The iron sits atop an old, empty Nescafe can. In its iron belly, embers glow orangey-gold, lending their beauty to the night’s ambiance. A white-collared shirt lays spread out beside it, waiting for her ochre hand to grasp that wooden handle and press out its weary wrinkles.
~+~+~+~+~
A television commercial: for those of you who are Christians, come buy a myriad of toys for the holiday season! You can buy a plastic duck that lays eggs, or a my size (white) doll, or a xylophone, or some (white) Barbie dolls, or an art kit, or some books…with white children on the covers…
~+~+~+~+~
A horse-drawn cart clippety-clops over the hard pavement, accompanied in its orchestration by the clink-clank of abundant coke bottles, laden with a beverage that will soon reach a tiny street-side stall and then the appreciative throats of parched passers-by. With the image of official looking commercial trucks hauling soda-pop in mind, I smile at the seeming simplicity of this animal, pair of wheels, and set of planks. It clinks and clops by, doing its job as well as any industrial machine…
~+~+~+~+~
The leftovers of Tabaski are in a small heap along the side of the road: a pair of horns and a sheep skin tossed away like a pair of tattered sandals. Plug your nose as you go past…
~+~+~+~+~
There they are; a haphazard trio of spindly, plastic pine trees, propped up before a couple smiling men with dazzling, gaudy garlands ringing their necks and wrists. They’re there, wedged in between a couple fruit stalls, grinning at me as I eye their merchandise. Voila one of the few traces of Christmas in this Allah-enraptured locale. I cannot help but chuckle at how out of place they seem.
~+~+~+~+~
I’m peaceably eating my breakfast of bread when my cousin whips out a butchering knife and starts whacking away at the last piece of mouton from the holidays. The laudry-woman’s three-year-old daughter is intimidated by the sight but watches intently.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Les Papillons
The multitudes of white flecks drift down, fluttering in eddies that alight upon the brilliant emerald grass and fuchsia flowers. -- “I’m dreaming…”-- The palm trees are misted with pearls… -- “…of a white…” – and looking into the sky, college students extend their arms passionately, reaching for those infinite flitting figures, like children with expectant tongues stuck out towards the heavens. – “…Christmas.” We may not have lit-up trees and mistletoe, but ours is the finest butterfly snow that Senegal has ever seen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forget the gym! I have sand dunes! And oh, how much joy can be contained in one mountainous heap of sand! I race up them, feeling my feet sink deep into the orangey powder and knowing that for every three steps forward I sink two steps back. Atop my sand castle, I grin, overlooking a vast landscape of golden swells and furrows and, steeply below me, the neat row of squat tents that compose our humble abodes for the coming night. And now for the real adrenaline rush: 1…2…3! And there I go whishhhing and bounding down that slope with a spray of sand at my heels and the late-afternoon glow on my face. Do that three times in a row, transporting cameras up and down on each occasion, and suddenly you know your calf muscles and abs much more intimately than you ever did before! But don’t wear yourself out too much now; you’ll need those ab muscles when you perch yourself upon a camel -- overlooking the desert at sunset. Yum! Life has seldomly been so sweet, and the stars are yet to come.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My last week in flash format:
Distractableness.
Photo-editing procrastination.
Booking flights craziness.
DESERT!!!
Buckle down baby;
its time to pump out those
final essays – in French.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My timeline:
Dec 20 – flight to Portugal
- a week traveling down the coast with Allison and her friend Dorothy.
-“I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams!”
Dec 28 – hop a flight to Madrid
-New Years in Madrid, surrounded by museums, cathedrals, and culture.
-Dorothy flies home
Early January – visit friends in Alicante and climb with Allison and my old climbing buddy Ricardo!!
-climb with another friend in Cartagena. Wheee!! So much climbing!
-revisit my favorite city: Granada. Ah, Alhambra, how glad I’ll be to wonder at your hispanomuslim architecture once again!
Jan 10 – Allison flies out from Sevilla and I head south.
Mid-Jan – Morocco! Think burber villages, the Casablanca Mosque, Roman ruins, Fez, and the Atlas mountains! Yeah’ya!
Jan 23 – go back up north to catch my flight out of Sevilla, Spain.
And then…home sweet home!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forget the gym! I have sand dunes! And oh, how much joy can be contained in one mountainous heap of sand! I race up them, feeling my feet sink deep into the orangey powder and knowing that for every three steps forward I sink two steps back. Atop my sand castle, I grin, overlooking a vast landscape of golden swells and furrows and, steeply below me, the neat row of squat tents that compose our humble abodes for the coming night. And now for the real adrenaline rush: 1…2…3! And there I go whishhhing and bounding down that slope with a spray of sand at my heels and the late-afternoon glow on my face. Do that three times in a row, transporting cameras up and down on each occasion, and suddenly you know your calf muscles and abs much more intimately than you ever did before! But don’t wear yourself out too much now; you’ll need those ab muscles when you perch yourself upon a camel -- overlooking the desert at sunset. Yum! Life has seldomly been so sweet, and the stars are yet to come.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My last week in flash format:
Distractableness.
Photo-editing procrastination.
Booking flights craziness.
DESERT!!!
Buckle down baby;
its time to pump out those
final essays – in French.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My timeline:
Dec 20 – flight to Portugal
- a week traveling down the coast with Allison and her friend Dorothy.
-“I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams!”
Dec 28 – hop a flight to Madrid
-New Years in Madrid, surrounded by museums, cathedrals, and culture.
-Dorothy flies home
Early January – visit friends in Alicante and climb with Allison and my old climbing buddy Ricardo!!
-climb with another friend in Cartagena. Wheee!! So much climbing!
-revisit my favorite city: Granada. Ah, Alhambra, how glad I’ll be to wonder at your hispanomuslim architecture once again!
Jan 10 – Allison flies out from Sevilla and I head south.
Mid-Jan – Morocco! Think burber villages, the Casablanca Mosque, Roman ruins, Fez, and the Atlas mountains! Yeah’ya!
Jan 23 – go back up north to catch my flight out of Sevilla, Spain.
And then…home sweet home!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Of Turkeys and Sheep
He took a mouton out of his trunk. The taxi man. He hoisted a sheep, out of the back of his cab, with the help of another man. An absurd kidnapping scene, to day the least; the mouton, feet bound, finds itself returned to daylight, released into a strange place. It looks around, it blinks, it spits, and it is led within the house to a certain fate. Oh yes, the fate of this sheep and the multitude of sheep that are mulling their way through crowds and holding up herds of cars has been writ for millennia. Their destiny has been foretold ever since Allah spared Abraham’s son, Ishmael, from a bloody, sacrificial end by inserting a goat into the scene to take his place. Thus, we all replay the drama year after year, killing sheep after sheep (after sheep after sheep) and eating them all up with great satisfaction. Oh yes, ‘tis the day before Tabaski and everyone’s preparing. But we Americans have another animal on our minds…
We depart from the kidnapping scene by cab, arriving at another dusty neighborhood wherein we meander in search of our fellow tubabs. And voila! Up some flights of steps we find ourselveswelcomed into a little haven of American joy. It doesn’t take long for the dishes to squish themselves onto the table -mashed potatoes, stuffing, and even cranberry sauce all cuddled there as contentedly as the forty-something pairs of eyes that oogle them in anticipation. Thursday had been a mildly lonely day for the most of us; a slightly empty feeling overtook this group of students as the Thanksgiving sun set on another dinner of ceebu yapp. But Friday’s sun set over a meal so happily shared and thankfully appreciated that the roast chicken we all shared may as well have been a true turkey!
So, stuffed to the brim we all went to bed, knowing that we’d be equally full by mid-day the day after. Oh yes, Tabaski was marching in right after Thanksgiving, and no amount of stomach distention would be able to convince our Senegalese mothers that we’d had enough xar! Most Senegalese woke at dawn to head for the mosques before doing the deed. Shortly thereafter, blood flowed freely and the grills lit up as the men undertook a long and arduous task involving entrails and the like while the women started cooking up that meat just as fast as they could! I’m sad to say that I missed the actual killing of the sheep on that fateful day. By the time I woke up, showered, and made my way over to a friend’s house, because my particular Catholic family doesn’t happen to do mouton slaughtering for Tabaski, all them there sheep had kicked the bucket and I was only able to eye the dismembered animal as it awaited the grill. Oh well. I did eat it, which was delicious, but my vegetarian stomach didn’t much appreciate that afterward. As the Senegalese say, the sheep butted me in the stomach this tabaski! But only a little bit. Touti rekk!
After the food coma, the children took to the streets in their fine new boubous, confidently extending their hands with the expectation that a few coins or treats would find their way into those mocha palms. Megan and I took a walk to help settle the mouton and took to a little Hansel and Gretel adventure, following a trail of blood droplets in what some might consider a morbid way but which we conceived of as a great opportunity to make up a saga about the sheep’s final battles; look! There’s where the three men started the journey with the goat. And that there, that’s indication of the first battle, wherein the sheep took down the first man but couldn’t escape the other two. And there, the sheep managed to overcome the second man! It looks like he bit him hard! And there, a bird tried to come to the rescue but the last man took down the bird instead! And then, voila! The sheep killed the last man and, licking his wounds, made a U-y in the middle of the dirt road... and headed back the way he came? Hmmm. Our little trail has turned itself back around. Did somebody forget their keys or something? Oh well! The goat saga completed, we continue with our little promenade.
I definitely spent the rest of my Tabaski watching Dirty Dancing for the first time, which I absolutely adored, and then chillaxing at another friend’s house playing cards and chatting about teenage relationships! The chilling was the most Senegalese thing I’ve ever done, but the cards and the conversation we’re definitely in the American style!
Well, the weekend of turkeys and sheep came to a close just in time for a week full of homework to kick into gear with final papers rearing their grisly heads on the horizon. But in spite of those beastly papers, I have plans to go to the desert next weekend to see the dunes. I had better be productive for the time being!
Hugs and love,
Jocelyn
We depart from the kidnapping scene by cab, arriving at another dusty neighborhood wherein we meander in search of our fellow tubabs. And voila! Up some flights of steps we find ourselveswelcomed into a little haven of American joy. It doesn’t take long for the dishes to squish themselves onto the table -mashed potatoes, stuffing, and even cranberry sauce all cuddled there as contentedly as the forty-something pairs of eyes that oogle them in anticipation. Thursday had been a mildly lonely day for the most of us; a slightly empty feeling overtook this group of students as the Thanksgiving sun set on another dinner of ceebu yapp. But Friday’s sun set over a meal so happily shared and thankfully appreciated that the roast chicken we all shared may as well have been a true turkey!
So, stuffed to the brim we all went to bed, knowing that we’d be equally full by mid-day the day after. Oh yes, Tabaski was marching in right after Thanksgiving, and no amount of stomach distention would be able to convince our Senegalese mothers that we’d had enough xar! Most Senegalese woke at dawn to head for the mosques before doing the deed. Shortly thereafter, blood flowed freely and the grills lit up as the men undertook a long and arduous task involving entrails and the like while the women started cooking up that meat just as fast as they could! I’m sad to say that I missed the actual killing of the sheep on that fateful day. By the time I woke up, showered, and made my way over to a friend’s house, because my particular Catholic family doesn’t happen to do mouton slaughtering for Tabaski, all them there sheep had kicked the bucket and I was only able to eye the dismembered animal as it awaited the grill. Oh well. I did eat it, which was delicious, but my vegetarian stomach didn’t much appreciate that afterward. As the Senegalese say, the sheep butted me in the stomach this tabaski! But only a little bit. Touti rekk!
After the food coma, the children took to the streets in their fine new boubous, confidently extending their hands with the expectation that a few coins or treats would find their way into those mocha palms. Megan and I took a walk to help settle the mouton and took to a little Hansel and Gretel adventure, following a trail of blood droplets in what some might consider a morbid way but which we conceived of as a great opportunity to make up a saga about the sheep’s final battles; look! There’s where the three men started the journey with the goat. And that there, that’s indication of the first battle, wherein the sheep took down the first man but couldn’t escape the other two. And there, the sheep managed to overcome the second man! It looks like he bit him hard! And there, a bird tried to come to the rescue but the last man took down the bird instead! And then, voila! The sheep killed the last man and, licking his wounds, made a U-y in the middle of the dirt road... and headed back the way he came? Hmmm. Our little trail has turned itself back around. Did somebody forget their keys or something? Oh well! The goat saga completed, we continue with our little promenade.
I definitely spent the rest of my Tabaski watching Dirty Dancing for the first time, which I absolutely adored, and then chillaxing at another friend’s house playing cards and chatting about teenage relationships! The chilling was the most Senegalese thing I’ve ever done, but the cards and the conversation we’re definitely in the American style!
Well, the weekend of turkeys and sheep came to a close just in time for a week full of homework to kick into gear with final papers rearing their grisly heads on the horizon. But in spite of those beastly papers, I have plans to go to the desert next weekend to see the dunes. I had better be productive for the time being!
Hugs and love,
Jocelyn
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