Final Lessons from a Small Village

Two years ago I watched the Peace Corps car drive away and leave me in my minute village in the middle of Senegal.  Over the ensuing 24 months I learned a variety of lessons, from how to butcher my own chicken and substitute a hole in the ground for a toilet, to how to organize youth camps for over 60 participants.  These are some of the lessons I am particularly proud of…

How to… CARRY WATER.

Life in my community revolves around the well.  Since there are no faucets or spigots, all water for cooking, washing, cleaning, and agriculture comes from this single source.  Pulling groundwater up 75 feet by hand and then carrying 50 lbs of it at a time on your head creates an acute awareness of how much water you use. 

 

 How to… USE SENEGALESE TRANSPORT.

I learned how to flag down buses, hop on horse-drawn carts, bargain for the best seats in 1960’s era station wagons, and perch in precarious bush taxis.  Perhaps more importantly, traveling in Senegal taught me patience.  I live along an infrequently traveled dirt road; waiting anywhere from 2 to 12 hours for a passing car is the norm.  Traveling from my regional capital back to my village is an all-day affair, taking 12 hours to travel just over 50 miles.  While the cars go significantly slower than in the States, it’s waiting at transport hubs that eats up time.  You have to wait until are all the seats are filled in a car before leaving.  I’m usually one of the first to show up for my 20-seater bush taxi, but instead of despairing I tend to get absorbed in a long book and delicious street food.

How to… ENJOY BREAKFAST SANDWICHES.

The ubiquitous breakfast food, if you’re dining out, is a breakfast sandwich.  Made by ladies in curtained stalls at large markets, big cities, or in public transportation garages there are my favorite Senegalese street food.  Dealing with impatient, pushy customers every morning; these indomitable ladies are the true entrepreneurs of Senegal. 

In my area the bread is a heavy mix of flour and ground millet filled with beans or an oily onion sauce.  A trip to larger cities enlarges the menu to include peas, hard boiled eggs, fried eggs, fries, fish sauce, vegetables, French baguettes, or stale ‘machine’ bread all to be garnered with pepper, hot pepper, or fresh mayonnaise.  My village doesn’t have a breakfast sandwich lady so I have spent many days, especially during ‘starving season,’ fantasizing about which sandwich combination I’ll order the next time I travel.

 

How to… SCARE CHILDREN.          

There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you enter a room and over half the children under 10 start sobbing and reaching for their mothers.  Especially frustrating moments ensue when babies you’ve known their whole life develop good enough eyesight to actually see you and then have this reaction.  Seriously?  I was at your naming ceremony! 

I would like it on the record that there are currently no children afraid of my in my community, but there’s a month-old baby my replacement will have to contend with.

How to… DANCE.

Turn over your metal lunch bowl and start drumming a beat and my feet will start pounding and my arms flailing.  My teenage sisters have taught me each Senegalese song’s corresponding dance moves.  I can cup my hands and twist my shoulders, throw my elbows in the air, sashay, or hold up my skirt’s hem to pound my feet.  Women and men do not mix, which is a small blessing because having to dance in a circle of sixty on looking ladies is enough intimidation for me!  Still, it’s quite the rush of adrenaline to hear a song, yell ‘I know this one!’ and jump into the circle for a moment in the limelight.

  

How to… MAKE TIME TO READ.

With no electronics or television, reading was my only distraction at site.  During stifling afternoons in hot season and long days of travel, I devoured dozens of books.  A full list (and recommendations) is on their way.

How to… SIT.

No television and high illiteracy rates means that my community members spend their down time sitting.  On individual wooden benches and plastic mats we napped, cracked peanuts, made hundreds of rounds of tea, and talked. 

Or did nothing at all.

When I first attempted to spend an hour sitting at a neighbor’s compound, the equivalent of a social call, time dragged interminably.  But now I can spend an entire afternoon perched on my mat, mindlessly cracking peanuts or sorting beans in total bliss. 

How to… BIKE IN THE BUSH.

Public transportation doesn’t connect my village with my neighboring Peace Corps Volunteers.  So we slather on sunscreen and bike to one another’s communities on a fairly regular basis.  Some of my favorite moments have been on a bike on the peaceful dirt paths.  I’ve become such a proficient that I often augment my time on my bike with lengthy phone calls or by enjoying street food. 

 

How to… GARDEN.

When I came to Senegal I was not a trained agronomist.  I had never grown my own garden.  Ironically, it was in a country facing desertification and food insecurity I learned to grow my own eclectic mix of vegetables, cereals, flowers, and trees.  My piece de resistances are the much needed shade trees in my backyard that have grown over 20 ft tall in less than 18 months.

How to… USE A MORTAR AND PESTLE. 

In a kitchen without food processors, whisks, electric mixers, coffee grinders, or bags of processed flour, the mortar and pestle reign supreme.  I wake every morning to the muffled thuds of each household pounding their coffee beans for breakfast.  Daily, millet grains are pounded into flour for the evening’s millet ‘cous-cous.’  Harvesting millet, sorghum, or corn?  Throw the dried candle, head, or ear in and pound the edible portion off. 

Pounding can be done by one, two, or three women surrounding the mortar.  To keep the rhythm0 of multiple pestles quickly pounding, the women clap their hands on the upswing.  With pestles weighing about 15 lbs, the force needed with each throw, and the pound-per-second rate it can be an exhausting experience.  All the pre-teen girls have more developed muscles from pounding grains every day than most light-weight boxers.  It took me two months for me to build the muscles and callouses needed to pound for over five minutes and throw in a few claps.  The village women still are wary of my clapping and make sure to stand back as I throw my heavy projectile in the air, clap, and protest that I haven’t hit anyone with the pestle in over a year. 

Now there’s a good story.

 

How to… BE SICK.

While my friends have gotten a more exotic mix of ringworm, shistomiasis, and mango flies; I’ve contracted my own share of Senegal’s delights.  Blister beetles, staph, multiple bouts of giardia, endless diarrhea, an eye infection, and Hepatitis A have made me acutely aware of the water and general sanitation problems facing sub-Saharan Africa.       

How to… LIVE IN A SMALL COMMUNITY.

I’ve lived in some pretty small towns before, but with a population of roughly 100, my community is definitely the smallest.  The population actually ranges from 95 in the non-agricultural season when young men leave for jobs in larger cities to 110 when they return to work in the fields.  The pros of such a small community include knowing every one by name and greeting each individual every morning.  I know everyone’s background, they all feel fiercely protective of me when visitors in my village tease me, and we all share everything.  This communal sharing is evident at meal times, when each household saves a portion of its lunch to be delivered to a neighboring house.  Since each house does this, and rotates which family house it gives to, each family receives an extra bowl of a neighbor’s lunch to supplement their own meager meals.      

The downside of such a small community is that everyone knows everyone else’s business.  Even my most private moments are part of the community.  My backyard abuts the ‘village square’ (the tree between our five houses) and on multiple occasions those sitting just on the other side of my flimsy, millet-stalk fence will comment ‘Yacine, you have diarrhea!’ and I, in a compromised and slightly embarrassed position yell back, “Yep, I have diarrhea.”

These lessons were mine alone and many volunteers who live in larger cities with running water and electricity are often not given as much credit as I.  Which is grossly unfair.  Many of these urban volunteers face different challenges than I, such as harassment from a larger and less protective community or all-night chanting over the neighboring Mosque’s speakers.  We have all had our individual triumphs, challenges and lessons learned. 

It has been a pleasure to train and serve with you all, the AG/CED 2013 stage.  While most of my peers return home or embark on post-Peace Corps trips, I will remain in Senegal.  I’m extending my service by six months to finish training the new generation of volunteers.  Thankfully, this will give me the opportunity to visit my community again.

To them I say; you’ve given me such gifts, knowledge and confidence.  I will never forget you.  Thank you.

Sama dekk, sawaral na ma.  Yeen y’eep jox ngeen ma yu bari.  Duma leen fate.  Jerageenjeff.