Holiday Travels, Dec 2013

FIRST INSTALLED, FIRST IMPRESSIONS

After the grueling two months of cultural, language, and basic agriculture training I installed at my permanent site on December 5th.  My village is the smallest Peace Corps Senegal site, with a booming population of 117 people including the new 'Mama Yassine Ndjaye' (me).  I was named after a much beloved and recently deceased grandmother, so I am called 'Mama Yassine' or 'Granny Yassine' by both young children and the elders of the village.   

Village life in rural Senegal has completely reoriented all aspects of my life.  Academically, my classes have discussed how language reflects culture and lifestyle, and I have found this true time and time again when I realize that Wolof and English do not directly translate to one another.  Examples of language (and thus culture) diverging include;

                        American English                                                       Wolof

Times of Day

            Morning (approx. 5am-12pm)                                                 Suba (4am-1pm)

            Afternoon (approx. 12pm-5pm)                                              Becheg (1am-4pm)

            Evening (approx. 5pm-8pm)                                                   Ngoon (4pm-9pm)

            Night (approx. 8pm-12am)                                                    Guddie (9pm-4am)

Seasons

            Spring (March-May)                                                               'Cold' Season (November-Feb)

            Summer (June-August)                                                             Hot & Dry Season(March-June)

            Autumn (September-November)                                              Monsoon Season (July-Nov)

            Winter (December-March)

Other basic culture differences I struggled with were 1) different word orders (are you stressing the object or the pronoun?), 2) everyone eats at a bowl on the ground with no chairs, plates, silverware, etc. in sight, and 3) privacy is not even a word in Wolof. 

At first, I struggled with the change in my diet to straight Senegalese village food, leading to a month-long bout of diarrhea in a situation where my outdoor douche is 10 feet away from the village gathering spot.  So I try to have the quietest bowel movements possible at all times. 

My final first impression was of my daily greetings.  Every morning I walk to every hut and have this conversation with 117 people;

-Hello

            -Hello

-How are you?

            -I am fine.

-How is your morning?

            -My morning is in peace.

-Did you sleep.

            -Yes, I slept in peace.

-Did you eat breakfast?

            -Yes/ No.

-COME!  EAT!

            -I'm full (even if you said you haven't eaten yet).

-Are you in peace?

            -Peace only.

-Praised be to God.

            -Praise be to God.

As I am not a morning person, sometimes this is difficult for me to do but the daily inducement of village coffee usually gets me up and making the rounds!

CHRISTMAS

For the holidays, I planned to visit my nearest regional house and celebrate with friends.  In each of the regions, which are the rough equivalent of states, volunteers share a house in the regional capital.  The houses are used to have region-wide work meetings, as a place for volunteers to relax, and as a place to get in a little piece of American life.  The houses usually have sleeping accommodations, a semi-Western kitchen, internet, and other volunteers. 

I planned to travel on December 23rd, which to me was the day before Christmas Eve but was the day after the local holiday Magal Touba.  On the 22nd of December, all cars in Senegal were in the city of Touba along with 50% of the country's population.  On December 23rd, all the cars were streaming away from Touba to bring everyone back home after the holiday.  My problem was that I wanted to go towards Touba the day everyone was going the other way.  I spent an entire day sitting by the dirt road by my village watching a grand total of two cars go the wrong way.  Oh, and there were several donkey carts going the wrong way too.    

On the 24th, the only car that went by my village was a very full 'mini car.'  Mini cars are light-duty Toyota trucks with two rows of wooden benches in the back and a metal luggage rack above the benches.  This truck had 3 people in the cab, 15 people on the two benches and floor in the back, 2 people on top, so much luggage strapped on top I thought the vehicle was sure to topple over, and a goat.  I was desperate to celebrate Christmas so I clambered in, squished myself between people and the goat, and settled in for the dusty 24 km ride to my road town.  'Road Towns' are what we volunteers call the roads nearest our sites that are on the paved road to which goes to big cities.  Once my mini car pulled into the road town's garage, I was on to the next step in my transportation, a sept-place.  Sept-places are named from the French "seven places" indicating how many spots there are in the car, and they normally just go from one city to another (no bush driving).  Once you barter for your spot, you wait until all the seats are full and then take off.  I was lucky and only had to wait 45 minutes, and then worried for the hour-long drive about my only line in the upcoming interaction.... "I'll get out here."  One hour later, I delivered my line with what I considered great poise and panache, and arrived in Kaffrine to celebrate the holidays with my friends. 

A couple of days of bean and egg sandwiches, a delicious American style Christmas dinner, internet, friends, and card games ensued.  And then I started the adventure of traveling back to site.  My neighbor Peace Corp Volunteer and I traveled back to our road town together in an 'Al-hum.' Al-hums are the nicknames for various sized buses which stop whenever flag it down or people bang on the side to get out and have 'praise be to God' or ' alhamdulillahi' painted on it.  After arriving in our road town, we waited for eight hours for the infrequent rides back into the bush.  We stopped at the post office, visited my neighbor's Senegalese friends, browsed at the market, sat around, read, and... waited.  The two of us went our separate ways as I headed back to my village in another mini car.  About half way home, I was staring at the darkening sky and stars when the car shuddered to a stop and someone said "the car's on fire."  I shot out the back of the car faster than would normally be possible, and waited in a peanut field for the next 30 minutes with the other passengers while the engine was fixed.  After starting off again, we dropped off some acquaintances in the village next to mine.  I hung out the back of the truck, trying to discern the familiar landmarks in the pitch black dark of the moon-less night.  Convinced we had passed my village, I convinced my driver to stop and let me hop out.  I gained a deep appreciation for how dark it can get when there is no electricity and no moon.  Even with the flashlight on my phone, I was hardly able to see the dirt road I was walking on.  It turns out I got out of my car a little early, but I luckily heard the ladies of my village and were able to follow the voices of my new, dear friends back home. 

NEW YEARS

"Erin, my family is going to cook meat and oily rice.  Get.  Over.  Here."

That was the text from one of my Peace Corps neighbors when she heard her family's plans, and thus began my plans for New Years.  I packed an overnight bag, biked through the bush for an hour, and commenced eating and talking.  My neighbor, Sara, and I have quite a bit in common so we chatted about everything from Peace Corps projects, American families, music, and book recommendations for two days.  We visited the local market, hospital, a USAID funded women's garden (hopefully a future place for me to work with), and Sara's friends.  And we ate.  Beans and bread for breakfast, oily rice for lunch, chicken for dinner, and an extra dinner of salad and duck!  After a month on the village diet, we were ecstatic for all the food!  We stayed up until midnight, collapsed from staying up late, and I biked home a happy, fully volunteer.  What a great way to start the new year.