Walk With Me, Leah

I woke at dawn to the sound of the muezzin calling the faithful to the mosque, as I do every morning. There is a rotation of three male voices and I never know which one will call me back to consciousness. To my relief, today it is the one I call "The Gregorian" because his chanting has a delicate, clear cadence, the kind that can ellicite calm and touch you in that small hollow under the breastplate, that odd place that beckons a quick breath. Certain Gospel voices can do this to me as well. There are lots of people who can sing, but not all of them get the message across. Like the other two muezzins, who are doing their job, but lack conviction and passion. On the mornings when they shout "Allah akbar" from the turret, it sounds like a call to obligation, but this morning, as I hear The Gregorian, I imagine the men in their robes, walking from all directions toward that voice and I am almost tempted to dress and walk to the mosque myself, just to see, to be led. But then I remember, women are not welcome in the main part. So instead I pick up the small notebook that sits beside my bed where I write down those "urgent" things that need to be recorded in the middle of the night and head to the kitchen for coffee.

Yesterday I was starting to feel the impending sadness that January 9th brings, because it is the day my close friend, Leah, died two years ago. Richard noticed and said, "Ellen, if you want to be happy, you have to start to forget." I got angry and demanded how he could possibly ask me to forget her. He said, "What I mean is that you have to try to forget the sorrow. As long as you sit with the pain, she isn't with you. But if you can figure out a way to honor her, she'll be next to you." Richard is not always so philosophical, but from time to time, he offers up just the right wisdom. Like small baubles which float to the surface, they have escaped the buried wreckage. Like all of us, he has had his own share of life's collisions . So at some point in the middle of the night, I decided to write down the pain I felt over her loss. I wanted to let it out, get it down, so that I could think about how I would honor her instead. The small light on my phone wasn't working, but I wrote anyway in the dark, scralling over the page, letting the tears come, knowing I would be able to decipher my own handwriting in the morning, as least get the meaning. But as I sat at the kitchen counter this morning, and opened the notebook, I saw that the page was blank. Only impressions were left. The ink in my pen had gotten caught on a philament of dust and all I had managed to record were scratches and traces. The page was scarred. I stared at it for a long time and then I began to write this piece.

I will honor Leah today by taking a long walk. One of my fondest and last memories of her was our Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Chicago the year before she died. It had been some time since we'd seen each other and we had a lot of catching up to do. She had emailed me frequently during the training period. "Congrats on getting up to 6 miles . . .10 miles . . 15 miles . . . Don't forget to buy dry-wick socks . . .I saw that you reached your fundraising goal, congrats . . . see you next week." Leah was a life coach long before she put a professional label on it. She was all about setting goals, getting through the hard parts, laying stepping stones, celebrating victories. She was also someone who didn't let you get away with much. I remember a Sunday at her apartment while we were at Duke. I was insecure, immature and ravenous for acceptance and approval. I started talking about one or another girl who I seemed to run into at all the parties, who was always perfectly quaffed, wore a different outfit every time and seemed to always say the right thing . . . but she wouldn't give me the time of day. Leah stayed silent while she listened and then at one point looked off to the right and up to the ceiling as though she were waiting to devine the right response. Finally she looked right at me and said softly, "why are you spending so much time talking about this girl, when clearly she isn't worth it? You've got plenty of friends who love you, you're smart, you're beautiful. It sounds to me like maybe you're jealous, which you shouldn't be. That's all I'm saying." And she didn't mean,' don't read into it any further', she meant 'that's all I'm saying' as in, 'end of conversation, 'cause I ain't wasting any more time on this and neither are you.' I called it the "Leah mirror." She had a way of holding the truth up in front of you without making you feel judged or defensive and in a way, Richard did the same thing for me.

Leah wanted to come to Senegal. I will honor her by taking a long walk. I will show her. Maybe I will turn right and walk along the red dirt road that leads to the sacred Baobob trees, where the path is covered with fronds from the Flamboyants which have started to shed. It will be chilly at first and I will be sure to breathe in the scent of drying grasses and the small ground vines that hold purple wildflowers. I will smell the morning fires from the small Peul huts off to my left, wave to the women hunkered down over their steaming pots. I will listen to the "tchik, tchik" of the shepard leading his cattle to pasture. I will continue on until I reach the fields of bissap crops, ready to be harvested, those crimson petals that when boiled down to their essence, can heal. Or maybe I will turn left and walk through the brushland towards town. A fire last week burned all of the brush and the earth is scorched underfoot. It releases small clouds of black dust and shows my footprints perfectly. I have been here and I will go there. It will start to get hot, so I will take off my sweater and let the sun warm my shoulders and face. I will pass small groups of Senegalese children on their way to Koran school. Dressed in bright colors and carrying their Korans tightly to their chests, they will stop talking when they see me and smile. Some will say hello, others won't. I will hear one of them say, "toubab denge Wolof", the white woman speaks Wolof. I will smell their bread filled with spiced lentils, wrapped in brown paper, which they will eat outside on the stoop before entering the building. Next I will begin to see the houses that have been started and left unfinished until more money comes. They are signs of hope that the future will be built upon. Then, as I move further into the village, I will stop and talk to Samba, who owns the small bodega where I buy flour and potatoes, garlic, spices. He will be sitting just outside playing checkers with his friends at a rickety wooden table. He always wins and never cheats. I owe him 50 cents from a week ago, but he never has change, so I will buy something I don't need and hand him $1.

I might even walk all the way to the sea, wind my way down the rubbled lane between the brown house with the orange roof and the green house with the brown roof. Then I will have to jump off the sea wall because the waves have eroded the stairs. I will stop for just a minute to take in the vast expanse of the ocean and sift through the shells that have been deposited by the tide. Pocketing my favorites, the welks, I will feel them against my leg as I walk. The vendors will be out by then and I'll pass ancient women with skin like blue night carrying bundles of clothes, baskets of beaded necklaces and shell earings, African dolls, Pareos. I will stop and greet them. The wind will circle up under their long patterned skirts as we talk and I will catch a glimpe of foot, flat and smooth from decades of sand. I will buy something, a trinket, because they will walk much longer and further than me today. I will add it to the shells in my pocket as a reminder of today. Soon, as the tide rises, I'll take off my shoes and walk in the water, which will be calm at that hour and starting to warm up. The salt will sting my skin as the water pulls away but each time it comes back, it will soothe.

As I head home, I'll hear a song, that voice, the muezzin calling for mid-morning prayer, my breath catching again. Leah will hear it too because it is calling her. I'll want her to come home with me, stay a little longer. But I'll let her go, knowing there are many others who need to walk with her today, and always.

Right Under Our Noses

I remember hearing a rumor many years ago that the rather eccentric Yoko Ono shared the litter box with her cat. I don't know if it's true, but apparently she claimed it was a better way to deal with human waste than flushing gallons of wasted water into a septic system and that the resulting melange could eventually be used as compost to grow vegetables. She claimed that if we weren't careful, water would become precious and perhaps even scarce. She was concerned about the environment way before it was a hot topic, which of course, at the time, placed her in the category of alarmist, tree-hugger, hippie and in the minds of many, just plain crazy. I myself didn't give the rumor much credence. I did however succumb to a vivid mental image of this petite, almond-eyed woman squatting over a litter pan while humming "she came in through the bathroom window", much to the dismay of the feline patiently waiting it's turn.

We have two cats here in Africa and no litter box, because, well, they go outside in the dirt. However, we do have what is known as a dry toilet system. This would be the moment, if you are feeling uncomfortable, to hit the back button on your computer and see what your other Facebook friends are up to. I won't be offended, I swear. However, if you are even slightly intrigued, you might learn something. American culture, in particular, has placed a big taboo on any reference to the fact that all living things eliminate what they eat and drink. While browsing the children's literature section in Barnes and Noble while pregnant with Jamie, I remember being shocked at seeing a book called, "Everybody Poops," not because of it's contents, but because someone finally had the courage to write about it. The need being served by this book-- to help children understand that the process is nothing to be ashamed of-- is indication enough that somewhere along the line, we dumped (no pun intended) our bodily functions into the "we don't talk about that . . . EVER" column and it has stayed there. Don't get me wrong, I'm not espousing bringing it up as a topic at cocktail parties or rotary club, I just want to share what I've learned about the entire cycle as it relates to energy.

Those of you who are familiar with our project in Senegal know that we live bill-free in a house constructed with earth, get our water from a well, our electricity from a wind-turbine and solar panels, and grow our own organic vegetables. We've recently added a chicken named Ratatouille and a turkey named Gusteau to the picture, but not for consumption purposes. The chicken gives us eggs and the turkey acts as a natural anti-pesticide, spending his days picking at termites and other predetors to our produce. He occasionally steals a lettuce leaf or two, but we forgive him this. Although they don't have much personality, I'm not ready to raise poultry that will end up on our table. I still prefer to purchase it from our local chicken farm. Much to my surprise, when I didn't know what to make for dinner the other day, Sunny very plainly said, "why don't we eat the chicken." She's five and understands perfectly where her food comes from, which could easily lead me down another path or up onto my soap box with another topic, but let's get back to dry toilets.

Joseph Jenkins wrote a book, first published in 1995, called "Humanure" in which he details the virtues of dry toilets (see link below). The title itself may be off-putting, but the concept is simple. You place a receptacle, ok, a bucket, under a standard toilet seat (he gives you the plan for building it) and when you've done you're business, you cover it with a layer of saw dust, straw or any other natural material. When the bucket is full, you place the contents in a compost retainer (also detailed in the book) and layer it with food waste, i.e. fruit and vegetable peels, egg shells, coffee grinds, plant trimmings, anything biodegradable. The only stipulation is that you don't use dyed toilet paper. After about a year, enough time to allow any toxins or harmful bacterium to dissipate, you have one of the richest composts imaginable with which to grow organic produce. I skimmed the book cursorily when Richard first suggested that we adopt this system (since we don't have running water, we didn't have much choice) and promptly threw it at him while launching a tirade about the numerous ways in which he has ruined my life as I knew it. When we moved into the house, I was told I had two options: I could walk outside in the brushland and hide behind a bush, if I could find one, or I could try the dry toilet system. To his credit, he built a handsome throne of concrete, spent a fortune on a lacquered wooden seat and promised to be the "emptier." To the unsuspecting eye, it looked like every other toilet, minus the handle and water tank. We used a mix of peanut shells and millet shucks as our choice of coverage. To my begrudging surprise, there was only one pungent odor eminating from our bathroom--it smelled like fresh ground peanuts. We've been using this system for almost a year and, like most routines in my life, it now seems natural. Richard laughs when he hears me touting the virtues of dry toilets. Once addicted to creature comforts, I am now, you might say, a convert. In general, our project has opened my eyes to an array of "green" choices, some I was already familiar with, others completely new to me. Read on.

We recently called in a specialist on renewable energy, Pierre-Jacques, a frenchman who has lived and worked in Senegal for the past 26 years. We needed help finding a way to power our cold production, having considered both solar and gas-powered refridgerators, and wanted a professional opinion on which was the most energy efficient and cost-effective. After he asked us a myriad of pertinent questions and toured our house, he said, "you've had the solution all along, right under your noses. You just haven't been harvesting it properly." He went on to explain that by placing our dry toilet waste in an air-tight cistern along with a small percentage of cow, pig or horse manure, we could produce enough methane to power a full-sized refridgerator/freezer and our gas oven! He said this so matter of factly and non-chalantly that I asked him to repeat himself. "Sure," he said. " It's called Biogas. I have all the plans because it's what we do at our house and I can tell you it works." By running gas tubing from the cistern to the two appliances, we can produce cold and heat by recycling our waste. He went on to explain that by "harvesting" the methane, we were also preventing it from dissipating into the environment, which is what happens when it's placed in an open-air composting unit. I immediately thought of all those problematic cows out there in the world shamelessly releasing their gas into the universe and wondered aloud if there wasn't a way to harvest it. Imagine the energy problems we could solve! Pierre-Jacques laughed, but explained that, in fact, China, India and Brazil are already doing it, on a large scale basis as well as individual (see attached link). The best part about his suggestion is that our composting efforts won't be lost because what remains in the tank after the methane is distilled can be emptied periodically into our compost, making use of all the elements of the system.

I was curious about the person to output ratio. In other words, would the four of us be able to produce enough methane to keep the appliances running constantly? Pierre-Jacques, who spouts out statistics and technical information with the finesse of a poet, told us that output is usually proportional to the needs of the family. However, because I like to cook and entertain for others, we'll add a small percentage of animal manure to augment our methane production. We'll be installing our new system in a week or two and I, for one, don't care how the fridge gets cold, I'm just looking forward to popping open an ice cold beer!

We were so impressed by Pierre-Jacques' savvy, knowledge and experience, that we've gone into partnership with him in a new business called "Oxygene Consult." Richard will provide ecological architecture and design services while Pierre-Jacques will consult on alternative energy solutions for individuals, businesses and non-profit organizations. I'll admit that our project is an extreme one. Not everyone is willing or able to implement what we've done, particularly a dry toilet system. But here in Senegal, we may be able to at least raise awareness and at best provide solutions to real energy problems, not to mention financial instability for a population that suffers from extreme electric bills, frequest power outages and the high cost of gas. And of course we hope that those who can afford the "tradtional" methods will want to go natural because of the environmental benefits. Who knows. For now, it's actually fun being a part of this crazy project of ours. After all, it really is a working lavoratory . . . I mean laboratory.

http://humanurehandbook.com/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMreH1YUs90

Measuring a Year

It's been a year since we came back to Senegal to live. A date on the calendar, August 12th, tells me practically that this time has passed, but I perceive it more in the details of our ordinary life: the length of Sunny's hair, the height of the banana trees in our yard, the changing light of a season returning with it's own frank announcements-- the rain, humidity thick on the skin, green, everywhere, green soothing over the fissures of a typically parched land. The scent of mangoes, hanging heavily from trees along the roads, tells me the rainy season has circled back around. Mangoes the size of a child's forearm, with the fluid aftertaste of coconut and pineapple. They are plentiful and cheap and find their way into almost all of our meals. I sense the passage of time in the ease with which I walk through the village where we live, if not quite looked on as "one of us," I am by now a familiar face, "one among us", not African, but no longer a stranger. Seynabou, Maty, M'Baye. There you are. We know each other. "Nengadef, How are you?" I frequent the fish market, which once terrified me, with its long, crowded, narrow allies, navigating through rain puddles, blood-soaked ice crates, discarded heads and scales, tangled fishing line with shards of lures. I am no longer shocked by the potent, briny smell, the din of loud bargaining over waves crashing into the port just beyond, shouting over tables, fish passed over heads, flapping sea water. Who has carp? "Madame Americaine," someone is tugging at my sleeve, "come, come, urchin, monkfish, carp, pas cher." Women crouched on low, rickety wooden stools, expertly gut and fillet my fish before I can count out the now familiar papery bills. I pick out the coins, recognizing them by color and weight. I thank the vendor in Wolof and move out from under the rusted tin roof into the hot sun, pushing past on comers and barefoot children selling plastic bags. It is my last stop before the bakery to get bread and my canvas bag is now heavy. This has become a familiar, natural routine. I don't think much about our surroundings, our daily lives, and this also tells me that a good deal of time has passed, that our lives have settled upon us. Then there are the subtle negatives of absorbing time. The talibes, the young boys who beg for alms and food to pay for their religious education--when did they stop tugging at my heart and become a common detail in my day? At what point did I begin to regard the many sellers who approach me with their wares as a nuisance? It takes a year.

Many people have taught me things this year and I have met some extraordinary individuals. Aminata is one of them. She is in her early fifties, tall and broad shouldered, with braids woven tightly to her head. She was raised in a small Peul village, in a one-room hut with a straw roof, no electricity and no running water. The Peul are nomads, and one of the poorest tribes in Senegal. The men are shepherds, raising and selling sheep and cattle and the women keep the village. Aminata's job as a young girl, in addition to tending the morning fire at the center of their hut and sweeping the dirt floor, was to fetch water at a well over two miles from her small village. She would walk with several other girls on the same path every day, an empty plastic bucket on her head on the way there and a heavy sloshing burden on the way back. They could not afford to waste any of the precious water, so the return trip took much longer, with careful steps and watchful eyes straining to detect obstacles, necks balancing the buckets, aided only by a small piece of cloth flattened on their heads to soften the load. As the years went by, Aminata began venturing further and further away from her village and beyond the well, until one day she reached the shore and spotted, there in the port, a sailboat. She visited the port almost daily from then on and watched how the boat's owner cared for the deck and wrapped the sails, how the boat rocked and bobbed with the tides, swayed and calmed with the changing winds. She already knew how the water in her bucket reacted to the movements of her body and she became fascinated by both the principle of buoyancy and the idea of conducting herself towards a new land. She decided she would one day set sail on such a boat. But she was carried away on the current of her own life and cultural restraints and was married off at a young age to a man she didn't love and had two children. Still, whenever she had the chance, she would steal away to the port to watch and dream. Not having been educated, she began to teach herself how to read, write and speak French in secret. These would come in handy, along with her other life skills, when one day, years later, she would no longer deny her calling. She took her children, who were now older, to her mother, left her husband and talked her way aboard a large sailboat as a volunteer crew member. She had observed and asked questions, watched and listened over the years and she sounded knowledgeable enough to qualify. She ended up, over the years, becoming an expert navigator and charter, who has sailed around the world twice and is a seasoned traveller. She met her second husband, a Frenchman and avid sailor in the port of New Caledonia and they divide their time between Senegal, Morocco and France. As she says, "I am, after all, a nomad at heart." After I admired her coffee one day, she took me to the outdoor market the next morning, where we purchased raw beans from the Cote D'Ivoire, showed me how to sift and resift them in order to extract small pebbles and other debris and demonstrated how to slow roast the beans myself. They double in size as they swell and darken in the pan and give off an odor when they are freshly ground that puts Starbucks to shame. She also taught me to make pizza crust, Moroccan flat bread with rosemary and sea salt or stuffed with garlic, parsley and cumin. I learned from her how to tie a simple sarong in ten different ways and how to roll off several authentic phrases in Wolof that would get me in or out of any situation, depending on my objective. But mostly, I learned from her story about the shear power of the human spirit and it's need to be free. And about persistence and not giving up. She wants me to teach her English when she returns from France, which will be for me a great pleasure indeed.

It has been a trying year for us, as it has been, to varying degrees, for most people I know. For our part, our efforts to overcome the "crisis" became less about economizing than learning how to do more things for ourselves, becoming more independent. We built a house with mud, erected a wind-turbine to produce our energy and brought our water from the ground well with a hand-pump. This all now seems natural to me as well, although it took some getting used to and the path to where we are now has not been without it's obstacles. When we returned from the states on August 12th of last year, we found our house in near ruin. The previous six months of hard labor, ingenuity and creativity on Richard's part had left us convinced that we needed to make a bigger commitment to Senegal, so we went back to the US to put our things in storage and rent our house in Savannah. We had received phone calls that the rain had done "some damage", but none of the people we had left in charge were honest enough to relay the extent or send us photos, which in hind-sight was probably a good thing--if we had known, we may have abandoned the project. Now we found ourselves back in Senegal with very little money and no house to live in. I cried and felt the ruin deeply, while Richard began drawings to fix the house and work with what was left. We destroyed the entirety of the first vaulted roof because we were unsure of its stability. Next Richard constructed a pitched roof with palm beams and a plaster of mud, straw and Lyme, which we then planned to cover with metal roofing. During this part of the reconstruction, we planted an organic garden, erected the wind-turbine and went back and forth to our shabby hotel where our gated window faced the beach . . . and the fishermen's tables where the day's catch lay in the sweltering heat to dry. When we finally moved into the earth house, we realized within the week that we had not been sold palmwood, but datewood, which is much less expensive . . . and prone to termites. Our second roof was infested and needed to be torn down--it was beyond treatment. We had lost money, time and labor and worst of all, had been cheated by the wood vendor who vaporized as quickly as his beams. Once again, I felt we had been cheated. I asked why us, why now, how to move forward ? I posed these questions to no one in particular as my faith had been challenged and it appeared that no one was listening anyway. Was this how other people, whose lives had been upturned, felt in the void? While I examined and analyzed our lives, turning to look at every angle of every decision, trying to pinpoint the precise moment when the universe sent us spinning into orbit (or did we do that ourselves?), searching for the axis on which we could set it all right, Richard was busy researching our third, and final roof option. Persistence. Determination. We decided that a flat, cement roof would provide the best protection, and although not in keeping with the ecological spirit of the house, would be solid and durable. In order to compensate for using cement, we would cultivate on top of the roof, which would both expand our garden capacity, create a micro-climate to cool the house and provide a roof terrace from which we could appreciate the view of the nearby lagoon and baobab trees. We spent months eating our own vegetables, my homemade pizza and watching our finances dwindle to a halt, while continuing construction on a shoestring, with only two helpers. Richard spent weeks working unfathomable hours in order to put a roof over our heads before the rain came. During this time, many people began to visit our project, both Senegalese and expats, and ask questions, which we hoped would lead to more work for Richard. In the meantime, our children blossomed and so did their knowledge of gardening, French, Wolof and human relations in general. We had succeeded in building a self-sustaining life, with no bills and limited expenses. But, knowing that the money would eventually run out and the rain would inevitably come, had left us feeling anxious despite our accomplishments. I decided to stop asking questions and breathe, work, allow a little faith back in.

In the second week of July, the night after the last roof was finished, the skies darkened and it rained. Richard and I didn't sleep that night, worrying about the earth walls and how they would stand up to the wind-driven storm, about whether the new roof was well-sealed. Morning sun showed us that our third and final roof was the right choice, as a full house inspection gave no signs of weakness. The following week, Richard was hired to build three more ecological houses. Contracts were signed and deposits were given. We were under consideration for a grant to produce three wind-turbines for remote villages without electricity, those like Aminata's. We went out to dinner, the four of us, and clinked juice cups to wine glasses as we listened overhead to the storm clouds releasing thunder and lighting and more rain. Since then, we have continued construction between rain falls while Richard has juggled his other projects, planted new crops and rejoiced in our current good fortune. We are among the few expats who chose to stay during the rainy season, which is considered the least desirable. For us, it has been a time of warm ocean waves and rare walks through high, green grasses, of cups of afternoon mint tea shared with Senegalese friends, of pelicans, flamingos and heron migrating to the lagoon, of lingering visits to artisan workshops, where the purchase of one beaded necklace threaded with a single shell can satisfy a little girl and the artist equally.

The morning of August 12th, Abdou, my favorite of the building team, came over to shake my hand as he always does. He is short and child-like, with bright eyes and broken front teeth which only exaggerate his smile. He is from Ginea-Bissau and has come to Senegal to work in order to send money back to his family. "Abdou," I said, "today is August 12th. It's a very important day." "Yes," he replied. "Today is the beginning of Ramadan, a time for fasting and contemplation." I felt embarrassed that I had forgotten this. "It is also one year today that we returned to find our house destroyed," I said. "Look at what you've accomplished. Look at what we've done together." He looked over my shoulder and studied the house, but all he said was "oh," as though he too had forgotten something important. He had not let go of my hand since he shook it. We were both aware of this, but it felt appropriate. After a few moments, he smiled at me, looked up at the sky and gestured towards a room half-finished. Then he dropped my hand to begin his day, this very important day.

Can We Please Go Back?

A few days ago, Richard asked me how I wanted to celebrate my birthday this year. I snapped back that I didn’t want to have it at all, that I just wanted the day to pass by like any other day. My response was both indulgent and self-pitying, but he didn’t press the issue. He understood that I hadn’t said this out of any egotistical denial of aging, but rather an avoidance of the losses that this time of year represents. We buried my father after his long battle with cancer on this day over twelve years ago. In the days immediately following his death, I had been brought along on the strangely swift current of people coming and going, of the preparations that took place, the heating up of casseroles, of the details of his funeral, of the need to assure others that I was OK. And then there was the nature of our relationship to try to make sense of--it had been complicated, difficult at times. I had talked endlessly on the phone with my closest friends, hashing out once again the details of his illness and final few days. It wasn’t sudden, I reminded them. I was OK.

Until I no longer was. It wasn’t until the limousine pulled away from the grave site, until it was all “over”, until I looked back to see the coffin being mechanically lowered into the ground, that the loss of my father finally hit me. It occurred to me in that instant that he wouldn’t be able to breathe underground. There was no air. It would be dark. The weight of the earth. The depth. How would he breathe? We couldn’t just leave him there! Stop! He had no way to breathe. I don’t know if I said any of this aloud or not. I also don’t remember who (apart from Janet and my mother) or how many people were in the limousine with me. What I do remember is the feeling of suffocating and then being strangely ashamed that I had cried out, as though I had lost control of some intimate bodily function. We needed to go back. Can we please go back?

Because my father in the end was on heavy doses of morphine, he alternated between belligerence and extreme vulnerability (both uncharacteristic). He had been moved to the Gunnum Suites at the University of Richmond hospital, luxury quarters for terminally ill patients, which he mistook for a hotel (befittingly, given his career in the hotel industry) and had difficulty understanding why we were allowed to leave “the grounds” while he was confined to his hotel room. He complained often of the quality of the room service (with good reason) and balked at all visitors outside of the family, proclaiming the concierge highly incompetent. His management skills appeared intact, overriding all other derangements, real or imagined. On a visit to the hospital the week before he died, New Year’s Eve, he asked my mother and I if we would stay the night. He was afraid to be alone, he said, perhaps intuiting the approach of the end. Despite the circumstances, there had been champagne and hors d’oeuvres that we brought from home, candles and Glenn Miller. We rang in the New Year, the three of us, and it began to get late. My mother, who avoided driving at night, needed to be taken home. The nurse said they couldn’t accommodate both of us, but I could stay on the sofa if I liked. In the end, I went home with my mother. I often wonder what we would have done, my father and I, had I stayed. Would we have watched TV, talked about previously taboo subjects, like his impending death or our relationship? Would I have helped him into his pajamas, plumped his pillow, rubbed his feet, watched him sleep? I will never know. Can we please go back?

Today also marks the one year anniversary of the death of one of my closest friends, Leah. I learned of her passing on my birthday last year, two days after her death. My friend Hester had tried in vain to contact me several times in Senegal over those two days, having bravely taken on the task of informing many of Leah’s friends. I’ll never forget her words: “El, I’m sorry, but I’m not calling to wish you a happy birthday. Leah died.” In that moment, I lost all sense of the way the world was supposed to function, of the natural order of things. Friends didn’t die. Friends went along the parallel time line with you, sometimes moving ahead, sometimes lingering behind, but ultimately arriving at the same points in time when we could look back together and take stock of both our shared experiences and our separate worlds. This had always been my assumption and I had counted on it fiercely, had envisioned it clearly, had lived it several times: a New Year’s Eve in New York (I don’t remember the year), a Duke reunion, several weddings including my own, a girls’ weekend in Savannah, a walk for Breast Cancer (a shared success and one of the best and sadly last memories I have of Leah.) Leah, if she had the time and the financial means, was always up for taking a plane to wherever she needed to be for these gatherings. I realized after she died that I had made few such efforts in her direction. Although I think she would say I was a good friend to her, I had been very much on the receiving end of our friendship. For this reason and for the more selfish one of needing to see her one last time, I flew from Senegal to Michigan for her funeral. I thought of how my mother used to insist, in my adolescent days when friends came by the dozen, that I would be lucky to count my closest friends on one hand when I reached adulthood. She was right and I had just lost one of my rare and treasured five. Can we please go back?

My memories of Leah sometimes get jumbled up. I have no sense of direction and a continuum sense of time, which makes it impossible to give exact dates, only general periods to my memories. The details are crystal clear, but the time is vague. When I think of her, it reminds me of the six-week tour of Europe I took with my friend Janet before college--a new city or countryside, art museum or monument every few days. All those privileges--I remember them all, I just can’t tell you where they took place. I am saturated with years of memories of Leah, which leaves me with a strong sense of her, an essence really, that I carry with me. This essence of Leah can be distilled even further into a constant but gentle reminder to be more like her, to be kinder and more patient, to push myself, to push obstacles out of my way, to move forward, at my own pace, but certainly to move forward. Take our house here in Senegal, for instance. “Keur Leah”, as it was named long before it was begun, though it was nearly ruined, is going back up, one brick, one mud frame, one day at a time. It has reinvented itself. How closely it resembles Leah’s persistence, how apt it’s name. Still, when I first saw the devastation upon our return, it felt so final, like we had failed. What if we had stayed through the rainy season? What if we had taken more precautions, protected it’s walls, anticipated more accurately? Can we please go back?

My illogical thinking, in wanting to avoid my birthday, was this: if my birthday wasn’t approaching, then I wouldn’t have to think of my father. If I didn’t celebrate my birthday, then Leah didn’t die a year ago, Hester didn’t call to tell me, I didn’t fall to pieces and board a plane to say goodbye. I could just let the anniversary pass and the day after, well, it would be the day after. Can we please skip forward? Because today I can’t breathe. The answer is no. Neither can we go back. I feel this acutely as I think of Leah today. I feel her absence, mourn her loss, as I will every year, and not just on this day. But there is that essence of her again, calming me, getting me past and through the pain. Were she here with me, she would say something along the lines of, “remember but don’t dwell.” She would also say, about milestones and even ordinary days, “celebrate me, celebrate you.”

Often at night as I drift into sleep, my reflections are accompanied by native drums in the far off distance. They provide a rhythmic backdrop to my thoughts, a circling back over the events of my day. More often than not, they usher my worries about tomorrow into the night air as I focus on the “tah tah bi tum, tah tah bi tum” of two, four, maybe six palms sliding across tightly strung goat hides worn smooth by repetitive sweeps. Sometimes, I think about who the musicians are and why they are beating their tam tams. Are they communicating a coded message to the universe? Talking to their God? If so, what are they saying? Are they lamenting their hardships or celebrating their fortunes? Of course, the magic lies in the absence of words--the drums carry different messages for us all. I like to think they are offering up a prayer of sorts, one that says something like, “Life is hard at times, but thank you for another day. May tomorrow be bet-ter, bet-ter, bet-ter.” At least, this is what the drums convey to me and I try to heed their call, try to employ gratitude for the good things that have come our way. As the difficult stuff inevitably floats into my mind, the hard-put questions, the worries, there is something about the constancy of descending and ascending hands that answers back firmly: “stop, stop, stop.”

I went back to school recently. Not to learn, at least not directly, but to teach English to pre-schoolers at the Kalan International School here in La Somone. The night before I started, beckoning sleep, my stomach fluttered and my mind flustered and posed all sorts of doubts and apprehensions amid the distant drums. I was nervous on behalf of Jamie and Sunny, who would also be starting their first day of school in Africa. How would they adapt, culturally and linguistically, with new children, the French they barely spoke and two or three words of Wolof? And what about my new role? Was I equipped to teach small children? One ordinary day, an acquaintance had said, “I’m thinking of starting a new school here. Would you be interested in teaching English?” I can’t say why, but it was as if I had been waiting my whole life for this question to be asked. “Yes” was my answer, spoken with unwarranted confidence. But on this eve of dawning actuality, I began to question myself. Before raising my own, my experience with children was limited to semi-regular babysitting as a struggling post-college New Yorker. I remember being terrified on one particular evening when I arrived to sit for a little boy and was greeted with his two additional friends and a craft project that his mother had laid out: construction paper, scissors, glue, glitter, the works. A wrench had been thrown into my normal routine of Mickey Mouse and mac ‘n cheese. As she wove through the chaos of three grabbing, crying three-year olds and made her way casually toward the door, panic flooded every cell in my body. “But, what are we doing with all this?” I shouted above the din. “Whatever you feel like,” she called over her shoulder. “By the way,” she added just before closing the door behind her, “the TV’s broken.”

I don’t remember the specifics of how I got through that night, but the memory of feeling incompetent and unprepared rushed back at me as if it were yesterday. As I layed awake trying to imagine how I would feel in the morning as I greeted sixty-five children, the drums mocked, “knock, knock, knock” . . . “Dumb, dumb, dumb” . . . "thrum, thrum, thrum."

The air was cool and a light breeze flapped the flags around their small wooden poles on that first morning at school as I stood holding hands with Jamie and Sunny (perhaps a little more tightly than I should) waiting for things to start. The flags represented the various nationalities of the students: Senegalese, French, Belgian, Iranian, Lebanese, Spanish, Brazilian, American (my own two) and Guinean. In my mind, I rehearsed the simple song I had made up to initiate my students into the world of English: (to the tune of ‘Frere Jacques’)
Good morning,
good morning
Everyone,
everyone
Now it’s time to learn,
now it’s time to learn,
English, English.

I had finally allowed sleep to come after the song came into my mind the night before. I had been so satisfied with this simple ditty, which now, in the light of day, seemed inadequate to me. Soon, the children began filtering in, clinging to their parents. I stood frozen beside my children knowing that I needed to let go, just simply step into, my new role as teacher. And then someone tugged at my dress and a new part of my life was set in motion.

That first day passed in a whirlwind of tiny unfamiliar faces and chaotic attempts at structure amid the heart-wrenching cries of children wanting only to return home to their parents. Within twenty minutes of arrival, three children had set off a crying chain that quickly rose to a crescendo of utter devastation. Seeing my colleagues and myself as nothing less than prison wardens and the school as colorful captivity, the children’s resistance was exhausting. Our schedule for the day went out the window at 8:15 a.m. Any attempt at organization gave way to the constant need to pick someone up, pat them on the back, wipe their nose, whisper comforts into their ears, and hope for the best. The crying went in waves with small periods of calm interspersed between bathroom trips, snacks, hand-washing and one disastrous attempt at a craft project (which felt all-too familiar). The director of the pre-school division, a petite and lovely woman from Belgium, lost her color early on but never her composure. I watched her carefully as she moved easily and assuredly from group to group, handling each situation with aplomb, in hopes of learning something from her. Getting through the day became a question of survival. My biggest struggle became understanding the Senegalese children as they spoke to me in Wolof. At one point in the day, when no one was available to translate, I decided to wing it. Afterall, I wasn’t a complete novice--I had a solid base in Wolof. After I asked a little girl to repeat her request three times, I triumphantly handed her a glass of water. I discovered quickly that what she had really asked for was to be taken to the bathroom. The results of my mistake were disastrous, both for her dress and my left shoe. Never again would I mistake “saou” for “n’dor”!

I understood early on that first day, that for some of the Senegalese children, this school represented a world of new opportunities for them. When I presented a little boy with a basket of crayons and asked him to choose one, he looked up at me curiously and asked, "are they salty or sweet?" For many, this first day of school meant the first time they had played with a toy or held a crayon in their hand, heard a language other than their own, seen or touched a book, held hands with a white person. How much we take for granted, how much we have to learn.

As with all new experiences, the anticipatory anxiety, the way in which we play out scenarios in our minds, express fears, imagine outcomes, is always more stress-inducing than the actual event. I suppose this is our way of preparing our psyche for a worst case scenario, of exposing our insecurities so that we are prepared when faced with adversity. But somehow, when we are in the present, living the new situation, we always get through it, often exceed our own expectations. Maybe even surprise ourselves. And if we are lucky, laughter has been a component of our day and lightness allows us to continue with a new grain of confidence.

As the weeks have gone by, somehow, it has all come together. There is a familiar structure and routine, laughter has replaced the tears of the unfamiliar and learning takes place despite differences in skin-color, culture, capacity and language. Sunny and Jamie have adapted to their new school with astounding ease, communicating with their new friends in a myriad of ways. I have found an unexpected confidence and joy in teaching these children, who like tiny sponges, soak up all we have to teach them with endless thirst. Although my role is to teach, there is an inevitable symbiosis that has taken place. My French and Wolof have improved tremendously, my understanding of the nature of children has expanded, as has my patience, my creativity and my capacity for love.

While my days are ushered into night atop the slow, steady refrains of drum notes filtered by the wind and the waves, I am reminded of the undeniable strangeness of living in Africa and I in turn feel like a stranger. But the morning tells a different story. In the morning, as I stand holding the door open, welcoming sixty-five small children to school, sixty-five smiling portents of the future, I am reminded sixty-five times that there are no barriers to learning and loving. Sixty-five times, small fingers grasp my own and I am greeted by each small voice in English . . . “Good Morning, Miss Ellen.” And the message is clear and hopeful: we are one, we are one, we are one.

The Song of Our Losses

I said goodbye to the earth house today. I wasn’t planning a farewell, just a short visit to assess the damage after a series of particularly violent storms. Just as quickly as Richard patched what the rain took away, another storm would beat against the walls, tearing down his work. We layed awake at night in our hotel, listening to the rain fall, trying hard to escape the vivid images of tumbling earth. Each loud crack of lightening represented further leaks in the walls, widening fissures in our hope. Unable to muster the courage to face further ruin, it had been over a week since Richard or I had driven to our land. When I arrived, the fence, woven of thin strips of wood, had been blown to the ground by the wind. I had to sidestep large, deep craters filled with water to get a good look. As I took in and made a survey of the sweeping damage, I realized it would only take one more hard rain before the few remaining walls joined the fallen sections melting away on the ground. An exquisite, small, black bird with a red breast sat not far from me, my only company, singing beautifully. I tried to shoo him away, but he was steadfast and stubborn, insistent in his dissonant song, content to bathe in a rain-filled hollow of rubble.

We learned recently that this particular rainy season has been the worst in fifteen years, causing major flooding in several areas including the city of Dakar, where children have drowned, factories have collapsed, and septic tanks have overflown into the streets. You won’t read about this in any newspaper, but I witnessed the effects firsthand earlier this week on a day trip there. It took nearly two and a half hours to reach the inner city due to road reconstruction (a trip which normally takes an hour). As we rounded a corner at the edge of the city, I saw a large open area where several small buildings had collapsed, now filled with small, colorful pup-tents. Laundry lines had been strung across and tacked to non-functioning electrical poles in neat rows, holding up the newly washed clothes of who knows how many. A tin roof had been erected over a common outdoor kitchen where women crouched over small gas tanks, humming (or praying, I wasn’t sure), working together to feed numerous neighbors. These were people recently made homeless by the storms, people who had gathered their resources together and organized a small village. I am often amazed at how the Seneglese have the ability to make their misfortunes a communal concern, coming together quickly and efficiently to, if not solve their problems, at least adapt to them as a shared burden. If many hands make light work, perhaps many hearts can hold hardships at bay. I often wonder if other African nations share this ability, if perhaps they have evolved towards the survival of the masses over survival of the individual. When things beyond their control overtake them, they simply move on, together. It felt strange, after dodging flooded roads and crumbled cement, to arrive at the “centre ville” of Dakar with its’ pristine palace walls drenched in bougainvillea, it’s motionless guards dressed in what looked like red velvet and white plumed hats (in this heat!). Downtown Dakar, with it’s foreign embassies and fashion shops, patisseries and French restaurants could have been any large city, and like any large city, the problems pool to the outskirts.

While we’ve watched the house slowly slip away, our relationship with Zorro, our only Senegalese friend, has paralleled the demise. Many expats have warned us not to trust the Senegalese, have stated in no uncertain terms that they will steal, lie, cheat and betray you the moment you turn your back. What an awful thing to tell a newcomer, what a sad prediction to fathom, what a vast generalization to make about a people so prone to generosity. The intricacies of this culture are still too new for me to condemn any new acquaintance and so I proceed with each individual, trusting until I have reason not to. In my short experience here, I have learned that what the expat “toubabs” say is not entirely untrue. However, they fail to understand their part, yes, their contribution to this relationship with the locals. If I were to voice this, these same said foreigners would be appalled, but let’s face it, there are always two sides to every story. The Senegalese are used to a history of transient relationships with foreigners. We come, we buy up their land, use their labor to build our homes, hire them for our ventures, promise lasting devotion and a steady stream of income. . . and inevitably leave. Sometimes, we leave for only a season, sometimes for years, sometimes never to return. And while we are gone, there are mouths to feed, children to cloth, and work to be found, money to be made, however it can, in order for them to survive. And hopefully, if they are lucky, we will come back or at least be replaced by a new wave of transient relationships. I have come to understand that the Senegalese live very much in the moment, day to day, week to week. Consequences are hardly a consideration (nor should they be?) when your children have nothing to eat. Arrogantly, I assumed we were immune to these types of relational faults. One French person, when he saw that Zorro was our constant companion, had the nerve to tell me, “just wait, he’ll betray you too.” My solitary thought at the time was . . . never. I was wrong.

I sensed it quickly after our return from the states, perhaps even at the airport. As we came through the glass security doors which separated us from our old life, he ran to us, practically knocked us over to take us into his arms and then just as quickly retreated into the more practical task of piling our bags onto a cart and pushing them towards the car. He was distant, reserved, unfamiliar. Or maybe I knew it even while we were packing up our belongings in Savannah but couldn’t face what it would mean to our relationship or to our future here in Senegal. The tone of his sporadic phone calls alternated between exuberant pleas for us to return to all the possibilities awaiting us (which he elaborately embellished) and accounts of how difficult life had been since we left. It was as if he was desperate without us and placed his every hope of recovery on our return, but knew that we would discover that he had done something in our absence that could hurt us. When we got back, he would promise to come help us, but would never come, never call. Then, unannounced, he would show up the next day with a meal that his wife, Ami, had made for us. He never stayed for long.

About two weeks after we returned, Richard tried to talk to him, but he refused. Thinking that my relationship with Zorro was somehow particular, Richard suggested that I might have more success. As I sat with my Senegalese friend in a dark room (the electricity had gone out), I asked him to talk, told him that we loved him. Perhaps because I couldn’t see his eyes, he felt safe. Like a small child, he laid in my arms and cried, relieved and anguished tears. All he could say was, “I just wanted you all to come back and now I’m afraid you’ll leave. I’ll talk when Ramadan is over. Then you will know.” But don’t we already? I realized he indeed had a confession to make, but needed first to ask forgiveness from his god, which seemed justified to me in that moment in the dark.

This afternoon, as I sat on the ground in front of a pile of broken walls, I let myself understand that Zorro had abandoned our house, had downplayed the damages prior to our return, fabricated a story about a musician who wanted to film his new video within our walls. He had used our car as a taxi, driven strangers thousands of miles to put food on his table and never once thought of the consequences. But had we thought of the consequences of leaving? And still, he wanted to ensure that we would come back, that things would be the same. But they aren’t, nothing is. He is still a part of our lives, knowing that he has proved both sides of the equation right. Sure enough, he did all those things the expat said he would. Sure enough, he still loves us. And so we rename this loss, molding a different form out of the odd remaining pieces.

I came to the earth house, alone, for the first time today. Each time we’ve come to face the truth here, I’ve held back my shock, my regrets, my fears and yes, even my embarrassment, all for Richard’s sake. How could I break down in the face of his courage, of his total conviction that he can rebuild, create an even better house? “At least I did it”, he said once. “ At least it existed.” But now, because I am alone, because I don’t have to be brave for anyone, I cry, relieved and anguished tears. I find it interesting that the joyous events in our lives ask to stand alone, to be revelled in and savored all on their own like an only child, while the losses prefer to keep each other company,. At our weakest moments, they call to each other to come forth and vie for our grief. “Hey, you think this is bad,” they say, “remember me? I nearly ripped your heart out.” As I sat there, finally free to cry for the ruin of our house, I thought also of how Zorro was slipping away from us, receding daily like these walls, followed closely by the pain of strained or lost relations, recent and past. I allowed my father’s long suffering from cancer to come forward (that most stubborn and persistent loss) and was quickly joined by Leah, the freshest of my losses, Leah, barely scabbed over, stolen in one short night. There were more that followed and I gave them each their turn, grieved anew for my collective absences until I was brought back to these crumbling walls and myself sitting on the damp ground. Some voice in me, the one that emerges when the calm catharsis sets in, borrowed from Richard, “at least they existed. At least they mattered.” Yes.

When I lay awake at night and think about how we will emerge from our setbacks here, I don’t envision a phoenix miraculously rising from the ashes. I know better. But maybe if we are lucky, there will be a smaller bird (or two, or four), not unlike the deep, red breasted one I saw today, one who won’t alight too quickly, one who can salvage the smallest of threads, steal a souvenir. One who can take it’s daily comings and turn them into something of a song.

The Beauty of the Underbelly

A word of caution: this entry is fairly graphic and shows the raw side of Africa. If you have children who are prone to looking over your shoulder or if you like to share my writing with them, you may want to keep this one to yourself . . . or not, depending on your perspective.


This morning, as I was walking to the bakery along the dirt road with Sunny, something caught my eye to the right, a shiny something that refracted the sunlight overhead. I looked. And in that fraction of a second that drew my attention, a large machete sliced open the throat of a living steer. The two Senegalese, one holding the cow as it lay on its side, the other wielding his knife so expertly, both looked up at me, momentarily distracted. Their look was neither startled nor apologetic. It simply acknowledged my unexpected presence. I must have made a sound, some small leak of soul escaping through my fingers, although my hand instinctively flew to my mouth to silence it for Sunny’s sake. The animal, by contrast, lay very still and quiet, the blood leaving it’s body at an astonishing rate. I could tell this beast was still alive, it’s eyes placid and resigned, but still very much in the world. I willed it to Cry out! Protest! Accuse! because I couldn’t, not on it’s behalf. This was food, afterall, for many people. I wondered if it’s vocal chords had been severed on purpose to lessen the degree of assault on human ears or if an animal of this nature merely accepts it’s death with dignity, knowing that struggling against it wouldn’t alter the final outcome. Either way, in the end, I was thankful that my ears (and Sunny’s) had been spared the unimaginable sound of this massive animal’s parting.

A very different glint by our shared sun had thankfully attracted Sunny in that same moment to the opposite side of the path. While I had witnessed this animal’s initiation towards death, she had seized upon a scattering of sequins fallen from the loosened thread of a colorful prayer shawl. She hopped forward picking up the trail of teal, gold, fuscia and saffron and held them in her cupped hand like found treasure, oblivious to the scene unfolding to her right. For just a brief moment, I felt a selfish and urgent need to show her the cow so that someone, anyone, could share in the horror of it with me. But I herded her forward instead, shielding her from that particular reality. Had my eyes not caught the glean of the machete, just as it was raised, at that perfect angle where the sun could wink off the steel blade, I believe I would have passed unaware. The entire scene, the empty dirt lot, the fawn-colored steer, his earthy textured horns, the shells, straw, sticks and rocks, all melded together in a bland spectrum of brown common to a field of nothing in particular. Even the men would have remained in my peripheral vision, which would assume they were going about their business, whatever that was, as I went about mine.

But I had seen it, the slaughter of a cow, and I still needed to hold my daughter’s hand, admire her new-found sequins, walk to the bakery and buy bread, greeting villagers along the way. It’s not that witnessing an animal’s death hadn’t made an impression on me. It had. But not as much as I would have thought. In this context, given the surroundings, I knew it was a necessary action. I led us on a different route home, wondering what they would do with the cow next, how it would get “processed”, where it’s remains would be disposed. (Later that day, curiosity having gotten the better of me, I passed by the site. There was no trace of animal or man, only a small raised mound of dirt, the contents of which I could only imagine.) Our time here has slowly allowed us an understanding of basic needs being met, of a culture where everything from praying, to corruption, to basic survival, to putting food on the table is there for the seeing if we choose, or haplessly witness. There are also luxury hotels and an entire village rife with convenience, where the underbelly is hidden out of sight for those who choose not to see. I understand perfectly. It's sometimes hard to swallow.

The upside of the total exposure we've chosen is that my children now know that the chickens they chase down the road are the very same we roast in the oven. Jamie has assisted in the process of scaling and filleting a fish that he puts directly in the pan for me to saute. They know that the seeds we brought over in our suitcases will one day become the vegetables and fruits they will eat. I remember visiting a farm as a child, watching the milking of the cows and understanding for the first time that the cartons in the refrigerator at home actually came from an animal. We, as a nation, are so far removed from our food sources that we can easily ignore anything that took place before they reached the grocery store and eventually our table. Seeing a cow being slaughtered is not something I recommend, however, most people are unaware of the misery our steaks and mcnuggets went through before they got neatly packaged for us-- being raised shoulder to shoulder, fed antibiotic-laced grain, devoid of sunlight and an instinctive, genetically sound diet. I know I’m generalizing and that the trend towards food education, organic choices and fair treatment of animals is a growing part of the American conscious, however, unless you are a farmer or tend a flock of cattle, you will be spared the nitty gritty.

My children sit next to women with babies at their naked breasts and watch intently as they take this most basic form of nourishment. They don’t blink an eye, having so far been spared too many cultural taboos, while my eyes remain averted out of respectful and ingrained habit. They ask me questions that I might never have answered if they had only glanced a baby’s head ducked under a baggy T-shirt. Our whole family has become immune to most of what seemed shocking when we first arrived: people sitting cross-legged on the ground, eating from large bowls with their fingers; women herding flocks of filthy goats from their small yards; those same goats eating tin, plastic, filament grain bags, even glass; men walking arm in arm, or hand and hand, signifying nothing but deep friendship; women carrying large basins balanced on their heads filled with laundry, grains or fruits, babies bound tightly to their backs with brightly colored cloth; the devout lying prone in prayer on a woven mat in a corner of the grocery store because it’s time to pray. These are all things that are so foreign to us, to our ways of behaving and thinking, that they are hard to look at in the beginning, let alone understand and accept. After a time though, they become an important part of the whole beautiful tapestry of the Senegalese culture and it’s people. The way I was raised, the things I was exposed to are not better or worse than what we see here, just different. There is no shame in either. All I can do is try to work the two together so they make sense for my children and most importantly, not impose my own beliefs on the Senegalese. I’m trying hard.

I’ve even come to accept the groups of children who walk along the beach with sticks or rocks in their hands, ready to defend themselves against the packs of stray dogs that invariably approach them. When the two bands meet, the dogs bare their teeth, growl and lower themselves to the ground, menacing these children, who in turn will beat them with the sticks or throw the rocks at them until they part ways, sometimes calling a truce, sometimes leaving a wounded dog, other times a bitten child. Interestingly, I’ve noticed these dogs don’t approach or threaten us and have even been known to roll over submissively, leaving me to wonder which came first: the aggressive dog or the aggressive child? It doesn’t matter, this is their long-standing relationship and I don’t foresee it changing anytime soon. I tried once, and only once, to intervene, to gently tell the children not to hit the dogs, to just keep walking, arrogantly assuming that my adult (and superior) wisdom would break the spell. They listened to me in my broken Wolof, dropped their rocks and sticks and walked on slowly, glancing back at me for assurances. They were unarmed, but the scent of their fear still drifted over to the dogs who charged them from behind. In the end, it was me who threw the rocks. I have tended to the wounds of both a child and a dog on different occasions, wiping away the blood, disinfecting the marks, bandaging the aggressions. As an outsider, I simply cannot take sides.