the right words to communicate

Technically I’m supposed to be at another meeting right now, but as no one would give me a straight answer as to why I was supposed to be there, I took that as a sign that that it was not actually mandatory for me. That, and the fact that when I called my counterpart, his wife answered the phone, saying that he had gone to a different meeting. But lest you think that I take every opportunity to slack off from work, I did spend the last two full days at a seminar on the problems of youth in the city, and participated in brainstorming sessions about what we, as various representatives of the services offered to young people, can do about those problems. I got the chance to meet many important and relevant people to my job as an environmental education volunteer, and got a brainful of Wolof and a lot of very rapid French. Then this morning I showed up for a meeting at the mayor’s office, but unbeknownst to me, the hour had been pushed back so far that 10 minutes after I arrived, the meeting was over. I was able to profit from my presence anyway by using the wireless internet there at City Hall - that is, until the power went out again an hour later.

My last post took 3 days to put up on the blog because we’ve been having long periods of electricity outages here in town, which are apparently region-wide, not just across the city. It’s something else to live in a village, where you’re used to not having electricity, but when you’ve come to take it for granted, and then it’s not there, well…
I do apologize and tip my hat to my friends and all Senegalese who live every day without power.

Unfortunately for us here, the plumbing system that runs the faucets is linked to the power generator, so when there’s no power, there’s also no water. We have a little well in our backyard area, for backup, but our neighbors on the island don’t have wells, so they have to come over the bridge to the mainland when the power cuts out, to fetch water to take back to the island to wash, cook, clean and flush. Makes “island life” sound a little less romantic, doesn’t it.

Speaking of romance, I continue to be grilled about my lack of husband, and more recently, lack of children. Yesterday, I was talking to a colleague of my counterpart, an older man who I had up until yesterday seen a few times but never spoken to, as he didn’t seem to be interested in talking to me. I was waiting outside my counterpart’s office at the elementary school when one little child who had been playing in the schoolyard came up to me with a dear look on his face, not saying a word, but just staring. I started to talk to him in Wolof, asking him his name, if he was having fun, and so on, and this colleague of my counterpart’s asked me (in Wolof as well) if I wanted to keep him - the boy. I laughed, saying no, of course. He asked me then if I had any children, and I said no, again with a smile, because children are one of the furthest things from my mind while I myself feel like a child much of the time in this foreign country.

“Don’t you want children?” he then continued, and I said, “Maybe, one day.” And then he asked if I would carry my children on my back, like women do here, and I said “yes, or maybe in front,” but he thought that was a bad idea, and insisted that in back was better. Then - and this is where I was almost laughing out loud, because 1. The question would be considered very personal in the U.S. and 2. I understood it quite plainly in Wolof - he asked if I would breast-feed my children, when I have them. And I told him, with a smile on my face because I could hardly believe that I was having this conversation in Wolof with a near stranger, that if I have children I will certainly breast-feed them, because it’s good for the health of the child. He approved of that, saying that mother’s milk is better than cow’s or even goat’s milk. I learned later from my counterpart that this particular guy is a “griot,” a member of Senegal’s traditional caste of storytellers and singers, and he is invited to events because he (and I quote my counterpart) “knows exactly what words to use to communicate.”

So I apologize to anyone out there who may have just been given too much information, but I wanted to share some insight into the forward-ness, as well as the priorities of some people here, and my personal triumph that I was able to communicate so much. There is still so much I don’t understand, but I’m feeling a little bit more involved in what’s going on around me, and as noted, increasingly holding my own against the constant barrage of gender-based questions. Wish me luck on keeping it up.