Closer to the Real Thing

2007-04-25T04:28:00.000-07:00

Back to Salone

Two years ago in my friend Paul’s basement, I looked at his big Michelin map of West Africa and imagined my future in that mysterious place as he told me incredible stories from his past. Paul served two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone and I was about to leave for Senegal to do the same twenty years later. His account of living in a rustic village on the ocean and adventuring through extraordinary situations that only the vivid landscapes and eclectic people of West Africa could produce appealed to me on a visceral level.

I listened with an expectant grin on my face as Paul told me about an acid fueled motorcycle trip he and his friend Kim took around the Freetown peninsula that brought them from a monkey massacre to sketchy police checkpoints. Rounding a corner on their Honda 125s, the countryside broke to reveal dozens of green colobus monkeys swinging slowly in the wind, their tales and limp arms bound around a rough wooden pole. Bare-chested men with machetes smoked cigarettes and stared at them with bloodshot gazes as they drove by. I tried to imagine this bush meat slaughter through LSD eyes but snapped out of it as Paul went on to describe how at a police stop soon after, they had to bribe an officer with a few shots of whiskey to carry on. By the time they left, they had joined him in finishing the bottle, toasting the health of their families, the police force, and the enduring friendship between Sierra Leone and the United States.

Before I left the states Paul gave me the Michelin map. It had hung on his wall during the Peace Corps, and now it would hang on mine. With a strong pat on the back he said he knew exactly what I was about to get into. During my stint in Senegal we have kept in touch over email. A few weeks ago I got a message: would I be interested in joining him and his old pal Kim for a trip to Sierra Leone? It would be their first time back to “Salone” since the Peace Corps. Within a week I bought a plane ticket and was memorizing the few Krio phrases in my Lonely Planet guide to West Africa as I studied Sierra Leone on the aged map in my hut, now well into its second tour on the continent.

From the moment we stepped onto the plane that would take us from Dakar to Sierra Leone—an ancient Bellview Airways 737 aptly named “Faith”—Paul and Kim were giddy. They were already speaking their rusty Krio with other passengers, their senses at greater attention. This seemed at surprising odds with the generous amount of valium they were ingesting, though perhaps that made it all the more impressive. Paul had twisted my arm at more than one pharmacy in Dakar to help him procure the better quality, French Laroche 10mg tablets, a cut above the Valium 5s he and Kim used to swear by in Sierra Leone.

As we made our descent into the Lungi airport I remarked how wild the country looked from the air- thick forest dotted with mudbrick homes, mangroves rooted along a vast network of rivers snaking to the sea, and a noticeable absence of pavement.

The airport was more like an airstrip, but once inside the terminal, the reunion was already underway. The village where Paul lived is only two kilometers from the airport, and after he dropped a few names, employees at the security check had heard of “Mistah Paul” and responded to his “I done com’ back for see you!” with laughter and 30-second handshakes. Kim chatted as casually as he could with the director of airport security, a tough looking man dressed in a silk zebraprint shirt who was certain that several Peace Corps volunteers were agents for the CIA. Kim did his best to assure him that we were nothing more than harmless tourists, but he kept looking at us suspiciously even as he let us pass.

Just before leaving, Paul asked if anyone remembered a man named Samba, who used to be the airport expeditor for the US embassy when Paul was in Salone, and his best friend. “He still working here Mistah Paul!” exclaimed one of the men, and offered him his cellphone after bringing up Samba’s number from his contacts. Paul broke into his uproarious big man laugh and made arrangements to meet up with Samba in another hour at our hotel.

They sat next to each other like matching book-ends pushed together after years on opposite sides of a dusty shelf. The same age and same build—short and stocky with healthy beer guts—Paul and Samba smiled at how much had happened and yet how little had changed in the 20 years since they last saw each other. They kept smacking each other’s prominent bellies saying, “You have the bigger bo-bo belly!” The expression I learned, refers to the distended stomachs of the many malnourished Sierra Leonian children, or bo-bos.

We sat in the lounge of the airport hotel and drank Star beer while Paul and Samba reminisced about getting drunk together and chasing women, catching up on two decades separated not just by time and distance, but by war. Next to us a British Airways flight crew in bathing suits and flip flops quietly sipped daquiris, obviously fascinated by the reunion of these two old friends, and by Paul’s gregarious, if at times stammering Krio. We invited them to join us for lunch in town but they gave a reluctant no thanks, saying they were prohibited by the airline from leaving the hotel, and bring all of their own food with them. Prisoners for their own safety apparently.

Samba took us to a local chop house for spicy groundnut soup with mystery meat. He carried a large plastic jug of “poyo” or fresh palm wine that he had brought for the occasion. “From God to man,” Kim toasted as we raised our effervescent glasses of milky white brew for a quick clink. I drank eagerly and as the subtle but warm buzz of the poyo took its place at the table after three glasses, so did a sense of gentle euphoria, and I understood why the palm-wine drinkard in Amos Tutuola’s book was named the “father of the gods who could do anything in this world.” The moment faded when Paul produced a bottle of Purell to wash our hands before the meal as well as a packet of “Wet-Ones,” a brand of moist towelettes for a gentler wipe after the “runny belly” he assured me we would all enjoy that afternoon.

Sure enough, each of us frequented the hotel bathroom after lunch while Samba waited for us in the bar. Stomachs full and bowels empty, we climbed into Samba’s embassy rig and drove to Paul’s village, Mahera. The road was rutted and bumpy from last year’s long rainy season. Paul narrated who had lived where, pointing out the curve in the road where he crashed his motorcycle, rermarking how the mosque was now a ghost of its former self. We ascended a short grade and pulled up to a house perched on the edge of a ridge overlooking the ocean, Pauls’s old house.

We got out and walked around the place, a well built one story building with two identical sides separated by a large patio. We listened to Paul as he pointed to his old garden and told us how he had killed more than green mamba snakes with his shovel. Behind the house we found a hesitant woman with three children at her side cooking cassava leaf and rice. She said that Paul’s old Ma and Pa had passed away years ago, though not because of the war. Paul asked after Sadiki, who at the time was his six year old host brother. Still in the village, now with wife and child the woman said. “You don’ tire for no see him Mistah Paul.”

We walked through Mahera and found Sadiki. As he and Paul looked at each other and embraced, Kim and I covered up our glassy eyes with our cameras. I tried to imagine walking into my own village in Senegal twenty years from now. Sadiki and his wife were living in a scene straight out of an Oxfam advertisement or commercial for Chrisitan Children’s Fund. Their mud house was crumbling and had no more furniture than a mattress on the ground for the three of them to sleep on, a few plastic buckets and piles of scrap wood and metal, and a copy of the Koran sitting on a wooden chair in the corner. The place smelled of cooking smoke and earth, a humid and heavy feeling to the air.

As Sadiki showed us his home and took us on a walk through the onion fields and along the beach past Shacka Steven’s old presidential rest house, Paul whispered to me that he just didn’t think he would find Sadiki like this. As the older brother to this man who at the time was just a boy, Paul felt somehow responsible and would spend the rest of our vacation thinking of the best way to help Sadiki. “Should I just give him a handful of cash?” he wondered. I said, “Do you want to give him money or do you want to be involved in his life again?”

On the day Paul left Mahera to return to the US twenty years ago, he looked for Sadiki to say goodbye and found him crying high up in one of the palm trees. On this day, as we left at dusk for our hotel, Paul promised him that he would help him however he could. Sadiki just smiled and shook Paul’s hand, saying, “Tank you Mistah Paul.”

We took the ferry across the bay to Freetown with second class berths. Packed closely among other passengers and baskets of produce and fish, we watched the high hills of the south side of the peninsula materialize through the haze. Crawling through traffic on the streets of Freetown we watched banks, barbershops, hardware stores and even a law school bustle with activity. Police wearing blue shirts with white sleeves worked to direct the congestion while troops of girls in their school uniforms of white blouses, pleaded skirts, and smart English hats paraded down the streets. The smell of pepper, fish, and warm sewage captured my nose while the tempo of post-war Sierra Leonian music set the pace for a long, humid day.

Between shelled out or burned buildings children played marbles, women cooked cassava or potato leaf, and men sat with one another chatting. I noticed several Lebanese shopfronts selling used CDs and worthless knick-knacks and wondered how they were making any money. I mentioned this to Paul and he said that many of them are fronts for trafficking diamonds and other gems harvested in the upline provinces near Kenema. Hearing our conversation, the taxi driver asked if we were interested in buying any diamonds, saying he could get us a good price. Though the flow of diamonds was greatly curtailed by the war, he said investment in the trade is back on the rise and the availability of the stone became as obvious in the rest of the capital as it was in our cab.

The movie “Blood Diamond” has introduced much of the world to Sierra Leone, or at least to the horrors that it suffered during its senseless and brutal war, 1991-1999. With no political objective whatsoever, the RUF rebels systematically murdered and tortured thousands as they took over the one source of wealth and power- the “blood” diamonds- in what ranks as the world’s second poorest country.

The money the RUF reaped from the diamond trade, estimated at between $25 million and $125 million per year, was used to buy weapons and continue their war. The rebels often resorted to the ruthless tactic of amputating the limbs of innocent civilians in order to terrorize the population and ensure continued control over the diamond mines. It’s estimated that over 75,000 people were killed during the war and another 20,000 mutilated.

The war’s legacy is no more evident than in its victims’ poignant struggle to continue living. In downtown Freetown near the famous 500 year old cottonwood tree, war victims held out stumps with smiles, congregating together to beg for change. Many people were still bandaged, a sign of the sickening recentness of the RUF’s campaign of atrocities. On the outskirts of Freetown near Waterloo, amputees have been moved to rehabilitation housing projects safely hidden on the other side of the peninsula’s highest point, Signal Hill. Row after row of squat cement houses however, seemed little improvement over the shantytowns that house the impoverished and war refugees who never left Freetown after fleeing the country’s interior.

But in spite of the war, in the face of such poverty and loss, we were received with smiles and warm greetings at every turn. “Cooshay sah! How dee body?” When you ask the same, “I tell God tank-ee” is inevitably the reply. Kim had a response to the common question “How dee time sah?” that I thought was especially fitting- “Well I tank God sah but the struggle continues.”

As we made our way to the far side of the city near Aberdeen, we passed Lumley Beach, Paul and Kim’s favorite hangout as volunteers. What had been an open stretch of sand and ocean with a few rice shacks and beer stands is now a busy strip dotted with bars and restaurants, even a Chinese fast food place with an attached grocery store that advertised tofu. Paul and Kim could hardly believe how it had changed. Group after group of male expats-- mainly Brits and Lebanese-- sat with beers and bottles of liquor around plastic tables with Carlsberg and Guiness beach umbrellas. We caught glimpes of many of them fondling the prostitues on their laps as we drove past the long row of their landcruisers and NGO 4x4s parked out front.

From Lumley, we drove up the hill to Lighthouse Rd. where we were staying. Sierra Leone may be one of the poorest countries in the world, but it is not cheap. An average room at a hotel ran anywhere between $70-$140. My being poor and Paul and Kim not being rich, we hooked up with another old Peace Corps volunteer named Gary Walker who served in Salone in the sixties, and who lives in Freetown. He offered to put us up at his home for free and we told God tank-ee.

Gary has lived off and on in Africa for over 40 years, working as a consultant for the UN, multiple governments, and various NGOs. His knowledge of the history of Sierra Leone and the rest of Africa was remarkable, and his broad collection of books complemented a wealth of intriguing experience dealing with African development, politics, and people. Like other expats I’ve met who have remained in West Africa for years, Gary was cynical about nearly everything we discussed, though equally passionate. An activist since his college years, he regarded history as a series of troubling and connected events in which corrupt and powerful people worked to suppress equality, democracy, and social progress for the advancement of their own control and affluence.

In the US Gary had been active in the civil rights movement, refusal of the draft during the Vietnam War, and establishment of the Voting Rights Act. He had spent most of his career traveling and working on projects across Africa, but was based out of Washington, DC. When George W. Bush was elected president, he sold his house and moved to Sierra Leone permanently. “I’ve never regretted that decision,” he said plainly.

Nor do the multitude of Sierra Leonians who Gary supports in some way or another. Over the course of our stay at his home, it became clear that “Pa Gary” employed a sizeable group of his neighbors as cooks, guards, water carriers, maids, handymen, and errand boys. He payed for their secondary education, he financed technical apprenticeships, he sent their children to the doctor, and literally paid for many of the zinc roofs above their heads. Between his bitching and moaning about how they were all fleecing him out of a small fortune, Gary showed a real love and concern for all of these people. All over his house on Lighthouse Rd. were pictures and carvings of lighthouses. All around Pa Gary were Sierra Leonians he helped through difficult waters.

After staying in Freetown for a few days we joined Gary for a trip to the Banana Islands, where in collaboration with the local community he has created an ecotourism campement, the Banana Islands Guest Houses. The islands themselves are nothing short of a hidden, tropical paradise; particularly after negotiating the crowds and stresses of Freetown. Three rugged atolls rise from the sea to form a steep green ridge of cottonwood and palm trees. Pockets of clean sand are nestled among rocks smoothed by countless tides. Terns and gulls divebomb schools of yellowfin tuna and grouper that congregate along the reefs and shipwrecks on the islands’ periphery. Here, local fishermen work adroitly from small wooden dugout canoes that bear slogans like “I hope to God,” and “Thank you Mother.” Besides Gary, we were the only white men to be found.

We sat down at white plastic tables looking out on the ocean in front of the guest houses and had a lunch of lobsters, jolof rice, and slightly chilled tall-boy beers. Paul and Kim couldn’t believe it. They had left the states not knowing what to expect in Salone, and never considered that they would be eating like kings along an idyllic beach on these beautiful islands.

That, of course, is exactly what Gary is counting on as he works to develop the Banana Islands campement and promote it to the flow of tourists coming back to Sierra Leone with the war finally over. When we visited, the guest houses had only been in business for two weeks, but the operation was impressive, especially considering its remote location and novice employees, many of whom had never left the island. While the staff still have much to learn, the fresh seafood was delicious.

Paul, Kim, and I took long walks along the island. In the main village of Dublin we passed by ornate iron lamposts and a boat landing constructed by the Portuguese when they landed on the islands and created a settlement over a century ago. Children still pulled water from the colonists’ deep well. This small Krio community felt initimate and archaic, made up mostly of fishermen and their families who had been on the islands for generations. We were only 2km by sea from Kent on the mainland and another hour’s drive to Freetown, but couldn’t have felt any farther away.

On one afternoon we followed a series of well worn footpaths through the forest to a large stretch of gorgeous beach. We sat in the shade under a tree at the far end of the sand and reflected on how beautiful the place was. Kim told Paul to go down by the water so he could get a picture of him. Paul approached the surf, hesitated for a moment, and then bent over to pick something up.

“Dudes, holy shit. Look at this.” In his hand were two plastic Barbie-Doll arms that had washed up on the beach. The incongruity of these plastic limbs in our little piece of paradise was not without a disturbing sense of irony. The sight of them was a strange and chilling reminder that plenty of people in this beautiful country had met a similar fate during the war.

Walking back to the campement, we met a fisherman named Mr. Dalton standing in front of his home, a classic Krio wooden building with a pitched tin roof. He introduced us to his son Dalton Jr. and his daughter Daltonia. Evidently old English names like Dalton and Johnson survived on the island for good reason. Mr. Dalton told us that during the war the island received thousands of refugees who fled the Freetown Peninsula during the RUF’s assault on the capital. The islanders could do nothing but take in all those who came and hope that the war would come to an end soon.

Back at the guest houses we found a tailor hunched over his sewing machine working on uniforms for the employees. “Only 20 to go,” he said. He told us he was happy to have all the work and that Pa Gary was a blessing to the people of the Banana Islands. He had given them opportunity to improve their lives and develop their community. He said his family would have been proud of him for making money now, but they were all gone—his mother, brother, and aunt killed by the rebels.

And though the war in Sierra Leone is certainly over, the presence of its perpetrators remains. While the leaders of the RUF rebels are in prison and await trial before international war tribunals, their legion of soldiers have been disarmed and reintegrated into the population. I asked most people I met if this process of reconcilitation bothered them and they said, “What else are you to do with people who are your brothers?”

We said goodbye to Gary and the Banana Islands and headed back through Freetown to catch the ferry. Our taxi driver wished us well and dropped us in front of a roadside bar where we could wait for the boat, a small piece of calm among the madness of the port. Three short cinderblock walls with a sheet for a roof shielded us from the chaos outside as we sipped cold Stars. We toasted to an excellent trip.

As we raised our bottles, a large man dressed in all black walked in on the scene. He wore mirrored sunglasses that reflected my own image as I looked up at him. Immediately, and for no obvious reason, my stomach dropped. The man’s fierce muscularity and the way he looked at us from behind those sunglasses made me nervous.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To Lungi,” I said.

“I will drive you in my taxi when we get to the other side,” he stated flatly and put his bag on the bench next to ours. Paul told him we had other arrangements already.

“Then buy me a beer,” he said and moved in front of Paul. Everything about his tone, his rigid body language, and his aggressiveness were enough to make Paul stand up, while Kim and I looked quickly at each other and moved onto the edge of the bench.

“You go on now leave us here,” Paul said as he squared his shoulders to the man, easily a foot taller than him. The man said nothing, just stared with a cold presence that I somehow knew to be capable of violence, perhaps even familiar with it. As I braced for action, a single thought crossed my mind: “Was this man a rebel?”
Paul repeated himself and the man produced a thin, toothless smile as he exhaled through his nose. He grabbed his bag and left. The three of us looked at one another and recognized the fear that had walked in and out of the confines of our small space. Rebel or not, there was no question that this was a bad man.

The tension passed and after we had another beer and Paul downed another valium, he said he was going to get some air and walked into the action on the street while Kim and I kept chatting. When a few minutes had gone by, I thought again of the threathening man and wondered about Paul. Kim seemed to know what I was thinking and got up to take a look onto the street. He scanned the crowd and then said, “Oh God, look at this.”

I looked out and saw Paul talking with two police officers and another man that I recognized as our taxi driver who had dropped us off at the port earlier.

“What is he doing?” I said and looked on with disbelief as Paul laughed and put his arms around the cops—one for each officer—and slapped their backs as he had mine at his house two years before. Kim started laughing and said that seeing this had reminded him of how back in their days as volunteers, Paul had bribed a police officer for his uniform, and then got in trouble for showing up at an official Peace Corps meeting wearing the thing, demanding to see people’s IDs. Just then Paul walked in with a huge grin on his face.

“Those cops were going to give our driver a parking ticket, and…”

“And Prince Valium had to save the day!” Kim interrupted. We all broke into laughter. As I thought to myself that some things obviously never change, the ferry blew its whistle and we were on our way.

2007-02-12T02:41:00.000-08:00

"If I had a choice between living an easy life or a difficult one, I would choose a difficult one."

"Why?"

"Because when tough times come I'll be able to say, 'I've been here before.'"

Clo-Clo Ba, my wise man friend

2007-02-12T02:39:00.000-08:00

Subtle Signs

Life's little secrets
Seep through the cracks
They enter in rays of light
And swirl in clouds of dust

The truth in a smile
An answer in a wink
The essence of what is
Sings through the rattles
Of life's little pieces

2007-01-28T09:06:00.000-08:00

In Senegal, cloths hanging to dry in the sun are like Tibetan prayer flags. Their colors and designs spread beauty in what can be a very dirty place. The country’s dusty roads, trash, feces, and other objectionable sights are pleasantly lost in washs of bright blue, red, orange, and white. Tie dye and batik abound.

The women sitting on the ground scrubbing fist over fist in soapy buckets add just as much color. They talk with one another, greet people passing by, all the while making a chorus of suds squirting from their efforts.

2007-01-21T03:36:00.000-08:00

Los Clandestinos

It was New Year’s in Granada, and I was already about two pigs into a ham filled holiday in Southern Spain. My girlfriend Erica and I were having wine and tapas at this little retro bar El Circulo, taking in the stylish Spanish people and their laid back, have a drink at 3PM attitude. We were unabashed tourists people-watching on vacation. A little draft of cold air rushed into the bar as the door opened. I look up and knew immediately the guy who entered was Senegalese, not just because of the silver bracelet and large gris-gris ring he wore, but because he was selling burned CDs out of a plastic bag. He didn’t say anything, just waved the disk jacket in front of one group of people after another who quietly demurred. I leaned over to Erica and whispered that he was Senegalese just as he made his way back out the door.

With our next round the door opened again and another Senegalese walked in with the same routine, the same product. He wore a hooded sweatshirt underneath a worn-in burgundy caftan. I was going to say something to the guy but decided against it when a customer wanted to know what CDs he had. I wanted to ask him about his history and see how he got to Spain. I also wanted to show off speaking Wolof in front of my girlfriend. The customer didn’t buy anything and I could tell that the Senegalese guy wanted to negotiate with him, offer a lower price, but I got the sense that his Spanish just wasn’t there. He moved on to the next bar and we moved on to another glass of wine.

Next the door at the far end of the bar opened to reveal a small Spanish man, smartly dressed in a sweater and sports jacket. His hair was greased back and he had the kind of beard that has five o’clock shadow by noon. In his hand was a wooden shoe-shine box, the telltale foot stool on the top doubling as a handle. The man’s eyes went to the floor and within seconds he made his way over to a group of three men wearing nice leather shoes. Mr. Shoeshine greeted them in Spanish and ordered a glass of sherry. By the time his drink was served, he had already begun on one of the man’s boots.

I sipped my wine and couldn’t help but reflect on the very different experience of the men I had watched sell their wares. Erica saw what I was thinking and said, “Looks a little easier for that guy, huh?” I made a faint smile and just shook my head.

As if on cue, the door opened again and a third Senegalese walks in with his plastic bag of CDs. I say “Oh my God” as I notice the bartender see him and swear under his breath. Coming into the bar I had noticed a sign saying you couldn’t sell things inside, something I wondered might be the result of the Senegalese vendors. Before the CD guy could follow the footsteps of the two others before him, I called him over to our table in Spanish. I felt the need to give this guy a reason to be in the bar. I asked him where he was from and he looked at me with the wrinkled brow of someone who may have had Survival Spanish at best. I ask him in Wolof and after the requisite “Toubab degg na Wolof deh” I bought him a Coke and he told me his story.

Mustapha Seck left Kaolack five months ago and paid 360,000 CFA to travel from Dakar to the Canary Islands on a pirogue with 60 other people, two 40 horsepower outboards, and enough thieb for the nine day voyage. Thanks be to God, the ocean was calm for the entire trip. In the Canaries, Mustapha spent just under a week with the Red Cross where he and the others were processed and given blankets, sweatshirts, and food. He was then flown to mainland Spain where he appeared before a magistrate and was able to point to two other Senegalese he had been in touch with from the get-go, also from Kaolack, who already had legal residency and work permit cards, and who could vouch for his care. He came to Granada because, quite simply, he was told there was work.

His current job was buying burned CDs for a euro and selling them for three. Not a bad profit margin I thought, but it didn’t seem like it was going all that well. He said he was glad to be there even if the work was tough. “God is good,” he laughed.

I found myself wanting to consult with this guy as if I were back in Senegal, quiz him on the market for burned CDs in Spain, ask about other enterprises, but the moment passed.

Over the course of my vacation throughout Andalusia, in nearly every city we visited, I encountered Senegalese immigrants working hard, including two women. They sold purses and belts, makeup, African masks, paintings, and necklaces. All who I spoke with were glad to be in Spain, glad to be making money. Many of them were legal residents who had been there for years. Others like Mustapha were relatively fresh off the boat.

Senegal it would seem, has become Spain’s Mexico. Each conversation I had with a Senegalese immigrant made that much more striking the parallels between their situation and those of Mexicans and other Latinos I’ve worked with in the US. They were making it any way they could, living too many to an apartment, and dealing with discrimination and legal issues. Yet in spite of the difficulties they were incredibly positive and kind.

On my Iberia flight back to Senegal we made a stop in the Canary Islands to refuel and pick up more passengers. It was dark as we made our approach but I looked carefully along the coastline to see if I could spot some sign of the thousands of Senegalese who have landed here in their journey to mainland Spain. I couldn’t make out a whole lot, but I did get a new neighbor for the last leg to Dakar, a Toucouleur man from Velingara who had been working in Barcelona for 15 years. Both his Wolof and French were about as bad as my Pulaar, so we spoke in Spanish about his time in Spain and his thoughts on immigration.

He loosened his tie and settled into his chair, laying his meaty forearm on the armrest between us. He was lucky he said. In his situation, with his family living in a comfortable apartment in Barcelona, his children had been born and raised bilingual, with the same rights and opportunities as other Europeans. He said that he felt sorry for the plight of other Senegalese risking their lives in pirogues to have a life like his, but how could he blame them?

As our plane neared Dakar our flight attendant, Isabella, passed out immigration cards for us to fill out before arrival. Before take-off, I had enjoyed watching this beautiful and perfectly put together woman nearly unravel as she tried in vain to make all the Senegalese passengers sit in their assigned seats. My neighbor handed me his passport and with a big smile asked me to fill out his card. This same man who had successfully emigrated with his family to Barcelona, and who spoke beautiful Spanish, could not read or write. I had this experience before traveling from Senegal so his illiteracy wasn’t a surprise, but as I filled out his card I smiled and thought to myself, “Damn these people are tenacious.”

Back in Mouit at my site in the national park my colleagues greeted me with that African warmth I had really missed in Spain. They were genuinely amused by how I was now a few shades lighter from my time in the cold of Europe. They even “toubabed” me affectionately.

My counterpart Arona seemed a bit down though, so I took him aside to ask what was up. His cousin had died the day before yesterday he said. I asked him what happened. His cousin had left Dakar only a few weeks earlier on a pirogue for Spain. Somewhere off the coast of Western Sahara, the boat began to take on water and two of the passengers got high fevers. The captain decided to turn around and head back to Dakar. Two days later both men died en route and Arona’s cousin had to help throw the bodies overboard. Soon after he too fell ill. The boat made it to Dakar and Arona’s cousin, by this time in very bad shape, was brought to the hospital. He lived another six days, long enough to tell of his ordeal before dying in his hospital bed. He was 21 years old.

I wanted to console Arona as this awful story lingered in my mind, but it was so prescient just having been to Spain that I kept quiet. I think my mouth sort of hung open a bit. Then he tells me this was his cousin’s second time making the voyage! On his first attempt he made it to the Canaries, but was returned to Senegal by plane as part of the new effort at repatriating Senegalese immigrants.

“It was his destiny Mansour,” Arona concluded. I couldn’t say anything. For some reason all I could think about was Mustapha Seck trying to sell his CDs at the bar in Granada.

Destiny is both fascinating and troubling, whatever its veracity. I’ve often wondered why it was my destiny to be born an American, rich and blessed, educated and healthy, when I consider the challenges and lack of means most Senegalese have to meet them. I get frustrated trying to figure out what to do with my life, choosing among all the possibilities my apparent problem. Most Senegalese on the other hand, will do whatever they can so long as it means making money. Listening to Arona, I realized my trip to Spain was a casual vacation to the promised land his cousin just died trying to reach.

I don’t know what the solutions to clandestine immigration are but I feel confident that people from poor countries will keep trying to get to rich countries, even if that means risking their lives. Their struggle is a poignant indicator of the economic disparities between countries of the North and South and amid their rich and poor.

It’s funny how when you are thinking a lot about something, it seems to manifest in your life all over the place. I went for a get back in the swing of things afternoon beer at the Zebrabar in my village still thinking about the clandestine connection between Senegal and Spain. What comes on the stereo? Manu Chao’s “Clandestino.” I listened, sat down, and opened my journal.

To a city of the north
I went to work
I left my life Between Ceuta and
Gibraltar
I’m a line in the sea
A ghost in the city
My life is forbidden
So says the authority

Alone I go with my sorrow
Alone goes my sentence
To run is my destiny
For having no papers
Lost in the heart
Of the great Babylon
They call me clandestine

2006-12-18T02:12:00.000-08:00

A fisherman in my village on the Senegal river at sunset

2006-12-18T02:03:00.000-08:00

Adama my host father preparing a lunch of grass for the sheep and Tabara his second wife sorting rice

My sister Penda making dinner. For the last 7 months she has been in The Gambia cooking for her brother Pape while he worked on a fishing boat there.

My two moms in our yard a typical afternoon. That's my house in the background with the door open.

Students in the Mouit elementary school

Ladies at the park preparing thiebujen for 50 people

2006-12-18T01:54:00.001-08:00

Sunrise at the Biological Station in the Djoudj National Park for migratory birds

My counterparts at the Langue de Barbarie National Park during our monthly bird count

Men of my village making their way from the mosque to the cemetery for a burial

Two talibes, boys who study at Koranic school by evening and beg for alms all day. They come to my door every morning for part of my breakfast baguette.

2006-12-18T01:54:00.000-08:00

2006-12-18T01:51:00.000-08:00

Striking a balance between natural resource conservation in Africa and their traditional use by local populations is one of the greatest challenges in managing the continent’s national parks and other protected areas. In fact most national parks in Africa,while touted in the West for preserving scarce or endangered flora and fauna, are often regarded with resentment and uncertainty by local communities. In creating parks and reserves, many countries have forcibly removed entire villages from within their limits to new locations along their periphery. Traditional hunting, fishing, logging, and fruit gathering is often limited or even outright banned.

In Senegal, natural areas are managed by the Department of National Parks, a pseudo military organization staffed by wildlife experts and park agents who undergo military training and who are well armed not only to prevent poaching, but for national defense purposes as well. The Langue de Barbarie park along Senegal’s northern border with Mauritania, has a stock of automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades (RPG-7). With a war between Senegal and Mauritania only a decade old, this stockpile does not exist without precedent. Likewise, in the South of the country the Basse Casamance park, known for its thriving populations of monkeys and jaguar, has been closed to visitors for over a year as rebels in the region continue to wage a separatist “conflict” with the Senegalese military that has seen action in the park itself. Just this past summer, an American aid worker with the Red Cross who visited the park was killed by an antiperssonel landmine.

Rebellion and war, while serious threats in select areas, remain improbable scenarios in most of Senegal’s parks. Yet poaching and the everyday exploitation of resources for food, fuel, and medicine by local people persist as real challenges to park agents whose mandate is to protect biodiversity. At the Langue de Barbarie park, the situation is somewhat unique. Primarily a marine park created to protect populations of sea turtles and migratory birds in the Senegal River Delta, the ecosystem’s main threat is overfishing. But instead of forbidding fishing entirely, the Langue de Barbarie tolerates sustenance fishing by the local population. Unlike the commercial fishing that abounds off Senegal’s coast, sustenance fisherman bring home their take and sell their surplus to their neighbors. Everday, scenic expanses of the park are filled with dozens of fisherman along the river’s banks and in dugout canoes throwing their nets into picturesque waters.

At the park’s boundaries, small fishing camps have been set up along the beach where dozens of pirogues sit alongside one another before facing the waves and whitewater of the local sandbar to reach offshore fishing grounds. Here, catch limits do not exist and the piles of tuna, sharks, rays, eels, and other fruits de mer make obvious the distinction. The fisherman here know that within the park boudaries they cannot fill their nets as they can at the edges and their reactions to the regulations are mixed.
Some complain that the park benefits the toubabs, the white people only. They see its rules as an obstacle to an already precarious profession. Others think that the park is a good idea because it gives the fish a place to reproduce and grow. Still other fisherman within the park have adapted to the situation and now make money giving boat tours to tourists.

Surprisingly few however, mention the likely effects of the foreign commercial vessels, mostly Asian and European, that overshadow their artisanal Senegalese counterparts. The Senegalese government has sold lucrative offshore fishing rights to several countries hungry for the abundance of species on the West African coastline. Sadly, local fisherman and the population they feed may now be paying for it.

Africa’s protected areas and national parks may provide some indication of how developing countries deal with mounting pressures on natural resources. More mouths to feed and fewer fish to feed them is undoubtedly the trend places like Senegal will face in the years to come. An increase in deforestation coupled with the advance of the desert into sub-Saharan countries make the situation in Africa’s Sahel region that much more prescient. Parks and reserves may be able to stop local villagers from destroying vegetation or poaching sensitive species, but along their edges hungry people will continue to fish, hunt, and cut the wood they need to feed their families.

2006-12-09T08:54:00.002-08:00

I wake up every morning a white man in black Africa, a Westerner in a developing country. I am a stranger in a place that while completely foreign has felt somehow familiar to me since I arrived a year ago. I am not a tourist. Tourists here are like country club members in a bowling alley. They come to have fun, but only because it’s a novelty they can enjoy and safely escape from. I am not a missionary. The missionaries are much friendlier than I am, immediately your confidant and infinitely interested in you and your story. I am not a foreign aid worker either. They have 4x4s with drivers, houses with guards, budgets to spend and romantic expatriot lifestyles. I don’t live a rich lifestyle, but I do live an exciting one. I am a Peace Corps volunteer, representing the United States and its people and culture to Senegal, West Africa and hers.

My job is different than what most people would label a job because I can show up anytime I choose, and I always wear sandals. Making people laugh at me can be viewed as a good day at work, and not only do I not have a salary, but I am sometimes forced to beg my parents for an extra fifty dollars here and there to support my drinking habit and need for a steak once in a while. I am nearly untouched by deadlines, meetings, or accountability. My phone doesn’t ring, my inbox doesn’t chime with each new message, my ears don’t hear that faint hum of the fluorescent lights overhead. I am in a completely different world, off the grid, under the radar.

I am different than the other toubabs here, the white people. I am different because I speak the same language as the Senegalese people, and I don’t mean French, though I do speak French. I speak Wolof, the most prominent language among the more than 40 ethnicities that make up the country’s diverse population. Imagine 40 languages actually spoken in the US, where Italians would understand German, Mexicans would speak French, and Romanians would speak Mandarin. It’s like that here. You have your own language, be it Mandinka or Pulaar, but you understand many, Wolof being the most likely. Wolof sounds a lot like Clingon from Star Trek, glutteral and gruff, with lots of sounds like you’re hacking a loogey or suddenly getting choked halfway through a sentence.

Like in any other language, I learned the importance of being able to gesture and intone Wolof. The words say a lot, but the way you say them is crucial-- the trailing off of certain phrases, where to put the emphasis in “Thanks Be to God,” how to shake your finger at someone like you are angry at them. The effect is powerful. When you see a foreign traveller in the US, you expect they will speak English. You are not surprised much less impressed.

In Senegal however, a Toubab that speaks Wolof is an african dictator that imposes term limits. Disbelief is followed by laughter, humor is followed by admiration, appreciation is followed by offers of sisters or daughters for prospective wives (I can have up to four), even babies to take back to the US to raise as my own. Perhaps because of the adoption offers, I sometimes think about a chance meeting I might have with a celebrity one day back home, let’s say Brad Pitt. I tell Brad, “man I really know what’s it like for you, being stared at, wanted, offered babies, yet sort of lonely in your immense popularity.” He thinks I am crazy as any star would hearing this, but I really do know what it’s like to be a celebrity.

People here know my name and I have no idea who they are, and not just someone here or there. It happens all the time. “Mansour!” “Diop! Mansour Diop!” They greet me and know that I am the toubab that speaks Wolof. They know that I am different than the other toubabs. My name of course is not Mansour Diop, but in Senegal it is. It is tradition for a family to give you their last name, and as an adopted son in the home of my village host father Adama Diop, he named me after his brother Mansour.

Nobody knows Nat Parker, hell I’m not sure I know him so well anymore myself. But Mansour is prolific. He can dance like the Senegalese, he understands money problems in a way that the Senegalese recognize, he eats the same rice and fish they do every single day. Mansour has parasites just like the Senegalese, he takes bucket baths, and hold your breath for this one: he wipes his ass using water and his left hand, just like the Senegalese, just like the rest of the developing world. Nat Parker is not a bare-handed ass wiper. He never really liked fish either. He enjoyed fine bourbans and scotchs back home, iced and abundant. Here, Mansour reaches for a $3 bottle of Club 7 Whiskey and drinks it straight when he can afford it. Mmm mmm good.

I came to Africa to discover a new place and people, to adventure before a mortgage or marriage could hold me down. I chose to join the Peace Corps because I thought that I could do a better job of representing the United States to the world than the Bush Administration. The problem is that I work for Mr. Bush, and he decided that I would best represent the US to an unelectrified village of mostly illiterate and highly religious Senegalese farmers and fisherman. Not to be unhinged by such a post, I am over halfway through, and just ask anyone in Mouit, my little village on the Senegal River, what they think of the United States and they will say “I love America. Will you help me get to America? Can you get me a visa?” Of course I can’t take all the credit. Ironically, and the Bush Administration will be loathe to admit it, the Black rap community in the US may be one of our most effective diplomats in Senegal.

Just the other day my boss at the national park where I work called me into his office for what I had thought would be an assignment, maybe a translation request. Instead, he wanted me to watch “Clips,” a CD filled with video clips from American rappers. Each clip got progressively more American; the number of hot women dancing half naked multiplied, Beamers became Bentleys, and diamond encrusted necklaces were lost in crisp wads of hundred dollar bills. My boss, Sidibe, sat transfixed with a smile on his face. “I have to go to the US Mansour. If there is one thing I do in this life, it’s to go to the US.”

My approach for spreading democracy and American culture by contrast, is a little short on bling. I talk about America all the time, but my goal has been to demonstrate that Americans are just as interested in Senegal as Senegalese are taken with America. So I do my best at integrating into the Senegalese culture by attending baptisms, funerals, and all night Koranic chanting sessions with as much enthusiasm as my boss watching clips. I haven’t converted to Islam or married four wives (my host father Adama has three), but I live at least five days a week in my little village doing as they do, drinking tea, praising God, and training my counterparts in the national park in basic business skills. I knew I was doing something right when my village family stopped referring to me as a toubab and began calling me a white Wolof.

The other two days of the week, Friday and Saturday, I go to the city and drink cold beer, Club 7, and load up on protein. The four dollar steak and fries at one of my favorite restaurants speaks to me in a way that rice and fish never will. I am still Mansour when I go to town, but I am the city version of my village persona, rolling out phrases like “What up dog?” or “How’s your sex life?” to my city buddies just as easily as “The Lord be praised” or “God willing” in the village.

What I really like about this experience is that it allows me to play all kinds of different roles depending on my mood. I can talk about the onion harvest or daily catch with the people of my village in Wolof and the next day speak to French hotel owners about excessive taxes on tourism and government graft. I like debating development with NGO workers, what works better grassroots organizing or addressing systemic change? I enjoy arguing American politics with my Mauritanian jeweler friend who is a faithful follower of the BBC in Arabic. “It was your CIA that trained Osama Bin Laden Mansour, why do you think you can’t catch him?”

I keep up with my friends back home who are becoming rich, buying their first house, wondering where to spend their two week vacation this year. They seem envious of my unique lifestyle while I worry that I am falling behind the curve in advancing my career and saving for the future. I am all too certain that the American routine will catch up with me, but will it ever let them go?

My family worries about me unnecessarily, partly because that’s what families do, but also because they are just as ignorant to the realities of Africa as most Americans. They are intelligent people but will ask things like “What do people wear over there? Animal skins?” “You’re not near any cannibals are you?” or “Do you want me to send you peanut butter?” The last question may not be so dumb come to think of it.

My experience has been that Americans are only slightly more ignorant to the colonial history of French West Africa than we are to our own colonial history of western expansion and imperialism. People recognize with Sally Struthers like sympathy the rampant poverty of this place, the incessant violence and corruption that do exist. That we care about these issues greatly there is no question.

What we don’t realize I think, is how our own lifestyles and ignorance are in many ways responsible for the situation. How many Americans know what the World Trade Organization or International Monetary Fund really do? Most of us don’t realize that these American led groups maintain and perpetuate insurmountable debt in developing nations, debt that forms one of the primary obstacles to their very advancement out of poverty. The WTO and IMF give countries giant payday loans in the name of bolstering their economies and we wonder why the situation doesn’t get better. How does that happen?

But I don’t blame Americans for not fully understanding the situation over here. We are too busy trying to pay our own bills and take care of our own troubles to get personally involved in problems a continent away. Iraq has been a testament to that. I just want America to realize how much the Senegalese respect us and look up to us. We should guard that respect and try to earn more of it around the world. Maybe we could send more Peace Corps volunteers armed with “Clips” to other developing nations.

After over a year in this country battling the heat, the flies, and the runs, I realize that Senegal can teach America incredible lessons about what it means to be human. These people are poor, undereducated, and without real opportunities to better their lives. They carve out a living from the land, they sell cheap wares between row after row of cars stuck in traffic in Dakar, they work hard knowing it won’t be enough. Thousands of hopeful Senegalese are risking their lives every year by crowding into small fishing boats to brave the Atlantic and sneak into Spain to find work-- in the fields, cleaning office buildings, selling African masks and necklaces in weekend markets; basically anything. Senegal has become Spain’s Mexico, though so far there is no 700 mile wall planned for the border.

But amidst these struggles and in spite of them, the Senegalese are some of the happiest and friendliest people I have ever encountered. They have a great sense of dignity and take care of one another without question or condition. You always have a place to stay in Senegal, you are never without a bowl of rice at lunchtime. Strangers are always invited. The most important Senegalese value, teranga, translated roughly (remember Clingon) means hospitality. Clearly this is more than an ethos, it is a survival mechanism.

Before I left the US I had the distinct impression that there was a silent suffering among so many people I saw commuting to work, buying groceries, or watching their kids. They have homes, cars, education, healthcare, and most importantly opportunity, but something seems to be missing. I love the US, which is after all why I am in the Peace Corps, but is it possible that the American dream has gotten away from us? Could it be that as we acquire more and more we are growing somehow emptier? Maybe it’s possible that Senegalese teranga could be the answer to a disaffected America. Perhaps the wealth in community and kindness so abundant in this country could truly make our own that much richer.

2006-12-09T08:54:00.001-08:00

Banana Lady’s Baby

Hello Banana Lady’s Baby. I am not sure if you are a boy or girl, what your name is, or what your future holds but I saw you from a car as I passed on the street in Dakar. You sit snuggly against your mother’s back and bottom, wrapped in an old towel as she sells bananas from the platter on her head along the side of the main road through the city. You didn’t seem to notice, but there was an almost constant cloud of blue smoke from the beat up buses, cars, and motos that pass by you all day long. Your mom was working hard when I saw her, balancing you and her bananas, smiling and selling her produce to hungry passerbys as best she could. There were many other banana ladies at the same intersection, some with their own babies.

When I was a baby like you, I think I had a mobil and a quiet crib full of toys to keep me occupied. You have the horns, whistles, and shouts of a busy road and the motion of your mother’s back to take care of you. I don’t know what will happen to you, but I would guess that in just a few years you will still be with your mom, but her back will hold your little brother or sister then, and you will be selling bananas next to them. Will you go to school or will you work all day instead? I’m not sure, but I know that you will know what hard work is at a very young age. In fact, somehow you already do.

2006-12-09T08:51:00.000-08:00

Being a ten year old boy in Senegal does not involve daily games on an X-Box or Playstation. It resembles something more like a cross between Huckleberry Finn and The Jungle. Boys in particular, roam free in packs without supervision or rules. Armed with makeshift fishing poles village boys spend countless hours on the river or along one of the lagoons catching small carp or crabs. They swim, run, scream and fight with a Lord of Flies hierarchy, the older boys bossing and often beating the younger boys. They address each other as “Boy,” one of the distinct English additions to the Wolof vocabulary throughout Senegal. Coming home at sunset they are covered in sand and dried salt, grass stains in this case replaced by cuts from fishing hooks and shells.

When not in school or memorizing the Koran with the local marabout, the boys are sent by their fathers out to the fields to cut a rice sack full of grass each to feed the family sheep. Seeing them armed with machetes and sithes can make the hair on the back of your neck stick up for a moment when you witness their raw form of discipline among each other. During the growing season they spend at least an hour or two a day in the field pulling water from the wells to water the onion plots.

City boys, while usually governed by the same freedom, play different games and have it a bit tougher. They jump from the back of one bus to another, catching free rides for one block at a time, roaming boutique front foozeball tables with a gang like mentality. The pressure to do something to make some money for the family here is greater though. Ten year old boys in the city are just as likely to be working as going to school. They drive horse carts, transporting passengers, building materials, produce, and other boys. They sell peanuts and watermelons in the market from a stall, though more often and perhaps by nature, they roam the streets and market with some product to sell. Underwear, phone cards, bottles of water, and radios are common.

At the local Samsung store in Saint Louis, you can always count on seeing a crowd of boys pressed against the glass to watch the big color televisions inside the air-conditioned store. Soccer of course is their favorite thing to watch and certainly their game of choice. Cars fight for right of way among hoards of dusty boys playing soccer with rocks to mark off the sidelines and goal posts.

Young girls meanwhile, are more like indentured servants than their vagabond male counterparts. From morning until night, they are busy cooking, cleaning, and washing. The girls are often more physically built than the boys just because of the daily water pulling, lifting, and activity they grow up with. Village girls usually have a trace of wood smoke smell because of the time spent in the family cook sheds where they cook the rice and fish over wood that they have gathered from the bush themselves. They can clean a fish in record time and clean clothes so well that a washing machine seems a lazy excuse for the old fashioned fist after fist scrub in soapy water.

While the boys play soccer and go fishing, the girls spend hours playing with each other’s hair, braiding one piece of mesh after another to create quite exquisite dos. They play a game like parchisi and sit in the shade, lying on one another on plastic mats. All of them look after babies, often a five year old with an infant wrapped to her back, mothering it with great care.

Seeing all of this with my American eyes I can’t help but think that we are crazy and obsessed with our kids to the opposite extreme, looking out for every step, every breath they take. We are so involved I wonder if we stifle them somehow. The Senegalese model is no better though—I feel terrible seeing the distinct look of an adult in the eyes of so many children I see here. They know what it is to be in dire straights, to work hard, to have no choice. They grow up quickly in spite of their freedom to roam and play.

2006-11-11T07:05:00.000-08:00

The process of development is arguably one of the most difficult and painstaking projects imaginable. It really comes down to teaching an entirely foreign world view, set of concepts, culture, and language to a population steeped in centureies of tradition. Changing peoples' awareness is one thing, but modifying behavior is incredibly tough.

The language of development (action plan, accountability, time based goals and objectives, feasibility, indicators of success) and the endless flow charts and venn diagrams NGOs use to communicate these terms are as foreign to Senegalese villagers as eating with your right hand and wiping your ass with the left are to us.

Imagine you are at the meeting I am attending right now to create a community action plan. The room is filled with village chiefs wearing long kaftans, adorned with scarves, prayer caps, sunglasses, and big rings. Local fisherman with calloused hands and sandy feet are seated near the door. National park agents in full camoflauge fatigues sit near the front. Beyond them are the five white French experts in development and conservation , armed with power point presentations and notebooks, pens, and folders for an audience overwhelmingly illiterate. The room is hot and besides the Frenchman, no one is wearing deodorant.

As a sign in sheet is circulated, one of the local volunteers at the park follows it to write for those who don't know how, making sure they "sign," or make a scribble next to their names.

The objective of the meeting is to start the creation of a community driven plan for managing the national park; start an appropriate qualifier as making such a plan will take months. The presentation begins and after 30 seconds, the first Frenchman is interrupted by three latecomers who not only provide the expected "Salaam Allekum" to the group, but proceed to begin greeting members of the audience individually. The presenter is not pleased. I'm not surprised and sit back and wait. As presentation continues each bullet point of each slide must be translated. The translator steps in to say in Wolof what the Frenchman has just said, but to do so takes twice the time.

For instance action plan or "un plan d'action" in French would be translated in Wolof to "a conversation among all of us about what we want to do to change things here." The presenter seems frustrated but maybe it's just the heat.

2006-09-24T04:01:00.000-07:00

Day 6, Springlands Hotel, Moshi, Tanzania. We left camp around 8:00AM and in two hours made it to the park gate. The trail was a mud pit, slippery and thick. There were hand-built steps created with lengths of wood hammered into the ground that were the only thing that made the descent possible. I enjoyed the noticeable oxygen-rich air, dense with mist and the smell of organic matter.

At the park gate I signed the ledger and received an official certificate documenting my successful climb to the summit of the mountain. I paid 50 cents for a boy to wash the mud from my boots and gave my thermal long underwear, fleece, hat, socks, and shirts to the porters, August and Tyson, which they grabbed like the jackals who stole a lion’s lunch I would see later on the safari with my mom. Soon enough we were on our way back to the hotel.

At the hotel I pay Manase and Robert for their services, along with Katete, Paul (Tyson), August, and John, my four porters. Manase and I drink beer and Robert has a coke. In addition to my tip, I give Manase my ski pants and Robert my shell jacket. They will certainly use it more than me for the next year. After a nap and a shower I meet back up with Robert to go out for dinner in Moshi. We take a cab to a Nyama Choma restaurant, the Tanzanian version of a dibiterie, with grilled meats served with salt and hot pepper and pints of beer. A guy comes around with a basin and a kettle of hot water for you to wash your hands before diving into a bowl of meat. Maize is ground into a flower and made into a white past called ugali that you ball up and eat to accompany the meat. The goat we ate was delicious, the ribs my favorite part.

As we ate from the communal bowl, Robert’s father shows up. Apparently he lives just down the street. Robert greets him and hands him a 10,000 shillings note, about $8.75. Robert’s salary for the trip was a grand $30, plus my tip. According to Robert, his father will spend the money in no time on a local drink made from bananas and rum. The father takes my hand and says something that I don’t understand. Robert says he welcomes me to Tanzania and that I should come have a drink. I do my best to thank him with greasy hands and face.

That night I reflected on the year I have spent in Africa, enjoying the similarities I see in Senegal and Tanzania, savoring the differences. Like the rest of my time here, Kilimanjaro pushed me to my limits but offered some of the most beautiful views imaginable.

2006-09-24T03:54:00.000-07:00

Day 5 at Mweka Camp, 10,230 feet. I made it to the roof of Africa, summiting on Uhuru peak (19,453 feet) at around 5:30AM. Before leaving at midnight from Barafu camp, I tried to get some sleep but ended up getting more rest than sleep. It was windy as hell and my tent made this strange sound effect besides simple flapping, like someone pulling length after length of duct tape from a giant roll. I also got a nose bleed only minutes after writing about no altitude side effects. Still, at 11:30PM I was ready and enjoyed a cup of tea and some “biscoot,” or cookies before heading out into the dark. It was freezing and Manase and I both wore every layer we had, plus headlamps to light the way. Even in the darkness, the mountain stood clearly before us, enormous and intimidating. The trail out of Barafu climbs steeply and immediately up a talus slope before leveling off a bit for a more gradual climb on a compact trail. As we reached the top of the first rise, you could see the city of Moshi thousands of feet below, its green and yellow lights clear in the cloudless sky. Manase and I were making our steady polay polay pace but I realized it was faster than everyone else as we passed three groups on the way up. The moon was waxing at 3/4, and we were able to turn off the headlamps for a solid two hours. The climbing was really one step at a time now and I realized that I felt pretty tired. My toes were frozen and I kept wiggling them and stomping my boots to salvage some circulation, but with little success.

The wind let up a bit and I took in the beauty of nighttime shadows and moonlit illumination. The landscape was barren yet beautiful, rock overhangs and independent boulders picking up the light, breaking the horizon from the night. The stars were out in force but waiting for the moon to move on to really make a show. The trail became steep again for the final 1500 feet up to Stella Point, the false summit only 700 feet below Uhuru. It was at this point I started feeling the altitude more strongly. I felt slightly dizzy and a headache had crept up, strangely sitting at the back of my skull instead of up front or behind my eyes. Looking down onto the over 3000 feet of vertical we had made by Stella Point, I saw the headlamps of other climbers, little white dots that seemed to form a glow-worm or constellation of climbers against the dark. By Stella Point I was happy to be close to the summit, but feeling progressively worse. My stomach felt sick and the wooziness was there, but my breathing wasn’t especially labored, so I didn’t worry. I thought to myself that after a year in Senegal there’s no way an upset stomach was going to stop me. We kept moving and when Manase asked how I felt, he simply said, “Hakuna matata,” no problem, and we moved on towards Uhuru. Physical challenges like this can certainly hurt but also bring a rare form of emptiness of thought that I really appreciate. The singular purpose of getting to your destination and staying steady doesn’t leave room for any pesty internal dialogue.

Half an hour beyond Stella Point, we made it to Uhuru Peak, the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. The summit sign was there just like in photos I saw online, and I had Manase take a shot of me to document the accomplishment. The feelings I had were limited because I was more concerned about feeling the cold and the altitude, but I did feel a sense of relief. We started out again at 5:40AM and made our way back to Stella. From this direction, the glaciers really took form, rising at least 30 feet from the rock, running hundreds of yards in length. Though it was still dark, the glaciers reflected the light of the stars with surprising intensity.

We began the descent from Stella Point, passing a weary-faced group of five. I felt better as we went lower and when the sun began to approach the horizon, and a deep orange and purple banner unfolded behind Mount Mweka, I really felt the sense of accomplishment and good fortune for a successful climb. By this time Manase had led us off the trail to the south by about a hundred yards so that we could enjoy a controlled slide down a huge scree field. It was almost like skiing—you take big steps, lean back and slide from one side to the other. I had my trekking poles and was pole planting before each turn, avoiding bigger rocks with relative ease. The sun broke free of the clouds, shining over Mweka, and casted a brilliant warm orange on the slope. The change in temperature was immediate and I took a minute to stop and really enjoy this incredible moment. If there is one indelible image that will remain in my mind from the trip, it was this.

We continued our slide all the way back to the first steep ascent of the trail and were back at Barafu camp by 7:00AM. What had been described to me as a seven hour climb and a three hour descent turned out to be 5 ½ hours up and an hour and a half down. Every other group I spoke to did the climb in 10 hours instead of 7. Accordingly, I was dead when I got to the tent and crawled in and passed out. At 9:00AM Katete woke me up with hot tea and breakfast. My whole body ached with the accumulated effort of the past five days, but I felt rejuvenated after the nap.

We packed up and started our long descent to Mweka campsite at the upper edge of the forest near 10,000 feet. Gravity really helps in going down and there was no more polay polay. By 1:00PM we reached camp and my knees were aching. Over the course of the last 13 hours we had covered 13,000 vertical feet. Not bad. At camp I chatted with Manase and a big group of guides and porters that were hanging out at our cooking tent, enjoying the Michael Jackson blaring from Robert’s radio. I’m not sure who thought I was stranger, the Tanzanians I was trying to speak Swahili with, or all the mzungoo, or other white people who stared at me from their tents. That night I slept like a rock and dreamed of scree skiing again.

2006-09-24T03:46:00.000-07:00

Day 4 at Barafu High Camp, 15,015 feet. Today is the big day on the climb with a six hour hike during the day followed by our summit attempt this evening around midnight. I feel good, my body is enjoying the activity and besides some sun and wind burn, I have faired very well so far. A few folks we passed on the route today were breathing pretty heavily with the altitude. I’m lucky that I haven’t felt any negative affects. The German guy I had beers with at the hotel the night before my climb had gotten headaches and dizziness, then threw up one night and hyperventilated the next. His candor and matter of fact toughness about the whole episode was amazing. He said that after hyperventilating, he felt much better and made it to the summit that night. AMS, or Acute Mountain Sickness, can happen to anyone and apparently fitness doesn’t have anything to do with it. Some people just handle altitude better than others. I’ll cross my fingers for the final 4,000 feet to the summit.

Before starting out for the day, the night was the coldest it has been so far. Ironically I dreamt I was back in the heat of Senegal blabbering back and forth in Wolof with the cast of characters in my life there. To wake up and realize that you’ve been dreaming in a foreign language is strange and exciting. Around 8AM, we started up the Barranco wall, following tight switch backs up the face. There were a number of spots on the lower half where we had to do a bit of rock scrambling, securing hand and footholds to move up and over. At the top I was impressed with how the porters made it up this obstacle with such difficult loads. They are tough dudes. From this height the glaciers and cliffs of the headwall were just gleaming. I must have taken ten of the same picture.

We headed down the ridge and into the Karangu valley. The descent into the valley was steep and in certain places a bit challenging because the trail became the water escape route from up high. In some spots the water loosened the gravel to test your footing, while in others it became ice only to laugh in your face. We climbed up the other side to around 13,500 feet where we stop for lunch. I find a spot out of the wind and at a distance the views are spectacular, but close up are the unfortunate remains of other peoples’ lunch, cigarette, and toilet breaks. I’m not worried about old orange peels, but the plastic wrappers, cigarette butts and used batteries really don’t belong in a place of such beauty. With as much traffic as the mountain gets, it is inevitable that footprints in the dirt won’t be the only trace of people, but I watched countless guides flick their butts or throw a cellophane wrapper without a thought. I’m confident plenty of clients are doing the same. It’s really a shame. I think each group should be briefed on the importance of holding onto garbage and given a garbage bag, but no such protocol. Not a bad project for a Peace Corps volunteer perhaps. As I packed up my stuff, a little black mouse appeared from behind the rocks to see if I left any crumbs behind. I look over to Manase and he’s checking messages on his cell phone. Progress and purity don’t always mix, do they?

Another two hours of steady trekking through our final valley and it’s up the last big trudge to Barafu Camp. The wind was really going as we gained altitude and yet again I felt a sort of knot in my stomach watching porters in t-shirts and sneakers with worn out soles making their way. It makes me feel like there should be minimum standards for health and safety that guide services should have to provide their employees. One company, Tusker Trails, appeared to do this as all their guides and porters wore nice shell jackets with the Tusker name on them.

At Barafu Camp we are set up on a scree ridge that sits beneath the Heim glacier and the final ascent we will soon make up the headwall. From our camp, Mweka Peak sits stately below us on Kilimanjaro’s lower flank, and Mount Meru is still bathed in clouds. I am relieved to have my tent already set up when I arrive and crawl in for some much needed rest before tonight’s final push to the summit at Uhuru peak.

2006-09-24T03:36:00.000-07:00

Day 3 on the mountain at Barranco Camp, 13,035 feet. Today was the most beautiful so far, with clear skies all day and very little wind. We left Shira 2 at 8:00AM and made it the 15km past the Lava Tower at 15,279 feet and down into a beautiful valley further south. My neighbor Jose wasn’t copasetic with the Polay Polay pace of his guide and set out at his own strong pace with his guide following behind. If I make it that far, I hope I’m like him at 65. Manase and I went slow and steady, but I was used to it today, and aside from getting the occasional waft of his B.O., it was a really nice day. As it is, we got to camp at 1PM.

We made our way up the first gradual ridge and were treated with great views of Mt. Meru rising out of the clouds. The cloud bank got stuck trying to penetrate the rim around Shira Plateau and sat there like a bowl of cotton. At the crest of our ridge the headwall to the summit stood solid and imposing, catching small wisps of cloud among its glaciers, its vertically ridged cliffs showing through the mist. After a little over three hours, we were on top of the Lava Tower, a 150 foot tall formation just under the steep rise of the Western Breach. There used to be a guided climb up the face of this incredible wall, but the route has been closed since rock fall killed four tourists and two porters. Rock fall killed them but it was melting glacier that let the rocks go. “How long until they are gone?” I think to myself. At the lava tower I ate my lunch packet and especially enjoyed the pineapple juice drink box. Our descent to Barranco offered great views of the terrain—ridges littered with boulders and scree softened to allow the Dr. Seuss looking trees and flowery shrubs to mix in. The Barranco wall, the steep ascent we will make in the morning came into view, the trail visible from the bottom to the top. Looks like a thigh buster. We kept walking down and water collected on the trail in places and in one, formed a little waterfall.

At camp I enjoyed tea and coffee with popcorn and peanuts then laid out my towel and a sweaty t-shirt to dry in the sun. Inside my tent, the greenhouse effect made it toasty so I unzipped the vestibule on the downhill and enjoyed my view above the clouds. On the uphill side I could glimpse the Western Breach. This is definitely the most attractive spot on the climb so far. I chatted with the guys about the climb and their curiosity about what Senegalese women look like—they especially like my description of jaayfonde. I had to laugh when I look over and Robert is having Katete wash his back. “I take a bath!” he yells over to us.

Later, I eased into my tent and enjoyed reading a copy of Harper’s I brought, even if the articles were about the over-reaching power of Wal-Mart and prospects of war with Iran. I put my Ipod on shuffle and Bob Marley’s “Crisis” comes on fro Bob to put it best: “No matter what the crisis is, live it up, live it up, live it up, live it up!” I couldn’t agree more relaxing at 13,000 feet.

2006-09-24T03:29:00.000-07:00

Day 2 at Shira 2 Camp, 12, 672 feet. Started out this morning at 7:30AM to clear skies. We made our way out of the forest at a slow, steady pace that I had to adjust to by just chilling out and enjoying the scenery. I’m a fast walker, but accepted that “polay, polay” was the theme of the day. Before leaving I was able to exchange two old $20 bills for their newer counterparts in circulation from two of the American women that arrived in the evening. When I tried to pay at the hotel, they told me the bank didn’t accept the old 20s. When I stopped at a grocery store on the way to the Lemosho gate the woman at the counter put it more succinctly: “Big head only.” I got the new bills, but when one of the women went to get her wallet, her husband or some other man in the group told her, “It could just be a story. Why would he bring money up here anyway?” I couldn’t help but step up to this. I said, “It’s actually not a story, but a real pain in the ass.” When he asked why I had my money up here I told him that I never parted with my wallet as a matter of habit from living in Senegal and that evidently they too had money on them, so what exactly was his point? The Norwegians smirked at me from their tent as I thanked the women for helping me out.

As we got going we enjoyed a real treat in the forest. The sun blazed through the dew and frost on the trees, sparkling and creating visible rays of light through the branches with steam forming all around. The route was fairly steep, ascending one ridge only to drop into another valley that flanked the mountain. Lavender and sage grew abundantly and Manase said the sage was “African medicine to help stomach.” As we gained the final ridge the clouds came in, moving in a solid block creeping up the valley. The blue of the sky disappeared like a blind being pulled down. What remained was a misty white, and it has persisted into evening. By the final ridge the forest had transformed into the alpine environment described by the climbing itinerary as moorland. Trees are gone, but the area is thick in shrubs, flowers, rocks and boulders, mosses, and lichens. It was very similar to the Oregon high desert; Steens Mountain came to mind, as did a Dr. Seuss book.

I passed two sets of droppings that looked to me like coyote and Manase said “mountain dog.” Maybe they’re the same. There were also giant magpies flying through the mist at our sides, landing near us intermittently to search for food. These weren’t like magpies I have seen in the US. They are the same black and white and do seem to possess that creepy yet intelligent air that I’ve seen these birds before, but it’s like they’re on steroids or growth hormone. Their beaks alone were thick as my thumb and pointer finger pressed together. Aside from the magpies we saw no other animals except some black beetles eating at the mountain dog droppings. Manase said that ten years ago there were more animal sightings but with the amount of climbs coming through much of the wilflife had all but disappeared.

We reached the massive Shira plateau as our cook Robert’s transistor radio played an only slightly crackled reggae. It appears that men being obsessed with walking around holding a handheld transistor radio are not a Senegalese thing, but an African thing. Actually, it’s a developing-world thing as this is the one affordable deliverer of news and entertainment. The plateau extended for many kilometers and under better conditions would afford an excellent view of the summit. We reached Shira 1 camp near noon and stopped to “eat lunch,” if that’s what you call me eating a large bag of food while the porters and Manase nibbled at a few veggies or crackers. I made each of them come over and take part of my lunch. I would have felt strange otherwise. They never would ask for anything or let you know, but to me they seemed hungry. I would be starved carrying a 20kg bag of gear on my head and a 10kg bag on my back over 3000 vertical feet. I have since been dividing up the cookies, crackers, and Twix bars I picked up at the grocery. I would like to think that I would behave this way no matter what, but I feel like living in Senegal has really changed my attitude about sharing and teranga, or hospitality. The distrusting American man this morning illustrated a fundamental difference between Africa and America-- we don’t trust strangers while Africans go out of their way to help them.

From the Shira plateau we made another 1000 feet onto a new flank of the mountain, slowly, slowly. By 2:30PM Manase and I reached Shira 2, a seven hour trip he said that most groups do in ten. At over 12,600 feet, I start to experience that mountain high, feeling good, strong, and tired all the while. For me, I am at the equivalent of being on top of Mount Adams, the tallest mountain I’ve climbed. To think that I have more than half another Adams to go sobers me and I go to my tent after the guys set up. I nap for about two hours and wake for some conversation with my new camp neighbor Jose, a 65 year old retired engineer from Madrid, climbing like me, as the sole client in his group. His English is great and his French perfect. He has climbed quite a bit in Spain as well as Aconcagua in Argentina, which is higher than Kilimanjaro. We talked about Senegalese emigration to Spain and he said he knew what was wrong with it- there weren’t any jobs, but like the rest of Spain, doesn’t know what to do. Dinner is served, Jose’s guys make him a fresh carrot soup, and my guys make fresh cucumber soup. It’s creamy and delicious. Then I eat a big plate of pasta with a beef and vegetable sauce with a huge side of green beans. Damn I didn’t know how much I like green beans.

After dinner I chat with Robert, my cook, after he asks, “Natty did you like your dinnah?” I never told him my nickname; he just picked it up from Nat which makes me smile. I tell him dinner was great. I ask Robert about his job and he said he is lucky to get to work one trip a month on the mountain and that his other job is as a welder. He has been buying tools and equipment slowly and hopes to buy a shop this year. He is married with two kids. His son turned three yesterday he said, a day we was working, for me, on the mountain. Robert asked me about myself and my work in the Peace Corps. He nods his head at my description of my work and says he knows a volunteer in a local village who works on HIV/AIDS work. “HIV a big problem for Africa.” He said he thought that every family in Tanzania was affected by it. His eyes glassed over as he told me that his sister and her two children are all HIV positive and all sick. My throat dropped and I told him I hoped his welding business would succeed. I wanted to ask him more about his sister and her condition, but didn’t want to make him more upset. After a minute he said he needed his business to succeed because everyone in his family looks to him for help, his sister and her children included. I don’t really know who to do justice to the emotion I felt listening to Robert, but whatever pain, misfortune, or heartache I may have ever felt seemed so far distanced by this man. This, of course, is probably true for many Africans I ever see or meet. It is humbling and hard to deal with inside myself, not because I feel guilty, but because I really feel for all these people who struggle and yet are so generous, so kind. I want to make all of America and the other rich people of the world feel this sensation, see what I see and feel just as effected.

I say goodnight to Robert and read and write for a while. I feel the air get colder and the light pitter-patter of cloud drops on my tent has stopped. Outside it’s clear and cold and I get my first sight of the mountain since driving to the trailhead from the hotel. It is immense. Under the light of a half moon and lots of stars, I see we are camped on a very gradual ridge that dead ends into the mountain headwall, a truly magnificent peak, steep and rocky, with glaciers lit by alpenglow. With this in my sights, it is a deep breath that I take in which makes any doubts, whether about the climb or about life simply fade into the immensity of the mountain. I am lucky and so happy to be here.

2006-09-24T03:16:00.000-07:00

Day One on Kilimanjaro—9075 feet, at Mti Mbubwa or Big Tree Camp, 12km along the Lemosho route. Started early in Moshi at the hotel. After breakfast we weighed my gear, 4kg for me, and 4kg of other gear for my porters. My group consists of me, but I am nowhere near alone. I have a guide named Manase who speaks very broken English, plus a cook and four porters. I’ve never climbed on a guided, provisioned tour and it is odd. These guys carry my tent and clothing, the food for 6 days, stove, water, and other necessities for the whole group. I’m decked out in Patagonia jacket, trekking poles, and expensive waterproof boots while they are wearing t-shirts and second hand Payless boots as they carry giant loads on their heads. Though tough jobs, becoming a porter is very competitive in Tanzania and only those with four years on the mountain can become guides. The guys are all smiles and appreciate the efforts I make in Swahili. Our driver, Khalid, maneuvered our Land Rover over a very broken route up the West side of the mountain, teaching me Swahili along the way with the necessities like “vagina,” “little chicken” and “I love you very much” bringing a very enthusiastic reception each time I try them. We wind our way through turn after turn of industrial clear cuts and cypress plantation forests. It was not what I expected on the way to Kilimanjaro National Park, but I’m not surprised. Local people log the cypress for exports and furniture, then farm in the clear cuts.
Wooden shantytowns sit on ridges between the forest, filled with obviously poor and very hardworking people. Everyone was dirty, as it is tough to avoid the dust the wind picks up from the clear cuts or that the trucks kick up on the roads. Seeing these log-cabins like structures remind me of Jamestown, Virginia, almost like going back in time with wood smoke in the air and chickens pecking at the dirt.

The hike to the first camp took me only an hour and a half, half the time they told me. As it turns out, I probably walked too fast as I quickly distanced the rest of my group. When I waited for them, they told me, “Polay, polay” slowly, slowly. We started at 6930 feet and as we go up to over 12,000 feet tomorrow I will try to take their advice. The forest really reminds me of Oregon with clearly a high amount of rainfall—it came down pretty heavily for most of the hike. The trees are covered in moss and lichens and the trail got a bit slippery in places. I ran into elephant dung on the trail, though no sight of an actual animal besides a monkey that jumped out of a tree as I passed.

At camp I felt strange as my porters set up my tent, prepared hot water for me to wash up with, and brought me tea and a three course dinner. The food though, was excellent. Fresh leak soup, fried potatoes and goat steaks with vegetable sauce, a peanut butter and honey sandwich, avocado, banana, orange slices, and a cup of coffee. Senegal eat your heart out.

Two Norwegian women arrive near dinner and we speak about American politics until bedtime. I am endlessly impressed by how worldly and knowledgeable Europeans are compared to Americans. They both spoke perfect English and French, and describe their disdain for George Bush, their work in finance, and their families at home. A large group of Americans arrive, about 15 with an army of porters and guides. They set up a small city of tents, with one giant dome where they eat and chat in American style comfort. It certainly reinforced the Norwegians’ take on America, but was fun to kid about. Because I am on a six day climb, I skip the next camp at Shira 1 and go another 1000 feet to Shira 2 camp. The Norwegians and my American compatriots however, will be together the duration of their 7 day trip. I’m curious what will happen. I bed down in my sleeping bag, excited to be cold again after sweating for so long back in Senegal.

2006-09-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

At the Nairobi airport I deplane at exactly 8:02AM. In Africa there aren’t many of the special transfer ramps on and off the plane that you take for granted in the US, just a set of stares from the ground up. I walk across the tarmac to the terminal and watch as my 8:00AM Precision Air flight to Tanzania taxis to the runway. It’s just my luck that for once, a flight leaves on the dot. I visit the transfer desk to find out when the next flight leaves. 10:35AM, not bad. It turns out that my original flight was late coming into Dakar because an Indian Airways flight popped all 8 of its tires on landing, not injuring anyone but blocking the runway for hours.

I make my way to the Nairobi version of the Prestige Lounge and am disappointed. Non-descript meat pies and burnt coffee serve as breakfast, and the furniture is only semi-comfortable, not the fat leather couches in Dakar. Worst of all, there’s only one toilet and I really have to go to the bathroom, but one guy after the next takes the throne. I decide to go to the public restroom instead. I walk in and a janitor is there. I walk past him to the corner stall and hear when I sit down I hear someone ask in English, “this one or that one?” Next thing I know, a bottle of water comes flying over the stall wall and hits me in the leg. Clearly startled, I yell out and shout, “What the hell?” There is no reply and I don’t hear anything else. I finish my business and when I emerge from the stall, the janitor is gone. Why would he have thrown a bottle of water at me, and was it the janitor or someone else? Was he in the middle of cleaning the stall and pissed off that I walked in? Maybe he just thought I was thirsty. I can’t figure it out, so I let it go, and head to my gate.

2006-09-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

I’m on day one of my Tanzania vacation and I have to laugh. During the afternoon I sipped Johnny Walker in the cool, wood paneled calm of the Prestige Lounge at Dakar International Airport, a fringe benefit of my business class ticket. My original ticket was economy class but never arrived in the mail so my mom had to claim it lost, purchase another ticket, and look forward to being reimbursed for the first ticket within one year of the date of purchase. One would think that she could simply repurchase the seat with my name already on it, but not so, hence my business class seat and luxury afternoon. I share a drink with a Kenyan-American woman named Catherine Wachira who is director of the Drug Quality and Information program and International Affairs at USP- the US Pharmacopoeia, a foundation that sets drug quality standards adopted by the USDA. Catherine leads the USP’s efforts on malaria and HIV/AIDS treatments across Africa and Southeast Asia. Her soft spoken manner betray her obvious prestige (her business card has her named followed by MBA, MPA). She talks to me about pricing of pharmaceuticals, the high costs of research and development according to her, the reason for high drug costs.

I listen intently but don’t entirely believe it. When I worked for the PIRGs in Oregon, we lobbied in the state capitol for the creation of a prescription drug bulk purchasing program that would allow the combined buying power of Oregon and Washington to negotiate lower drug costs, something that would greatly help seniors who often choose between paying for life-saving medicines or paying the monthly gas bill. The pharmaceutical industry lobbyists were at the Capitol in force, many well-dressed, well-versed, and well-connected advocates who used the same argument Catherine was making. I told her about my experience and she said she was familiar with the “Oregon case.” Still, I enjoyed our conversation and soon enough we boarded for takeoff. My flight has a stop in Bamako, Mali before going to Nairobi, Kenya where I take a small plane to Tanzania.

Sitting in Bamako, I go through the complimentary toiletry kit in my seat pocket, enjoying a quick tooth brush and a little moisturizer, as I look back sympathetically at economy class and reflect on my first class situation. An announcement is made that there is no fuel at the airport in Bamako and we will be stopping in Lagos, Nigeria to gas up. I think to myself, “it’s another case of WAWA: West Africa Wins Again.”h I just can’t imagine how an international airport can’t have fuel, but there is no point in thinking on it too hard, I have another scotch coming and a big, fat seat to recline in along the way.

Later in the flight I go to the bathroom and come across one of my first and likely favorite words in Swahili: Choo Cha Maji. Flushing Toilet. The novelty of a flushing toilet is really something for me after 11 months of squatting over a hole, but to call it the Choo Cha Maji just adds to the mystique.

2006-08-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

Reason #1 for wanting to go home, my beautiful, intelligent, and wonderful girlfriend Erica Maharg

In the park with some of my counterparts

Adama's first wife, my mom Fatou

Adama's second wife, my mom Tabara

Courtyard on Goree Island; the point of departure for thousands of slaves sent to Europe and America

Boys in my village playing in the garbage

Pont Faidherbe in Saint Louis at night

same guy today

2006-08-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

These are some of my biggest projects with the park. A 30th anniversary commemorative poster and a six panel brochure that advertises the businesses and ervices offered by the Eco Gardes. (These are the DRAFTS). I worked to pull together the photos, write the text, and coordinate with my friend and colleague from the Sierra Club, Erika Alabarka, whose skills as an artist and graphic designer are quite simply excellent. The Eco Gardes and I are working on a marketing plan for the park where we will distribute the posters and brochures to travel agencies, hotels, and restaurants throughout Dakar and Saint Louis. We also hope to use this material to start a website for the park.

2006-08-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

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.”

2006-08-21T11:37:00.001-07:00

Last night was tougher than most. I crawled under the mosquito net covered in the usual sheen of slimy sweat and sand around 10PM. The air was absolutely thick, utterly stagnant. My sheet and pillow case absorbed the stream of moisture yet another night without complaint as I wrestled my way to sleep.

I’m in a big plane, maybe on my coming flight to Tanzania. The take-off is incredibly vertical, more like a rocket shooting into the air than an airplane. Suddenly the plane is falling at an equally abrupt angle, only we’re not crashing. We have to go back to the airport for something, something I’ve forgotten.

I wake sweating even more profusely than when I lay down, feeling like I am going to be sick. My stomach was the airplane and I parted the bug net to make my way to the toilet. I shivered as I removed the cover to the hole and counted the drops of sweat that fell from my nose into the darkness. I set my headlamp down next to me as I felt my dinner coming up. As I started to throw up I had the distinct feeling that it was a shame that I was losing the beef and rice that only a few hours earlier had been such a treat. Too much oil for the system, maybe the meat wasn’t the best. I poured water down the hole hoping I had enough in my storage bucket to refill the basin. I sat down on my cement stoop feeling better but still wishing someone could have been there to ask me I was okay. The stars winked at me and I laughed at my want for reassurance. The wind picked up and broke the humid air with a cool authority I was happy to submit to. My shutters flapped back and forth with the gusts and I shut them reluctantly, disappointed that the breeze that brought relief to my stagnant night also brought its own set of complications.

I wake the next day find out that my complications weren’t without company. A thief came to the village in the middle of the night with a gun and robbed Pa Fall, one of the wealthiest men in the area and the father of Modou, our local charettier, or horse cart driver, a guy that asks me to help him with getting a visa to the US whenever I see him. The thief held the old man up at gunpoint demanding his stash of money. As he took off, Modou chased after him and the robber fired his gun twice, grazing Modou’s shoulder and foot, but not seriously injuring him Thank God. The robber made off with a purported 16 million cfa, over $30,000. I learn all of this when my mother Fatou wakes me up from my difficult night, babbling her way through the story twice so I can understand clearly.

Only a few days ago Modou had smiled at me from behind his attaya rotted teeth asking me if I had been to the US embassy for him yet. I’ve tried to explain to him that since September 11th, it is increasingly difficult for people to get in to the country, particularly those with no money, no English, and no prospects. Though I’m sure the US government would officially disagree, it probably doesn’t help that Modou has an obviously Muslim name. Not to be discouraged, he put his hands over his heart and tells me that he was physically in pain at the news of the attacks on the US. He said he didn’t care if he had the chance to go to Spain, France, or Italy, that he wanted to go to the US of A or nowhere.

Poor Modou. Was my episode the night before somehow related to what happened with the thief? I couldn’t help but wonder. My gut, literally and figureatively, knew something was amiss. That a robbery at gunpoint would occur in my tranquil, unelectrified village with someone I know and speak to actually shot blows my mind. It is ironic because my father Adama and I had been having an ongoing conversation about his desire to buy a gun to protect the house and family from robbers. I kept telling him that I couldn’t believe there were robbers in Mouit, that most people were poor, and what would someone take, a sheep? Sure enough, only a few weeks earlier, someone had stolen three sheep from a Pulaar family in Ricote, the village behind Mouit; and low and behold one of our neighbors was sitting on a small fortune. It turns out that Pa Fall has many fields in cultivation and has hired help or field hands like Ibrahima and Alle who lived right next to me in our family compound. These workers would have been most likely to know that the old men didn’t use a bank, or so the villagers suspect.

It makes me wonder if a thief ever targetted the one American in Mouit, would he believe that I’m actually broke?

2006-08-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

I went to the bridal reception of Aminta Tall tonight, one of the Eco Guards I work with at the park. She is 22, beautiful, and in school most of the year in Thies where her fiance works. Senegalese bridal receptions are a common oddity worth seeing. The bride is done up in white satin with more make up than a drag-queen, hair mesh or wig attached perfectly. The whole village it seemed was decked out in fancy clothes and seated or standing in the back of the local elementary school. A banquet table lined with white plastic chairs for the bridal party was adorned with cans of soda, vases of plastic flower bouquets, and apples stuck with lollypops and toothpicked olives and bread. Music was blasting at its normal Space Shuttle take-off decibel level, and I joined the other Eco Guards near the front of the room as we waited for Aminta and her entourage to arrive. There were about 150 people in the room, me as usual the only Westerner, the only whitey.

In situations like these I often get that all eyes on you sensation I would experience conducting a press conference or giving a speech in the US. It’s not nerve racking or odd, but certainly noticeable. Aminta shows up with five girlfriends in black dresses and two photographers. I am next to the reception table and as the group lines up for an initial set of photos, the lead photographer motions for me to join the group, not on the side but right next to Aminta in the center. I whisper hello and congratulations to her as I maneuver my way next to her. She is serious and for the most part unsmiling, something I’ve noticed all brides are like during these events. I wonder if this has some root in tradition or if being herded around for hundreds of photos throughout the evening is simply unpleasant.

Photos done, I make my way to the side and notice the photographer eyeing me again as he speaks to the DJ. He approaches and asks if I can help open the event. I say “What?” and he just nods and says, “Hang On.” He grabs Aminta and then motions me over to join her. I’m wondering this whole time “Where the hell is her fiance?” but it would seem it’s all about the bride. Aminta puts her arms around me and suddenly the theme song to “Titanic” starts playing and apparently it’s time for me to become Lenonardo DiCaprio and slow dance with her in front of the crowd. I can’t help but blush and smile, Aminta’s ridid expression be damned. But she catches the bug and starts giggling. The crowd applauds and cheers, and evidently the evening is officially now under way. I am led off stage by another Eco Guard and watch as all the the audience begins to line up for photos with Aminta, each person handing her an evelope with money in it. I slipped her some cash when we had our photo taken but didn’t think to wrap it up. I’ll know better next time. A cup of pineapple soda and a piece of cake round out my appearance at the reception and I head home for dinner.

2006-08-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

After sweating my way through the post office and hoping “Inshallah” that my package to my girlfriend Erica will arrive unscathed, I turn the corner to the “Restaurant de la Poste” for a plate of rice and beef. The waitress greets me with a smirk as I settle into a plastic chair, the only customer in the room. I ask her how much a plate is and she says 1500cfa. I know the price is less than a 1000cfa and scoff at her saying, “How much is it really?” She says 1000cfa. I know immediately that she’s lying. Suddenly my hunger, heat, and fatigue at the morning’s efforts bubble up because I know intuitively and by plenty of experience that she is trying to take advantage of me. I walk outside to the post office guards who I know eat here on a daily basis and ask them how much a plate is. They look between one another and the head guard says I should ask the owner. Immediately I’m aware that they are suddenly in on the rip-off, not wanting to contradict the inflated price they must know I’ve been quoted.

I walk not back into the dining room, but straight into the kitchen, livid. There sits a big woman with a bowl of beef in sauce between her legs, the calm air of her everyday routine running the place not broken by my sudden appearance in her kitchen. She sees I’m upset and says the meal is 800cfa, to go have a seat. I grit my jaw intent on walking out, but I’m starving and the chance at eating something other than fish overrides my anger. I sit down and see that the waitress has already served a Senegalese man that sat down when I was outside. She isjoking with him about lying to me about the cost of my lunch. I lose it hearing this and call her a “Bitch” in plain old English, then go on to tell her in Wolof that discrimination is no way to improve business and that Allah saw what she did and will judge her for it. Invoking Islam was one thing, but I took it a step further and with my voice raised proceeded to tell her that I was going to see a Marabout, or Senegalese leader of one of the Muslim brotherhoods, and have a curse put on her. This is not an uncommon practice in the quasi animist breed of Senegalese Islam. She gasped at this and returned with my plate, not looking me in the eyes. “Bon Appetit” I say to the guy at the other table and eat away my anxiety bite by bite.

I grab a cab to the garage where I will get a bush taxi from Saint Louis back to my village. The “Bongo Garage” is a wasteland next to the railroad tracks with sewage lying stagnant between rows of white diesel spewing buses and orange/black Renault bush taxis. I stop at a vendor’s cart to get my family a “sariche” or gift to bring back from the city, a tradition that I never forget, particularly since my dad is village chief. A box of tea, a kilo of sugar, and a mosquito coil do the trick and I’m off to the corner where a set of familiar drivers and Garage bosses sit on a mat in the shade of a thatched lean-to. They all know me and invite me to sit with them until another passenger arrives and the taxi is full. One of the drivers, a guy about my age but probably 6’4” and 225 pounds asks me how my sex life is and instead of shaking my outstretched hand, grabs my crotch. I smack him and tell him he’s dirty and not normal to which the rest of the group agree in unison with laughter and nods. A girl next to me I don’t know starts pulling off my silver bracelet, saying, “Give this to me, give me a present!” I glare at her and she settles for hassling me to buy a bag of her beignets, the closest thing in Senegal to a donut hole.

The last passenger arrives and it’s time to go. It’s a Pulaar man with a goat on a rope. He and the driver wrestle the goat into the truck, slamming the lid three times before it finally closes and the bleating of bloody murder is silenced. Next to the Pulaar man is a woman breastfeeding her uncomfortable baby. Her shirt is pulled up over both breasts, maybe for an easier switch from one swollen nipple to the other. Our last passenger is an old man passing prayer bead after prayer bead through his calloused fingers, pronouncing a good old “Alhumdulilay” or “Thanks be to God” as we get under way. The driver honks at a dirty 10 year old boy wearing Osh Kosh Begosh overalls and nothing else, awkwardly maneuvering a bicycle twice his size. My mind flashes to childhood days of BMX dirtbikes and shiny new mountain bikes. I’m not sure if it’s guilt or nostalgia or some other emotion I feel, it all burns away quickly as the sweat rolls into my eyes. As we get out of town the driver passes one of the local police officers with wary eyes, but he’s lucky, the cop is busy extorting a bribe from an unlucky truck driver. These “traffic stops” are so routine that the efficiency of moving beyond presenting the presiding officer your lisence and registration to 1000cfa would impress any other would be extortionist in the different levels of the government’s bureaucracy.

I get to Mouit in one piece and my blood pressure drops. The village is not without its own set of challenges and annoyances, but they are slower and less in your face. I stop by the local hardware store to pick up some cement so that I can fix my cracked toilet, which is just a hole encased in porcelain that I squat over. The other night I dropped the metal disc I use to cover the hole when three giant cockroaches escaped from underneath, one making an impressive dash up my forearm and almost under my shirt. Luckily the shards of porcelain fit like a jigsaw so I should be okay. I spend the rest of the afternoon reading more of Jupiter’s Travels and imagine my own adventure around the world on a motorcycle.

2006-08-21T11:22:00.000-07:00

I stopped by Abdullah’s silver shop to pick out a bracelet for my mom and was embraced with open arms and a wide smile. “My brother, my brother, how are you?” I tell Abdullah of my upcoming trip to Tanzania with my mom and he insists that I pick any bracelet and accept it as his gift to “our mother.” “This is a pleasure for me Nat, this is what makes me happy. You are not a friend. For a friend I make a good price, but for a brother, I cannot accept your money.” We switch between French and Wolof as we catch up on the events of the last month. He yells at his son from time to time in Hassanya, the dialect of Arabic spoken in Mauritania, and welcomes customers with his contagious charisma.

2006-06-24T05:10:00.000-07:00

Lunch is served and my mother Tabara tells me again and again to eat until I’m full, eat until it’s all gone. With her henna stained hand she tears pieces of fish, potato, and squash and places them in front of me, her giant bare breasts practically spilling into the bowl as she insists that I eat, eat. Next to me my four year old brother Silly carefully squeezes his rice into a ball before popping it into his mouth. The Wolof language as a verb for this very activity- dank. Silly kepes danking his rice while across from him our father Adama watchs over all as he makes loud lip smacking and sucking sounds, carefully extracting bits of food from between his teeth with the suction. Our neighbor Ndeye is over with her little girl for the day to have my sister Rama braid her hair. By lunch she has about 2/3 tight and beautiful corn rows, the last 1/3 a puffy afro. Her daughter won’t eat because she is too busy staring at me, probably wondering what in the world I must be until Ndeye moves her to her lap and tells her to eat up.

In my family, and in all families in Senegal I would venture to say, there is no such thing as the clean plate club, leftovers, or the enticement of dessert to get the kids to finish their meals. Every last bit is eaten, bones are sucked free of every morsel, cartilege and all, juices are slurped away, and whatever remains is given to the sheep, goats, chickens, or cats that live in the compound.

If I have a guest over for a meal, my moms will usually serve us separately with our own bowl of rice and fish or rice and beans. Whatever we don’t eat the kids polish off after their own meals which means that food is too precious to waste, they’re still hungry, or both. There is no variation in our diet in the village except for special occassions like holidays, baptisms, and funerals. No pizza night, no chicken night, no spaghetti, no steaks or burgers on the grill, no tossed salad or real greens, just the predictable two meals that happen without fail each and every day. Not all families in Senegal eat such a limited cuisine. While thiebujen (rice, fish, and vegetables cooked in an oily tomato sauce) is the standard for lunch everywhere, my host family in Thies served many different meals for dinner.

In my village and the Saint Louis region we are lucky because the ocean and the Senegal River provide plenty of fish, hence plenty of protein. Every day in Saint Louis the pirogues, or local fishing boats, come into market with tons of fish, filling dozens of freezer trucks headed for Dakar and other cities to sell the daily catch.

Many regions, particulary in the Southeast of the country, aren’t nearly as lucky. Most families rely on millet for most of their nutritional needs, with fish a sporadic treat. The volunteers in villages where even a bowl of plain rice can be come and go are tough. They’re skinny too, at least the men. Somewhat surprisingly, most women gain weight thanks to the overload of carbohydrates in the Senegalese diet, while men waste away for lack of protein.

I am nearly the same weight as when I arrived thanks to weekly trips to Saint Louis and the meat and beer it affords. But damn, what I wouldn’t give for a bacon cheesburger, a fresh salad, and pint of Terminal Gravity.

2006-06-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

Disparate moments of free time here let my mind wander. I often wonder if I am missing out on advancing my career or accomplishing something substantial by being in Senegal. Then I read from Walden and Henry David Thoreau sets me straight.

"The mass of men lead lives of quite desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind."

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."

"When we consider what, to use the words, of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries adn means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields."

"When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humble toil having commenced."

2006-06-14T06:23:00.000-07:00

This was a shot from the Embuscade Bar where this scary dude was dancing on stilts

This is Vito, the bassist in my buddy Ryan's band playing on the mainstage at the Jazzfest

Ryan Browning, my closest neighbor who plays his saxaphone in Saint Louis with two groups and moonlights as a Peace Corps volunteer

Ryan and other musicians jamming at a local bar called Marco Jazz at 4AM during jazz fest

Ryan's band African Touch on the mainstage during the jazz fest

Predrinking for the jazz fest with Dan and Nichole

2006-06-14T06:14:00.000-07:00

Look let's be clear here, sometimes I feel like I might just lose it in Senegal. I can't cool off and I itch all over, an incessant irritation along my ankles, my wrists, my scalp, everywhere. It is so busy and noisy, smokey, dirty, and smelly. I just can't relax. Even in my village where calm prevails, there is the constant annoyance of everyone asking me for money, candy, or to marry their daughters. I struggle to have real conversations here and often feel like I don't have real friends. My little brothers and sisters don't speak to me and I just don't have much to talk about much less understand with my host father and mothers. When is the last time someone asked me about me or my life? And throughout this mess, I miss my girlfriend terribly. I miss the loving, the laughing, the simple touch of a hand on my back. I am frustrated and a thousand hand shakes just won't alleviate that vacancy. Senegal can be excruciatingly repetitive. The music is always the same, the name calling doesn't change, the sun scorches, and the flies, cockroaches, lizards, geckos and other pests just keep coming. I'm just being pissy, but I guess that's just as much a part of this experience as my triumphs and glimpses of beauty.

2006-06-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

A restless scorching night full of dusty moonlight kept me awake until the break of sweaty morning. I rolled out of bed with sand stuck to my body and headed for the boutique to buy my breakfast baguette. By 10AM the sun was almost directly overhead and my shirt was spotted with moisture by the time I made it to the center of my little village. My old neighbor greeted me with a friendly "Good Morning and where is some money for me Mansour?"-- the common refrain I've come to expect. I told her I would got to bank tomorrow. Then I said a quick hello to the Gaye family women as they did laundry. Ndeye Kharit, their daughter said to come in and talk, "Come on waxtan!" We talked about America and she asked me what my house looks like there. A difficult mix of embarrassment and frustration dotted my already sweaty forehead as I said it was big and full of TVs. How can I possibly convince these poor people to stay in Senegal and develop their lives here when going to America means more money in months than is possible here over the course of many years? Ndeye's mom intimated that I marry her daughter so that America and its riches could become a part of her life. I told her to not let her little baby suck on the D battery in its mouth and excused myself between comments about the spiritual and communal deficits America suffers from despite its riches. On to the boutique. I buy my baguette and am asked for 500cfa from the lady I buy beignets and fataya from in the afternoon. I asked her was it to have or to borrow and she says she will pay me back later, "Inshallah- God willing." I hand it over knowing I'll never see it again.

2006-04-23T04:29:00.001-07:00

One of the great things about my Peace Corps experience is that it’s like a pendulum that swings between frustration and elation, not unlike “real life” but faster. It’s like I’m watching a film or a play unfold before me one minute and the next I realize that I’m on and I’ve forgotten my line. But more than that it’s as if I’m squeezing a little more of life’s ether out of the walls of my perception, out of the different experiences I’m having. You get that in passing moments back home, where a sense of true meaning to the world, maybe déjà vu, premonition, or basic empathy for a total stranger jolt you out of the routine and into the realm of the spiritual, or at least the contemplative. But here it comes at you with a certain spark that while not wholly unexpected, still throws me for a loop. Let me give you an example.

Yesterday I had a day I would say was more frustrating than anything else. On eight separate occasions someone asked me for money, not an uncommon occurrence in my life here. At first it really used to bother me because I wanted to be appreciated for who I am, for my skills and personality, for my decision to live in a Senegalese village for two years. But it also tugged on my conscience because in spite of my best attempts at saying “I don’t have any money,” “I’m broke,” or “I’m a Peace Corps volunteer, I don’t have a salary,” they would look at my Western clothes, my watch, my fancy sandals, my backpack, and of course my white skin, and simply know that I have money. And they’re right. Even with my modest Peace Corps stipend of just over $200 a month, I have a lot more money than they do. I had a conversation with my dad about money before leaving for Senegal, expressing my concerns over going another two years without saving any money and he told me that I’d never have to worry about it. I’ve never considered my family rich, we are comfortable. But being here I realize that we are sultans among many people stuck in the sand. So every time someone asks me for money I may not have it to give, but it’s true that I have it.

Today was different. The money theme returned, but it wasn’t the barrage of “Give me money” comments. Today I went to the neighboring village of Moumbaye to look at the spot where we hope to build a tourist campement along the river. There was a fisherman tinkering with his boat on the edge of the water. I walked over to him and said hello. His name was Degee Sow and he wore a brilliant indigo head wrap and a tattered robe-like shirt that was apparently an old kaftan. His 10 year old son Babacar wore the same, working side by side with his father. Sow shook my hand and called me “Patron,” which I tried to correct by introducing myself and explaining that I lived in Mouit and worked with the park as a volunteer. He said, “That may be Mansour, but you’re still rich and I’m still poor.” He looked me in the eyes with his weathered but kind face and I couldn’t say anything. Instead I asked him about his catch. He took me to a pile of thirty rays that he had been catching in the ocean and selling to Ghanaian merchants in Dakar. I wondered to myself if catching these beautiful creatures is sustainable and remembered my boss Bamba’s comment that protecting the environment doesn’t mean anything to someone who can barely feed their family. It turns out that Babacar, the boy, has stopped going to school so that he can help his father fish each day on their small pirogue. I wished them both a good day and walked slowly back to the road, heavy with the ether all around me.

I got home and before going into my home I stopped into the hut where Ibrahima and Alle, tow farm hands that work my father Adama’s fields live during the growing season. The hut is right next to my house and has a cement floor with thatched walls and roof, and a thin mattress for each of them. They each have a grand total of worldly possessions you could fit in a backpack, most important of which was the small teapot sitting on coals for an afternoon session of attaya. Ismillah, another farm worker who stays at our neighbors’ house was there too and I sat down for tea.

Like the money issue, I often get frustrated with my ability and lack thereof to communicate with people. My language skills are good but it takes time. Sitting with these three men gave me an appreciation for learning another language and for patience. Ibrahima is from Kolda and is Mandinka. Alle is from the Gambia and is Wolof, and Ismillah is from Ziguinchor and is Diola. Three different ethnicities, three different languages, and yet they spoke Wolof and French together, with Alle breaking into broken English here and there. They nursed me along in our conversation as I asked them about their work in the fields each day. They leave between 2AM and 4AM and return around the same time in the afternoon to avoid the heat as much as possible. I asked them if they thought a lot while watering the fields, and if so, about what. Ibrahima said he thought about money and about buying his wife and children new clothes when he goes home after harvest in the fall. Ismillah said that to work in those fields day after day you had to be very strong, and each of these guys looks like a professional athlete. I said I was weak compared to them and Ismillah said, “No Mansour, you have to be strong here,” pointing to his head. He said that without a strong mind you could never make it doing such hard work. Alle and Ibrahima nodded silently. Alle handed me my tea and I realized the ether clearly hadn’t left.

That night, in the light of our gas lamp my family prayed together after dinner, shoulder to shoulder on the patio. I had walked into the darkness of the front yard to get a better look at the stars and found myself staring back at a scene that while routine in this Senegalese village, will remain indelible in my American mind. Five times a day the pray on bent knee, foreheads to the ground towards Mecca. The sore joints, stiff backs, and tired bodies of baby boomers on the couch at home in the US would never hold up under this routine, and I am caught between cultures for an instant, not quite sure where I stand between them.

I am certain that moments like these can and do occur for us in our daily lives as we make the commute to work, read and write emails, attend staff meetings or go to the grocery store. But being a stranger in a strange land expedites opportunity, and being something more intimate than a tourist as I am, I feel lucky to be privy to such significant instances of perspective on the world and my small place in it.

2006-04-23T04:29:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about my Peace Corps experience is that it’s like a pendulum that swings between frustration and elation, not unlike “real life” but faster. It’s like I’m watching a film or a play unfold before me one minute and the next I realize that I’m on and I’ve forgotten my line. But more than that it’s as if I’m squeezing a little more of life’s ether out of the walls of my perception, out of the different experiences I’m having. You get that in passing moments back home, where a sense of true meaning to the world, maybe déjà vu, premonition, or basic empathy for a total stranger jolt you out of the routine and into the realm of the spiritual, or at least the contemplative. But here it comes at you with a certain spark that while not wholly unexpected, still throws me for a loop. Let me give you an example.

Yesterday I had a day I would say was more frustrating than anything else. On eight separate occasions someone asked me for money, not an uncommon occurrence in my life here. At first it really used to bother me because I wanted to be appreciated for who I am, for my skills and personality, for my decision to live in a Senegalese village for two years. But it also tugged on my conscience because in spite of my best attempts at saying “I don’t have any money,” “I’m broke,” or “I’m a Peace Corps volunteer, I don’t have a salary,” they would look at my Western clothes, my watch, my fancy sandals, my backpack, and of course my white skin, and simply know that I have money. And they’re right. Even with my modest Peace Corps stipend of just over $200 a month, I have a lot more money than they do. I had a conversation with my dad about money before leaving for Senegal, expressing my concerns over going another two years without saving any money and he told me that I’d never have to worry about it. I’ve never considered my family rich, we are comfortable. But being here I realize that we are sultans among many people stuck in the sand. So every time someone asks me for money I may not have it to give, but it’s true that I have it.

Today was different. The money theme returned, but it wasn’t the barrage of “Give me money” comments. Today I went to the neighboring village of Moumbaye to look at the spot where we hope to build a tourist campement along the river. There was a fisherman tinkering with his bat on the edge of the water. I walked over to him and said hello. His name was Degee Sow and he wore a brilliant indigo head wrap and a tattered robe-like shirt that was apparently an old kaftan. His 10 year old son Babacar wore the same, working side by side with his father. Sow shook my hand and called me “Patron,” which I tried to correct by introducing myself and explaining that I lived in Mouit and worked with the park as a volunteer. He said, “That may be Mansour, but you’re still rich and I’m still poor.” He looked me in the eyes with his weathered but kind face and I couldn’t say anything. Instead I asked him about his catch. He took me to a pile of thirty rays that he had been catching in the ocean and selling to Ghanaian merchants in Dakar. I wondered to myself if catching these beautiful creatures is sustainable and remembered my boss Bamba’s comment that protecting the environment doesn’t mean anything to someone who can barely feed their family. It turns out that Babacar, the boy, has stopped going to school so that he can help his father fish each day on their small pirogue. I wished them both a good day and walked slowly back to the road, heavy with the ether all around me.

I got home and before going into my home I stopped into the hut where Ibrahima and Alle, tow farm hands that work my father Adama’s fields live during the growing season. The hut is right next to my house and has a cement floor with thatched walls and roof, and a thin mattress for each of them. They each have a grand total of worldly possessions you could fit in a backpack, most important of which was the small teapot sitting on coals for an afternoon session of attaya. Ismillah, another farm worker who stays at our neighbors’ house was there too and I sat down for tea.

Like the money issue, I often get frustrated with my ability and lack thereof to communicate with people. My language skills are good but it takes time. Sitting with these three men gave me an appreciation for learning another language and for patience. Ibrahima is from Kolda and is Mandinka. Alle is from the Gambia and is Wolof, and Ismillah is from Ziguinchor and is Diola. Three different ethnicities, three different languages, and yet they spoke Wolof and French together, with Alle breaking into broken English here and there. They nursed me along in our conversation as I asked them about their work in the fields each day. They leave between 2AM and 4AM and return around the same time in the afternoon to avoid the heat as much as possible. I asked them if they thought a lot while watering the fields, and if so, about what. Ibrahima said he thought about money and about buying his wife and children new clothes when he goes home after harvest in the fall. Ismillah said that to work in those fields day after day you had to be very strong, and each of these guys looks like a professional athlete. I said I was weak compared to them and Ismillah said, “No Mansour, you have to be strong here,” pointing to his head. He said that without a strong mind you could never make it doing such hard work. Alle and Ibrahima nodded silently. Alle handed me my tea and I realized the ether clearly hadn’t left.

That night, in the light of our gas lamp my family prayed together after dinner, shoulder to shoulder on the patio. I had walked into the darkness of the front yard to get a better look at the stars and found myself staring back at a scene that while routine in this Senegalese village, will remain indelible in my American mind. Five times a day the pray on bent knee, foreheads to the ground towards Mecca. The sore joints, stiff backs, and tired bodies of baby boomers on the couch at home in the US would never hold up under this routine, and I am caught between cultures for an instant, not quite sure where I stand between them.

I am certain that moments like these can and do occur for us in our daily lives as we make the commute to work, read and write emails, attend staff meetings or go to the grocery store. But being a stranger in a strange land expedites opportunity, and being something more intimate than a tourist as I am, I feel lucky to be privy to such significant instances of perspective on the world and my small place in it.

2006-04-09T05:15:00.000-07:00

Spent the last week in the Tambacounda region of Senegal, in the far Southeast of the country to attend an Ecotourism retreat. It almost felt like late summer in the US. Big trees and lots of them, with a soil that has more clay in it, a deeper red. The huts are thatched, the wells are more crude. This is the vision of Africa I had before coming- more heat, more naked women with babies on their side, more ethnicities mixed in the town. I really liked it but sweated liked crazy. At the Peace Corps regional house, it was 105 degrees at 10PM. I slept on the roof under a mosquito net and actually felt a bit chilly at 8AM when it was 88 degrees.

Eight hours of overland travels has taken me and the other Ecotourism volunteers along with our driver, guide, and makeshift camping gear deep within Niokola Koba Nationla Park, Senegal’s largest big game park. Mount Asterick, the highest mountain in the whole park at 311 meters sits in the distance, a rocky plain filled with lush trees blankets the other direction. Only a few yards away are about 30 baboons, excited and upset at our unanticipated arrival to the park’s old primate research station.

After filling our water bottles at the nearby spring and adding a few drops of bleach to kill any unexpected friends, we’ve started a fire and will eat sardine sandwiches for dinner. Yuck.

It seems like we’ve been here a long time already but it was only two days ago that we left Tambacounda to tour the park. We’ve seen hartebeest, gazelle, some sort of small deer, green and red monkeys, warthogs, and on the boat tour this morning of the Gambia river, crocodiles and hippos. The amount of wildlife is incredible, not the occasional deer or rabbit you’ll see over the course of an entire day in the states. The fact that we have lost so much of our wildlife in abundance in the US, except in Alaska and remote regions of the West, strikes me as a real loss of something much bigger than a few fuzzy creatures. It’s a primordial connection to the world as it once was, where we hunt and dress wild animals for dinner, where we listen with alert ears and sharp eyes as animals that threaten to eat us share the same space.

Going to the spring the last morning of our trip I turned a corner on the path to the spring and in front of me was a giant male baboon, his fur dark, his eyes dark yet bright. His muscles were tight, and he barked at me, frightened at my intrusion to his morning. He moved his head and shoulders up and down and he stared at me, still barking. Clearly I had been around the baboons for over a day now, but at this moment I was only 15 feet from an angry male. I started backing up and averted my eyes from him. As I turned around, I stopped. Behind me was another male, this one not as large, but on the trail and not moving as well. I didn’t fear getting attacked by baboons, but my flight or fight mechanism was hungry for a reaction. I just started talking to the baboons and telling them to chill out because I just wanted to get some water like them. They ran off the path and I kept going.

When I got to the spring, two other volunteers getting water asked me if I was talking to someone on the path. I just laughed and said yes.

This little bugger stole one my mangoes when I wasn't looking as we left the Hotel Simenti

Giant termite mounds abound in the park

A troupe of baboons on the river

Like the crocodiles, the hippos would only reveal a portion of themselves from the water, sometimes blowing water as they came up for air

Baboons scrambling up the riverbank upon seeing our boat

A fish eagle above the river

The crocodiles were charismatic on land, but in the water all you would see were their little eyes above the surface

Warthogs sniffing for snacks. Notice how they kneel down on their front legs so that their snouts touch the ground more easily

Looking down on the Gambia River in the park from Simenti where we spent the first night in the park at a nice lodge

This is a fromagier tree, which have spikes on them for their first 100 years of growth which protect their developing crown from monkeys. Fromagiers are the preferred wood for making pirogues, the african fishing boats

At least there's water if you fall, even if it does have crocodiles

Crossing the Indiana Jones bridge over the Niokola River

Amy swinging with kids from Molly's village Dar Salaam, at the entrace to Niokola Koba National Park

2006-03-31T10:19:00.000-08:00

Senegal’s Langue de Barberie National Park is located in a region known as the Gandiol, a natural estuary where the Senegal River meets the Atlantic Ocean. The area is a beautiful ecosystem of vast sand dunes, mangroves, river, ocean, and an excellent array of wildlife, including one of the largest populations of migratory birds in the world. Only 18km south of the popular tourist destination and former capital of French West Africa, Saint Louis, the park is easily accessible to tourists and is the only Senegalese national park open year-round.

The villages surrounding the Langue de Barberie National Park have been traditionally recognized for their artisan fishing industry, their sparse and seasonal agricultural output (onions), and increasingly for seasonal salt extraction. On a global level, cost of living increases and an increasingly competitive global market have left these raw material producers at an economic disadvantage in comparison to other modern forms of employment. Their situation is further aggravated by the promotion of large foreign and local fishing vessels monopolizing the fishing industry. This is true of many villages on the coast of Senegal.

More particular to the region, during the night of October 3, 2003, a canal was constructed along the Langue de Barberie 5km south of St. Louis to reduce flooding in the city that occurred due to high water levels in the river. The canal was made without first conducting an environmental impact study and the ecological and economic repercussions have been drastic, changing the ecological balance of the region and further compromising the quality of life for the local population of Gandiol. While the canal allowed the flood waters in Saint Louis to recede, it also allowed the ocean to advance into the Senegal River delta. As a result, the canal has dramatically increased the level of salt in the river and soil of the entire region, increased erosion to the main attraction of the park, a birds’ reproductive island, and has changed the physical geography of the national park. Since the opening of the canal, there has been a scarcity of fish in the river and the agricultural fields at the base of the river have been abandoned because the high levels of salt in the soil and water makes it impossible to cultivate. In a community that is economically structured around fishing and agriculture the opening of the canal has been a sharp blow to the livelihood of its community members. The national park, international partners, and local leaders are working hard to find economic livelihood alternatives to traditional employment with hopes that ecotourism will play a primary role.

Since it’s creation in 1976, the national park has worked to preserve the natural environment of this unique region and develop opportunities in tourism. Specifically, the park and the surrounding villages that make up the Gandiol region have emphasized the development of ecotourism, versus large-scale classic tourism that has fundamentally changed the environmental and cultural characteristics of many other areas in the country, such as Saly-Portugal, south of Dakar. Ecotourism as supported and applied in the region is composed of activities that generate tourism-related revenues, protect the natural environment, and which reinvest a portion of those revenues in community development projects such as micro-finance loans to community entrepreneurs, the construction of health clinics and schools, and other infrastructure improvement.

To date, the GIE (Gestion Interet Economique) of Eco Guards at the Park has successfully created and managed profitable enterprises in ecotourism including guided boat tours of the park and bird reproductive island, a restaurant at the entrance to the park, and horse cart tours of the adjacent village of Mouit and nearby agricultural fields.

The Eco Guards have also undertaken extensive reforestation projects, park cleanups, education sessions in the local schools, and regional trainings to teach community members about the importance of conservation, ecotourism, and waste management.

The GIE of Eco Guards is made up of volunteers from the various villages that make up the Gandiol region who make a small fee for their services as park guides. They are an incredibly motivated, talented, and representative group of young people who care deeply about their community and its future.

The GIE of park Eco Guards and the local community seek to create an ecotourism campement in the village of Moumbaye where tourists can enjoy extended stays in the park. The location selected by the community for the campement is directly across from park’s main attraction, the bird reproductive island, a large protected nesting ground which sits in the middle of the Senegal River and is home to thousands of migratory birds including pelicans, cormorants, herons, egrets, sterns, and gulls. The location is idyllic—bordered by palm and pine trees, a wide expanse of beachfront, and the nearby village of Moumbaye—it is sure to attract many tourists. From a marketing perspective, the location is strategic because every visitor to the park will pass in front of the campement as they visit the bird island.

Most tourist campements in Senegal use the typical method of building with cement bricks and rebar, usually with thatch or grass roofs. Buildings fashioned in this method can be found across the region and require consistent upkeep and maintenance. By contrast, the GIE of Eco Guards at the Langue de Barberie National Park are excited to employ a unique, durable, and artistic building method known as “Superadobe,” a natural building technique developed by Iranian architect Nader Khalili at Cal-Earth Institute. The basic construction technique involves filling sandbags with earth and laying them in courses in a circular plan. The circular courses are corbelled near the top to form a dome. Barbed wire is laid between courses to prevent the sandbags from shifting and to provide earthquake resistance. The system employs the timeless forms of arches, domes and vaults to create single and double-curvature shell structures that are both strong and aesthetically pleasing. It is cheap and allows buildings to be quickly erected by hand by the occupants themselves with a minimum of training. The shelters focus on the economic empowerment of people by participation in the creation of their own homes and communities. Because the structures use local resources – on-site earth and human hands – they are entirely sustainable. Men and women, old and young, can build since the maximum weight lifted is an earth-filled can to pour into the bags.

The design for the park’s campement calls for building two large “eco-domes” which can accommodate groups of up to six people each, along with five smaller domes that would accommodate individuals or couples. With this configuration, the campement would accommodate up to 22 people, with additional room for tourists with their own tents.

The campement would include a basic concrete kitchen to serve meals, a concrete sanitary station with 3 bathrooms and 3 showers, a small concrete office and gift shop, and a large Mauritanian style tent with mats, pillows, and low-profile tables and chairs for relaxing in the shade and eating meals. Additional components of the campement would include an entranceway with an attractive sign and a low-impact gravel road connecting the site with the main road, piped water, solar panels, hammocks, and fixed bird-watching telescopes.

With funding in place, the GIE of park Eco Guards would assume responsibility for actual construction of the campement. The volunteers themselves would provide most labor, but would also collaborate with local and international school groups interested in natural building technique, as well as hire other laborers from the local community as needed. The construction would be supervised by the park conservator, Lieutenant Mamadou Sidibe, with assistance from the local Peace Corps volunteer, Nat Parker. All materials except the Superadobe sandbags and design blueprints are available locally. With all materials and financing accounted for, the construction process itself would take approximately 4 months. An additional 2 months would be needed for site clean-up, facilities preparation, and community sensitization. This would include discussions and trainings conducted by the Eco Guards with the local community to familiarize them with the campement, its rules and norms to respect, and to provide a routine channel for community feedback.

The campement would be managed by the GIE of park Eco Guards. The GIE of Ecoguards is a well-functioning group of male and female volunteers from each of the villages that make up the Gandiol region, including Moumbaye, where the campement will be located. The group is structured with a president, vice-president, treasurer, and secretary who meet regularly with the other eco guards to review and make decisions on all GIE projects, including the park boat tours, park restaurant, reforestation, and community education. As with all other activities the GIE conducts within the park, its management is overseen by the park conservator, Lieutenant Mamadou Sidibe. Staff responsibilities for the campement including reception, cooking, and cleaning would be distributed on a rotational basis among the eco guards. All profits from the project will be divided between staff wages, depreciation costs for campement equipment, the GIE group account, and the Gandiol micro-credit and development institution CLGB (Commite Locale pour la Gestion de la Biodiversite).

To ensure and measure the success of this project, the GIE of Eco Guards will distribute a customer survey to all tourists who stay at the campement. The survey will assess all facets of the tourist’s experience, including the quality of the facilities, food, staff support, and general suggestions. Surveys will be reviewed in conjunction with the park conservator and Peace Corps volunteer on a monthly basis to identify areas of improvement and any associated trainings required for successful management of the campement. Local community members in Moumbaye, along with the Village Chief will be invited to GIE monthly meetings to provide feedback and air any concerns regarding the campement.

2006-03-31T10:07:00.000-08:00

My host father in Thies told me that the reason the Senegalese dance so much and so joyously is to forget about all the problems they live with on a daily basis. They really let loose and enjoy themselves.

More dancing at the baptism. Notice the "petit pagne" under her dress.

I go to the beach to relax and catch some waves. The Senegalese go to set their nets in the surf and make a living.

Ladies cooking up the sheep for lunch at the baptism

Isn't this guy fantastic?

2006-03-31T09:03:00.000-08:00

In my counterpart's back yard for his niece's baptism

An idyllic scene along the river looking onto the Gandiol lighthouse, about a km away from my village

The skull and bones of an old Sereer griot, or magic man inside the baobo tree

A giant 1,000 year old Baobob tree at the Bandia reserve

Bandia: giraffes

Bandia: gazelle

At the Bandia Reserve: a rhino and his member

Chuck and Paula, one of the married couples in our group, came to Senegal with beekeeping suits and led a training on how it's done for the rest of us

beauty

The birds go crazy when we come onto their island

Getting off the boat during our monthly bird count to look for eggs on the bird island

A pelican taking off from the bird island in the Langue de Barberie National Park where I work

2006-03-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

two of my neighbors at the wedding

Three of my sisters, Maimouna, Ndeye, and Rama at the wedding

The happy couple

This is from a wedding I went to-- the wedding party raises up their arms around the bride and groom to send them off

My neighbors dancing to the Sabaar, the ensemble of tam-tams and jembes (african drums)

This is the canal that was constructed between the Senegal River and the ocean which has completely screwed up the local environment because the ocean has taken over the delta, making the soil and water incredibly salty. The canal started as 5m and now is almost half a km wide.

Pirogues full of fresh fish gather at one of the markets under the main bridge in Saint Louis, le pont Faidherbe

Dan keeping up on American pop culture

Pirogues: the artisan fishing boats that abound in Saint Louis and my village

Looking onto the Guet Ndar fishing district of Saint Louis

A classic Senegal scene: this guy is the apprenti on this bus, these guys hang off the back and jump off to grab customers waiting for a ride

I got this shot from my hotel room in Dakar, looking down on a homeless family sleeping in the street under the streetlight

Me getting my official papers at our swearing in from my boss Mark Gizzi and Dr. Ndiaye from the Department of National Parks

Charlie and I felt pretty tough by this point

Some of our trainers dressed for the occassion

Our group of newly sworn in volunteers in Dakar

2006-02-09T06:55:00.000-08:00

Walking home to my house in Mouit the other night I witnessed the most spectacular natural event in my entire life. After a long and oddly fascinating day in Saint Louis, I was making my way along the dirt road guided by the not yet operational electrical lines. The sky above was mostly overcast, though there were a few clusters of stars and the planet Mars that shone through the cover. That they revealed themselves in these beautiful clear patches sturck me as somewhat mystical, certainly beautiful.

Then came the "event." Though clearly not an expert in astronomy, what I guess to have been a meteor burned through the air above my head in the space of a long enough second and a half to awe the air out of my lungs. A bright ball of pure light, like the end of a welder's torch seared into the atmosphere with a bright tail, almost pinkish, moving faster than anything I've ever seen in the heavens. The entire sky was lit up in its passing. The light reflected off the clouds and the whole of my darkness was suddenly bright as day for a split second. As my diaphragm contracted my mind richocheted between meteor, missile, comet, and UFO. I have seen shooting stars, but this was unlike any "star" I've ever seen. It looked as though a collision with our fragile planet was just nearly avoided, and suddenly I felt very small.

2006-02-09T06:44:00.000-08:00

Another amazing sunset for a great day

The bowl of freshly butchered sheep

My brother Solemon holding a sheep's testicle, a special snack for Senegalese kids on Tabaski

My brothers busy preparing one of the sheep

My father Adama reading from the Quran during the prayer, his assistants holding the shawl behind his head

The men of the village lined up for the prayer before the slaughter

Adama approaches the gathering of men to lead the prayer

Prayer beads run through most of the mens' hands

We celebrated Tabaski the other day. Nothing since I've been here has more effectively demonstrated the base, native, brutal, hungry, and carniverous human appetite than this Muslim holiday that celebrates God telling Abraham to slaughter a sheep instead of his son to show his devotion and faith. Everyone in Senegal slaughters a sheep and it was my first chance to see this up close. My father Adama slaughtered two sheep and a goat.

My timid brothers transformed into butchers, each wielding a machete or freshly-sharpened knife, separating sinew from meat, meat from bone, bone from skin. Watching them reach into the sheeps' ribcages and literally tear their hearts out followed by lungs, liver, gallbladder, kidneys, stomach, small intestines, large intestines, and of course the testicles, I just couldn't help but think that the dissection units in American high school biology classes simply could never compare.

As my mother Tabara fanned the coals beneathed freshly extracted livers, my two year old brother Soloman carried around three testicles, each one much larger than his hands. My brother Modou was "beying" at me as held the decapitated head of our goat in front of his face. Pape hacked away at the ram's horns, shards of bone flying my way as I tried to snap a few photos of my family meat market.

Spots of blood decorated everyone except me and I don't think I've felt like such a foreigner or such a fragile Westerner until now. I think I will have to take part in the slaughter as a rite of passage into manhood before going back to the bright fluorescent, refrigerated meat aisle at the neighborhood grocery store at home.

2006-02-09T06:24:00.000-08:00

Chris Murphy, the volunteer I visited in Sokone for "demystification," exuded a confidence and mafia like generosity that made me nostalgic for Emil D'Elletto, the Italian chef that was a mentor of mine for many summers on the Jersey shore. Tonight I met Jimmy Walter, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Guatamala, who ended his service in 2004. He and his beautiful English girlfriend Emily, who works for the World Bank, were on the Plymouth-Banjul rally cross from England to the Gambia. Jimmy and Emily are sponsored in their old-school tank like diesel MERC, or Mercedes Benz by an AIDS education and awareness campaign. They are passing out fake dog tags with the word SPEAK on them. The package they come in shows a picture of Christina Aguleira with tape over her mouth. Ironic I know. I took a large stack to pass out to young adults in my village.

The hazy settee area of the Zebrabar, my local campement and bar, was a saloon of travellers this evening- English, French, German, American, Swiss, Austrailian, South African, and Senegalese. The 100+ people at the normally calm campement feasted on marinated filet tenderloins along with salad, sweet potatos and carrots. They topped it all off chocolate cake and a banana cream custard that I got to take a sample of thanks to the insistent prodding of Jimmy, who in true form as a Peace Corps volunteer, made me take the free desert, no questions asked.

With over 60 steaks on the grill, many a beer flowing, and the music of everything between Manu Chao and Senegalese Sabaar, the night was not the antidote, but perhaps an aftertaste of letting go of just enough control over my life and my post here. It was really a quite a deluge of flavorful conversation, music, dancing, and of course my dinner of rice and beans which I was cheap enough to go home for while the crowd feasted on their filets.

An Englishman named Philip offered to buy me dinner, a whopping 6000CFA, or about $12, not cheap for me. In declining though, I did hedge a free beer, and got use Emily's satellite phone to call home. What a surreal experience to chat with my mom from a satellite phone in my village that has no electricity or phone lines. If rallies like these came every night to my village I'd be in trouble, but once in a while would be just fine by me.

2006-02-09T06:11:00.000-08:00

Friday afternoon was a special day in my village- a celebration for the homecoming of a man who had made the Haj to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. While I couldn't understand most of what was said at the gathering, I watched with curious eyes as a very touching moment unfolded. All the men of the village were seated fon mats in the man's courtyard. I walked in to fifty pairs of eyes following each step I took as I approached Adama, my village host father and the village chief and imam.

I sat with him in the circle of elders he was surrounded by, all dressed in beautiful kaftans, many of them passing prayer bead after prayer bead through their hands as they listened closely to the man describe his journey. While he went over the time it took to get there, how the city looked, and how all kinds of Muslims from across the globe were there, the men affirmed his details with collective murmurs of Mmhhmm. He commanded great attention while he spoke. After giving the details of the journey he began to thank the people that made his Haj possible, starting with his father. The man began to cry, thanking his father for teaching him to be a good Muslim, for helping him get an education and a good job to have the money to go. His father sat stone faced, weeping as well. Almost all of the men around me were glassy eyed.

After thanking everyone, the man was finished and Adama led the group in a prayer. Everyone sat with their palms open toward the sky and repeated his prayer. I held my hands open and couldn't help but thinking that I would never have experienced a day like this as a simple tourist or traveller.

After prayer attaya was served for everyone and suddenly the conversation shifted to me. Before I had gotten my first cup of tea I was being grilled by Adama's friends about wheterh I know how to make attaya, if I was Muslim, if I had a wife, since I didn't have a wife did I want a Senegalese wife?

I did my best to respond to each question and with a little help from Adama had the group smiling over my description of how many wives he has, what their names are, and how, if you add my host mother in Thies, my host mother mother from Paris, my mom and my stepmom, I actually have 7 mothers. The group really liked this and with nods of approval the conversation returned to the man who had gone to Mecca.

2005-12-08T03:34:00.000-08:00

Fatou, my second Mom and Adama's second wife, is a ball of energy. She starts her mornings before the sun comes up, stoking the morning coals before heading out to the family onion and tomato patches to water, a 4km round trip.

She has kids sprawled on her all day long and loves to joke. She also loves to ask me for money just about every other day. I try to say no with a smile and give her bread or milk instead.

2005-12-08T03:24:00.000-08:00

It could just be another mefloquine morning, but I woke up to dreams flying around my bedroom, and my heart feeling heavy with the weight of two years in front of me in Senegal, in Mouit, in this very hut of mine. Fortunately, Tom Robbins has been keeping me realistic about putting too much onus on anything other than the present with wise words from Only Cowgirls Get the Blues:

“For the most part, however, Sissy had joined the ranks of the Unhappy Waiters and Killers of Time. Oh God, there are so many of them in our land! Students who can’t be happy until they’ve graduated, servicemen who can’t be happy until they’re discharged, single folks who can’t be happy until they’re married, workers who can’t be happy until they’re retired, adolescents who can’t be happy until they’re grown, ill people who can’t be happy until they’re well, failures who can’t be happy until they succeed, restless who can’t be happy until they get out of town; and in most cases, vice versa, people waiting, waiting for the world to begin.”

Lord knows I don’t want to be part of that mix. Besides, my thoughts were quickly interrupted by the morning orchestra of barnyard noises, crackly radio broadcasts and routine loogy-hacking by my father Adama just outside my door. Sleeping-in at my compound means staying in bed until 8AM, and I made it just shy of 7:30AM.

One of the sheep in the livestock pen at the other corner of the yard just didn’t want to stop whining, and I can’t say I could blame him. The poor guy has all of 12 inches of slack in the rope tied around his front leg and spends most the day stepping back and forth, side to side, exercising his hoof’s worth of freedom until the slaughter next month for Tabaski.

I think it was Bernard Malamud who postulated that the human spirit or character is strengthened by suffering. I think he was right. Suffering, or at least quiet tolerance for discomfort is a theme in my village that the people offer with a smile and happy “How are you?” and the sheep offer with a “Baah” described above.

My sister Marietou, for example, the one who has been complaining about a toothache for the last week, finally showed me her tooth and yikes! Between two of her top left molars, a hole big enough to fit a pea into gaped wide open with decay, her nerve hanging out in the breeze. My first thought after seeing this was more a gut reaction, a wince in fact, than an actual thought. My second thought was that if I have children and they ever wine about going to the dentist, I’m going to smack them. Marietou’s aunt Fatou prepared a tonic with some sort of root mixed with water for her to drink. Medicine, not surprisingly, is called “garab” or literally “tree” in Wolof.

After lunch I decided that I needed to get a little time alone and went to the park. I walked along the river and found a nice spot where, after taking a good swim, I dreamed up money making schemes and life scenarios for when I get back to the US. Meanwhile a guy about my age appeared out of the bush to go drift-net fishing, the extra slack of his line held in his teeth while he threw the net into the current. With every couple casts, he carefully picked out one or two small fish and put them in a cloth sack tied around his waste, keeping his catch fresh until going to market. Snapping a photo of him, I felt a little guilty. He’s not some novelty or zoo animal after all, but I wanted to remember him and the contrast between him working in the water that I use to recreate and relax.

As I returned to my village, I passed by three older fishermen who were sitting under the shade of a thorny tree on the beach, drinking attaya. One of them was carefully sewing his pants where they had ripped, one attended to the bed of coals in the sand heating the tea, and the other man, the oldest, looked at me with a piercing gaze that only an old man can produce. His eyes had a ring of blue around the cornea, not a normal site and one I couldn’t help but stare at as he sized me up.

We talked about how the fish in the river were smaller and fewer than before the canal had been built, and the men complained that most of their friends had gone to Dakar or the Gambia to fish or find work as a result. I asked if they had a boat, and they motioned to what looked like a miniature pirogue, a model, maybe a boat for kids to play with. But splintered and weathered, the five foot vessel was obviously a work horse. In the two seconds it took for me to turn and look at the boat, I found myself conflicted about my thought earlier in the morning of trying to get a deal from the owner of the nearby campement, the ZebraBar, to see if I could rent his windsurfing gear. Fisherman number two handed me my glass of attaya while the old man told me that it was good I am here to work because these are poor people and they need help.

2005-12-05T03:37:00.000-08:00

Two days into my village stay and my neighbor Mamadou takes me for a tour of the village, hand in hand from house to house. “Diop, Diop, Diop” is the refrain, “Alhumdulilay” (Thanks be to God) the chorus. The villagers will ask me “Nanga def?” or “How are you?” over and over again, maybe because they think it’s all I can understand, but more I think because that’s just how it works here when greeting someone. I can hardly make it more than half a “block” before someone is calling “Manssour!” asking “Fooy dem?” “Where are you going?” They also ask after Harit, or Angela, the volunteer I’ve replaced.

Angela did quite a job with the park and the people, but also kept a distance or existence unto her own as the villagers tell me about her “husband” who I know to be here boyfriend, and about her weekly trips to “church” which were actually days spent at the beach or a campement. I wonder what and how much I will feel compelled to disguise myself.

The days here feel slow, much the way they did in Thies. My breakfasts have been very relaxing- hot toubab coffee, baguette with butter, beans, or a fried egg. My hut is comfortable and bright with two big rooms, one my bedroom, complete with a double bed (rice sack, straw filled mattress), end tables, and a mirror. The other room has a single bed that doubles as a couch, along with a small desk and makeshift kitchen made up of a cutting board table and shelf, along with a gas stove that serves at night as my gas lantern.

It is at night when I truly feel the difference of living in the village versus in Thies. Everyone gathers on the veranda of the house in the light of the family’s single gas lantern, seated on mats on the concrete. The smell of charcoal fills the air and we eat dinner as the sun goes down, me with my own bowl of thiebunebbe (rice and beans with remnants of fish from the thiebujen from lunch). Having eaten around the bowl with my family in Thies it feels a bit odd to sit alone and eat while the rest of the family, all 13 of them, crowd around two large bowls. But this is how Harit did it, and my father Adama tells me that I would hardly get a scrap if I had to compete with the kids.

My two moms, Tabara and Fatou, alternate in making the attaya as the rest of us eat peanuts after the meal. The stars, “biddeo” are unbelieveable here, Orion moving from the Southeast horizon to the top of the sky throughout the evening. It actually gets chilly at night and to my disbelief I am happy to have the comforter that I bought from Angela.

I made it to the park the other day and was introduced to my new office my Mamadou Sidibe, my new boss and Conservateur of the Langue de Barberie National Park. As we looked over the office computer, “In” box, “Out” box, and CB radio, Mamadou cradled his two year old son Bamba in one arm as he guided me with the other. The office has cracks in the walls, bugs buzzing, dusty books strewn about, but a certain charm that American Property Management could never produce in Portland, even with a window office.

My first call to duty was assisting Mamadou and the other park staff in “repairing” the radio antenna before the minister of tourism’s visit to the park this Sunday. I put repair in quotations marks because what we did was re-splice a frayed cable that had already been spliced many times and attach it to a new antenna extension that will add three feet of reception. The antenna however, didn’t fit on the existing bracket, so with undersized U-bolts and a ton of electrical and packing tape, we “fixed” the antenna only to watch the cable snap in the process of raising the tower.

“C’est pas grave” says Mamadou, “No big deal,” and we lower the tower to jury-rig it once more, this time with success. My Leatherman was handy for the job, a sophisticated tool compared to the plastic bag full of rusty tools as our disposal.

After the antenna incident I got a boat tour of the park with my counterpart Arona Fall, our piroguier pilot Sayibou, and four toubab tourists, two Spaniards and two Canadiens. The pirogue is an interesting vessel in design- somewhat reminiscent of a Native American canoe, though wider, and pretty tippy. The park is a mix of river, ocean, beach, lizards, palms, turtles, birds, birds, birds, and wait, garbage. Sure enough, the folks in Saint Louis and every other upriver community haven’t been sensitized to the effects of littering in the river. “Pristine” is a relative term here and while the banks of the river do collect old bottles, bags, and flip-flops, it is still an incredibly beautiful place, and holds fantastic potential for ecotourism.
Later in the week I went with my brother Pape to the family’s fields, a two kilometer walk in the bush behind our house. The soil is actually just sand mixed with manure, but seems to work just fine for the onions, tomato, and manioc that I could see. It was really something to walk past the old ruin of the Balacoste, which I now understand to be a remnant of one of the first French colonial outposts from the early 18th century.

Weaving between cactus, palms, and the dunes we passed a small Pulaar village. The Peuls, or Pulaars, are a gentle people that originated in Ethiopia but are dispersed across the continent because of their traditional lifestyle of herding and animal husbandry. We made it to a filed of onions, 108 1.5’x 3’ plots of green sprouts. Pape showedme the not so easy task of how to water the plots as he pulled one gallon of water for each plot, hauling bucket after bucket 15 feet from one of the many wells that dot the landscape. We carefully poured the water around the border of the each plot, using a mesh of straw and fishing net as a filter to protect the newest seedlings. Pape smiled each time he passed me my buckets and never once grunted or even sighed as he labored for the better part of an hour.

2005-12-01T07:31:00.000-08:00

Pirogues on the beach in Saint Louis after returning from the ocean.

2005-12-01T07:07:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought I had a grasp on what it feels like to live day to day in Senegal, my village has jolted me back to reality through the voices of curious children, anxious chickens, dying goats, and my new host family the Diops. Mouit is quiet in the way of cars and telephones, but is busy with conversations from runny-nosed kids that like to rub the hair on my arms and follow me wherever I go. I woke up this morning to the seemingly continuous call of the rooster right outside my door and decided to walk to the Balanterre—a ruin of some old building behind my house that sits on top of a high spot among the dunes. It offers a great view of the surrounding area and is the only place where my cell phone gets a signal. The stars in the last grasps of night were bright, clear, and everywhere. In my village I am away from the city, away from electricity, and that much closer to the real world.

The sun came up slowly at first with a pale light that finally gave way to the glowing orange ball I’ve seen in idyllic pictures of Africa. It rushed into the sky illuminating the dunes, the cacti, the scrub brush, and palms. As I shot a few pictures of this unfolding scene, two camels approached from the bush, greeting me with sniffs in my direction. While only a few miles from Mauritania, I had no idea there were camels in Senegal.

Later in the day as I rode in a bush taxi from Mouit to Saint Louis, a troupe of monkeys ran across the road in front of the car.

Beyond its natural beauty, Mouit is making realize that this country does live in poverty and that the relatively humble conditions of my host family in Thies are quite luxurious in comparison to the village. Mouit is off the paved road with no electricy. At night, it is dark except for candles, gas lamps, and the coals of the small charcoal stoves used to for cooking and for making attaya.

I sat with my host family the Diops and tried to memorize everyone’s name in the compound, not an easy task with my dad, two wives, and what I think are about 10 kids. My new name is Manssour Diop, which will take a bit of getting used to after being Matar Thiam for the last two months. They are sweet, soft spoken, and sit with each other throughout the day making fun of each other. Within an hour of my arrival, my sister asked me for medicine for her tooth ache, and for an awful looking open sore on one of my little brother’s legs. I knew I would see things I was not expecting, but to see a two year old with a giant wound, just playing in the sand peacefully I felt off balance. I gave Marietou ibuprofen and antibiotic cream, and I know it won’t be long before she asks me again.

Per the Peace Corp’s recommendation, I drew up a contract and receipt for rent, laundry, and water at my new house and went over it with Adama, my father. I asked him to sign next to his name, and he made a scribble. Most of the kids cannot read or write either. I am waking up to the new standard to what I take for granted, basic education, power and clean water, medicine, and ease all included.

2005-11-24T13:42:00.000-08:00

This week we celebrated Thanksgiving at the Peace Corps Training Center. Living everyday in another culture has given special meaning and enthusiasm to unique American traditions like Thanksgiving, and our group of trainees made an incredible feast that nourished the soul as much as it did our appetites.

Fifteen roast chickens, squash, mashed potatoes, creamed greens, biscuits, deviled eggs, quiche, cookies, chocolate, apple pie, iced tea, and bissap juice made for an amazing meal that really felt like home. After eight weeks of eating thiebujen and other Senegalese cuisine, it was a nurturing treat to eat food that our tongues and tummies recognized and welcomed. And for once we actually did the cooking, taking over the training center kitchen blasting Creedence Clearwater Revival as people chopped, stirred, basted, and baked into the late afternoon.

We sat outside family style and were joined by our language and tech trainers. This was a very big deal as the weekends are sacred to our Senegalese friends, for the most part the only time they have during our training to spend time with their families in Dakar and Thies. That they left their loved ones to spend the evening with us was a true sign of friendship and appreciation.

As we manged and manged and manged, one of our elder volunteers Chuck Ledlam got up to share a history of Thanksgiving with our Senegalese trainers. Chuck worked 30 years on Capitol Hill and is smart, tough, seasoned, but a fantastic bullshitter. In his typical rhetoric we have all come to both fancy and at times ridicule, he filled the crowd with visions of goodwill and “thanksgiving,” describing an idyllic meal between persecuted English pilgrims and their kind Native American hosts that made me think of my elementary school social studies class. With puffy orange doilies and a chance to go the mall to start Christmas shopping, we actually could have been transported to American holiday mania. Maybe it’s just naive idealism, or maybe I’m just young, but I always have to give credit to how well US consumer culture, public education, and humanity’s affinity for historic revisionism warp the truth as to how our country came into being, from the arrival at Plymouth to the “election” of George W. Bush in 2000.

Luckily the real meaning and good intentions behind Chuck’s speech were not lost on my cynicism. The spirit of being with those that you care about was the message that we knew he wanted to share and what happened next made that more than clear.

Adam, the volunteer that initiated our Thanksgiving feast, got up to thank everyone for their hard work and great food and suggested that we all go around and say something that we were thankful for. Personally I prefer spontaneous sincerity to forced expression, and having just come off the heels of Chuck’s dreamy and largely exaggerated account of the history of this holiday, I was not terribly excited to get up and share with the group.

But the folks at the other end of the horse-shoe of our dinner table started and thanked all of us for being new and excellent friends, for having great families that supported their decision to come to Senegal, for the chance to be here to do such an amazing job and learn along the way. Many of them started tearing up as they said what they were thankful for, and damn it if the rest of us, our Senegalese trainers included, didn’t start doing the same. By the time his turn came around Mr. Cynical here had glassy eyes and a giant lump in his throat. I got up and through a crack in my voice gave thanks for loved ones back home, for new friends here, and especially for our Senegalese trainers who I was sitting with and who have made my time here so amazing. I really meant it when I said that they are truly some of the best people I have ever met. I did not expect to be taken by the moment so strongly, nor did many of the folks at the table. Our trainers were in tears and I felt bad for rolling my eyes at the idea of sharing my thanks with everyone.

For me our Thanksgiving reinforced the fact that we have come so far in such a short time in Senegal. Our bond as volunteers and as friends with our Senegalese trainers is so strong after such a short time. Our language skills have progressed, our technical know-how isn’t bad, and our outlook for the future is positive, if a bit more realistic. We are getting more accustomed to Senegalese culture, but we are still and will always be Americans no matter how much thieboujen we eat.

2005-11-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

On the right is a shot of a pirogue crossing between mainland Dakar and Ngor Island (on the left side of the picture), a beautiful getaway just a few minutes from downtown. On the left is an interesting piece of art on the island.

This guy was great-- he said that unlike most Senegalese that he didn't like being with people all the time and escapes to Ngor Island to play his jembe.

2005-11-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the madhouse. Dakar is a bulging ball of human ingenuity, filth, competition, dust, traffic, and continuous movement, maybe what New York or London might have felt like 100 years ago. Typical Senegalese warmth and the seedy side of teranga meet in the capital as con-men and opportunists follow you, yell at you, and try with undying intensity to get a piece of the xaalis they know is in your pocket. Walking through the Salle de Vents market and Place D’Independence I preferred to look at these guys as my friends instead of fiends and I have never felt more popular. The sheer number of t-shirts, backpacks, magazines, fabric, furniture, jewelry, food and junk that they sell across every meter of the city makes me wonder just how much of it is actually sold.

The interchange with vendors, cab drivers, or clando drivers (people who use their “clandestine” vehicles as cabs) is an exercise in patience and debate. The price starts high, in fact unusually high since you’re a toubab, and is listed with indifference. This is followed by their steadily increasing expression of desire for your sale but disdain for your offer to pay half or at best three quarters of what they ask. Walking away from the stall or car after a couple minutes of discussion is a classic move that will usually make the guy finally give in or give up.

When a cab driver told me that gas prices were killing him (gas here is just over $4 a gallon) and that my offer of say 1200 CFA for a ride was a joke, I responded in kind saying, “Don’t worry, I can speak to my friend George Bush about the price of gas. I can help you, no problem.” His laughter at this comment gets me a fare of 1700 CFA for a ride that he quoted me at 3000 CFA.

Dakar, not unlike Senegal as a whole from what I have experienced, exists as a series of paradoxes in terms of wealth and poverty, beauty and grit, and hilarity and fear. Here though, it is incredibly palpable. Crumbling concrete is buffeted by fancy banks while the remnants of colonial grandiosity mingle with modern supermarkets and a Senegalese bourgeoisie. And while the meat vendors, fishermen, peanut ladies, and tailors are like any others I have encountered in the country, the middle class have an air unto themselves, a definite European-American refined glitz that is markedly different from “traditional” Senegalese.

At a nightclub called “Just for You” I almost felt uncomfortable under the pink and lime green light with palm trees and attentive waiters. The amount of French versus Wolof that I heard was incredible and it wasn’t the typical African accent but stylized native French. I hesitated ordering a beer because I could feel my tongue wanting to roll the “r” in “biere” like most Senegalese. But the fact that this middle class exists is perhaps encouraging on a certain level. It certainly reflects the growing wealth and economy that the country will hopefully see spread beyond the borders of Dakar.

Still, it doesn’t take long to be brought back to reality by the stench of grey-green sewage running along the side of the street overflowing onto the pavement here and there. Horses, goats, and chickens still graze in the median and my cab driver jumps the curb onto the sidewalk to avoid one of the ever-present traffic jams that block our way.

On a trip to Ngor Beach with my friends Nick and Dan, our cab stalled after we stopped to show a policeman the vehicle registration. What do we do after it doesn’t start on the 10th turn? The boys get out and push with a guy walking past, the cab driver pops the clutch, and I capture the moment with a laugh.

Dakar reminds me that economic development comes with its costs- pollution, sprawl, traffic, and loss of community. These are all apparent in the city and my Senegalese friends from Thies say they prefer the tranquil life to the city life. The difference between people from the city and people from the country is apparent in any culture, the surreal thing here is that while the wealth and development hit you head on, so does the fact that it happens in a uniquely Senegalese way. People honk and moan in morning traffice, but still eat their thiebugen (fish and rice) for lunch around communal bowls, go to prayer together, and laugh with one another on the street as anywhere else in the country. I look forward to more...

2005-11-15T10:33:00.000-08:00

The other night I ate dinner with our agriculture tech trainer Youssoupha and his family in the Parsel neighborhood of Thies. Youssoupha is a fixture in this town and at the Peace Corps training center. He is like the rebar that holds together crumbling cement, a true supporter of his family, friends, and neighbors. Youssoupha is a big man, probably 6’5” maybe an inch or two more. He is dark as night and is an imposing yet amazingly gentle man.

His house is a mini-castle, three levels with six bedrooms to house his four children, his brother and their children, his sister, and from what I could tell, at least one semi-permanent guest. On the roof of his house he showed me the water catchment system he designed himself to use for watering his gardens and trees, and to store in a reservoir he designed to augment the low water pressure in his house. He even designed the house itself and is in the process of adding a second living room and master bedroom.

Youssoupha is fluent in Pulaar du Nord, Wolof, French, Spanish, and English. He is a trained agricultural engineer and a proud Muslim. He often tells me what a great volunteer I will be, and says that even though I am not in the agriculture program, that I can be his student and his friend.

On the roof under the haze of a half moon, Youssoupha explained to me the dynamic of his home. He told me that he has an obligation to take care of everyone around him, and that doing anything otherwise would be socially unacceptable, shameful in fact. We compared the Senegalese family model to its American counterpart and the recurrent theme of material wealth versus wealth in family and friends was driven into my mind with his deep, soft voice.

Grabbing my hand in his own to lead me around the roof and point out the different trees and garden plots he had planted, Youssoupha listed off the guests in his house. He said that he has had a friend of his sister living in the house for over four months, eating at every meal without paying a single penny to help out. He said that everyday neighbors come to him for small favors like asking for sugar, or enough money to take a taxi to see a relative in another town. He said that he simply has to give, there is no other choice and that even when he cannot afford to give, he gives at least 500 or 1000 cfa.

Around the dinner platter tonight, I sat with eight of these people as we all ate beef, peas, and potatoes with our hands. My shoulders touched the person to my left and Youssoupha to my right. People would tear off pieces of beef and put them in front of me until they had all finished and insist that I keep eating. Before coming over, I bought three bottles of soda for 1800 cfa, just over three dollars. Youssoupha said that it was too much, unnecessary, and certainly not expected. I couldn’t imagine doing otherwise I told him, and after seeing the reality of his roost, I really couldn’t.

We had attaya after dinner along with millet and sweet yogurt. I spoke with Youssoupha’s son and brother about the drawbacks of going to the US to find work rather than staying in Senegal and trying to make ends meat. They knew that money is what made our country work but I don’t know if they realized just how different the way our families and communities operate. I acted out the personal space bubble, and typical salutations back home, not the prolonged and intimate Senegalese embrace and discussion. I told them that I thought they would be better off to find a way to make money in Senegal and be able to stay with their family and friends than to work hard and be alienated in the US. But that’s easy for me to say with my relative wealth compared to theirs.

I am continually amazed at the dignity that these people have in how they treat one another, in how they treat me. Youssoupha told me that I was part of his family now, that I should come back to visit soon and unannounced, and even insisted that I stay the night. I told him earlier that I was impressed with who he was and all that he had done for everyone around him and he asked how I could be impressed by a poor African man. In more ways than I can count and in greater words than I can produce.

2005-11-08T11:23:00.000-08:00

I think one of the things I miss the most about the US is the privilege of privacy. In Oregon I loved to seek out solitude on Mount Hood or deep in the forest with only the sound of the nature around me to calm the noise in my mind. Here, it is nearly impossible to be alone, and the very notion of not being with other people is looked at as uniquely toubab.

I have found this to be exhausting on the one hand because being social every moment of the day takes quite a bit of energy, but I have also found it unnerving when for instance, all I want to do is take a shit in peace, but one of my sisters or my mom are out in the backyard, literally just outside the bathroom door. There’s no leisure time on the pot to read the paper. As a matter of fact there’s no pot, just the hole you squat over. If I spend time alone in my room with the door shut, someone is knocking every few minutes to see what I am doing or see if I’ll join the conversation, play the guitar, watch the TV, or just be with them. And even when I do find some space, there is a torrent of activity just on the other side of my door.

Sometimes I wonder how people have sex in this country without it being a spectacle. Maybe you just do it and know that everyone will know what’s going on, including your three kids just on the other side of your door. And doors, while they do exist to separate one room from another, are rarely if ever used here. Instead drapes, curtains, or a doorway of hanging beads separate one space from the next.

Even doing things in the presence of others by but by yourself like reading a book is a foreign concept here. In fact I have never seen a Senegalese person sitting on their porch getting into a good novel or writing in their journal. What you do see are people with other people talking, joking, drinking tea, or simply sitting with one another silently. Senegal boasts a uniquely social culture and doing things alone is anti-social, maybe even anti-African.

In addition to getting comfortable with being around family and friends all day, you have to learn to share your personal space. The two-foot radius of the American personal space bubble is simply laughable here. In a taxi or on an Aluhumdulilay bus you are as close up and personal with your fellow passengers as is physically possible. Sometimes you’ll even get a little kid to put on your lap for part of your journey. Remember the soap commercial with a crowd tightly packed into an elevator? “Hope everyone has used Dial!” Yeah…. On the other hand, sitting between two large women with cushiony jaayfonde (the sacrosanct Senegalese ass) can actually be a reassuring measure of safety in vehicles that haven’t had working seat belts for the last 25 years.

Fortunately the Senegalese love touch. Friends hold hands when walking down the street, men, women, young and old. Here at the Peace Corps training center, the trainers lean on one another, sit on laps, put a hand the back of the person in front of them, and shake hands a minimum of 30 times a day. As you greet a good friend, you don’t just shake their hand, but you hold onto it for a while, ask if they are in peace, ask after their family and their health, ask about their work, and of course praise God.

Doing this so often I sometimes lose sight of just how deep the things I am actually saying actually are. Can you imagine saying some of this stuff to a friend at the office in the morning?

“Good morning John. Did you spend your night in peace?”
“Yes Mark, thanks to God I did. And you, did you sleep well last night?
“Thanks to God yes I did. And how is your family?”
“They are fine thank you. They are healthy and will remain so God willing.”
“Okay John, I am going to get going. Spend the rest of your day in peace.”
“Peace to you too Smith.”
“Johnson.”
“Smith.”
“Johnson.”

Salutation, family well-being, God, and family name are integral values here and they are reflected in even the most basic everyday interactions. People will see you on the street and call out your family name. “Parker! Parker,” or in my case, “Thiam! Thiam!” It is really something that everyone seems to remember everyone else’s name so easily, especially when the name is something like Papa Ibrahima DIOUF. But I am doing my best to be present with my Senegalese friends, to hold onto someone’s hand for that extra moment, and to say their name again and again knowing that while I may not have memorized theirs, they will surely remember and call out mine the next time we meet.

2005-11-04T06:19:00.000-08:00

A man cooling off in the midday heat at Popenguine, on the coast.

2005-11-04T06:11:00.000-08:00

Here I am in my new bou bou with the Thiam family on the evening of Korite.

2005-11-04T06:04:00.000-08:00

My mom Alice making Bissap juice for Korite.

2005-11-04T05:36:00.000-08:00

My brother Dou-Dou in his Korite outfit that our mom Alice made for him. She would smack him later for playing soccer without changing into play clothes.

My sister Ndeye preparing lunch.

2005-11-04T05:33:00.000-08:00

Last night was the first in a month that you couldn’t see the waning moon, so today was officially Korite, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. The day is spent visiting as many neighbors and friends as possible to wish them well and to ask their forgiveness for any harm you might have caused them during the past year. There was a palpable sense of relief among everyone because people can finally return to normal routines and eat on a regular schedule after fasting from sunrise to sunset for an entire month. My neighbors were very happy and greeted each other in the street with smiles and extra long salutations, even for the Senegalese.

Everyone from little kids to grandparents wears brand new outfits and I didn’t want to be left out, so Monday night I went to see Jahsee, the local tailor my mom recommended to me and had a nice boubou made for Korite. Jahsee is well known in our cartier for being an excellent craftsmen and for having an identical twin who was seated at the sewing machine across from him when I stopped by. The shop was cluttered with beautifully patterned material that shimmered beneath the one fluorescent light overhead.

After picking out what I wanted, I did my best to waxtan, or negotiate the price in my broken Wolof and French. I told Jahsee that I wasn’t really a toubab, but a white Senegalese, which made him and everyone else at the shop crack up but he stuck to a price of 8000 cfa. I told him that I was a Peace Corps volunteer and that unlike other foreigners here I didn’t have a lot of money. I told him that I was the organizer of our group and that if he gave me a good deal I would bring other PCVs to his shop to have clothing made. As I bantered I tried not to be distracted by the picture of Osama Bin Laden hanging over Jahsee’s head, which is not a rare sight in many shops and restaurants in Senegal. While I wondered to myself how Bin Laden fits into what is obviously a very tolerant and peaceful Muslim society, Jahsee lowered the price to 6000cfa, or just under $12. The infidel just saved four bucks. What do think about that Osama?

Once decked out in my new outfit on the morning of Korite, my dad Mamadou took me to the juma or big mosque where everyone—all the men that is-- pray together on Fridays and on holidays. I asked him if he thought it was okay for me to go along, not wanting to offend anyone. He laughed at me, coughing between his giggles.

“The local imam you are going to see, this is a man who will go on and on about God says you must do this, God commands you must do that, but last year our community discovered this same man, this holy man, drinking beer and sleeping with a woman that wasn’t his wife! You tell me if you think it is wrong for you to go and bear witness at the mosque today.”

With that, Mamadou, my little brother Dou-Dou, and I were on our way to the mosque with our prayer mat that I normally use in my room as a place to sit at the computer. A couple hundred men and boys were gathered outside the entrance to the mosque, seated on prayer mats and rugs in the shade of several beautiful neem trees, many with prayer beads in their hands. A younger man was speaking to the crowd, a small microphone attached to his boubou. The crackling, often piercing sound of his voice over the loudspeaker in mosque’s central tower added an interesting element to a speech that sounded more like a lecture than a sermon.

We found a spot, removed our sandals and sat quietly on our mat. I sensed scores of eyes looking my way now and then, getting a glimpse of the one toubab in the crowd, probably the only non-Muslim among them. I saw Jahsee a few rows behind us. The poor guy was struggling to stay awake after probably staying up all night to finish everyone’s new clothes for the day.

The mosque photographer came our way and got a couple shots of me sitting with Mamadou and my neighbors. Getting your photo taken or appearing on television at public events seems to be a common occurrence in Senegal according to other Peace Corps volunteers, just by virtue of being a toubab. I tried to compare the feel of my surroundings with going to church in the US, and the first thing I noticed was that not unlike home, the kids were restless and squirmed until being quietly scolded by their dads or brothers.

After about twenty minutes, the imam arrived, a stout older man with 1/4 inch thick glasses, and a white flowing boubou with yellow embroidery on his chest. He was accompanied by two assistants that draped a vale over the back of his head as he addressed the crowd, and held it there in the wind. The imam directed the crowd to prayer, and I took a deep breath. Mamadou had prepared me for this moment and said to simply follow his gestures. I asked him if it would be strange for me to take part in the prayer, especially since I couldn’t say the verses themselves, but he reassured me that simply mumbling and moving my lips like him would be fine.

We all rose with our arms relaxed at our sides. The prayer began and I followed the crowd as they raised their arms from the elbow until their palms were facing forward, level with their head. We repeated this a few times, and then kneeled, seated on our calves. Next we rocked forward until our foreheads were against the ground.

For the few seconds that I stared at the dirt an inch from my face I wondered what my family and friends would think of me taking part in this Muslim prayer. I wondered what Jesus would think, or even Buddha, and in the periphery of my vision, I saw the white of Mamadou’s right eye, and realized that it didn’t matter; that I was a student of life and that my curiosity wouldn’t be the subject of shame or sin in any religion or group I would ever be a part of. The prayer concluded and we sat for a while longer to listen more.

Suddenly the deep voice of the imam was interrupted by the strangest song. It took me a second to recognize it, but sure enough, the electronic notes of Old MacDonald Had a Farm were ringing on the cell phone of the man in front of me. I thought this must have been a big faux pas for him, but to my surprise the guy actually answered the call right there in the middle of the crowd and for his thirty second conversation I was positive that I couldn’t have been the only person in the crowd who felt caught between two very distant, yet simultaneous realities. Traces of the modern world and what I imagine to be the ancient world seem to keep colliding in front of me.

After visiting the mosque, we went home to eat lunch. My mom Alice and my sister Ndeye had prepared a chicken feast- roast chicken with cous-cous, carrots, raisins, olives, and onions, with the magic maggi spice, otherwise known as MSG. I bought a big bottle of Coke and Fanta for desert and we toasted the day.

I danced with my mom and sisters to American hip hop—50 Cent, Acorn, and Puff Daddy before going out again with Mamadou to visit our neighbors the Diops to ask their forgiveness and drink attaya, the super strong, super sweet, just all around super tea famous in Senegal.

We took our place on the couch at the Diop’s house and took the first of our three glasses of attaya. The first glass is the strongest, a powerfully minty and exceedingly sweet brew with a distinct foam on the top. You slurp the tea so as not to burn yourself and then pass the glass back for the next cup. Mr. Diop pours the attaya from one glass to the next and back again, mixing the tea from a height to create the foam.

By glass number three I think my ability to understand the Wolof Mamadou and the Diops were speaking had improved. In fact, the subject of the conversation had turned to American politics and George Bush’s poll numbers, which according to my hosts had fallen into the low 40s. Mamadou and the Diops said that even Americans were beginning to see the casualties in Iraq as unacceptable would go on to talk about the irony of Mr. Bush’s choice of African Americans like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice for high profile cabinet positions in his administration while his no-response blunder to hurricane Katrina left poor black Americans to die.

“This is something you would expect to hear in Africa Matar, not in the most advanced country in the world,” steamed Mr. Diop. My sugar high was surpassed when he went on to tell me that in Cuba, they were able to evacuate over 60,000 people in buses from danger zones as the hurricane approached. Fidel Castro the dictator had succeeded where Bush failed. A cool slice of watermelon from Madame Diop brought me back to the ground and soon Mamadou and I were on our way back home.

Korite has brought me a day closer to learning not how different Senegal is from the US, but how people are people no matter where you go. Add technology, and the world has become a smaller place no matter how you pray, what type of tea you drink, or where you call home.

2005-11-04T05:07:00.000-08:00

This the beach at Popenguine, the town where I went with other trainees to decompress for a weekend of fun in the sun. The hill in the backgroud has old bunkers from WWII on it that were controlled by the Vichy government in France during the German occupation. The women you see were the most tenacious merchants I have met yet in Senegal. I snapped this photo after yapping back and forth with them for nearly an hour. They finally decided to give up on me and called me a "Kacoor" or trickster.

2005-10-27T06:20:00.000-07:00

My father Mamadou is a unique man in Senegal. He is well educated, non-religious, and understands the problems that face this country in a way that I would never have thought to be the case when I first walked into his home. What I saw when I first came to the house was an African man that resembled the gaunt figures in National Geographic that suffered from malnutrition or malaria, not a deep and sophisticated intellectual. Mamadou is a civil servant in Senegal and teaches French and Spanish at a primary school in Thies. He is Wolof, and grew up in this area. Unlike many Wolof though, Mamadou is relatively calm and rarely if ever aggressive. His passion is his family and learning. He studies language and music and teaches his children everyday.

When I came in this evening, Mamadou was sitting on the couch in his normal attire, a pair of mock-Adidas work-out pants (with four stripes instead of three) and a dark blue button down shirt open to the belly, his smooth, thin figure exposed to the heat.

After getting some water, I asked where Josephine, the girl that rents the room in the back of our house was. She has been sick the last few days and I noticed that her bed was empty. It turns out that her aunt came to the house today to take her to the hospital for what started as a chest cough but has persisted as a fever. Mamadou said that Josephine refused to eat or take any type of medicine while she was sick. He said that many Africans behave this way, afraid of taking medicines or getting shots. Ignorance was a result of the lack of education in this country.

Africa as a whole lacks for basic infrastructure and support systems. And while Senegal is advanced in terms of having electricity, clean water, and certain services, education in the country is barely supported by the government. Parents are ultimately responsible for paying for the most basic needs of students. Without education, Mamadou says there can be no progress for Africa. I asked him how it can be that there is so little money for education, for advancing the ability of the Senegalese to improve their lives.

“Because it is the politicians that decide where the money goes and if we will spend money on education. But politicians don’t want to educate the people. The only way they can continue to keep their power and riches is to suppress the people by denying them an education. This is the way it works.”

People in the villages and those struggling to make ends meat in the towns and cities see the African elite driving luxury cars past their dusty tenement neighborhoods, and throw their hands in the air asking how this can possibly be. The politically connected are financially connected, and the growing disdain among the poor for the rich has led to strife and unrest. Violence, Mamadou says, is not necessarily a bad option for those who have nothing to lose.

He jumps to attention after making this solemn observation: “Meanwhile the politicians appeal to the World Bank and IMF to receive money and protection, but where does that money really go? In Senegal the government says that 40% of the state budget goes to education, but the teachers don’t own homes, the students don’t have even rudimentary materials. You tell me where the money is. But the men from the World Bank and IMF go home to their countries and feel good as they record that because of their efforts, 40% of Senegal’s budget is financing education.”

Hours later I am still reeling from how the accurate and pointed statements that Mamadou made knocked me back to reality. He is a teacher after all, he speaks five languages, and he is Senegalese. I wonder to myself how I could have thought that he wouldn’t know these things or teach me the way things really are here. It is in moments like these when I am removed from my skin a bit, and realize that I have so much to learn about life, and so many preconceived notions to remove.

So on the spot I decided to try and make an effort to start from the basics. I asked Mamadou to tell me what the thought the most important values to the Senegalese are today.

“Ah, that is something that has begun to change. It used to be that ‘l’homme est plus important que l’argent {Man is more important than money}.’ But the Europeans changed that with hundreds of years of slavery and colonization. They brought us Islam, they brought us Christianity, and they brought us greed. Look at my own name, Mamadou. This is a Muslim name, not an African name. Look at my wife, her name is Alice and she is Catholic. It is only in the villages where one can still find roots of ancient African rituals.”

Of the various ethnic groups that make up the Senegalese population—Wolof, Pulaar, Sereer, Jiola, Mandinka, Bambara, among others, it was the Wolof that resisted French colonization the least. The Wolof people worked with the French administration and as a result it is their language that has flourished across the country. To this day there remains a collective memory and malaise between the Senegalese and their colonizers. The French are still here, their army is all over the place, their investors are the lifeline to capital improvements in the country. A difficult relationship of dependence and resent persists. Senegalese habits have adapted to this relationship but the Senegalese identity is still composed of the very oldest African values:

Loyalty, honesty, courage, solidarity, trustworthiness, honor for the family name and for country, and of course, teranga, the consummate value that even the Lonely Planet travel guide will show you.

Like many Senegalese, Mamadou will often not look at me directly when he speaks, shooting glances my way to emphasize points. But his eyes did not leave mine as he described these values to me. His look seemed to impart a truth that extended so far beyond our little house, beyond that single moment. I really felt like he was sharing a piece of the quiet and persistent rhythm of African understanding and patience that I had never known.

2005-10-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

I pass this tree on my walk to the training center everyday. Notice the hawk sitting in the middle- these huge birds of prey are ubiquitous in Thies, eating the numerous frogs and small critters that move among the shadows at dawn and dusk.

2005-10-25T06:41:00.000-07:00

Bamba, Lamine, and Aziz, three of our language trainers at the Peace Corps Senegal training center and the very popular ping pong table.

2005-10-25T06:40:00.000-07:00

I went to the main market today in Thies to buy a new outlet/ extension cord for my room. When I went to buy the one that broke last night, I paid 2500cfa or about $5. Today I paid 1700cfa, no more than 50 cents above what even a skilled Senegalese negotiator could have gotten it for. It’s this type of gradual improvement that makes my days enjoyable, that make my training bearable. Where one day I may have barely cracked the afternoon glaze on my language trainers’ faces, the next I will pull off some phrase or expression that sends them into bursts of laughter and shouting.

Danke danke, moy jap golo ci niay: Bit by bit, the hunter catches the monkey in the forest. That very important Senegalese proverb has brought levity to so many situations and broken conversations.

The subject of teranga, or Senegalese hospitality came up again today in my tech class with Bamba Fall. As we discussed the four Ps of marketing—product, price, place, and promotion—the other trainees were wilting at the simplicity of the lesson. Their frustration with the lack of “substance” in what we learn in our tech classes is palpable. When Bamba asked how things were going so far during training, he probably didn’t realize the can of worms that would follow. The echo of “this is such simple subject matter,” and “when are we going to hear the real story about the Senegalese economy” bounced off of Bamba’s kind face. Mary Beth and Molly, the two current PCVs that are visiting the center this week looked knowingly at Bamba as my class bitched. They attempted to interject with comforting comments like, “I know it really seems basic to you guys right now and that you want to really get into more detailed information, but trust me, that will come as you get into your service.”

It was amusing to watch how the slightly sweaty, sunburned and reddish skin of those bitching and moaning drew such a stark contrast to the smooth, tanned skin of the volunteers, and of course of Bamba.

Bamba attempted to underscore just how important the four Ps would be to our actual work by repeating that the Senegalese simply don’t understand marketing, product placement, pricing, and even the creative drive that fuels entrepreneurialism the way Americans do so naturally.

2005-10-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

This is the view looking onto the Saloum river in Foundgioune, one of the towns I visited during my trip in to the real Senegal during "demystification."

2005-10-23T06:28:00.000-07:00

I have yet to get a handle on some of the ironies of Senegal but I think they must contain some clue about the future of this place and just how it will develop. Take for instance the stark contrast between abject poverty in the streets and the number of flat screen tvs, dvd players, and fancy internet cafes throughout town. As I sat here writing in my local cybercafe with its sparkly floors, a group of three talibes dressed in dirty rags approached me with their rusty tomato sauce cans begging for un cadeaux. These boys are all over the place in Senegal. By day they beg for money that they give to the local marabout or Muslim teacher who then schools them in the Koran by night. They run between mercedes benzs and peugots with bare feet and sleep in the afternoon in the shade without so much as a mat to separate them from the dirt. They are as regular here as 90 degree afternoons.

Something else you can feel is the religious devotion of the people. Prayers are conducted five times a day and you often see groups of men facing east, shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk bending down to the ground in submission to Allah. The women are required to stand behind the men when they pray so as not to distract them by bending over and flauting the everpresent African butt or Jaayfonde as it is called here. It is incredibly important for women to have a big ass in Senegalese culture and if you dont, they try to force you to eat more rice and millet to fatten up.

So while religion and chastity are integral to the culture, jaayfonde and sex are everywhere too. The women where beads around their wastes called bin-bins to entice men while teenagers, boys and girls alike, can often be found looking at porn in the cybercafes.

The other day I hopped a ride on a charette or donkey driven cart to the market to buy a cell phone. The driver showed off his fancy Nokia to me, full of pictures of his son and yet again porn videos downloaded onto the phone.

The spirit of family and shared responsibility is huge here. If someone in your family needs help you are obligated to have them stay with you and take care of them. Doing otherwise would be an enormous social no no. And yet it is just this type of Senegalese hospitality or teranga, which at times seems at odds with the growing presence of capitalism. How can someone save money when if they make a regular salary their family and neighbors are always asking for help?

2005-10-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

vent frais= cool wind.

Last night after playing the guitar with Issa my neighbor and a few other folks from the street, the wind picked up out of nowhere and before i could even ask what the deal was, everyone on the street had taken the chairs inside, shut all the windows and shutters and bam we were inside the 90 degree house. I wanted to be outside in the wind but my mom Alice didnt want me to leave. Many senegalese dont seem to like the wind and will endure incredible heat to avoid it. The power went out with the wind and I sweated my way to sleep.

Another great moment for me today was on my way here to the cybercafe. Everyday little kids walk past and love to crowd around white people and yell toubab, toubab! They always touch and grab you and it can be a bit annoying after the tenth time. So today I tried a new phrase in Wolof: Buugna lekk xaleel! which means I like to eat children! The kids faces dropped and they all ran. It was such a triumph. I think that is how it works here, with little moments of beauty, mystery, and simple accomplishment the real currency of success.

2005-10-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

A week in Senegal and I am blown away==

This place is the most visceral and full of life environment I have ever visited. There are no boundaries between street and sidewalk; giant old bus or horse drawn cart. There is absolutely no boundary between my conversation and yours. Here everyone shares in everything.

The Senegalese people are some of the friendliest in the world; always asking how you are; always joking with you about anything and everything. They negotiate better than New Yorkers and yet are incredibly gentle with one another. Here you take your time in greeting just about everyone that you encounter especially the old wise men.

The most beautiful time of day is right about now; just before dinner. We are nearing the end of the rainy season and tonight a giant rainbow appeared after the rain. Everyone comes out of their house to chat and to pray. We are now only a few days into the holy month of Ramadan and the people fast from dawn to dusk.

Peace Corps training has been very intense; language classes; culture classes; and later business and ecotourism. This has been fantastic and I hope to share more soon.

2005-08-07T19:05:00.000-07:00

Erica, Gerik, Anne, and I spent the weekend searching out wildflowers in Cairn Basin on Mount Hood. The views were breathtaking-- to the east the glaciers and curves of Wy'east, to the north the looming figures of Mount Adams, Mount Rainier, and Mount Saint Helens.

Loowit even released a bit of steam for us to witness.

The night sky was incredible to behold, with the Big Dipper, Casseopia, and the Milky Way bright as could be. We saw many grouse, two deer (a doe and a pointed buck), countless bees, and too many black flies. We concluded the trip with burgers and beers at McMenamin's Edgefield. Yummy all around...

Glory on the mountain

2005-08-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

The 12-gauge at Alex Brown's bachelor party on Mount Adams was probably not the smartest idea, but who can argue with responsible exercise of the 2nd amendment?
lock and load

2005-08-02T18:35:00.000-07:00

Pensive at best

2005-08-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

A month away from leaving Oregon for more than two years and bye bye to Mount Hood, strong coffee, strong beer, organic living, exploring, playing, and the green luciousness. I hope it's still here when I come back.