-My counterpart Fanta Ndiaye and I at a Baptism
If you want to make this Christmas special for a hungry, lonely girl living in the bush, just trying to do good in the world, please keep reading. Later on I’ll talk about babies and my the health class I just started teaching, but right now I have a holiday request. As you know, life has been a little rough around these parts for the last 9 months. But, nothing makes a volunteer happier than a package from the states. A few of you regular readers have expressed the desire to send me a package. I want to make a shout out to my cousin MEGAN for sending me a great collection of goodies. I know that sending packages takes a fair amount of time out your schedules, and unlike me, many of you have real 9-5 jobs. However, if you feel like helping out little ol’ me, please note the list of things I would love to get. Heck, if you send a French book, maybe you could get a write-off. Brother Paul, I know you came out to NYC to visit right before I left, and that was nice and all, but when was the last time I got a tangible present, huh?
My address is:
B. P. 98
Kaffrine, Kaffrine
Senegal
West Africa
My Wish List is:
v Books in French, preferably for 5-14 year olds
v Nature valley bars
v Fruit leathers
v Pistachios
v Sweet Tarts
v Summer sausages (please mom and dad, no beef jerky)
v Quaker oats breakfast oatmeal
v ART SUPPLIES if you have any lying around
If you do send me something, first off that officially makes you a good person, secondly please send it to me in January. I know that sounds odd, but really, you are a good person, and January is better than December. Please don’t send liquids (they explode and attract critters) and please nothing that says “protein” on the package (mom, cough). You may notice that there is an edible theme to my wishes. If you think I’m a jerk for posting this, than let’s get on to the next bit.
My beautiful sister on Tabaski. Mother of two.
The Birth
Several weeks ago our family had a new baby. This is my dad’s 14th child, his oldest kid is 30. One of his granddaughters is now 7 years older than his newest child.
The night of the big event, I ate a millet dinner on the ground with my family by the light of our cellphones, just like any other night. My father’s fourth wife lay on a mat in front of my hut, as usual she wasn’t eating with us. I went to sleep and slept like a rock for 10 hours.
When I was eating breakfast the next morning, my dad’s first wife came to my door. She was telling me something with vague excitement and after a few minutes I realized that Khady had the baby after dinner last night. (I am one of five Khady’s in my household, and there is also a Khadim). I was a little bit surprised, because in the states we usually make a big fuss about births, and the night before I hadn’t heard so much as heard a peep from my family.
I went to the front of my house where my dad was sitting, chilling. I told him I was going to the clinic to visit our new baby. His nonchalance about creating a new person didn’t deter my excitement.
It seemed odd to being going to my place of work not for a regular work day, but to celebrate a birth! When I got around back of the clinic to the maternity ward, I saw one of our birth attendants seemingly torturing a wailing newborn. However, newborns are pretty feeble, so the baby’s cries were awfully weak. My co-worker was piercing the baby’s ears with a sewing needle. This crude form of ear piercing is known in the states as the easiest and worst way to pierce ears, but here it’s medically sanctioned. I’ve been told that piercing ears is less painful for babies than it is for adults. Not ture.
After an exchange of words, I found out that this was the baby I was looking for. We took the sullen baby into a room with cots and there I saw Khady, awake and alert. She said it was an easy birth (her fifth at age 28) and she was even able to sleep the night before.
I was passed the baby and as we were wolofing about birth, a woman in a cot directly in front of ours starting vomiting directly onto the floor. We pretended like this wasn’t happening. A minute later my “matron” came back in carrying a another newborn and talk-screaming about something or other. Wolofs are criticized because they sound like they are always angry and yelling.
I gave Khady some refrigerated water that I pilfered from the staff room and I saw that she had some bread. This was the only evidence I saw that someone in the family had visited her. Perhaps no one from the family visited (the clinic is five minutes from the house). She may have gone out and bought her own bread.
In Senegal, babies aren’t named until a week after they are born. This is because some babies die during this first week, especially if they are the first child. People don’t want to name the child the first week because it humanizes the child. If a nameless baby dies, it’s easier to mourn than if it had an identity. People here would say it’s just bad luck to name a child before the baptism. It’s also somewhat common to name a child Bad or Ugly if the baby’s older sibling or siblings died. Calling a baby cute is bad luck. It’s hard not to talk about babies since most of the population here is young.
Another horrifying moment at work
A few people from home have asked me why I don’t write more about my work experiences. When I had my swear-in ceremony, my boss said that when she visited her old community in Guinea four years after volunteering there, no remembered or at least mentioned any of projects she did there. They told her, “Now we know that you really love us, because you came back.” Although PC work is important, sometimes it’s just the presence of a foreigner that your community values.
I had another adrenaline rising work experience this week. It was similar to when I told my mid-wife I wasn’t ready to do a birth control talk, and she surprised me the next day with a room full of pregnant women waiting for me to tell them how to not have children.
For a few months I’ve been talking to the elementary school principal about teaching health classes. I scheduled a preliminary meeting with two teachers who seemed interested, to discuss how we were going to co-teach the class. Or so I thought.
As I entered the school a kid started calling me names referring to my skin color. So, I marched him over to a teacher and had this man give the boy a talking to. The teacher asked me what I was doing there (little did I know he was fully aware). I said I was there to talk to Madame so and so about a health class. He pointed me toward her class. When I went inside, I saw she had a classroom full of kids. I was previously told she didn’t have class at this time. I asked her if we could talk after her kids went home. She gave me a funny look and said some things in French I didn’t understand. It turned out, these two teachers got it in their heads that I was going to teach both of their classes at that very moment (I suppose they thought I’d teach two classes simultaneously). I promptly told them that I didn’t have anything prepared and I thought that we were going to plan the classes together for the following week. “Ca c’est mon horreur,” was all I could manage to say about the two classrooms full of kids who were watching me expectantly.
The female teacher got a bit testy at this point (although she was the one who thought up the idea that I was teaching that day). Yet again one of my colleagues was asking me to do something I had told them I wasn't prepared to do, and I was going to look like an idiot. This time in front of 80 students eagerly watching me. As my vision started going blurry, I gathered that the male teacher was telling me something along the lines of “the show must go on”. I had to think fast.
Before I knew it I was standing in a circle of 37 twelve year-olds playing the classic “Toss a Ball Around and Say Each Others Names, Name Game.” Except with so little notice, we didn’t have a ball. I made them play with a piece of trash. The game was a hit. After this we talked about the themes of the class and I BSed about what I do as a health volunteer. I asked the kids what they thought my nationality was.
“Italienne?” No
“Francaise?” Nope
“Angalaise?” No
“Espangole?” Not this time.
“American?” Voila!
The next hour I did the improv class all over again with the 10 year olds, who were far superior at “Toss a Ball Around and Say Each Others Names, Name Game” than the older class. I never again saw the kid who was calling me names, one of the teachers said he was a nice guy.
It wasn’t a polished act, but I like I’d accomplished something that day as I walked across town back to my hut. The teachers never apologized for their mistake. In Wolof, one never apologizes.
Later, when I actually was having a planning meeting with the teachers, we talked about how the kids should wash their hands with soap after going to “toilette”. This may seem like too basic a topic even for children, but I was demonstrating handwashing, a man was defecating on the ground at the other end of the playground.
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