Misirah Dantila: My first two weeks!

It’s official: I have just completed my first two weeks in my new home of Misirah Dantila. They’ve been crazy, so so difficult but great overall. Each day seems to stretch on into an oblivion of faltering language learning, unsuccessful attempts to elude the overwhelming, 120+ heat, and just plain old exhaustion. I do fun things like hanging out under some palm fronds swapping English and Malinke lessons with my villagers for hours or trampsing off into the bush to cut down trees and build a bed with my brother/ work counterpart. But even in the simplest, most pleasant of events I am constantly floundering in a sea of unfamiliar language and culture with nary a soul to share an English conversation or perhaps an American meal with.  And indeed, the dislocation and lonesomeness that comes with this floundering has been intense. I miss my family friends something fierce, I think like I never have before. I miss home, the feeling of being home, where general, everyday interactions flow like water and the Georgia oaks and rivers surround me in coolness, shade and peace.  And then, just for emphasis, I go back to missin them good friends and family. Whoo! It’s been tough some times.

                   All that said, I still say that these first couple weeks have been amazing. The brand newness of my village and all of my experiences in it is exhilarating. Every day I learn something new- Jaxanke/Malinke phrases (there’s some debate as to what language my villagers actually speak), bits of magic and superstition, village customs and handy-tasks such as thatching grass huts or making nails out of bamboo.  My only real work right now is getting to know the language and the people, so I spend all my days wanderin’ about and finding folks to chat with. I help women crack peanuts or the young boys make the thatching for the huts. And, in trying to make myself useful, I also pick up on new words and new acquaintances which will be very useful for my work later on. 

And, most importantly, I really like the people.  My village has about 1,200 folks which is relatively big for being way the heck in the middle of nowhere ( I bike down the long, dusty roads with nothing but wilderness bush and distant mountains as far as the eye can see- it is wild and really beautiful).  I have by no means met everyone, and still have a long way to go to memorizing everybody’s names. But everybody knows my name and greets me enthusiastically wherever I go: “Fode Made Tanjian, Kor Tanante? Heera Tilinta!”.  They’re a testy bunch of people, constantly quizzing me on my Jaxanke skills and giving me grief when I screw up.  This is quite frequent given the greetings, tenses, and many words are entirely different than what I learned in class. And, past that, it is such a long road learning this language and deciphering what sounds like a bunch of mumbling three quarters of the time.  But they are nonetheless forgiving, helpful, and really friendly.  Everybody’s always cracking jokes and laughing. When I greet the women they offer me mangoes or this green goo called Jambo. A pack of cute, dirty children follow me wherever I go, helping me with Jaxanke and trying to climb on me.  And the old men (keebalu) have sent along many a gift to my compound to make me feel welcomed: fish, a deer leg, and even some prize antelope organs in Tupperware bowl. Yum!!,

And at night everybody gathers around my compound at night to chat, gossip, and demand that I play guitar. One night when I was playing for everybody I played a song in French. This started off a chain of song requests in different languages: “Sing us an English one.. Now Jaxanke, now Wolof… now Pulaar!”, all the way down to Jalunke, a tiny tiny language that is spoken in my region.  In most of these languages I know at best a couple phrases and in Jalunke I know how to say ‘come here, come eat’ at that’s it. But nevertheless I attempted, singing things like Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’ with Pulaar words mixed in. It was hilarious!

I spend the biggest part of my days with Cheik Moctar Tanjian. He is my village counterpart with whom I will probably doing many health projects as I get a little farther into my service. He is also my brother.  I have a bunch of other siblings living around me- at least 37 of my nuclear family (my Father/ village Chief was quite prodigious and somehow acquired 5 wives even though Muslim law allows for only four). And so, though I like all my Tanjian family (about every single man in my village is named Tanjian), It is very confusing and very big.  So Cheik, his wife and two kids are my go-to family. He has built a brand new hut right next to mine and we hang out about all the time.  He teaches me all kinds of jaxanke, though lately our long rambling conversations have been in French quite a bit. In turn I’ve begun English lessons with him, and we go about various villages tasks together. We’ve built him a palm frond bed and we hang out with my other counterpart, Diop, at the health post where they both work. There we’ve watched WWF smack down (oh lord!) and soccer on our village’s sole TV. But best of all we did a baby weighing and vaccination followed by a ridiculous, village-wide fish hunt last Sunday.

The vaccination day and baby weighing was really exciting. And helping out putting the cutest of little babies on a scale and marking down their progress was rewarding and illuminated some potential work opportunities later on. Though there were no babies that were terribly underweight, there were at least a number who were moderately malnourished which can be very dangerous in the long run.  The real spectacle and truly exciting even was the fish hunt.

Fishing day in Misirah Dantila is nothing at all like any fishing trip I could possible dream of in the US. Preparations for the hunt started two days before hand. I was on my way to play some soccer when I found a bunch of guys making bows and arrows. I was terribly intrigued and asked them what they were going to be hunting. Fish they replied. What?? But indeed, they make these crazy palm-frond turrets in the middle of the river and then wait to an unsuspecting Yego Bun Baa (big fish) swims by and then THWAP! The hunting is not just limited to the men of the village, though, nor is the technique just bows and arrows. Indeed, about every woman in the village was out in the streets the day before, pounding some kind of tree material with these huge mortars. They kept trying to explain what this was for (something about how the fish can’t see you when you put it in the water), but I only understood when I got to the river the day of the hunt.

That day as soon as our vaccinations Cheik and I grabbed my machete, hopped on our bikes and headed into the bush to the river. When we got there we found a huge, village wide party at the river’s edge. Everyone was there- old men, women, children, and everybody was armed. They had nets, bows, and machetes and were all hootin’ and hollarin’, kids leapin’ in the water, everybody cheering like a baseball game when someone caught a big one.  All the river was littered with the baskets and baskets of plant stuff they had ground up. This was, I soon found out, a mild poison! The poor fish didn’t stand a chance against such a varied arsenal.  Cheik and I dove right in (not literally!), and before long were wacking these little fish called Kon Kongs with my machete when we’d find one sneakin up for a bite of food near the river’s bank.

Before long we had ourselves a few good sized ones, and an old keeba gifted me these two prized ones that he had caught. These we left by a tree and headed on down the bank to look for more Kon Kon’s. Eventually, maybe six or seven Kon Kongs the richer, we headed back to our original spot to gather up the winnings. When we got there though we found all of our stuff but no fish! I’m lookin’ all around but to know avail, so pretty soon the nearby fishers figure out that my fish are gone and sound the alarm. “TOUBAB LOST HIS FISH!!” I hear them yelling at the top of their lungs. And soon the call is taked up by the villagers downstream and out of site, “Toubab lost his fish!!”.  Thankfully (more than anything this was just embarrassing!) Cheik finds our fish just a tiny bit downstream and the Villagers sound out the everything’s-cool call, “TOUBAB FOUND HIS FISH!”. Aye, what a crazy day!

Anyway, now I’m off in Saraya typin the last words and getting ready to head back to my crazy life in Misirah. At 50 km Saraya is the closest road town to me. It is hardly more than a big, paved road intersection, but with electricity and 4 boutiks it feels like a booming metropolis.  I’m not sure how often I’ll be coming here, but I have two volunteer friends who are here and there are cold drinks for the having, so hopefully I’ll be coming to here or Kedougou at least every 2 to 3 weeks.  And, when I do, I shall be sure to write again.  Hope so much that you all are in the best of health and spirits!

Ian