Return to Senegal

As I mentioned in my first post, I had the chance to visit Senegal on my way to France! If you know me, you know that going back there and seeing my host family and friends again meant the world to me. I was in Senegal for two weeks, and I spent most of it staying with my host family in the Ouakam neighborhood of Dakar. I got to relive some of the things I've (in a strange way) missed, such as riding the car rapides (colorful decrepit "buses" that will take you all the way across the city for about $0.35), shopping in the open-air markets (which entails fending off pushy vendors/suitors and negotiating with those who try to charge the toubab price), and eating ceebujen (Senegal's national dish of rice and fish). I also visited my old school, met the new Elizabeth, and saw Serigne, Gamo, and Keba. I also went down to Joal (a town on the coast south of Dakar) for one night and then out to the village of Samba Dia to see my rural visits host family. I had so many experiences/thoughts/emotions, it's hard to know where to start, but here are a few highlights...

Teranga is alive and well! Teranga, the Senegalese notion of hospitality, is a point of pride among locals in Senegal. While there is definitely no shortage of people waiting to take advantage of the toubabs (the word for "white person" in most of West Africa), the average Senegalese person welcomes visitors with open arms and eagerly shares what little they have. During my study abroad program, we used to joke about the possibility of Survivor: Rural Senegal, in which students would be dropped off in the middle of nowhere and forced to rely on the hospitality of locals to survive - sounds ridiculous, but, trust me, people would help you and you'd survive! But, I digress. I was shown teranga everywhere I turned during my visit to Senegal... my host family paying $4 for a cab to meet me at the airport at 1:30 in the morning, giving me a bed and mosquito net while some family members went without, buying soda on my first and last nights there (something generally reserved for special occasions)... while waiting for somebody to meet me, being invited into the house of someone who was little more than a stranger and receiving a hot plate of ceebujen, bottled water, and the use of a fan and TV while I waited... showing up in a village without prior notice to look for a family that I spent five days with two years ago - and being welcomed into their home as though I'd never been gone... the gifts of fabric, clothes, and jewelry I received from people who have so, so little but share what they have... I could go on and on about the kindness and generosity I experienced and the small gestures that broke my heart, but I'll stop there.

La Fete de la Korité! As it turned out, I arrived in Senegal just a few days before the end of Ramadan (a 40-day fast in which observers abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, and having sex during the daytime). The end of the fast is marked by a celebration called Korité. (From my understanding, the end of Ramadan is a major holiday for all Muslims, though it goes by different names and is celebrated differently in other countries across Africa and the Middle East.) In Senegal, Korité typically goes something like this... Everybody prepares laax (a popular millet porridge in Senegal) for breakfast. In the morning, the men dress up in traditional boubous and go to the mosque, while the women stay at home cooking. In the early afternoon, the men go in groups around the neighborhood, visiting the homes of people they know, chatting, and often eating more laax. During these visits, they also ask forgiveness from people they know for anything they have done against them in the past year. The women stay at home, continuing to cook, and the Muslim women deliver gifts of laax to their Christian neighbors, so they can participate in the celebration. (On Easter, Catholic families bring laax to their Muslim neighbors.) When the laax is delivered, the sins are pardoned, and the visits are over, the men return home for the feast. In general, the meal on Korité consists of chicken, French fries, and onion sauce - chicken is too expensive for the average Senegalese (who generally eat fish or mutton), and most families splurge on it only for major celebrations. Following the meal, the women wash the dishes, then they put on their boubous and visit with their neighbors. And so you have the second-most important holiday in Senegal! (Korité is considered less important than Tabaski, which occurs 2 months and 10 days later and celebrates the sacrifice Abraham was willing to make.) To an observer, Korité provided a wonderful insight into several vital issues in Senegal, including gender roles, religious coexistence, and poverty.

Here are the toubabs in their boubous:

The Monument to the African Renaissance... In the spring of 2008, the Senegalese government started construction on this monument, which some people describe as Africa's Eiffel Tower. As you can see in the picture below, the bronze statue is the representation of a man, woman, and child. It's being built atop a 330-foot hill in my neighborhood of Ouakam and will be 160-feet tall when completed, making it taller than the Statute of Liberty. Amusingly, the Senegalese government brought in North Korean workers to help with construction, because of their expertise in working with bronze and building large monuments. (Everybody in Senegal thinks they're Chinese, though.) As you can probably imagine, the monument towers over Ouakam, where the tallest building is probably five stories. The Senegalese are furious about the monument, and rightfully so, in my opinion. Abdoulaye Wade, the country's widely-detested President, conceived the idea for the monument, and some say he designed it as a representation of himself, his wife, and their son. That in itself does not bode well with the Senegalese population. Further, because Islam prohibits representations of the human form, many locals feel the monument is contrary to their religion. Finally, the monument's total cost is about $27 million, and people are skeptical of government claims that it is entirely privately-funded. Regardless of where the money came from, though, it is absurd and frustrating to both locals and visitors that such an incredible sum is being spent on a statue, in a country where millions of people struggle with malnutrition, lack of sanitation, and diseases like malaria and polio. With this much upset over the monument, I predict somebody will vandalize it at some point.

The monument, in its current state of construction:

The village of Samba Dia! As I mentioned above, I went out to a rural area of Senegal to visit the family I stayed with while I was studying there in the fall of 2007. I didn't have a way of contacting them, so I figured I would take public transportation to the village, ask for directions to the poste de santé (the "clinic" where my host mom had worked), and hope that somebody there knew her and that the family was still in town. Everything worked out perfectly, with acts of teranga from everybody along the way. The family was beyond shocked to see me, and I stayed at their house for five days. In typical Senegalese fashion, they treated me like family and offered me the best of everything they had, even giving me nicer things than they buy for themselves. For example, each morning, I ate bread and coffee with my host sister for breakfast. I got an originally-packaged packet of powdered milk, while my sister got a much smaller, locally-wrapped baggie of it. On about the third day, I finally realized that she and I were the only ones eating bread, and that the rest of the family was having porridge, which is what poorer families generally eat at breakfast instead. So, the family provided me with better food than they buy for themselves, leaving me feeling grateful but guilty beyond belief. A similar thing happened after my first lunch with them. As I mentioned above, in Dakar, people sometimes have soda on special occasions; in Samba Dia, where people are poorer and can't afford the expense of $1.75 for a liter of soda to share, they buy soda for their visitors, but not for themselves. I almost cried. Anyway, I spent five great days living the village life of going to the well, carrying water on my head and babies on my back, bucket showering, helping to cook outside, resting under the trees in front of our house, and chatting with the family. Apart from a couple phone calls to the U.S. and brief chats with locals who wanted to practice their English, I spoke exclusively French and Wolof the entire time, which was challenging, but great practice!

Samba Dia:

Everyone thought this picture was hilarious:

I also got a bit of a shock during the trip. Turns out, my host mother in Samba Dia is the first of two wives to her husband. His other wife lives in a nearby village, and he splits his time between that village, Samba Dia, and the village where he works. It was summer vacation while I was visiting, and the second wife's children all spent a lot of time at our house. Polygamy is extremely common in Senegal (a man can legally have up to four wives), especially in rural areas, but my host mom there is the only woman I really know who is in a polygamous marriage. Though the concept no longer shocks me, I really can't imagine...

This post is way longer that I intended, so if you're still reading, thanks for sticking with me!