The hot season has arrived, and guess what. It’s freaking hot. It’s only gonna get hotter though apparently. A few days ago it had already gotten to 100 degrees before noon. Older volunteers say that it’s normal to get to 120 degrees. I’m lucky to have electricity, but even with a fan blowing directly at me, my room is still pretty hot at night. Call me crazy, but I don’t really enjoy waking up in pools of my own sweat, so I’ve taken to sleeping on my roof. Now instead of waking up in a pool of sweat, I wake up to the massive mosque that’s about 30 yards from my house. Before I started sleeping on the roof, the mosque would occasionally wake me up, but when I’m outside it’s MUCH louder. I havn’t figured out the pattern, but some nights/mornings are worse than others.
Last night was horrible. I’d gone to bed kinda late, and then about 4:30am I hear, “ALLAH AKBARRR LETS MAKE SURE SANDY WAKES UP AND STAYS UP ALONG WITH THE REST OF THE PEOPLE IN SENEGAL WHO ARENT MUSLIM CUZ IT SURE DOESN’T SEEM LIKE ANYBODY ACTUALLY GETS UP THIS EARLY BLAH BLAH RAARRRR RARRR ALLAH THIS ALLAH THAT DO YOUR EARS HURT YET CUZ THEY SHOULD RAAR RAAR GOD IS GREAT ESPECIALLY AT 4:30 IN THE MORNING AFTER 3 HOURS OF SLEEP.” That’s what it sounds like to me at least. If it was music, singing, or even somewhat melodious, I don’t think I’d mind. However, it’s neither melodious nor anything close to music. It’s pretty much just yelling. Whoever was in control of the mosque last night must’ve been feeling really peppy cuz it was loud, it didn’t stop, and to sum it up it was just pissing me off. All I kept thinking was “There’s no way I can put up with this for another year and a half. That’s all there is to it. I’m done. I’m calling Peace Corps tomorrow and telling them that I’m going home.”
When I woke up this morning I was thinking much more clearly. I decided that I should just get used to it instead of getting upset over one night of bad sleep. I also decided that I’d write a blog entry with a religious theme.
Religion is such a huge part of the culture here that I don’t even know where to start. Ok, so daily life…you probably know that there are five pillars of Islam, one of which is praying five times a day. First off, that means that the mosque goes off at least 5 times a day, but it seems like more than that because there are multiple mosques in my town. When I’m already awake I don’t pay much attention to the mosque, but there’s a window of time when you’re supposed to pray, and I think the mosque sounds at the beginning and end of each time period. If my math serves me right, 5 times 2 is 10. At least 10 times a day the mosque sounds. That’s a lot of noise if you ask me.
Besides being noisy, it affects work. For example, sometimes if I’m traveling during prayer time the driver will just pull over to the side of the road, whip out a bottle of water, do his cleansing routine before he prays, then pray. It’s not that long of a process, but when you’re sandwiched in a hot van between two massive Senegalese people on an already long trip home, you can’t help but think that God might forgive the driver if he just kept going and skipped or delayed this one prayer. Or, if you hold a meeting in the afternoon an hour or so before prayer time, people inevitably will come about an hour late, which means they get to the meeting at prayer time, which means the first segment of the meeting is dedicated to people praying. Then there are these prayer beads that are kinda like the Islam equivalent of a Rosary. It’s just a string of beads, and people run their fingers down the beads while muttering prayers. I find this extremely entertaining because people will be doing the prayer beads, but they will be paying attention to what’s going on around them as well. However, you can’t talk when you’re doing the prayer beads, so people wind up grunting and pointing until the person they’re talking to figures out what to do. It’s like charades without categories and acting….just grunting and simple gestures.
Example: my mom will be sitting outside doing her prayer beads and a neighbor will come in looking for my sister.
The neighbor will walk by my mom, shake her hand, ask “no mbad daa? Ada selli? Bad daa e nguleeki?” (how are you doing? Are you in good health? How are you doing with the heat?)
My mom will grunt replies, then flip out her hand with a “huh hUH?” meaning, “what do you need?”
Neighbor: “where’s Fatimata.”
Mom: Points and grunts.
Neighbor: “in her room?”
Mom: “uh uh” (no)
Neighbor: “cooking?”
Mom: “uh uh” (no)
Neighbor: “in the back messing with the cows and goats”
Mom: “uh huh.” (yes)
Neighbor: “ok” and starts to walk away
Mom: “uhhuh huh huh” (I’m not done talking to you yet) and points
Neighbor: “yeah?”
Mom: grunts and points again to the water container
Neighbor: “Fatimata needs water?”
Mom: “uh uh” (no)
Neighbor: “the cows need water?”
Mom: “uh uh” (no)
Neighbor: “the goats need water?”
Mom: “uh uh” and makes a drinking motion
Neighbor: “you want water?”
Mom: “uh huuuuuh” (thank you for finally figuring it out)
Neighbor: hands my mom water and starts to walk away
Mom: “heeeeeeh?” (You’re gonna leave me drinking? Wait for me to finish drinking, then put the cup back.)
Neighbor: Complies willingly and totally un-phased.
You are probably also aware that Muslims are polygamists, which obviously has a huge effect on life here. I still can’t quite get my head around the idea of polygamy. I don’t live with any men and I only have one host mom, so sometimes I forget that it exists. When I first got here a lot of people would come in my room and look at my pictures. When I pointed out a picture of my brothers people would almost always ask if we had the same mother and the same father. At first I had no idea what they were talking about, cuz that’s what a brother is, right? A boy who has the same parents as you? Otherwise they’d be a step or half brother. Then I realized that in Senegal it is entirely possible to have the same father but different mother, so asking if you have the same parents is a totally legitimate question here.
As for what the Senegalese women think of polygamy….it seems like the views can vary substantially. Co-wives (understandably) can be very competitive with each other. Sometimes it’s friendly, sometimes it’s not. Co-wives may compete over attention from their husband, or they may compete with each other in other things, totally independent of their husband. For example, i have a volunteer friend has two host moms, and he says that he winds up eating two dinners every night because his moms are competitive over who’s a better cook. He can’t pick one mom’s dinner, because the other mom would be hurt/insulted, so he just eats two dinners. I’ve heard other volunteers say that it can get pretty tense having two host moms, but sometimes their moms get along.
On the flip side, some women want their husband to marry a second wife, because that means their work is cut in half. Having a co-wife means you share you husband, but you also share the housework. In more poor, rural villages when women have lots of kids and an immense amount of housework, a co-wife is sometimes welcome.
Then there’s my uncle’s second wife. She (along with my uncle and their family) were in town recently for a holiday. Even before I found out she was my uncle’s
second wife, she struck me as being confident, happy and totally comfortable in her life situation. She asked me on multiple occasions if I wanted her husband, because she would give him to me if I wanted him. When she would ask me if I wanted her husband, she had a half serious tone that made it seem like she had a ‘take it or leave it’ kind of attitude towards her husband. I’m not quite sure what to make of that, except that maybe lots of women just accept that polygamy is a part of life.
What do the men think? I’ve had a couple conversations with men about polygamy recently, and it’s a little infuriating. First off, men here don’t understand why it’s not fair that a man can have multiple wives, but women can only have one husband. They think that if a married Senegalese man moves to Europe to work he ‘needs’ a second wife there, but his Senegalese wife is perfectly happy staying home alone without a husband. And according to Islam, the wife can’t have another husband, even though a man can have up to 4 wives. Maybe it’s the language barrier, but they really don’t see how that’s unfair. My supervisor said that women couldn’t have multiple husbands, because the husbands would fight.
Riiiiight, cuz co-wives are ALWAYS happy and NEVER fight.
Women also get married very young here. If a woman is over 30 and unmarried, she basically never will be because men don’t want a wife over 30, which seems to be the universal cut-off. I asked my supervisor about this, and his response was “Well, when you buy clothes, do you buy new clothes or old clothes?” I was very tempted to say that I shop at the Salvation Army most of the time, but I knew where he was going with the question and I was curious to see if he was actually going to say what I thought he was going to say….and he did. He said that women were merchandise and you want a young wife just like you want new clothes….new and unused. GASP. My supervisor just told me that women are merchandise. I was speechless.
Another mind-boggling aspect of religion and life here is the the people's complete and total submission to 'God's Will.' It's one thing to have faith in God, but it's another to leave EVERYTHING up to allah. People here don't seem to believe that they have control over their lives, everything is done "Inchallah," which means, "God willing." If you ask somebody if they're planning on doing something, they will answer your question and then tack on "Inchallah."
Sometimes they use "inchallah" when they don't want to tell you "no"directly, which is really annoying at times. But I can't lie, I use it too when I don't want to do something but I don't have the heart to tell somebody no.
However, in general, I think they really do believe that everything is up to 'allah.' For example, during training we went to visit some local businesses. I visited a very successful metal worker. He'd had many apprentices who have moved on and become his competition. I asked him if it was weird having his former students taking his business now, and if he did any marketing to try to win back some business. His response was that if god willed the competition to be there, then it wasn't up to him to try to do anything to combat the competition.
RANDOM AFRICA MOMENTS:
There’s been a soccer tournament going on in my town, and it’s been really fun to go watch the games. It feels like the equivalent of a high school football game – the actual sporting part is somewhat amateur, and it’s mostly a social event.
First off, I’ve felt like an exhibition at the zoo more at these games than I ever have before. Lots of people come in from surrounding towns, and when I walk around the field pretty much everybody’s head turns and they stare at the white thing. It’s pretty awesome. I mean, it’s one thing to turn heads because you’re just stunningly beautiful or graceful, but it’s another to turn heads because you’re the goofy looking white girl wearing pants and a t-shirt instead of a wild colored skirt, matching top and massive head wrap. It’s also really sweet to turn heads because you’re the funny looking white girl who decided to try to be culturally sensitive and wear Senegalese clothes…then everybody turns and stares with an amused look like, “Hey! Look at the toubab, she’s trying to be African! Ha!”
So anyway, the two other main amusing things about the soccer games: the field is totally dirt, which isn’t anything special. However, because it’s dirt, whenever a player has a free kick, he first makes a little pile of dirt as a platform for the ball. Then he puts the ball on the mound and kicks it! It’s hilarious! You definitely can’t just build a little mound on a grass field!
Secondly: all you girls out there- remember those jelly shoes we used to think were really cool when we were kids? Welp, they have them in Senegal too, only grown Senegalese men wear them to play sports. It’s hilarious. They’re usually a size too small, so the end of their heel is hanging off the shoes, and they wear tall socks, too. It’s fantastic, and it cracks me up.
I also went to my first English club meeting, and it was hilaroius. The kids are great, and they seem to really enjoy it. Senegalese people are always making fun of each other and laughing at one another's expense, so the kids aren't as bashful about trying to speak in front of a class. Senegalese also like to point out the very obvious. For example, if you're reading they'll walk up to you and tell you that you're reading. If you have a zit or something, they will point to it and ask what's wrong. It's not malicious, it's just what they do.
So anyway, the English club played a game called 'hot seat,' where a student sits in front of the class and the class gets to ask any questions they want. This one kid gets up there who happens to be very dark skinned, which is a contrast to a lot of Pulaars, who are typically lighter skinned. A girl raises her hand and asks, "why are you very black?" Everybody started laughing, and I was cracking up too, then everybody started laughing at me laughing. Then when everybody calmed down the student in the hot seat responded, 'because it is God's will.' Everybody then said 'alhamdouliliah' (praise be to god), and laughed and applauded. It was a funny series of events in and of itself, but it was so typical of the Senegalese people that it was especially funny for me.
So the English club meeting was already entertaining, but then as a transition between games the teacher would have somebody sing. Towards the end of the class the teacher started singing the ''if you're happy and you know it clap your hands" song. I clapped my hands at the appropriate time, and the teacher got really excited that I knew the song. He tried making me get up and sing in front of everybody, and I tried to resist....to no avail. Before I knew it I had thirty Senegalese kids staring/smiling/laughing at me while I sang ''....if you're happy and you know it clap your hands." I just kept thinking,
unbelievable. I got a decent amount of applause though at least. The next day i was walking with my neighbor who's in school, and she said that she'd heard that I sang at the English club.
Fantastic, the entire town is gonna be talking about how the crazy toubab likes to sing at the English club. Only in Africa. Chuckle chuckle.
