Another day in Saint Louis to go to the internet and connect with the greater world, only 300cfa for an hour of surfing. Getting change for any bill over 2000 cfa can be a pipe dream in Senegal and with only a 5000cfa bill in my pocket, I pay Abdoulaye the attendant up front, apologizing for not having anything smaller. My hour goes by in a flash, the air conditioning of the internet café putting me into a slight trance, and I gather my bag to get my change and go. Abdoulaye is conspicuously absent. The security guard tells me to wait just a minute, that he’ll be right back.
Now if there’s one certainty in Senegal it’s that if someone says a person is coming now or will be right back, what they really mean is, “Sorry pal, he’ll be back sometime in the next hour if he comes back at all.” And waiting, no matter how much fuss you make, is all you can do. There’s no other employee, no manager to ask for, just Abdoulaye, and he’s gone home for lunch with my 5000cfa ($10) in his pocket. I’m sure it’s not intentional, but I have to wait. The situation brings to mind a book called The Village of Waiting, written by Dan Becker, a former PCV in Togo who described what it means to “wait a little longer” for me as I prepared to go to Senegal. The security guard senses my impatience and asks if I’m in a rush. As it turns out I’m not, but it’s the point that matters isn’t it? I launch into a diatribe questioning how Senegal can ever expect to be competitive in a modern world economy when this business is the standard just as Abdoulaye walks in. I look at him and smile.
“Oh Nat! If forgot your change. Wait just a second, I’ll be right back.” This is 25 minutes after my hour on the computer had expired. I think the vein in my forehead must have popped out because Abdoulaye looked at me and said not to worry about it, that I could pay him some other time when I had 300cfa in change.
Stepping into the oven of outside, I shake my head out of habit at my inconvenience, but I’m 10 ½ months beyond being incredulous anymore. Before heading for the garage and back to the village, I decide I deserve an ice cream and cold drink. I’ve never had a sweet tooth, but the attaya turns you into a junky and it was the “ice” more than the “cream” that I’m really after. I head over to the Leader Price, the refrigerated boutique wonderland attached to a Mobil station, and Senegal’s closest thing to a Quicky Mart.
My first experience with a Leader Price was in Thies during my first two months in country. I walk into the shop, at home in the familiarity of junk food, drink cases, and fluorescent light. Then I hear, “Kai an!—Come eat lunch!” In the corner, the cashier and two gas station attendants are sitting on the floor around a bowl of thiebujen (rice and fish), business at a halt for lunch. Their polite gestures for me to join them are somehow lost in a culture shocked moment where I imagine three American Mobil station employees eating thieb and telling me to come eat lunch with them next to the bucket of Red Bull.
My vanilla ice cream bar with chocolate almond frosting is melting fast as I walk towards the garage and I get brain freeze through my teeth from eating it too fast. It doesn’t matter, freezing is better than boiling. The cars on the street start getting backed up and I notice a large group of people heading my way. A Catholic funeral procession it turns out, walking in the middle of the street behind a pick up truck with a coffin in the back. The people in the procession are block traffic as they go, unphased by the honk of a few frustrated drivers and greet each other as they make their way down the street. My ice cream all but gone, I look along the curb for an imaginary public trashcan and instead make eye contact with a crazy man crouched on the sidewalk masturbating. Slightly horrified, I pick up the pace and realize I’ve seen the same sight in Washington, DC. I think to myself it might just be easier to be mentally ill in Senegal than in our nation’s capital.
Back in the village that afternoon, I stop by the Zebrabar, my neighborhood campement that serves that cold treat that ice cream will never be—beer. I’m enjoying my book over a Gazelle, the bottle’s generous sweat being absorbed by my cardboard coaster. A few other customers are on the veranda, a Frenchman and his Senegalese wife with a friend, and two British guys about my age who have rented bicycles from Saint Louis and have made a day out of it. A blue Volkswagon bus with German plates pulls in with a big yellow sun and puffy, happy clouds painted on it. I hear the driver, the Dad of a family on vacation I guess, struggle in French to ask on of the employees where they can camp. They make a loop around the grounds, pick a spot, drive into it, then somehow decide against it and back out, moving a few yards further away. The mother and kids hop out and start to unload the van as the dad heads over to the counter to pay and get squared away.
Over the sound of the mother speaking to a teenage daughter and son, I hear a strange grunting and hissing followed by what almost sounded like a baby’s belly laugh. The othe customers are all staring in the direction of the van and I hear the mother yell, “Alexandra, cum heya!” I see a second daughter lumbering away from the van. She is disfigured, clearly developmentally disabled, maybe 13 or 14 years old. Her face is red and her features crowded. She is on a long green leash and I can see she’s wearing a diaper beneath her shorts. I swallow. Ndeye, one of the Zebrabar employees, calls me over and asks me to translate for the father. His English is much better than his French and I learn that he has always dreamed of driving from their home in Munich to Dakar and back. Two weeks into their month long adventure and they are spending a night or two in Mouit on their way back up to Mauritania. I explain the prices and facilities to the man and sit back down to my beer.
Another employee named Omar passes by and I stop him to talk about an idea he had mentioned to me about designating a landfill for the Gandiol region where we live, in a section of the sand quarry outside of the village. Martin, the owner of the Zebrabar, had showed up to my house a week earlier as I was having coffee, saying he needed my help to get his dump truck out of the mud. It had rained quite a bit the night before and the dump truck, a heavy duty 4x4 vehicle, had sunk to the axle in an area Martin passed through regularly on his way to the quarry for loads of sand. I helped him set a cable and winch to pull the beast out of the mud, and then followed him in his Land Rover to the quarry and back to the Zebrabar. Peace Corps forbids volunteers from driving but I wasn’t going to leave him in a bind. Omar road shotgun with me that day and remarked how amazing it was that every Toubab knows how to drive.
Back at the bar, Omar and I agree to talk further about his garbage plan with the Eco Guards at the park. I’m back to my beer again for ten minutes until he calls me over to translate again with the German family as they’re setting up their tents.
“Mansour I want you to tell them that I don’t know what is wrong with their daughter, but I know that if they take her to the marabout in Touba that he will be able to heal her.” Omar repeats this in French to make sure I’ve understood him. As he speaks, the father and mother look on expectantly, waiting for me to translate.
The transition from Omar speaking to me translating feels like an eternity passing in my mind. In the space of that disparate moment I am almost outside myslef admiring from a distance the awkward, culturally discordant dilemma in which I have been inescapably caught. What do you do in a situation like this? Clearly I don’t want to offend the parents or have Omar offend them, but he is genuine in his belief about the power of his marabout. At the same time I don’t want to insult Omar by explaining that in Western culture it is inappropriate to broach this type of subject. I also don’t want to betray everyone by lying or modifying what Omar has said. So I say it word for word as I feel blood rush to my face. The father responds defensively that Alexandra suffers from a genetic disorder that has afflicted her since birth. The mother calmly eyes her husband, nodding at an explanation I know they have given hundreds of times. I look down for a moment as the father speaks. My eyes trace designs in the sand, but I can see the father, Omar, and Alexandra all at the same time with perfect clarity. Did I do the right thing?
Before translating for Omar I try to explain to the father that the Senegalese believe without a doubt in the power of mysticism and the marabouts who practice it. This is a culture who wear “gris-gris;” talismen and charms to protect them from evil spirits and bodily harm. The Senegalese also are not raised to value “tact” as we know it. If you are fat they will say, “Man, you are really fat,” without reservation or shame. If I ever have a pimple on my face, people will come up to me, point their finger at it and say “Why do you have that button on your face Mansour?” In other words, while I was shrinking in embarrasment at Omar’s comment, he was simply acting normally and trying to help.
The parents, I hope, don’t take offense, and I try to remark at the differences in culture, laughing a bit sheepishly. When I translate for Omar I try to explain that for Toubabs it is taboo to speak so directly about sensitive issues, but he doesn’t grasp it. I try to rephrase what I’ve said but I start thinking to myself that I sort of agree with the Senegalese approach more. Maybe sensitive or taboo subjexcts wouldn’t be as embarrassing if we spoke about them.
Difficult or uncomfortable moments I think are often the most valuable, and I feel lucky to be be able to grasp the two perspectives to this situation in my culturally and linguistically hybrid position. As if to confirm my unique footing between my two worlds, I am back to my beer chatting with the British guys when the three women from the kitchen call my name. They have spread a mat on the ground with a bowl of thieb and even though I’m not hungry, they won’t accept no for an answer, so I excuse myself from the conversation and take a spot around the bowl. “Eat up Mansour, you’re one of the family.”
Now if there’s one certainty in Senegal it’s that if someone says a person is coming now or will be right back, what they really mean is, “Sorry pal, he’ll be back sometime in the next hour if he comes back at all.” And waiting, no matter how much fuss you make, is all you can do. There’s no other employee, no manager to ask for, just Abdoulaye, and he’s gone home for lunch with my 5000cfa ($10) in his pocket. I’m sure it’s not intentional, but I have to wait. The situation brings to mind a book called The Village of Waiting, written by Dan Becker, a former PCV in Togo who described what it means to “wait a little longer” for me as I prepared to go to Senegal. The security guard senses my impatience and asks if I’m in a rush. As it turns out I’m not, but it’s the point that matters isn’t it? I launch into a diatribe questioning how Senegal can ever expect to be competitive in a modern world economy when this business is the standard just as Abdoulaye walks in. I look at him and smile.
“Oh Nat! If forgot your change. Wait just a second, I’ll be right back.” This is 25 minutes after my hour on the computer had expired. I think the vein in my forehead must have popped out because Abdoulaye looked at me and said not to worry about it, that I could pay him some other time when I had 300cfa in change.
Stepping into the oven of outside, I shake my head out of habit at my inconvenience, but I’m 10 ½ months beyond being incredulous anymore. Before heading for the garage and back to the village, I decide I deserve an ice cream and cold drink. I’ve never had a sweet tooth, but the attaya turns you into a junky and it was the “ice” more than the “cream” that I’m really after. I head over to the Leader Price, the refrigerated boutique wonderland attached to a Mobil station, and Senegal’s closest thing to a Quicky Mart.
My first experience with a Leader Price was in Thies during my first two months in country. I walk into the shop, at home in the familiarity of junk food, drink cases, and fluorescent light. Then I hear, “Kai an!—Come eat lunch!” In the corner, the cashier and two gas station attendants are sitting on the floor around a bowl of thiebujen (rice and fish), business at a halt for lunch. Their polite gestures for me to join them are somehow lost in a culture shocked moment where I imagine three American Mobil station employees eating thieb and telling me to come eat lunch with them next to the bucket of Red Bull.
My vanilla ice cream bar with chocolate almond frosting is melting fast as I walk towards the garage and I get brain freeze through my teeth from eating it too fast. It doesn’t matter, freezing is better than boiling. The cars on the street start getting backed up and I notice a large group of people heading my way. A Catholic funeral procession it turns out, walking in the middle of the street behind a pick up truck with a coffin in the back. The people in the procession are block traffic as they go, unphased by the honk of a few frustrated drivers and greet each other as they make their way down the street. My ice cream all but gone, I look along the curb for an imaginary public trashcan and instead make eye contact with a crazy man crouched on the sidewalk masturbating. Slightly horrified, I pick up the pace and realize I’ve seen the same sight in Washington, DC. I think to myself it might just be easier to be mentally ill in Senegal than in our nation’s capital.
Back in the village that afternoon, I stop by the Zebrabar, my neighborhood campement that serves that cold treat that ice cream will never be—beer. I’m enjoying my book over a Gazelle, the bottle’s generous sweat being absorbed by my cardboard coaster. A few other customers are on the veranda, a Frenchman and his Senegalese wife with a friend, and two British guys about my age who have rented bicycles from Saint Louis and have made a day out of it. A blue Volkswagon bus with German plates pulls in with a big yellow sun and puffy, happy clouds painted on it. I hear the driver, the Dad of a family on vacation I guess, struggle in French to ask on of the employees where they can camp. They make a loop around the grounds, pick a spot, drive into it, then somehow decide against it and back out, moving a few yards further away. The mother and kids hop out and start to unload the van as the dad heads over to the counter to pay and get squared away.
Over the sound of the mother speaking to a teenage daughter and son, I hear a strange grunting and hissing followed by what almost sounded like a baby’s belly laugh. The othe customers are all staring in the direction of the van and I hear the mother yell, “Alexandra, cum heya!” I see a second daughter lumbering away from the van. She is disfigured, clearly developmentally disabled, maybe 13 or 14 years old. Her face is red and her features crowded. She is on a long green leash and I can see she’s wearing a diaper beneath her shorts. I swallow. Ndeye, one of the Zebrabar employees, calls me over and asks me to translate for the father. His English is much better than his French and I learn that he has always dreamed of driving from their home in Munich to Dakar and back. Two weeks into their month long adventure and they are spending a night or two in Mouit on their way back up to Mauritania. I explain the prices and facilities to the man and sit back down to my beer.
Another employee named Omar passes by and I stop him to talk about an idea he had mentioned to me about designating a landfill for the Gandiol region where we live, in a section of the sand quarry outside of the village. Martin, the owner of the Zebrabar, had showed up to my house a week earlier as I was having coffee, saying he needed my help to get his dump truck out of the mud. It had rained quite a bit the night before and the dump truck, a heavy duty 4x4 vehicle, had sunk to the axle in an area Martin passed through regularly on his way to the quarry for loads of sand. I helped him set a cable and winch to pull the beast out of the mud, and then followed him in his Land Rover to the quarry and back to the Zebrabar. Peace Corps forbids volunteers from driving but I wasn’t going to leave him in a bind. Omar road shotgun with me that day and remarked how amazing it was that every Toubab knows how to drive.
Back at the bar, Omar and I agree to talk further about his garbage plan with the Eco Guards at the park. I’m back to my beer again for ten minutes until he calls me over to translate again with the German family as they’re setting up their tents.
“Mansour I want you to tell them that I don’t know what is wrong with their daughter, but I know that if they take her to the marabout in Touba that he will be able to heal her.” Omar repeats this in French to make sure I’ve understood him. As he speaks, the father and mother look on expectantly, waiting for me to translate.
The transition from Omar speaking to me translating feels like an eternity passing in my mind. In the space of that disparate moment I am almost outside myslef admiring from a distance the awkward, culturally discordant dilemma in which I have been inescapably caught. What do you do in a situation like this? Clearly I don’t want to offend the parents or have Omar offend them, but he is genuine in his belief about the power of his marabout. At the same time I don’t want to insult Omar by explaining that in Western culture it is inappropriate to broach this type of subject. I also don’t want to betray everyone by lying or modifying what Omar has said. So I say it word for word as I feel blood rush to my face. The father responds defensively that Alexandra suffers from a genetic disorder that has afflicted her since birth. The mother calmly eyes her husband, nodding at an explanation I know they have given hundreds of times. I look down for a moment as the father speaks. My eyes trace designs in the sand, but I can see the father, Omar, and Alexandra all at the same time with perfect clarity. Did I do the right thing?
Before translating for Omar I try to explain to the father that the Senegalese believe without a doubt in the power of mysticism and the marabouts who practice it. This is a culture who wear “gris-gris;” talismen and charms to protect them from evil spirits and bodily harm. The Senegalese also are not raised to value “tact” as we know it. If you are fat they will say, “Man, you are really fat,” without reservation or shame. If I ever have a pimple on my face, people will come up to me, point their finger at it and say “Why do you have that button on your face Mansour?” In other words, while I was shrinking in embarrasment at Omar’s comment, he was simply acting normally and trying to help.
The parents, I hope, don’t take offense, and I try to remark at the differences in culture, laughing a bit sheepishly. When I translate for Omar I try to explain that for Toubabs it is taboo to speak so directly about sensitive issues, but he doesn’t grasp it. I try to rephrase what I’ve said but I start thinking to myself that I sort of agree with the Senegalese approach more. Maybe sensitive or taboo subjexcts wouldn’t be as embarrassing if we spoke about them.
Difficult or uncomfortable moments I think are often the most valuable, and I feel lucky to be be able to grasp the two perspectives to this situation in my culturally and linguistically hybrid position. As if to confirm my unique footing between my two worlds, I am back to my beer chatting with the British guys when the three women from the kitchen call my name. They have spread a mat on the ground with a bowl of thieb and even though I’m not hungry, they won’t accept no for an answer, so I excuse myself from the conversation and take a spot around the bowl. “Eat up Mansour, you’re one of the family.”
posted by Nat Parker | 8:16 AM
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