“I am here only.”

…Even if I was not, last night, from an internet availability perspective, and thus could not post this in accordance with my Tuesday habit. Frustrating though it was, this particular cutout was at least rather appropriate given the content of this post. You’ll see. But, to start, onto my planned topic of communication and language…
Would it be disgustingly cliché of me to say that music is the universal language? I mean, yes, obviously it would, but – deal with it. One of the very best moments I’ve had in my entire time in Senegal was way back in September, at my first practice of the Grande Chorale de Saint Pierre des Baobabs. It was a sticky Thursday night, the fan on the ceiling clattering away to little avail, me attempting to get comfortable on the peeling paint of the metal chair while maintaining a culturally-appropriate sitting position, trying as subtly as possible to investigate my surroundings to ascertain what a culturally-appropriate sitting position actually was, and feeling acutely conscious of my own facial expression in the midst of a crowd of people I didn’t know chattering belligerently in a language that I mostly didn’t understand. The sheet music was passed out, assembly-line style, row by row. The director raised his arms, the cell phone in the underarm pocket of his boubou swinging from side to side. And my smile just about popped out of my face. I think it was the first time away from my CIEE peers that I felt like I really belonged – there, hanging in my note in that harmony, folded into the chord, reading from the page in front of me a language that we all understood.
I’ll ruin the sappiness a bit by saying that about half of our music is in Wolof, which I actually don’t really understand in a non-vocab test form, and there are often bits of Serrer, or even Swahili and – of all things – Creole (from, I think, former Portuguese colonies in West Africa). I don’t understand any of that. I’ll even note that we don’t use sheet music about half of the time; I’ve come to realize that our respective experiences have made me noticeably better at sight-reading from a page than most of my choral counterparts, but noticeably worse at learning by ear. But the fact remains that, following the director’s gestures to the beat of the drums in the Catholic cathedral every Sunday, I am a part of something in the very same way that the people around me are, regardless of native language or nationality or skin color. This past Sunday was my second-to-last service; two weeks from that day’s walk from Mermoz into Amitié 3, peeling the paper away from my weekly pre-church fresh baguette half with melting chocolate spread, I’ll be in an airport in Paris. I’m going to miss it.

I’m going to miss the music here. I’ve been to more concerts during my time in Dakar than I had cumulatively attended previously in my life. They’re so accessible compared to what I’ve seen before – for six dollar tickets, I’ve been close enough to touch some of the most famous performers of West Africa. Goodness, I was driven to my house after a concert by a veteran of several world tours (one of the Frères Guissé – I would recommend their music if you can find it online). On TV recently, my host family watched Viviane, the queen of mblax, perform at a wedding.
And, I know this may be controversial among my fellow residents of Dakar, but I like the frequent droning from the mosques, the bayefalls singing crazily in the streets, the spontaneous drum circles in Ouakam. I like that as a way to bring people together, to celebrate life, to give thanks. And those are values that you can see here in language as well as music. I’m not feeling quite sappy enough to tell you that I’ve come to love the extensive set of required greetings:
“Salaamaalekum.” – “God’s peace be with you.”
“Maalekum salaam.” – “And also with you.”
“Nanga def?” – “What are you doing?”
“Maangi fi rekk.” – “I am here only?”
“How is your body?”
“Peace only, praise God.”
“How is your family?”
“They are there.”
“How was your night?”
“Peace only, praise God.”
I’ll admit that as I make my way into the etceteras, every day with every person I encounter every time I encounter them, it’s hard for me not to be thinking tersely about the fact that I have somewhere to be, someone to meet, or homework to do and that we’re really all aware that we still exist.
But – are we, really, consciously? I am here. My family is well. My body is in peace. Thank God. I know that I, at least, don’t often pause to say that or even think it back in the U.S. where it’s not socially required. I won’t go so far as to say I love the ritual – but I do think that it has value for me.
Then again, one always has to wonder what meaning is retained in phrases once they become ritualized. Even I, with only a few months of habituation, don’t always attach meaning to those words anymore; it’s just what I say when I meet someone. The answer to “Sa yaram jámm?” is “Jámm rekk, alxamdulilaay.” When people ask you how your body is, it doesn’t really matter how it actually is; it’s peace only, praise God. I’m not sure, then, that there’s too much real, personal significance left. There’s just an acknowledgement of the value placed on the appearance of being well, and on giving thanks for even the most basic aspects of wellness.
“Inshalaa,” people say after every statement in the future tense. “If God wills it.”
“I’ll see you this evening, maman,” I say when I leave the house for school.
“Inshalaa,” she adds.
And I have to say that here I’ve come to appreciate this sentiment much more than I had before. On of the most challenging things about this place for me is my relative lack of control over my surroundings. Sure, some of that has nothing to do with Senegal: being unable to choose when and what I eat for dinner is a pretty universal occupational hazard of host family living. But I was also used to having bus schedules that are clearly color-coded and generally accurate, public transit vehicles constructed more recently than the 1970s, running water and power that function consistently, internet that doesn’t spontaneously cut, standardized prices marked on tags, street signs, crosswalks, and a general cultural value placed on punctuality and advance planning rather than, say confirming the continued existence of the family of every person you pass regardless of where you’re going or what time you’re supposed to be there. In the U.S., I wouldn’t think twice about making statements like “I can take an hour tomorrow to research and write those two pages,” “I’m going to take a shower,” or “I’ll be there at 4 p.m.” Here, it makes sense to say “inshalaa.”
Then again, this is also one of the primary aspects of Senegalese culture that I’ve heard criticized by locals. Some people, they say, take “inshalaa” even a step beyond acknowledgment that God’s really going to have to be feeling it for you to make it to that lecture you want to hear. I think that foreigners and locals alike find it incredibly frustrating to see the massive number of people just sitting around on the street. Any time I’ve ever been outside between 6:00 a.m. and about 2:00 a.m., anywhere from the covered alleyways of the Marché Sandaga to the wide seaside roadway of the Corniche to the residential blocks of Mermoz, a quick 180 degree survey of my surroundings would present me with at least three or four people sitting on doorsteps or in the dust doing what appears to be absolutely nothing. And, granted, joblessness is to a large extent the result of poor economic conditions. But, according to a number of people with whom I’ve talked, it also has to do with attitude. Everything will work out – “inshalaa.”
Well, no. Maybe I’m being too imposing with my personal faith and philosophy, but, healthy as it may be to realize that you are not omnipotent with regards to your own life, it seems significantly less likely that anything positive will happen to you if you don’t try to do it yourself. It’s a sticky balance, of course, and I know I err on the opposite side of many people here. Even with several months’ experience, I still can’t come anywhere close to the calm I’ve seen my Senegalese companions demonstrate in the face of unforeseen inconveniences. Oh, there goes the power – let’s get out the candles. Oh, the bus just broke down – let’s find another one. Oh, a sheep just fell through the ceiling of my bedroom – let’s get it back up the stairs. Then again, I’ve heard a professor bitterly talk about an apparently common practice of Senegalese university students, involving spending nights during finals week singing devotional songs or reading the Coran, which they believe to be more effective at helping them succeed than textbooks. It’s sticky: how can one respect their religious beliefs while commenting that, statistically, it’s improbable that God will decree that they’ll pass exams on material they don’t know?
Another aspect of communication that I found incredibly awkward when I first arrived was the typical Senegalese form of humor. This is a very ethnically diverse country – not that I have the faintest ability to distinguish between Wolof, Serrer, Peul or Toucoulor. But everyone else can, by facial features or last name, and the historical relationships between these groups have evolved into what’s called “joking cousins.” The first time I heard someone say to a reasonably new acquaintance, “oh, you (ethnicity), you’re my slave,” I almost had a political correctness indoctrination-triggered heart attack.
Indeed, political correctness is really not a widely-held value here. It’s funny; in some ways people are so much more circuitous here than they are back in the U.S., but they’ll also say things directly that most Americans would never dare. Adults will almost never tell other adults or often even older children explicitly that they are doing something wrong, but will rather launch into a lengthy anecdote about a metaphorically related topic. As in the case of stopping to exchange greetings, personal relationships are valued more highly than efficiency. At the same time, though, people are quick to note – in public – when someone has gained weight. Traditionally, being heavier is considered attractive, particularly to older generations who are less influenced by American music videos, but it’s also a positive reflection on the hosts of the person in question; all of our host families want their friends to think that they’re feeding us well. Several of my fellow CIEE students have had their weight discussed at length with houseguests. One of the most useful Wolof phrases I’ve learned is “suur naa” – “I’m full” – which I generally have to say at least several times in order to extract myself from meals. Just last night, when I got up from doing homework to help my yaay fold back the curtains in the salon, she tapped my butt (something that I also found slightly jarring the first time it occurred) and teased “jai fondé.” This is a term one hears fairly often. The literal translation refers to a seller of a certain concoction of millet and sweetened milk, but it’s come to refer to the ample rear end that one apparently gets from consuming said concoction, and it’s generally flattering. Women at the drum circles compete boisterously to demonstrate the superiority of their jai fondés.
“Um… I guess,” I said, feeling distinctly less curvaceous in several different directions than almost every Senegalese woman I’ve seen.
“Aw,” my yaay replied, her tone as she surveyed my derriere taking on the approximate quality of someone trying to find some redeeming quality in an unfortunate new haircut, “you do have a jai fondé. Anyways,” she finished, “you’re Senegalese. Yacine Sakho. So that means you have a jai fondé.”
And if references to weight seem odd and offensive – well, there is some slim possibility that you recall the one or two complaints I may have made about being called a tubaab. Constantly. Everywhere I go, by an unfortunate percentage of the people I see. Hadiel, the Peace Corps volunteer with whom I stayed, told me of an encounter she had with someone in her village, who she confronted after this individual shouted the t-word at her for the umpteenth time.
Hadiel: Stop calling me that. You know my name. Call me by my name, not my race, for goodness’ sake.
Villager: Why?
Hadiel: Because it’s rude to call me tubaab!
Villager: But you are a tubaab.
Hadiel: Well, yes, but you don’t call people that.
Villager: Why not? If I went to America, everyone would point at me and call me “black person.”
Hadiel: Oh dear goodness. No, they would not.
Villager: But, why not? I am a black person, aren’t I?

Um.
And I’m not saying I like the tubaab treatment – but that’s a whole different mix of history and socioeconomic status and cultural stereotypes that I’ve probably already discussed for too long to keep your interest. Apart from all that, there is something liberating in not having to sidestep over eggshells around an explicit mention of a person’s race or ethnicity. Here, no one has any qualms describing someone’s physical appearance with reference to the person’s race, or pointing out someone in a group by their ethnicity. I’m getting a bit concerned that I’m going to go back to the U.S. and suffer social sanction if not bodily harm by forgetting the taboo on such mentions that I’ve started to relax here – not, thankfully, that I’ve started bonding with strangers over ethnic slurs just yet.
That humor, too, plays an important role in the resolution of awkward interactions, even if I don’t always understand exactly what the joke is. In the face of the tubaab treatment, I’ve become much more rude and aggressive than I’ve ever been to strangers. At first I talked to everyone begging me for money or my phone number, and then I learned that this only made the situation more uncomfortable or even threatening, and started to ignore them. The problem with this, however, is that often people will assume or at least act as though your lack of response indicates that you haven’t heard their loud calls or hisses, prompting a switch to my current strategy of looking at the offending individual, making clear eye contact to indicate that I am aware of their presence and solicitation, and then looking away and continuing on my trajectory, the magnitude of my disdainful facial expression corresponding roughly to the level of offensiveness of their original sounds or comments. Sometimes, though, unfortunately, one needs to actually interact with people, and sometimes these people are of the unpleasant variety. It was Hadiel who demonstrated a helpful tactic: add a dose of humor and a dash of tolerance to some heated assertiveness, and stir. I tried this with some success on a cab driver:
Me: Salaamaalekum
Him: Maalekum salaam.
(I’ll spare you the etceteras and cut about eight lines here.)
Me: I’d like to go to the Institute Français. Do you know how to get there?
Him: Yes.
Me: How much?
Him: 3500.
Me: (in my head: that is utterly absurd – even worse than the usual tubaab hike) I’ll give you 1000.
Him: No, no. 3000. That’s my final offer.
Me: Fine. (starts to walk away)
Him: Wait, wait! 2500. Because you’re nice. Even though you’re a woman and you’re talking to me. (indicates with his head the male members of the small group with me)
Me: (in my head: you chauvinist – if there were any other taxis around I’d take them just on principle) Listen, I’ll pay 1500. But that’s it.
Him: 2000.
Me: 1800.
Him: 2000.
Me: 1800.
Him: 2000.
Me: Fine. (starts to walk away; in my head: good, I can be principled after all)
Him: Wait, wait! Why do you care about 200? That’s nothing at all.
Me: If it’s nothing at all, then why exactly do you care?
Him: You shouldn’t care. It’s nothing.
Me: Then you shouldn’t care either.
Him: Fine. Get in.
Me: Do you have change for a 2000?
Him: Yes.
Me: And you do know how to get to the Institute, right?
Him: Yes, yes. Get in.
I sat in the front seat; generally inadvisable, but the back was filled. After a drive during which the taximan attempted to ascertain my residential location and I attempted to divert the subject to national politics, it became clear that he did not, in fact, know where we were going.
Him: (after some aimless driving) How do you get there?
Me: You told me you knew!
Him: Well, you don’t know either.
Me: Right. That’s why I asked if you did.
We had to stop and ask directions from passersby, and eventually figured out the correct route. The driver started telling me that I had to pay him more because of how long we’d been driving around. I told him that was ridiculous; it wasn’t exactly my fault that had happened. Cough, cough.
Him: But you didn’t know where it was either.
We finally got to the Institute, and the others got out while I gave him the 2000 cfa bill. He made no move to give me change.
Me: You said you had change?
Him: I don’t have to give you change, because we drove around for so long.
Me: That was because you didn’t know where this was when you said you did. We agreed on the price beforehand. Give me my change.
Him: I can’t give you change. We have to make money in this job! My family will go hungry!
Me: You agreed to give me change.
Him: (starts to drive away with me still in the taxi) I have no money!
Me: (in my head: Oh my God, this cab driver is abducting me – He seems really angry – I’m all by myself – And his family’s probably going to starve to death – This is not good.)
I opened the passenger door of the taxi as wide as I could, such that he would have to hit the parked cars on the side of the street if he continued driving.
Me: Listen, sir. I don’t have money either, and I need to take the bus later. If you don’t give me change, then I won’t even be able to get back to my house.
Him: (bursts out laughing, shakes my hand lengthily, and gives me change)
Slipping the approximately 40 cents into my purse, I walked back to the swanky restaurant/concert hall that is the Institute Français, meditating on the oddness of that situation. In the U.S., that wouldn’t have been particularly funny. In the U.S., too, I would never have been so belligerent towards an adult stranger; here I did it on reflex. And maybe I shouldn’t have fought so hard for that 40 cents. I tend to feel that, on principle, I’m not going to let people rip me off. But maybe, on principle, I should be reacting to the fact that, no matter how chauvinist the taxi driver may have been, the money probably did matter more to him than to me. My assertion that I really needed it was a joke. But then we’re right back into the issues I discussed last time, of aid and dependence and stereotypes.
It’s funny how sometimes I can feel so a part of this place, and sometimes I can feel so alone. Sometimes it scares me how far I can go in the mindset of “me versus them.” “They” are not going to let me forget that I am foreign, and I’m going to have to be more belligerent than I, when I think about it, really feel comfortable being in order to protect myself from “them.” That can’t be the right way to feel – what am I doing wrong?
But sometimes I am singing. I am figuring out the word for God in Serrer and Swahili and Creole. I am giggling with the soprano section at the director’s angry series of bounces in the direction of the tenors. I am steadying a chair as someone melts the wax at the bottom of a candle to stick our light to the backrest. I am telling my family every day that I am glad to be here, to have a body that works and people I love.
I may still be working on this communication thing, this language thing, and this morality thing. I may not always be able see by electric light or get somewhere without experiencing near abduction or post blog entries on time. But I am here. As the car rapides say, all across their colorful chipped exteriors – Alxamdulilaay.