If the first thing one wants to do while sick in a foreign country is return home, the last thing they want to do once better is spend any time revisiting the memories of said malady. However, my last little stint with illness provided some pretty interesting cultural insight that I’m willing to share. At some point during last Tuesday I started to get pains in my stomach. At first it felt like a random and dull tick somewhere in my stomach which increasingly worsened until it felt as if someone was holding the whole of my digestive tract in their hands, clenching their fists every minute or so. I’ve always thought it was silly when people clench their stomachs and double over in pain but now I understand. It felt as if there were volcanoes erupting on both the northern and southern extremes of my body and it wasn’t long before these sensations turned into realities. I pride myself on having a strong immune system. I’m a huge believer that most sickness is mental: if you tell yourself you’re not going to get sick and if you believe you’re not going to get sick you won’t get sick. However, before the volcanoes started spewing their hellish contents, I knew that I was defeated. I was a ticking time bomb that needed quickly to get home. I walked, or rather waddled, to the bus stop stopping every thirty of so feet and bracing myself against a tree or whatever stationary object was near by. Judging by the looks I received from passersby I must’ve looked like I was performing some hallucinogenic-induced dance. I remember a random and immediate stint of hunger as if my body was telling me, “Get food because you’re not going to be eating any time soon.” I never found that meal but I was able to buy a cold sprite which pacified the imminent doom until I was able to get home. I took a car rapide home which looking back on it was a terrible choice. I haven’t talked about car rapides because I try to avoid them as much as possible. From the outside they’re fairly pleasant looking. They’re bright, colorful, undersized busses decorated with religious phrases. But as the saying goes, never judge a car rapide by its welcoming exterior. The insides are rusted, the wheels usually mismatched and of different sizes, there hangs a naked light bulb (if one is lucky) from the ceiling under which entirely too many bodies pack in, feelinging more like anchovies than human beings. The three accidents I’ve seen in Senegal have all involved car rapides. Twice I’ve seen car rapides hit motorists and the other time I saw the front right wheel of one of these combustion coffins fly off and the bus skid for thirty feet as the axle ripped through the highway like a hot knife through butter. Most of the times the drivers don’t even have their licenses but there’s not enough law enforcement here for that to be a problem. Why then, would anyone ever take one of the awful vehicles? Because they cost twenty cents compared to a two dollar taxi ride. Also because it provides the same adrenal rush as riding as say a roller coaster or bungee jumping or playing Russian roulette. When I got home I quickly retreated to my room, closed the door and waited for the sickness to start which didn’t take long at all. After two hours my host mom came to check on me and I told her I wasn’t feeling well. She said she thought I had spent too much time in the sun and that I needed to get a good night sleep. I lied down in my bed, sure that whatever was taking over my body wasn’t a result of the sun, and tried to sleep. Before long I heard a murmur of voices and whispers downstairs. My room is located directly at the center of the house and with my window open I can hear everything. After a five minute argument that took place in a whisper Babakar came and into my room and in a concerned and stern tone I’d never heard him use before asked me if I had been taking my malaria medication. I told him I had. Five minutes later both Papa Ousmane and Mama came to check on me. There’s literally a foot of unoccupied floor space in my room due to the size of my bed so we all sat on my bed and discussed my symptoms. Papa Ousmane seemed confident, Mama less so. They left shortly after but only one set of footsteps walked away from my door. It was half an hour before Mama left. After that I fell asleep. Around ten that night my fever started to get really bad. I kept thinking that there was a cockroach of my shoulder which I’m not completely convinced was a hallucination because there are often cockroaches in my room. However not long after I became a bit delusional. Oscillating between throwing up and the other equally unpleasant and forceful bodily function, I rose from my bed every ten or so minutes until morning. I felt as if there were multiple beings in the room that I had to take care of. This entailed finding a new position to lie in every time I returned to bed. I’d place my head at a different position of the bed each time, looking somewhat like a compass struggling to find north. I wasn’t literally seeing other people but I felt the presence of multiple people whom I felt responsible for taking care of. I remember sweating profusely but feeling extremely cold under my blankets. I told myself that my fever was killing whatever was inside of me and that tomorrow everything would be ok. Possibly the strangest part of all this was that throughout the night the worst pains that I had were in my right thumb and the side of my left foot. I woke up in the morning looking like a mummy. I hadn’t been able to eat of drink in over twelve hours. My face was pale and covered in dry sweat. I’m sure I smelled like something dead. Mama called the WARC and I went to the hospital. The doctor gave me five different medications (appetite stimulant, nausea pacifier, antibiotics, and painkillers) and diagnosed me with a digestive tract infection. His diagnosis, however, isn’t what is interesting about this story. When I got home my mother took me to Babaker’s room and explained to me that she had made a mistake in designing my room. She said that she hadn’t had time to properly safeguard the room from bad spirits and that she was very sorry. She was extremely regretful. She told me that she was in the process of redoing my room and for right now I’d have to sleep in Babakar’s room. I lied down and shortly after she started burning a callibas of incense. The smoke at its thickets prevented me from seeing Mama who sat just at the end of my bed. She said that there was nothing bad in Babakar’s room but that just in case I still had anything bad inside of me the incense would kill it. When I woke up the room was clear of smoke but Mama was still there. We ate bread and butter together and then she brought me upstairs. My room was completely different. It took Mama around ten minutes to explain all the changes that had been made. A queen sized bed had been replaced by a twin so that the bad spirits couldn’t sleep with me. The window had been caulked, it previously hadn’t been which was always frustrating when it rained, so as to keep the bad spirits out. The tapestry, sheets, pillows and furniture had been replaced because that’s where the bad spirits reside she explained. For me this experience seemed to kind of sum up Senegal in a nutshell. It’s not rare to see a BMW and a horse drawn cart side by side in the street and nor was it rare to see illness treated traditionally and modernly (I know how problematic those terms are but for right now they’ll have to suffice). Senegal is a country of contrast. Ostentatious displays of wealth and extreme squalor, Western and African, modern and traditional. The Senegalese designate a very special place in the world for the spirits that they believe live all around us. For example one always pours the first sip of a beverage on the ground as to respect the spirits but one is never supposed to throw boiling water on the ground as if not to harm any spirits. Do I agree with the Senegalese on this? No. However, during a phone conversation with my parents after this was all said and done I found myself struggling to explain my fever-induced hysteria. It did at the time, after all, feel as if there were multiple people inside of my room. I do not believe in spirits any more than I do Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny but I do believe in the shared human experience. Hundreds of years ago some guy probably had the same thing I had and in the absence of science and medication explained that his body had been taken over by spirits. Today we have scientific explanations. When it comes to treating the illness the modern method may be more efficient but I believe it’s important to acknowledge and respect alternative explanations and realities. What makes something real, after all, is our belief in it. In the past I would’ve thought my mom’s reaction to my illness was derived from a lack of knowledge and although harmless, a general waste of time. Now, however, I see it as a very important belief in one’s culture and attempt to save that culture from totally being consumed from the Western World. What makes Senegal so interesting for me is the strength and perseverance of the people here. Under constant attack from all things Western, they’ve to a great extent preserved their traditional culture. There is not a McDonalds in Senegal, most of the people wear traditional clothing and although there is traditional medicine, illness is still treated as it has been for hundred of years.

Throughout eight days during the month of Ramadan I would wake up every morning to the pitch black of a house without electricity. Ramadan proved to be a financial strain on my family who chose to sacrifice electricity for an indefinite amount of time so as to provide food to those who are in need. Although not a word was spoken on the subject matter there was an understanding in the house: giving is more important that having. Every day around 6 o’clock we would sit in the gray light of dusk, spread baguettes with chocolate and butter and make coffee and milk for the mosque. We ate dinner under the light of the closest street lamp. When there were power outages for the entire neighborhood we would eat on the roof under the stars. We showered in the dark. We spent time together in the dark. We lived in the dark. The absence of electricity added to the dream-like quality of the entire month. All of this so other people, whom we did not know and most likely never will as we only saw them from a distance, could eat a meal they might otherwise miss. The food that we sent across the street, for which we were never thanked, was eaten by talibes who are, or at one point were, students of the Koran. Talibes are the most striking and apparent qualities of Senegalese culture. The streets are literally covered with them. Perhaps they are the most appropriate manifestation of the squalor that exists here. They sit on the side of the road in their rags, each with a tomato can, and beg for hours a day. They are the face of Africa we are all so familiar with. Malnourished, some frighteningly skinny and others with disintended stomachs, poorly dressed, dirty and generally sickly looking. At first it felt good to give to the talibes but I quickly noticed that they’re expression would never change upon receiving money. I grappled with my feelings about this for a long time. If I’m going to give my money to someone I want them to be visibly grateful for my contribution. But if that is the case then who is giving really about? Clearly my concept of giving and the concept that exists in Senegal is different. My host brother explained to me that when one gives the least important person in the equation is the giver. As a Senegalese Muslim he believes that he is doing gods work by giving. In fact, the giver himself is not actually giving as he is simply a vehicle through which gods graces may be distributed. But this act of selflessness, modesty and spirituality is very different from the egocentric giving that I’m used to in the United States. If I go without electricity for eight days I’d like the satisfaction of watching the faces of those who are benefiting from my loss while the eat. In fact I’d like to be thanked. I’m not proud of these sentiments. I’ve come to admire the spirituality that guides life here but I also struggle with it tremendously.

Take, for instance, the topic of begging through the lens of development in Senegal. First let me say that I don’t believe in development. That is, I don’t believe the development as it is so rigidly defined by the Western world. Development is not a monolithic ideology. Development is not a race to a single finish line in which the United States and all the other countries that share the dated title of “first world” are so clearly winning. Development is specific to every country but if we were to try to define development on a global level I’d say that development is any movement, cultural characteristic or idea that increases the quality of life. Thus one could argue that there are development qualities of spirituality through the lens of giving in Senegal. One person makes a personal sacrifice to help someone who is in need thus increasing, no matter how minute, their quality of life. If any of my friends or family at home were to see the faces of the children I walk by on my way to school they would understand why giving has become such a pillar of Senegalese society. But without an understanding of this process, the increasing popularity of both giving and begging in Senegal, nobody would be able to make an accurate assessment if this form of spirituality is really in the spirit of development. When I arrived I gave every day. After nearly two months I don’t give any more. In fact, I deplore the act of giving in the case of the talibes. Perhaps, with a brief overview of the topic of begging in Senegal, I can convince you that my frustration with spirituality isn’t born from an atheistic hatred of God but rather from an education and experience that isn’t communicated in the photos of poverty we see in Africa. At the very least I can render you more able to make your individual assessments on the matter.

The leaders of Koranic schools are called marabouts. Each town has a marabout who takes in children from the street and teaches them the Koran, thus offering them a more spiritually fulfilling and generally increased quality of life. This has been going on ever since Islam came to Senegal and for a long time I think it was a very positive thing for the country. The marabout would provide the basic amenities for the children but relied on the children to provide their own food for themselves. Thus during one hour the children would go from house to house, asking for food that they brought back to the marabout. All the food was brought together and then shared by the talibes. It was the ultimate show of the solidarity that is so readily obvious in Senegal. The marabout sacrificed a potential life of wealth and family so as to teach the talibes, the talibes sacrificed their lives and themselves to god and the community would support this entire process by giving food to the talibes, thus sacrificing personal wealth. Forty years ago spirituality was an innate part of culture but also a sign of development (this in itself is a very interesting idea that I may explore in a later entry). However, in the 1970’s a terrible and extended drought descended upon West Africa. Senegal was particularly affected. With a national economy concentrated on agriculture, a process of urbanization commenced as people started searching for alternative modes of work. Without a surplus of food a crucial equation was missing in the relationship among public, talibes and marabout. Unable to provide for themselves, many talibes and marabouts moved to the cities. Here the communal quality of the process was lost. In an impersonal, capitalistic world that was severely lacking agricultural produce the marabouts started asking for money rather than food. At a time when everyone was financially suffering the talibes were forced to stay in the streets for hours every day just to collect enough money to bring to the marabouts. It is here that I believe the process and system became corrupt. Marabouts were able to live in the amininity of the large cities and soon began to see the process as a means of making money. They would set an amount that each talibe had to return with each day. If they failed to collect enough they’re housing privileges would be rescinded, they would be forced into debt and often times there was physical punishment. The spirituality of the citizens was taken advantage of. The process was exploited. Known for its relative wealth and giving culture, Senegal became a key destination for immigrants. People from Mali, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and other parts of West Africa would come to Senegal and, with no means of making money, enroll in Koranic schools. To this day nearly twenty percent of the Senegalese population is Guinean. With an increasing number of talibes they were forced to work more and more and received less and less of an education. Instead of tens hours in the class room and an hour in the street they would spend all day and night in the street and potentially an hour in the classroom of the now corrupt marabouts saw it fit to provide them with one. Very much the same way that I imagine the talibes see a dollar (or rather Central African Franc) sign when they looked at me, the marabout saw the children as a means of making money. Neo slavery is how I like to think about it. Thus every time a talibe is given money a corrupt system is being exploited. There are ways around this, such as giving food, but generally the process continues unquestioned. President Wade tried to make a statement by arresting seven marabout a week ago. Their punishment is that they are not allowed to “teach” for six months. Clearly this is a process that is going to continue. If development is simply a means of increasing the quality of life then can the marabout-talibe relationship in Senegal be seen as a form of development? Not anymore. At one time yes. But now the general quality of life for both talibe and marabout has been decreased. This is interesting if we think about this in the perspective of the global community. In innate part of Senegalese culture, the solidarity that exists here, once ameliorated the quality of life. In this sense giving in Senegalese culture was innately developing. However after a natural disaster and the very unnatural disaster that was colonization, the process has been reversed. Our good graces, our civilizing mission, our desire to spread capitalism to parts of the globe where it simply doesn’t belong, our desire to “develop” those barbaric African is doing the opposite. Next time you see a commercial with a montage of African children with fly covered faces who look like they’re on the brink of death and you reach for the phone to make a donation think twice, because it may be that call that kills them. That was a bit too dramatic but seriously, this thing isn’t cut and dry. Giving isn’t always good. Giving isn’t always about someone else.

When I woke up for school yesterday morning nobody else had gotten up. After more than three weeks people don’t fight the fatigue anymore, they simply submit. I, however, struggle tremendously when I go to school without having eaten in the morning and thus forced myself to get up. Although awake, I felt just as asleep as everyone else. There was no bread which meant that I would’ve had to go to my room, get money, go to the boutique and return. A simple, two minute trip increasingly seems like an arduous task. In the pitch black of five o’clock, I had no idea where the breakfast tray was. I waited for my eyes to adjust but before they could I heard the scurrying feet of a mouse. I followed the sound and found the dates which he was inevitably feasting upon. I shoved one handful into my pocket and another into my mouth. You know you’re tired when chewing is hard. (I’ve also found it very interesting that as soon as I break fast or eat after a prolonged period of not eating I start sweating profusely. I literally feel my body burning the energy that it so desperately needs).

However, the general lethargy that has descended upon everyone didn’t seem present when I arrived at school. There was a certain vibrancy about all the professors. People seemed alive after three weeks of restraint, sacrifice and struggle. People in the street walked a bit faster, there was more conversation and people generally seemed to be in better good spirits. Class ended at 6:30 and I rushed home to break fast with my family. I arrived to a full house. Not only was there a constant flow of women moving quickly in and out of my house but there was electricity for the first time in more than a week and the undeniably delicious smell of food cooking in the kitchen.

I ran up to the rooftop and looked down upon on ceiling less outdoor kitchen. There were huge vats of pastries being fried in oil, dozens of whole chickens being brined in brown and yellow liquids alike and additional smaller preparations of beignets, thaikry (millet, powdered milk and sugar) fruits, and vegetables. Today was a very important day of prayer during Ramadan during which all the family gets together and asks for forgiveness for their sins. Of course, I was oblivious to this before returning home. I shared our first meal at eleven o’clock with all the males of the house. Exhausted, I fell asleep on the roof until 2 when I was summoned by my cousin to come eat the second dinner. Downstairs plates of beignets (sweet and savory), friend chicken, vegetables and bread were being covered in Styrofoam and sent to the mosque across the street. The only thing more incredible that the amount of people squeezed into our house was the amount of food be prepared and eaten. From for seven hours these women had worked to prepare enough food for the entire neighborhood.

My favorite thing by far and away was an oversized sweet beignet. Beignets here are always flavored with rose water which adds a delectate, perfumed dimension which balances the overwhelming heaviness of the oil that they’re fried in. Nearly everything that we ate was deep-fried. After hours of soaking in brines the chicken, although tough, was flavorful and actually tasted like chicken.

(Side note: I think the paradoxes of the developed and developing world are hilarious. In the United States the new first world trend is a culinary focus on organically and locally produced food. We pay significantly more for grass fed beef and free range chicken than we do for mass produced meats. Back home it’s what’s cool. It’s a classicized assertion of identity. People shop at whole foods, eat Fiji apples in January and wear shoes fabricated from reclyed products because it’s political, it’s cool and it’s the “right thing to do.” I think we do it so other people can see us doing it. Do I think the average family can distinguish between farm raised and wild salmon? Absolutely not. In fact, if blindfolded, I don’t think the average human being’s palate is developed enough to tell the difference between a carrot and their own thumb but that’s beside the point. They eat locally and organically here because that’s the cheapest, most practicle and sometimes only way to eat. These ironies are omnipresent. All people on Senegalese billboards have light complexions. My host sister uses a soap that is supposed to whiten her skin. My sister at home spends her summer in the sun to darken her skin. This world is a very entertaining place).

The savory beignets were really interesting too. There were two types, one stuffed with a chorizo like sausage and another with offal. Eating the less sought after parts of the animal is a necessary survival skill over here. These empanada like beignets were stuffed with liver, kidney heart and some other identifiable organ or tendon that crunched when eaten. Sound is a sensation that one rarely experiences when eating (unless addicted to Pop-Rocks) and although strange it was enjoyable.

At this point I was ready for sleep but I knew the night wasn’t over. I fought a resilient battle against fatigue and a full stomach on the couch. Every minute of so my eyes would close, the muscles in my neck would relax and I would enjoy a blissful second or two of sleep until my head dropped and my neck would snap back up into consciousness. Every time I came to it seemed like there was someone different offering me something to eat or drink. At this point it’s all a blur but I do remember Attaye (Senegalese tea), coffee, pineapple juice, and gingerbeer. I also remember a giant bowl of cellophane wrapped mints mixed with fried chicken gizzards and livers being passed around.

Those two hours that I spent on the couch can serve as a microcosm of my Ramadan experience. A single night and an entire month of being not quite awake but not quite asleep, very far from home but very much at home, physically exhausted but emotionally satisfied, completely overwhelmed yet strangely at peace…these paradoxes will not be forgotten any time soon and nor will the experience of last night. At some point after 5 I must’ve some how made it to my bed although I wouldn’t be surprised if people had to carry me. I woke up two hours later, feeling as if I had been hit by a truck. I took a quick cold shower, grabbed my backpack and headed downstairs. Our living room which had been converted to a dinning room the night before was now doubling as an enormous bed. On chairs, on the floor and on couches all the guests from the previous night slept. I carefully stepped over bodies, wishing I could join them. Its 3:20 the next day and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re all still there. Sleeping. Soundly. Together.

As of this weekend I’ve changed my fasting pattern. Normally we break fast at 7:30, we eat dinner at 11:00 and then I’m asleep by twelve. The problem is that when I break fast food is the farthest thing from my mind is food because dama mar (I’m thirsty). I’ll drink a 1.5 liter bottle of water and barley be able to move let alone eat anything. Thus I usually end up eating some bread and milk around 8:00 when it doesn’t feel as if someone is sitting on my stomach. Since an empty stomach feels full very quickly, eating has to be approached strategically. This means that if all you have room for is a half a baguette, then you take a third, cover it with layer after layer of chocolate, butter, sugar and sometimes even dates if I’m feeling very tired. This way six inches of bread can carry around six or seven hundred calories and an entire days worth of fat. Overeating when you break fast is a rookie mistake that renders one unable to eat a good dinner, the most important meal of the day.

After three hours I’m always hungry for dinner. The problem is that so is everyone else. Of course we all eat around a large plate and with 8 people in the house as of now we don’t eat as much as we did before. Again there’s a strategy for this. If we’re eating with silverware then getting a spoon is absolutely necessary. I remember when I was little watching a man with Parkensins trying to eat a bowl of soup; every time he would get the spoon to his mouth there’d be nothing left. I vividly remember crying when I saw this. Trying to eat couscous with a fork is as difficult of a task. There’s simply too much at risk. I’ve I load a fork with couscous and a bite of chicken and half way to my mouth it falls on my lap I’m in deep shit. Awa knows that she’s going to have to put in overtime scrubbing the stain out of my pants, everyone is pissed that I wasted a perfectly good piece of chicken and now I have a hundred little grains of couscous stuck in my leg hair. (Side not here I’m pretty sure I’m the only one with leg hair in the entire country) As I said a spoon is crucial. I can take as much couscous with a single scoop of a spoon as I can with four significantly more dangerous forkfuls. This decreases the frequency that one takes from the place but maxims in take. Thus, it seems like you’re eating less and will be inevitably told to eat more.

Dinner usually knocks me out. A full meal after 5 or six hours a sleep feels as strong as an Ambien. However, this is the make or break moment in my life. No matter how full I am its imperative to drink a cup of coffee. This gives me the energy I need to stay up for about an hour and a half when I’ll be hungry again. Around 12:30 I’ll go to the boutique across the street and buy two kilos of bread (about two baguettes). This has kinda become my daily contributions to the household and Babakar and Ibo are always ready to eat when I get back. We heat up coffee and milk, dunk our baguettes in the scalding liquid and eat until we can’t eat any more. Sometimes this process takes multiple trips to the boutique. At this point we’re all tired. We all go to the roof and stay there for as long as we can, as long as our bodies will permit us, which is usually until 2:00. Then we crash.

I find that while being abroad the ability to laugh at myself and the situations I find myself in is invaluable. For instance, the other day I came home about an hour before breaking fast and started to help my family prepare the meal. I was bragging about how good I’ve become at spreading butter which my mom took as an opening to suggest that I make pancakes for the family. Having previously discussed her love for pancakes I had already written down a recipe and so I started to tell her the ingredients I would need. Everything was going smoothly until I came across the word baking powder which I didn’t know in French. I spent the next twenty minutes trying to explain what baking powder is to no avail. Frustrated, I abandoned my attempts and continued to spread the butter in silence. Shortly after my mom received a phone call from her brother who was at the airport leaving Senegal after a month long visit. I had met him my first week here and had since seen him three times. Leaving Senegal when he was 19, he bounced around Portugal, Italy, Spain, France and finally Germany for twenty years. He’s one of those guys whose look alone commands respect. He has the build of a ten year old, has dreads down to his feet, and his eyes look as if maybe they’ve seen too much. The looks of Jar Jar Binks, the mind of Yoda and the height of R2D2. Anyways, he’s married to a German woman who doesn’t speak French or Wolof. To this point I had assumed that Mama had never had a real conversation with her sister in law. Oh how I was wrong. To my astonishment Mama switches over to English and says to the German woman, “I’m just sitting here with my son. We’re making pancakes tonight but first we need to find baking powder. Levure chimique.” She winked, smiled and continued in her perfect English, leaving me baffled. All I could do was laugh.

However the ability to refrain from laughing also has come into handy lately. One of Mama’s nephews has come to stay with us for a while. He’s my age and plays basketball so naturally we hang out a lot. I try to share everything I have with my family as much as possible and lately he been using my ipod. The other night we were across the street at the boutique which sits directly next to the mosque. It was a Friday, a holy day in the Muslim faith, and the mosque was packed. There were at least a hundred bodies outside of the mosque and everyone was in the process of completing the eight o’clock prayer. As we were waiting for the vender to weigh out the millet we were buying, Ibo (short for Ibrahim) leans in and asks me in a whisper, “what does it mean I got hoes.” I didn’t understand at first what he was saying because his pronounced “hoes” more like “hews” but after a second it registered. He had heard Ludacris recite this line time after time and now, in the middle of a silent prayer, in a hushed tone, found it the right time to ask about it. It was everything I could do not to burst into laughter. The next day he asked me what “making the bedrock meant.” I gotta find a new type of music to listen to. Maybe some nice, lyric-less, instrumentals.