Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Senegal Quirks That No Longer Stick Out to Me But Used To Seem Hilarious or Just Plain Bizarre
Hi everybody! I’ve been wanting to write this post for a long while. There are all sorts of crazy aspects of life here that really crack me up. As I go on with my service though I start noticing them less and less. So I wanted to start taking a running list of all those funny quirks, the random bits that brighten up days and life here. I hope it will bring you all smiles and some new insights into the wacky place and culture in which we live.
1. The random, haphazard mix of four to five languages that I hear every day, sometimes in the same sentence. Favorite quotes: Yangi Nice Quois?! (wolof-you are, English- Nice, French-what?!). Another came when my counterpart and I were hanging out one night and looking at the constellations. He was telling me that he though Orion was two cow herders leading a single cow between them. A couple hours later he look up and was like ‘Allah, ninso tigolu sont en train de bouger rek’ (Jaxanke- wow the cow herders, French- are scooting along, Wolof- only!)
2. Little children get their heads shaved here fairly often. But they often leave a little round poof right in the middle of the head. Or sometimes a straight Mohawk. Fashion!
3. Everybody, the oldest of old folks down to the tiniest children, wear nothing but flip flops and sandals every day. In the beginning of my service I felt like I was hanging out at the beach every day…except no beach! Dang. Even on the most formal occasions everybody wears new, fancy flip flops to complement their beautiful, tailor made outfits.
4. Eating with my hands around a big, communal pot on the floor. Every meal is eaten communally around giant bowls. Usually the men and boys eat together, and the women and girls eat separately. The little kids crouch on the older folk’s feet and everybody digs in, throwing tasty bits to me or any guests. I’m pretty good with the eating with my hand technique now, but it used to be a mighty messy process.
5. I hate to write this one right after the food one, but feel it’s important…. Wiping with one’s hand after using the pit latrine. Toilet paper is almost non-existent here, but the water method does a mighty fine job as long as you wash your hands with soap afterwards. This one might seem the worst for Americans but was surprisingly easy to get used to. Plus we’ll all be professional campers/ party goers when t.p. runs out!
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6. Not doing anything with your left hand. We were told that people would think you were Satan if you tried to eat left-handed. Number 5. Provides pretty good cultural justification for this
7. Sweating all the time- I’m writing this post at 11:42 at night… still sweating!
8. Sharing public transportation with all manner of farm animals. For thanksgiving we bought a spot on the roof of a station wagon for our turkey to come down from Tamba. ______
9. Sleeping under a mosquito net every night. This couldn’t seem more normal now, but I remember feeling like I was in a far distant world when I tried to tuck in my net on my first night here last year.
10. Ubiquitous religious/magical charms. Just about every person wears a kind of jewelry called gris-gris. They’re usually little sewn leather pouches, worn as bracelets, necklaces, around the waist or woven into hair. They could protect you from all sorts of things- malaria, snakes, genies.. or maybe make the girl you’re after fall in love with you_____
11. Koranic Fire Circles. Each night the children of the village gather around huge bon-fires to study the Koran. They sing and yell at the top of their lungs and teachers, or maribous, patrol around beating kids who fall asleep or screw up. You can see the faint glow of fires no matter where you are, hear the faint chanting while everybody else drinks tea and listens to radio.
12. Senegalese Tea. Tea here is an complicated, sacred, incredibly time consuming activity. You make it in tiny pots and then pour it into tiny shot glasses, raising the tea pot as high as possible for maximum visual effect and foam. Then you pass it around, giving it to the oldest/most respected people first, and everybody drinks in fast, noisy slurps. This could take a half an hour to an hour, and then you put it back on the coals for the second and third rounds, which could go all afternoon.______
13. Cola Nuts: I had always heard about Cola Nuts as this old time tradition of West Africa, the magical nut around which trade routes were established and from which Coca Cola got its name. And, after being here for a good long while, I am happy to report that its importance was in no way exaggerated. It is the central gift in all major ceremonies, and must be present in certain numbers for a Marriage to be agreed upon or a baptism performed. Too, all the old folks are addicted to it. They are always on the quest for more cola nuts, and use funny, nail-puntured sardine cans to great the nuts if they don’t have enough teeth left to crunch them. ______
14. America Apparel: Senegal has been the happy recipient of an extreme excess of America themed clothing, usually Obama gear. When I got to village I was surprised to see that just about everyone sported an Obama shirt. There are also some very questionable and very ubiquitous World Trade Center Flip-Flops that look like they are burning when your foot starts to rub off the image. Hmm. The best, though, are baseball hats that read, “OBAMA, President of Space”. Yes!*****
That’s it for now. I’m sure I’ll come up with a million more as soon as I post this. But I’ll leave it at that for now. Much love from Senegal.
Care Groups and Youth Groups, Comin' Along
Life here has been busily humming along since I last posted. Work has been great for the most part. World Malaria Day was a great success in Missirah. My care group members did fabulously, doing net care and repair demonstrations all over the village. Each time one of the women was ready to do a demo for her compound women they’d send a little kid to my compound to drag me on over and take lots of pictures.
Here's all the ladies of my Care Group, lookin' fancy in their new shirts!
In all the women washed and repaired dozens of nets (maybe 50- 60, though I won’t have exact numbers until our next meeting) and educated more than a hundred people on the importance of mosquito nets and proper care. I also went from classroom to classroom doing malaria lessons for the elementary schoolers in my village. The littlest class in particular got really excited, I think because I did the lesson in Malinke whereas I did the other classes in French. They were yelling out all kinds of really cute, bright answers.. “Pali man nyin!” “Suusulalu se pali di moxolu ma!”- Malaria is bad! Mosquitoes give it to you!
Here one of the women from our group is conducting a net care and repair demonstration in her compound
My favorite picture! Just after her demonstration one of the care group women is posing with her two unhappy grandchildren
Just before then Marielle and I did a training of middle school students in Nafadji. 12 students participated in the training which training focused on HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and family planning, and early marriage and early pregnancy. Though the students were young these topics are extremely, sadly relevant. HIV/AIDS rates are over all very low in Senegal but gold mining and trucking bring in a huge influx of migrants from all over Africa and, with them, much higher rates of HIV. Middle school drop-out is also incredibly high in our area, usually because of pregnancy or early marriage. Just before we started the project we found out that one of our students (actually one of Marielle’s host sisters) was pregnant. If only she had done this training earlier! Still, this project was a great opputunity for her to learn about ways to stay in school and learn about family planning methods in order to educate her friends and make better choices in the future. Indeed, the ultimate goal of the project was to train the students to be peer educators, or jeunes relais, who will now educate their peers and community about these important topics.
here's some of the students. I need to steal Marielle's pictures though- hers turned out better
Despite a bunch of setbacks from the beginning and a bunch of health structure hoops to jump through, the training turned out to be a great success. Our Jeunes Relais were fantastic. They were incredibly engaged in for the three days, furiously scribbling notes during the full day classes and studying in the evenings. They came up with great skits and community talks about condom use, HIV/AIDS, and early marriage, and have already participated in two big community events. And, despite a bunch of trials and tribulation getting everything organized, the community got really behind the training and did a wonderful job making it a success. Now our little relais need a bunch of practice leading classes and making skits but, with a little work, they’ll do great things in Nafadji over the coming year.
Now I’m back in Kedougou, working on the very early stages of a couple big malaria projects for this summer. I’m really excited and I’ll keep everybody in the loop!
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Getting ready for World Malaria Day
The 25th of this month is World Malaria Day. In preparation for this we are planning all sorts of cool activities throughout Senegal to encourage malaria awareness and prevention activities. Particularly we want to use this day to focus on mosquito net washing and repair. A Universal Coverage (one net for every sleeping space) happened in the Kedougou region a couple years ago. Already though a high percentage of the nets are ripped or have holes, and many others are just not hung. In the dry season right now we have about a 34% rate of net hanging. But, if all the ripped and unused nets were fixed and hung we could have more than double that rate of coverage.
So on the 24th the 15 women in our village Care Group will be meeting to tackle that problem. My health counterparts and I meet every month with this group to teach a health topic (ORS, water treatment, cervical cancer, etc). The women will then take these topics and go out to teach all of the women of their compounds what they learned. When we next meet we’ll give each woman in the group needles and thread and practice sewing up and correctly washing nets. Then the next day they’ll go out and take the village by storm for a World Malaria Day net care and repair extravaganza. Huzza!
Here’s a picture of my counterpart doing small talks about Mosquito Nets. In the dry season malaria is rare, but we still see cases of extremely severe malaria at the health post every month. He gets super animated when he does these talks, gesticulating crazily and talking a million miles a minute. It’s amazing to see!
So on the 24th the 15 women in our village Care Group will be meeting to tackle that problem. My health counterparts and I meet every month with this group to teach a health topic (ORS, water treatment, cervical cancer, etc). The women will then take these topics and go out to teach all of the women of their compounds what they learned. When we next meet we’ll give each woman in the group needles and thread and practice sewing up and correctly washing nets. Then the next day they’ll go out and take the village by storm for a World Malaria Day net care and repair extravaganza. Huzza!
Here’s a picture of my counterpart doing small talks about Mosquito Nets. In the dry season malaria is rare, but we still see cases of extremely severe malaria at the health post every month. He gets super animated when he does these talks, gesticulating crazily and talking a million miles a minute. It’s amazing to see!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Stomping Out Malaria in Africa
At long last I am back in Kedougou. I’m killing time ‘till the once weekly transport leaves to my village tomorrow, doing a little bit of work and a lot of floating in the Gambia river while my brain cools off from the intensity of the last couple weeks. I just got done a 10 day intensive seminar on malaria in Thies called Boot Camp III. Regular Peace Corps volunteers, Peace Corps Response people, professionals and staff came from 11 different African countries to participate in the event. Classes went all day long and late into the night (though the extra late sessions usually featured popcorn.. yes!). We covered topics such as the science of malaria transmission, vector control, advocacy, and behavior change. It was a huge, information overload, amazing introduction to everything malaria related.
Perhaps more importantly, though, it was a forum for collaboration and momentum building for Peace Corps and many of the main players in the malaria field. We met or Skyped folks from the Presidents Malaria Initiative, FHI, Malaria No More, and numerous serious researchers in the field. By the end of boot camp the different countries presented specific action plans to take back to their programs and national partners. It was amazing to be a part of, to feel the incredible momentum surrounding this continent wide initiative, and to map out Peace Corps’ role in the fight against malaria. Malaria currently kills between 750,000 and 1.2 million people a year, mostly children in Africa. But huge gains have been made in the last 10 years. And, if the global community continues its commitment to malaria control, we will have an unbelievable impact on child survival and children’s lives.
So, back in Kedougou, my buddy Ben and I are looking to adapt some of the information and strategies presented at boot camp to the regional level. Kedougou has by far the greatest burden of Malaria morbidity (almost 6x the national average) and mortality in Senegal. But we have an awesome bunch of volunteers and a huge amount of support from Peace Corps higher ups. So we’re getting ready for the next rainy season (though first we gotta make it through the fast approaching and oh-so-daunting hot season), trying out creative ways to mobilize the volunteer community and our villages in this important fight. We’ll be having summits, parties, classes and contests to educate people about malaria and prevention strategies. Too, we’ll be working with other Senegal volunteers to develop a post and re-distribution strategy to follow up on the universal net distribution campaigns that have swept Senegal in recent years. It is an exciting, exhilarating time to be here and be doing this work. I’ll be sure to share more as we go forward.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
To Home and Back, With Some Softball In-between
A little more than a month ago I went to the states for Christmas. It was heavenly being back home, back with the dearest friends and family, surrounded by an endless array of the most delicious foods and beverages. I had expected a shock coming back to the US after 9 months in Senegal. Certainly the cold would do a number on me, the crowded insanity of cities, maybe the wealth and materialism so prevalent there? But a whole host of other things stuck out to me; trees were so tall, so beautiful and towering! Driving was thrilling, gigantic absurdly oversized houses and stores just seemed beautiful, and the endless selection of beers and cheeses was nothing short of glorious! I found myself slipping into life at home happily and easily, kicking it with my dear friends and family like I had never left. I was a happy man, drinking it all in with the deepest appreciation. Oh Amerique, Oh Home!
Such fine folks!
Slowly and joyfully the three weeks passed by and the time came for me to return. It hurt to leave, to say a second whole round of goodbyes to such dear folks. But I was ready to go back. Senegal and my hut and family in Missirah Dantila were fast becoming a dream, much too far from away to possibly be real. So I packed up, loaded down with gifts for friends and counterparts back here, and left one sad, bright morning. My folks somehow finagled Delta into letting us all go to the gate together (my son doesn’t speak English, I promise!), so they accompanied me all the way there. Twas lovely and heart breaking.
I shared my flight from New York to Dakar with my friend Cibyl and a million Senegalese folks all going back for a HUGE festival called the Magal de Touba. They all thought it was hilarious that I was living in a tiny village in Kedougou, speaking Jaxanke and a tiny bit of Wolof. “what do you eat for lunch?” usually maafe (rice with peanut sauce) “Maafe!?! Haha! You bush person!”. Aye. When we got to Dakar we immediately hopped aboard a Peace Corps car and shipped off to Thies. There we had a big conference in which volunteers from around West Africa presented on their main projects and shared best practices. This was good, though I was in a bit of a state of shock, reeling from being back here, the sights, sounds and especially smells overwhelming and familiar.
Then it was time for WAIST , the West African Invitational Softball Tournament which occurs in Dakar every year. Ex-pat teams from around the region come to play. And the acronym, at least for the hundreds of Peace Corps people who participate, is a pretty accurate indicator of the state of sobriety which will characterize the entirety of the three days. Lord! We had an absolute blast though, a great big marathon of manic, joyful, careening insanity, dancing, partying, and the occasional softball game. Each Peace Corps team chooses a theme. Themes included French- all of Dakar wore berets and batted with baguettes, South of the Border (Kolda), and Baseball (Kedougou/Tamba). Baseball I think was meant to be an ironic choice given Peace Corps’ general practice of forfeiting each game from the get go and then spending each inning in a chaos of hilarious antics, wheelbarrow races, and imbibing. I think wearing baseball uniforms was actually inspiring though. We certainly made the most of batting from each others’ shoulders, four person batting lines, and red-rover games in the outfields. We actually tried at some points though, and may have set a Peace Corps record with at least one win and one homerun!
Ben, Brian Bartel and I, ready for a three-man grandslam
The madness of WAIST and the great proms and parties that followed produced a myriad of results- most hilarious, some very bad, and many just plain bizarre. I sprained my ankle in a tragic second base slide. My team rallied to my side though, feeding me Oreos, beer and kisses to ease the pain and carrying me off like a king to get X-Rays. I eventually ended up in a cast, but this certainly didn’t stop the great dance party that ensued that night. More seriously Cibyl got in a car accident and ended up with a broken ankle and another friend Emily sprained hers running across a treacherous median. There also was a girl who got hit by a car going the wrong way on a one way street (thankfully she wasn’t too badly hurt) and another friend of mine Meg who had gotten meningitis a while before and played softball in a wheelchair. We all bonded in the Med-Hut, cooking up tasty food and cursing the fickle friend that is WAIST!
Emily, Cibyl and I: Curse you WAIST
Eventually I made it back to Kedougou and back to Missirah. It was overwhelming being back but so joyful. Back to the peace of my hut, my family, and my kind, joking villagers. I got pretty good at hobbling up and down Missirah’s crazy windy streets. And everywere I went, every day, every person I met would greet me and say prayers for my quick recovery.. ‘Is it a little better?! May Allah grant that it feels better soon!’. ‘Aminu!’ Now I’m back in Thies, getting ready to start an intense 10 day Malaria training. I’m excited, for I’m really interested in continuing work with the big Roll Back Malaria campaigns that are being implemented throughout Africa and have already been incredibly successful. More on that soon. Hope so much that you all are well.
Slowly and joyfully the three weeks passed by and the time came for me to return. It hurt to leave, to say a second whole round of goodbyes to such dear folks. But I was ready to go back. Senegal and my hut and family in Missirah Dantila were fast becoming a dream, much too far from away to possibly be real. So I packed up, loaded down with gifts for friends and counterparts back here, and left one sad, bright morning. My folks somehow finagled Delta into letting us all go to the gate together (my son doesn’t speak English, I promise!), so they accompanied me all the way there. Twas lovely and heart breaking.
I shared my flight from New York to Dakar with my friend Cibyl and a million Senegalese folks all going back for a HUGE festival called the Magal de Touba. They all thought it was hilarious that I was living in a tiny village in Kedougou, speaking Jaxanke and a tiny bit of Wolof. “what do you eat for lunch?” usually maafe (rice with peanut sauce) “Maafe!?! Haha! You bush person!”. Aye. When we got to Dakar we immediately hopped aboard a Peace Corps car and shipped off to Thies. There we had a big conference in which volunteers from around West Africa presented on their main projects and shared best practices. This was good, though I was in a bit of a state of shock, reeling from being back here, the sights, sounds and especially smells overwhelming and familiar.
Then it was time for WAIST , the West African Invitational Softball Tournament which occurs in Dakar every year. Ex-pat teams from around the region come to play. And the acronym, at least for the hundreds of Peace Corps people who participate, is a pretty accurate indicator of the state of sobriety which will characterize the entirety of the three days. Lord! We had an absolute blast though, a great big marathon of manic, joyful, careening insanity, dancing, partying, and the occasional softball game. Each Peace Corps team chooses a theme. Themes included French- all of Dakar wore berets and batted with baguettes, South of the Border (Kolda), and Baseball (Kedougou/Tamba). Baseball I think was meant to be an ironic choice given Peace Corps’ general practice of forfeiting each game from the get go and then spending each inning in a chaos of hilarious antics, wheelbarrow races, and imbibing. I think wearing baseball uniforms was actually inspiring though. We certainly made the most of batting from each others’ shoulders, four person batting lines, and red-rover games in the outfields. We actually tried at some points though, and may have set a Peace Corps record with at least one win and one homerun!
The madness of WAIST and the great proms and parties that followed produced a myriad of results- most hilarious, some very bad, and many just plain bizarre. I sprained my ankle in a tragic second base slide. My team rallied to my side though, feeding me Oreos, beer and kisses to ease the pain and carrying me off like a king to get X-Rays. I eventually ended up in a cast, but this certainly didn’t stop the great dance party that ensued that night. More seriously Cibyl got in a car accident and ended up with a broken ankle and another friend Emily sprained hers running across a treacherous median. There also was a girl who got hit by a car going the wrong way on a one way street (thankfully she wasn’t too badly hurt) and another friend of mine Meg who had gotten meningitis a while before and played softball in a wheelchair. We all bonded in the Med-Hut, cooking up tasty food and cursing the fickle friend that is WAIST!
Eventually I made it back to Kedougou and back to Missirah. It was overwhelming being back but so joyful. Back to the peace of my hut, my family, and my kind, joking villagers. I got pretty good at hobbling up and down Missirah’s crazy windy streets. And everywere I went, every day, every person I met would greet me and say prayers for my quick recovery.. ‘Is it a little better?! May Allah grant that it feels better soon!’. ‘Aminu!’ Now I’m back in Thies, getting ready to start an intense 10 day Malaria training. I’m excited, for I’m really interested in continuing work with the big Roll Back Malaria campaigns that are being implemented throughout Africa and have already been incredibly successful. More on that soon. Hope so much that you all are well.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Thanksgiving in Senegal, just a few months late!
A disclaimer: this blogpost was written in the beginning of December, just before I left to America for Christmas. I meant to send it off before I left but I failed epically, partly due to a phone company strike and partly due to laziness. In America I was too distracted by unbelievable food, family, and fine friends to even think about blogging, so it was again delayed. But while there I was surprised and heartened by how many people are indeed following along on this blog adventure. So with thanks to you all for reading and routing for me I will post this tardy entry and do my very best to catch up to mid-january as fast as possible. Cheers!
Thanksgiving in Senegal
I’m writing this blog from the comfort of my hut. It’s all sorts of noisy outside. The roosters and cows are making an early morning din, my next-door neighbors are blasting malinke tunes on the radio, and there’s the almost ubiquitous ‘thump’ of women pounding corn with huge wooden mortars and pestals. Meanwhile I’m sitting on a bamboo chair underneath my grass thatched hut, listening to bluegrass tunes on a tape player and typing away on my computer. It’s an odd mix of the modern (I could even get internet on my computer with a Orange key that I bought), the 1980’s (back to cassettes!), and the traditional, everything made out of mud and wood. All the same, it’s not really that odd. Technologies of a million different time periods seem to blend so seamlessly here; languages too, and religion for that matter. In the course of one conversation I might hear four different languages (Jaxanke, French, Wolof and Pulaar- maybe even an English word or two). And older healing and magical traditions (ie. Genies, charms, witchcraft) are all melded into a very devout form of Islam so well that it is difficult to distinguish between the two.
I wanted to write several days ago at the end of thanksgiving. But I suppose those funky chemicals in turkey got the best of me and I was bested by sleepiness and absurd fullness. It was a great thanksgiving, though, one worthy of a blog post and songs from the West African Griots at the very least.
We did it up in with true Kedougou spirit. It is such a cool culture around here. Goals, no matter how far-fetched or absurd, are tackled with a ‘can’t nothing stop us’ attitude. ‘Want to weld together a tandem bicycle? Go to!’, ‘Have our entire region run a marathon at the beginning of hot season in Tamba? Why not?’, ‘Make a Purducken for Thanksgiving? Yes!’. And this is just what we did- a chicken stuffed inside a duck, inside a turkey, inside a pig, all wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in the ground Hawaiian style. It was a crazy, ridiculous idea. But everyone got behind it. After all, who could dream up a more epic Thanksgiving feast? And we all worked hard. We found a turkey in Tamba and bought him a place on the roof of a station-wagon coming to Kedougou. The other animals we found around Kedougou and spent many a long hour plucking and butchering. A grisly process, to be sure, but I suppose it’s good to be so close to your food. And eventually, long past nightfall on the 23rd, we put white hot rocks and stuffing inside our purducken, wrapped it all up in banana leaves, and lowered it all into a hot pit to barbeque underground for the next 18 hours.
Thanksgiving, or any holiday for that matter, away from home just isn’t right. Without my family there it was hard to believe that this was really Thanksgiving at all, and the nostalgic feel and smell of November was burned up by our hot Senegalese sun. It felt more like we were having a mock thanksgiving feast in the middle of August. But as the big day really got going I got more and more into the Thanksgiving spirit. Everybody was cooking up a storm in the kitchen- pies, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes- and we were drinking homemade honey wine. We also had done a radio show in Malinke about what thanksgiving is and what we’re thankful for. (Nse Allah tantou baawo nna dimbaaya Amerik a nin men be Senegal bee be kedeyaarin!) Sometime in the afternoon we all took a break to go swimming in the Gambia river. And there, all of us frolicking in the cool water, I felt pretty dern lucky to be doing thanksgiving in Senegal. It’s not Thanksgiving with my family, but I’m thankful all the same.
When we got back it was time to pull the purducken out of the ground. My buddy CJ and I unwrapped the banana leaves and there it was- cooked to perfection, fall off the bone deliciousness! Everybody crowded around like kids around presents at Christmas, pulling big chunks of meat off the pig and savoring them with huge grins. It was so joyful- our purducken a success! By the time we finally got to the feast we were nearly stuffed. But we piled our plates nevertheless and didn’t slow down till the apple pie, carrot cake and cheese cake were all gone. Nse Allah tantou!
Thanksgiving in Senegal
I’m writing this blog from the comfort of my hut. It’s all sorts of noisy outside. The roosters and cows are making an early morning din, my next-door neighbors are blasting malinke tunes on the radio, and there’s the almost ubiquitous ‘thump’ of women pounding corn with huge wooden mortars and pestals. Meanwhile I’m sitting on a bamboo chair underneath my grass thatched hut, listening to bluegrass tunes on a tape player and typing away on my computer. It’s an odd mix of the modern (I could even get internet on my computer with a Orange key that I bought), the 1980’s (back to cassettes!), and the traditional, everything made out of mud and wood. All the same, it’s not really that odd. Technologies of a million different time periods seem to blend so seamlessly here; languages too, and religion for that matter. In the course of one conversation I might hear four different languages (Jaxanke, French, Wolof and Pulaar- maybe even an English word or two). And older healing and magical traditions (ie. Genies, charms, witchcraft) are all melded into a very devout form of Islam so well that it is difficult to distinguish between the two.
I wanted to write several days ago at the end of thanksgiving. But I suppose those funky chemicals in turkey got the best of me and I was bested by sleepiness and absurd fullness. It was a great thanksgiving, though, one worthy of a blog post and songs from the West African Griots at the very least.
We did it up in with true Kedougou spirit. It is such a cool culture around here. Goals, no matter how far-fetched or absurd, are tackled with a ‘can’t nothing stop us’ attitude. ‘Want to weld together a tandem bicycle? Go to!’, ‘Have our entire region run a marathon at the beginning of hot season in Tamba? Why not?’, ‘Make a Purducken for Thanksgiving? Yes!’. And this is just what we did- a chicken stuffed inside a duck, inside a turkey, inside a pig, all wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in the ground Hawaiian style. It was a crazy, ridiculous idea. But everyone got behind it. After all, who could dream up a more epic Thanksgiving feast? And we all worked hard. We found a turkey in Tamba and bought him a place on the roof of a station-wagon coming to Kedougou. The other animals we found around Kedougou and spent many a long hour plucking and butchering. A grisly process, to be sure, but I suppose it’s good to be so close to your food. And eventually, long past nightfall on the 23rd, we put white hot rocks and stuffing inside our purducken, wrapped it all up in banana leaves, and lowered it all into a hot pit to barbeque underground for the next 18 hours.
Thanksgiving, or any holiday for that matter, away from home just isn’t right. Without my family there it was hard to believe that this was really Thanksgiving at all, and the nostalgic feel and smell of November was burned up by our hot Senegalese sun. It felt more like we were having a mock thanksgiving feast in the middle of August. But as the big day really got going I got more and more into the Thanksgiving spirit. Everybody was cooking up a storm in the kitchen- pies, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes- and we were drinking homemade honey wine. We also had done a radio show in Malinke about what thanksgiving is and what we’re thankful for. (Nse Allah tantou baawo nna dimbaaya Amerik a nin men be Senegal bee be kedeyaarin!) Sometime in the afternoon we all took a break to go swimming in the Gambia river. And there, all of us frolicking in the cool water, I felt pretty dern lucky to be doing thanksgiving in Senegal. It’s not Thanksgiving with my family, but I’m thankful all the same.
When we got back it was time to pull the purducken out of the ground. My buddy CJ and I unwrapped the banana leaves and there it was- cooked to perfection, fall off the bone deliciousness! Everybody crowded around like kids around presents at Christmas, pulling big chunks of meat off the pig and savoring them with huge grins. It was so joyful- our purducken a success! By the time we finally got to the feast we were nearly stuffed. But we piled our plates nevertheless and didn’t slow down till the apple pie, carrot cake and cheese cake were all gone. Nse Allah tantou!
Saturday, November 5, 2011
HIgh Adventure in the Land of the Genies
A couple of weeks ago my friends Marielle, Ben, CJ and I packed up our bags and set out on a great journey. Our destination was an unbelievable collection of giant rock cliffs called The Spires. They loom quite menacingly over the big mountain ridge that separates Guinea and Senegal, beautiful as could be and almost totally inaccessible. And, according to local legends, they’re inhabited by genies.
View of the spires from far far away
So, despite the mostly bemused objections of our villagers (‘lemme get this straight- you not only want to visit the spirit inhabited, toubab eating spires, you want to sleep there in toubab houses?!! (tents)’) we set off to climb these crazy cliffs and, inshallah, stay the night up there. Getting there was as much an adventure as actually climbing the mountain. Marielle and I cut down back paths from my site to meet with Ben and CJ. This entailed crashing through 6 foot high grasses that covered the path, gettin’ eaten up by tsetse flies but in turn eating some cooked straight on the coals corn with some friendly villagers along the way. Eventually we emerged from the mass of grasses, found our comrades and turned up back paths towards a town at the foot of the ridge called Dunkita. There we befriended a Jalunke man who offered to keep our bikes while we continued the rest of our journey on foot.
Next we climbed straight up the mountain to Marougou, a tiny Jalunke village at the foot of the spires. Marougou looks like, as Ben put it, a model West African village one might find in a cultural center or National Geographic. It is extremely poor but beautiful, a tiny cluster of huts and mango trees rimmed by the mountains of Guinea and the Spires. We found the village chief, gave him kola nuts, and asked if we could stay the night there. Our explanation of toubab houses really confused him but eventually he got the point and found a nice place for us to set up tents. As soon as we made camp though we were hit by a terrifying rain storm. Ben and I jumped in the tents to keep them from blowing away and Marielle and CJ were nearly hit by lightning as the rain through the rain on the way back from pulling water.
All of us with the Marougou villagers
As the clouds cleared the Chief’s son, Sory, invited us into his hut to dry off and make tea. We passed the rest of the evening in there, drinking tea and swapping stories about Genies while the sun set over Marougou. We had brought rice and given the villagers some money so they could make us dinner, and finally an old woman came into the hut with a tiny little bowl. We opened it up and found fonio, a delicious West African grain, and peanut sauce. Though the portion was tiny we ate gratefully, thankful for anything they could give. This turned out to be just round one though, and as soon as we were done another woman came with another bowl of fonio. Then came dinner number three, fonio again, dinner number four of the rice we brought, and more fonio for dinner number five! Amazing! It turned out that all the women in the village were making us little dinners to welcome us, fattening up the travelers with true Senegalese hospitality.
The next morning we woke up early. And, with some kind prayers from the elders and thank you’s all around (‘I nin walli’ in Jalunke) we headed out. Some little boys from the village took as far as they dared to go and then we veered off into the bush, cutting a line through the bush with a machete. It took a few hours to reach the base of the spires but then the real work began. Two times we tried to summit, crashing our way through fields of stinging nettles and clamboring over boulders only to be stopped dead by the sheer, insurmountable walls of the cliffs. After the second time we figured we had maybe one more attempt left in us before exhaustion and our alarming water shortage got the best of us. So after eating soggy bread (soaked in the rainstorm the day before) and sardine sandwiches we set off. Eventually I crested a ridge and there it was, a high grass valley nestled between two huge but potentially climbable peaks. Marielle and I took one side and CJ and Ben took the other. CJ and Ben found a way up and eventually we all were at the top of the highest point in Senegal, the flatlands of Senegal stretching out forever into the horizon far beneath us. It was beautiful.
Victory!
That night we played cards, rationed our tiny water supplies, and went to sleep early. We awoke in the middle of the night to a terrifying roar. Perfect Storm number 2 had rolled in and an unbelievable wind was tearing around the cliffs and making a noise like a dragon. It and the rain hit our tiny tents at the same time with incredible force. We all were starfished on the floors, praying that the wind wouldn’t pick up the tents and fling them off the edge of the mountain. The genies or whatever energy is found on the Spires were angry, but Alhamdoulilahi the storm finally passed and we lived through the night. We awoke the next morning to the sound of a million bees (genies round two?) but we hit out in our tents ‘till they had mostly flown away.
And thus ended our spires adventure. We climbed back down the mountain, greeted the Marougou villagers who all were quite happy to know we had survived the night, and then headed down the ridge to retrieve our bikes in Dunkita. For the Dunkita family who guarded our bikes we promised to bring children’s cloths and we’ll be printing pictures for our lovely Marougou hosts next time we pass through. For as crazy and fun as it was to climb the spires, the thing that has really stuck with me after our grand adventure was the kindness and hospitality of the people along the way. It is one fine fine place I am living in.
View of the spires from far far away
So, despite the mostly bemused objections of our villagers (‘lemme get this straight- you not only want to visit the spirit inhabited, toubab eating spires, you want to sleep there in toubab houses?!! (tents)’) we set off to climb these crazy cliffs and, inshallah, stay the night up there. Getting there was as much an adventure as actually climbing the mountain. Marielle and I cut down back paths from my site to meet with Ben and CJ. This entailed crashing through 6 foot high grasses that covered the path, gettin’ eaten up by tsetse flies but in turn eating some cooked straight on the coals corn with some friendly villagers along the way. Eventually we emerged from the mass of grasses, found our comrades and turned up back paths towards a town at the foot of the ridge called Dunkita. There we befriended a Jalunke man who offered to keep our bikes while we continued the rest of our journey on foot.
Next we climbed straight up the mountain to Marougou, a tiny Jalunke village at the foot of the spires. Marougou looks like, as Ben put it, a model West African village one might find in a cultural center or National Geographic. It is extremely poor but beautiful, a tiny cluster of huts and mango trees rimmed by the mountains of Guinea and the Spires. We found the village chief, gave him kola nuts, and asked if we could stay the night there. Our explanation of toubab houses really confused him but eventually he got the point and found a nice place for us to set up tents. As soon as we made camp though we were hit by a terrifying rain storm. Ben and I jumped in the tents to keep them from blowing away and Marielle and CJ were nearly hit by lightning as the rain through the rain on the way back from pulling water.
As the clouds cleared the Chief’s son, Sory, invited us into his hut to dry off and make tea. We passed the rest of the evening in there, drinking tea and swapping stories about Genies while the sun set over Marougou. We had brought rice and given the villagers some money so they could make us dinner, and finally an old woman came into the hut with a tiny little bowl. We opened it up and found fonio, a delicious West African grain, and peanut sauce. Though the portion was tiny we ate gratefully, thankful for anything they could give. This turned out to be just round one though, and as soon as we were done another woman came with another bowl of fonio. Then came dinner number three, fonio again, dinner number four of the rice we brought, and more fonio for dinner number five! Amazing! It turned out that all the women in the village were making us little dinners to welcome us, fattening up the travelers with true Senegalese hospitality.
The next morning we woke up early. And, with some kind prayers from the elders and thank you’s all around (‘I nin walli’ in Jalunke) we headed out. Some little boys from the village took as far as they dared to go and then we veered off into the bush, cutting a line through the bush with a machete. It took a few hours to reach the base of the spires but then the real work began. Two times we tried to summit, crashing our way through fields of stinging nettles and clamboring over boulders only to be stopped dead by the sheer, insurmountable walls of the cliffs. After the second time we figured we had maybe one more attempt left in us before exhaustion and our alarming water shortage got the best of us. So after eating soggy bread (soaked in the rainstorm the day before) and sardine sandwiches we set off. Eventually I crested a ridge and there it was, a high grass valley nestled between two huge but potentially climbable peaks. Marielle and I took one side and CJ and Ben took the other. CJ and Ben found a way up and eventually we all were at the top of the highest point in Senegal, the flatlands of Senegal stretching out forever into the horizon far beneath us. It was beautiful.
That night we played cards, rationed our tiny water supplies, and went to sleep early. We awoke in the middle of the night to a terrifying roar. Perfect Storm number 2 had rolled in and an unbelievable wind was tearing around the cliffs and making a noise like a dragon. It and the rain hit our tiny tents at the same time with incredible force. We all were starfished on the floors, praying that the wind wouldn’t pick up the tents and fling them off the edge of the mountain. The genies or whatever energy is found on the Spires were angry, but Alhamdoulilahi the storm finally passed and we lived through the night. We awoke the next morning to the sound of a million bees (genies round two?) but we hit out in our tents ‘till they had mostly flown away.
And thus ended our spires adventure. We climbed back down the mountain, greeted the Marougou villagers who all were quite happy to know we had survived the night, and then headed down the ridge to retrieve our bikes in Dunkita. For the Dunkita family who guarded our bikes we promised to bring children’s cloths and we’ll be printing pictures for our lovely Marougou hosts next time we pass through. For as crazy and fun as it was to climb the spires, the thing that has really stuck with me after our grand adventure was the kindness and hospitality of the people along the way. It is one fine fine place I am living in.
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