How To Get Rice Yo

I recently went to a wedding ceremony…apparently all the dads go the night before the wedding, sit in a circle, give money and pray. But I went with one of my moms anyway. It was interesting, and when I say interesting I mean my mom Jenaba and I fell asleep. I spent most of the time wondering if they expected me to give money (turns out they didn’t since I am decidedly not a dad). But the food was good and I got to do some fake praying thanks to my dad elbowing me and hinting that I should at least do the hand motions.

Sadly, very soon after the wedding my village experienced an extremely sad event when a 10 year old girl died of malaria. The family said she was only sick for 2 days but by the time she got to the hospital she had a serious case of malaria and they were unable to help her. Her body was brought back to our village on a horse drawn cart with mourners wailing behind her. The men and women of the village went to sit in the compound. The men sat with the dad and the women with the mother and grandmother. I went and gave the mother a hug and said a prayer when I met the father. It was extremely sad but the environment was strange. I have never been to funeral in America so I can’t compare but while the villagers were sitting in the mourning family’s compound they were talking and occasionally laughing. The mother was either silent or very loud and when she was crying out it was heartbreaking. All in all it was a very surreal and moving experience.

Back to happy times in Thiewal Lao. A dude with a crazy cello-like instrument made from a gourd showed up in my village claiming to be my dad’s brother. He then hung out in our compound for a few days so that every five minutes he could say “Jenaba Sabaly” and then nothing else. I wanted to punch him after the first five minutes. But I also wanted video of him playing the kora (the big gourd). When I finally got it and showed them (a woman sang with him) the 10 second clip they started berating me for money. This only made them more obnoxious as they were informing me that all the other volunteers they had met gave them money. I talked to all these alleged other volunteers and none of them even saw this dude so I have no idea how he got their names. I finally gave them about 10 cents and then they left. Afterward I asked my mom if they were really related to my dad and she said they weren’t. The guy was just the older brother of one of my dad’s best friends…ridiculous.

I went to spend the afternoon in a compound that I don’t visit very frequently and while I was there twin goats were born!

Regarding the weather. It has started to get cold here, at night anyway. But the cold came super quickly. One night I was sleeping with no sheet in shorts and a tank top and the next night I had to get out of bed to put on a long sleeve shirt, a sweater, pants, and socks. The following night I had to bust out my nice warm sleeping bag. Granted, it is still hot during the day but at least sleeping is now comfortable!

I saw a pumpkin/squash tree. Literally, huge green pumpkins growing out of a tree. I am still confused about this sight.

At the well the other day I saw a very cute sight. The little girl whom I secretly refer to as ‘Stitch,’ because her eyes are closer to her ears than each other (she is really adorable and her name is Hocha), came with her mom to the well. Her mom was carrying a huge 5-10 gallon benoir on her head but Hocha wanted to help. She carried a coffee can of water on her head...it was adorable.

Senegalese people are hilariously catty. I went to eat at a neighboring compound and when I got back to my compound both of my moms were like, “what did you eat? O…you ate leaf sauce? Not maffe gerte? And you didn’t drink tea! O that’s not good.” Unless you ate maffe gerte and drank tea they are pretty sure you had a terrible afternoon.

Senegalese people also enjoy terrifying their children. Inevitably, if a small child is terrified of me (due to my glaring whiteness) his or her mother will try to force the child into my lap. The more terrified the child, the harder the mother will work to get the kid onto my lap. So in the end the child is screaming and crying and clawing it’s mother’s back in an effort to stay away while the mother is laughingly trying to get them off and I am sitting there trying to absorb the sun’s rays as quickly as possible in an effort to become darker.

I ate a dish called labu again (I believe last time I mentioned this I described it as super hot wings without the wings). I was informed labu is used as a medicine for colds - since hot stuff makes your nose run. Yes, this food is so spicy it can CURE colds. Also along the lines of spicy food, my younger siblings made a “salad” the other day. Tomatoes, onions, a super sour citrus fruit, hot peppers and salt. It tasted just like salad…if salad was a shot of tequila.

While visiting my road town I watched a small child pick up fresh cow poop with his hands and carry it out of the compound. Apparently my brother does this too.

While reading a funny book in front of my hut I was frequently laughing out loud. This made my family wonder what on earth I was doing (since they think the only form of reading is studying). I continued to attract a lot of attention and eventually a guy who can read English but not understand it came up and asked if he could read what I was reading. I said sure, only to remember that the passage I was reading was a bit blunt and sexually inappropriate for out-loud reading. But I couldn’t really explain so I let him read out loud which of course caused me to go into more fits of laughter. No one had any idea what was so funny but that saved me from being terribly embarrassed. On a different note…this book, in its infinite wisdom mentioned the importance of having Wawa Iced Tea in your fridge at all times. In case you want to read this awesome book which refers specifically to Wawa…it’s called “Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys” by Dave Barry.

Village life serves as a daily reminder to me that Senegalese people think I have the physical abilities of a 4 yr old (just because I talk like one). I spent an hour or two sitting with my grandmother pulling peanuts off the peanut plants. This literally involved sitting and not much else. However when I was done and went to crack the peanuts my whole family emphatically stated that I must be exhausted and it was vital that I take a break. I insisted that sitting for two hours, while physically challenging, had not caused me to reach my limit and continued to crack peanuts. Since I am improving my peanut cracking technique I had a substantial pile of peanuts which also inspired awe. Granted my pile was 1/16 the size of my 5 year old sister’s pile.

I believe I have mentioned fish balls before (meatballs made with fish…I don’t know what you were thinking). I just learned how they are made. The night I watched was special because instead of the normal fish that we buy, we had faro fish – as in the seasonal river is drying up so all the mud-hopper kind of fish that live in super shallow water can be caught – since they no longer have any water. Making fish balls means pounding up a whole fish and then adding onions, bouillon flavoring, corn flour, salt, pepper and wait for it…peanut butter. Yum.

Tabaski (big Muslim holiday) was very much like Korite and Ramadan minus the fasting (which is fine by me). Prepping for these holidays reminds me of horse shows because people are up braiding hair all night. Lauren Fitz would be in high demand here come holiday time.

Tabaski was also fun because it felt kind of like Christmas Eve – mostly and only because we went to midnight church. Which only convinced me that Africans (in America and Africa), regardless of the religion, have way more fun in church than white people. There was singing and chanting and laughing and snapping and swaying – it was pretty cool minus the fact that it went on for hours upon hours. The most important part of Tabaski though (besides the food), seems to be the clothes. My dad (a tailor) sewed for over 30 hours in a row and I still don’t think he finished. My sister paid 2x what an outfit is usually worth (a ridiculous amount of money here) to get fabric sent to a tailor in Kolda (since the power in our road town was out and she wanted embroidery). The importance of the new outfit is that it is needed for trick or treating. Ok, so they don’t really trick or treat, but during the day they put on their new outfits and walk to all the compounds to greet everyone and say prayers for everyone and it feels like trick or treating.

In honor of harvest time I would like to summarize how hard the Senegalese people work for rice (a food with almost no nutritional value). First the women mix up the faro mud – they do this with little hand tools that require bending over all day. Then they plant the seeds, and they have to be planted in excruciatingly straight rows with exactly x centimeters between each seed. Then for months the women go out every day and weed the faro because rice is pathetic and can’t handle a little competition. The weeds look alarmingly like the rice – so much so that I am fairly sure I can’t tell the difference. Then after all this work they cut the rice down and bundle it up. They let it dry, then all the kids beat the daylights out of it with sticks (even my 1or 2 year old sister helps with a little twig while I fear for her life as she is inches away from the swinging rice pounding sticks of death). Then they pick up the stalks and put them in a pounding container to pound it in the more traditional sense to make sure all the rice falls off. Then the rice that has fallen off is swept into a huge pile on the ground. The women then shake the junk and bad rice out using a basket and a complicated wrist motion which I am fairly certain I will never master. Then they sweep the dirt ground clean and sprinkle the rice out to dry in the sun. Then they sweep that up and steam the rice and then in the afternoon they pound the seed coats off the rice and then the use that ridiculous wrist shake to separate the coats from the rice…and then it looks like the rice we buy in the store…except it is not in a convenient boiling bag.

The other night I was playing with the only 2 siblings remaining in my house (excluding the toddler), as the rest left for school. We played tag and my bro hid behind a fence and made me scream so loud as to cause the rest of my family to fall to the ground in fits of laughter. I also learned how to play a Senegalese version of Enie Meanie Minie Mo. Except the losers in this game have to sit with their butts in the air and get tickled (keel-ay keel-ay in Pulaar). I lost a lot.

I ate a raw sweet potato. Surprisingly delicious. I didn’t know what I was eating so I was surprised after it was cooked to learn that it was a sweet potato. It kind of tasted like a really crispy but rather unflavorful apple. But it made yummy sweet potato fries!

I have mentioned some ridiculous things little kids chew on, but I saw a new one, cigarette butts J yum.

My older brother and I walked over to a village 3 kilometers from ours around noon. It must have been around 90 degrees in the sun (which is where we were) and he wore pants, a short sleeve shirt, a jacket with a collar (zipped up) and a ski hat. I was the only one sweating. He also just got a camera phone (essentially our family’s first camera) and found that is was completely necessary to take a picture of me with every person we met.

And finally, in true Peace Corps fashion I continue to have fun digestive adventures. In an effort to cure the latest case I didn’t eat for 30 some hours. My Senegalese mothers were extremely unhappy about this and I am surprised they didn’t force feed me. They were very cute though because they made my favorite meal and teased me and waved it under my nose and said they were going to eat it all so I better join in. I just barely resisted. But they gave me lots to eat in the morning!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! We killed and plucked a turkey in the spirit of the day.