Monday, December 22, 2008

Tabaski

(Excerpt from my journal, Tuesday Dec. 9)

This morning I watched our neighbor Biram Ndiaye kill our sheep by slitting its throat with a machete, practically beheading it, while my brother held it down with the help of another neighborhood boy. They had dug a small hole in the sand to let the blood pool down into the earth, and after Biram had finished, he wiped the blade on the sheep’s cheek as it was still convulsing in its last breaths.

I watched as the animal pulsed and spurted blood, helpless and all but dead, my brother Pape calmly pressing it firmly to the ground, his knees on its stomach, his hands on its neck and rump. And then it was still, lifeless. No longer a creature with needs but a piece of meat ready to be butchered. I stood there one more long moment in morbid fascination, then turned away.

Today is a holiday to celebrate man’s devotion and absolute obedience to God. Understandably, it is one of (if not the) most important holidays for these Muslim Senegalese. Tabaski means "sacrifice" in Wolof, as the story goes, God asked Abraham to kill his only son, Ismael, and Abraham was ready to do it, when at the very last instant God replaced the baby with a ram - hence the reason for the killing of the sheep. I believe the holiday is called Eid al-Adha in other Islamic countries, and it takes place approximately two months after the end of Ramadan. In many ways it was very similar to Korité, the end-of-Ramadan fête: the preparation of the meal, the greetings of family and friends, the ritual sayings of forgiveness and blessing, the wearing of one’s best and finest to visit loved ones, and the giving away of what one has enough of to spare.

Today somehow, though, I am missing my American family more than I did on Thanksgiving. Perhaps because then I was surrounded by my peers and we all felt the same way. Here I am among family too, but as the “adopted” child I feel the odd one out especially on holidays like this one. I’ll put on my fancy clothes later and go out, but where I want to be today is thousands of miles away and an ocean apart.

1:30 pm. Haven’t eaten lunch yet, though it’s just about ready. I’m not really hungry, especially after watching my sister Deanor slice apart the sheep’s heart, and Rama and our friend Sophia saw through the tendons of its knees. All I could think about was how it would feel to have someone slice up my knees, and as they grappled to separate the tightly stretched muscles, I decided to leave the kitchen.
I think I will eat mostly fries for lunch, as potatoes are a tuber with no possible human resemblance.

I’d like to stay in my room for the rest of the day today but as I’m not actually sick, I know that’s not an option, and even if I were throwing up they’d probably try and make me come out anyway. Maybe I’ll feel better once I take a shower.
The house still smells like charred flesh. Lunch is over now, and I could hardly eat any meat. I had fries and four pieces of bread, and they just kept telling me to eat, eat! as they sat there gnawing on fatty bones. “Thanks,” I said. “My stomach was kind of unwell this morning.”

I finally got a hold of my village sister from Thiès on the phone, and she was happy to hear from me. “Naka Tabaski bi?” (How is Tabaski?) “How is the family? Are they all in peace?”

And now I can hear my family here shouting at each other - now it feels like a real holiday. It’s not a holiday without family stress and drama… Some things are universal.

1 a.m. Ended up putting on my new Senegalese clothes and going out around 7:15, stopping first at my counterpart’s house, then meeting up with my sitemate at her friend’s house so we could go around town together. After greeting everyone in that house, we went on to pass her house (no one was home but the kids), stopped by our ancien volunteer’s host family, but they had gone to Fatick to spend the holiday, so then I suggested we go visit Kinne Ndiaye, who is the president of the PTA for the school where I spend most of my time. She was home, wearing a beautiful bazin fabric boubou, and was delighted to see us. I accidentally almost sat on a darling tiny sleeping baby on the bed, but otherwise it was an excellent visit.

After Kinne’s we walked to my sitemate’s counterpart’s house, then another work friend’s place, and finally ended up at my namesake (Mame Ngoné)’s compound around 11 pm, an obligatory stop but nevertheless a pleasant one.

Everyone was glad to see me, and admired the red choup fabric of my embroidered long-sleeved top and pants. It felt good to know that I know people here now, that I have family and friends, and people know me. When I finally got home just before midnight, I was happy and tired, and content that despite all my annoyance at the earlier part of the day, it had turned better than just fine after all.

catching up

I realize I haven’t posted anything in several weeks, and December is flying by! So here are some entries from my journal to fill in a bit what I’ve been up to lately.

(Excerpt from Wednesday Dec. 3)

Last night a family three houses down from ours had their house burn down.
And I slept through the whole thing.
I woke up this morning at 6:30, peed, went back to sleep, and at 7:30 got up again, greeting my host mother Rama after I’d brushed my teeth. “Did you sleep well?” she asked, the usual morning question. I had in fact slept soundly. “Yes,” I replied, “very well. And you?” To which she replied, essentially, “Not a wink! I was up all night.” I asked why, and she proceeded to recount to me the story of the nosie, the flames, the whole family rushing out with water, buckets… how my sister had been so frightened by the blaring light at her window that she had practically fainted. And I just stood there astonished, and guilty that I had not heard anything, that I could have peacefully slumbered while an entire family not half a block away scrambled to save their few belongings from an accidental near-deadly blaze.

“Nothing made it out,” Rama continued. “Everyone is fine, Alhamdulilah, but nothing, NOTHING is left.” I just kept on standing there in her doorway, numb to the strangeness of such a close encounter. I had only ever known one family personally back home who had had their house burn down. But now here I was, putting on my sweatshirt to venture out into the still cool morning to follow my mother around the block. To see for myself the awful damage. It was a family compound made up of wooden poles supporting corrugated aluminum roofs, some in straw even, the perfect starter for a low-burning candle flame. As I stood there, watching the family pick through pieces of rubble and ash, I didn’t have anything to say. Other neighbors were standing close by, and a door-to-door clothes salesman I know came over to greet me, telling me how he had brought water from his family’s house two blocks away but it hadn’t been enough. There just hadn’t been enough water, he said. And then he told me how the family’s cooking gas had exploded from the heat and almost reached a nearby parked car with the flames.
And I slept through all of it.

I watched as Rama stepped through the scene, talking to the family, staying where I was, a short distance away. Feeling like a voyeur, like one of those people who stops traffic when they slow down their car to gape at the wreck. Only I felt especially wrong being there, being white, not being from here, not knowing this family well, hardly at all. A young man in his 20’s or so asked me how I was (usual greeting - “Nanga def?”) then continued with another normal phrase: “Yaangiy noos?” (This literally translates to “Are you having fun? / Are you having a good time?”) I surveyed the damage, the family standing around, still cold from the night, with nothing left but the clothes on their backs, and I looked at the man. “Noosuma dara,” I replied. (No, I’m not having fun at all.) He seemed surprised by this response, telling me I should be “noos”ing more (always the response to someone saying they’re not having fun) and I just looked at him again, and back at the trash heap that had just yesterday been a home. “Yow, mën nga noos, yow?” I shot back at him. (Are you able to enjoy yourself, you?) “Sure, yeah,” he replied. “Why aren’t you?” he continued. “Ana xaalis bi?”

And this (after the fact that I had slept through the blazing fire and all accompanying noise and neighbors roused to aid) was perhaps the most frustrating part of the morning for me. Because I understand that “Yaangiy noos?” is one of the many standard greetings, and you are never supposed to say “Waaw, maangiy noos” (Yes, I’m having a good time) because in this society it is assumed/culturally ingrained that you are only capable of really having a good time if you have money. (And the general populace never does seem to have any.) So in asking me “Ana xaalis bi?” (Where is the money? / Where’s your money? / How’s your pocket looking? or whatever you want to translate it as…) he seemed to be saying to me, “You, you have no excuse not to be enjoying yourself, because obviously you have money. (You’re white.) So don’t go pretending that you can’t have yourself a good time whenever you want.”

I was struck by the coldness of his blunt question, and all I could think to say was a simple “Xaalis amul.” (There’s no money.) Turning away from him, I thought that standing there, I felt more out of place than ever, and even less understanding of a culture that can stand in front of a burned down house and ask another onlooker lightly if she’s having a good time.

Maybe it’s part of an unspoken understanding, an implicit set of rules that everyone follows, to keep emotions in check, never to show your vulnerability. It’s like what a good friend of mine was talking about in a recent email to me, about the people she met in the Czech Republic. I suppose it makes sense - life is hard, people die quickly, houses burn down easily. And if every time you let it get to you? and ask why? That’s a short path to depression. And who wants to live that way? No, much better to move on, say “Yalla moo ko def,” and just keep going. “It was God’s doing,” they say, throwing up their hands.

But to ask me then, at that moment, how/where my money was, though part of the normal greetings repertoire, seemed particularly cruel. I’d barely gotten up, hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, and yet here there was already someone ready to jab me in the stomach when I wasn’t looking. As if my relative affluence could shield me from having feelings. As if somehow I had a say in the choice of the color of my skin, the country in which I had been born, and the fact that our two situations were so vastly different. As if somehow, somewhere along the line of my creation, my parents had traded in my heart to replace it with cold hard cash.

Some people resent me just for being here, and I resent that. They don’t know me, don’t know who I am or what I’m doing here. They assume, and they judge, basing their quick conclusions solely on the color of my skin. It seems like a reverse racism (or is it just plain old racism?), this one bred from a history of colonialism and imperial sovereignty. It’s a strange feeling to be the minority. And to know that as much as I can dress like them, eat like them, and speak like them, I will never be one of them.

Monday, December 1, 2008

màngi sant.

Wrapping up a quiet weekend, it was good to relax and have downtime after getting back from four days away from site. This week I go back to work refreshed, ready to tackle a busy schedule and start work in earnest (Inch’Allah!) It was wonderful to get away for a bit though, as Tuesday I left my coastal town south of Dakar to travel about nine hours north (on good road, so you estimate the mileage) to a town near the border of Mauritania, where about a third of all the Peace Corps Volunteers in Senegal were gathering to celebrate that quintessential American holiday, Thanksgiving.

The volunteers who live in that region did a stellar job of organizing the preparation of food and drink for almost fifty people, especially considering they basically only had one oven, one stovetop, and one fridge to work with. As much as possible was prepared ahead of time, and the lineup of pies on game day was a sight to see. The boys were in charge of buying turkeys, and on the morning of the feast they killed and plucked them, later grilling two and deep-frying one. We had chickens as well, and as it’s still watermelon season here, there was a fruit salad served in a watermelon cut like a basket, and other treats such as a delicious assortment of cookies, homemade stuffing (and Stovetop that someone had thoughtfully sent from America), mashed sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, care package canned cranberry sauce, green beans “White House” and a cheesy corn casserole. Dinner was served around 3 pm, and sitting down on mats outside the house, surrounded by many friends (and a warm 95 degrees), I tucked into my plate. Thousands of miles away from my family who would be preparing their own meal in the house where I grew up, I thought about where I was and where I had come from, this year thankful for so many things.

First, for the courage that got me here.
For my family and friends who encouraged me to pursue this experience, and whose words, priceless and necessary, continue to keep up my spirits.
For the new family that I now belong to, my Peace Corps fellows. As immutable as blood, we share this experience, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
For the hospitality and forgivingness of my Senegalese host families, both here at site, and in Thiès; that they now call me sister, daughter, friend.
To everyone who sent me birthday wishes over the last few weeks, especially my dearest who actually sent packages - you know who you are ;) and how much I love you.
For my relative health, and that the “cold season” has finally arrived!
(Friday morning at 7:30 it was 66 degrees in Ndioum.)
For cell phones, computers, and postage stamps; that they keep us connected and bridge the gap that can seem so wide at times.
For John F. Kennedy, whose vision is still alive today, and for Barack Obama; may he live up to what we hope for him.
And for patience, perseverance, perspective, and a sense of humor.

This year I have gone so far, and grown so much. For everything and everyone that has made (and continues to make) that possible, thanks. merci. jërëjef.

p.s. I wish I could post a few photos, but unfortunately both my digital and film cameras are currently "en panne" - that is, not working. So you'll have to trust my words for now, and when some of my friends upload some photos, I'll link them here. Until then...