Easier the second time around

Yep, life this past few weeks has been pretty easy and relaxed, but not boring. I have to say the second time around, everything seems to be a bit easier. Of course it helps that the physical environment of Senegal is better in every way. Also, learning a different dialect of a language you already know is cake by comparison to learning a totally new language. Still, I am finding it very interesting to relearn a different Pulaar. It is helping me learn and understand grammatical structures that I wasn’t able to pick up the first time around. Additionally having already been through and gotten over most of the cultural differences makes a huge difference. I just a few weeks I am at the level of integration and comfort with host family number three (Therno, Therno Hamidou, Kajatu, Kajatu, Hawa, Hawa, Bilow, Aliou, Neene, and many other of course) that it took me several months to reach with my host family at site and I never reached with my first training family. It also helps that I feel more at ease in the, by comparison to Mauritania, liberal Senegalese society. Its sort of weird to be able to have physical contact like shaking hands with women again. Sort of like I can finally relax after a year of being on edge and always having to remember that any public contact could be offensive depending on who was around.

At the same time, starting over for the second time with a year still to go feels about as long as starting for the first time with two years ahead of me. Although I know this will be a fleeting feeling based on how quickly the last year went by. Actually I expect this year to go by even faster largely due to the fact that structure, staff, and direction of PC Senegal seems to be more conducive to more work achievements. I hold the staff of PC RIM in high regard, especially Obie, the country director, and Aw and Kane, my bosses, what they were able to accomplish and maintain up until the end in Mauritania was nothing short of remarkable. Yet, for a variety of reasons, Senegal is easier to operate in and therefore more is possible.

As of yet I have not had much technical training on what I will be doing as an eco-tourism volunteer but I will be going out to my site in a few weeks and should have a better idea after that. Most likely I will be working on improving a tourist lodge in my village, working on trails to the waterfalls, and promoting my site as a tourist destination. I am more excited about the physical work and the purpose it is trying to achieve than I was with my old position. Apparently when I get posted to the site I will be living with the village chief, and will be changing my last name for the fourth time. (Sow to Sall to Ba to Diallo for those who are keeping track.) As always, I will be keeping my first name of Amadou just for simplicity’s sake. Its sort of funny, at my old site everyone was trying to get me to change my last name to Ba because the name of my town literally meant “the place of Ba.” Now that it is finally my name I will soon be changing it to Diallo, which is currently the last name I am supposed to want because “Diallo’s only eat beans, leaves, and dirt” I have to say. This brings up the joking relationships between families and friends that exists here. I believe I have mentioned this before but it is work ruminating on again.

They love to pick on each other. At first this seemed crass and socially “undeveloped” to me, but I have come to appreciate it in the wider context of how the culture operates. Can you imagine going up to a Smith in the states that you didn’t know and saying “your last name is no good, you’re whole family is dirty and eats trash” just because your last name is Thomas and expect the person to not think twice about it? One of the great advantages of a culture that places high value on community is that it takes a lot to disrupt the social equilibrium. My old landlord and I used to get into vicious verbal fights about the rent every month because, and the whole village agreed with this, he was crazy. Still no matter how upset we were with each other that day he never held a drudge into the morning. Personally I believe that part of that was because he had to recognize that my position was pretty reasonable and he was just trying to extort money from me, despite the fact that he always ended every argument about trying to get me to pay more that we had agreed to with “in the end money does matter it is only God who judges us.” Which I thought was pretty ironic. Whatever the reasons were, the fact that he never was angry the next day is very typical for West African culture and that I hope has positively rubbed off on me.