Having been in Senegal for the two most important Senegalese holidays (Tabaski and Korite) I feel like I have become a bit of an authority on how to navigate these celebrations. What follows is a short guide to surviving Senegalese holidays. Just in case you were interested…

1) Buy a new and expensive outfit. (Actually wear the same outfit you wore for the previous holiday. Insist the outfit is new, and that you had it made just for this occasion).

2) Get your hair braided. (Or insist that white peoples’ hair can’t braid and that you would really like to have beautiful braids, but your hair just won’t cooperate…)

3) Wake up early. (Unlike in America, where holidays are a time to relax and spend time with your nearest and dearest, in Senegal you need to wake up early to ensure that the compound and your hut is spotless—you will have visitors).

4) Watch your brothers slaughter the sheep/goat. (Sure it may not be the most pleasant thing in the world, but the only way to ensure that the piece of meat you are nibbling on isn’t intestine or brains is to watch it with your own eyes go directly from a piece of livestock anatomy—to the cooking pot—and then to your mouth).

5) Take pictures of your family/friends/neighbors. (Or take one quick photo then insist that your camera is broken and needs to go to Dakar to get repaired).

6) Learn the special holiday greetings. (And then proceed to screw them up every time someone new walks into your compound).

7) Eat. A lot. (Or sneakily shove the food in your section of the bowl into other people’s sections and insist that you ate a lot and that you are really really full).

8) Greet the neighbors/extended family/entire city. (And pretend you think it is fun to spend hours walking in the mid-day heat to greet people you have never met and will probably never see again).

9) Give pennies (aka 25cfa) out to the kids. (Or yell at them and tell them you are not a toubab and don’t have any money!)

10) Stay up late into the night dancing to the same Akon song played on repeat. (Or feign a stomachache and go to bed early with earplugs).

For me, part of growing up has always meant being away from home for the holidays. Not spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family back home has always seemed like the marker for “adulthood”.

Having spent my first Thanksgiving away from home—far far away from home—I can say that assumption was completely false. I don’t feel like I’ve completed some kind of adult rite-of-passage. In fact, I just feel sad and lonely and disappointed that I wasn’t at home, eating my mom’s gramcracker crusted sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie with cold Cool Whip.

But, misery does love company… and if I had to be in Africa for Thanksgiving, at least I got to spend it with a couple dozen other young Americans. All of whom were just as lonely and just as homesick as I was…

Have you ever wondered which would win, a turkey or a lamb in a cage fight? Yeah, me neither… but just in case you were curious I would put money on the lamb…

For Thanksgiving the volunteers of Kedougou were joined by our northern neighbors from the Tambacounda region. Much like the first Thanksgiving the Tamba volunteers brought a turkey. And probably much like the first Thanksgiving the turkey was still very much alive.

At the Kedougou house we have a makeshift pen to keep the soon-to-be-deceased livestock that parades through the house during the various holidays. But this year, Tabaski (Islamic New Years) fell a mere two days after Thanksgiving, and the regional house livestock pen was currently housing a lamb (traditional Tabaski fare). Thinking nothing of it the turkey was placed in the pen with the lamb—after all, what could a turkey and a lamb have to fight about? Plenty. After a couple of head buts and a few flying feathers the turkey and the lamb were separated. Lesson learned. Turkeys and lambs, apparently unable to co-habitate…

I hate saying “no”. And I am not the only one… as Americans we are hypersensitive about asking favors—even from close friends or family (or maybe especially from them). Usually we extend  a favor before we have to put someone in a position to ask us. When I actually gather up the courage to request a favor (big or small) it is because I absolutely NEED something. Otherwise I wouldn’t ask. The opposite end of this is that when someone I care about asks me for something I rarely say “no”. I figure they would only ask if they really wanted or needed something.

Here in Senegal the attitude is completely opposite. The Senegalese operate with the motto “hey, it can’t hurt to ask!” And ask they do… From the kids on the street screaming “Toubab give me a gift” to my next door neighbor demanding I give him a Visa to America (What? Does he think I have a stack of them sitting in my bag?), I am constantly bombarded by requests that I have to deny.

While constantly saying “no” can be hard, my Senegalese host family has offered a safe haven from the constant demands and begging. That is until this week…

My family has been good about not asking me for things or favors (after all, I am not the first volunteer to live with them, they have hosted a long string of volunteers before me). But, over the past couple of days the requests for things have been endless—especially from my Neene (mother)…

“Give me your American seeds, Jennaba (the volunteer before me) used to give me seeds from America.”

“Give me your hut, your older brother Sannu is coming to visit for Tabaski and needs a nice place to sleep.”

“Your Baba is sick, I know you have medicine, why wont you give him medicine?”

“I just bought this fridge and there is nowhere for me to put it, let me keep it in your hut, your hut has plenty of room.”

“Let me borrow your bike to go to the market, I need to buy food for dinner.”

The requests have been endless, and the thing is… I WANT to give them all these things. I really care about them and want to say “yes”. But I realize that their requests are not coming from the same place that requests from my friends and family back home come from. They are not asking because they really need these things, they are testing my limits. They want to know what they can get from me, and what they can expect from me over the next two years…

This is one part of Senegalese culture that adapting to has been a struggle. I know that unlike my friends and family back home, they don’t realize that what they are doing is making me uncomfortable. But even still, I resent them for putting me in the position of having to say “no”. It breaks my heart every time…

My friend and fellow volunteer Kate tells me that she needs a cat. Why? She has a mouse problem. Every night, under the cover of darkness, a mouse crawls into her hut and steals the string from her cellphone pully system. Wait. Cellphone pully system?

Let me explain... Kate has VERY limited cellphone reception in her village. When Kate wants to send a text message, she types the message, hits "send" then lifts her cellphone to the roof of her hut--via her cellphone pully system--where she gets one bar of reception.

Only in the Peace Corps...

Hãr is Brave

Since moving to Senegal, my tolerance for life's creepies and crawlies has increased significantly. I fall asleep to the sound of mice scurrying through my roof thatching. I see nuclear sized cockroaches on a semi-regular basis. I check my shoes every morning to ensure that there are no scorpions hiding inside. But today, I met my reptilian match.

I opened the door of my hut this morning and saw a three foot long lizard waddling across the floor and then up the wall. I immediately screamed and ran out of my hut shuddering and hopping from foot to foot. I was freaked. This lizard was HUGE. It belonged in a National Geographic magazine, not in my hut.

One of my older sisters, Bibé asked me what was wrong. Not knowing the Pullar word for "lizard", the only thing I could think to say was, "Mi Suusataa!" ("I am not brave!"). Bibé came into my hut and after a quick inspection she spotted the huge lizard. Within an instant she was by my side, hovering by the hut door, squealing along with me. We then proceeded to throw rocks at the lizard in a pathetic attempt to scare it out of my hut. When our rock throwing yielded no success, Bibé began calling for Hãr, my oldest sister. I asked her--between squeals and rock throwing-- "Why Hãr?". And she turned to me and told me, "Hãr no suusi" ("Hãr is brave") with a matter-of-fact look. She continued to call for Hãr and throw rocks.

When Hãr walked over, we (mostly Bibé) explained the reptile situation in my hut. Hãr smiled and then laughed at us. Once she was done making fun of us, she grabbed a stick, marched nto my hut, and chased the HUGE lizard out of the hut. All with her youngest child, Sannu, strapped on her back.

Completely shocked. I turned to Bibé and all I could manage to say was, "A halii gonga, Hãr no suusi!" ("you spoke truth, Hãr is brave!).

One of my biggest frustrations going about my daily life here, is constantly being referred to as a “toubab”.  “Toubab” literally translates as “outsider”, “foreigner” or basically “white person”.  And it is usually yelled by children along with requests for money or a gift.

Being an Urban Ag volunteer means that I face a lot more “toubab” yelling kids than my fellow volunteers who are placed in small villages.  Usually I just ignore the kids, sometimes I tell them in Pullar to shut up and that my name isn’t “toubab”. 

Last week though, I was walking back from my favorite bean sandwich stand, when a couple of kids were yelling “toubab” at me.  I turned around, and told them that they were being rude and to stop.  A man (and I assume parent) nearby told me that they were just being kids and that I was wasting my time.  I explained to the man that if a white child was to yell “balayjo” at a black person they would be in trouble (My exact words might have been something like, “If white kid said black person. White kid’s parents beat the piss out of white kid because white kid bad.” Eloquent—I know.  I told him that “toubab” is a racist word and that the kids only shouted it because I was white.  I said it was wrong, and they should be corrected.  He thought for a minute, then told me I was right, it was rude and racist.  We then finished greeting and parted ways.

Later that night, when I was riding past the same spot on my bike with a fellow volunteer, I overheard a kid yell to his friends “Hey, don’t call her toubab you hear!?”.  My heart leapt. I realized that the man must have talked to the kids and told them not to call me “toubab”. Victory.  Sure it is a small victory, but right now I will take anything I can get.