In Senegal they do this little trick called “porte baggage”
which basically means to carry luggage or bags in French. Since most people there do not have cars they
transport supplies by carrying them on the backs of their bikes. Supplies can even mean what you might call a
passenger in your car. One of the crowning
achievements of my service was when I ‘porte baggaged’ my little sister Bana 14
kilometers back to our village so she wouldn’t have to walk home for the school
holiday. Honestly, it was probably
harder for her…seeing as she had to balance side-saddle style on a wire bike
rack on a bumpy road the whole time. I
could argue all the extra weight was hard for me since she is about 5’5” but
since she is about as wide as a 2x4 I’d be lying.
Despite having one father, two mothers, seven kids, and one Peace
Corps volunteer we were somehow short of household help (maybe because most of the
kids go away for school, the father refuses to do daily household chores and
the Peace Corps volunteer is not motivated enough to fight for her right to do
chores), so we solved the problem by borrowing one of the neighbor’s kids. A 12 year old girl left her compound 50 feet away from ours to come live with us
and eat with us in exchange for her helping cook and clean.
In Senegal people love to move slowly. I was in a huge rush while shopping in the
market, so I was speed walking (not running, skateboarding, or doing anything
obnoxious). Regardless, at least ten
strangers insisted that I slow down!
The Senegalese National Election was taking place during the
last few months and it was an interesting event to witness. In many ways it seemed like an election in
the US. In the big cities there seemed
to be a lot more tension between political parties, with frequent riots and
demonstrations, but in the small villages there tended to be very strong support
of one candidate. A little background
info – the former President Abdoulaye Wade, decided to run for a third term,
despite the fact that the constitution was amended during his service so that
candidates could only serve two terms.
While this was not ok with people in the larger cities (where they have
more access to news and education), this was encouraged by citizens in smaller
villages. When a representative of Wade visited
my small village there was chanting and drumming and dancing well into the
night, but when one of the other candidates personally visited the welcome was
warm but completely lacking in enthusiasm.
Prior to election day there were plenty of obvious bribes snaking
their way around. But in my part of the
country things were actually quite calm.
I heard about demonstrations in the regional capitals but I didn’t
experience anything first hand (not that I’m complaining). On Election Day, everyone with a Senegalese identification
card can vote. They go to the school,
where there is a stack of photos for each candidate. They select a photo from their favorite candidate’s
stack and then place it in the bag for that candidate. After they vote someone marks their finger
with a pink marker to indicate that they have already voted. They tally the votes that night and then send
them to regional capitals to be combined with the other votes. The votes for each village are then announced
over the radio. Wade won in my village,
and in many small villages. But he did
not get enough of the majority to win outright, so there was a run-off a few
weeks later between the second leading candidate (Macky Sall) and Abdoulaye
Wade. There were numerous other
candidates, including 2 women! One of
whom is a stylist/model? Regardless,
none of the other candidates made it to the run-off, and pretty much anyone who
voted for a candidate other than Wade voted for Macky Sall in the run-off so he
was the clear winner in the run-off.
Yay! Not only was I happy about
this from a political stand point, but also because Macky Sall’s symbol is a
horse J. I heard some crazy stories about bribes gone
wrong. One village was partially burned
because of unhappiness about a bribe. No
one was hurt but it was still devastating.
Another village chief who was
given a car by Abdoulaye Wade, lost his car the day after the election because
his village voted for another candidate.
At least the second story is rather amusing.
Election Day was a bit like a holiday in village. A chicken was killed, everybody dressed up
and we ate oily rice! There was a little
bit of rice left over so one of the women gave it to the cow…who licked the
bowl clean…hehe. Well, almost hehe. After
the cow licked the bowl clean they filled it with rice again and gave it to the
kids. Makes me wonder how many times I
have unknowingly eaten from a bowl licked clean by a cow.
On a non-election related note, you should be happy to hear
that singing in the shower is not just an American phenomenon, nor does it
require running water. My neighbor was
singing in his bucket bath the other day.
Made me giggle.
Now onto the mushy subject of saying goodbye. After two years of being excited to come home
to the US, I was still excited! But I
wasn’t quite as pumped as I always thought I would be. It feels wonderful to be home now, but
leaving was quite difficult. Leading up
to my departure from village I was starting to get a little frustrated by the
constant pleas of villagers who wanted to ensure I gave them this pair of
pants, or that water bottle, when I left. The day I got the most frustrated I was of
course reminded of why I really like my village. One of the women (Isatou Toure) who is
amazing (mostly because she has a job and is older than me and NOT married yet)
cried when I came to tell her I was leaving in a week. Really cried, not the fake Senegalese cry I
hear a lot of. Of course this made me
cry. She also ran into her room to get a
necklace she wears all the time. It is a
big red heart and she gave it to me. I
carried it around in my hand all day like a security blanket.
Another woman named Tako (like taco…her mere presence makes
me hungry) promised she would quit chewing tobacco if I stayed. Another family gave me an entire outfit. My pregnant sister-in-law promised to name
her baby after me or my Mom if it was a girl or after my Dad if it was a
boy. She probably won’t but it is still
funny to think of a Senegalese kid named Kelly, Diane or Ed. My counterpart Gano, scoured his garden for
some early cashew apples and found two. Made
me cry…again.
On my last day, my younger brother, his friends, and I,
ripped up all my old papers and made paper bricks that can be used to fuel the
fire. It was an appropriate way to end
my service, ripping up paper AND recycling.
It was very therapeutic.
My last day in village we ate cabbage from the Master Farm
that I helped improve and leaf sauce made from plants in the women’s garden I
helped set up. The women came over in
one big group to say goodbye and they brought me a decorated gourd bowl called
a ŋaatangel
and matching necklaces for my sister and I called caakaje or ŋaajooje. And I cried again. I didn’t struggle too much saying goodbye to
the men (yes Senegal made me super sexist) but leaving the women was incredibly
difficult. They talk about you in third
person when you are leaving, and they say all kinds of nice things about you. So I kept on crying and they kept on saying
don’t cry, stop crying, you’ll give yourself a headache. You are actually supposed to fake cry when
leaving, and you kind of pinch the bridge of your nose to indicate that you are
in fact crying. One of the men I barely know
came to say goodbye and he complained that I wasn’t fake crying for him, so I
fake cried so that he could promptly tell me to stop crying.
I am going to end this blog the way I ended my service. So here is the story. I had asked everyone in my village to come
say goodbye to me in my hut on my last day in village. At 10PM the doctor and midwife who I had
worked closely with had still not appeared and I was feeling quite sad. So I decided they weren’t going to come and I
should just go say bye to them even though they apparently didn’t care. When I arrived at the health post I learned
that they were planning on coming but they were helping a woman with a very
difficult labor. She had been in labor
since the previous day and had come to the post for help. I had had coffee earlier to make sure I could
stay up late to say my goodbyes so I decided to move over to the health post to
watch the delivery. I watched the
doctors hook up an IV to help speed the mother’s contractions. She was very calm despite her troublesome
labor- this was her 6th child.
When the IV was half drained the doctor began to get more agitated and
said if the baby was not delivered by the time the IV ran dry we would have to
call an ambulance (which would mean she would arrive at the regional hospital
about 4 hours after we called). He
started pushing on her stomach rather aggressively during the infrequent
contractions. He let me feel the cervix
several times and the last time I was able to feel the baby’s head! It seemed like the baby was stuck like that
for a very long time, and I started to worry that either the mother or the baby
was not going to be ok. The doctor kept
pushing while I held the flashlight and tried to be encouraging. At 3 AM, the
mother finally delivered a healthy baby boy.
I could not have asked for a better end to my service. I went back to bed so excited that I didn’t
fall asleep until 4 AM (the people at the wedding in my village were still
dancing up a storm). 2 hours later I
woke up (finally the wedding partiers had gone to sleep), cried so hard I could
barely even say goodbye to my Senegalese family and then left village. My bike ride out of village wasn’t the
victorious joyride I had always pictured, instead it was a subdued and
conflicted ride. I felt numb, probably
the sadness of leaving home canceling out the joy of going home. But as several people have pointed out, that’s
a good thing. It means Thiewal Lao meant
something to me…means a lot to me.
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