In the late afternoon, while the shade was spreading, certain villagers of Ker Sadero sat so as to see the passing of cars. Mane Ninga was one among the bevy thronged alongside the sulfurous pavement of Senegal.
When the decrepit sports utility vehicle came to a halt, I was in the company of three sluggish Americans. We had all spent the first three days in Senegal, damping our jet-lag and rifling in the mental rubble of culture-shock. We gathered our bags, along with our water-filters, mosquito-nets and medical-kits we recently received (I might add, with the same feeling of empowerment as an infantryman, when he receives his rifle and ammunition) and we lumbered to the shady-tree where the Africans sat. When we reached, motherly women were overjoyed, clapping their hands and warbling like fertile geese. Mane Ninga, soon to be my mother, even appeared unsteady when she stood, longing for balance between vertiginous shudders of delight. She was plump and had the hips of a prolific child bearer. Her arms and legs were thick with softness, like a feather-pillow following a good-fluff. Loosely and uncaringly, she wore draping fabric, colorful, and constantly aloft with the winds of her energy.
I stood watch while her effusive flutters waned. When she regained her footing, she took only a few breaths before she smothered the little air between us with several stentorian sonorities--each one more singsong than the next. Rather obvious I was in a dither, having heard everything, and having comprehended nothing, she assisted me along by flinging a hand out pendulously while repeating two more freakish words, this time though, a bit slower.
“Bay Zal “
“Bay Zal”
I took her hoary hand and joined her in the sing-along, “Bay Zal. Bay Zal” By now, I realized the emphasis attached to these two words, and as we went on repeating, I rummaged through my neophytic supply of Wolof vocabulary, but proving hopeless, I returned my attention to the confusing center. Famished for clarification, I nearly requested that any French speakers step forth, but before I broke the sacred seal of ‘Wolof emersion,’ someone else did, and did so, much more egregiously.
It was Emily from the back! “I think it’s your new name,” she spoke in forbidden English. As if we were two whales in the deep-blue, we had brilliantly transmitted sound-waves that were to be read by no sensory registers but our own.
It all made sense. I was now “Bay Zal!” In this fleeting lucidity, I endeavored to release from her crushing grip, but she contested, so as to even reaffirm her thrall. Suddenly, she heaved up another blizzard of verbiage, but this time, Peace Corps Senegal and I stood ready.
“Nga Def!”
Peace Corps thankfully coached all of its trainees, rather painstakingly, on the one stroke of Senegal culture not to be smudged, the greeting. Not just in Senegal, but in all of West Africa, the greeting is an occasion when two people cross paths, and the excessiveness of mirth they both share brings them to sheer deadlock. From there, it is gentle interrogation, independent of one’s true curiosity, and without fail, evokes only but the same sequence of question and response. So when I was to return Mane’s question, “Nga Def,” I did so with conviction, for all across the land, there is only one accepted answer.
“Mangiy fi!“ I ejaculated (note: literary usage)!
In the prolonged clutch, I would go one to reassure her I had spent my day in peace and that my family in the United States, as far as I knew, was enjoying good health. By the time all matters had been addressed and my good hand was free, I noticed all of my belongings were in the hospitable hands of someone else. Mane Ninga, as well, carried my red pillow and had made several footsteps since our stand-still. Stalling at the entrance, she waved and wagged with that grand eagerness that charges all of us right before we introduce the ones we love.
Bending the corner, stepping conspicuously into the quarters of the compound, there appeared a broad selection of men, women and children. All of whom sat low to the earth. Everyone looked extremely preoccupied with idleness and bliss.
My arrival, however, breached the solace. I was immediately the rage. In a furious succession, I saw and met and greeted an indefinite amount of jubilant people. Head-nodding, hand-shaking, hips-swaying and tongue-twisting, I stepped in the ring with all of them. One after the next, I two-stepped with, topping off with the paterfamilias in purple pants. Seeing as the merry-go-round was still in spin wherever I went, I grew more appreciative of my recent adoption. It seemed, the whole cackling caboodle: the bare-footed, the bare-breasted and the bare-assed were all wishing the white-man a very special welcome.
I was then showed to my tin-thatched room, which was built, unwittingly, around the basic thermal technologies of a sauna. When the door closed behind, I remained calm despite sharpening nips of anxiety. A brigade of creepy-crawlies scurried out to greet their new roommate, as well as the dozen or so errant mosquitoes, for whom, my fleshy romp was just too mouthwatering to handle. Needing backup, the malaria-contracting nightshift was called in chop chop.
Playing hard to get, I anxiously rigged the four-masted mosquito net and slithered in discreetly, as to not invite any into bed with me. With a white skuzzy net drooping onto my knee caps, like sunken snow-drifts, I laid there entombed, with no where to go. The bugs, so it seemed, had me trapped!
It was not very late, I wasn’t tired nor had I unpacked, but hearing all the buzz, I knew they were machinating. My headlamp gave light to the vermin that hovered noisily above, and as they bounced their bloodthirsty eyes off the sticky mesh, I did, in fact, decide to remain still.
And so, rather than reheating another hullabaloo outside, I made my first real impression in the West African village on my sponge mattress.
