We Ask That You Please Not Feed the Toubab

Well, thats not exactly right, but yesterday was a wierd day. It had a great deal of emotional ups and downs, lots of misunderstandings, confused serere, and I didnt really get anything done. So really just an average day in my village.

It started normal enough. I had breakfast on the floor of my hut. I got this musli cereal stuff with rasins and corn flakes and it is amazing. I had planned on going and sitting in on a class while they still have class at the school next door to me. Really all I wanted to do was talk to the school director about some of my assesments and determine where the kids that go to that school live (I have gotten several different answers on that), and talk about the schools calendar. I last saw him leaving on Thursday and as he left he said 'boo tening', essentially meaning see you monday. Of course when I got to the school, only two out of the four teachers were there, and only a handful of kids were there doing what i guess was retaking exams that they were absent for. I didnt really want to disturb them so I went back to my hut to replan my morning. The previous day I had gone to a section of the village they call Pintoke, where I had sat for a while and the people at one of the compounds there were very nice and helpful and I thought I could go back there to get some of my assesment questions answered.

Just as I was gathering myself to head out, my younger mom came to my door and stood there staring at me (as she usually does. I had tried to ask her once what she wanted before I had opened the door and she gave me a long lecture on how terrible a person I was and that I should always open the door for her and never ask her what she wants first...yeah, freal). So anyway, she had my screaming brother, I will call him Biff, with her. He had been crying all morning, as he usually does on every morning and afternoon and anytime he is awake. He loves to cry. Any way, all she said when i opened the door was 'jegaa mayo, ciam', or pretty much 'you have milk, give it to me.' I think politeness might actually kill some people in my family. So I let her spoon out nearly all the rest of my powdered milk as she said Biff 'buga o yer', he wants to drink. Well, stop the presses, he is in no ways an enfant, and while i dont oppose giving him some calcium, I dont know why they have to just take it from me like that unannounced. Whatever, I really dont mind that much and when I go back I will try and bring a kilo of powdered milk just for her.

Anywho, so then I went out to Pintoke (after giving 100 cfa to some guys fixing a building for no apparent reason) and sat with the same family again, learned all their names as best I could (or at least the adults, which are more important anyhow) and we talked about what villages around have boutiques and which they go to and which villages have schools and where kids go from where to where and why. It was mildly productive at the least I suppose. They also taught me some words for making pottery and showed me bowls they made to sell near mbour (cue ominous music), and how the pottery was really good and they also had some for making couscous with and they taught me some words having to do with druming and dancing (more ominous music).

Around noon, my usual time to be getting back to my hut, they urged me to stay and have lunch with them. Most families do this when I sit with them for a while and I always turn them down saying that I would like to have a bath before lunch or study or have a nap. But this time, they insisted that everyday they have lunch at 1, which they admitted was early, and then I could go back home. They were very nice and it looked very much like lunch preperations were in full swing so I said sure, I will stay (did i mention that there were dark clouds all day, and it would have been awsome if right then there was a thunderclap).

I thought I could have lunch here, then go back home and be back before 2, in good time to have another lunch with my dad, a lunch that rarely fills me up and is almost always just greesy rice and a fish. I figured I could actually eat a fill this day and my family woudnt be insulted cause I could be back in time. So I waited for my first lunch. And waited. Lunch was finally ready at 1:30, I tried to eat quickly, but they brought out four different bowls, all of really good food with vegetables and spices and good fish... it was too much to pass up. At 1:45, i tried not to be too rude but I said 'i should go home' in kinda a question like way, and they said 'you should go home' in kinda like an answering way. Then I walked quickly back home, it is not terribly far, and I turned the corner into the compound at 1:50.

All the kids and my moms were sitting around the tree, and as I approached they all stoped talking and stared at me. Kinda a death stare, if you can imagine it. Like I had just punched the Pope, hard in the gut, and they wernt sure if they should run up and smack me or if I would probably just get struck down where I stood by a lightning bolt or something. They had obviously just uncovered the lunch bowl, but they hadnt yet started eating. I greeted them, to no responce, and said 'oh, you are having lunch' trying to smile and hoping to get something warmer from them. One of my neighbors who was also seated by the tree pointed to my dads room and said 'go'.

Now, understand that never in all my month and a half in my village, never have we had lunch in my family before 2pm. The average is probably around 2:15. So I think I made it home in good time and I really hadnt thought that I would really be late like this. But timing rarely if ever works in my favor.

So in my dads room, my dad and our farm boy, The Joker, were sitting and had just begun on a big bowl of rice mixed with small chunks of fish. I appologize as best as i can. My dad says he tried calling me, where was I and where was my phone. Pintoke is too far away and I need to get back before lunch. Ok, ok. After we eat he says that I need to be back here before lunch everyday and that I shouldnt be gone like that. Right, right, i understand now, i said, and i thought that would be the final lecture on that.

I went back to my room, had a nice bath, decompressed, got ready to head out again for the afternoon - somewhere to chill a bit. Walking out of my room i was stoped almost immediately by my younger mom. This was unusual for her to stop me like this and talk to me so directly. she asks where i had gone that morning, Pintoke. She then gives me a long lecture on 'the kind of people that are in pintoke and the kind of people that are here' she is kinda smiling as she says it, but she is always kinda smiling and my mom is laughing in the back, so i am not sure if she is really serious or not. I listen dutifully and ask what things mean. She tells me that the people there are not good people. All they do is play music and dance and ask me for money (I had to try very hard to restrain my self in pointing out that that is, fact what this family does), and she says that if she is walking by she will not sit with them and if they ask her to eat with them she says that she is full. Suddenly the caste system lectures rush back to me and i realize that my family, along with much of the village, are nobility, while those in pintoke are the artisans, storytelling and music playing caste and we are not to intermingle. Great, I think, well at least I know now.

So then I walk about two steps, and my mom reiterates the same lecture. Making sure i understand what music playing is and dancing, and how (when they do it) it is apparently bad. And how they will ask me for money (which when they do it), I should turn them down. Then I walk another few steps and my grandmother, who overheard most of what was said, ask me for what I know about the people in Pintoke and she then gives me the lecture to. Then my nextdoor neighbor walks up, ask where I went in the morning and procedes to give me the same lecture again. Almost out of my compound, two more women ask me where I had gone and feel urged to explain, several more times, that I am not to go there, not to eat there, not to talk to them or sit with them. They are not good people. Right. Heavy stuff.

So I head in the opposite direction, towards some compounds with some similarly nice people. I learn some new words and sit for a while as women in the village begin to arrive there apparently for a womens group lottery. There was music and dancing (both my younger mom and neighbors were there, dancing and druming, freal). I sit out with some of the kids and play a board game. A kid walks by and hands me a lemon. Just like that, out of the blue. My younger mom happens to be walking by a second later, sees me holding it and looks at me as if I am mr selfish. I think of giving it to her (maybe she could give taste to a meal with it), but i put it im my bag instead. 'To plant', i tell her.

Before i can leave, one of the women, my aunt evidently (or so i am told), gives me two fish that she has fried in a way that I think is the best ever. I take them back home and give them to my mom, for her to put them into dinner, i guess. At dinner though, somehow no one in our compound knows where any flashlights are and the solar powered light is out, as usual. so we eat in near utter darkness, only starlight, no moon up yet. I cant see my fish, meaning i dont eat my fish, the joker and my dad down the one in our bowl before i can get more than one piece. I finish the bowl, and go to bed dreaming of desert.

So, yeah, the moral to this long long post, i have no idea, dont let me eat food i guess is a good village action plan. Oh and today i planted the lemon seeds and lunch was at 2:15.