I don't know why...but one of my Senegalese moms absolutely cannot say the name Barack Obama enough. At least once a day I happen upon her, holding the 1 year Mariama and chanting Barack Obama, Barack Obama like a strange lullaby. The reason is mysterious...maybe she wants Mariama's first words to be the name of the American president?
Regarding biking in the world of Senegalese...it’s quite a hilarious experience. I think we all know I'm a tid bit competitive...which is why I find biking in the country amusing...maybe? The men here (most of the other people on bikes) seem to take it as a personal insult if I pass them on my bike. I will just be cruising along and surprise, some dude starts pedaling like crazy to try and win the unspoken competition. I like to work hard enough just to keep them hanging...try to wear them down a little. Mind you this is not really fair...the bikes here are pretty terrible (not Peace Corps bikes but the bikes owned by the Senegalese). If the wheels are fortunate enough to be located in the same vertical plane, then the chain is certain to be useless...my brother has to pedal backward as much as he does forward to keep the chain from falling off. Also...Senegalese people have no concept of pushing onself to the physical limit for no reason (ie my Senegalese brother getting changed into work out clothes...doing 5 push-ups...and then changing back to regular clothes and drinking some tea). They live extremely hard lives but there is a difference between working hard to survive and working hard to compete...you have a choice when you're competing...not so much when you are trying to live. Anyway...while riding into my road town last week and having one of these amusing Senegalese man versus Kelly battles I was informed by my brother that I am a good racer. He said the guy I was racing was very tired. Again, amusing since I bike at a snail’s pace compared to most biking Americans :) ooo...and their bikes also don't have breaks...unless you count using your feet in a Fred Flintstone-like manner
Rainy season is coming! Little did I know there was more nastiness in store than expected (I should be used to this by now). Now I have been wondering why on earth we eat dinner around 9 PM…it seems like since it’s pretty hard to see and batteries are expensive eating earlier would be logical. It would seem far more logical if Americans ate at 9 and Senegalese ate at 6 but I decided to stop pondering the question, until the first day after my first real Thunderstorm. The storm itself was quite the experience...massive lightning is cool and all...when you aren’t in a hut with a grass roof. And insane wind can also be an adventure…when there is something holding your roof onto the rest of your house/hut…since I have an unrestrained grass roof this new kind of raging Senegalese Thunderstorm was not exactly a calming experience…o and the rain pounding on the roof knocks the earwigs out of the roof so they can crawl between your toes or on your face. This has not happened to me yet...though it happened to the girl who lives 6k away from me, and I did have the lovely experience of reaching for an itch last night in the dark only to close my hand on a grasshopper…crawl in the dark into another room to find my flashlight…examine my bedsheet and find 2 grasshopppers! O joy ;) Anyway, back to dinner…the day after the storm the bug population exploded. At dinner time we opened the bowl and turned on our flashlight and it was dinner AND a show! I say a show because there were at least 10 winged bugs crawling among the couscous and another 5 more floating dead in the dinner sauce…we fished them out and moved indoors…but indoors here is about the equivalent of a screened in porch with large holes in the screening. Let’s just say I didn’t chew my dinner and instead swallowed mouthfuls whole. Again I ask…why not eat when it’s not necessary to attract the bugs with light?
On a less buggy note, I planted somewhere between 500 and 1,000 trees last week with the help of 2 teachers, my counterpart and a million screaming children. It was hardddddd work but it feels pretty good to be able to say I planted that many trees J We will have to see how they grow up as they are safe in their little tree nursery right now!
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Biking will never be the same after those experiences; sounds as though a little education on insect-borne diseases and insect attraction to light might move the dinner hour earlier 8-)
ReplyDeleteHopefully the trees will fare well and the seeds we sent will expand the eating options.