This past December I had the privilege of receiving the
second set of visitors during my service: my dad and step-mom.
Taking these two around was a real pleasure because they
were simply interested in everything. Questions didn’t stop at the inquiries about
food or dress or culture but plowed on through to wondering about the
scaffolding on under-construction water towers and the location of auto part
stores (I bet you can guess who those both came from). Granted, I often didn’t
have all the answers (I haven’t gone auto part shopping myself although I would
say that the plastic rope from a regular hardware store and a jug of water can “solve”
about 75% of the issues i.e. doors don’t close, hoods don’t close, engines
falling out, everything overheating, etc.) but I was grateful for the spirit of
questioning. After spending over two years of my life here, dedicating myself
to my work here and having made innumerable, inexplicably wonderful relationships
with people that have entirely different languages and cultures than my own, it’s
heartening to have guests that come for such a short time but make such a
concerted effort to try to see the beauty I’ve come to see that shines through
the dust and the trash and the poverty that is more superficially apparent.
I also must say that I am very proud of my two guests. Neither
is a particularly experienced traveler but they suffered through several unending
car rides without complaint, conquered a 1000 km climb in 95 degree weather, danced
in the village drum circle (yes, my dad danced), learned how to greet people in
Malinke and only got bamboozled into giving a small child a generous sum of
money once.
I asked them both to write guest blogs because I felt
like they both had such a unique perspective on what they were seeing given
their respective backgrounds and areas of interest. I hope you enjoy it.
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Some thoughts from my dad…
A Visit to Senegal in the "Cold" Season
Truly, “hot” and “cold”
are relative to what you are used to. Coming from California in December, cold
wasn't 90° - not to me anyway. Thus, it was quite amusing to see a taxi driver
wearing his down jacket to stay warm. Senegal
was, like this, a land of contradictions and paradoxes - not for them but for
me visiting from the other side of the planet with a view of normalcy founded
on the other side of the planet. It's where the
roads are dusty but the women wear brilliantly colored dresses just walking
down the road to the market. The people give me a scowling look like they don't
recognize my species but always make long greetings and are the friendliest
people I've ever met. They share what they have with strangers though they may
not have much.
The mud huts with
thatched roofs are what everyone outside the big cities live in – just like
National Geographic. Somehow I really didn't expect that to be the norm. It was
like being in an Indiana Jones movie.
Everywhere Sarah
took us was spectacular, exceeding my expectations. The waterfall that reached
out of sight, the remote village where they pierce their noses with porcupine
quills and make corn “wine”, the Bedouin moteling and camel rides, the African
dance party, donkey carts and termite hills, food and fabric markets, her host
family and the kids, the Baobob trees, warthogs, monkeys and African deer, and
just the routine car travel through another world filled us with awe and
questions that we fired at Sarah.
The Senegalese
don't speak English. If you don't speak French (or even if you do), you better
have Sarah as your guide. I'm very proud of the work she does with the Peace
Corp in living conditions that most of us only experience when backpacking. She
has adapted to the challenges and thrives like a native. I only saw her in the “cold”
season (wearing sweaters). I can't even imagine what she does in the hot
season.
Wearing my Mechanical Engineering,
Environmental Consulting and Risk Management Hat
Sarah originally
asked me to write a blog post from an engineering perspective, mainly because I
kept asking her many questions from that point of view. So here it is.
In the bottling
plant I work in we used the term “run to failure” or “RTF”. It refers to a part
or piece of equipment that is not critical or is not economical to keep
expensive parts on-hand for because they can easily be obtained in a short
time. In college we learned that designing a part for a million cycles
basically made it last forever. In Senegal, RTF means running equipment to way
beyond their million cycle design point, welding it back together when it breaks,
and continuing to use it until it seemingly disintegrates and is consumed by
the red sand. Maybe that's why the sand is red? I am talking mostly about
vehicles: taxis, buses, trucks, and donkey carts – although donkey carts are
really where the bones of cars go for a last life.
Of the many taxis
we rode in only one had more than the gas gauge working and one other had an
intact windshield. The impressive part was the suspension, obviously worn way
out of tolerance, but still functioning. I am still in awe of the 20-person buses
jammed with 30 people and a few goats and piled high with cargo and people on
the roof rack. Now THAT is suspension.
Disabled trucks are
a frequent occurrence on the highway. I didn't say “pulled over and off” the
highway, I said “on” the highway. I was intrigued by the number of trucks I saw
with a hydraulic jack under the engine (on the highway) – not sure what the fix
was there.
Senegal is a place
where everything gets used to completion. While there's plastic in the garbage
(even the west hasn't really figured that one out) what is interesting is
what's not there – not much else. It gets used, reused, repurposed, reformed,
rebuilt and used again.
We had a running
conversation throughout the trip about some simple things that could be made
that would make life easier for the residents. The challenge would be making
them with stuff you could find. And, well, that is slim pickings. A simple
stove made from ½ a barrel and a pipe would vent the cooking smoke outside,
away from mom & swaddled baby on her back, and reduce the deforestation of
burning wood. But where do you get the materials?
If you were born in
Senegal you would think there are only four kinds of cars and trucks in the
world: Renault, Peugeot, Toyota and Land Rover. Land Rover & Toyota are
rare and usually diplomats. Everything is diesel. None of them would come close
to passing a smog test. They seem to run forever (or at least a million cycles)
but they pollute the air. I guess that's why you never see Renault and Peugeot
in the US anymore…
Water is the
precious commodity and is the limiting factor in many situations. I don't know
if anyone is monitoring groundwater levels (volume). I certainly don't think
they are monitoring water quality: chemical or bacteriological. And the medical
monitoring isn't robust enough to link any illness with water quality issues.
The riskiest thing
we did all week was riding in cars. Yes, there’s the whole RTF thing above, but
that's not what concerned me. Nor was it that rarely did the seat belts
function. There's no emergency help: no fire department, no ambulances, no 911.
With trucks that break down on the road (two lane highway) there has to be some
horrible crashes with no emergency response. Thankfully we didn’t see any.
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Some thoughts from my step-mom…
The Children and More
Senegal…so many
beautiful images and exquisite memories come to mind…writing on a specific
topic seems beyond me.
Sarah took
excellent care of us, from the moment we timidly ventured past the customs area
at the airport in Dakar until the moment she dropped us off again as we
prepared for our journey home. And what
did we do in response to her thoughtfulness? We pelted her! We pelted her with
question after question, after question - asking non-stop about everything we
saw, to the point where I do believe we all had parched throats from so much
talking, (thank heavens for the luscious frozen pouches of delicious nectar
available along the roadway by vendors tapping on the taxi windows!). An amazing array of visual stimulation filled
every moment on the eight hour drive with which to formulate those
questions…the distance from Dakar to our first stop in Tambacounda, a charming
oasis of air conditioned rooms and mixed drinks in the dining room. Sarah, without you we would not have
experienced a true sense of life in Senegal, but of course without you, we
would not have ventured forth on this grand experience, and for that, we thank
you whole heartedly!!
The children. I couldn’t help it; I was enamored with the
children. One would think that someone
who has spent all of her adult life working as a teacher and then childcare
provider would find some relief in other aspects of the incredibly amazing
adventure we had in Senegal, and there were definitely some incredibly
revitalizing moments, but… I keep coming back to the children. Perhaps it was
that I could simply enjoy the children and the fact that I was not in charge of
them. At all. (=
I have spent time
with a lot of children in my life...a lot.
However, I was thoroughly enchanted by the children we met, and the ones
we simply saw but did not meet. The beauty, the seriousness, the wonder in
their eyes was something not to be discounted.
Shy? Yes. Timid at times? Yes. Full of exuberant happiness? Yes, when they were able to let down their
guard and let you in to their world. We saw pure joy, in spite of the fact that
they have little, and I mean little, in the way of possessions. Little at least compared to our ‘standards’
and what our children had when they were young.
We saw a willingness to share themselves, to join in the silly fun and
games of these people (us) from a different land, wearing different clothes,
speaking a different language, and overall just plain old different.
“Different” seems
to be a word that puts fear into many people.
Yet once a hand is stretched out with a camera showing a picture
recently taken of them, the eyes of the children (and truth to tell, even the
adults) light up and suddenly, BAM! You
are a friend for life, or at least for the duration of your visit. Simple joys, simple pleasures, aw, that life
should be so simple for all of us (though I hesitate to think of what our
feelings would be were we to step out of our world for any extended period of
time, such as have Sarah and her Peace Corps compatriots, and share in that
‘simple’ life). Yet, children here are
the same to some degree, are they not? I
have often reflected on and wondered about this, why life seems so wonderful and
carefree and then suddenly, it is much less so.
And it seems to happen at a very young age.
Innocence. That is what I was enamored of. Their sweet trust, their willingness to sit
on a lap belonging to someone they met moments ago, to stand up and dance to
the music by guest musicians in the village which Sarah arranged for us, in
spite of the fact that it seemed that children were not encouraged to interact
that way in the village celebration, simply because I stretched out a hand in
invitation to them to join me in the circle, and to try their hardest to learn
the simple hand games being taught by a very happy but linguistically
challenged guest. (That would be me.)
Observing a true
‘village’, the village caring for the children at large was an incredibly eye
opening experience. Certainly that is
something we hear spoken of quite a bit, but how often do we really see it put
into action? The children respecting and
responding to the adults, whether they were being shooed away to their various
homes as evening waned, or being taken by the grandparents for dinner hour
while the other adults in the family dined together. Never once did I hear whining about “that’s
not fair”, or “but I don’t want to!” (Not that I could have understood that
that what they might be saying, mind you…but a whine is a whine in any
language, and over a span of 10 days I was aware of none.) How is it that the
adults in the village of Saraya have a handle on the child in some ways better
than the adults in these oh so entitled and educated United States? I don’t know, I could speculate, but I am
not going to go there in this already overly long missive.
The children of
Saraya are beautiful and seemingly very happy.
In spite of the runny noses which never get wiped, in spite of the fact
that they run around bare foot or in broken flip flops which they somehow
manage not to trip in, in spite of the fact that they run around on dirt
streets – though because their clothes are so exquisitely made with bright
colors the dirt is not evident on their clothing, (but quite evident on the
clothing which some children in the village were wearing from our country…the often bland and neutral tones…)
and in spite of the fact that there are little of the spoils of life with which
we are accustomed to here in the United States.
They are happy, they are lively, they play games, they show joy, they - simply
put, appear to love life. A charming and what will be a very long lasting
picture in my mind of our trip to Senegal.
(And don’t EVEN get
me started about the young lad - no more than ten years old - who graciously hauled
me up the last 500 feet of a steep mountain to visit a remote village, while
carrying MY back pack, because I was overcome with heat…the awesome breakfast
sandwiches, the ‘to die for’ spiced coffees {not even Peet’s, at that!} the
taxi rides -no seat belts for the most part, the multi-use roadways -cars,
people, horses, donkeys, you get the idea, the glorious fabrics, the camels,
the amazing tents on the gorgeous sand dunes…another story for another time.)
