Monday, June 8, 2009

wherever you go, here you are

- Who’s in the bathroom? I asked my mom Rama the other morning, as I prepared to take a bucket bath and found the door locked.
- Benn unka, she said.
- A gecko? I asked, amused that a gecko would be able to lock the door behind itself.
- Waaw, she said.
- A gecko? I repeated.
- Waaw, she said. Unka bi mooy Soukeye.
Yow xam nga unka begg na ndox. Soukeye, douche douche rekk!
““Yeah, Soukeye’s the gecko. You know how geckos like water, Soukeye’s always in the bathroom!”

My sister is 18 years old and stylish, so I’m not really surprised. But sometimes I get so caught up in the way things are different, that I’m caught off guard by the similarities that are universal. Like my father Ibou taking care of getting things fixed around the house. Our 2-year-old neighbor Awa who laughs at my mom Rama when she talks to her in a funny voice. A guy friend getting distracted from our conversation by a fancy car driving by. Kids losing concentration as the end of the school year nears.

It’s true that some things are the same everywhere you go. And I laugh at how people can be so seemingly different on the outside, and yet essentially so much alike.
Thinking of those similarities makes me remember that I am accepted here because I am just another person. I am a human, like everyone else. The people I respect the most here are those who see me just as a woman, and a friend. Those who see through the layers of color, nationality, and respective status, and realize that all of those things are merely illusory.

And the time passes. Each day I still leave the house to choruses of “Toubab, hey!” but I am still here. Those words haven’t killed me yet. Neither have the copious amounts of greasy rice I have consumed over the last 14 + months, the almost daily comments about the size of my derriere, the incessant curiosity about my lack of husband, or the view of my inability to cook fish and rice à la Senegalaise as a terrible failure on my part as a woman. The other day I told someone who was riding me about my inability to cook rice and fish, “Sama liggeey nekkul ci wagne wi.” [My work is not in the kitchen.] And he barely hesitated before saying “Yeah, well, you ought to be able to do everything, work, and cook, and clean,” and so on. And I just laughed, forgetting now what it was I answered to that. I laughed because it’s never enough to them.

Whatever I do here, it’s never enough. I go to school 5 days a week and try and do work there with the teachers. I attend almost every single meeting about this local trash management project. I learn Wolof. Am still learning. I learn enough Serere to be able to greet Sereres, and people tell me I should be able to speak Serere. I tell them all the Sereres speak Wolof, so what’s the point? I try and keep up with my French, which now has developed a West African accent. I come home and sweep my floor. Yes, I can sweep. On weekends I wash my own clothes, YES, by hand. YES, they’re clean. Plus if I do say so myself I am open and optimistic and encouraging and greet everyone I know whenever I see them and go out of my way to be polite most of the time. SO WHAT if I can’t cook ceebujen? Ten years from now, is that what they’re going to remember? I hope not.

The school year is, thankfully, coming to an end, and there is a general feeling of restlessness in the air, as students prepare for end-of-year exams and entrance tests into the next classes. The strikes that started the end of April ended two weeks ago, with a promise from the minister of education to give the primary school teachers a part of their salary bonus request now, and the rest incrementally next year and the year after. I’m looking at what worked this year and more importantly, what didn’t, and looking forward to summer activities. I’m thinking about how to fill the hours in July, August and September. And still wondering how it is June already. At any rate, it’s here. And through all the frustrations I’ve had since the school year started off limping back in October, I can’t say I’m not glad to see it end. Although it’s kind of scary to think that I only have one more school year to spend here - one more run from October ’09 to May-ish 2010, depending on when I decide to leave exactly.

I’m trying to gain some sense of perspective about all of it, these two years, this work, this experience and all it means. It’s certainly not an easy task, trying to remain balanced in this topsy-turvy world. Among the photos of family and calendar pages that I have posted on the walls of my room, there’s this quote I took from a friend (who is much better about writing internet updates than I am), who I know won’t mind if I post it here. It helps me sometimes just to take a deep breath.
It goes like this:

“Fill your bowl to the brim, and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife, and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security, and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval, and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work and then step back - the only path to serenity.”

- Lao-Tzu