Big Change

So… it looks like I owe you all a blog post. Or two. In the interest of getting you all caught up on what’s been happening in my life, I’ll give you a brief overview of my last days in Senegal, my Holiday Traveling Experience from Hell, and my first couple of days back in the good ol’ United States.

Strangely, my last three or four days in Senegal seemed in many ways to mirror my first three or four days with my host family. I had no classes or schoolwork to provide structure to my days, I was following different members of my host family around like a lost little puppy, and I was smack dab in the middle of a period of intense emotional transition as I tried to convince myself that I was really – no, really – leaving. This was complicated by preparations for my Aunt’s wedding, which took place the day I left, and the Civil Service Exam that my two oldest host siblings were studying for, which also took place the day I left. This mixture of freedom from responsibility and familial chaos playing out around me made the days pass in stalls and starts – an hour could last an eternity, but then a whole evening would pass in a matter of moments. For the most part, I found myself drifting from friend’s house to friend’s house, unwilling to stray too far from the home and neighborhood I had come to know and love so well.

I will probably remember the last few hours I spent with my host siblings for the rest of my life, and from now on, whenever anyone mentions the word “bittersweet,” it will be those moments I think of. Trying to cheer up Amélie after her test, even though the odds of even the best student passing are something like a thousand to one; playing school with Benoit, and simultaneously playing the balancing act of correcting his French without provoking a temper tantrum; sitting in the living room surrounded by the warm scent of the incense used by my host family to clear the air after every meal; watching TV, and enjoying the jolt of surprise I got every time I realized that I could now understand French as well as I understand English. Exchanging e-mail addresses with Christian, my slightly aloof 24 year old host brother, who told me he had to leave for his Aunt’s wedding, and then sheepishly stayed to walk me to the bus stop. Waiting at the bus stop with all four of my siblings, and my friends, and our suitcases, talking and laughing too loudly so that we would keep from crying.

For me, every time I return to my mother’s house in Chicago after being away at college or on vacation, the time that I was away quickly begins to seem like a dream. But when I close my eyes and think of my home in Senegal, I can see and hear and smell it so clearly that it’s the winter chill that fades away into softness, and the feeling of carpet under my feet and the buzz of constant electricity that seems like the dream.

I wish that I could say that my trip home was uneventful, and that the transatlantic flight gave me the time I needed to reflect on my experiences in Senegal and come to terms with all that I had gained, all I was taking home with me, and all I was leaving behind. But, unfortunately – but not altogether surprisingly – my flight was cancelled. This would have been slightly less annoying had they not cancelled the flight after they had already begun boarding it. It also would have been slightly less annoying had I either a) had phone credit, b) had any Senegalese currency left, or c) had an international SIM card that worked in the Africa region. As it was, I managed to get out one call to my loving and excellent father in the United States, who realized that the best way to ensure communication between the Senegal- and State-sides was to call me every five to seven minutes, so that I could give him updates as to how I was managing to handle the situation.

Needless to say, trying to get yourself onto a new international flight on short notice in a country where virtually no one speaks your mother tongue is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Oh, and I forgot to mention: by this point it was one in the morning. I actually managed to talk my way onto a flight that left just four hours after my original flight was supposed to, but I had to shell out 1200 dollars up front for a new ticket with a promise that it would be reimbursed later, leave my checked luggage in Dakar over night, and bully a small team of Senegalese airport workers into helping me get through security a second time when I had only twenty minutes left before takeoff (if, by some strange twist of fate, any of you ever read this, know that I really appreciate your help). The ironic thing is, the new itinerary that I ended up flying was more direct than the old one had been, so I actually got into Chicago three hours before I would have on my original flight path. My faithful luggage showed up two days later, with enough time for me to wrap my family’s Christmas gifts that I had bought them in Senegal, and my family is now in the process of getting the reimbursement for my ticket from the airline. So all’s well that ends well.

As for being in the United States… well, for the most part the U.S. is really nice. The roads are good, public places are kept clean, I have access to virtually every kind of food available on this planet, there’s free, good quality wi-fi everywhere (with purchase of an over-priced coffee drink)… but I guess you knew all that. I’m trying to stay positive about being back in the States, because this is my home and I do really love it here. Even if I didn’t, the fact that my family’s here would be enough incentive for me to stay here for the rest of my days. But there are some things about being home that I’m having a really hard time adjusting to.

Almost all of these things have to do with time. According to anthropology, Senegalese culture and society uses a conception of time known as “polychronic.” I find most anthropological definitions of this term difficult to understand, and the best way that I can describe it is that, in Senegal, time does not have a direct correspondence with money. Time isn’t that concrete. Of course, people in service positions in Senegal do still get paid hourly, and Senegalese people are expected to fill the hours they get paid for with productivity. But in the hours that they don’t have to be productive in order to meet a job quota or to make a big deadline, there’s no such thing as “wasting time.” Time isn’t finite there, and it isn’t tangible; it isn’t viewed as a non-renewable resource the way we see it in the States. With this conceptual difference come some big differences between the Senegalese and the American lifestyle. In Senegal, I was never “bored” because I didn’t feel like there was some sort of division between “worthwhile” and “not worthwhile” uses of my time. Sitting on my balcony and enjoying the day could be a legitimate afternoon activity. Walking to the corner with my friends to buy a can of soda was often my Saturday outing. And because I was living among people who didn’t order their lives around the endless rhythm of a ticking pocket watch, that didn’t bother me at all.

Because time is seen so differently in Senegal, it was also much harder to waste someone’s time in Senegal or for them to waste mine. It’s true that things do take longer there, and at first it did drive me nuts that I had to enter into a two-minute conversation with the fruit vendor each time I wanted to buy a banana – a transaction that would take about ten seconds in the United States. But after a while, I began to realize that I didn’t really have anything better to do with those two minutes than to talk to the fruit guy. After I got used to it, I began to love that about Senegal. Imagine how much more social you’d be, how much more you’d know about people, how many more questions you’d ask if you never had to worry that you were wasting their time by stopping to chat.

The fact that suddenly I do have to worry about being bored, about filling my time productively, and about wasting people’s time is a big adjustment – and quite frankly, it’s extremely stressful. Suddenly, I feel like I have to spend half an hour on planning before going on an outing to downtown Chicago with my friends to make sure that we don’t waste any time having to wait for a train or a bus or for a business to open for the afternoon. Whereas if I were in Senegal, I’d just plan to have to be flexible about stuff like that, and use the misadventures as conversation fodder with my friends. Going shopping during the Christmas rush was also a big surprise to me. I consider myself to be an extremely impatient person, but something about living in Senegal for four months has made me realize that getting to the checkout counter of Victoria’s Secret fifteen seconds earlier or later is just not that critical – something that many of my fellow-shoppers did not seem to have learned yet. I have to keep in mind, of course, that the pre-Christmas rush makes even the smartest people do stupid things, and even the nicest people act like jerks. But I got to admit, it was a big change.