A Thousand Little Stories, take 3

More from those little things that happen to me that make me think- 'i should make a blog entry about that' but then never do-

wells and water-

The rainy season winds down with some nice big storms. Hard rains that last an hour or two or more. Winds that knock down fences. Clouds that roll in and streak past without warning. Lightning that shimmers in the distance and tolls overhead. It was after one such storm, just before noon the skies opened up and soaked everything immediately, but then for good measure kept going for a bit, drizzled for longer, then sun and steam. I was out by our boutique and a group of old men was gathered around staring at an old well that has sat there unused, looking at it like it was full of vipers. Keeping there distance too. Naturally I walked right over and looked too. The ground all around it, about two feet from the concreted well itself, had cracked and sank about a foot. The concrete of the well was buckling and fissures ran down several feet. This well has never been used since I have been there, but this was different. Now our wells dont go that deep in our village anyway, the wate table is close, so 12 or 13 meters is plenty deep. The rains though have swelled all our wells and the ground everywhere is squishy. It was kinda scarry seeing that well like that. They threw rocks into it, then pushed the upper blocks themselves in, then filled the whole deal in with dirt. Before it fell over the rim into the water that was less than two meters down, I spotted the carved initials of the mason and '1987'. Harsh season.

healthy babies-

I occasionally help my aunt with baby weighings around the village. She is helping out the local health hut, collecting data on children under 2 so that peopale can keep thier kids healthy. Aound on one of these trips we come to a compound. My job was to frighten the kids as much as possible by, a-being there, b-hanging a scale from a tree branch, c-greeting them all in a friendly non-threatening manner. Oh and occasionally asking them why they were afraid of me. That usually got them to tears the fastest. I dont really know what it is about the scale that frightens them so much. I think it is just that one kid, usually a baby will cry at it- ok, so it is hanging in a tree, they have to be pulled from their mothers chuckling arms and swing in it a few seconds before I pull them out, bounce them a few times in my arms, maybe toss them into the air and hand them back to their parents. It is kinda frightening. Anyway, so one kid crys and then that gets more of them going, thinking surely it must have electroshocks or I will throw geckos at them or something. Then the older kids, the four five and six year olds, get the idea that making the younger ones cry is actually the funnest game in the whole wide world. They taunt them, push and pull them for maximum tear-age. Those kids are great, really help me make friends... Anyway, so on this day we were at a big compound but only a few people were there. The first few babies were fine, grumbly, confused, but fine. Then with only two to go, one busrts into a fit. We get her weighed and she hides behind her mom after, afraid to look at my face. My big scary toubab face. Then the lat girl. She is clutching her moms leg, tears roll down her face. I crouch in front of her, make soft cooing noises, put the harness-thingy on the ground like a pair of ants she could step into. Basically I pull out my whole arsenal of scary tactics I have learned from all my classic horror films where the boogey man goes around weighing kids and leaving them otherwise alone. I reach for her hands to urge her forward, she is hit by a hard sob, leans slightly forward and throws up at her feet. O....K... The mom appologizes, it didnt get on me, and I help wash off the harness straps. After that she is quieter, moaning, but we weigh her quietly and leave without any other incident. Look at me go, keeping all the kids in my village healthy and happy...

proof of integration?-

So a couple weeks ago I came into Mbour and bought a couple plastic chairs for my family. The ones they have are breaking, legs falling off and whatnot, as would be expected in a house of so many kids and very few forms of entertainment. My dad had asked me about chairs months ago, but like most things my parents insist I buy early on, I avoided it on principal. One of my lovely passive aggresive strategies to show that all toubabs are not money fountains. Anyway, I do ease up sometimes. So I bought these two chairs and I am a couple kms from the garage, but I dont do public transport, also on principal, so I do what any normal Senegalese person would do, put them on my head and started walking. It occured to me, sometime soon, after a couple blocks, that I surely looked rediculous. But the Senegalese do carry lots of things on thier heads-buckets, bags, rice sacks, matresses, firewood, haystacks. In my own village I carry water on my head from the well everyday, usually several times a day in both afternoon and morning. And I sometimes carry dirt too, and most recently, over the course of several weeks, a few hundred trees in small sacks. Anyway, so I was hyper aware of people walking through town back to the busses that would take me home. I was sure everyone must surely want to stare at me. The wierd thing though was that I felt like I got less stares, and less people called out 'toubab' than usual. It was strange when i expected it so much. Actually only one little girl muttered 'toubab' as I walked past that I noticed, surely some kind of distance record in Mbour. It may be that people dont really stare or yell at me that much usually but cause I was looking for it so much more and noticed so many people just going about their business that it seemed odd. Either way, I mark it as a victory for community integration.