5. Dar Salaam

As Chad and I bike into Dar Salaam, the thatched roofs of circle huts gradually come into view above the fields of corn. Next to the houses unruly garden plots full of okra, bissap, eggplant and tomato compete with thick weeds. Mango, shea, fig and other trees I do not yet know sprinkle the landscape beyond the houses in every direction.

Houses here are organized into groupings around a courtyard or common area; compounds. Each of these is home to approximately one family, in a loose sense of the word.  I count about 10-12 compounds in Dar Salaam, although sometimes the units are not clearly defined. There are said to be between 180 and 200 people living here, depending on the time of year.

Rice Fields

Chad helped prepare the village to be a Peace Corps site. Thus he knows the people, and took me around to make my preliminary introductions. Greetings are very important in Senegalese culture. First we found my master farmer, Mamadou Minté, and after a beaming introduction, he took us straight out to the Master Farm[1], which is less than one year old[2]. This farm will surely be the focus of much of my work, and much trial and error during my service.

Biking out to the farm I began my orientation to the peripheral farmlands of Dar Salaam. Beyond a band of cornfields the land dips slightly, and in this wide basin I beheld a great, bright green field of rice.


This is a big deal in Senegal, where rice is the preferred grain, but almost impossible to grow in much of the country. The fields were proudly pointed out to me by each person I met in the village. The Master Farm is just beyond the rice, on a gentle slope.

As of yet, there is not much going on in the farm, but it is a good piece of land. A handful of Mango, banana, citrus, and papaya trees, though very young, are in the ground, and a half dozen beds have been dug and have vegetables growing. Much of the rest of the space is home to corn and peanut fields, per the traditional practice, and much is fallow.

A young mango tree

Beds of pepper and Jaxatu in the Master Farm

Then we went to the chief of the village, who is the cousin of my master farmer and has the same name, and then to compound of my host family.

The compound is a lively place. My host dad has 3 wives (which means 3 host moms!), and more than a dozen kids. I am impressed every day by the generosity, energy and compassion of these three women, Fatumata, Bintu and Aminata. In addition to their own kids and husband, they also cook for me, and an additional 20-25 other mouths for every single meal, over open woodfire, pounding all of their own corn and rice for every meal by mortar and pestal. Yet they still find time to cultivate numerous beautiful gardens, make shea butter, walk all the way to Kedougou to sell vegetables a couple times a week, and perform a wide variety of other tasks, and they still have the patience to hang out and talk with me and answer my dozens of frustratingly basic questions about the Jaxanké language. I have no words to describe my respect for these women.

When I met him my new host dad introduced himself as Ousmane Minté, and donned me his Toxoma (Namesake).

Henceforth, I am Ousmane Minté.

Ousmane is an Imam— an Islamic religious leader/teacher—in addition to farming corn, rice and peanuts. He runs the Koranic school in Darou Salaam, and hosts about 20 Koranic students known as Talibés in a dormitory style building in our compound, opposite my hut. That makes perhaps 35-40 residents in my compound alone.  Suddenly this village of 200 did not feel so small.

The Talibé Koranic school system has been the subject of considerable controversy in Senegal in recent years. I will attempt to treat it with prudence.

Talibé is Arabic for ‘student who has travelled to learn.’ They are all male. The Talibé system is a long, complex story.  It is not unique to Senegal. Talibé systems of various kinds exist in a number of other Muslim countries.

The gist is this: families (sometimes, but not necessarily generally poor) hear of an imam in a city or village somewhere that will host children, feed them and school them on the Koran in exchange for work. Perhaps there is a familial connection. Perhaps it is only a vague notion of a generous and wise religious leader. Often the connection is related to whichever brotherhood the family adheres to. (This—the system of Sufi brotherhoods in Senegal— is another, complex and interesting topic.)

The students then go to live with the Imam, or at least in his village, and divide their time between learning a trade, generally farming, and the Koran. This is the traditional notion of the Talibé system. Today however, in many parts of the country, particularly urban centers, the system is unrecognizable to what it once was, having been twisted by corruption and abuse into a system of parasitical patronage.

This is where things get complicated. I highly suggest this short essay as an introduction to/example of the urban Talibé system, and its fall from grace. http://www.talibes.org/2013/10/26/history-of-the-talibe-system-in-saint-louis/
Talibés face a frightening reality in the cities, where they are essentially forced to abuse the ubiquitous Muslim generosity of alms, while the Imam lives comfortably off of the appropriated profits.

Talibé boys in M'bour. The ubiquitous yellow bowls are virtually their only possession

Obviously this is a somewhat simplified, and generalized story. It is not easy to render such a complex situation to in any way. It is also important to emphasize that the Talibé as a system of blatantly corrupt patronage and (arguably) quasi child slavery is almost uniquely an urban phenomenon. The Talibé school of Dar Salaam, my village, is of a different breed. In my opinion, urban and rural Talibés deserve different appellations.

 In Darou Salaam the children, learn, unambiguously, about farming. They are in the fields every day, and learn first hand from accomplished farmers. Much of this is mundane manual labor, but it is a concrete and productive skill nonetheless. The world needs farmers. I have no doubt that working with these kids to enrich the depth and diversity of their knowledge and understanding of agriculture will factor heavily into my service. They are also great kids to hang out with, eat peanuts and practice language.

Pulling peanuts in the Master Farm

I cannot, on the other hand, speak to the quality of their Koranic education, but Ousmane, my host father and their imam is a good man, and I know he is doing what he can.
However, for what I can tell, the Koranic learning is mostly cursory memorization of Arabic phrases. It does not seem as though the students really know what they are saying much less how to read or write the prayers, verses, and stories of Islam.

Studyin the Koran by the light of a bonfire. Every night.

This also means, since there is no French school in the village, that none of the kids are gaining any literacy in French or the Latin script.  As far as I can tell there is one person in my village who can read or speak French, including the adults. I hesitate, I really do, to renounce full cultural relativism and implicate that the knowledge of French is more important, or useful than Arabic. My approach is to try to think about (1) how the languages are taught and (2) what their knowledge allows the student to do/accomplish.

Unfortunately the teaching of French here does involve a good amount of rote memorization as well, but it is undeniably less. Also, there are many more opportunities to practice the French language, since it is the most common written language, used for news, advertisements, etc. Thus learning it in school is a great deal more likely to lead to real literacy. As far as the advantages to learning a language, knowing French opens the door to far more influences and perspectives than Arabic in Senegal. This is just a simple fact of the available literature, education, and business opportunities in this country—it is French, and not Arabic that opens the door to a diversity of knowledge.

The obvious and irrefutable retort here is that the word of God is not written in French, and apparently cannot be, and knowing this is of far greater consequence than any literature or worldly information. I can only suggest here that Islamic scholars may well have developed the scientific method, and contributed formidably to other realms of thought such as logic and mathematics while France was ruled by barbarians. Scientific inquiry is arguably a fundamental and necessary part of Islam, as the Koran instructs the reader to come to know, through study, the world of God’s creation.[3] It can also be said that Arabic is a great language of learning, and there is no shortage of books about all topics published in this language.

The simple fact, however, responding to both of these, is that in Senegal knowledge about the wider world is much more available in French than Arabic.
It is also true that these are both languages of invasive cultural and political hegemonic powers, past and present. So I guess you just have to pick your poison.

Nonetheless, compared to other examples of the Talibé school system in Senegal, the Islamic pedagogy of Dar Salaam seems to do a better job than most.  The boys do not beg, and they are learning how to farm. Sometimes, that may be all you can hope for.

---

[1]“The Master Farmer program is a joint effort between Peace Corps Senegal and the U.S. Agency for International Development in Senegal that seeks to improve local communities’ food security by developing a plot of land for demonstration and training.” (http://www.peacecorps.gov/media/forpress/press/2253/) Basically the Peace Corps pays to build a solid fence around a hectacre of land, and a well, as well as some fruit trees to get things started. Then they support the master farmer in developing the area to be an example of (whatever they decide to be) good agricultural practices for the community. They do this through trainings and seed extension, but mostly though grass roots community involvement and participation. (AKA my job)

[2] The story of the development of the Darou Salaam as a Master Farm/Peace Corps site is rather amusing. As is stated above, the Master Farm program is funded by US AID funds. These are contingent funds, meaning that the money is available to be spend for a period of time, and if it is not used, or at least contracted within that time frame, the opportunity is lost. The Senegal MF national coordinator called a volunteer in Kedougou in February or March of 2013 and said, ‘you have one week to find a new Master Farm site in the Central Kedougou work zone.’ So the volunteers in the area scrambled to make that happen, and Darou Salaam was selected, hastily, and perhaps out of necessity, but not without good reason; it is a wonderful village.

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_science

4. Permanant sites

‘Permanent’, in this case actually refers to a specific period of time. It means 2 years, unless you extend, or ET (verbal form of ‘early termination’). I guess that is a pretty long time.
Anyway, we were informed of our permanent site in a highly anticipated ceremony a couple weeks ago. I knew roughly where I would be going, because the language I have been learning—Jaxanké—is only spoken in the southeastern part of the country. But the specifics remained unknown.
All the volunteers in our training group were blindfolded, and then led to the approximate location of their sites on a large map of Senegal painted onto a basketball court at the training center. Then we stood there, blindfolded, waiting.
It was excruciating, and the country director Etienne Senghor[1] milked it for every moment he could with a prolonged, halted countdown to blindfold removal. I’ll never forget how I felt, sitting there, destiny momentarily hidden from me by a stupid blindfold. Which I will keep forever.
Finally, I took off the blind fold and looked down. The word Kédougou was printed on the pavement a foot or two in front of me and to my right. I was facing north, so this put me a bit southwest of the city, which is itself in the extreme south-eastern corner of the country.

Can you find Kédougou?

Kédougou.
What to make of that word? That place? In Jaxanké the word means "land/village of man". (Ké= man, Dugou= land/village) Instantly I wanted to know everything about it. I did a lot of research. I pored over the surprisingly limited information available on the internet. But it was still just a word until VV, (volunteer visit) which began the morning after the announcement.

VV may just be the best part of PST (pre-service training). You go down to your future site—the place that will soon be your home—and check it out with the current volunteer who is about to end his/her service, who you will replace. It is a taste of the language, environment, location and living/working conditions of the site. VV allows you to get an idea of what you are preparing for. However, since mine is a new site—a village that has never hosted a volunteer before—I was shown around by the closest currently serving Jaxanké speaking volunteer, a fine fellow from Florida named Chad Papa.

Driving down to Kedougou—the Gou—takes approximately 12 hours from Thies, including a stop for lunch and a couple snacks. So from Dakar, a common reference point, it would be about 13-14 hours. It is about as far as you can go without leaving the country. 
The ride took us through the heart of the peanut basin, the geographic, and arguably cultural heart of Senegal. As with virtually all of Senegal, this land was at some point forested. Was it jungle? No, not within historic times. But as recently as 50 years ago it was a true forest of some kind, probably what ecologists call Guinean forest-savanna. Today it the forest has given way to pure savannah, going on sahel, even hinting at desert.[2]
The drive starts with a southeastern jaunt to Kaolack. This is not the sexiest part of the country[3]. (People know this, not trying to be inflammatory here.)
After Kaolack we turn almost due east, and hold this course all the way to Tambacounda. During this part of the drive, the landscape changes very gradually. While there is a west-east gradient with rainfall and other environmental/meteorological measures in Senegal, it is less important than the north-south climate gradient. It got slightly dryer as we drove east. The land is flat and pale, with some thorny scrub, lots of free-standing baobob trees, and kids driving donkey carts. A typical scene of the sahelian savannah. That's the peanut basin. 
Peanut farming was first brought to this section of the country by the French, who forced their native subjects to grow peanuts used to feed their slaves in the Caribbean. Peanuts are to this day one of Senegal's biggest exports, and their cultivation is seen as a point of national pride. Massive swaths of land are farmed to this end in between Kaloack and Tambacounda.  Yellow-white sand-dust covers almost everything visible from the road, despite it being shortly after the end of the rainy season. The grass, at least head high in most places is mostly yellow.
We pass through a few more cities, but population density drops off quickly the farther east you go. Kaffrine is busy, and less grungy than Kaolack. Koupentoum is very busy right along the road, but only the town only extends a couple of blocks into the sandy wastes beyond. There are PC volunteers in all of these cities, and I want to visit every one.

In Tambacounda, we turn south-southwest, and things start changing more rapidly. Soon we are passing through the major nature reserve of Senegal—Niokolo Koba National Park. As we drop latitude the the scrubby sahel vegetation thickens, and the trees get taller, bigger, and more plentiful. And gradually—gradually—the land hints at topography. In the park we see hundreds of baboons, and dozens of Guinea fowls. There are comparatively few megafauna species left around here[4], but lions, hyenas, warthogs, and bush-bucks are among those that remain.
As of about 5 years ago, the road to Kedougou is, officially, paved. The paved road now officially extends, all the way to Bamako, Mali. The completion of these roads was a significant achievement in West African road building. But they are completed only officially. Conditions on the ground do not completely correspond with the official narrative. Especially through the park.
For what I can tell, the two lane road was slapped down on top of the pre-existing dirt/laterite road, without any bedrock or foundational work. Just a slab of concrete on the old laterite road.  Inevitably, drainage was ineffective, erosion was extensive, and the road came to have serious potholes. Some, I am told, got so big that if a car drove into one it could not get drive out. This led to a decision to pull out sections of the pavement wholesale, which apparently helped. Thus, some sections of the road are now unpaved, and the ones that are continue to have issues. The road map, however, (see above) shows a neat red line straight down to Kedougou.
It is a stomach churning drive. The Peace Corps employs excellent drivers, and our cars must be among the most comfortable in the country. This does not keep the section between Tamba and Kedougou, almost 4 hours, from being a formidable challenge in sitting skills. It was impossible not to notice, nonetheless, as the landscape suddenly became really beautiful.
Plains gave way to lush valleys, forested ridges, and sweeping river basins. The vegetation seemed succulent, almost tropical, and I had to gasp with delight when we passed the formidable Gambia river, charging out of the Guinean plateau on its way down into the Gambia. And the land is green as far as the eye can see.
Entering Kédougou City is not at once obvious. The scattered thatch roof huts that speckle the countryside surrounding the route to the city never really give way to a grand center with urban infrastructure and organized blocks of multistory buildings, sidewalks and glass storefronts. These things do exist to some extent, but only marginally.  There is virtually no part of Kédougou City without wandering goats, thatched roofs, and unruly vegetation. And trash. Trash is everywhere. 

Near the regional house in Kédougou

It is a relatively young city. It was a small Malinké village as recently as 50 years ago. As recently as the year 2000, the estimated population was 5,000 people. Today, the Wikipedia page is just two paragraphs, and the current population is around 30,000.

Today, Kédougou is growing because of an ongoing gold rush focused mainly in the eastern part of the region, where Guinea, Mali and Senegal converge. The gold is found on the northern edge of the Guinean plateau, where the Futa Jallon mountains taper off amongst alluvial plains. Guinea, which home to the bulk of the mountain range, is believed to be well endowed with gold, and other valuable minerals. Their exploitation, however, has gone mostly unrealized. Politics, I guess. Maybe infrastructure. The New Yorker did an interesting piece on this last year, it is a complicated situation. 

Along with mountains, Guinean culture also emanates into this region of Senegal. Many Senegalese people joke that everything south of Tambacounda is Guinea. These jokes do speak to some historical verité. In almost every every way-- besides politics-- Kedougou is more like Guinea than it is to the rest of Senegal.
For one thing, the term used to describe the ecology of the area is ‘Guinean savannah’[5]. The presence of mountains here is utterly unique in Senegal. The border roughly follows the edge of the Guinean plateau, leaving only the foothills and mountain edges in Senegal.
Most significantly, the common language on the streets of Kédougou city, unlike the majority of Senegal, is not Wolof. It is Pula Futa, or sometimes Malinké. (Malinké and Jaxanké are 99% the same thing) The Pula Futa are concentrated in the Futa Jallon mountains of Guinea, and the Malinké heartland are the plains of southern Mali/Eastern Guinea. 
The cultural/economic links between the region of Kédougou and Guinea are manifold. The market is full of Guineans selling truckloads of avocados, kola nuts and other produce every week from the the tropical lands of their country.
It is not uncommon to see ‘Guinea buses’ descending from the hills south of the city packed full and loaded high on the roof with virtually everything imaginable; people, animals, produce, furniture, firewood, and luggage of all kinds.
These vehicles seem to occupy an area of legal ambiguity, as has much of the modern history of Kedougou- Guinea relations.

When Senegal became Senegal and Guinea became Guinea, a border was drawn right through a cultural continuum.[6] This suddenly made what was once something of a regular trip for many people illegal. It took the Senegalese state a while to do anything about this issue, though, being as it was in far flung provincial lands. Eventually, sometime in the 70's, a military base was built in Kedougou. This had alot to do with the immigration pressure created by the thousands of Pulaars fleeing across the border from Sekou Touré’s horrific governance in Guinea at that time. More on this later.

So the population of Kedougou is growing in response to the gold. But it is still very modest. Some people say it is ‘exploding,’ and I must contest this notion.
The reality is that most of the wealth is getting pulled right out of the ground and sent elsewhere. 
The political and social issues of the gold mining industry in Kédougou are very complicated. Mining companies from all over the world are present here, and there is widespread contention regarding questions of justice. 
The government of Senegal seems to favor and protect the large-scale operations, probably for the large heavy taxes/bribes they pay, while declaring small scale, artisanal mining legal only for Senegalese citizens. Many of artisanal miners are from nearby african countries, such as Burkina Faso, Côte D'Ivoire, Guinea, and Mali. These are countries that have experienced gold rushes in recent years, and the miners bring with them important knowledge on how to effectively mine gold on a small scale. This is knowledge that can actually empower individuals, and allow them to benefit by effectively extracting wealth from the gold mines. Banning these people is in effect anti-democratic, because it means only the large companies profit, while limiting the ability of the people to do so. 
This also means the most of the wealth goes two places; The bank accounts of Canadian, British, Belgian and South African mining companies, and the coffers of corrupt elites in Dakar. Meanwhile school teachers will often go for an entire year without payment. 

So, Kédougou is still basically a glorified village, and does not yet reflect the extensive mineral wealth of its lands. This is changing, but slowly.

We spent the first night in Kedougou getting to know the current Peace Corps Volunteerss in the region, the Gou crew. People I will undoubtably get to know well. The next morning Chad and I set out on bike for my village, Dar Salaam.[7]

Biking out of town you leave all signs of a urban life almost immediately. Fields and forests take over right away. The route to Dar Salaam, a ‘bush path,’ climbs up and over a few forested ridges, and snakes through grasslands and forest of varying density. No major terrain features, but I relished every little bit of topography and began scoping the environs immediately for other trails on which to mountain bike.
The closest village to Dar Salaam is a small Bassari Village. The Bassari are a tiny ethnic group found only in the southeast of Senegal. They are among the 8-10 percent of Senegalese that are animist/Christian. Palm wine trees feature heavily in their horticultural arrangement. I will have to introduce myself.

We also had to cross a seasonal creek called the Siling which flows from some hills to the west of Dar Salaam the west into the Gambia river. Dar Salaam is located around the convergence of these two waterways.  Since it was still the rainy season, we could not take the ‘dry season path,’ which forges the creek when it is low/dry. Instead had to cross a few kilometers further upstream, across the infamous ‘stick bridge.’

Chad Papa with my new work partner, Mamadou Minté. 

It was more or less a sensory overload to get into the village itself. I specifically remember driving down Apollo Road and seeing house in Tiburon where I have now lived for almost 15 years, for the first time. Entering Dar Salaam, through the rolling hills covered in tall grass produced a similar feeling. I realized that I am about to begin a very beautiful chapter in my life. May I remember this as the inevitable challenges and frustrations of being a Peace Corps volunteer produce themselves.

Dar Salaam.

[1] Who is in fact a grandchild of the first president of Senegal, and negritude poet/novelist, Leopold Sedar Senghor.

[2] “Why?” is a very complicated discussion.

[3] At some point in the past the Kaolack region was home to mangrove, and other kinds of lowland forests, occupying the extensive flood plains along and around the large, tidal Sine and Saloum rivers that pass through the region. These lands proved to be fertile, with easy fishing, and profitable harvesting of forest products. Overexploitation and other factors have made Kaolack into a pretty dumpy city today. I’ve heard it described as ‘sludgy’ because of the widespread pools of quasi-toxic standing water that form due to its proximity to swampy lowlands.

[4] Again, due to a variety of reasons.

[5] An ambiguous term. It is borderline rainforest. For half the year, during the rainy season, it is truly so. But the dry season lasts 4-5 months, and is very hot, and very dry. Things die off. Creeks and even wells sometimes run dry. The true tropical zone starts on the other side of the crest of the Futa Jallon, a couple hundred km south into Guinea.

[6] As borders inevitably are in the absence of a sustained homogenizing modernist political project. This is why they only make any sense at all in Europe.

[7] This is really confusing because it is one of a dozen or so Dar(ou) Saalams in Senegal and (I’d guess) hundreds in the world. It is probably the smallest out of all of them. But who wouldn’t name their village “House of Peace?”

3. ‘Chuis pas fatigé, j’ai juste soif’.

Or so I say to the guard on the beach who I just asked for water, after being chided with a pitying ‘T’es fatigué?’

Truth is, I am exhausted. But, sometimes all you can do is put on some James Brown and go for a run. Even if it is the middle of the day.

I guess I do this because I don’t like waiting around for lunch, which isn't served until about 2:30 or 3 most days, I'm not one for exercising first thing in the morning, and when evening rolls around I like to study, read, research, write.

Which brings me here, in the middle of the day, stopping to ask a guard at a beachside resort north of M’bour, for a cup of water. I was running right along the coast, with resorts to my right, and bleached sand beaches full of tourists on the other.

‘T’es militaire?’ He asks me.

I probably do look pretty pissed. Le soleil tâpe fort, and I must betray a tinge of suffering.

Well, how to put this…‘Non, en fait c’est l’enverse,’ I must make a clear distinction. ‘Je travaille pour le Corps de la Paix.’

A blank stare. He’s never heard of this organization, and repeats the name tentatively and with little enunciation.

"Corpsdelapaix??"

‘C’est une organisation bénévole qui tente de augmenter les capacités des Sénégalais.’ I offer. ‘Je vais travailler avec les paysans ruraux.’

A relatively blank stare. His French is not, ‘full.’

The palms along the beach create an ambiance that some people pay a lot of money for. Dozens of leathery, over-fared and overweight French and Spanish tourists lay sprawled on the beach, becoming ever more leathery and overweight. They are literally all old, I think, as I crouch on the the cracked sidewalk that divides manicured, well watered hotel lawns from the rows of reclining chairs crowding the beach, talking to the guards. The guard hut is the size of a telephone booth, painted with the Senegalese flag.  They have some burning coals and a small kettle on the sidewalk just outside the hut, the necessary implements for making attaya, sweet Senegalese tea, and the plastic wrappers are flying everywhere.

These tourists never seem happy. I ponder,  and you have to sit around and watch them. All day. All I can handle is dodging them as I run down the beach.

‘Je travaille avec les Senegalese pour améliorer les récoltes.’ I say taking a different route, emphasizing every syllable. ”Les récoltes de legumes, et grains.”

And he's got it. “Je comprends! Tu travaille avec l’agriculture.” He chuckles and smiles as I stand up to continue my jaunt down the promenade.

‘Corps de la Paix.’ He says, with more the proper emphasis this time. ‘C’est bon. T’es bon,’ he says.

I put my earbuds back in, and all I can do is smile, say merci and continue.

He probably doesn’t realize what that means to me.

No problem, I think, while I re-enter my stride down the concrete path. Sorry you have to baby-sit your former colonial rulers. Many of these old bastards probably worked in the colonial administration, and now they’ve returned to grow old on your beach. I’ll spend my life working to end this.

2. Tabaski was a pretty big deal

This is a holiday that commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his own son to worship God. In the end he did not and God gave him a sheep to kill instead. So on this day, it is ordained that every Muslim, across the world, with the necessary means, will slaughter and eat a sheep.

That’s a lot of sheep. Herders walk from as far away as Mauritania and Mali to meet the demand in the coastal cities of Senegal.

So it’s a party. One's finest garments are dusted off and ironed, or, more often than not, new ones purchased. Throughout the weeks leading up to Tabaski every tailor shop in the neighborhood was worked busily late into the night, every single night.

Tabaski is also a time when families come together. In the case of my host family, this involved one brother coming to visit from Paris, where he has lived for 10 years, another brother coming from Kédougou city, in the southeast of the country, and other family members trickling in from other cities across the country. There were about 15 people here during this time. This may sound like a lot, but it is actually quite small compared to a typical Senegalese family gathering. 

The day arrived amidst great anticipation. It was fun having so many people around. I have grown especially fond of my little host brother, Omar. 

First thing we did that morning was wash the sheep. This is traditional. I guess you could say that we wanted it to die cleanly. 


Then we washed up and put on our finest clothes for the obligatory trip to the mosque. And when I say ‘we’ I mean the men only, of course. Here are my host brothers, cousin and nephew looking devoutly dapper. 


Left to right: Ibrahim (Ibou), Cassi, Abdoul, Papisse. Front: little Omar

The amount of men who come together to pray on Tabaski would never fit into a mosque (which are for the most part single room buildings). So the community got together and set up a big tent for the common prayer service, pitched on a soccer field (large sandy plain). We walked to the tent together, part of a steady stream of neighbors. Upon arrival everyone filed into growing rows of people and prayed briefly before sitting down. In the front of the crowd a frail old imam read prayers in Wolof from a script that he held in his shaky hands. The mic was held by a stoic assistant. Distortion, whether intentional or not, created a rather bizarre effect, and his words vibrated obtusely through the repurposed soccer ‘field’ until the effect was finally corrected. After this point, however, he only continued for another 2 minutes or so before ending rather abruptly and unceremoniously, at which point everyone simply rose, and left. We were only there for about 10 minutes.

Then we got home, changed out of our boubous and killed 2 sheep. And it happened that fast. Again, a strangely unceremonious procedure. I almost missed the first one because I was expecting incantations, and dramatics, or at least solemn prayer. In the event, the sheep was held so that it faced east, towards Mecca, and after whispering into the knife, my host dad Mamadou cut the sheep's throat, and then he cut the other sheep's throat. 


I’ve probably taken more pictures of dead/dying animals than any other single subject in Senegal.

After the slaughter things got really fun. The whole family burst into coordinated action to skin, quarter, butcher, cook and prepare the sheep. I guess that when you do this every year, you get pretty good at it. Everyone knew exactly what to do, despite there being little to no explicit coordination, and the sheep rapidly became cooked meat. To give you an idea of how unprepared I was for this efficiency I will give you an example of what dining/cooking can be like here.

One time I ordered grilled fish at a restaurant and waited 2 hours. It is inexplicable. We were the only customers. There was a fish market you could walk to in 10 minutes from the restaurant and the fish required a total of 4 minutes of cooking over open flame made from sticks and palm fronds gathered on the beach in front of the restaurant shack. It was so inexplicable I almost found it funny.

The Tabaski sheep, meanwhile, were slaughtered at 10:45, and I was eating chopped liver and onions by 12:15 sharp.

Then we kept eating for the rest of the day. Mostly various parts of the sheep. There were lots of hors d’oevres going around throughout the day. Then at around 15:00 we enjoyed the main event, an elaborately prepared plate of sheep kebab things and potatos slathered in onion sauce. 


Loving it.

Then we drank some juice.

 I kept reflexively checking in the fridge to see if there were any more beers.

Just chilled water and guava nectar.

A good nap was in order after the meal, then the party continued. Tabaski is, perhaps, above all a social event. In the evening you are supposed to go around to see friends, and if you have the means, give away pieces of candy to children. When you see someone the first thing you say is ‘balma’ (or xaketu-ma, in Jaxanke, which doesn’t get me far around here). This means forgive me. It is a day to ask forgiveness to all those you know. Turns out it is a great conversation starter.

I swung by Assane’s place with a big bag of candy and gave a piece to every single person in the house, men, women and children. They were very into it. It was the least I could do to repay the constant kindness extended to me by these people, I am invited to lunch and dinner literally every night, although I’ve only actually eaten with them a few times. 


Then I strolled over to John’s to say hi to his family. Everyone in the whole city was dressed up. No corners were cut in the pursuit of looking sharp. 


Everyone was jovial on this fine day, and seemed to be especially happy to see a toubab in a boubou (traditional robe thing). Balma balma. The festivities went deep into the night, and we ate sheep for several days.

A few days after Tabaski it came time for the family to return to their respective places of work and residence. For most this meant going back to Kedougou, the closest thing to a Jaxanké stronghold in the country, in the extreme south east.

Here the extended family members wait in front of the house for a taxi to take them to the bus station. I do miss these fine people, the house is not the same without them. 


L to R: Adema, holding Aisha, Camera (who did not leave), Limona, Odie, Awa. In front, Junior.

A little later on Ibou took his ride to the airport in Dakar to fly back to Paris. I was really struck by the enormous cultural divide that this man, my host brother, was straddling with such apparent ease. He’d already changed his clothes and was now dressed in indistinct European garb. Dressed as such he could walk out of a subway anywhere in Paris, or into the IT office where he works and nobody would bat an eye, despite coming directly from Senegal, in many respects a world away.  

I suppose that this parting shot says it better than I can.


Mamadou, Camera and Ibo

At once Parisian and Senegalese.

Such a role, that of living in two cultures at once, is assumed by people throughout the world, and I think it makes the world a very interesting place. I think France would be mostly without dynamism absent this exchange.

The question, on a larger scale is how to make sense of these apparent dual identities. We could also ask if it is in fact a 'dualism', or rather, the merging of cultures and economies, as the barrier of spatial separation is flattened. There are surely many more profound things to be said about this subject, but I will leave it at that for now.

Also, a note: don’t be fooled by the religious garb, Mamadou lived in France for a few years studying aeronautics and then working as aeronautic technician. He reads French literature and stays up with the news. 

And with that, the host family was reduced from some 15 people to five: my host parents and two brothers—Casi and Omar, who are both in their mid 20s. A dramatic reduction in dynamism. The rest of my homestay here has thus been a lot different than the first couple weeks. Less to do in the home, more to discover in the city. Very well then. 

1. I live in Senegal now. I am in the Peace Corps.

I should mention that all opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone, and in no way reflect the positions of the United States Government or the Peace Corps.

A preface:
Always the question beckons, do I attempt to display, through the written word, my observations of the world? My life? To do so is to inevitably reduce, simplify, and risk mis-representing feeling, sounds, beauty, people— everything. In truth, it can not be done. I cringe at the task. the lived experience, of any kind is far too intricate and psychedelic to be rendered through these awkward lines and squiggles.  Even pictures are mere ‘shadows on the wall of the cave’ when compared to life itself.
So what can I say? I will write. I will forsake brevity. I will attempt to convey detail, depth and meaning. 
Anyway
What my life is like.
Until Dec 1^st I live partially in Mbour, a city on the Atlantic 2 hours south of Dakar with a host family, and the rest of the time in Thies, 1.5 hours east of Dakar at the PC training center. My name is Omar Cissokho.
Life in Mbour is fun. It’s fairly dynamic. My host family lives about a 25 minute walk from the beach, and slightly closer to the centre ville. Mbour has some tourism, yet its beaches are free of unsightly high-rise hotels and gated villas. It is for the most part pretty casual. But every day I see more Toubabs (gringos) in the city. It is known for its fish market, one of the largest and most prosperous in Senegal. Trucks laden in fresh fish on ice depart for inland cities in quick succession to ensure that those Senegalese far from the sea can still enjoy Ceeb oo jeen, the national dish of Senegal, which translates from Wolof as rice and fish. (It is delicious, and generally has a smattering of vegetables, and a healthy dose of palm oil.)
Every day I wake up and after a breakfast that generally consists of part of a baguette and butter, along with a weak cup of nescafé I walk across the city, north and east, through streets inundated by sand, goats, children and trash to the garden where me and two other volunteers, John and Adam work. We are the Jaxanke group.
Jaxanke is a true minority language in Senegal. (see post 12 for how this language fits into the world) So there is are only 3 of us learning this language out of 64 volunteers in our ‘stage’. Each language group lives in host families in the same area, although most are closer than us (it is hard to find Jaxanké families in this part of Senegal), and each group has a garden plot that the work on durint PST (pre service training).

Our garden is in a school. This presents some significant challenges. (In addition to the fact that the soil is actually sand, and the sand is 25% trash.) Footprints in our beds our commonplace. There does not seem to be any way to keep the kids out of the garden.
It has been a difficult process, especially since we frequently go back to Thies for a week or so at a time. The groundskeeper at the school is also not quite attuned to permaculture. He ostensibly mistook our compost pile for a trash pile, and dumped a large amount of garbage onto it, knocking it over in the process.

But before all this took place, we proudly marked out our first beds.
Here is John digging the first shovelful of dirt, and our preliminary vegetable beds, pre planting.




After watering the garden we walk over to our LCF’s (language and cultural facilitator) host family’s house. The walk is across a soccer field. Which is actually a large plain of sand. This ‘field’ bears a suspicious resemblance to a sweeping and unforgiving desert. Especially when it is hot. Despite this is it full of kids every afternoon playing soccer.

Our LCF’s name is Falaye Danfahka. Danfahka means buffalo killer in Jaxanké, and like many names in Senegal it is associated with a specific myth of familial genesis, as well as a class/ role in traditional society. Falaye is from Tambacounda, in the east of Senegal, along the Malian border. It is probably the hottest part of the country, and everybody points this out frequently. Falaye speaks the following languages, that I know of: Wolof, French, English, Jaxanké, Bambara, Mandinké, Fula Kounda, Pula Futa, He has taught 4 of them in with the Peace Corps. It is very impressive. He is an excellent teacher, and his knowledge of each of these languages is extensive both theoretically and practically. What’s more impressive is that in university he studied natural sciences, and is still considering medical school at some point, although he has confessed that linguistics is probably more interesting to him.  And he is only 26. This is Falaye in action on one of our first days of class.


Mun be diyaliŋ?
When class is over, around noon 12:30 or so, we chat a little, and then I begin the trek back across town to my host family’s place for lunch. My location near the beach/centre ville is mostly advantageous, but it is far from class/work, perhaps 25 minutes each way.
Along the way I see lots of goats, ladies roasting and selling peanuts, men fixing cars, children calling me Toubab, asking for money, playing soccer, telling me to take their picture.
By the time I get back to the house it is generally around 1 o’clock, but I’ve still got a while to wait for lunch. It comes late here. This is the hungriest part of my day.  Sometimes I help in the kitchen. I have a lot to learn from my host family’s cooks. 
In this picture are my host sister in law, Adema (on the left), and host nieces Odie (Front right) and Fatumata (back right)


Until a week or two ago, there were about 10 more people living in this house; the kids, in-laws, nieces, grandkids and friends of my host parents, including all of the ladies pictured above. So every time they cooked they prepared not 1 but 3 delicious plates of food for the family.
I generally eat with my host parents, Limona (but she generally goes by her last name, Camera) and Mamadou, pictured here immidiately pre-lunch.



I can not say enough about the food at my PST host family’s house. For one thing I have to appreciate all the work that goes into it. The average Senegalese kitchen lacks many of the time saving devices we take for granted in the US.. The act of preparing a meal is thus much more labor intensive here, and yet no corners are cut, the fish is always cooked perfectly, and the rice golden and delectable, having been simmered in delicious meat, vegetable and spice broth. I could complain about how much of the food is actually just rice and corn, and how comparatively little protein there is in this diet—and I might later on— but I am feeling strong and healthy after a more than a month on this diet so I hold my peace for now.
After lunch I sometimes take a siesta, or read for a little while, or chat with my family, but more often than not I will wander down to my neighbors’ house to relax with friends.
It is pretty easy to make friends around here, especially as a non-tourist toubab. La pays de Terranga (country of hospitality, as Senegal is affectionately known) lives up to its name. I am invited by perfect strangers to drink tea on a daily basis, and invited in for dinner almost as often.
Such kindness was extended to me by some neighbors sitting in front of their house on my 2^nd day in the city. I accepted, and had a seat amongst the small crowd of men women and children who sat under trees, on chairs and mats passing the hours in upbeat conversation. I quickly found myself having a really interesting conversation with the guy who invited me to talk, a fellow named Assane. Rapidly I realized that I had made a friend, perhaps a good friend. Assane, or Las as he is known, comes, as does most of his family, from the lower Casamance; Zigunchor.[1] He is also Soso, which is a Mandé ethnicity/language, and thus speaks a language closely related to Jaxanké, which I can practice with him. He is also a University student in French lit in Dakar.
            The house here in Mbour where he lives is home to something like 120 people. Assane refers to them as the ‘grand famille,’ and it is clear that it is not clear exactly how everyone fits in. But everyone hangs out together, chats, argues and jokes in Mandinka (mostly) and eats together, drinks tea for hours and hours every day together. Assane and I have spend many an afternoon making/drinking tea, and chatting about everything from the idea of (under)development, the mandé language family, to the challenges of cultural adaptation. Here, we make tea, under the trees in front of his house.


Las is back in Zig for the time being, helping his family harvest rice, peanuts, corn, sorguhm, and soon, fruit. I miss the companionship. As nice as people are here, it is something of a rarity to meet an educated individual, which whome you can discuss topics that breach banality. He was also a formidable scrabble foe. [read: 400 points last game]
After tea I often head back up to the garden to get some work done. My walk there is long, but generally pleasant. I try to take a different route every day, but I still pass by the same people all the time, and thus have lots of people to say hi to along the way. Almost all of these people invite me to dinner, for tea, etc. Life is tough. Actually though sometimes its a hassle, people interpret it as rude if you do not sit and hang with them every time you pass by. This is an issue if you have any kind of schedule, no matter how relaxed, and mine is quite relaxed.
At night I turn inward, read, write, think about my day. 
That covers most of the basic facets of daily life here in Mbour. I saw the president, Mackey Sall drive by yesterday. He was down in a neighboring town called Saly checking out the tourism industry.

---

[1] This is the southwestern most part of the country, and is probably endowed with the greatest agriculture richess of any region. Much of France’s non- temperate produce comes from here. It is supposed to be beautiful, and is home to a Club Med. But Zigunchor is probably best known for its long-simmering separatist movement violence of extremely low intensity. Many of the people of Zigunchor seem to identify more with the culture and people of Guinea-Bisseau than that of Senegal. This part of Senegal was heavily influenced by the Portuguese and many people speak a Portuguese creole, as they do south of the border. There are also more non-Muslim ethnic groups in this part of Senegal, some of whom have a long history of militant resistance to conversion. They also see themselves as providing food for the whole country, and not enjoying a fair share of the booty. Many of these may be valid points. At this point however, the violence is almost non-existant, and yet the PC still prohibits travel to this region.  (My hunch is that this is because we would not want to return.)

Honey Moan by Entrance - YouTube

Link: Honey Moan by Entrance - YouTube

A favorite of the summer. A friend described Entrance as a cross between Robert Johnson and the Pixies. I think I’d agree.
This music gets me through slow days of sub par hitchhiking.

How many Michel Foucaults does it take to change a lightbulb?

None.  Under modern regimes of governmentality the lightbulb is simply an effect of state power which, acting through disciplinary institutions that surveil, sort and evaluate lightbulbs, is internalized into the subjectivity of the lightbulb inducing it to change itself.

How many light bulbs does it take to change a bureaucrat?

Thank you for your inquiry.  However, your question has to be answered in the joke priority it was received.  As well, until we receive a joke business case, we can't properly assess your joke for applicability to the joke library.  After your business case is approved, we can then proceed to the joke project charter process, begin to plan the length of your joke answer, the resources required to answer the joke and the overall scope of the joke so we can effectively provide the framework of the answer.  We take your joke seriously, but we have to follow the joke methodology in order for the joke answer to be completed in an organized, managed manner.  I trust this helps you with your question.

How many Peace Corps volunteers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Peace Corps volunteers don't change anything. 

Not a lightbulb joke:

An optimist sees the glass and says it's half full. A pessimist sees the glass and says it's half empty. A Peace Corps Volunteer sees the glass and says "Hey, I can take a bath in that!"

Breeding the Nutrition Out of Our Food

Link: Breeding the Nutrition Out of Our Food

oops

Cut down the last redwood for chopsticks, harpoon the last blue whale for sushi, and the additional mouths fed will nourish additional human brains, which will soon invent ways to replace blubber with alestra and pine with plastic, humanity can survice just fine in a planet covering crypt of concrete and computers. There is not the slightest scientific reason to suppose that such a world must collapse under its own weight, or that it will be any less stable than the one which we know inhabit.

-Peter Huber, “environmental economist” and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, as well as a regular columnist for Forbes magazine.  

These people exist, and that is a terrifying reality. 

"Wind back the tape of life to the early days of the Burgess Shale; let it play again from an identical starting point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay." - Stephen Jay Gould, Paleontologist.

From Keuhls, Thom. “Beyond Sovereign Territory: The Space of Ecopolitics.”

So interesting to wrap ones mind around this concept— nature is not clockwork. Time is not a ‘linearly progressive element’. The presence of humans on this planet is not deterministic. Time is contingent, a chaotic element, without order or regularity. Wow.