Mame Tine: A Brief Profile

Mame Tine is one of the more dynamic (and memorable) characters around Keur Ndoye (the Ndoye household). She's an elderly woman; the dark skin of her face seems stretched over her cheek bones and her forehead, which seems to go on forever, probably because her headscarf is always slipping back and her hairline is so receded (likely the result of years of tight braids). She drops by usually in time for a meal, but never eats much, particularly not lettuce. Instead she tells long, engaging stories in Wolof in her gravelly, creaky, voice; always speaking fast and when she isn't lying down, gesturing wildly with her hands, sometimes even getting up to imitate people in her stories.
Of course most of the time she is reclining, anywhere, a couch, a mattress on the floor, the floor, her thin arms and legs sticking out of her large colorful boubous at strange angles, giving her the appearance of a funny squashed insect.
Sometimes I'll come home to find her telling fortunes with her handful of cowries (plus a CFA coin and a few other trinkets) to someone in the family. Lightly running her hand past the mix of shells and oddments over and over, speaking quickly in low, quiet Wolof (these are the only times she keeps her voice down, I've noticed, and it lends a gravity to her words) as she reads the positions of the shells in relation to one another.
Once she read my fortune as everyone in the near vicinity attempted to translate for me (Mame Tine speaks no French). According to my fortune, someday soon I'll have a well-paying job. The first dollar I make from said job I am to throw into the ocean (lucky I live near the water in the States too) and directly call my host mom. The only other tidbit I remember from that afternoon counsel was her order that I give milk or sugar to a talibe (beggar children who are students in Koranic schools in the city) and all would become clear. Of course I did as I was told (I am nothing if not an obedient toubab). Two days later I bestowed a small bottle of milk upon a lucky young talibe, and I'm still waiting for my universal clarity (this was about two months ago now. Despite the failure of this first counsel, I can't wait to throw a dollar in the ocean and call Mama Mbengue from the States.
And I'm just fine without my clarity; I like life a little fuzzy.

Its lovely to have an older sister.

Short Anecdote:
Especially within my host family, I've been thinking a lot about gender and poverty in Senegal as compared to the States. Lately a few young brothers have been spending a lot of time at our house. There's a rotation of other people's kids that spend much of their days in our house, most notably my Aunt Yama's five kids. I only met these new additions a few weeks ago; they are considerably cheekier than many of the other kids who spend time around the house. Their clothes are not particularly clean, nor are they in the best condition. The younger boys' faces are covered in the warts common on many of the young children in my neighborhood. (I looked this up once; apparently its a result of less-than-stellar hygiene).
Yesterday, one of the elder ones was being particularly cheeky. I'd guess he's a young to mid-teen, not sure if he's still in school. I came home from my weekend in St. Louis (for the world-famous Jazz Festival, more on that later) after dinner, so I was sitting with Bineta (my fabulous older sister) outside my room eating the massive amount of fish and avocado (avocado!!) sauce she'd saved for me while she made attaaya (Senegalese tea; I'm addicted).
So this cheeky young man comes round the corner from another part of the house and motions with his thumb to mouth that he wants water. While this motion is common in Senegal for "I'm thirsty" and I've observed its pretty customary for men to ask women to provide them a drink of water, I think even Bineta found this rude. For one, our young friend is nearly a decade her junior, and not an immediate member of her family. (Also, perfectly capable of getting his own water). She motioned to the fridge and handed him a cup without getting up from her seat. She then flashed me a fabulous facial expression of disgust at the rudeness of the exchange. We shared a silent laugh, which I enjoyed, while wishing I could rebuke the injustice of the demand.
He spent the rest of the evening teasing me in a manner similar to that many of the young kids take with me, the funny toubab lady. He would ask me repeatedly "Nanga def" (traditional Wolof greeting), in a mocking, singsong tone, to which I would politely and correctly respond "Maangi fi." A few times I tried to engage him in further conversation in Wolof, which only prompted him to poke his head into my room numerous times and ask "Ana sa xaalis bi?" (Where's your money?). Eventually, Bineta poked her head round the door and counseled that I shut it. She came back later to explain her advice, describing him as an irresponsible, untrustworthy youth. (Who, to my observation, she refused to acknowledge fully, perhaps explaining her neglecting earlier to rebuke his rudeness.)
In any case, its really lovely to have an older sister like Bineta. I have an infinite respect for her, and I only hope I'm able to convey that to her. Also, that I'm able to be such a figure at least sometimes for my own younger sisters back home. (Lots of love to you, Meghan and Susanna! See you in less than 4 weeks!)

Monument de la Renaissance Africain; or In Which Khady Disapproves

(Playing catchup with a bunch of blog entries I've been writing for some time now...)

April 3rd was the long-awaited inauguration of the grand monument de la renaissance africaine. The conception, image, and cost of the monument have inspired conflict since Wade commissioned it [year?]. Personally, I'm not a huge fan. It towers over my neighborhood, Wakam, one of the poorer neighborhoods in Dakar, a massive reminder of the money that is not being spent on electricity, public health, and education in this neighborhood, in this city, in this country. The irony inspires bitter laughter, particularly on the (frequent) nights when the power is out in Wakam, yet the monument's lights are still shining brightly over the city. In the last few weeks, they added a circlet of color-changing lights around the man's head, as well as two rows of lamps lighting the grand stairways up to the monument. So of course I wanted to be there for the inauguration celebration.

We'd watched the preparations for this day for months, the final touches of the monument: the addition of lamps lighting the path, the more recent cleaning up the landscape around the monument, the construction of platforms, seating, and large viewing screens. The afternoon of April 3rd, traffic was ridiculous in Wakam, and, apparently, all over the city. Of course, it was also Independence Day weekend, the 50th anniversary of Senegal's independence, nominally a fitting moment to inaugurate any grand monument of African renaissance... My friend and I approached the monument from behind, following crowds of schoolchildren wearing clothes made special (we guessed by the government) printed with pictures of the monument. Later, we saw these same crowds of children seated at the foot of the monument, a beautiful photo-op of Senegal's, and Africa's, future. (Sensing some sarcasm? I'm letting it all out here). Those kids sat there all day, through the entire afternoon of hot sun. 

There weren't many other toubabs (foreigners, non-Senegalese) wandering around in the crowd, so we bore the brunt of a lot of conversations about Jesse Jackson and Obama (and marriage proposals). I bought a huge flag from a young girl (the government gave them out free to children earlier in the day) for 500CFA (about a dollar) and then wielded questions about my support for Wade. Trhoughout nearly my entire walk home from the monument, I must have refused about 15 requests to "Donne-moi le drapeau!" (Give me the flag) from people of all ages. Admittedly, its a really big flag, and I don't look remotely Senegalese (so what would I want with a flag?).

The monument is still garishly lit every night, and continues to tower over Dakar, the nearly nude woman clutching desperately to her strong, powerful male leader, who holds aloft what President Wade apparently envisions as the child of Africa's future, whose gargantuan finger points toward the West, away from Africa. And all of this can be seen out the window of all planes flying in and out of Dakar. 

In which Khady strictly follows through on an agreement

The bathroom in my house has been the source of many challenges the past few months. The first challenge was the lack of a toilet. There are two small rooms next to each other. The door to one is kept closed with a small slab of marble on the floor. Behind door number one, there is a porcelain hole with two raised platforms for one's feet. Next to that is a large bucket underneath a spigot. Behind door number two we find a sink and a shower-head; no shower curtain, though. Early on this semester I discovered that between two and three cockroaches roamed the shower after dark. At first, this was horrifying, as each cockroach is at least an inch and a half long. And let me tell you, they move rather fast. However, I soon realized that they preferred to remain around the shower, which is the opposite wall from the sink where I brush my teeth in the evening.

After a week or so, the cockroaches and I reached an agreement: they controlled the kingdom (as it were) of the shower in the evenings, and I was allowed access to the sink without problem. During the day, especially in the mornings between 6 and 10AM, I had full and uninterrupted access to the shower. Also, and this was an important clause which I discussed with them at length, under no circumstances were they to cross the boundaries and invade the room with the toilet.

Now, I admit I violated our agreement once and showered after dark. By way of a reminder, my cockroach friends (I had decided we were friends -- this made our agreement, and their existence, much easier to cope with) climbed out of the drain as I shampooed my hair, and crawled over my toes. Needless to say, I never made that mistake again. 

However, this evening marked the third time they violated the second clause of our agreement. The first time I found two cockroaches crawling around the toilet hole at 3AM when I desperately needed to relieve my bladder. A long and uncomfortable standoff ensued, in which one roach crawled into the hole (at which point I must have poured over two gallons of water down the hole) and the other left the room after much coaxing. The second time I didn't notice until too late that someone creepy, crawly, and cockroach-y was sitting on the wall next to the spigot, wiggling his (or her) antennae, as though aware of his blatant violation of our agreement. Needless to say, I was incensed, but, after some hearty chastisement, I decided to give my friends another chance. 

So we come to this evening, around 9PM. I take a brief break from writing a paper to use the facilities, if you will. Upon opening door number one, to my chagrin, I find two of my (former) friends scurrying around, willy-nilly, as though they had completely forgotten our arrangement. I was incensed. Now, on the first day with my host family, my host mother handed me a large green spray can with frightening pictures of insects all over it, with the order to use it whenever I saw an "insecte" in the house. You can guess what happened next. Though I felt a twinge of remorse slaughtering my friends of the last nearly three months, it was necessary to follow through on the terms of our agreement. I couldn't just let them crawl all over me (literally); I need to make a statement, especially because I have just seen a mouse crawl out from underneath my backpack. The vermin of Chez Ndoye must be made aware of my authority. 

So ends an unlikely roach-human friendship.

Additionally, my apologies for the significant lack of posts during March. Its been a busy month, but be assured I have vowed to fully update, especially when my new computer charger arrives in the next few days, inshallah. :)

Khady Ndoye au Mariage!

This past weekend I went to a wedding with my family. I'm pretty sure the bride is my cousin, somehow. She came by the house a few times during her preparations, and I vaguely remember an explanation of how we're related. That said, we seem to be related to everyone I meet, so anything is possible. I'm probably related to that herd of sheep down the street. They're pretty baaawesome though, so its cool. 

Anyway, my mother, Mbegue, is pretty much the coolest lady in Ouakam (that's the neighborhood of Dakar where I live), so she knew basically everyone at the wedding. Each person I introduced myself to was super excited to discover that I was Mbegue Ndoye's (adopted, temporary, weird American, toubab) daughter. Naturally, we showed up around 11, because my mom had to help prepare all the food for the day, and my sister was in the wedding party, so she needed hours and hours to fix her hair. Literally. It looked brilliant when it was finished though, so entirely worth the extensive effort. 

So while my mother and my sister were busy being useful members of society and the family, I pretty much sat around different places playing the role of the super awkward, lonely American girl. (I swear I was typecast). At first I sat outside and watched some women cutting meat and vegetables (for kebabs later! excellent) and a man making fataya (also excellent). Then my mother ushered me inside for a while to chill in someone's bedroom with the small children. Mohammet and I became fast friends, which was great. We played with his rubber band for a while, and then we played tickle monster and took some funny pictures. [insert pictures of Mohammed]

Somehow I ended up sitting in the salon (by that I mean living room, not the hairdresser's) for awhile after that, introducing myself repeatedly to the distinguished women who came in and out. Then in the hall some older women formed a circle and proceeded to have a really loud discussion in Wolof of which I understood absolutely nothing. Me and another small child (this time a super cute young girl) watched from the sidelines, as it were. She certainly understood much more than I did, but she didn't seem to want to enlighten me about it. (its likely she didn't speak any French either). Actually, she was generally mute all day; but she had the most beautiful, expressive eyes of anyone at the wedding. Large, discerning, a little sad, but not at all frightened. Kind of compliant in a way that made you think she knew more than she let on (which, to be fair, was nothing), but she was going to go along with the charade anyway, silently. 

Soon after the loud council of large women about matters of consequence, we all sat down for lunch. I should clarify here that by "we all" I really mean the entire world. There were hordes of people there, and this was only the bride's family's side of party. Literally hordes. If we had been orcs, Saruman would say we could have likely destroyed the world of men. Hence, lunch was a pretty big deal. We ate in groups of 4 or 5 around sharing large plates of ceebu yapp (rice with meat, always good), some people sort of floating in between groups, picking up handfuls of rice as they went.

After lunch I sat around again for long periods of time with different assortments of ladies. Notable among these was Khady Wade, who is always really excited to see me because we share the name "Khady." Later, she stiffed me 500cfa for a taxi home and tried to get me to marry her son.

I also spent some time with a lovely young girl who found me absolutely hilarious in every way. Things about me she laughed at: my hair, my sunglasses, my birthmark, my skin color, my inability to speak or understand wolof, my funny faces, my chapstick, the list goes on. We shared some good times until I went to the bathroom and Khady Wade told her to leave me alone. (Khady Wade and I do not really see eye to eye on what it means to share a name, apparently.)

Later, I spent about 20 minutes sitting on this nice woman's lap because there weren't any chairs and she insisted. I am not one to refuse an order from a commanding elder, especially when I don't really know many ways to politely refuse in Wolof. She gave me a brief explanation of the wedding ceremony and was generally incredibly friendly, despite the bony toubab sitting on her lap.

After I got left out of the dessert plates being passed around, my mother ushered me over to follow a lovely girl I'd never met to the reception, about five minutes away. The reception consisted basically of a ton of chairs facing a tent with prettier chairs and tables and cake. The bride and groom proceeded with the wedding party up a side aisle to the tent. For the next 3 hours (or more) everyone in the world lined up to take pictures with the bride. (Not so much the groom, just the bride. I guess he wasn't pretty enough.)

Eventually, I was ushered back to the house, where I discovered a large contingent of loud elder ladies sitting basically around a small group of important women in green, including my host mom. I settled in to observe (and maybe fall asleep) but alas, was accosted finally by griots. Griots are a caste of musicians and performers who show up at ceremonies and celebrations, especially weddings, to entertain. You are expected to pay griots, and they will sing your praises. Of course, no one told me how much you're supposed to pay a griot. So I gave this large, loud, purple-clad woman merely 100CFA, and the entire crowd burst into laughter. But only because she proceeded to sing a song about Khady Ndoye the toubab who only gave her cent francs. Soon after, my host mom ushered me into some other rooms where people laughed at my funny toubab ways, and then she sent me home with Khady Wade. All in all, ridiculous, but fantastic. I don't think I've ever been laughed at so much in my life. :)

Jai Fonde

Yesterday my host sister Bineta tapped my butt lightly and exclaimed, jokingly, "Jai fonde!"  I'm taking this as excellent encouragement in my efforts to mange bien (eat well). Jai fonde (pronounced, roughly, jay fonday) is an expression referring to the size of a woman's derriere, as it were, in a generally positive way. Obviously, I was incredibly flattered by my sister's acknowledgment, whether she was kidding or no. The attitudes toward food, eating, and body image are much different here than they are in the U.S. So far I am loving it. Generally women are encouraged to eat more, because a larger, healthier woman is a sign of a good family. Also, the Senegalese seem to be much more open about discussing changes in body weight, which they warned us Cosmo-educated, Victoria's Secret-consuming American ladies of during orientation. Personally, I've been enjoying a refreshingly different approach to food consumption since I've been here. 


In my Education & Culture class (in English) on Tuesday, our professor (a Fulani Senegalese man) began the lecture with a discussion of love and Valentine's Day in which we compared desirable characteristics in the opposite sex between Senegalese and American culture (heteronormative discussion, I know. more on that later). At one point, after explaining the desirability of larger women, he threw out the term "fleshy floppers" which I am still trying to interpret.


Over dejeuner (lunch, the largest meal of the day in my house) one day three of my aunts (my host father's sisters) explained to me that "il faut bien manger" so that no one would think my mother was crazy. If I don't eat well (in other words, if I appear too skinny), people will think that my mother is crazy for not feeding me well. I assured them I definitely did not want anyone to think my mother was crazy and commenced with the tucking in (comme toujours!). I'm usually the last person eating at meals, and I am always offered more bread (have to stock up on those carbs so my dear mother looks sufficiently sane!), which I absolutely love. We have bread at nearly every meal here. Its of the fluffy French bread variety, which I especially enjoy. Breakfast in my house consists of bread and spreadable chocolate with a mug of Nescafe. What could be better?

Uploading photos takes forever

This is my host mother, Mbegue, with one of her many stuffed animals that decorate the living room. This one is a lion wearing a hat and a sweater, which is ironic considering the 95-degree weather here and the snowstorms in the States right now. She also has a Barney, Tweety, dolphin, and a bulldog with a cigar. 

This is Mas, my host mother's younger brother (so my uncle, oncle, tonton), holding another member of the stuffed animal collection. He is even taller than he looks here, and is often disposed to completely stretch out on the smaller of the couches in the living room so that his feet stick a good foot over the armrest. 

The two following pictures are of the Suffolk University - Dakar campus where the CIEE office is, and all of my classes are held. Its very open and beautiful, and most of the classrooms even have air conditioning. I spend most of my time here, which so far has been wonderful.