Tabaski in four parts

Day one of Tabaski; 1:00 PM. Yesterday was all preparation. I got my hair did a couple days ago. Yes, I’m rockin’ corn rows. It looks surprisingly good on me, I think. I did some fuddan on my hands, painted my nails, shaved my legs, ready to party! I got up late today because last night the whole neighborhood was up ‘til two to welcome a new bride next door (we ate “dinner” at 1:00 AM). Did my morning stuff, put on a fancy outfit and did my makeup only to walk outside and be chastised for not getting out earlier to cut up potatoes and onions. Also, there was a goat hanging from the tree, being skinned. Well, so I changed out of my fancy clothes and jumped in to help.

I think I just consumed about 1,000 calories. First lunch was served. Apparently there’s a second. First lunch was rough cuts of meat without the fat trimmed off and surprisingly delicious liver, swimming in oil and caramelized onions. Sooooooo good. My standards for meat have changed. The meat is freaking delicious; I mean, this sheep was killed a few hours ago and immediately cleaned, butchered and cooked. I helped. With the butchering part. And it was in the midst of that activity, sitting surprisingly like an amazed child while I looked at the surprising texture and color of the lungs, felt the hardness of the heart muscle and stuck my finger in the aorta, that I was called to eat. So, I washed my hands. With water. With water only. See, I really, really wanted to use soap, but I was offered freshly poured water, and beyond that I would have had to contaminate a clean water source to get water to rinse the soap off with… What to do when faced with this dilemma? I’m sure my dad and brother, and probably everyone else are squirming while reading this, but… As it is I was sitting next to my brother as he chopped through leg bones. I just saw the seven-month-old Aida grab and bite a chunk of raw meat. Oh, God, I hope I don’t get sick. Part of me is screaming to bathe in and clean everything I own with straight bleach, but… I won’t.

Day 2: Sheep Head Soup, it’s what’s for dinner. Literally. You know that whole bit about no matter what the waitress brings? Well, I tried, man. I really did. I ate brain. I ATE BRAIN! And I’m pretty sure some tongue, and at least one gland-looking thing… I did not vomit. But I did not eat until full. Tropical trail mix chaser, thank you Very much Grandma and Grandpa Striley. Otherwise, food has been gooood good. Macaroni, potatoes and meat, actually enough to go around, cooked in onion sauce for lunch.

In other news, Tabaski seems to be the fete of doing nothing all day other than cooking, eating, and dressing up at night. Which is fun, for sure. But for me it’s been a sort-of bi-polar experience, slinging me between being a star and an outsider. When I wear Wolof clothes, they love it. When I carry the lunch Seynabou cooked to the neighborhood lunch spot on my head, they love it. But for most of the day, it’s just nothing to do, not sure where to go, not sure who it’s appropriate to go spend time with. And now, the big event for the day is a Jang. The word means to learn and also to read. So, it’s some guys with a microphone singing religious songs, or reading the Koran. I’m not sure which. But it’s so loud it literally hurts my ears, and it’s actually pretty cold to just be sitting outside until midnight. Hence, here I am. I’m about to go back, just needed a break. So Tabaski. Hmm. I can definitely see why they love it. Its great food and no working (except for the women who still have to cook, get water, clean the house, etc.) Again. Hmm. No seriously, I had a lot of fun yesterday. And today my emotional state is definitely questionable. So, this is NOT a scientific account of the experience. Just me… talking…

Day 3: (actually written on day 4) Spent the day in Mpal at my turrando’s house. Her daughter got married yesterday, and a good part of my neighborhood was there. It was a tedious, boring, and emotionally chaotic day for me. So, sorry, but I’m gonna just leave that alone. After the event, we rode home, a 25 minute charette ride through the dark, which was actually lovely. And I saw that there was a tent set up in the village clearing with a DJ playing music. The young people were having a party. After eating dinner I decided to find some friends. I needed the comfort. It’s been a surprisingly lonely couple of days for being a holiday. I found them, and they immediately cheered me up with a slap on the butt, and grappling moment of dancing that almost landed two of us on the floor. These were my grown-up women friends. Not invited to the party. See, here, I don’t really have peers. I’m not a “xalee” (young) or a “mag” (old). I’m not a man (duh), but I’m not quite a woman here. When attaya is served, there’s a hierarchy and it’s always interesting to see where I fall. After the older men, before the younger men, always before the other women. Which bothers me. It’s also because they still consider me a guest (after six months, right?). I get invited to the tours which are only for the married or older-than-me single women, and I don’t get invited to the tours of the xalee, except once when I really just accidentally showed up at the one my good friend was hosting. And the young people claim me sometimes, like for this party, or to go to the final football match (soccer), but not always, obviously. So, yeah… usually this doesn’t bother me, but I was told on the first day of tabaski that the entire afternoon was for going to drink attaya with whoever invites you. Well, no one invited me. I know. Start the sad violin music. It’s kind of exhausting being excluded and not knowing what to do with yourself. I want to participate fully in this community, in this event, but I can’t be an attaya crasher, right? Mmmm… Anyway, back to the story. I went to the dance party, and my young friends claimed me (thank GOD. I needed it.) Dancing felt amazing for about 2 minutes at which point it was just too akward to have all the young people stop dancing to watch how the American dances. So, I went and lingered outside where a good number of my friends were milling around. It was 11:20 by this point, but they all assured me the party had yet to begin. So, I stood and talked with them.

Day 4: This is a false break in my stream of consciousness. We just finished lunch which I helped cook. The tabaski stable here: macaroni, potatoes and sheep cooked in onion sauce. Yum. I’ll eat anything with onion sauce. And, apparently when I help cook, they want me to eat more. It’s kind of a beautiful thing, because I haven’t (surprisingly) eaten much the last couple of days. Yesterday lunch was waaay late, and due to my really weird emotional state, I didn’t have much of an appetite. Going to buy bread for breakfast hasn’t been possible (it doesn’t come during tabaski) and I’m out of oatmeal, so I’m going on a handful of trail mix for breakfast. And then dinner, well, the brain stew thing happened, then last night was a small cup of ceere (millet). So, man, I just at the **** out of some tabaski yumminess, despite the meat being cut three days ago, hung on a line to dry, then cooked for a long time in lots of water today. Is that safe? We’ll see!

Note: I know I keep hinting at this emotional weirdness, and it provides me the opportunity to add what I consider to be an interesting footnote to my blogging experience. It is necessary (right?) to somewhat censor what I write. Why? Well, that’s the thing that interests me. The whole point is to share my experience, but due to some arbitrary cultural boundries (American culture, Senegalese culture, Peace Corps culture, my personal self-viewing-windows), what I write is censored. I haven’t told you that [some content removed] or that […] is great, but it’s super […]. So, I will say this about this current emotional stuff. I did a stupid thing that started as an accident and then sunk it’s hooks into me. I watched a horror movie in village, at night, alone at my house. STUPID!! I didn’t know it was a horror movie until it was too late. So, yeah, I’ll never do that again. But, it strangely has given me a gift. It raised a lot of fear issues in other areas of my brain to be looked at and let go of. Associatively, the idea of having a large, winged guardian at my beck and call to keep me safe came up, and I had this strange realization that I AM that large winged guardian, that energy is a part of me, and there is nothing at all to be afraid of ever. Just a twist on an old meme, still a thought, I know, but the point is, I’ve been having a lot of movement, and no one to talk to about it. So, a lot of that came to a head yesterday and due to my lack of invitations to attaya, I intend to ascend a lot today. Wanna hear the coolest part? Yesterday I was sitting with people but totally isolated in my head crochet to pass the time, just really wanting the day to end, when I started beating myself up for that desire. I was irritated with myself for not making the most of those moments. But, I thought, how can I possibly be happy and chatty and dancey right now, like I should be to make the most of a wedding party? Well, that’s when I was hit with this beautiful re-understanding of surrender. To make the most of the moment, you just dive in to whatever that moment carries. So, if it carries depressive, lonely, heart-breaking confusion, so be it. And it continued to do so, but the word carries is perfect. Because under or around that emotional energy was just still peace tinged with a hint of the strangest bliss. And I began to ENJOY exactly what was happening. On that note, I’m gonna go close my eyes for an hour.

P.S. My dear ascenders, I miss your company terribly, your presence, your direct words, everything, but it’s a huge comfort to remember that the thing we experience when we dive in is INSEPARABLE, and to know that what I’m doing here, what I’m keeping as my first goal in life (sorry Peace Corps, but even you are secondary), that you are doing that too over there across the water. And all you other spiritual seekers, dreamers, creators, lovers, everyone. Nothing is separable from THAT. OOOoooooh what a tingly gift that is to re-realize over and over and over.

Impromptu Astronomy

                Last night was one of the greatest nights of my time in Africa thus far. I did what I consider to be important work, teaching a valuable subject, in a way that inspires further discussion and hopefully a nice dose of awe, in a completely casual and spontaneous context. I truly think some of my most valuable contributions occur in this exact way. So, what happened? At about 10:30 I decided to go find people to sit with. As the nights are getting “cold” (what? It’s like, cool enough that my skin is cool to the touch, but only occasionally light-sweater-cold), fewer and fewer people are out this late. But I found a group of young men from my neighborhood and sat with them. They’re lovely boys, and this may be pushing a cultural boundary, but, well, ::shrug::. For whatever reason, my friend Pape Gaye asked me “do they have the moon in America?” This led me to explain that the earth is a ball that the moon spins around, so yes, they have the moon everywhere. Rather than simply “ahh”-ing and shrugging it off, it peaked their interest. Which got me all excited. So I explained how the moon reflects the light of the  sun, and sometimes the earth gets in the way and casts a shadow, which accounts for the phases of the moon, approximately once per month. They talked amongst themselves, and I picked up “So, the earth doesn’t move, but the moon goes around it.” Oh, but wait! I thought. So, We got into the whole solar system. The sun is the only one that doesn’t move. I needed another friend to give me his hand to be the sun while I used my two hands as the earth and the moon to explain. Having taken all this knowledge for granted for so long it was amazing to realize how complicated it was to explain. The earth has two kinds of rotation: around the sun, and once every day around its axis, which is why we have day and night. For this my hand was the earth, my thumb Senegal to indicate day (facing the sun) and night (facing away.) Lovely! Oh my gosh, I was having such fun, and they were so into it!! They asked about the stars, I explained they were all like the sun, some bigger, some smaller. So, why are some brighter than others they asked? Well, ‘cause they’re all much much further away than the sun, but some are closer and bigger than others. And SOME, I continued, are NOT like the sun, and are much closer than other stars, and these are other planets. Try explaining that in a language you aren’t yet fluent in… But I think they got the jist. They even started their own conversation about it, like, oh, I think there’s one you can see just after the morning prayer call (5 am) in the eastern sky.  So, they must have heard something like this before, or just be making somewhat educated guesses? I dunno, I’m never up that early, and frankly can rarely tell the difference myself.

Again, for whatever reason, Pape then asked me, what’s with the water than falls on the grass at night when it gets cold? So I got explain the different states of water! That when it’s hot, it has more energy and is lighter, and when it gets cold it loses that energy and gets heavier (waaaay oversimplification, I know, but my Wolof vocab does not include particle bonding and such.) I used boiling water as an example, that it bubble because of that extra energy, and wonder of wonders, another of the young men (my sun-hand-helper) took over and added his own so awesome bit: you know when you boil water and it rises up and then when it cools it gathers on the lid and falls back down. YES! That. Exactly that.

Next question? Y’all ready for this? Why doesn’t the sky all just fall down on us? WAAAAHH!! Gravity. My cell phone took a beating on this one as I explained that smaller, less heavy things are drawn to bigger, heavier ones. That’s why my phone falls to the earth, and why the earth circles the sun and the moon circles us. Even our air, here on earth, is full of stuff like oxygen and nitrogen (didn’t get into the atmosphere that keeps it here…), but way out there, all that black and dark blue space out there, has NOTHING. It’s completely empty. So there’s nothing to fall. Gravity and mass. Oh man, we should do a basic astrophysics course here! They’re so into it!!

Okay, so, obviously, it was really really fun to explain all this stuff, to challenge my Wolof, challenge my own ability to teach about things I take for granted as known. However, the greatest joy of this experience was their interest! They listened so intently to everything I said, helped explain it to each other, asked each other questions related to what I had said to further understand and relate it to their everyday experience. Oh man, oh man, it was frickin’ delicious.

So, why do I think these are some of the best contributions I can make in my time here? Because I’m realizing something about this work. And it’s something that I think get’s a lot of volunteers down, because it’s somewhat disillusioning. Here it is (it’s kind-of a duh): I am not going to stop the Sahara from spreading or this land from drying up. I am not going to be able to mitigate the interaction of modernization in the cities and traditional country life. I can’t solve their water problems. There are a lot of things I cannot do. BUT maybe I can broaden their horizons a little. Inspire a little awe for the environment here and the world at large that will encourage a greater persistence in pursuing education. Because, frankly, the world is changing, and it seems that the people who are able to interact with the forces that shape that change are educated. And in my opinion the most important change that could be made in the whole development scheme would be for the people affected by “development” to have some say in what it looks like.

PS, because I’ve talked so much about it over the last few months, it’s 8:40 AM, I’m wearing a sweater and wrap skirt over my pajamas and am still comfortably cool. I woke up cold in the night, wrapped tightly in my sheet and curled in the fetal position. This, my friends, happened without a fan. Lovely things are happening to the climate here J