in the shadows, in the silence, in the twilight.

Africa finds me

crawling into me,

gnawing at whatever flesh I have,

clasping my fingertips.

grabbing on and holding tight.

I drag you on my arm.

Africa finds me.

Here you are.

peering up at me-

deeper-than-forever eyes,

piercing hearts and clits and skies-

Africa finds me

Here you are,

calling out to me-

open palm, no legs to carry you,

dead eyes and God in your veins.

All I can do is look away.

Africa finds me.

rips me,

shreds me

spits me up,

rejects me from it’s heart

and sends me back to this place

before I learned to dream.

Africa finds me.

DOES IT MEAN I AM AUTOMATICALLY THE CANDIDATE TO SIT BY ANOTHER WHITE PERSON ON THE BUS?

BECAUSE I AM WHITE

DOES IT MEAN WE CAN’T SHARE A MEAL? I AM THE ONLY ONE WITH A FORK BUT I WANT MY FINGERS TO BE AS BLESSED AS YOURS.

BECAUSE I AM WHITE DOES IT MEAN I AM THE COLONIALIST? YOU PLAY THE SLAVE AND I’LL BE THE MASTER. SHOW ME YOUR SHACKLES AND I WILL CONCEDE.

BECAUSE I AM WHITE DOES IT MEAN A HUNDRED LITTLE DARK MOUTHS HAVE TO HAUNT ME? HUNGRY LITTLE BIRDS WITH THEIR PHANTOM LIPS, “CADEAU, CADEAU, CADEAU”

BECAUSE I AM WHITE DOES IT MEAN I AM RICH? MY SKIN SWEATS SILK AND MY ASS SHITS GOLD. I GUESS THERE IS A PHYSIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US.

BECAUSE I AM WHITE DOES IT MEAN I CHANGE YOU? DO I BURN YOUR TREES, STEAL YOUR GOD AND CRIPPLE YOU WITH MY VACANT GAZE?

BECAUSE I AM WHITE DOES IT MEAN I RUINED THINGS? DO I PILLAGE VILLAGES AND RAPE YOUR DREAMS? but GOD this will make a fantastic photo

BECAUSE I AM WHITE DOES IT MEAN YOU WILL NEVER SEE ME? DOES IT MEAN I FADE INTO THE LILIES AS YOU SINK INTO THE SAND DUNES? DOES IT MEAN I WILL ONLY FIND YOU IN THE STARS?

BECAUSE I AM WHITE.

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.  Of all places, who would have thought?  Who would have thought that I would come to this place, this red earth cradle, which a few years ago was the 3^rd poorest country in the world?  My trip was organized around the annual Rotary International Conference for West Africa, but it was also just a good excuse to have an adventure in a country in the heart of West Africa.

I thought we were in a cloud.  When the airplane landed the horizon was overcast, heavy with the hot air and red dust.  I couldn’t see the sky.  Everything above the earth was a hazy white, and everything below the sky was a rusty brown.  It is like the universe swallowed us up in a heady vacuum of wilting air and burnt dust, tossing us into a two-toned oblivion.  At 4 pm it was 41 degrees Celcius (106 Farenheit).

We step off the airplane into the hazy heat.  Immediately my host counselor and I get swept into an air conditioned, leather interior car that is waiting for us on the runway.  We don’t wait in lines.  We by-pass security and settle in on black leather couches in the private waiting area, watching Wolof music videos on a 36 inch flat screen TV.  A woman traveling with us for the conference quietly slips a man money for her visa.   Everything is taken care of, our bags quickly swept into a large car to be delivered to our destination.  The chauffer opens the door for me.  Very few words are spoken.

Thankfully, very soon I leave THAT world and end up at a friend’s apartment where I am staying, already feeling more at home.  The street is red dirt and the heat is palpable, damp on my fingertips.  Each day the water is cut off for about 5 hours to ration it, and several times each day the power is cut off for a few hours.  There is no fan or air conditioning in my room.  Below my window a woman is serving rice and sauce to people in the street for 200 francs (40 cents).  Everyone is smiling here!  We are dirty.  We are hot.  We are dripping in sweat.  We are smiling!!!

So yes at this point I am in a good mood, but I realize that a shower is an imminent necessity.  What we do here in West Africa when there is no water: we take bucket showers!!!  Most houses always keep a big pail of water in the bathroom just in case, with a small bucket floating on top.  Ohhh the bucket shower feels so good.  The colder the better.  This takes patience (and a little bit of flexibility to really get your back clean!!), but the end result is rewarding in these climates.  Ahhhh….

I step out of the bathroom and immediately have to wipe fresh beads of sweat from my forehead and upper lip.  Just when I thought I had won the battle, the heat has crept up on me, or more like hit me in a head-on collision.  I chuckle; when you can’t change it, embrace it.

A couple of hours later we go out to dinner.  This is classy street food.  We are on the side of the road, standing in front of a table stacked with fish.  We choose two plump ones and sit down at a small table while a big woman prepares the meal.  The atmosphere full. Absolutely full to the brim with life.  Noise everywhere- car horns, loud music, people yelling in local dialects, children laughing, men trying to sell us phone cards and bubus .  This is chaos.  But we are having great conversation and good local beer, so it is easy to tune into the moment.  Our food arrives, two beautiful fish in a large bowl, with an onion-mayonaise sauce on top.  Just the fish.  No rice, no vegetables, no silverware…. James sticks his right hand in the bowl, tears some fish off the spine of the fish and scoops up a handful of sauce in his fingers.  All simultaneously with his right hand.  The left hand comes nowhere near the table, as it is traditionally dirty and offensive to others.  Oh I am such an amateur at this.  I can handle eating rice with one hand, but SAUCE???  I am so messy.  James is good enough at this that he doesn’t need to do my trick of tilting my head back so the sauce doesn’t drip all over my face.  SO just as we are enjoying this cultural experience, I don’t realize when my purse is snatched from behind my back.  NEVER put your purse on the back of your chair in a public place.  I should have known better.

I’ll skip over the stress of the next 24 hours.

The rain clouds come out of nowhere.  For seven months the earth has been dry and cracked, starving for nourishment.  Is this gray sky real?  You can feel the excitement in the streets; everyone is looking for it.  Then, it comes.  Gentle at first, then a torrential downpour.  Oh God, it feels magical.

The first rain. Rain that falls hard, but lands soft.  I have never felt rain so soft.  Rain that blooms in twilight.  Rain that cuts time into small pieces and scatters them into the sky.  Each drop is bowing to us, pirouetting towards the parched earth, dripping into a beautiful dance.  Mmmm…..

In the next couple of days before the Rotary conference goes into full swing, I do touristy things.  I go to a village that thrives on tourism from its crocodiles.  This tiny village sits next to a pond that is naturally full of crocodiles.  There are at least 150 in the pond.  They are not only crocodiles, they are sacred crocodiles.  According to tradition, crocodiles possess immense wisdom.  Sacrifices have always been performed to ask the crocodiles to protect the village, bringing health and prosperity.  Being the only tourists, James and I buy a small chicken to sacrifice and head down to the pond with two village guides.  The crocodiles are HUGE.  It looks like they have huge, scary grins on their faces as they bask in the sun with their mouths open.   It is amazing.  The guide ties the chicken to a stick and gives it to me, after he shows me what to do.  The poor chicken is dangling by one leg as 3 large crocodiles inch towards it, with lazy, malicious looks in their eyes.  I hum the Jaws soundtrack.  James takes a video, narrating what is happening as I suddenly scream.  A crocodile jumps up, snapping the chicken from the stick.  He says the look on my face was priceless.  The chicken is gone in one gulp.

Another day my friend and I go to a “zoo” with another Rotary scholar.  The largest attraction to this zoo is its unbelievable insufficiency in containing the animals.  The only thing between me and a huge, hungry tiger is 2 feet and a chain link fence.  The tiger hadn’t been fed his goat yet that day.  It is the same case for a family of lions, zebra, waterbuck, hyenas, hippos, baboons and ostriches.  Don’t get me wrong, they are relatively nice areas for the animals, with little caves and trees, but they are small and the animals like coming to the fence.  Just after I get poop flung on me from a hippo (their tails apparently become propellers when the defecate, spraying it everywhere), I run into an ostrich.  There it is, blocking my way on the path, strolling around with absolutely no confines.  Another strolls up a few seconds later.  Aren’t ostriches really dangerous????  We shrug it off and keep walking down the path, seeing other animals who hang around freely.  Camels, peacocks, donkeys…Maybe this is where they built the ark?

After playing around for a couple of days, I spend the rest of the week at the Rotary conference, staying with another scholar who offered to share her hotel room.  The conference was interesting, uniting 14 countries in the West African Rotary district to discuss projects, new officers and the New Vision Plan.

The New Vision plan focuses on peace and conflict resolution, disease prevention and treatment, water and sanitation, maternal and child health, basic education and literacy and economic and community development

My favorite part of the conference was a small discussion group that focused on water and sanitation.  We discussed how all six topics of the New Vision Plan are profoundly influenced by water.  Rotary is involved with over 6000 projects worldwide involving water.  The goal is to have a 50% reduction in people with no access to clean drinking water by 2015.  That is huge.  I feel so honored to be involved with this organization.

The trip was an enriching experience.  It had its ups and its downs, but I guess that is the case with most things.  As my host counselor said, while discussing my stolen purse, “It was an experience. There are never only positives.”  What makes the difference is how you learn, grow, and move on.

(my friend, “la petite”)

Flying all over the place,

Dancing and shrieking,

This high-pitched shriek that I swear

would pierce straight through the hot blanket of twilight,

hitting God straight in his third eye.

Thump

Thump

Thump

I am DEAF from the drums.

They are anatomical anomalies, these birds…

Wings sprouting from sharp shoulder blades,

Arching into the most beautiful hollowness that

could cradle any secret tight.

Thump

Thump

Thump

Here they are, flying for me…

Flailing bodies, blurred bodies,

Glistening bodies, angular bodies,

Radiant smiles, carnal desires…

There is an animal in all of our eyes.

Thump

Thump

Thump

30 minute coup d’etat, this is a siege.

My heart-beat has surrendered to the rhythm,

The earth shaking straight through to my soles.

Thump

Thump

Thump

The flock came down on me all at once,

Dancing, praying, loving, dying,

Sharing their dance,

Sharing their fear,

Sharing their love

In the moment of one drum.

Thump

Thump

Thump.

I wonder why there are so many deformed people in Dakar.  It just doesn’t make sense to me.

So many people who are missing limbs or have mutated hands and feet…So many people who are covered in strange spidery veins or have enormous swollen facial tumors protruding from their cheeks and lips…

I wonder why there are so many deformed people in Dakar.  Is Dakar like a leper colony, welcoming albinos and cripples?  Is this like Guatanemo Bay, a place where people get sent who are not wanted; a place where they are too far away for busy people to think about?

I wonder why there are so many deformed people in Dakar?

Is it because 9.3 percent of the public spending budget is used for health care in a country where most people make less than a dollar a day?

Is it because the president spent most of the remaining 90.7% of the budget shooting cannons into empty fields in Casamance and paying North Koreans to build a big statue?

Is it because the majority of congenitally deaf children I work with come from incestuous families?  With a national literacy rate of 39%, I am assuming the risks are not widely known.

Is it because my ideas are skewed from growing up in a picture-perfect neighborhood, where women go to the gym in the morning and get manicures in the afternoon? Is it because I was the exception, one of only a few of my peers who did not wear braces on my teeth as an adolescent?

I wonder why there are so many deformed people in Dakar.

Is it because they can’t leave Dakar? Is it because people like me walk by them, walking fast and with “a purpose.” Head held high, busy chasing our own dreams of “living in Africa?”  Is it because we shake skinny dark children off our arms as they hold on tight with their dusty fingers? Is it because they are trapped?

I wonder why there are so many deformed people in Dakar.

I wonder sometimes if it is ME who is really the deformed one, coming from my formation perfect planet with my formation perfect ideas.

My ideas of living in Africa.

14 hour boat ride: bubus, babies and Wolof music videos

Mangroves

Pink and white flamingos

Bird haven

Tiny sweet bananas

Sacred forests

Animist fetishes

gentille/dangereuse: the dichotomy of Casamance and the best way to keep a good secret.

Slow heat

Simple smiles

Diola/Wolof/French

Getting out of Dakar mode; learning how to relax

President Wade’s corrupt military action

Fresh juice

Socioeconomic class differentiation shown in the beaches- public:private = cows, trash: white sand, palm trees

A short memory:

My footsteps scatter the freshly fallen snow.  For a soft moment I am transported to a different world, place and time as I bathe in the shadows of ancient silk cotton trees.  This old African soil is white with soft seeds.  A new kind of snow.  The thirsty earth is coated effortlessly, absorbing everything, even if it is not real.  This is one of the things that I have learned about this place.  Hold onto what you have; if not it will blow away with the dust and sink into the earth.

Sweat trickles down the long curve of my back, my skin hot and brown.  Africa’s dusty breath in my mouth.  Dirt and sunscreen under my fingernails.  The day wavers before me in the mid-day heat.  I see my friend Sarah and our Diolla guide ahead, signaling for me to re-mount my bike.  My calves are crunching as the wheels push through the deep sand that covers the forest floor.  The trees are proud and enormous.  This seems surreal.  Like I have been plucked off the stage of my reality and dropped into a Salvador Dali painting.  I see small mud huts with straw roofs to my left.

The powdery sand under me is coated in fairy-tale snow. Light filters in through the leaves above me, creating a mosaic of shadows.  I am circumventing a sacred forest. The air is dry, hot and magical.

Near Oussouye, the village that Sarah and I are staying in (our lodging is a mud room with a straw roof) are five tiny villages in the woods.  There are sacred forests in the area; ancient and powerful places that only those who have performed the sacred rights can enter, with the permission of the village chief.  Age-old silk cotton trees are sheltered here, being wider than six or seven of the local homes combined.  Not having permission to enter the forest to our right, we turn our bikes down a narrow dirt trail that winds into the woods on the left.  After 20 or 30 minutes we come to another small village.  Young children run up to our bikes with bare feet, wide eyes and toothy smiles.  We shake their small hands, dark and sweet.  “Photo, photo!!!” they cry as they see my camera.  They eagerly crane their necks to see the device and then gather together for a picture.  It’s funny, they are not used to posing.  I don’t see the over-exposed fake smiles that crowd most photos in other parts of the world I have lived.  These children stand stock-still and straight, peering at this mystery machine with curious eyes.  No big smiles, no arms around each other, just awe.  It is like they are trying to freeze time.  Afterwards they run over to me to see the camera’s screen.  The squeal, laugh and jump around when they see the picture. Magic.  I smile. I feel like a magician.

After another 30 minutes of biking we pull up to another village in the forest.  The guide points to a mud wall, where dried bones, crab shells and animal skulls dangle in an elaborate formation.  This is the village’s animist “fetishe” location, the place were animist rituals are performed.  A dark rush color stains the wall where the guide said a pig was sacrificed to the gods two weeks earlier.  I am in awe.  Here I am standing in this sacred, animist spot, realizing how many worlds away I am from what I have always known.  My humility opens up before me.  These people’s faith is so fervent.  The people I have met in Casamance are the some of the kindest but also poorest people I have ever met.  Their love for God is what feeds them.  They are only opening up this sacred site for the public to see because they need tourists’ money.  Selling slices of their souls because they HAVE to.  I stand before their god with cheap sunglasses and my camera.  I stand before their god, flimsy and transparent in my own religious identity.  Looking down, I hear echos of the scream of a man in the last village.  “Je casse ta gulle si tu sors ton apareille.” (I’ll break your beak (vulgar word used here for mouth) if you take out a camera).   Afterwards the guide told me that I am not allowed to take pictures of the animist site there because that village has not signed up and been payed.  Who am I? I am some lucky girl, born and raised on the good side of the ocean. Who am I? Some lucky girl, given money to learn and grow in West Africa.

fans of our man, Barack

Before the yoga classes started I met with the speech-language pathologist who works at the school.  He is one of the two speech-language pathologists who work in a public institution in Senegal.  One of the only in West Africa in general.  After talking for a few minutes, I presented him with a bag of speech language therapy supplies that my mother bought in the United States.  I know how rare teaching supplies are in West Africa; I have seen the barren stores, I have seen the decades-old activities that he is forced to use over and over again with children.  He has told me that even on the rare occasions when he can muster up the public funds to get new supplies, there are none to be found here.  That being said, he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the new materials. He was totally overwhelmed with happiness!  I guess I should have described this man first.  He is a very serious man.  He wears a black suit and tie to work every day, despite the face that his office is in a small, dusty, outdoors school next to a dilapidated playground.  I have rarely ever seen this man smile, let alone express his happiness and thanks to the extent he did today!  He is thrilled to have new activities to help the children.  I am going to do speech therapy sessions for children with him next week, using the new materials. He told me to send a million thank you’s to my mother.  Thanks Mom.

So that is Wednesday.

My normal Tuesday routine is quite different.  I go to the pediatric psychiatry clinic of the hospital Dakar-Fann.  It is called Kër Xaleyi, which means “House of Children” in Wolof.  As I walk past the reception area in the front, my eyes pass over the crowd who is waiting.  I am sure these mothers and children have been sitting here for hours, fanning the sweat that runs down their necks and temples.  Some of the children struggle past their mother and roll onto the ground, sliding around the dusty floor.  Some flail their limbs and beat themselves spasmodically until their mothers turn on the music on their cell phones or give them peanuts to calm them.  Some shriek unexpectedly and the mothers hush them and draw them to their chest in a warm embrace.  The mothers look so tired.

I bring my bag of speech pathology activities to the back of the clinic and I meet the speech-language pathologist with whom I co-lead the group for autistic children.  She tells me that they have truly missed me over the past two weeks that I have been gone.  She said they have missed my positive, dynamic energy!  I am touched deeper than she knows.

We move to another room and the first speech therapy group comes in; three little boys named Baba, Medune and Mohammed.  Baba is 4 years old, and as far as we know, never had said a word before we started the therapy group.  At the beginning he ran around the room like crazy, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth and drooling everywhere. Now, he sits calmly in his chair, imitates gestures and sounds, and has begun saying simple phrases in Wolof.

Medune is 5 years old and also was never known to have spoken before he started therapy.  Having lived his first few years as an abandoned street child, Medune may have slowed language development because of his scarred history, rather than an autistic spectrum disorder. I smiled yesterday as I realized we were actually having to tell Medune to be QUIET so that the other children could hear the activities.  He was too busy singing and chattering.  What a wonderful thing.

Most children that I see in the other two speech therapy groups do not have success stories like that, but almost all of the children have made progress. That is wonderful.  And even for those that have not made progress, I am happy to see that they have been sent to the psychiatric clinic.  That means that there is a growing awareness of communication disorders in Senegal.  I am very happy and proud to be a part of that movement.  I have never in my life done anything that feels more fulfilling!

This is a different kind of happiness.  This is not vacation happiness.  This is dirty, sweaty, smiling happiness.  I don’t think I’ll realize until I’m gone how much I will miss this when it’s over.

Right now I am sitting in my bed, in the dark.  It is early morning.  I know I have deep bags under my eyes…I haven’t slept more than 30 minutes all night, because I have been listening to the rats.  There is an infestation.  I can’t help but listen to them.  They are gnawing on something; I am hoping that it is the poison that I put in little biscuits on the ground, but if that were the case I think they would stop chewing after a while and become quiet.  In the past 24 hours I have killed 5.  Maybe 6; I will see when I turn on the light.  I have killed some with traps, some with poison, and I’ve finished others off with a shoe.  Some of them are mice, but some of them definitely look more like rats.  A couple of nights ago, I heard them scratching on fabric, and I was afraid they were trying to climb on my bed.  I was paralyzed.  I couldn’t stop thinking about the story my friend Emmanuelle told me, “I remember when I was in Guinea a few years ago, I woke up in the night feeling that my foot was in water. I didn’t know why it would be wet. I looked down and there was a rat nibbling on my foot.  The wetness was blood.”  That is what I was thinking about throughout the past few hours, as my feet stuck out from under the covers.  As I was lying in bed, I was dreaming about being trapped in a cellar with chains on my arms, with rats crawling all over.  I was imagining what it would feel like as they brushed up against my skin and nibbled into the flesh.  It was a horrible image.

I have been on a mission throughout the past few days to fix this pest-problem.  I know it is just a matter of time until this is in the past.  I have set traps, put out poison, scrubbed my room until it is spotless, bleached the floors, hidden all bags and stored all food in the refrigerator.  I am so lucky to have a refrigerator; I wonder what people do who don’t have one to store their food.

Mixed in with this feeling of “  fear” is guilt.  I feel so trivial.  Here I am on this big continent, amongst millions of hungry people and millions of people without clean drinking water, and I am worried about some little critters in the shadows.  And I know the problem will be solved.  Because at the end of the day, I have money, and therefore I have the power to change things.  I can move if I choose to.  I canleave and afford to rent a new apartment.  I wonder how many people here have that choice.  And I wonder how many people back home appreciate that liberty.  I wonder how many people in this region stay up at night for other reasons, because they are sick, homeless, or have empty stomachs.  I wonder how many people stay up at night because they are afraid.  Maybe it is good for me to have spent a couple of nights like this.  Maybe it wouldn’t be bad for everyone to spend a night like this once in a while.

Today has been a very typical day in Dakar.  I can’t generalize and say that it is a typical day in Africa, but definitely in the Africa that I am experiencing.  I think I can safely say that experience is a lot less skewed now than it used to be…

I wake up late.  Already hot and sweaty with the late morning sun.  I don’t feel like I slept at all last night because of the impostor in my bedroom. There is a rat.  And it is incredibly noisy.  I was thinking of it as a little mouse.  Now I can see that after a couple of days of plumping up on my couscous and powdered milk, it is looking more like a rat. Yes, I discovered at 2 am last night that the little devil can somehow mount my 5 foot 3 refrigerator.  I couldn’t sleep afterwards because I kept hearing it try to climb up my bed.  I think I have really toughened up being here; instead of being ready to scream, I was steaming mad, roaming around my room searching for it like a psycho-murderer with deep gray circles under my eyes.  I am on a mission to kill.  There is vengeance in my eyes.  I spend my morning on a mouse hunt, then meticulously cleaning my room and dousing my room in poison. So after all that this morning I go to the family’s shared bathroom and discover cockroaches crawling out of the shower.  This cockroach is so big I could put a leash around it and adopt it as a pet.  It really doesn’t faze me anymore though.  Next I sit down to drink my coffee and a giant fly drops in the hot liquid and dies.  I let out a sigh…  Good morning, Africa!!!

After I eat, Amy, one of the family’s maids, shows me a small piece of paper.  There is a phone number written on it.  She is explaining to me what to do in Wolof, but I don’t understand.  I go and get my cell phone, thinking that she wants to put her number into my phone.  She shakes her head.  Handing me the paper insistently, I am lost.  She is pointing to the numbers and looks frustrated.  Then I realize what she wants.  She can’t read.  She wants me to punch the numbers into her phone for her because she can’t read them.  I punch the numbers into her phone and she flashes me a happy smile.  My eyes are opening.  God I am so fortunate to have had such a great education.

A little while later I walk to university, wading through sand in the streets and avoiding chunks of broken concrete.  I have to pass by a 30 foot area on the side of the main road where I think every single taxi driver must stop to pee.  There is ALWAYS someone peeing there.  The smell is absolutely overwhelming.  At least it clears out my sinuses though, right??   For the rest of my walk I dodge maniacal taxis.  Pedestrians do not have the right of way here apparently.  It seems that taxi drivers want to get as close to me as possible because of the color of my skin (they hope to get a higher price from a Toubab, or foreigner), and then once  they see that I’m not going to get in the car, their vengeance is shown with a purposeful two inch driving proximity to my body.   That’s not everyone though; others just let out a friendly honk

Once I get to university, I decide to FINALLY register for a library card, which I have been avoiding because of incredible lines.  I thought the lines would diminish after the first couple of weeks of the semester, but no, it is February (4 months later) and they are still very long.  Anyways, I am better at this PATIENCE thing now.  Who am I to think that I can waltz into a public West African university and get things handed to me on a silver platter, avoiding long waits.  So it’s all good.

I feel embarrassed because of what I’m wearing; after the whole mouse escapade this morning I didn’t feel like spending time trying to look pretty, so unlike the thousands of other West African female students on campus today, I am not wearing a cute top, tight pants, perfectly styled hair, make-up, and nice shoes. AND I have never had a manicure in my life.  So I am standing out, in my baggy linen pants, J-Crew tee shirt, teva sandals, and messy pony tail, with my backpack and water bottle.  I look like SUCH a toubab.  I think people are embarrassed for me.  So I wait in line for a while, and then someone tells me that there is actually a PRE-line line.  So I go the the PRE-line line, wait in that line, then finally get back to the other line.  THERE ARE A LOT OF LINES IN WEST AFRICA.  Everyone is looking at the sweat marks that my backpack has left on my tee-shirt (I am the only student in sight with a backpack).  Finally once I am at the front of the line, the librarian (who is calmly drinking Senegalese tea and listening to Arabic chanting on the radio) tells me to come back in two weeks and wait in another line to get the library card. When he says two weeks, I can count on that actually meaning four or five.  By the way, these places are closed from 11:30 until 3 for lunch and an afternoon siesta.  I am smiling; it feels good to have finally applied for the card.  Here I have developed  a new perception of “accomplishments.” It is important to set small, attainable goals and be happy with baby steps.  If expectations are set too high, it will be very difficult and frustrating to seek satisfaction.

A little while later, as I walk home, I get organized for GUMBO DAY!  I have decided that it is time to use up the dried shrimp and dried snails that are giving a very particular smell to my fridge.  So I buy some dried conk and salt fish from some ladies on the side of the road, and then stop at the neighborhood market down the road.  Everyone is so friendly and helpful as my tongue fumbles over these phlegmy Wolof sounds.  I tell them that I am making my first ever Senegalese gumbo, and they are delighted to help me with my little mental shopping list.  They seem to be happy when they ask me who will make it for me, and I tell them that I am doing it myself.  I am happy too

Oooh this is so fun, making this gumbo sauce.  I feel like I fit the role pretty well; I am wearing a casual African boubou and I am sitting on a tiny wood stool with my wooden mortar and pestle between my legs as I mash up the ingredients.  The gumbo slices are making a squishy sound as I mash them; like rain boots stuck in mud puddles.  The ingredients that I am using are: 1 kilo of gumbo, onion, garlic, 1/2 kilo cherry tomatoes, jalapeno pepper, 2 kanis (a Senegalese vegetable that I don’t know the translation for), dried conk, dried shrip, dried snails, dried fish, magi beef broth, water and some other things.  Served with a French baguette.

Oh it is good   It is really good!  Eating this gumbo is making me so happy.  I want to share this happiness; I offer it to everyone that I see who is living in the house.  Senegal has made me much better at sharing.  Everyone shares food in Senegal.  It is a tradition that Senegalese families always prepare more food than they need for each meal in case someone stops by the house unexpectedly. It just seems like it wouldn’t be such a nice meal if others couldn’t enjoy it!  I think it is a beautiful practice.

So here I am now, happy and digesting.  Today was simple, today was good! Life doesn’t always need to be fast and complicated.  And I don’t hear the mouse anymore…  :)

I’d never really thought about it like that before.  I didn’t imagine my dream would look like this, smell like this, or taste like this.  I didn’t imagine I’d be hand washing my clothes in a bucket next to a sheep and 100 chickens on the roof, overlooking a city of 3 million.  I thought I’d be in a hut or something.

I didn’t imagine I would be worried about my health because of excessive air pollution.  I thought I’d be more worried about mosquitoes.

I didn’t imagine I’d be wearing dress pants, heels and makeup every day.  I thought I’d be wearing a head wrap, flip-flops and a bubu.

I didn’t imagine my work would be like this.  I didn’t imagine that I’d be leading a therapy group for autistic children. I didn’t imagine that I would be speaking English to a Senegalese boy who grew up in the US.  His parents sent him to stay with his grandparents in Senegal because they want to exorcize him of the evil spirit within him, using traditional medicines and spiritual practices.  Under his American t-shirt, he wears a talisman around  his neck to protect him from the evil spirit that we call Autism.

What does a dream look like anyway?

It is funny how we spend so much time and energy dreaming and wishing, and then when it finally happens we don’t even realize it.  By that time your head is in some other cloud.   And if you don’t pay attention, your eyes will be focused elsewhere.

I am sitting in the dark.  The power gets cut off two or three times every day here.  People say it is because so many people in Dakar “steal the current” (don’t pay their electric bills).  Now the power company is in debt and has to economize on us.

It feels nice right now, not having power.  A little while ago I walked into the house after returning from a Rotary club meeting that was held at an elegant hotel downtown.  I walked through a dark corridor, finding two figures crouching on the floor. They were illuminated by a candle.  It was the Aissatu and Amy, the two maids that cook and clean for the couple who own the villa I rent a room in.   “Estephan kai lekk” (Stephanie, come eat).  I smile and look down at the plate of food they are sharing, eating with their hands.  “Barne jerediouf” (I’m okay, thank you).   To be honest, I don’t want to take away their food, leaving them with less.   I continue through the kitchen and at the table a few feet away I see the woman who owns the villa.   She also invites me to eat.  I hesitate slightly, and then pull out a chair across the table from her.  Do I sit at the table?  “Je m’assois où?” (Where should I sit)  She shrugs her shoulders.   I hesitate very slightly, and then know exactly what to do.  I put down my purse and walk back over to Aissatu and Amy.  They smile.  They are happy to share with me.  I crouch down in my three-inch heels and black dress pants, sitting down on the ground with them.   Gap bridged.  The woman seems happy with my decision, and the atmosphere feels perfect.   The language is simple.  They can’t speak French, and I am very poor at Wolof.  So we speak with smiles.  Aissatou, Amy and I eat our thirds of the plate of food using our right hands. One person takes the lead from time to time, tearing the main fish in the center of the plate and distributing it to the 3 different areas of the plate.   Each of us gathers the mix of sauce, fish, vegetables and potatoes with our fingers, molding little bites with our hands.  Food tastes better when you can hold it in your palm.

It was a wonderful meal.

Is this what my dream tastes like?