Peace Corps Writers Blog

The Last Ride

I HAD SAID SO OFTEN that leaving my Senegalese village, Keur Madiabel, would the most difficult part of my three-year Peace Corps service. Every time a farewell scene crept into my mind, I banished it quickly and vowed to think about it later. But, before I accepted the reality of my departure, “later” was looming over my head and it was time to drive — for the last time — from my village to the regional capital, with a fraction of my original possessions thrown into the backseat of a Peace Corps vehicle.

My last full day
Most of the afternoon on my last day in Keur Madiabel, I spent talking with my adoptive family, Ousmane Thiam, his wife Mame Diediou and their children. Ousmane and I sat outside on two broken wooden-back lawn chairs while he fiddled with the wire antenna of a hand-held radio with speakers that I had given him. We talked about the kids’ education, how I could wire money to him through Western Union (when, God-willing, I got a job and had some money) and the project I wanted to pursue — to publish the poetry and prose of an extraordinary villager, collaborator and friend of mine who had recently died from an unidentified illness.

Mame and I talked while she was ironing, again mostly about the children and which of them was destined for education beyond the 6th grade. Incredibly, I found myself agreeing with her statement that only three of their six children would likely be encouraged in school; I urged her to push the youngest — Kiné, Mbaye and Elise, my 1-1/2 year old namesake. In an another attempt to stress the importance of girls’ education, I also mentioned that I thought the eldest girl, Ndeye Astou, was a very good student — although I suspected the Ndeye’s destiny as the oldest daughter could be to stay in the village and help in the household until she married. Culture prevails, and I’d grown to accept that, although it rarely stopped me from expressing my opinion to my Senegalese friends. I now wonder if anything I’d said or demonstrated, albeit with a certain American optimism and illusion, will have a significant impact on this family or on the teachers and students from eight rural villages with which I had worked.

At the end of my conversation with Mame, she said “Elise is your daughter too, and she belongs to you even if you can’t take her with you to America.” I was stunned to hear those words aloud, even though the “giving” of children to other family members was not uncommon. To me, it was an immeasurable demonstration of love, friendship and acceptance of me as a member of their Senegalese family. It was then that I felt the haze of our cultural differences, which I had fumbled in and out of for three years, was transgressed by our common work, love and humanity.

That evening, Ousmane talked with me for a long time before and after dinner about how he felt I was like a member of the family. He said that when he decided to name his youngest daughter after me, he did so not because he thought I would give them things or that I would bring her to America. It was, he said, because he knew I was human, as they were human, and none of us differentiated between our conditions or ourselves. I ask now, why does the idea that there is nothing more or less human about a white or a black, or an affluent or an illiterate, or a Catholic or a Muslim, or an African or an American seem like an unshakable truth? That last night, sitting in the dark with Ousmane and Mame, I felt truly united in humanity when he said we were “comme des parents” (like family). He thanked me again and told me not to worry about leaving them; we had already formed unbreakable bonds, even if it took me 2 or 5 or 20 years to come back to Senegal.

The children seemed particularly somber, yet still went about his or her tasks. After Ousmane’s speech, Mbaye, the precocious three-year old brother of Elise, kept asking me where I was going, and I felt like he was doing so with an incredible insistence for truth. He knew I was GOING and I couldn’t bring myself to answer him with any reassuring measure in my voice.

After dinner we all sat down to watch “Mari Mar” on television and Ndeye was squeezed next to me on the corner of my chair, as usual. I didn’t follow the show and kept thinking about the fact that I would probably never again be a part of this scene — this comfortable family setting: sitting with a group of African children and adults who considered me something between a sister and an aunt, all crowded around a 12-inch black and white television run off a 12v car battery to watch a cheesy Mexican soap opera dubbed in French. Finally, I went home to my compound around 12:30am and went directly to sleep. I still hadn’t accepted that I was really leaving the next morning.

Time for departure
I woke up at 6:00am — a certain rarity for me, and immediately started to load my truck. Ousmane had sent his older son and nephew to help me. When I left the house where I had lodged for years, I thought it would be fairly easy to say goodbye to my landlords and their family, to which I was not nearly as close as the Thiam’s. But, right at the end, I chocked up so unexpectedly that I hurried the rest of the handshakes and good-byes and jumped in my truck.
     When I arrived at Ousmane’s I went inside the house to greet everyone before we started unloading the belongings that I was going to leave behind with the family — my wooden double bed frame, sponge mattress, metal tuna fish can footlocker, double-sized Peach Corps-issued mosquito net, buckets, clothes, pencils, scraps of material and all kinds of small treasures that the kids would find ingenious uses for. Mame hardly looked at me and went into the kitchen.

The event that sticks most in my mind from that day is breakfast. Mame brought me into her and Ousmane’s bedroom and set down a meal of duck, fried potatoes and onion sauce that was left over from our dinner the night before. Elise came in and sat down on her little wooden stool and we ate together. Actually, all I did was pick at the bread. Once I looked at Elise, I felt my throat tighten and my stomach fall into a pit; I couldn’t eat and I just kept crying into my bandana. Though she ate, the 1/1-2 year old watched me and between bites she tentatively called my name, “Khady?” She knew too, I think. When Mame took the breakfast bowl away she didn’t even comment on how little I had eaten.

The rest of the family joined us in the bedroom and we made small talk. Thankfully, Ousmane was there to get me going. He said I shouldn’t linger nor have any ceremony; it was simply time to leave. The children were suddenly quiet. Mame went on arranging the plastic bowls on top of the dresser, keeping her face turned away from me. Ousmane asked me if I had a piece of cloth. All I had was my wet bandana, but he found small strips from another scrap of blue tie-dyed material I had given them. He told me to tie a thin piece of cloth around the wrists of both Mbaye and Elise. I did it, but didn’t need to ask why.

It was the moment to leave. I could barely touch any of them or say anything. Hugging seemed too dramatic and if I had done that, I would have broken the cultural code of restrained, repressed emotion — something I had promised myself I would not do in public. Instead I shook Mame’s hand and looked at her beautiful Diola face for an instant until we both looked down. I touched each child’s face, kissed Ndeye on the head and turned to leave the room. Mame stayed inside with all of the children except Elise, who I was carrying, and Ousmane walked with me to the truck. I met Mame’s sister at the door and shook her hand. She surprised me with a sob and her abrupt retreat back into the room. Finally at the entrance of the compound I quickly shoved Elise back to her father before she had the chance to cling to me as she often did when I left her. I thanked Ousmane and shook his extended left hand — the hand used to wish someone well on a journey and a gesture promising that we would see each other again someday.

As I drove slowly out of the village, I looked, for the last time, at the ancient mahogany trees that lined both sides of the tar road, the sandy fields that were being prepared for the growing season, the electric power lines there were still not connected and the sparse, sublime horizon that had been stripped of almost all green. On the way out, I picked up a villager who wanted a ride to Kaolack, the regional capital where I had packing and writing my close-of-service report to finish. Once past the village limit, I couldn’t hold back any longer. My passenger looked embarrassedly away from my unstoppable flow of tears, and the only I words I spoke for 35km were to ask him to put on his seat belt.

Afterword:
Ousmane Thiam and his family continue to live in the Muslim village of Keur Madiabel, and they remain in frequent contact with the author. Ndeye Astou, the eldest daughter, did not pass her entrance exams last year in order to continue education beyond 6th grade, but Ousmane is encouraging her to try again. The author helps to financially support the education of Elise Thiam, who is now four years old and attending her second year of pre-school in another village.

Immediately after the destructive events of September 11th, the Thiam’s tried for three days to get through the phone lines to the United States. Mame said they “could not sleep or eat until they spoke with [me] to ensure [my] safety and well being.” Recently, the family telephoned the author to express their condolences on the one-year anniversary of September 11th. Ousmane said that they are praying for her, and for America.

Elise Annunziata lived in Keur Madiabel for two years working with students and teachers in eight surrounding villages to develop Environmental Education curricula. She extended a third year in Senegal as a Volunteer Leader in Kaolack and also worked as a Peace Corps trainer for the first Environmental Education program in Guinea (Conakry). Now living in Arlington, Virginia, Elise has a Master of Arts in Environmental and Natural Resources from The George Washington University and currently works for the Sierra Club in Arlington.

This essay won the Peace Corps Writers' 2003 Moritz Thomsen Experience Award.

African Time

Ramadan started this week, a holy month of fasting for over a billion Muslims around the world.  Every year there is heated debate among astronomers as to exactly what day Ramadan begins, as it all depends on when the new moon of the ninth lunar month appears.  Eclipses, clouds, and astronomical calculations all play a role.  Religious leaders line up on opposing sides, too, albeit for different reasons.   Some of them say that Muslims throughout the world should conform to an announcement coming from Saudi Arabia; others say that different regions should make their own decisions about when to begin the fast, depending on their view of the moon. 

If you are a Muslim living in a remote part of Africa, all this debate doesn’t matter. I know, because last year at this time I was drawing water from a well for my evening bath in Saare Kutayel, a village in Senegal. Sherife, a little boy about 10 years old stood next to me, chatting away about his day and helping me haul up heavy buckets of water. Suddenly he grew quiet, softly touched my arm, and said with wonder, “look.” He pointed up in the western sky, over the heads of a small knot of villagers peering in the same direction.  Between the thin layers of parting clouds was the smallest curve of silvery light cradled in the vast darkness. Ramadan would begin in the morning.

Living in Africa for over a year by that time, I’d already developed a whole new respect for the sun, moon, and cycles of time.  More than once I’d awoken in the middle of the night to what I thought was a flashlight shining in my eyes, only to groggily discover that it was the full moon, having made its trek over the top of the big mango tree, and was now blasting into my mosquito net.  And, I’d long since learned to time my arrivals back to the village before dark on moonless nights.  Soon after I came to Africa, I got a late start from a faraway village.   I rode my bike miles in blackness over a bumpy trail, with pounding heart, reassuring myself that the sinister clumps of trees around me were familiar patterns leading me home.  Just the week or so before that, under a full moon, everything was lit up like a fairy land. I had no idea that a chunk of cold rock over 200,000 miles away could make that much difference. 

In the African language that I learned, Pulaar, the word “lewru” means “moon.” I was stunned one day when a native speaker told me that he was going to visit his relative “si lewru mayii”; that is, “when the moon dies.”  I had to give this long thought before I understood that he simply meant “the end of this month.”  The word “lewru” works perfectly for both moon and month, because, naturally enough, the phases of the moon define the month.  When the moon passes through its phases of waxing and waning, the month is over. 

My African friends kindly used the term “lewru tubako” for the months in the Julian calendar. ( “Tubako”  means “white person ”.) If I said something was going to be happening “next month”, for example, they would clarify, “lewru tubako?”  which literally means, “the month (or moon) of the white person.’’  I was always a little embarrassed about this as it so clearly revealed the disjuncture between moon and month in my culture.

Solar time brought up similar dilemmas. There were few clocks, where I lived in Africa,  and having a watch was more of a status symbol (especially if it ran) than a useful object. Since the watches were digital, many people who owned them could say the time, such as “10-30" , but it had little real meaning. For written communication about time, pictures worked the best.  Often, I’d sit with someone who just returned from the clinic with their paper bag of medicine, and make little drawings, indicating when they should take each pill.  For example, if the directions said three times a day, I’d draw a sequential picture of the sun rising, the sun centered high in the sky, and the sun setting. 

Verbal communication about times during the day required a different set of vocabulary.  Among the old people especially, all times hinged on the five daily prayer times of subaka (6:30 am), fana (2:15 pm), alansara (5:00 pm), futuro (7:30 pm) and geeye (8:30 pm).  They could tell if it was prayer time by the position of the sun.  Since we were only 14 degrees north of the equator, the position of the sun and the time of day was almost the same day to day.  Even if people in my village didn’t personally practice the Muslim tradition of daily prayer, this rhythm of the day was ingrained.  Once I said to Aawdy, an older man, that I’d be by his hut “bimmbi law” (early morning) the next day to go with him to look at his fields.  This resulted in a rather lengthy discussion, as to whether that meant subaka (6:30 am) exactly, or just sometime before mid-morning.   Arm-waving also worked well, to convey time of day.  My villagers taught me that instead of struggling for the words or concept of a particular time, I could just say “I’ll see you tomorrow when the sun is here” and throw my arm up to point in the sky as to where the sun would be, directly over my head for a noontime meeting, for example. 

My neighbor Mariama loved learning anything new, so we often had discussions about time.  During slow afternoons she’d say, “let's do the calendar” and I’d go to my hut and retrieve the little boldly colored calendar with a Monopoly game theme that another volunteer had given me as a Christmas present.  Mariama would patiently look at each page, clarify the name of the “lewru tabako” and count each date in that month, her finger running over the numbers in each row. She was also fascinated about how Westerner’s tell time, and liked to compare the time on her watch with mine, to see if they were the same.  I knew we had made progress in cultural exchange one day (perhaps not all for the best) when we were discussing plans I had for the next day.  “I’ll be leaving when the sun is about here” I said, pointing over the cornfields and toward the river.  “Oh,” she said, barely glancing at my earnestly positioned arm, “about 10 in the morning? ” 

When I left Africa I spent a few weeks in France before returning to the States, a long awaited reveling in luxury to offset my two years of living in a small mud hut.  One day when I was sitting in soft chair a big house on Cezanne Avenue in Aix en Provence, reading a book and drinking tea, a wave of anxiety pulsed through me.  I put my book down and wracked my brain as to what that was about; I had no deadlines, no appointments, nothing forgotten or undone.  And then I realized; I didn’t know where the sun was. Or, what phase of the moon we were in, or which constellations marched across the sky last night.  I got up and looked out the window to get my bearings and accepted that this was the first of many recalibrations my body and spirit would be making as I returned to life in the Western world.