Babies and forgetting

Today I spent the afternoon at the new education and health center I just finished funding in village (through a USAID grant, through Peace Corps, FYI). My fantastic community health workers were weighing babies while women from the village were cooking a nutritional supplement meal of ndambé (beans in a tomato, onion, garlic, hot pepper, vinegar sauce—I will be cooking these weekly to store in my freezer in America). I was painting some project titles and a building name above the door with a 2.5” paintbrush I modified with a serrated knife and duct tape to a small round brush. The health workers are involved in a project of Plan Senegal for early childhood education and maternal and child health. So, the regional project manager came to the weighing to teach them some new curriculum materials. She lives in my road town, which I believe I’ve mentioned is 3 km away down the sand road and on the national highway… and I don’t really care for it. Although I’ve been passing through for two years, it’s big enough that I’m still a random toubab to someone every time I’m there. She’s a great lady though, who is doing really good work and not just in the capacities of her project. Every time I’ve met her, she’s spent some of her time simply explaining that development is meaningless without the work of local counterparts—if the community isn’t motivated to make a change, no amount of money from outside will do it for them.

So, I have a new friend in village, a 6 month old grandson of the local Imam whose daughter in-law I buy ice from every day. Funny how just like grown up people you immediately bond with some babies… Anyway, his grandma brought him to be weighed, and he was staring at me with a smile, so I took a short break from my work to hold him. … Totally in that phase where there is almost nothing better than holding a baby and just… being together… But, I needed to get something done. So, I put him down in his grandmother’s lap after a few minutes. He wasn’t having it. He cried, and sucker that I am, he was back in my arms pretty immediately. We walked around and looked at a charette, and after a few more minutes I tried again. Nope. Not yet. More crying. So I picked him back up, and at this point the project manager says to the health workers, “what? Have you ever seen this? A black baby that just wants to be held by a white person?” … I mean, I can at this point completely forgiver her ignorance, and even pity the fact that her world experience has been so limited that this is something worth commenting on for her. But, at the time I was really legitimately offended. I live here, I have for two years now, and very rarely does a thought cross my mind that has anything to do with the fact that we don’t have the same skin color. Only when someone else brings up skin-lightening creams or calls someone ugly because they’re dark dark. So, while in this totally blissful moment of just so legitimately being just a part of the community (maybe a weird-ish part, but a role we’ve all gotten used to together over the last two years), to have someone so starkly call me an outsider because of the color of my skin… Totally fascinating really, to have the experience of being a minority race…

I’m sure she meant no offense. And there are still some babies here that are scared of me, who have seen me only once or twice in their lives, but there are also babies here that cry when I leave them! Who the thought of leaving so soon and no longer being a part of their oh-so-precious lives makes me cry. There’s a woman named Cheika who has become my best female friend who started crying yesterday at the thought of my leaving, and people here do not cry in public. I only managed to hold it together to be to her what she has been so many times for me: a solid friend to lean on. … okay if I get any further down this road I won’t be able to make it back.

Letting that bit of weirdness go, I got back to work. Kids playing all around me, mom’s yelling at their kids, men bringing in charette loads of onions in sacks from the fields, the sun beginning to set. When I finally finished my work, I ate my beans on a mat in the sunset and just watched. At this point in my service, my life here, all the negative stuff seems to have just fallen away (mashallah), and there’s nothing left to do but be so overwhelmingly grateful for LIFE… One of those perfect-world moments, ya know? Anyway, after finishing my beans I took my plate over to clean it, talked to the ladies who’d been cooking a tiny bit, and started walking away, only to hear a friend who was cooking say “you guys are purposely acting stupid. You’re acting like toubab’s.” So, in all good humor I turn around and call her out: “did you really just say that? Did you really just say you guys are acting stupid, you’re acting like toubab’s?” … What??? She apologized, all of us laughing about it, and I assured her I wasn’t actually offended, while thinking, “d***! I just made myself the white girl!” Her response was “oh my gosh, I wasn’t even thinking about the fact that you are a toubab.” … Bam! It’s not just me that forgets, and there I was the one reminding everyone that I was different… just a strange little… mmm… One foot in both worlds, one of them, and still not. But totally beautifully accepted by the people that have seen me, talked with me, laughed with me, shared their lives and their babies and their beans with me for the last two years.

Can I get a Mashallah!?

May 2013... you're kidding me....

I have 18 days left in village. So I find myself in an entirely different mind-set than I was in for most of two years. Dealing with everything before was all about “how do I make this do-able, because I’m going to be here awhile.” Now it’s all about using the right skill I developed and reflecting back on that process of change. Hot season is back, the bugs are back, the onion farmers are back in village, and people are nos-ing left and right. It’s easier now to adjust to seasonal changes in social patterns that it was when I first got here, but it still always leaves me temporarily unsure what to do with myself. Meanwhile, I may or may not be leaving Senegal for the foreseeable future in under a month… Home for a month then back for a year? Or home until… ?? Not an issue I can let myself dwell on, and hopefully I’ll know soon.

 So, today I have a story. Like my normal stories, it’s fairly introspective and really doesn’t have a plot. But I think it’s worth talking about the fact that today was the last big party I’ll be here for in my village. The people of the Fall and Wade neighborhoods had a siarr. You’ve seen this word before in my post about Tivaone. The word practically indicates several things: going to the mosque to pray to Serigns (like big Imams); a party thrown for someone who has just returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca; a word used in the greeting “I siarr you,” which as I can understand implies honoring and celebrating, like Fat Boy Slims “I have to celebrate you, baby”; and finally, it’s a day-long event given by a neighborhood or village for their neighbors, extended family, friends, etc. In the morning each house makes thiakry (SOOOO GOOD!) which is the sour milk or sow poured over ceere which is millet flour processed into little balls, and if you’re lucky it’s mixed with little chunks of fruit like apples, pineapple, banana, etc. There is always a griot group present to sing and wax religiously, but depending on the siarr they spend different parts of the day doing this. Today there was no fruit in the thiakry, but the griots have been going since this morning and it’s now 9:15 PM. I would gladly make a trade there… Anyway, then we all eat rice and meat for lunch cooked in spices, onions and garlic. Yummy, but no veggies. Then there’s attaya and boissons (soda), and more griot action.

 This morning, I left my house looking fancy, right after all my family and friends had already left. So, when I got there I didn’t know where they were. And there were a LOT of people milling about that I didn’t know. But, where as in the past I would have immediately bee-lined for the comfort of the women’s cooking section, I felt a new level of comfort today realizing that I actually knew how this day was going to go, and where I could go, and what I could do. Even better, I was immediately rushed by my favorite little girl Maman, who, sweet little angel that she is, held my hand and walked around with me as I greeted people and made my way across the neighborhood. Then I was in the cooking area with all the women I’ve come to know and love these last two years. My hand still smells like onions ten hours later, but we take the good with the bad, right? The best thing about knowing how this day was going to go down was that I knew when I needed to be there to be fed and when I could back to my room or to get ice.

 Other random recent observations: language learning. I realized today why my French faded while my Wolof grew. When I first got here, no one could understand anything I said. Slowly but surely I could articulate some thoughts in Wolof. Had I spent those very first months putting that level of effort into French, I would be at least as good at French as I am now at Wolof. But rather than even letting the two co-evolve, I was so excited by the fact that people could understand my Wolof, and so keen to improve my ability and feel more at home in my village, that I focused exclusively on it. And now, as I’m trying to improve my French, I feel taken back to those early days of Wolof learning. I’m back to seeing the hidden irritation in people’s faces as I struggle to put together a sentence.  Fortunately people are largely patient here, and want to help you understand. Still, just tonight I was struggling to express myself in French, and just gave up. That’s what led me to this understanding. Because as soon as I said “I speak Wolof, but I need to improve my Wolof” the seller’s entire countenance changed. “Oh, if you speak Wolof that’s great. Just tell me what you want.” Well… pát.

 Meanwhile, my friends in village all want to talk about the fact that I’m about to leave. They tell me how the volunteer I replaced cried sooo much when she was about to leave, and I want to explain to them, I don’t know if I’m leaving yet! I mean, it’ll be different, yeah, but if I thought I was really leaving never to ever see them again ever…. I would be crying every time someone brought it up. I promise. As it is I waxed maudlin in a taxi today with two other passengers about how amazing Senegal is and how nice the people are and how much I wanted them (these three random people) to know how much I appreciate their country and the chance to have spent two years here. … Well, pát.

While I’m just writing about things because the point of this blog is to share my thoughts and experiences, I want to talk about the Muslim tradition of saying “Inshallah” and “Mashallah” like, 100 times a day. I love this. Inshallah mean’s God willing. Which we say in America, too, obviously, but not like this. Not this much. Sometimes Inshallah can grate, because it seems occasionally like a cop-out. Like, “no that’s not gonna happen, but I can’t say that outright because it’s impolite, so I’ll say it will Inshallah knowing that it will not, in fact, be God’s will.” That’s legitimately irritating. But Truly truly it’s based on a cultural standard that saying “no I won’t” or “no it can’t happen” to someone who is older than you or of higher social standing is waaaaay ruder. ::shrug::. Meanwhile, in its best manifestation, Inshallah recognizes what I believe to be a fact, that all things are God and therefore nothing happens that isn’t God’s will. So, it may be that my every intention is bent on a certain thing happening, and it seems 99% possible, but I’m still going to say Inshallah, thereby recognizing my small-ness. And don’t confuse humility with impotence. We are powerful creatures, but in the end… our ego-ic desires don’t necessarily drive the movement of the universe. I knocked on wood in America. Not because I believe in tree-sprites that would help my will along if I recognized them, but to remember that God, in all things—trees being one of my favorite manifestations thereof—is the real power and not my little desires based on an incomplete understanding of what will really be good for me much less the rest of the world. Okay, so Inshallah serves the same purpose. Nowadays, when I say something I really really want to be true, I have a double duty. I say “Inshallah” and knock on wood. … Point is, I like the pervasiveness of this word. If I forget even for one moment, someone will remind me. And having that kind of standardized recognition and sharing of recognition of the BIG UNIVERSAL OMNIPOTENCE of God is… something I like. Now, Mashallah means “behold the wondrous works of God(!),” approximately. And similarly, it is a reminder of humility. And again, it is something I felt missing in America. In fact, sometimes I struggled when people complimented me or something I had done. I wanted to have a quick, concise and understandable way to say “woooooah there! Don’t give me the credit. Behold the grace of God!” Well, Mashallah! Again, it has a little bit of a superstitions anti-jinxy aspect. Like, if you don’t want that gift or skill to be taken away as punishment for your vanity, you better remember to recognize the giver of the gift. Well… just like I’ve always been a wood-knocker, I just don’t really have a problem with that. Though, I have to admit I find it a slightly fearful and simplistic view of the will of God. But… pretty sure I can’t know what that will is anyway, so why continue in that vein. Point is, for me at least, that it is a constant and culturally enforced way of remembering that all good things come from God. It’s a way of reminding the ego that it is not that awesome power. But that when I live in surrender to God, I get to have cool stuff sometimes flow out of me. That’s a pretty awesome gift, mashallah.

Oh, and P.S. "pát" is like, I'm done. I'm not saying any more. New word for me, so I might be misusing it.