"If your head dey hot, na water go cool am"

What does Nafi do in between hosting American visitors? Collaborates with teachers, villagers and a local NGO to dig a MUCH needed well at the middle school! Check out my project by clicking HERE. There is an option at the bottom of the page to donate to the cause if you feel so inclined. Let's get this well dug before hot season is in full swing (highs over 100 every day this week already)!

To the village on the back of the donkey cart, by Chaney (Mom of Nafi)

My husband and I traveled to Senegal from December 24, 2012 through January 8, 2013 to visit our daughter during her second year in the Peace Corps. The highlight of our travels was the time we spent with Cibyl in her village.

We arrive by “Sept-Place”( a 7 passenger Peugeot diesel wagon) at the little town of Mampatim at dusk. Cibyl has called ahead to her village to send for the donkey cart. Backary, a teenager from Cibyl’s compound hails us from the other side of the road leading a donkey attached to a small flatbed cart with two car wheels. Stephen and Cibyl ride bikes the 7 km to Saré Pate Bouya and I, with our luggage tied on, ride on the back of the donkey cart.

Who would ever have imagined me,at age 62, riding on the back of the donkey cart, my legs swinging out the back over the dusty dirt road to a small Senegalese village?

As we near the village I can hear many voices and the rhythm of drums. Backary turns into Cibyl’s compound and 30 or more children surround the cart singing a song of welcome. I see many little hands reaching out to touch mine and I start to cry. It is such an emotional yet joyous way to be welcomed to village !

 In front of Cibyl’s hut we are introduced to the chief’s wife and Mamadou the chief’s son or nephew (family connections are a bit vague in this part of the world). Women and children form 2 lines in front of us and while two women work the drums, other women take turns dancing vigorously. They are singing, “Nafi’s Mama has arrived!”. Nafi is Cibyl’s Mandinka name.

Fetching water

The well is several hundred yards from Cibyl’s compound. She takes two large buckets and long cloths to twist on top of the head for carrying buckets back to the hut. Several women are at the well filling containers. There are two pulleys with buckets attached. It’s a cooperative effort to fill the buckets from the 80+ foot well.

Like a dance, Cibyl and another woman work hand over hand hauling the bucket. We put a cloth on Steve’s head and hoist the bucket up. Cibyl carries the other bucket. Clothes and dishes are washed and, there is small amount of water left to warm in the sun for an evening bucket bath.

To the health hut

On the way to the health hut, we greet the families in several compounds. Cibyl’s namesake, ‘Nafi’, is ill. She gets up from her bed to greet us gives us warm hugs and kisses. She has a cough and chest pain with severe headache. Someone has constricted her chest by tying a cloth tight around it. Cibyl tells her to take the constricting cloth off and to steam eucalyptus leaves with head covered over the steaming bowl.

At the health hut, Cibyl looks up other medicinal plant recipes. She decides to make an infusion of eucalyptus oil. Back in her hut Cibyl sends some flowers and leaves from the Madagascar Primrose to Nafi for throat-soothing tea.

The Concoran on his back !

“Quick everyone, hide in your huts. The Concoran is here!” Part yeti, part boogey man, the Concoran dresses in bark and bangs machetes around the compounds. This is part of the boys’ circumcision ceremony. Cibyl has written a full description (see below). We feel lucky to have witnessed the arrival of the Concoran. The banging of machetes goes on throughout the night intermingled with the braying of donkeys.

Mandinka

Cibyl takes us to greet residents of each compound of the village. There are over 27 compounds ranging in size from a few family members to 30 or more in an extended family. The villagers call out Cibyl’s Mandinka name “Nafi”. There’s an elaborate exchange greetings:

            Kor Tanante- [Villager]

            Tanante [our response]

            Sumooley [Villager]

            Eebeejay- [our response]

            Jemool Dung [Villager]

            Eebeejay- [our response]

Cibyl enters into a full conversation. We look on in awe. Nafi is fluent in Mandinka!

Sometimes an elder showers us with blessings. “Bless your family, bless your health”. Cibyl taps her forehead with her hand and tells us to do the same. "Ameen" she says and we follow suit.

We learn a few more words:

            Herra- peace

            Abaraka- thank you

            Nam- I am here

I like Mandinka. They roll their R’s” just like you do in Spanish and so some of the words come easily to me.

A number of villagers have told us that Nafi is now Mandinka, a full-fledged member of this 500+ person village. She is Senegalese through and through they say. I try to tell them that I’m happy that Nafi now has a family in Sare Pate Bouya. I tell them we miss her very much and look forward to her home coming to America.

Our last night in Sare Pate

We have brought fruit candy with us. Each is cut in half. Cibyl walks from one fire to the next distributing the sweets. The children follow with hands outstretched for more! Dinner is meager. We have brought rice and lots of vegetables to the village but this is gone by the third night. This fourth night’s meal consists of rice with a few beans for the guests and rice with a rather slimy leaf sauce for Mamadou and his nephew who eat with us each night.

Food is served in a common bowl. There are several family units and each sits outside their hut around the common bowl. The sauce, meat, vegetables or some combination of these is heaped in the middle over the rice or millet. Each person scoops bits of these condiments into their area of the bowl. Some eat with their hands, others with spoons. There is a polite little rice bridge between each person’s area of the bowl. Leftovers are then brought to the women’s hut and finished by the children and women or saved for breakfast. We try our best to eat appreciatively while leaving as much as possible for the women and children.

Cibyl tells us about starving time which I think is coming soon. During this time only two meals are served per day for lack of food. This way of life is hard to fathom. Chickens run freely through village – no one keeps a coop to be able to collect eggs. Sheep and goats are everywhere and are very occasionally slaughtered but no one milks them. In mango season, there is so much fruit that is left to rot; no one is drying mango fruit for hungrier times. Cows are the family bank and are sold only under dire circumstances. Even a toddler suffering from malaria and needing a doctor’s care does not warrant the sale of a cow to pay for the medicine. Nafi generously covered this cost for one of the toddlers in her compound

It’s very hard for us Westerners to understand the culture. My brain keeps churning out solutions:

• Create a community garden
• build chicken coops
• milk the goats to give the children some much-needed protein
• make cheese or yogurt with the rest
• sun-dry the tomatoes and mangoes for future use

 Cibyl-Nafi wisely explains much of this has been tried and has failed. You remind yourself to appreciate small things. Nafi encourages use of the Moringa tree in the village, an amazing plant with nutritive medicinal qualities that grows easily in village. She grows medicinal plants next to the health hut. Hopefully when her service ends,  a villager or two will carry on where she left off.

  

And there are big things happening thanks to”Nafi”. She has written a grant and pit latrines are now installed in each compound. Mamadou’s youngest wife is now on birth control thanks to Nafi’s influence. Most recently, she’s been speaking with the middle school and elementary school staff about a well project and latrines at the middle school….

As we drift off to a fitful sleep in Nafi’s hut, we are awakened through the night by donkeys braying . Is it mating season? And in the early hours before dawn, we once more are awakened by the clanking of the Concoran’s machete.

Click here and here for Chaney and Steve's Senegal photo albums.

The Kankouran, a Casamance special

Of all the Senegalese festivities I've experienced - the religious holidays, the weddings, the baptisms - you want to know what the absolute most fun is? Circumcision.

Unlike in America, boys are not circumcised at birth but sometime around the age of 8 and simultaneously with other boys around the same age in a village-wide, multi-day celebration. After talking to other volunteers I've concluded that my village is particularly enthusiastic about their boys' transitions into manhood. This might be a Mandinka thing, especially since I'm told that the star of the show, the Kankouran, is originally a Mandinka tradition that has since been adopted by other ethnic groups in the Casamance region of Senegal (This includes the regions of Kolda, Sedhiou and Ziguenchor). Whatever the reason, I spent Thanksgiving running around with the women of my compound, buzzing with the energy of the festivities and being thankful that my Mandinka villagers are so wild for circumcision.

 I had seen the Kankouran before, in passing through Kolda and my road town, but never in SPB. It was all anyone could talk about for weeks. "We're going to circumcise some boys! The Kankouran is coming! Nafi, are you afraid of the Kankouran?" I told them I wasn't afraid, but this was a lie. Driving past the Kankouran is one thing, anticipating his arrival in the midst of all the excited, gleeful terror he inspires is quite another.

A man puts on a costume of bark and becomes the Kankouran. He dances, clanks machetes together, hits kids and animals with the flat sides of them and generally wreaks havoc. You can't see any part of his body under the bark and he moves in such prescribed ways that you forget there is a human in there, which is terrifying. Women are not supposed to see him and so the village divides along gender lines into a huge game of hide-and-seek with women and girls sneaking glances from behind fences and doors and boys running around in the Kankouran's entourage seeking the peekers. This was day one of the festivities - wild drumming and dancing all morning and then hiding from the Kankouran in the afternoon. When he showed up after lunch you could hear the drumming and yelling all across the village. Women congregated in compounds, trying to get an advantageous position for the best possible viewing and hiding combination. I stood on the edge of my neighbors compound, trying to watch the progress of the boys while Filijee yelled from the door of a hut for me to have some sense and hide. The fear was contagious and my heart started pounding as soon as the first boys rounded the corner. I huddled with the neighbors, peeking through chinks around the door of the hut until he moved on to the next compound and I could make a break for it. I hurried back to my own hut, boys hot on my tail and did the rest of my Kankouran viewing from my own backyard with Fili, Seyni and Sajo.

It felt very much like when you play hide-and-seek as a kid: you know, rationally, that you're safe from any real danger and yet your adrenaline kicks in and convinces you that you are hiding for you life, your heart rate picks up and you feel giddy with the fun of being afraid. But, this is the daytime Kankouran. When it was all over for the afternoon and Fili and I were debriefing she told me that when Mandinkas do the Kankouran you never see any part of his body, that he can dance and chase kids all day and never get tired, but the Kankouran that comes at night... he is not human! In hushed tones she told me about how he runs through the village at night and will attack anyone who tries to shine a light on him, that he can be in more than one place at once and will make scary growling, heavy-breathing noises. I still wasn't sure what to make of all this, but just as adrenaline in the daytime makes you giddy, there is something about not being able to see your opponent that increases the fear ten-fold.

The dancing went on late, how late I can't be sure because I must have fallen asleep not long after 10:30 or so. I woke up just before one to what I thought was a child screaming near Dumfaa kounda, but then a minute later I heard the same shrieks from behind Faty kounda, followed by the clang of machetes... the nighttime Kankouran! For at least an hour I could hear the Aaaaaa-aaaaaaaiii.... clang! first from one side and then at an improbable interval from the other. I thought, he couldn't be moving that fast, there must be two of them. But then it was the same shrill, womanly shriek whirling around the village. It wasn't until later that another voice joined in the screams. I stayed up thinking about what Fili said, about it not being human and trying to make sense of its progress around the village, but it was too haphazard. The whole village was quiet, doing the same as me, hiding in silence, hushed in place by this reckless animist spirit. Through bleary eyes I looked up at the stars, bright in a clear sky, the evening fog gone by this late at night and listened to the dogs barking in the intervals between screams. But every time I thought I had heard the last, another bang, shriek, clang! Eventually they became quieter as the Kankouran seemed to retreat towards the east, until finally I could barely hear him and slipped back into sleep. But even there the Kankouran haunted. I dreamed that he came right up next to the fence, just on the other side of my bed and knowing I was there huffed and puffed and pressed against the fence. It was so real that even now I'm not entirely sure if it was purely a dream or delirium combined with the late night activities of a cow or donkey. Either way I decided the best course of action was to lie still and be glad to have a dog, however small, sleeping in my room.

The next morning the dancing started early. Women put on their funky beaded, sashed cross-dressing outfits that are reserved for the most festive occasions. In each participating compound the boys to be circumcised sat on mats, all in a row to have their heads shaved by young men while drummers drummed and women danced and threw rice. Then they wrapped their heads in new cloth, pinned money to their foreheads, hoisted them on their shoulders and paraded the around the village, from one participating compound to the next, increasing their numbers as they went until everyone ended up in my compound. I've never seen so many Mandinkas all in one place!

That's my hut on the right and I'm pretty sure the entire population of Sare Pathe in front of it.

They lined up the boys on mats again - 27 of them in all - and the old men of the village circled around them, chanting prayers. Then everyone joined in the blessing and once again hoisted the boys on their shoulders, this time to be carried to the woods to the beating of drums. The whole village followed in parade, but when they reached the edge of town the women turned and ran home out of fear of the Kankouran. The dancing and drumming continued until around 11 a.m. and then resumed in the afternoon. At least the Kankouran respects meal times... I wonder what he eats...

A glimpse of the Kankouran from the first day

The Kankouran didn't come back that night, as far as I know; I was told he was in the woods too, but he made some brief appearances the next afternoon and then resumed his nighttime haunting. The second haunting was different from the first - it started earlier, lasted longer and was far more energetic. There were definitely two people shrieking and probably a few others clanking and banging things, giving the impression of the Kankouran being everywhere at once. Multiple times I heard him running through the middle of my compound and once again the village was silent but for the barking dogs that punctuated his screams.

After three days of fun and hauntings SPB was exhausted. Taani had lost her voice, the drumming had slowed, guests started heading back to their villages and I started looking forward to a belated Thanksgiving and much-needed sleep. But, when all was said and done the Kankouran had showed me a good time and left me wishing that boys were circumcised more often around here.

Nafi hosts

A few weeks ago I had the immense pleasure of hosting two CIEE students (the same program I did when I studied abroad in Dakar) on their rural visit. The idea is to give them a chance to see Senegal beyond Dakar, in at least one of its many vibrant shades, and in this case to give them a taste of what it's like to be a Peace Corps volunteer. I had a great time playing host as it gave me a chance to see my life in SPB from a new perspective and remind my host family, and the rest of the village for that matter, that Nafi was not built in a day. Imagine! a Toubab that doesn't speak Mandinka or Pulaar! Plus, they were wonderful guests - as easy-going and engaged as I could have ever hoped for. AND, added bonus, one of them was a fellow Barnard woman! Read what she had to say about the experience by clicking here and then here.

Abe said, "Man you must be puttin' me on"

I wonder what my host family would think about these irreverent lyrics. Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son is no joke to devotees of the religions that claim him as a founding prophet. And yet, in Senegal, as in other Muslim countries I'm sure, the solemnity of the sacrifice is far overshadowed by merriment, mirth and feasting. Tabaski is Senegalese Christmas, the most anticipated holiday of the year and certainly the most expensive. Every family must sacrifice at least one ram to prove their faith, the largest and fanciest (the ones with necklaces and decked out horns) costing hundreds even thousands of dollars. In the weeks leading up to the holiday seasonal ram markets pop up around the cities like Christmas tree lots and you can't travel anywhere without sharing your ride with sheep in rice sacks, hog-tied and hanging over the side of the mini-bus. There's nothing quite like livestock on public transportation to remind me that I live in the third world. The key is to get a seat away from the open windows, unless you prefer a shower of sheep pee to your own sweat.

For most families the ram is just a fraction of the holiday expenditures. Most other expenses have to do with looking good: new clothes, new shoes, new hair! I finally relented. Here is what $12, at least 10 hours of braiding and a year and a half of Mandinka pestering get you:

  This is a favored Senegalese photo pose, but also I am not terribly happy about how heavy and hot all this fake hair is. I took it all out the day after the holiday. Looking this fly comes at a high price.

It was a pretty lean Tabaski this year though, my hair being one of the biggest extravagances. A compound my size should have probably slaughtered 3 or 4 rams; we only had one little one, which was great news for me since I generally hate holiday food... so many good ingredients ruined by bad cuts of badly prepared bad meat. My family thinks I'm crazy, but I'll take leaf sauce over sheep intestines any day of the week. Considering the family financial situation everyone looked really good and seemed to have fun. Here is the highlight of the day (ram gore!):

 Happy Holidays! Or as we say in SPB "Allah maa saloo diyala!"


Click here for some new pictures.

Fili

At the end of my most recent post, and probably several other times over the last year, I’ve mentioned Filijée. Recently, as I contemplate how deeply attached she and I have become I realize how strange it is that most of the people I care about in America will never have the chance to meet this wonderful woman and I wanted to introduce her to you.

This is Filijée Cisée, my person. She’s my host brother Mamadou’s second wife so I can’t really call her my host mom, but that’s how my heart knows her. When I came back to Saré Pathé after 4 months away she was the person I was most excited to see, but she had gone to visit relatives in Ziguenchor. I waited weeks. One afternoon Mamadou got a call from her and announced that she would be back the following Sunday, which was exciting enough news, but then he came over to where I was sitting and whispered “A be naala bii! She’s coming today!”  My heart jumped right out of my chest and I tried to keep my cool the rest of the afternoon and evening, going about my routine with an eye on the entrance to our compound. Every time someone walked by I had butterflies in my stomach, but as night fell I began to wonder if I had heard Mamadou right, if Mamadou had heard Fili right, if she had somehow gotten delayed. It’s always hard to know how long you’re going to wait on somebody in this culture so I decided to go to bed. A couple hours later, half asleep in my backyard, I think I hear a familiar voice. Is that Fili? I wait. It is Fili! I scrambled out from under my mosquito net and into a pair of pants and yanked open the door to my hut with my heart pounding. I hadn’t even stepped out into the compound before she leapt up from the shade structure and was running at me with arms spread wide, clearly just as excited to see me as I was to see her (people in this country do NOT normally hug). We sat and went through the usual greetings, holding hands, trembling, holding back tears. I can’t explain why I got so worked up. I suppose partly it was the anticipation, not knowing when exactly she would be back, but it was very much like the feeling I get when I’m getting off a plane in Oakland or SFO, knowing that as soon as I make it through the terminal and get to the baggage claim someone I love will be waiting to put their arms around me. It’s a wonderful feeling and I’m so blessed to have it on two continents.

The next day at the well a neighbor woman, asking after Fili said “Ila moo naata? Your person came back?” I loved that. My person. It was the first time someone else had acknowledged what must be very obvious to most: that Filijée and I have a special kind of bond that I don’t really have with anyone else here. It has been that way since my first months at site and I’m not entirely sure why. Somehow we just understand each other, even with the chasm of a language gap that is between us; she can tell my mood, get my meaning with a look, guess at what I’m trying to say when my Mandinka vocabulary falls short. The other day we were hanging around the cooking area, watching Bouley’s new wife bungle the dinner she was working on (what kind of a Senegalese woman can’t cook rice?!) and I happened to glance up at her with a smirk, knowing she was thinking the same thing. It was all we could do to repress our giggles. Typical. Filijée and I share a similar sense of humor, or at least she thinks I’m funny which is endearing. And I think she’s funny… goofy in a way that is less common here I think. Exhibit A (Fili photobomb):

She also has a temper. Sometimes it’s hard to watch her discipline her children, two of whom are my favorites among Mamadou’s brood, but I try to remember that tough love is part of the culture. She expects a lot from her children, especially now that she is about to have another and needs help and cooperation from the others. I look at her huge belly and marvel at her strength; at a point in her pregnancy when most American women would be taking time away from the office and preparing for birth she is still carrying water on her head, stooping over her garden to pull weeds and washing laundry by hand every other day. I do what I can to give her some relief, but again, its part of the culture and she doesn’t have much choice but to keep up with the never-ending chores. I feel very protective of her and this baby and want to be there when it comes into the world. Sometimes I wish there was more I could do, that I could bring her to America and she’d never have to wash clothes by hand again, but I know I can’t do that.

She asks about my life there a lot and knows the most about Cibyl and my family than anyone else in Saré Pathé does. It’s nice to have someone acknowledge that there’s more to me than Nafi. She wants to know if my mom is coming to visit and the thought warms my heart because I know it would mean so much to her, and to me for that matter. My American mom and my village mom, face to face! I just feel so lucky to have this person around who gets it and who loves me as much as I love her. My village life would be so lonely without my Fili!

House People Where?

When you greet someone in Mandinka one of the first questions you ask is “sumoolee?” The question is actually a contraction of suwo (house), mool (people) and lee (where); in this language, as in most of the native languages of Senegal, when you ask about how someone’s family is (a must!) what you are really asking is “how are the people of your house?” which is a much more nebulous and fitting question in a culture that defines “family” in much looser terms than we do.

Consider the fact that after more than a year of living with my host family I come to find out that Mamadou is not actually the son of my host father Bouley, but his nephew. How did I not know this for so long? Because in this culture your father’s brother is also your father. In the past when a man died it was his brother’s duty to take responsibility for the wives and children he left behind. While this is not usually the case anymore the uncle/dad equation persists, which is why there are men in this village who insist that I am their daughter and why Mamadou is Bouley’s son even though he’s not.

Logic dictates that if your father’s brother is also your father then his children are not just your cousins, but also your siblings. In fact I almost never hear the word for cousin, people just use the same terms they use for brothers and sisters (which translate to “my younger” or “my older” and might be qualified by gender but often are not). This accounts for the boys in my compound who are as much my host brothers as Mamdou’s children, but have different last names and look nothing like the rest of the family. Cousin-brothers. I have a photograph on my wall of myself with my sister, my mom and my cousin Nicole. When people ask me who she is I say “she’s my older sister, our fathers are brothers,” which often prompts a “Nafi speaks Mandinka!” as I’ve proved that I understand how this stuff works; I find that this exclamation often has more to do with demonstrating some understanding of the culture than it does with any actual language skills.

So does all this mean that your mom’s sister is also your mom? Nope. You only have one mom (Naa), but you may have multiple mothers (baa). When I got to site I only had one host mother, Bouley’s first wife, a sweet old lady who ran off to Dakar not long after my arrival and was gone for almost a year. She is back in Saré Pathé now and still the only person I call “Naa.” I also consider two of Mamadou’s three wives my host moms (the third is younger than me and so more like a sister), but I guess technically they would be... sisters-in-law? cousins-in-law?... Do you see why it takes a year to figure out some of this stuff?! Now, at the age of 75 Bouley has taken another wife (no spring chicken, but still much younger than him) who is also now my “baa.” When I first heard about her I resisted allowing her this role. Other family members would sing “Nafi got a mother, Nafi got a mother!” and I would say “She’s not my mother. My mother is in Dakar,” which got a few laughs but didn’t stop them from using the term. Seyni explained that just as she is mother to her own sons, she is also mother to Taani’s and Filijee’s children because all of them are Mamadou’s. Indeed, when her cowives were both gone Seyni did more than her fair share of parenting.

Seyni is the mother of Mamadou’s youngest child, a baby girl also named Seyni, but after my mom, not hers. My family is under the impression that Chaney is the American version of Seyni (itself a derivative of Hussein) and so they’ve honored my American mother with a namesake. Everyone in Senegal is named after someone else, which makes for a lot of repetition (Mamadou has two sons also named Mamadou), but also a lot of interesting nicknames. A lot of times your nickname will come from your parent’s relationship to your namesake which is how you get babies named “Papa”, “old man” or “little dad”. There are women in my village who call me Binki, meaning auntie, because they are the nieces of my namesake. In the case of baby Seyni, I doubt if many people will ever call her that. Not only would it be too confusing with her mother having the same name, but it wouldn’t do justice to her American namesake. So far I’ve heard people call her Seyni Toubabo (Foreigner), Seyni Amerik, and Nafi Baama (Nafi’s mother), but mostly she’s just Mom. Imagine me holding this little baby while Seyni takes a shower and cooing nonsense at her, these private jokes: “Sshhh, Mom don’t cry… Mom! Did you just pee in my lap?!” It’s too funny!

What is this baby to me? My baby mom... that's something special, but even if she wasn't named after my mother I'd still be stoked about this new addition to the household. I may not be able to tell you exactly what her relationship to me is (host cousin once removed?) but that doesn't matter. If family is "the people of the house" then why bother with all these other terms? Cousins, uncles, even this crazy white girl they've adopted, we all live in Mane kounda, we are all family.