from the sheep obligatorily sacrificed in every compound.

Preparation for the holiday begins several weeks before. Three to 5 weeks before the big day, budget permitting, everyone will go purchase fabric to have 1-2 outfits made for each member of the family and take the fabric to the tailor before he gets so overwhelmed that he has to turn away business. Generally for such an important holiday, the appropriate fabric is something called bazen that is kind of like a papery, starched silk and comes in a variety of solid colors. The tailors who sew your outfit will dress it up with embroidery in the shape of flowers or waves, or just in general blocks of color and patterns.  This year my toxoma (namesake), Diabou, my brother’s wife, Dande, and I were in cahoots to get matching outfits made together. I am not a big fan of bazen myself because it is expensive and hot to wear so I purchased a fancy cotton wax for us to share with bits of bazen to mix in to dress it up and Diabou and Dande conspired to design a classy Malinke outfit.

In addition to outfits, jewelry and shoes are of critical importance for Malinke women. Gawdy gold or silver and bling are preferred. Since I had recently been home to the US on vacation I was able to obtain some cheap, gaudy gold hoops and bracelets from H&M for the three of us, as well as some gold, dangling earrings and a super gaudy gold necklace for my host mom. They loved all of it. Shoes though, we purchased in Kedougou. They had to be heels, obviously, and they were bedazzled in little fake white crystals.

 With 2-3 weeks left before the holiday, Malinke families, again budget permitting, will purchase the ram they are going to sacrifice as a part of the religious ceremony. This sacrifice is an act performed all of over the world by Muslim families on this holiday because the holiday itself celebrates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son at God’s command. According to the story, when Abraham went to cut his son’s throat, he found that God had intervened and that his son had been replaced by a ram. Sacrificing a ram, thus, is done in remembrance of this act of faith and devotion. Rams are raised all year for this occasion by people dedicated to doing so, sort of like the people that own year-round Christmas decoration shops. With what money you have you try to get the fattest, healthiest one possible. You may even get more than one if you can afford it.

Lunch-to-be

 In the last week before the big day, new clothes are fitted and picked up from the tailor shop and the final touches of beauty are applied. Women often apply henna to their hands and feet. Unlike henna done in the U.S. or India where henna is used like a pen to draw on patterns, Malinke women create the pattern in the negative space. Women use medical tape to create patterns and the henna is applied on top such that when it is all removed, the foot or hand will be mostly black with pattern the color of natural skin. I personally don’t have the patience for this since you are forced to sit with your feet or hands up and wrapped in bags, unable to use them for several hours while the henna sets in, but the other women and girls in my house did it. I just painted my nails instead which is also acceptable for Malinke women.

Additionally, men make a trip to the coiffure to get their heads shaved and women head to the salon to get their hair done up in extravagant braids and weaves. Ironically, while I use hair-dos to make myself look more Malinke to fit in in this context, many Malinke women use hair-dos to look more western since western style in a strong influence on perceptions of beauty and the long, fine, straight hair typically found on the heads of light-skinned women is central in that. They often have their hair braided in short, tight braids but sew in long, wavy hair pieces over it, or attach buns or long, faux pony tails to the back of their heads.  I on the other hand, go for the braids. I guess the net effect is we meet somewhere in the middle.

Upper Left: Saraya's own famous hairstylist, Aminata Sila, and myself - Upper Right: The finished produce - Bottom: A beautiful example of Senegalese-style henna (I don't actually know whose feet these are)

When all that is prêt (ready), we are set to fête (party).

Tabaski morning, unlike Christmas morning, is usually a slow ease into the day. People generally just mill about without doing too much until it is time to bathe and make your way to the mosque.  Who attends the mosque service varies by family and by religiosity. In my family it is often only my host mom that attends. Around 10am she puts on her finest bazen, lays a shroud over her head, grabs her prayer mat and heads for the basketball court where hundreds of women gather for the outdoor version of the service. My host dad would normally attend the service with the other older men at the mosque but he has trouble walking these days so he never really leaves the compound. The other adults in my house are either lazy or they don’t attend because they feel like my host mom is holding down the fort and has everyone covered already.  Either way, in her absence the rest of us don our first Tabaski outfits, the less-fancy morning outfits, along with our jewelry and our make-up and we await her return.

The Tabaski Trouble Makers (Dande, Diabou (me) and Diabou (original))

Toubabs in Saraya

Upon her return, my toxoma’s husband, Wujari, slits the throat of the ram and lays it out to let it bleed for a while before skinning it and removing certain organs. Much to my privilege (aka revulsion), this usually happens on the ground just outside the door to my hut.

Upper Left: The Slaughter - Upper Right: Onion-dicin' for days - Bottom: Girls helping out

The rest of the morning the women spend cooking. Together they dice up barrels and barrels of onions, peel and chop potatoes, and clean and carve the mutton. Some older women who are no longer in charge of cooking for their household and many of the men will go from house to house to greet friends and family members and bless them on this holiday.  The Malinke blessing ceremony between two people usually goes like this:

Friend:                Diabou, kori ñiima salita? Diabou, did you pray in peace ?

Diabou (Me):     Iyo, nñiima salita. Kori fanaa ñiima salita ? Yes, I prayed in peace. Did you also

                           pray in peace?

Friend :               Iyo, nñiima salita. Allah mu salii siyaala. Yes, I prayed in peace. May God give

                             you a plentiful prayer day.

Me :                     Amina. Amen.

Friend:                Xa jaritaa ita kendo la. May He grant you health.

Me :                     Amina. Amen.

Friend:                Xi se kee soto anin i se dindingolu soto. May he give you a husband and children.

Me:                      Amina. Amen.

Friend:                Xila baaro noxoyaa. May he make your work easier

Me:                      Amina. Alla mu salii siyaala. Amen. May God give you a plentiful prayer day.

Friend :               Amina. Amen.

Me:                      Xa jaritaa ita kendo la. May He grant you health

Friend :               Amina. Amen.

Me :                     Xa idingolu balula. May he grant your children long lives.

Friend :               Amina. Amen.

Me:                      Xa ining kee soumounta me la. May you and your husband enjoy a long time

                             together.

Friend:                Amina. Amen.

Me:                      Xa heero faa la ila luo ma. May peace fill your household.

Friend :               Amina. Amen.

Me:                      I xa yamfa ma. You forgive me (for anything I’ve done badly to you)?

Friend:                Nyamfata. Ite fana xa yamfa ma. I forgive you. You also forgive me?

Me:                      Nyamfata. I forgive you.

The prayers may vary from person to person but the gist is the same and you get really good at it because you have to say it to every person individually who enters the compound or who you see outside of the compound throughout the whole day of Tabaski, which is a lot of people. I tend to get a lot of compliments on my Malinke-ness in this ritual because I have an exhaustive list of prayers I go through that not even many native Malinkes generally say.

When the mutton-onion-potato stew is ready, generally not until 3 or 4pm, it is served into a number of bowls of various sizes by the lady chefs along with chunks of bread. Traditionally the meat is supposed to be divided into three parts; the family retains a third while the second third is given to relatives, friends or neighbors and the last third is given to the poor and needy. In practice I don’t believe that the division is so precise but we do share it with a lot of people. Before anyone can sit down to eat at the bigger of the bowls, the little bowls are dispatched with small children to be delivered to specific people around town.  When one does sit down to eat, it is with whatever gender/age group that person belongs to. I eat with the middle generation men and women in my family, all between the ages of 18 and 40, like I do for my normal meals. My host parents eat together along with the grandchildren. This isn’t a particularly normal food bowl division by Senegalese standards which usually demand men and women to eat separately and the male head of household to have a bowl to himself, but it works for us.

Hungry hands finally digging in

Unfortunately this year, our food was not good. I don’t know whether the meat was not cleaned well enough or not cooked enough or what, but nobody seemed to like it. After just a few bites my toxoma’s husband excused himself with the excuse of being sick and being unable to eat a lot. Next a guest excused himself saying he was full. Then my host brother declared “this tastes awful” and got up and left. I found myself alone with just Dande and Diabou left at the bowl, the two women who had slaved the most over the food all morning and my bestie Tabaski partners in crime. It is not in the Malinke culture to tell a white lie in order to protect someone’s feelings but I couldn’t stand the level of ungratefulness after they had worked so hard. I insisted that the food was delicious and forced myself to eat 4-5 whole potatoes that tasted like arm pit, just to prove the point. 

When we’ve stuffed our faces (or pretended to), someone usually buys some cold, sugary drink to share – often orange Fanta or Sprite or juice of some kind. It is bought in 1 liter bottles and little bits are poured into plastic coffee cups that are passed to someone in the group and then refilled before being passed to the next person again and again until everyone has enjoyed some.

Now into the late afternoon as the food and drink is cleared away, people generally rest. They may make traditional tea with friends. They may go visit the households of friends and family. Eventually they will bathe again and don their second outfit, usually the fancier of their two outfits, and get ready for the evening greeting tour. I generally take this time to go visit with friends from the hospital and enjoy a second, more lavish, Tabaski lunch with them that generally has way more vegetables and way less scary meat. This year it was perfectly roasted chicken (a Christian midwife had prepared it), french fries, onion sauce, tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots, olives, bread and no trace of arm pit. It was magnificent.

Arm-Pit Food

Magnificent Food

When the heat of the day breaks, nearly everyone ventures out to go greet the people they haven’t seen yet. I went out with Diabou and Dande on their rounds after dark. As most of my friends know, I am in no way anything beyond proficient in my ability to walk in heels but walking with these two ladies made me feel like a supermodel. They so badly wanted to wear heels but were very awkwardly chunking along in a sort of a stiff waddle-walk. We had an adventure navigating the uneven terrain and dirt trails, giggling at our obvious ineptitude, and called it quits after visiting just two of the more important compounds.

A casualty of our short adventure on rough terrain

At the end of the day, those who are still hungry may have a light dinner in the form of leftover mutton-onion-potato stew or basic rice porridge. Teenagers that come alive in the dark make their way to the community center for a dance party soiree. Everyone else retires to their rooms, a day well spent, ready for a break from the hype and a return to normal life until next year.

Obviously I don’t think that I speak Malinke perfectly yet; there are plenty of times I find my vocabulary to be lacking or I can’t understand what someone is trying to communicate to me. And I know I’m not actually Malinke all of the sudden either; I am about 50 shades too white (ahem, not gray), I’m not Muslim and I am still the daughter of a “Mollenkopf” and a “Kogon”, not a “Tounkara” or a “Danfakha” or a “Cissokho” or anything else.  But I do appreciate the honorary title. And it’s pretty fun when holidays like Tabaski come around to pretend like it is true, to abandon my American aversion to too-too, gawdy jewelry or matching shirt-skirt outfits with poofs and frills and bright colors, to don the otherwise preposterous hair-do and crystal-studded heals, to make house calls to wish the best to friends and family through prayers in a religion I don’t belong to, to eat arm-pit potatoes and scary meat for the sake of tradition and community and to generally go all-out celebrating like a true Malinke with my Malinke family in a Malinke community. It is a singular experience.


Also, I've had a lot of attention on my hair style and a lot of opinions shared about my doppelganger. I'll leave it to you to decide. Let me know what you vote for...

 

 

Remembering and Restoration by Esteemed Educator, Kanjaba Sakeliba

The Remote Cause

Shiny, glimmering, flakes of yellow stone lie in the great Sahel basin, the affinity for which has rightfully been likened to a pathogen that gains entry into the body and promptly proliferates until its host is driven feverish and mad.

Maybe people knew it was there for a long time, or maybe they were unaware, but it is evident that for many centuries at least they were ignorant to its value. That is, until one day when some man, likely a young-ish Malinke man, who had travelled just enough beyond the limits of his village to know that this rock was in fact gold and that if he processed it in the correct fashion it might just make him into one of the richest and most powerful men in all of the Sahel, came and dug it up.

Not much is actually known about this man or about the day he installed the first vestige of artisanal mining in the region.  He might have told a few close friends so they would come to lend a hand in the manual labor; friends he thought he could trust. Likely he did not yell it to the world for mortal want of not wanting to meet his maker in cold blood as well as extortionate want of maximizing time for him and his buddies to extract the precious metal for their own before the area was over-run with smart-to-the-prospect prospectors swooping in from all directions and the even smarter retailers that came to sell them things.  Either way, in eventuality, people did come.

The consequences of this are multitudinous and diversiform. They include: a river of migrants and languages and cultures all flowing into a single, churning sea of greed and lawlessness; dirt, plastic and human excrement filling the streets, each day a layer higher; young bodies, once healthy but weakened by lack of nutrition, betrayed by their filth into the folds of grave fever, sweating, aching, puking, shitting illness in the form of typhoid and other diarrheal diseases; the presence of a crop of heavily make-up-ed ladies in tight pants that presumably have been stolen from their homes far away (i.e. Nigeria) or otherwise bamboozled and brought to Senegal under false pretenses promising more than the life of prostitution and disease they have come to know; extended families of subsistence farmers from small African villages that for the first time in their bantam lives are able to hold money in their hands and decide what to spend it on; alcoholism born in young male miners grappling for methods of coping with the solitary and grim life they have chosen far away from family and any notion of extending unmeasured trust to your neighbor; fights born from the rage that alcohol insights in these same young men that hate themselves for turning to alcohol when their religion strictly prohibits it and additionally who cannot handle their drink; pervasive, permeating , and potentially irreversible poisoning of the environment – soil, water and air – by the toxic fumes of mercury wafting out of the homes of the so-called “gold-washers” whose intended task is to distill gold from soil; rampant corruption on the part of police men who, like everyone else, seize the opportunity for personal gain; exploitation of people who once owned the land by common law but who’s government betrayed them through written law to sell expansive tracks of it to large, international mining companies; and a car accident in which a gold-mining truck belonging to one of these large, international mining companies struck a car carrying four hospital workers on a supervision trip, decapitated some, mangled others and sent all to a fiery death in a flipped automobile they could not escape from.

The Place

Saraya is a village of 3000 people proximally and equidistantly located to the borders of both Mali and Guinea in the southeast corner of Senegal. You could not justifiably claim this place is a common destination but neither could you argue against the claim that many people visit.  Its location on the national highway, the major route used to connect several landlocked African countries with Atlantic Ocean ports, and its proximity to the booming gold industry usher many people within its limits, if only for a short time.

              Houses are simply constructed, circular cement rooms with thatched roofs, a style that seems to have not gone out of style since it became a style somewhere in the early age of man. Surrounding the habituated space is many hectares of deforested African bush and rolling hills.

              Having recently been promoted to the status of “District Capital”, the village is now home to the offices and homes of the District Prefect and Sub-Prefect as well as the office of the Mayor, a police station, a high-school, a hospital and the offices of several mining companies and NGOs. That being said, not a lot happens there and nothing happens quickly. The high noon-sun will still sway people out of offices and into siestas while the limited water, limited electricity, limited education and limited opportunity may keep them from going to an office in the first place.

The Men

A significant majority of Sarayangolu, or the people of Saraya, are Malinke; peanut people, subsistence farmers. Their language dominates daily life and transactions but they are not alone. Pulaars, speakers of Pulafouta, are identifiable by their scars in double, vertical, parallel lines just over each of their temples, the grazing animals that are inevitably nearby, and their skin, just a shade lighter than the rest presumably due to friendly fraternization with their long-time livestock trading partners across the Sahara in the Arab parts of northern Africa. The Wolofs mostly come from Dakar, the country’s flourishing capital, and often come unwillingly as a part of a contract for government service as a soldier, doctor or teacher. Their fashion, with a greater western influence demonstrated by the jeans and suits they don in place of or in combination with more traditional tunics, makes obvious their alien-ness, as does their indisposition or inability to drive their tongue to navigate the local language. A handful of others are present as well: the estranged artisanal miners coming from other Francophone countries like Mali, Burkina Faso or Cote Ivoire; the estranged industrial miners coming from South Africa or Canada; the estranged prostitutes from Nigeria; and the estranged Peace Corps volunteers from Albany, New York and San Francisco, California.

The Woman

              Kanjaba Sakeliba is most assuredly one of those people that learned to talk and laugh loudly in order to fill the space her flesh and bones do not occupy.

              While she only attended school long enough to learn to read and write and a few other things, her subtle sagaciousness is undeniably evident. She speaks four languages fluently, weaving in and out of them with ease, holding simultaneous, multi-lingual conversations.  And there is a look in her eye, somewhere between a twinkle and a black hole, that acknowledges receipt of even the most inconsequential pieces of information and reveals her aptitude for critical thinking.

              She is the mother of several small children who she governs with an assumption of ridiculousness; all mal-intended or mal-consequented actions are met with a toss of the head, a swat of the air with her hand and a truncated cackle followed by an exclamative version of the child-in-question’s name with extraordinarily extended vowels (i.e. Diaabouuuuuuuuuuuuu!).

              She is also noticeably floppy. With muscles apparently loose like a yogi, she seems to regularly relinquish some control of the vast network of nerves and neurons that infiltrate her limbs to the incontestable power of gravity. This may make her initially seem un-sturdy but one would be wise to take a second glance and realize that her floppiness absorbs all shocks, like a Sealy Posturpedic, and nothing could ever detach her feet from the ground without her consent.

              She is a matrone, a minimally trained but exceedingly skilled midwife. And she regularly leads very liberal conversations in a conservative community with grace and ease to educate community members about sex and family planning.

The Severed Accord

              Some time back, Kanjaba Sakeliba was invited by a sage femme, a highly trained midwife whose job is comparable to that of an American OB/GYN, by the name of Madame Diarra, to attend a training about the intersection of HIV and sexuality.  For this training she would receive a free trip to Kedougou, she would get to stay in a (relatively) fancy hotel with air conditioning and eat (relatively) fancy food with fresh vegetables and meat in addition to receiving a stipend for participation. She would get all this on the condition that she would return to Saraya to herself lead a series of educational workshops with community members to disseminate further her newly acquired information.

              Kanjaba Sakeliba, being both passionate about sexual health and passionate about the health of her community, would have been willing to lead such discussions without all the perks, although the perks being fine enough to brag about among friends and neighbors also kept her from renouncing them.
Furthermore, Madame Diarra was going to accompany her in attending the training which assured the event would be most enjoyable given her gregarious personality, endless strings of jokes, contagious laughter and authentically unreserved compassion. While one was technically the boss and the other the worker, nothing in the daily interaction of the two women demonstrated that this technicality held any significance to either of them. They were friends as well as co-workers. And they had been both for many years.

Madame Diarra intended to help Kanjaba Sakeliba conduct the educational workshops upon their return from the training but she died just a few days before their planned execution in a car crash with 3 other hospital employees and a chauffeur, struck by a gold mining truck on their way to do a supervision trip.

The Option Play

              Kanjaba Sakeliba was stunned by the loss of one for whom she held such high esteem, had such great respect, and had shared so many fond memories. Like other friends and co-workers of the deceased, she spend several days, in and out of tears, expending all of her energy trying not to think about the accident while finding herself exclusively thinking about the accident from the break of day to the washing over of night. She was silent save for the moments she spent with the affected others when they would revisit details of the accident again and again to ensure its veritability.

              In one such session of pandering disbelief, this one intermixed with anecdotes relaying affectionate memories as well, Kanjaba Sakeliba happened to mention to a friend and co-worker, a strange white girl from a faraway place who had inexplicably decided to come live in her village for two years named Diabou Tounkara, the time that she had spent with Madame Diarra at the HIV training. Three days, she noted, were spent with the two of them rolling in laughter, inside and outside the classroom. They learned all there was to learn for as long as the instructor stood to instruct and then they would retire to one another's company.  Throughout the occasion, Madame Diarra’s kept a kind eye turned on Kanjaba Sakeliba to ensure she was more than comfortable as she was not so used to travelling away from home as Madame Diarra was. This deed did not go unnoticed by Kanjaba Sakeliba, nor did could their camaraderie be forgotten.  In a long string of resulting pities following the accident, one that Kanjaba Sakeliba expressed was that the educational talk could not now happen because Madame Diarra was not able to supervise.

              Diabou Tounkara, herself weighed down by loss of the same close friends and co-workers and feeling sheer helplessness due to her ineffectualness to effect any action that would rewind time and un-do the accident, leaped upon this verbal concession of Kanjaba Sakeliba as an opportunity simply to do something.

The Method

              One hot, but not oppressively so, Tuesday afternoon, Kanjaba Sakeliba summoned a group of 10 couples to her compound. She provided each individual with a chair in the shade and faced them all in one direction where she subsequently took her place to begin instruction. She began by reading through the material she received at the training in French and then translated everything to Malinke to begin the discussion.

              Together the group discussed items such as: sex; what is sex; the differences in male and female sexuality and sexual discovery; the interplay of sexuality and risk of HIV; and strategies for protecting oneself and their partner from HIV.

              At the end of this discussion when all threads of thought and discussion had been exhausted, Kanjaba Sakeliba invited Diabou Tounkara to give a demonstration on the utilization of condoms. Diabou Tounkara, unabashed by the conservative views or modest behaviors of the people in the community which she inhabited took the stage. She had spent the better part of the afternoon wandering the market place to identify and purchase penis-shaped eggplants, potatoes, carrots and nave which she distributed among the discussion participants along with condoms to have them follow-along in a hands-on fashion. She then lead the group through each step in detail.

The Donkey Dick

              The nave in particular garnered a great deal of attention for its sheer girth. While its shape was perhaps the most true to expectation, the size was as if someone has simply photocopied an appropriately-sized tuber at 200% magnification.

              Several participants noted that the condom wouldn’t be able to fit on the “donkey dick” because the dick was simply too big. Diabou Tounkara however, stubborn as an ass herself, used the attention and skepticism of the crowd as a teachable moment. After successfully pulling the condom on over the end of the enormous tuber, she reminded the disbelievers that no man they should ever meet can claim that a condom is too small for him after what they had just witnessed.

It Goes On

One can only speculate what exactly Kanjaba Sakeliba was thinking throughout this endeavor or how exactly she felt when it was completed; whether walking with a ghost of a friend in the steps of their unfinished work is plagued by a constant chill of the absence of their form en vie or whether that ghost may somehow use its substance to fill in whatever holes have temporarily been bored into you by grief and help you carry yourself to the finish line.

 What is clear is that action bore freedom. It proved that time goes on, work goes on and by no great leap of deduction, life goes on as well.

A Qualitative Comparison of the Effect of Recent Experience in Time and Space on How We See What We Look At

S Mollenkopf1 and S Mollenkopf2

Author Affiliations:

1 Preventative Health Educator, Peace Corps Senegal

2 Mother of Preventative Health Educator, Peace Corps Senegal

ABSTRACT

I haven’t written a blog in a while because I didn’t really feel like I had anything worth writing about. I did finally write a blog in light of my mother’s visit to Senegal. I compared our views of certain things and places in Senegal in respect to our very different, recent experiences in time and space. Some things we characterized in similar fashions while other things demonstrated stark differences. This provides evidence for individual experience defining the differences in what we look at versus what we see. Its long though, so beware.

BACKGROUND

I have been having a bit of writer’s block recently in respect to this blog. Every time I sit down to put some words on paper, it just seemed to come out as some form of tedious, trivial, grandiose rambling about some minute cultural detail or change in my mentality that I wanted to sound cool but I was truthfully not overly enamored with so in the end it all just sounded really dumb; it sounded inauthentic. And if there is anything I promised to myself that this blog would not be, it is inauthentic. I don’t want to write something just to write it, just to make you read it. I don’t want to just recount my day for you – what time I got up, when I went to work, every time I pooped and what I ate for lunch and dinner… I want to write something because I have something to write, because I have something to say, because I care about something. So in an attempt to spare you the time and effort spent reading cr*p for cr*p’s sake, I have forgone several weeks of blogging.

That being said, I did stumble on something worth writing about. For the first time in my service (I have now been in country for a whole year), I had the occasion of hosting my very first guest: my mother.

Over her two week stay we did a range of activities – everything from visiting my village and getting to experience a little of village life to walking with lions, bird watching and tackling the chaotic, open-air markets. What stood out about this trip however (beyond the exotic animals, beautiful vistas and amusement of watching my mother, hair braided, dressed in African garb, trying to no avail to pronounce the names of my family members) was how it brought to light the difference in our perspectives as a result of where we are coming from in the time and space of our recent experiences.

I remember meeting two of my best friends in Morocco after a year of studying abroad in college. They were coming from Madrid and Paris respectively where they had each spent a semester studying, and arrived by quick-jaunt flights on discount airlines.  In contrast, I had spent nearly 6 weeks travelling by land through Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal in broken buses and janky taxi-vans from where I had been studying in Ghana. When they arrived, each giddy with excitement, they exclaimed “I am in Africa!” I, on the other hand, equally giddy with excitement, exclaimed, “I am in Europe!” It seemed to be that our point of departure dictated our perceptions of our point of arrival.

Knowing that I was approaching this vacation with my mother after a year living in a Senegalese village, a year getting to know the language and culture and way of life of people here in Saraya, a year getting used to the heat and the sweat and the bugs and the smells, while my mother was just stepping foot on the African continent for the first time since she was 5 years old, I suspected we were going to stand side by side together, looking at the same things, but seeing them very differently.

METHODS

Being scientific-minded (and an extraordinary nerd), I decided to put this to a test. Due to the fact that there are infinite confounders that cannot be adjusted for derived from a lifetime of differences in experience between my mom and myself, I decided a qualitative comparison in the form of a series of anecdotal reports like a quasi-case series would have to be good enough.  I wrote down 5 topics and asked my mom to write a little paragraph describing her perceptions and experience with each one. She was instructed not to sugar coat anything, not to write about how she thought it should be written about, but only to write about what she actually saw.  Simultaneously, I completed the same activity about the same 5 topics without reviewing her answers. I then compared the responses for each prompt, bolding what I identified as differences and underlining what I identified as similarities.

RESULTS

Here are the results.

“Saraya”

SARAH:

Saraya is a fairly large village as far as villages go and just seems to be growing larger every day. In a matter of months there are all sort of new stores selling new things that weren’t previously available and a whole new, organized, shaded market place to buy vegetables. Some areas of town have the feeling of being under construction constantly but that isn’t to say that progress isn’t being made. It’s a very diverse down relative to its size with a mix of Malinkes and Pulaars and more Wolofs, Malians, Burkinabes, and Nigerians coming every day to work in the gold mines. And although I wouldn’t say it is urban exactly, I would say that there is a lot going on as it is the departmental capital and home several levels of government, the district hospital and several NGOs and there is definite, evident structure to the activity. Additionally, Saraya may be somewhat small but it is definitely not quaint; it really has everything you need – food, toiletries, hardware items, clothes, electricity (part of the time), water (although it can be difficult), and a 3G network!

MOM:

Saraya, the village . . . a long journey from Dakar. …

The pre-viewed photos prepared me only for how it looks . . . there is so much more for the senses.  It was HOT.  The call to prayer floating on the breeze.  The sheep and the goats.  The donkey that rolls over to scratch his back in the middle of the main street.  The stars.  The endless greetings – handshakes mostly and a few words in Malinke to be polite.

The Cissokho family was gracious and generous, welcoming me with a special dinner of salad and bread.  I was given a Malinke name . . . Dialunkaba Macalou. . . named after Sarah’s namesake’s mother   . . . that, coupled with a new hairdo and an African wax print dress made by the local tailor helped this Toubab melt cultural and language barriers enough to share a few laughs.

The village women spend a great deal of every day being homemakers . . . and they are buff!  They pound the grain or fish with a well-worn log in a deep narrow wooden bowl (not a stick . . . an actual log), they cook over an open flame or fire pit, they clean, tend the children, wash clothes and dishes, etc.  Kind of like camping – all the time.   Never did really figure out what the men do!

The women splash the otherwise bleak landscape with color.  When they go out, they are dressed in rainbow of African wax fabric gowns.  They sometimes carry big bright tubs full of stuff (laundry? water? rice?) on their heads.  They can toss their babies on their backs with one hand and tie them on with a wrap skirt or piece of fabric (no baby backpack).

There seems to be a constant bustle in the streets . . . strolling the village with Diabou Tounkara, I met a doctor and some nurses, a restaurateur with triplets, the tailor, the coiffeur, the village chief. Many people know Diabou and come out of the woodwork to greet her. There is a school, basketball courts, soccer field and hospital.  There is one paved main street with lots of big trucks rolling thru to/from Mali . . . everything else is dirt.  Despite a lack of any form of 20^th century conveniences, the kids play with whatever they find (like a protractor!), they chew gum, giggle and squeal and cry same as kids everywhere.  The babies are cuddled and adored (Michael Jackson was learning to sit up!), everyone seems to have what he or she needs.  Simple, hard but also nice.  No place for sissies.

“Dakar”

SARAH:

Dakar is a big, beautiful, bustling city with beautiful ocean views and (almost) every amenity you could ask for (at a price). The thing I really love about Dakar, besides the beautiful vistas along the ocean bluffs and the perfect weather reminiscent, in my mind, of living in LA, that together offer an ounce of serenity in an otherwise fast-paced city is the way it has all the best to offer of both the developing and developed worlds. You can walk down the street and get a 200 CFA bean sandwich for breakfast (about 40 cents) or you can go to a divine French bakery and splurge $10 on a latte with the foam poured fancily like a leaf in your cup and a mouth-wateringly good chocolate croissant.  Sometimes the traffic is a little hectic, but it has nothing on the traffic jams of San Francisco, or LA, or any other city I’ve lived in. Plus it is clean and there are no homeless people (two more points over LA and SF). And the transportation garage is extraordinarily clean and organized.

MOM:

Dakar, the big city. Not like NYC big . . . big in a way I was not prepared for . . . a foreign country kind of big.  Getting through the airport was a piece of cake.  Getting out was a different story . . . surrounded by men jabbering in Wolof (?), grabbing my bag and being all too helpful . . . for a price.  Taxi out of there, quick. I could see a sprawl of half-built buildings standing everywhere – more half-built than complete.  Traffic and taxis, the smell of diesel fuel and lots of people.  I am inescapably white – I stick out like a sore thumb.  The Ex-pats have it good here.  A nice American school.  A beautiful sports field overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.  Coming back at the end of the trip.

“African Beauty Salons”

SARAH:

I have now had my hair braided twice in village. The first time it was braided by my sister for Korite (2^nd biggest Muslim holiday) at the last minute. The awkward extent to which I resembled 1990’s Coolio after that incident prompted me to seek out a hair professional when I decided to braid my hair again for Tabaski (biggest Muslim holiday).

While the hair dressers themselves are incredibly fashionable and sassy and a lot of fun to hang out with, the experience of sitting in their salon is always a little hilarious. In one corner of the small room there is a fake Christmas tree about 3 feet high, donned in shiny, gold garland that then stretches off the tree and along the mantel, extending the entire length of the wall to accommodate all the various beauty supplies. I know people here think garland like that is fancy but the gawdiness is never lost on me.  Additionally, on three of four walls there is the same poster featuring a matrix of women showing off different hair styles for inspiration with the title “Hair Saloon” (not “salon). And one of these is a black girl with a straight pony tail called “Dolly” (who is named Dolly these days??). And of course the clientele who come in with chemically bleached skin (their equivalent to tanning) and request make-up like a drag queen (although not as subtle) provide some good people-watching to make the hours of tugging on your scalp go by a little faster.

MOM:

The trip to the coiffure to have my hair braided was not something in the initial plan but I decided on a whim to do it and it went over well.  This is the female equivalent of shaving one’s head – a no wash, no dry, no bed-head do that can be put up in a ponytail, stuffed under a hat or stylishly wrapped in a scarf.  It is so much cooler, surprisingly . . . even with a packet of mesh woven in.  Perfect Africa do. The salon was sauna-hot . . . until the power came on at about 5 and fired up the one fan.  One woman braiding, the other handing the strands of mesh.  Most of three hours to complete.  A village woman rolled in to have her make up re-done to match her outfit change . . . it was baptism day for her baby.  Take off the big smears of gold glitter eye shadow and the crazy beautiful white gown, reattach the gold beaded garland in the up-done hair . . .  a little powder touch up . . . reapply turquoise and magenta eye shadow to match the next dress, re-apply the hot pink lipstick  . . . rearrange your boob and stuff your one-week postpartum self into your schmancy gown, dawn your blue rhinestone covered stilettos and head down the dirt road back to the party.

“Pooping in a Hole”

SARAH:

I must say, while many people probably would not trust the authenticity with which I say this, I truly like to poop in a hole. Of course, it does depend on the hole. The hole in my own back yard is the best because it is wide open so it doesn’t smell and there aren’t a lot of flies. Some darker, less well-ventilated public poop holes are a little less pleasant to use but I would say the same for darker, less well-ventilated public toilets.

At the end of the day, it is nice because you just squat and do your thing. You aren’t wasting a ton of highly-valuable, sparsely available, potable water to flush it down. You never have to worry about a clog. You don’t have to worry about people that can’t aim and peed all over the seat. You don’t even have to worry about remembering to buy toilet paper once you get used to using your hand to wash your backside. And once you get used to the position, you get to build some squatting muscles in your legs as well.

All in all, I’m a fan.

MOM:

There is a hole in the ground which one inevitably needs to use.  Most important thing about it is to learn where to plant your feet.  And . . . don’t get too close.  There seems to be more things coming out of it than going in.

“Eating at the Communal Food Bowl”

SARAH:

Eating at the food bowl is like a group of hungry lions fighting over the gazelle carcass. As soon as the lid is lifted, the smell begins to waft and mouths begin to water. It is not, however, until a portion of the rice is removed for later snacking and the sauce is poured in generous portions over the top that the patriarch or matriarch of the bowl will signal that eating time has begun. From there it is a tricky game balancing hunger and desire for the tastiest, most nutritious things all gathered at the center of the bowl with cultural standards that demand you share with one another and don’t take more than your allotted portion. Additionally, once you go for some of the good stuff, anybody is allowed to go for it so you don’t want to open the flood gates if you aren’t prepared to swim swiftly. You want to go for the good stuff, but you want to do so without inviting the ill-will or competition of those around you.

Women have a particularly challenging time getting the goods if they are not at a female-only bowl. They often wait patiently until their husbands and brothers have eaten their fill of the vegetables and meat before they take their share, even if that means that all the vegetables and meat will be exhausted before they have a chance to take some. I prefer to think of this action as a willingly generous gift on the part of the women that care so lovingly for the men in their family and not as the women lying flat under the heavy boot of the men that walk over them but sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.

That being said, there is a communal aspect of the bowl that is very, wonderfully inclusive. Anybody, anywhere will invite you to a meal if you pass by while they are eating.  It is only polite to do so. Of course, they don’t really expect you to join as it is not so polite to actually accept the offer although they would not refuse you if you were hungry and wanted to eat.

MOM:

The communal food bowl is a concept worth advancing to the developed world.   One uses his or her spoon – or maybe just the right hand – leans in and heartily gobbles up the portion of food in front of them, walking away when they are done.  The Cissokho family does this daily at all three meals . . . I just shared lunch and dinner.  Lunch is in the heat of the day, about 2 PM . .  . dinner is by flashlight, somewhere about 8.  Bowl is served on the ground.   One dish to wash, a pot or two and a couple of spoons . . . easy peasy.  Usually rice with something on it . . . leaf sauce – big yum . . . peanut sauce – OK, not too bad . . . fish and fish balls – must be an acquired taste. . . salad with bread was delicious.

DISCUSSION

These results reveal a few themes. Firstly, as expected, we seem to have different perceptions or standards of what is considered “nice” and what is considered “tolerable”. The poop hole is a case in point. While I described it as, “nice because you just squat and do your thing”, my mom described it as, “a hole in the ground which one inevitably needs to use”.  She noted that, “there seems to be more things coming out of it than going in” while I specifically described it as not “smell[ing] and there aren’t a lot of flies”. Likewise, my mother’s description of Saraya focused on the goats, sheep and donkeys, characterizing the village as, “simple, hard but also nice.  No place for sissies” while I described it as “organized” and “definitely not quaint”, pointing to all the services and amenities available there that are not so available in other villages. It therefore seems our recent experiences may have affected our standards of quality; perhaps prolonged stays in relatively more bantam circumstances intenerate the hardship associated with them.

Secondly, there is an evident difference in what we are looking at when we look at something. The commentary on the food bowl is a perfect example wherein I ranted about the social dynamics of who can take what and when and how cutthroat-competitive it sometimes feels when trying to get your hands on the good stuff. My mom, conversely, saw the food bowl for what it was: a bowl of food, shared among family and friends at each meal, with different qualities of foods served in it. Similarly, in our descriptions of Dakar, my testimony largely reflected Dakar as a whole, the city happenings and the landscape.  My mom’s focused on the limited time period in which she initially saw the city, immediately after landing from a long 2 days travelling, jet-lagged, hectically navigating the airport, unable to speak the foreign language, picked up and immediately dragged to an ex-pat softball tournament to watch some games. Having both eaten out of many food bowls and having visited Dakar multiple times previously, I seem blinded to what is right in front of me; I no longer see the objects and the people simply for what they are. My mom was able to see them and take note of them.

And lastly, it appears that some things, like an African beauty salon, just seem ridiculous to us as Americans regardless.  The gold garland, the oppressively heavy make-up in vibrant colors, the awkward posters and the women that we can’t help but stare at as they re-adjust their boobs to get their top to fit and don fancy outfits complete with crystal-covered high heels in anticipation of whatever big event they are about to attend grab our attention for their gaudiness or garishness or flamboyance or whatever. But we both look at them and not beyond them because experience here does nothing to make those things and that behavior more comprehensible.  And we both find in them some sort of quirky, peculiar whimsicality and some type of resulting humor.

CONCLUSION

More people should come visit. I will probably make you contribute to my blog. But I’m interested to see how you see my world!

APPENDICES

Appendix I: A Handful of Pictures from Our Adventure

The arrival

Lunchtime

Drinks on the water

A few birds

Post-Braid

Not a part of this trip but I had to post my post-braid to be fair

Appendix II: Algorithm for Deciding to Visit Senegal