Mamadou

Of all the members of my host family it has taken me the longest to feel I really know Mamadou. In previous posts I have mentioned him only in relation to others – my host brother; Bouley’s nephew; husband of Taani, Filijee and Seyni; father of fifteen! For better or worse, he is the center of this household in which I live, and while there have been times over the last two years that I’ve felt it was for the worse, I’ve come to realize his many admirable qualities and to truly care for him as I never thought I would.

In my first weeks here he made me very nervous; nobody was quite as impatient with my inablility to speak Mandinka as was Mamadou. He would come to my room to ask me something that I couldn’t understand, repeat it in exactly the same way and then get so frustrated when I still didn’t understand. Finally, tired of feeling stupid I would just reply in English. He’d give me a puzzled look and say, “Nafi, you know I don’t speak English. I can’t understand you.” Oh, I know. It didn't take long for him to get the picture.

When I decided I wanted a dog it was Mamadou who made it happen. Early one morning he biked to Sinthian Kaba, a Pulaar village up the road. I don’t think I even knew he had gone until I heard him calling my name and peeked through my door just as he was biking up, pup in hand. “Bonzoor!” he called, grinning and holding this tiny squirming thing up for me. That was Tanko.

Every month I give my family a monetary contribution to offset the cost of feeding me and to show my gratitude at having been welcomed into this family. All volunteers do this in one form or another, although many contribute food or a combination of food and cash. I decided early on that it was easier to just give cash and so at the beginning of every month I would call Mamadou aside and give him the equivalent of $40 and ask him to put it towards food or whatever else the family might need. Senegalese people are funny about money practically obligated to give it if a family member asks, they tend to hide it when they do get their hands on some. So, I obliged his desire to keep this transaction secret, not wanting to create problems for him and trusting that he would know best how to spend it. I did feel strange about the women not being involved because I know that often they are more likely to spend money on the family than themselves, but the fact that Mamadou has three wives made the decision much more complicated and the last thing I wanted to do was get in the middle of this four person marriage. I was naïve to think it could be avoided for very long.

One morning, sometime around my fifth month at site, Filijee came to me asking for money. I can’t remember now exactly what I was for, but I told her to ask Mamadou for the money. “He doesn’t have any money,” she said. “Sure he does, I just gave him the monthly contribution yesterday.” Then in front of his other two wives I explained how every month I give Mamadou money to help with the household expenses. They wanted to know how much, so I told them. They were floored. They went on to tell me that he just hoards it, that they never see a penny of that money and that he can’t be trusted. I felt terrible – angry and betrayed and not at all looking forward to confronting him about it. I tried to think of some way to remedy the situation – maybe giving $10 to him and each of his wives, but the women were uncomfortable with this plan. Then I thought, so what if he is hoarding it? Is that such a bad thing? People here are generally horrible about saving money which makes everything that much more stressful when they get in a tight spot. Maybe he has a plan for it. Sure enough, he came home the next day with new school supplies for all the kids, a possibility the women hadn’t considered since they never have the responsibility of buying such things. The rest of the money for that month (and some he had saved) went towards paying the school fees for the ten or so kids of school going age. 

It was incidents like this that made me realize there was a lot more to the man than what I saw at first. He can be grumpy and short-tempered much of the time, but I would be too if I had to work as hard as he does and provide for as many people. You could argue that he brought it on himself, that he deserves the stress, that no one forced him to marry three women and have fifteen kids, but that’s not entirely fair. He grew up in this little village without much education, without seeing much of the outside world. My being here is probably the most exposure he’s ever had to ideas other than what the conservative, traditional village elders have taught him. And to his credit (and mine for that matter) I have seen a change in him.

After kid number fifteen he came to me asking about how to get his youngest wife on birth control, virtually unheard of in this culture where many wives and children are considered a measure of your manhood and where husbands are generally very jealous and suspicious when their wives want to practice family planning. But he finally realized he was stretched way too thin and that he couldn’t possibly afford more; he can barely afford to take care of them as it is. I can tell he wants to be the best father he can be. All of his children are fed, clothed and sent to school, which is more than can be said for many in this country. He knows the birthdays of all of his fifteen kids, again, unheard of around here. And what gets me the most is watching him with the babies – bouncing them, talking to them, making funny noises and faces. One of his younger boys has been sick lately and he lets him eat with us at our bowl instead of the crowded little kid bowl where he’s likely to get jostled and bullied by the others. It's watching these quiet interactions, Mamadou one-on-one with Kampou or Fili or Wiye that are the most touching and make me sad that it took me so long to notice his gentler side; it's so much more of who he is than the impatient and stressed-out version. He can be strict and demanding, but also funny and candid. He’s by no means perfect, but he does his best to take care of his family and look out for us. I feel lucky to have him around and to have finally come to know him so well.

Mamadou and Baby Mom, Korite 2012