Lesson Learned

What sustains us, as humans? Work puts food on the table, work can challenge us to grow in different ways, but what makes us feel "whole"? I say, it's the people in my life at any given moment who I love, and who love me in return.

Anyone who thinks his wreckless work ethic that neglects his own health (mental or physical) is a product of his own talent is sadly delusioned. The only reason he might be able to operate self-destructively for long periods of time is that somebody is sustaining him through it. Somebody there to say, "Stop, breathe." Somebody to bitch to. Somebody who knows when you want a latte, or when you REALLY need a beer. Somebody to make you laugh at your own frustrations.

I've been doing a lot of reflecting on differences in lifestyle between Senegalese people, myself, and U.S. Americans as a whole (surprise, surprise). Since my arrival here in Senegal, I appreciate even more the people who support me on a daily basis. Family is the center of everything here, and everyone IS family. Whether you are friends since childhood or if five generations ago you had a relative who came from the same ethnic group as somebody else, they're considered family and they're a part of your support network. My host brother Momo once explained: if one person has a problem, it quickly becomes everyone's problem, and everyone comes together to offer their support. I see and respect that value of human support more and more as my time in Senegal continues, and I intend to continue to value those who support me on a daily basis, and do my best to offer the same support to those I care about.

Everyone needs relationships and human support, even if they live in the states, where everyone is supposed to be able to make it on their own.

Richard Toll and Saint Louis Photos

La Fete des Moutons

Tabaski: a health inspector’s worst nightmare.  The seven goats were kept on the terrace the few days before the party- so their poop and piss was everywhere.  This morning, each goat was dragged down the stairs and slaughtered, then their tasty dead flesh was brought back up to the terrace, where it was “cleaned” and cooked.  Don’t worry, they cleaned up the poop before they started cooking.  Kind of.  Well, it was pushed into the corners so it was mostly out of the way.

And the meat was cleaned before it was cooked.  When I say clean, I mean we rinsed off the meat in a slightly soapy bucket of water.  That’s right, yours truly (the would-be vegetarian) was right in the thick of it- cutting off the fat, rinsing the turds off, and other delightful activities.  I only got grossed out once, when they peeled off a layer of skin and the fat just melted onto my hands.

I’ve never seen so much blatant cross-contamination while simultaneously eating such good food (in case you were wondering, grilled liver isn’t half bad). It wasn’t uncommon to see a woman cleaning the raw meat, dunk her hand in a bowl of water (no soap), then immediately begin eating a grilled rib with her bare hands.  Also, remember the lingering poop chunks?  They were quickly transported throughout the area by hitchhiking on the bottoms of shoes.  I cringed every time one of the kids stepped over the plate we were eating from.  Not to mention the time that a handful of onions fell on the floor, they were quickly rinsed with water and thrown back on the heap.  No soap.  Despite how much I enjoyed those mustardy spicy onions, I couldn’t eat any more after that.

I ventured downstairs twice.  The first time, they were just beginning the slaughtering.  I stayed just long enough to hear the choking of the goat and the gurgling of his blood after the cut his throat open, and to see another twitching as the last of his blood was dripping out.  The second, I descended to find a neat pile of organs and a head where there used to be a goat.  The smell was disgusting.  After that, I definitely kept to the upstairs. It should be mentioned that almost no part of the goat goes to waste.  Even the stomach and intestines are cleaned and saved to be cooked later in some couscous dish that I could wait a while before trying.  And the heads are skinned and kept for making a certain kind of soup. 

After all the meat was cleaned and distributed, lunch was served very late.  In fact, the other students had already finished their meals, put on their traditional clothes, and came to visit my house before lunch was ready.  So they were forced to eat a second enormous lunch, followed by homemade bissap and ditakh juice and fruit salad.  After eating, I changed into my Tabaski clothes and went to go visit Ellen and Lauren’s families.  This is the part of the holiday where everyone gets super dressed up in traditional clothes and visits the homes of all of their neighbors and ask forgiveness for any sins they may have done, and to offer forgiveness in return.  Small children also visit other families, but for a slightly different reason- they ask for and are generally given small gifts of money.

Turns out that it’s also accepted to postpone this last part of the holiday.  The rest of my family didn’t even bother to get dressed up in their Tabaski clothes after dinner because they were too tired.  What’s so tiring about killing seven sheep, cleaning up the mess, and managing to cook a feast all in one day?

The rest of Tabaski was relaxed.  There weren’t many people in the streets, and we spent the evening attempting to make Ataaya at Ellen’s house and watching Matilda on Lauren’s laptop.  As Ellen’s mom told us, « Tous le monde fait ce qu’il veut à Tabaski. » Which translates roughly to, « Everyone does what they want on Tabaski. »

I walked away from the whole experience feeling well fed, proud that I was able to help out, and only mildly grossed out.  However, I am definitely returning to vegetarianism when I return to the states with the flexibility to partake in forms of meat consumption that are local and humane in nature.  I realized that, while I have no problem consuming meat after it has been transformed into a neatly cut, spiced, and cooked part of my meal; I do not have the stomach to even watch the act of taking an animal’s life, much less doing it myself.   If I cannot manage to see this part of the meat production process, I can’t help but feel I have no business partaking in its end product (even if it is delicious).

Happy Tabaski, everyone!  Excuse me for the wrongs I have done against you, and may we all live to enjoy another year together.

Traditional Senegalese Dance

One of the last activities we did in Richard Toll was a village celebration at a Wolof village about 30 minutes away by car.  We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into- when we arrived the drums were loud, and all of the children surrounded the car and greeted us as we got out of the car.  When I say greet, I mean they were all screaming and laughing and shaking our hands, which sometimes got a little out of hand with the more aggressive kids who tried pulling our arms a little too hard, or who got a little too handsy.

Once we made it through the overwhelmingly friendly crowd, we were given seats in the large circle surrounding the drummers.  It was obvious that our presence was the focus of attention- the drummers kept asking us to get up and youssa (the latest popular Senegalese dance) in the center of the circle, and other women would dance across the circle just to flay their peignes at our cameras.

The music was powerful and unrelenting, and the dancing was fervent.  My jaw dropped at the intensity and passion with which the women moved their bodies. The spirit was infectious, we did end up getting pulled into the center of the circle and making fools of ourselves awkwardly bumbling around compared to the Senegalese.  And it was awesome!!

Saint Louis Fish Market

Below is a short clip I took from the window of the van as we were driving in Saint Louis past the fish market next to the Senegal River.  Not only does this give a sense of the quality of life here, but notice all of the bumps and jerks in the video.  Its a result of the poor quality of the unpaved roads that are the norm in Senegalese cities.

Langue de Barbarie

A national wildlife reserve best known for its diverse variety of migratory bird species called Langue de Barbarie we visited while in Saint Louis. Our guide told us we were visiting at a time of year when most birds were still up north; there will be far more varieties in a couple months. The landscape here is stunning (not that thats anything that stops locals from dumping trash on the beach), we saw beautiful white sandy beaches and clear water.  The park was also FULL of crabs, especially near water.  I couldn't believe how many there were!  I took this next video standing on a small foot bridge-

Richard Toll: Part DEUX

In my last entry, I mainly focused on my family life in Richard Toll.  Now, I'm going to try and explain what we were doing with our time when we were away from our families.  As I mentioned before, the time spent in Richard Toll basically had the same daily schedule.  Wake up 7:45, shower, eat breakfast, get picked up around 8:45, go wait (15 minutes to an hour) for our tour guide of the day to arrive at USAID, drive to the tour site, try and understand the French tours, return to our host families for a two hour lunch, get picked up again for either homework time or another tour, and return home by 7 to eat dinner around 8:30 and sleep by 10.  Meanwhile, my stomach was fighting every step of the way- I reliably had diarrhea every other day.  I don’t know why I had so many issues in Richard Toll compared to Dakar, but something was definitely not sitting right with my body.

The places we toured include a fish farm, water distribution facilities, farms (tomatoes, sugar, rice, manioc/cassava root, and corn), rice and sugar processing facilities, a dairy processing facility, a center for monitoring quality of seeds, Parc de Gueumbeul, Langue de Barbarie, a Peulh village, and a Wolof village celebration.

In general, I found the tours of farming facilities and factories to be less than thrilling.  In general, each farmer/tour guide focused on techniques for increasing their productivity and some of the challenges they face in realizing maximum profits (think irrigation/planting techniques and detailed explanations of industrial processes and machinery).  That was interesting to hear, but I was more interested in learning about how these farms and organizations played a role in the bigger picture of the socio-economic situation of the Senegal River Valley, like: What are the pros/cons of being a smaller scale farmer versus a large industrial cultivator?  How are local economies affected by all of this industrial activity?  What are the environmental costs?  Who has access to these resources, and who doesn’t?

Eventually, I was able to satisfy some of my curiosity.  Our final assignment was a 15 minute presentation (in French!) on a topic of our choice.  I decided to take advantage of the assignment to do my own research on the implications of the two major dams on the Senegal River.  The short 20 minutes a man took to quickly explain the purpose and creation of the dam was not sufficient for all the questions I had.  I knew there had to be more to the story, and sure enough that’s what I found.   There are tons of socio-economic, environmental, and health related consequences to the construction of the dams, and none of them are simple.  Let’s take agriculture for example.  Yes, the implementation of the dams has resulted in dramatic irrigated agricultural growth; however, this growth does not equally affect all local populations (like the Pulaar people, who depend on their grazing livestock, not farming).  This farming has harmful effects as well, such as the pollution it produces in the same river where other people drink and bathe.  Even something that sounds as simple as the creation of additional irrigated land for farming and increased economic productivity of a developing country is not entirely “good”.

I could go for a while on that rant, but in the interest of not boring you to death, I won’t.

Saint Louis

We spent two nights and three days at Saint Louis after the first five days in Richard Toll.  Those might have been my favorite few days of the trip, because we had more variety in our daytime activities.  We stayed at a place called Hotel Sindone, which was lovely and very French.  The best part was definitely the food we ate there, we were each served a small basket of bread (including a croissant, a chunk of lemony bread, part of a baguette, and a chocolate pastry), a sweet crepe, fruit juice, REAL coffee, and a bowl of fruit.  The first day, we arrived in Saint Louis, left our luggage in our hotel rooms, and walked into town to get lunch.  I was delighted to find out we were having lunch at a middle-eastern restaurant, where I was happy with my hummous, vegetables, and labneh sandwich.

 After that, we made a few stops around town, including the shop of an older, slightly eccentric artist.  The old man was old and scrappy looking, and loved talking about the work he has done.  At one point, he pulled out a huge piece of painted plywood with a copy of the Mona Lisa stapled in the middle and Wolof writing filling all the empty space.  He told us of his almost decade long obsession with the Mona Lisa, and all of the research he has conducted in order to analyze the painting he finds so intriguing.  He also showed us some smaller paintings featuring tidbits of Wolof wisdom.  My personal favorite was a simple painting of a stick figure in a prostrate prayer position on what looks like a rug.  The coordinating Wolof phrase translates to something like “Without clothes, prayer becomes scandalous.”

Africans are fun Muslims.

We returned to the hotel with just enough time to venture into town by foot again (this time without Prof Diallo) to look for a purse for Lauren and gifts for host families.  Of course, we had to bargain for each purchase.  I did pretty well, setting my price for some small bags made of beautiful African fabric at 500 CFA (1$) each.  Not too shabby!  Happy with our purchases, we returned for dinner at Hotel Sindone, which was another wonderful dining experience: perfectly seasoned carrot bisque followed by a main dish of a sautéed fish fillet and vegetables, and finished with a perfect portion of vanilla ice cream and raspberry sorbet (the combination became something along the lines of strawberry shortcake).  The meal would’ve been good by US standards, but within the context of the meals our Senegalese families typically prepare (rice, meat, and heavy sauce), it was even more of a novelty.

The next day, we awoke to the same charming breakfast, left in the van to pick up a new guide, and visited Parc de Gueumbeul, a piece of land reserved to repopulate and observe African wildlife species that are endangered.  In the front of the park were two large fenced-in areas to host the tortoises; one area for the babies, and one for those that were grown.  I was surprised to see our tour guide walk right up to one of the gates, unhook the latch, and walk right in.  We followed him, and stood right next to the huge tortoise as he talked about the animal (Lauren even sat on him!). He told us some interesting facts about tortoises: they hibernate for 6 months at a time, and can live up to 200 years. They are endangered because they are poached for their supposed aphrodisiac powers.  Some Senegalese people eat their meat in the hopes of improving their sex lives, because the tortoises have long-lasting sex, or as our English-speaking guide so eloquently explained, “They make copulation for 3 hours of time.”

We continued our tour of the park on foot, and we saw a handful of singes rouges (red monkeys), a gazelle, some distant relative of the antelope with huge horns, and some ospreys (a predatory bird) along the way.

The rest of our stay in Saint Louis was a series of more delicious meals and various walks through the city.  The biggest way we could see that Saint Louis is different than Dakar is the colonial construction of the buildings and that the streets of Saint Louis are MUCH cleaner than those of Dakar.  We even saw our first trash can on the side of the road!

We returned to Richard Toll for the second half of our two week trip, and for the most part conducted more visits of agricultural facilities and were given time to create our final presentations which I mentioned earlier, that is until the weekend rolled around.  The final experiences I had in Richard Toll were also the most interesting.  And that, I am going to save for the next update.

Sorry for the delay in getting all this posted- it’s a lot to condense.  I hope Mom will forgive me J

Grosses Bises,

gk