Silly Shenanigans in Senegal

Thursday, December 22, 2011

But Seriously…Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite.

We’re gonna start today off on a slightly more sobering note, mostly because recently another volunteer said something to me that I think pretty accurately sums up the level of education available in Senegal. She said, “I always knew I shouldn’t take my college education for granted, but I never realized I shouldn’t take my elementary school education for granted.” For all the complaints we have about education in the United States, most of us really do get an amazing education, not just in reading and writing and arithmetic…but in logic, reasoning and creativity, areas that we might not directly address but nevertheless help us to become successful confident individuals. The kids here don’t learn any of these more abstract concepts and being here has made me realize how crippling that can be.


Anyway, moving on…my Senegalese family has amazed me twice in the past few months with small gestures that really made me feel like part of the family. The first surprise came at the end of a four day training I had helped organize. My moms were cooking and when lunch came and we opened up the bowls, I was amazed to find…my favorite Senegalese meal! Seems like a silly thing I know but this is a meal we never eat in village and I’m pretty sure my moms had to ask someone else to teach them how to make it – regardless, it was an extremely touching gesture. The second thing that happened was my Senegalese moms getting truly upset when I told them Kindii (my dog) would officially be going to the United States in about a week. I always thought they really didn’t like Kindii, and while that may be true for the vast majority of Senegalese people…apparently my family (minus my youngest sister who literally kicks Kindii whenever she approaches – to be fair I think it is because she is scared) really does like her. I offered to get them another dog, and they told me “no dog could ever replace Kindii, she follows us around, and she is part of our family.” I did try to explain that any dog would love them and follow them around if they fed it and didn’t kick it…but whateves.

So a while ago I attended my first partial Senegalese wedding. Well, the girl already came back to my village. She showed up late one night after apparently walking over forty kilometers. She said her husband wasn’t treating her well and was beating her…and of course she is already pregnant. This happened about a week after another woman who I had never seen before showed up in our compound and without a word walked into my Dad’s hut…then we all heard this terrible wailing. It continued for about ten minutes and then she came outside and walked away. I asked my moms what was going on and they said that she was my dad’s younger sister who was married to a man in a different village. He was not providing her a place to sleep or food to cook for her children. She showed up with twins, one on her back and one in her arms and it sounded like she may have walked just as far as the first girl. Later in the day a woman came into our compound with one incredibly malnourished child…and I called her out a bit…I stated a little harshly that it was irresponsible to have children you couldn’t take care of and that she needed to make more of an effort to take care of her one incredibly sick child. I know this seems more than a little bit mean but sometimes I get sick of seeing problems that could be solved with a little bit of planning on the parents’ part, things that aren’t so much about poverty as they are about a lack of foresight and education. Well this all blew up in my face, as this was the woman who had entered my dad’s hut wailing that same morning, I hadn’t really seen her face and since she was only carrying one of her twins I didn’t realize it was her. I felt awful, because in reality it was her husband I was upset with. She was doing everything she could to help her children and she probably didn’t want additional children but couldn’t do much about it since her husband already proved he couldn’t provide food or shelter for her and the children. She agreed to come over later and we talked about ways she could supplement her childrens’ nutrition for free. Now, to jump all the way back to the first pregnant girl who came back to my village…this time it seems things were her fault and not her husband’s. To her credit she is an incredibly strong willed girl, in fact she is a token teenage girl – knows everything. She wanted to get married and though everyone in her family, including her ‘adopted’ father told her not to she insisted. So she was married and went away, and she hates it. Her husband treats her well but she hates it. I learned all this because I saw her husband dragging her out of our village to take her back to his and I was appalled. I asked my moms why they were letting this happen and they explained. Yes – I do still have a problem with a man literally dragging a girl away…but here’s the thing. She asked for the marriage, her family paid her husband and paid a great deal of money to do what she asked, and within weeks she wants to take it all back. It’s a sticky situation but I understand where her family is coming from. It’s all very Kardashian.

Enough intensity. I was chilling by my hut the other day when what to my wandering ears should I hear…but the bouncing and pounding of ten big pestals. Turns out the kids were pounding in preparation for the Monde. Which is this very interesting tradition. It starts when the men head out into the bush. They walk for about twenty minutes to a seasonal pond where they then begin digging holes. Then the young boys fill the holes with water. They pour in a mixture of tree bark and salt that the women pounded up the night before. Then they crush up a tree root and wash it in the puddles they dug. I think they are also supposed to add a bit of soured cow’s milk to each puddle but this year Kindii got to the cow’s milk before they could add it to the puddles. Next we all stand to the side as a stampede of cows comes flying our way. Apparently the cows love this craftfully concocted puddle mixture. It’s basically the Senegalese version of giving a cow a salt block.

Generally village is a happy relaxed place but every so often ginormous fights break out…rarely, if ever, do I know the reason for these fights…but nevertheless they are generally interesting. In the last big fight one guy went after the other with a solid wood stool, and then with a 5 ft long, half foot wide tree branch…

Another story illustrating all the emotional growing I’ve been doing in Senegal. I was working in the garden with the women and trying to encourage them to use a technique they had already learned at least three times. I was rather furiously digging while trying to demonstrate the simple technique for the fourth time…and also rather furiously sweating…which meant the women started giggling at the silly sweating white girl. Usually I could take this in stride but since I was trying to help them and they really didn’t seem interested and I was exhausted I just threw my shovel down and walked away. I walked around for a while until I was calm enough to go back, but by this time only three of the older women remained. The ‘women’ who had been laughing at me were really all teenage girls – hard to remember since they all have kids and run households. Anyway when I saw the three older women I tried to explain myself and as per usual, started crying since I have zero emotional control in Africa. It was totally worth crying to see their reaction. They were at the same time incredibly touching and hilarious…meaning I stopped crying pretty much instantly and started giggling. They have no idea what to do about crying people so they both took off their head scarves and laid them on the ground and said don’t cry child, its ok child. I have no idea about the significance behind the tika removal but it worked  Also those women actually hugged me! Which is a rarity in Senegal and really made me feel better.

While lying on the floor in my hut one day I was suddenly joined by a gaggle of screaming women. Turns out the Conqueron was coming. The Conqueron is a basically a huge double machete wielding Cousin It. He comes around with a bunch of dancing drumming young boys when circumcision season comes around. A few nights later two other female volunteers were spending the night in my village and my mom called me over and said…look I know you have seen the Conqueron before and it hasn’t been a big deal but tonight is the real thing. When the Conqueron comes you must hide. Apparently if any woman sees the Conqueron he is allowed to machete her head off…luckily this isn’t really how it goes now a days. Anyway, myself and Kindii and the two other volunteers were conversing merrily outside my hut in the dark when we suddenly hear the drums entering my compound. We froze…I looked around…not a woman in sight. All the hut doors firmly shut. Sharon, Katie and I pretty much lost it. I grabbed Kindii (who knows if the rule applies to dogs?), Katie body slammed Sharon into a wall in an effort to get inside my hut first, and we all somehow made it into my hut in time to slam the door shut and fall on the ground in fits of giggles.

One of my recent car rides was filled with fun. First…the front door was tied shut with twine. Second I met a Korean from the Korean version of Peace Corps and he was able to understand me when I said I was hungry in Korean. Of course he spoke excellent English. Third…The keys fell out of the ignition while we were driving…but the car kept going. Fourth…I started out in the back seat of the station wagon but then there was extra space in the middle seat. Instead of getting out and back in via the door I just put my legs over the seat back and then was pushed the rest of the way over by the guy sitting next to me.

Senegalese people…even the ones I like and respect…are constantly trying to get as much money from Peace Corps as they possibly can…who can really blame them? I usually find their innocent attempts amusing…like recently when my counterpart tried to convince me that we needed a 25 kilogram pound bag of salt…for one lunch.

I recently woke up to find a line of three red bites running down my leg. Convinced that I had finally contracted bed bugs I frantically stripped all of my sheets and threw them in the washing machine on hot. Wait. I don’t have a washing machine. What I actually did was ask my mom to boil ridiculous amounts of water so I could then soak all my sheets in water and then wash them by hand and hang them out to dry. After I had everything back to normal…I learned that bed bugs bite in clusters of three…not lines of three. At least now I actually know what to do in the event of a bed bug attack.

I watched one of my moms cut her toenails…with a steak knife.

Also I watched my grandma get sick and vomit on the ground 3 feet away from the dinner bowl then drink water directly from the spout of a tea kettle. No one in my family even acknowledged the event and my grandmother scraped dirt over the vomit. Yum.

I think I’m going to leave you with that little bit of TMI.