Tuesday, March 07, 2006

The Routine

Yay! Laura, I can't believe you saw an exhibit on Tabaski at the Snite! How exciting! What you described sounds really accurate-- I just participated in our Tabaski celebration in January and as soon as I get my computer back I will post photos with more detail for you-- but you are completely right-- Tabaski is the major holiday in the Muslim calendar here in Senegal and it celebrates the story (very similar to the Bible story) of Ibrahima and Ismaillah. I am not terribly good with the story (all that I understood in the Wolof communication was spotty) but Ismaillah was supposed to sacrifice his son, Ibrahima and just as he was about to bring the knife to his throat Allah replaced him with a sheep so that a sheep was sacrificed instead. Again, I am foggy on all this but you get the idea. So now, every single family kills a sheep on Tabaski and then visits family and friends asking their forgiveness and friendship for the year to come. My experience with this was interesting--- my Wolof still had a long way to go and I ended up just standing in awe as my family slaughtered 5 sheep; drained their blood into a pit next to my room and promptly cooked up the liver to serve to me. Then I put on my fancy Wolof traditional outfit and paraded around the neighborhood -- clearly I felt a little silly, but being their most important holiday I was happy to do it-- and more than that, I was honored to take such a special part in their celebration. Here in my town you can really see how important it is-- family members from all over the country and even abroad come home just for this holiday.

SO, hopefully I will get those sweet photos up for you soon.

The routine I want to talk about today is the questioning... normally this routine ensues every time I enter a boutique or a business or a vehicle. I greet in Wolof, everyone responds. An older man says "oh, the tubab speaks Wolof!" I say yes. Everyone laughs. The man begins the onslaught. DO you have a husband (known as the borom ker "house manager", which is culturally a lie, the women rule the house) Where is he? I don't believe you. Where do you live? How long have you been here? How did you get that name? Can you cook? Why not? How much water do you put in the rice to cook for your borom ker? Can you dance? Why not? Come over to my house and I will show you how to dance. You don't want a black boyfriend? Why not? You don't want him to bring you to paradise? What's better a black boyfriend or an American? ( people know that there are african americans, but don't really believe that they exist-- say that a black person could not live with snow). And thus the questioning continues. I've gotten so adept at responding-- telling people that I have 4 husbands so I can't have another or that I only want to be the 4th wife, so they should come find me again after they already have 3-- but until just a few days ago I had never seen it happen to anyone but me; the token tubab.

So there I was; in the car coming back from Thies with 7 other passengers, all male except for one 18 year old, air'headed girl. I couldnt believe it, she got all the questions (except for the ones about a black boyfriend of course) so that's when it really really clicked. The problem here is just a lack of creativity. every senegalese man has the same routine tucked away in his memory, to be showed off for everyone to see at the earliest opportunity.

A couple quick work stories now... For the most part work is actually going extremely well-- the Embassy has agreed to finance the work on and English corner here in Louga so they are coming through next week, and I am preparing a couple classes to start within the next couple weeks, as well as consulting individually for a few entrepreneurs and community organizations and schools. but still, there are some things that are just laughable.

First business plan I took home to review-- very well done, just needs to be updated, a few holes to fill in, then it is all ready to go. I met with the entrepreneur; we went over the sections to fix up, meeting was going great-- when we finished he handed it back to me and said, "so when you"re done with it we can take it to the bank?" wow, was the idea of "entrepreneurship" lost on him. It took me 40 minutes to convince him that I couldn't possibly know his business well enough to write his plan for him.

Then, in the neighborhood I met with some men who said they have a community organization that disbanded but now they are getting back together and they want to work with me. Great, so what's your project? Well, we need you to find an NGO with a project and money and then we will write the project and send it to them.

lordy lordy

thanks!

Saturday, March 04, 2006

by the way

one of my side work projects, the establishment of an English Library in Louga, with the support of the American Embassy in Dakar has gotten favorable reviews from the embassy and we will have an official visit next month :) Cheers for teaching English and the love of reading!

Senegal is all about sitting in plastic chairs feeling awkward

I need to thank Maren Johnstone, a former PCV from Senegal for this skillfully crafted quip-- it really sums up a lot of things about living here and now as we are completing our 3-week training and preparing to head back to site I find myself thinking more and more about this.

We just completed the development of a 6-month work plan for our return to site and I realized that I am going to go back to where I am the only white person around (and even more alienated by the fact that I actually do understand the local language) and I will once again be the center of everyone's attention. I have enjoyed so much peaceful anonymity among other Americans that I think I need to start bracing myself for the worst. So this may include going to several baptisms, marriages, ceremonies for pilgrims retunring from Mecca, sitting in a plastic chair for hours on end while wearing a stiff damask curtain and a scarf shaped into a fruit bowl on my head.

The scary part is that I am not nearly as afraid of it all as I once was.

I've learned a lot at this training and I am anxious to get out and start working (which will hopefully help distract me from other, more negative sentiments like "Senegal Breaks Things!"--such as my ipod, my computer, my solar battery, my flashlight and all of my clothing) but first I just need to eat one more hamburger in civilization. And the real kicker is that I am about to experience real real civilization when I meet my family in Italy next week (I am such a lucky brat!) I have sent a list of "necessities" t be brought to me that is as long as your tax documents. not to mention the full wheel of parmesan I plan to buy upon arrival in Rome.

so this leads me to the next question-- what really qualifies as civilization? I'm so numb to everything here now that it doesn't at all seem strange that I eat with my hands, I share public transportation with livestock and occasionally see the driver take the key out of the ignition while still driving in order to clean his ears with it, that there is trash everywhere and little talibe begging on every corner. But here's the deal, people are not necessarily starving, there is a system of education (though it is far from acceptable) and every other basic need has at least some provision-- and to be honest, compared to a lot of African nations; you might think that Senegal is on the up andup; and then you have the discussion about female genital mutilation, or about the negotiation of dowries for marriages, or about the concours that elementary students must participate in just to have the chance to go on to middle school! there is a long long way to go. am I being clear on this? When we say "development" I think it has so little to do with what people have-- it relates more to the way people think--

One example; my closest female friends in this country are our language trainers. They are far from Louga and I see them rarely, but they are the first individuals with whom I can carry a conversation that does not include hair extensions or cooking ceeb u jen. on the other hand, these particular women are so educated (meaning university degrees) that they can rarely find a senegalese boyfriend who is not terrified/intimidated/who knows what by their intelligence. Until we can see educated people who can succeed, hold a job and still fit easily into the traditional family structure we are not seeing development.

this is a bad example but I am feeling scatterbrained and will have to come back to revise it later-- someone help me by asking some questions, then I will know what direction to go in next time. Thanks, miss you all , love you to pieces!

Meryl