Smacking Peanuts

Smack! The stick comes down hard and so gratifyingly! Smack! The hot sun melts the fatigue from hours of lazing about right out of my pores. Again, smack! And that stick hits that pile of dried peanut plants once more! I get into a rhythm with the men beside me, and someone lets out an “eeey!” signifying the start of a song. “Faster!” they cry, challenging me to keep pace with their well-toned arms. Smack!...Smack!...Smack! Smack! Smack! And those peanut plants finally start loosening up, breaking into pieces. I’m jolting those peanuts right off of their roots, chopping up these hay-colored stocks with the sheer “thwat!” of my hooked stick. Swatting that stick down is like a particularly good twirl on the dance floor, or the second-to-last move on a long and gratifying climb that really got your heart pumping! Never mind that Victoria and I are the best entertainment these men have ever seen; two white tubabs farming! And not just farming, but out in the fields doing men’s work! But the joy was not meant to last; I looked down at my hands during a slight reprieve and was shocked to perceive some very unhappy skin trying to abandon my right hand. “Eh! See here, skin!” I exclaim. “We’re only fifteen-minutes into this thrilling experience, and here you are jumping boat! None of that now!” But what was done was done, so I stuck out my blistered hands to show the men, explaining that my muscles were in no way tired –that it was my soft hands that were the problem. We can’t have them thinking that tubab women are wimps, or anything! I mean, Victoria had already made her escape under the pretext of seeking her camera, so I had to represent!

Well, the glorious peanut smacking having come to a tragic close, we moved on to new work: peanut sifting! Covered in bandaids, I took the calabash bowl in hand and learned from the local women how to hold it high over my head, shaking it just enough so that its contents would tumble out slowly, allowing the wind to carry away the lighter stalks as the peanuts and dirt clods fell straight down. The next step was to pick out all of those dirt clods from the piles of peanuts and resift by hand the stalks that didn’t separate out. I watched as, day by day and calabash by calabash, that mountainous pile of pre-chopped peanut plants dwindled and reformed into heaps of peanuts and horse food side-by-side.

“Wait! Jocelyn, what were you doing out on a peanut field playing around with a stick and picking up dirt clods? We thought you were in the middles of a bustling metropolis with taxis everywhere and pollution galore!” And so I was, before my program sent us all out to experience a different, somewhat more rural side of life in Senegal. I found myself in a sept place trundling two hours down the road to…well, this little place! The sign read “Louly Ngogom” and my resident host dad, Doudou, assured me that six thousand inhabitants make up this sprawling village. We were there for the week, shacked up with Chris, a very fun Peace Corps volunteer, amidst a host family composed of Doudou, his two wives, their various kids, an aunt, some cousins, and several other kids who somehow managed to find themselves in the mix. They were a rowdy bunch, those kids, but they were also wonderfully uninhibited and curious when it came to us. They would ask us questions in Serer and we’d try out a few words in that language before resorting to our rudimentary Wolof and, in extreme cases, throwing out a French phrase haphazardly.

In spite of the language barrier, we all got along just fine, teaching them hopscotch and sharing in the uber-sugary ataya tea that Wally brewed after lunch each day. I wish I could have brought Wally back to Dakar with us because he had a great energy and kind, open eyes; I wonder what my host family would have said if I unloaded a 14-year-old from the cab saying, “Hey host mom! Welcome home your new host son, Wally! He’s here to keep me company!” You know, with eleven people living in the house, what’s one more?!

I spent those days living at a slower pace, with nowhere to be at any given time and with a watch that seemed rather decorative and hardly utile. I breathed slowly, witnessing suns setting over rosy millet fields and stout but stately baobab trees, reveling in moons rising over communal bowls of peanuts being shelled by chattering kin. How I adored sitting about the peanut bowls with spoon in hand, listening to the crinkling, popping sound of the shells coming open and thinking of how that sound, combined with the smoky smell of the charcoal cookers, gave the impression of sitting about a late night campfire. All that was missing were the smores!

At the close of this leisurely but peanut-packed week, I found my way back to this city with the odd sentiment that I was returning home, but now quite. Even if the people embrace me by pulling me into their folds by giving my own Wolof name, Ramatulaye or Rama for short, I’m always aware of the strangeness of my culture in this place. But I settle in, little by little. And the new English girl living in our house reminds me of how far I’ve come. There’s nothing like warning the new girl about toilet-flushing to make you feel like you’re in the know!

Peace and love,

Jocelyn

PS If you ever wonder what exchange students in Dakar spend 80% of their time talking about, its food. Smores, homemade-meals in the US, ceebu jen versus maffe in Dakar, that amazing peanut rice in Kedougou, peanutbutter, thanksgiving turkey, café touba, candy bars, mangoes, fruit, and cookies…I’ve had multiple conversations about all of these items, and I’m not the only one!