The good news is that I’m really looking forward to going back to Senegal (and have been for about a week). The bad news is that I’ve been spending a lot of money, and still have to spend more on sarice [presents] for Senegal, which I’m both excited about picking out and dreading giving out upon my return (along with the inevitably numerous questions of “ana sama sarice?” [where is my present?]) Oh well. It comes with the territory.
Good news: I have done almost everything I’d wanted to do while I was here, and I’ve eaten just about everything I really wanted to eat. In the process I’ve discovered that: I can take or leave ice cream, TV, and driving a car, that any of them can be enjoyable but that I don’t really crave them when they’re not around.
I’m really enjoying the all-around quiet, good coffee, and the cool temperatures, and the ability to sleep any time day or night without waking up all sweaty.
Today is our last full day of all 3 of us girls [sisters and me] together […] I did not expect to be able to spend so much time with my girls on this trip - it really has been fabulous.
So has the ability to totally forget about work for these few weeks. For the last year I haven’t been able to do that, even when I traveled I was always still in Senegal, with my work in Senegal never far from my mind. I think that’s what I needed most of everything - a mental break.
You know I think I miss it because that’s where my life is right now. That’s where I belong, where I have a place. I don’t have a place here right now. I got the chance to taste what it’s like, to see what I’d been missing. And it’s all still here. Not much has changed in a year. And by the time next year rolls around I doubt much more will have changed.
I know that before I left I was telling myself that I needed to go back to America so I could remember why I’d come to Senegal. And since I’ve been back in the States I’ve been constantly with D or M and haven’t really had much alone time to reflect on that. But I feel it all kind of coming together, all the reasons why I went. And the reasons why I went in the first place are not necessarily the same as the reasons why I want to go back now. I know that.
I want to go back now and DO a few things before I have to leave next spring. I want to go back now to keep challenging myself, to keep learning. I want to go back to see how those darned Environmental Olympics went, if they went at all. I want to go back to formulate a better plan for an EE club for this coming year […] I’m excited for our EE/Health summit, not just because we get to be hosts, and because all my friends will be there, but also because of what I hope to learn from it. And I am also just a little bit excited to start thinking about what I might be really interested in doing when my 2 years are up. But I need time and space to myself for that, and I know both of those are waiting for me back in Senegal.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
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
- 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
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
more photos
I uploaded all the pictures I took from our Earth Day events at school. Check them out!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/offtoseetheworld/
and I promise a real post soon...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/offtoseetheworld/
and I promise a real post soon...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
