Minding My Tea's and Q's

After legendary singer-songwriter Akon and traditional wrestling, there is nothing my Senegalese friends enjoy so much as drinking Attaya, or tea. The tea ceremony is long and elaborate, mostly an excuse to sit in the shade during the heat of the afternoon (or morning, or evening). I never got very far in the book Three Cups of Tea (he was still lost in the mountains when I gave it up), so for those of you like me here’s a play-by-play of drinking tea:

1. Debate who will buy the tea or hope your guest has brought some (as all good guests should)

2. Send one child in search of the forno (small coal stove), another in search of a the tea set (a small pot and two shot glasses) and a third hunting for lit coals.

3. Arrange all equipment under a mango tree. Wait for water to boil.

4. Add matchbox size package of loose tea leaves. Albarka is the preferred brand in our house, but I can’t tell the difference between any of them. Wait a while longer.

5. Add one full shot glass of sugar. Boil more.

6. Remove the pot from the coal, tap on the group, let sit, do other seemingly pointless gestures to ensure liquid doesn’t boil over.

7. Commence pouring. Amaze friends and neighbors by pouring tea back and forth between the shot glasses and kettle from unimaginable heights. This is ostensibly done to mix and cool the tea, and to create foam within the cups, but I think it just showing off.

8. Return tea to the kettle. Let sit a few more minutes.

9. Pour out shots of tea and have one of the aforementioned children pass them around. Guests (and me) drink first.

10. Repeat for second and third rounds, keeping the same leaves but adding more sugar each time. Rounds move from bitter to sickly sweet (2^nd round is the crowd favorite). Variations include: adding fresh mint leaves, basil leaves, crushed up breath mints or vanilla powder.

Earlier this year I took an anti-tea stand, as some volunteers choose to do. Some just don’t enjoy mainlining sugar but others make it a principled protest. Tea is a waste of money. The 200 CFA (about 50 cents) for each box and sugar is the same as it costs to see the doctor at the health post. When people tell me they have no money for medicine, the easiest rebuttal is to tell them to stop drinking so much tea. While my refusal to drink didn’t stop anyone else from imbibing, at least it raised the issue every time someone offered me a glass.

After a few months though, I have decided to give up my soapbox. Why? Because drinking tea with people make them so damn happy. Some people have said to me, “we don’t drink, we don’t do drugs, we don’t gamble – tea is our one big indulgence.” A fair case could be made that a larger percentage of my monthly pay is spent at the bar, so this defense isn’t entirely unreasonable (but I also don’t worry about having enough money to eat dinner). Tea really does bring people together – it provides perfect opportunities for impromptu health chats and it gives me an excuse to laze around for a few hours every afternoon. After the birth of his 8th child in 10 years my neighbor and I recently enjoyed a nice round of tea while I explained family planning options.

I have kept a few tea rules though: no drinking before lunch, only a cup before bed and just one round of three per day. I don’t want to turn into a tea-brained diabetic in my two years here. 

Well Done

The well improvement project is finally (mostly) done. Although the work itself did not take very long, events conspired and getting the last few bits done took longer than expected. In the end, instead of the planned eight wells we improved nine and only went marginally over budget. While no huge problems came up, I am no longer considering a career in construction management.

Thank you to everyone who contributed, the communities are very grateful and now I can sleep at night know we wont have a Senegalese rendition of Tikki Tikki Tembo. There’s a chance we’ll extend the project once again to the village of Salamata, where my PCV neighbor lives, but I think that will have to wait until next dry season.

Here are some shots of the finished wells and their owners…

Jouer-ing with the Boys

Let me start with a note about today’s title. First, for those of you whose french skills are a little rusty the word “jouer” both means and rhymes with the English word “play.” Like, to play soccer. Second, remember that scene in Top Gun where they were playing beach volleyball? The song during that iconic scene is “Playing with the Boys.”

Despite Senegal’s overwhelming Muslim majority, school vacation is still planned around Easter week. That meant all of my favorite high school boys/23 year old seniors were back in town wreaking havoc and drinking tea. Long time readers may remember last summer when I debated the appropriate-ness of hanging around with the young men in my village, but forged on in my friend-finding mission. While I’ve successfully broadened my social bubble in the last few months (real friends! women! little kids too!) it was nice to have the whole gang of guys back in town for a few days.

Since there’s not much to do in village over break, the guys organize an informal soccer game every evening. I have often joked about playing, but have never joined. Until now. One night last week I took up the offer to suit up. I’ve played soccer only a handful of times in the last decade, so I prayed not to make a total fool of myself. Despite taking 20 minutes to realize where the goals were (apparently not the usual big goal posts but two small sets of sticks) and almost the entire game to figure out who was on my team, I managed to hold my own. I stole the ball from a number of the best players (including my younger host brother, who was not pleased) and performed the only successful header of my soccer-playing life. I think my success was 10% skill and 90% “oh god, why is she running straight at me” panic from boys who’ve never played co-ed sports. I had the aforementioned Top Gun soundtrack song playing in my head pretty much the whole game (not to mention all the guys here are pretty buff so it was like that scene in more ways than just the fading sunlight and sandy playing field).

The news of my soccer prowess swept the town and soon everyone had heard. Omar, my pseudo-host dad/uncle and counterpart, often says nice things to me about my work (undeserved, but I’ll take it) but that night he turned to me and said, “Koumba, now everyone in town likes you. The women, the children and the guys.” As usual, the way to people’s hearts here is to make a fool of myself.

Despite the fun of the game, I’m not sure I’ll be reprising my role as left midfielder any time soon. The guys go back to school next week and after an hour of running on sand my legs were ready to stage a Malian-style coup of their own - plus biking 85 kilometers the next day left me fairly crippled for the rest of the week and physically unable to re-join the game. Maybe over the summer I’ll start to play regularly and even get a spot on the squad for the next multi-village soccer tournament. That would really throw the competition off their game.

Wrap It Up

Check out my friend Dave's post about a sexual health event we did in his site last weekend. Condoms, birth control and theater - fun!

http://seneglove.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/wrapping-things-up/

When Cows Cry

In addition to the mourning cries of women, I heard another type of wailing for the first time this week. Cows. Apparently, when cows see an animal skin they “cry.” This uniquely disturbing noise started at about midnight as our herd caught sight of the drying skins from lunch. From the noise I was convinced a hyena was attacking our livestock, but no – just the mourning cries of cattle. Who knew.

Four Days and a Funeral

Day 1

A few days before I left for Christmas vacation my Senegalese host-Grandmother Nene Hawa - who in truth can’t be much older than my real mother – fell ill and was in the hospital. By the time I returned she was back home, but frail. For my mother’s visit she was named after this grandma - Hawa Kande (Omar’s mom) - but due to her weakened condition the two Hawa’s never met. For the last few months she seemed to be on the mend, with her younger sister and caretaker planning to return to Dakar any day.

Last Saturday, Nene Hawa’s condition took a turn and she was bed ridden once more. On Sunday afternoon we ate “sajaka” – a symbolic meal that is supposed to bring health to the ill. “When the rice is gone, she won’t be sick anymore,” I was told. That night the family sat as usual after dinner, but the mood was noticeably subdued. Monday afternoon, after an unusually productive morning of gardening, I heard sniffles coming from outside. It was obvious that Nene Hawa had passed away.

The truth is, I don’t know what to say when these situations happen in America, since “I’m sorry” always sounds wrong. In Pulaar, I only know one of the cliché mourning phrases, so I am literally at a loss for words. On a few occasions I just reverted to English condolences, concluding it's better to say something in the wrong language than nothing at all. To say I felt awkward is an understatement. For a while we sat under the mango tree, the men making phone calls and the women trickling into the compound. Then the wailing began. One woman – a sister in law – began the full bellied mourning call. Almost immediately, dozens of women joined in and swarmed together, engulfing me in spine tingling ululations. I can’t tell if there are words beneath the sobs, but the meaning behind them was intelligible to any ear.

Over the next hour or so, it seemed every woman in town came to sit, wail and offer words. The men sat stoically on their own mats under a nearby tree. Cell phones have revolutionized the news spreading process – calls are made to every surrounding village and relatives near and far.

I am often faced with situations in which I don’t know how to act, since "American polite" and "Senegalese polite" can be polar opposites. I wanted to stay out of the way, but it seemed rude to go to my room. Usually it’s easy enough to ask for an impromptu etiquette lesson, but it didn’t seem like an appropriate time.

Day Two

I’m not sure if anyone left Monday night. By the time I was up Tuesday morning, the courtyard of our compound was as packed as the night before. The day proceeded along the same lines: sitting, staring, small talk. While Monday I had recognized most of the people filing through to pay their respects, by mid-morning Tuesday it was a sea of unfamiliar faces. I passed a majority of the morning sitting with the women and taking breaks to hide in my douche (shower/bathroom) to read where no one could see me. Sitting on your bathroom floor to avoid detection is a new low in anti-social avoidance.

By noon I had donned my complet (full dress outfit) and reassumed my seat on the mats. The problem I have with small talking strangers – especially the elderly – is that their Pulaar is significantly more difficult to understand. Each village has its own vocabulary and idiomatic phrases of choice. My villagers mostly know what I know and help me out a little. Strangers don’t do this. Beyond being unable to speak coherently with most of our guests, those with whom I can converse generally pick one of four topics to discuss: 1. What happened to your dog? 2. Why don’t you have a husband? 3. Where’s Issa (Martin)? 4. Teach me English. There are only so many places I can go with each of these.

One of the many impressive skills of Senegalese women is the ability to cook for large numbers of people. It seems every female over the age of 15 knows how to cook in a 50 gallon caldron with a 4 foot mixing stick. Despite the huge amount of work that needed to be done I am 100% useless in this arena and stayed far away from the fire. While Monday was noticeably lacking in food, a grand feast was prepared for lunch Tuesday (and then again Wednesday and Thursday) – animal sacrifices included. After lunch (~3pm) all of the men gathered together for prayer. Post-prayer we ate a little more, including kolda nuts and chobal – a chalky ball of pounded rice, water and sugar that is eaten at baptisms. Finally by 5 the crowds thinned but a large cohort of out-of -towners stayed for the night and the socializing continued well into the night.

Days 3 and 4

For two more days we continued to sit, eat, drink tea and pray. I still don’t understand the physics of housing two dozen guests in our compound, but by the time I left Friday morning, mostly everyone had returned home.

While some aspects of the week were significantly different from an American funeral, many were similar. I’ve never sat shiva, but I imagine it is similar to what we did. Despite the lack of any actual activity, last week was one of the most exhausting I’ve had at site and while culturally interesting, not something I hope to repeat.

Food Fight

It is said that all good marriages are alike in that these couples argue about the same thing over and over, while all unhappy marriages are different because their fights are always about something new. According to this logic, I have been happily married to my host family for 10 months. Our marriage fight revolves around one topic only – food. More specifically, our fight focuses on the amount of food that I eat. The downside of replacing a 6’2” male volunteer is that no matter how hungry I get, my powers of ingestion will always pale in comparison to his. Like many cultures, your perceived enjoyment of a meal is directly related to how much you eat not how much you compliment. And it’s not only the women who are trying to fatten me up like a Tabaski ram – in every Pulaar there is a Jewish grandmother. Unfortunately, after a year of village cuisine the novelty of rice, rice and rice has worn off. There is a finite amount of white rice my body can consume in any one sitting, a limit which falls drastically short of my family’s expectations.

So this is what we fight about. “Koumba, eat.” “I’m full.” “Koumba, eat more.” “I’m really full.” Every. Single. Meal. The argument has taken many forms as my deflection tactics have evolved from the serious to the humorous to the silent. Until recently, the daily food fight was more annoying – and occasionally funny – than truly problematic. Last week though, it was decreed that the problem is that while everyone else inhales their portions I eat much too slowly and thus am denied my proper share. This is entirely false, I eat exactly how much I want. To solve the inequality, the men decided I should get my own bowl, alone in my room.

Objectively, this should be a good solution. I can eat at my own pace, stop when I want and not share my plate with germy little boys. But this is not a good solution. I don’t eat village food because it’s good, but because of that magical process of “integration” that happens over a shared meal (also, I’m too lazy to cook). If I am going to eat rice, rice and sandy couscous I better be with other people. If anything, the solo eating experience made me eat less since no one was there to guilt me into a few more bites.

Anyway, after only a few meals on my own my family recognized my discontentment and invited me back to the big bowl. Village meals may not be cheeseburgers and ice cream sundaes, but there’s still something satisfying about plain white rice when you’re sharing it with others – and if this is the only fight I have with my family, I’ll happily stay married to them for another year.