sleepyface.

yes. it was only one day this week where i was able to manage not to reset the alarm and make it on time to work. that was wednesday...and i didn't have a choice...i was going to dakar.


today was like all the rest. slowly melted into ten minutes past the hour when i should be more than half way to the office. i took breakfast at lena's little stand and sipped my coffee in a causal jaunt through the maze of stairs and salutations that one must navigate before getting up to work. And inspite of being assigned a report translation and village portrait and meeting my other supervisor and all those other things...all I can really remember solidly is the most amazing blue-bird with hot-pink cheeks flying by me reminding me that i am so so free. 

confused tea.

i wandered off alone. first time. what used to be rare form has become my true being. and i suddenly found myself laughing and smiling and saying hello to each and every person i encountered. when what they were saying stopped making sense, my mouth would bust forth with a giggle and my shoulders would give a shrug...as if to say "yes it is true i have no idea what you are saying, but i like you and what you may or may not be saying, nonetheless." 


eventually i came across a group of faces and greeted them proper. one lady looked at me and said something that sounded hostile. i stopped without reason to understand further. the others repeated what she said in french. she asked if i drank tea. culturally this an invitation, but to me at this moment it is only a question of habit. of course i replied yes, i do in fact drink tea. and the lady looked at me when they finished translating my response, got up, yelled something in wolof, and pointed to the chair. not knowing what was going on, i just sat down. and for the next few hours i drank tea made conversation learned names and made a promise to return that saturday for lunch. 


when the big day rolled around i was nervously tossing and turning. there are so many things one must do to demonstrate appreciation to your hosts. i needed to wear my finest clothes, bring a gift of sorts, arrive slightly late...remember my wolof greetings, remember where their house was exactly, etc...


on my way i purchased some tea and sugar, perfect gifts around these parts. when i arrived i knocked and knocked on the door hoping that one this was their house and twp that they were serious about the invitation whilst beginning to second guess my understanding of what was actually said during the conversation. suddenly david opened the door and led me to the others, all of whom i greeted properly and were delighted with my charming gift. 


soon like royalty they ushered me into the sitting room where the placed the fan to blow directly at me and only me. a few chosen others were allowed to enter the room and have conversation while sofia, my new best friend, began to make lunch. they were so delighted and surprised that i showed up and they kept telling me so. they asked questions about my being unmarried and if i was considering taking up a senegalese husband. i deflected these questions but i knew they were not entirely gone and i would have to revisit them again. and again. and soon. 


i was given many photos to look at and express approval over and heard many stories of their family. when the food came it was obvious that much care had gone in to the preparation and that it was a very special meal. most of us ate with spoons but two of the  sisters ate with their hands. all the choices bits were passed my direction and i found myself eating more and more as i felt bad for refusing the most prized morsels. when this was just not a possibility anymore i stepped up and away from the bowl expressing  how the delicious food had filled me full. they offered me orange soda which i drank and water which i also drank and then more tea which i could not refuse.  


the conversation commenced again and morphed itself into ousamane's free flow rap demonstrations and then again into group dancing. other guests came and went. another round of exhaustion set in along with a power outage forcing us all to collapse onto the couches or cool floor tiles. hours, hours, hours had passed and my lunch date was soon evolving into dinner invitations. i had used up every word and grammar construction that had ever crossed my path in these two foreign languages and my head began to hurt from so much thinking. 




i thought it was time to head home. after much resistance, they said to stop by anytime and hopefully that it would be in 45 minutes for dinner...or the next day...but that it was not necessary to call or make a date. it felt freeing to have such lax etiquette concerning relationships and i made good on my word, i stopped by unannounced and passed another set of hours. they made good on their's, the welcomed me like they had been expecting me for days. which, to find out later, was not so far from the truth. 

finding.s

a pack of wild greyhounds

dance without beats

tri-level shovel pulley

spiderscorpionsmash

insects

litter

scorpions!scare

charcoal in food?

swallowed bone

night breeze~

islamic prayers

heatdreams

multiple wives

truth is truth and not truth

breasts

clickyes

fishpuree

senegalesename

numb.

walking to the sen marche i see a woman sleeping in the street without a shirt covering her face with her arm that is missing a hand. it doesn't even phase me.

the long drive.

begins early and with a circle that takes us from the beginning and back and then onto the true route.

the city is not yet awake but working towards day.

so much anticipation. i watch out the windows and am impressed by the beauty. invisible tears stream down my eyes. 

in me builds a sense of numbness but over extraordinary sensation.

to see such death and life dancing together along the roadside like old lovers who have never lost the new love smell. seated neatly in the pain of destruction and hopeful rebuilt.

the road is long and often unkempt. sleeping stretches marked in time by the length of proper paved and pot holes. silences fill most of the unused space. 

small town later we eat and watch how the night’s previous rain has overtaken the streets and created a confusion in the cars. people moving and yet entirely motionless.

to be free of that chaos…and on to the next version. 

a smile upon arrival. two new little friends. braided hair and precious fotos.

a lone horse. and missed sunset.

villages spot the region coming out of the flat where you can see for miles through forever forest. there are huts and numerous bovine.

I stayed in my own hut with a very large bed and other luxuries of western living.

we tread on the road off the road up and down in and out next to and upon the dirt, an adventurous route, to a less than adventurous meeting.

people scatter the sides in the shade of trees that will hold no leaves come november waiting for rides or passerbys who may take interest in their wares.

sky is endless blue and clouds give the illusion of mountains, as if to casually remind me that somehow i’m not far from home.

cool african breeze. rare.  almost more appreciated than water.

everyone in variations of slick shine. soft circle of conversation debate decision. important things regarding the declaration.

the other day,  rooms were changed from large and spacious to small and cramped solely to take advantage of better cooling mechanisms, and thankfully so.

refuge today, now found in a strange abandoned hexagon.

words fly. sudden lift of bodies out of chairs and through the doors.

time to make the trek back to the other town. some of us ride in the back of the truck.

a side stop that lasts for hours after the brief afterlunchtime lunch meal. 

i wait outside and watch an electric orange bird build a nest, watch the moon rise, watch the village go from dead to alive, watch numerous people stroll past, watch my head fall with heavy. we’ve lost two of our party to the length of the errand. i learn about famous senegalese singers and tell of differences between countries. 

my names are tossed about erratically sometimes the one i was given at birth, sometimes the one they’ve adopted to me. both to which i respond.

he asks me to help. i do. he tells me to eat so I become as big as a large building. i laugh. they ask me to tell a little story.  i try.

the moon is out full force with slight cloud cover.

we all enjoy the mixed tongues. Dou dou dou and nyum nyum. 

the polaar word for bravo, choum…and in double time, burn.

thirty mosquito bites later with numb feet and other swollen extremities.

playful exhaustion and well needed sleep.

my first mission.

so many lovely ways to end the day. and begin the next.

the lovely push home. taxi cab rain drops.
out in the mud. stuck in the path. hop out the car and get the thing going.
all of us hands on back. this is the way to make friends.

after drinks and dinner. french and other tongues.
separate ways.

proprietors, new friends.
beach dates.

flood. and other overwhelms.

dreams of dancing.

BRUNCHplans.

halftime.

it was a fresh pour. i found myself walking towards the thunder.

auspicious.

all the mosques pronouncing from megaphones. stereosurround. the whole city is saturated.succulence. FaDiNg in AND out. 

the soundtrack of life. at 13:30. 

a first week of work, finshed...or rather slowly prepared to begin a second and third and other subsequents.

i regard the ground and the way the rain has impacted its surface.

fuzzy. softsandturned to fur. footprints only change the illusion.

i weave in and out of my native tongue and my host language(s).

not with ease, but with beautiful stutter. 

Oui, c'est true that j'ai dit SalaamMalekum to you.

awkward. although this new creole is more appropriate than any of the three. 

soon, to Podor. la Fouta. on mission. to do what we do. 

this is where my interests find themselves.

moving forward. daytime exhaustion. friday evening nap. 

rainrainrain. and barelypack.