A long week passing

(I started this entry on Aug. 11, but just finished it today. I've now been back in Dakar for over a week.)

And so I'm back in the big city. Back to the hustle and bustle of life in Dakar. Though it still runs at a much slower pace than back home, it can be shocking after a week in the calm village.

It was great to go back to Mbam, though I must admit, this time it was much harder to readjust to that lifestyle. Sadly, all of my younger siblings and friends have left for summer break, so it was a bit lonely. Though the house is never empty. This time there were 3 women my age, all of whom are married and either pregnant or caring for their first child. What different situations we're in. None of them speak French, so our conversations were quite limited.

It's nice going back to a place and seeing how it has changed. My mother has made improvements to the house including a new paint job and a new set of stairs leading to the front door. She has also completed two new huts in the compound. In addition to the horse she owns, they now have a donkey, 2 goats, the cat has 3 kittens and Binta (my mom) adopted three puppies. They are too cute! The sheep is now back with her family in Dakar.

My friend's compound next door has improved drastically. They now have a brick building with bedrooms and electricity. Before, their compound was not connected to the grid at all. Their water still comes from the well, though during the rainy season, at least at my house, all the drinking water is collected from the rainfall. Pretty incredible.

And speaking of the rainy season, I'd only previously seen the village during the dry season. We had two incredible thunderstorms and every day there were threatening clouds. And with the rainy season comes an incredible variety of insects. It was hard to get used to this. One night, I had trouble falling asleep because of the loud clap of insects wings, the noise they made when they landed on my mosquito net, and the sound of their footsteps on the plastic mat in my room. Ha! But such is life in the village, I suppose.

The rain obviously brings the milieu back to life. It was incredibly green. When I'd last left at the very end of the dry season, it was all brown. Now, the countryside stretches into the distance boasting lush green fields of millet plants and freshly sown peanut fields. The land is speckled with tall trees of all varieties, including palms, baobabs, and mango trees. Words can't do the scene justice.

I didn't do much of anything while I was there. There was a lot of sitting and reading, listening to the family chatter in Serer, a language I don't understand. I played with the younger girls that were at the house. Occasionaly, we were sent on errands by my mother.

One afternoon was spent buying millet and having it ground. We purchased it from a neighbor, then took it to the mill to have it ground. Much easier than the old fashion method with the person-sized mortar and pestle. While waiting for it to be ground, we and many other neighborhood children circled around a television in someone's house, and watched a Brazilian soap opera that's been translated into French. If there's one thing the Senegalese do religiously besides praying, it's watching their soap operas.

After dinner, we all sat outside, avoided the bugs that like to dive-bomb into your head, and chatted some more. Power outages are as frequent in the village as they are in Dakar. So often we'd be left to sit in the dark and listen to music on someone's cell phone until we were tired enough to go to sleep.

The village life is a different life. It's calmer and simpler. Men and women alike work very hard every day. Young men and boys go to the fields in the morning and evening. Women tend to all things domestic. But it's a social life. A neighbor will bring her rice over to our house to chat while she sorts out the small stones from the rice. Individual portions of the meals prepared at neighboring houses are brought and shared. Small children (3-years-old) will walk unaccompanied through the sand roads from one side of the village to the other to seek their friends. Men will spend hours sitting under trees or constructed shelters in public spaces passing the time. It's a far cry from the individualized lifestyle we have in the US. In the village, there are always people around. And that is what I love so much.