2 Babies are Born in the Bush

As I wrote about before, my father told me that there was an addition to our family when I returned from Ourossogoui and that there would be a naming ceremony on Tuesday.  He also said that nothing would happen until Tuesday so I could go about the next few days as normal.  So I unpacked my things from my trip and spent the afternoon with my family.  While sitting there my uncle came back on our horse drawn carriage with another addition to our family although a quite short lived addition, a medium sized ram and a bushel of onions.  Word to the wise: if you are any form of livestock in Senegal, stay away from large amount onions.  I have never seen this fair well for the livestock.

Well the next day began as I had remembered before my trip; I headed to the master farm, came back for lunch, and then took a short nap after lunch in my room.  After my nap, I went into the large building, hubere, in our galle and sat with my family who were watching TV by solar power and satellite.  As I sat there, many women came into the hubere and greeted us and then disappearing on the side of the house.  One of these women was my work counterpart that I intended to go and greet at her galle but had yet to find the time to do so.  So when curiosity got the best of me I followed the trail of women and I found pleasantly that they were on the side of the house making more bignets than i had ever seen in one place.  Now bignets are little bits of fried dough that can be bready, caky, or millet/grainy, my family was making bready bignets.  I have a soft spot for them that is getting bigger.  The way things are typically cooked here is over an open flame of logs radiating out from a central fire and a metal pot with three legs holding it 4 inches or so above the ground.  The women next to my house were using a wok like pot full of oil over an open flame.  My first thought was fire hazard, but I am no bignet expert.  So there were two women pulling out marble sized dough balls from a basin full of dough and putting them on a metal serving tray to rise for a short while before being dropped into the oil where another lady was frying the dough balls and then putting them in a bowl.  When you want the oil hotter you add wood and when the bignets start cooking too hot you remove some.  Later a second pot was started to make cafe Touba, super sweet chai tea like coffee.  I hope that gives you a good idea of the atmosphere.
So I had come around the corner and greeted everyone and even though there were no men I joined the women to listen to Pulaar and talk some.  At first there might have been 10 women all together.  3 working on bignets and about three working on the coffee and then a bunch of women sitting on the concrete next to the hubere, but as the pile of bignets began to increase so did the number of women and children, I am unsure the final number.  It might have hit 25 women.  In fact, I should remember the exact number of single women above the age of 20 because the conversation eventually turned to why I did not have a wife and then to introducing me to all the single ladies, including my counter part.  Now one of the first weeks I was in Diagaly I tried to put a damper on the marriage suggestion by saying that I could not marry someone too young because I was 30; the age I said was required of my wife was at least 25.  Now I told this to two men, one I don't think spread this.  So I think taht one mention to one person about a somewhat arbitrary statement is now known by many in my town because where that man lived was as far as possible in my town from the women that was going through every single women in the bignet circle and saying "Well what about Chagie, or what about Rugie, or what about...."  And after this was said the women would look at me like they were waiting for a response.  This is one place where language improvement  doesn't really help because i can't fall back on the old standby of "mi faamaani" or " I don't understand" because they knew I understood.  Well eventually the conversation was redirected but not after I many an awkward moment for me.  I guess we will just put it with the rest.

Well eventually 2 giant bowls, probably 3 feet in diameter and 18 inches deep, of bignets piled about the outside rim were made and maybe 3 gallons of cafe Touba.  Now cups of cafe Touba and bags of bignets were being passed out to the women and kids in our galle and in surrounding areas.  Things got exciting and a bit crazy, and then the women and children began to file out and there was once again silence and only two piles of charcoal and ash and some plastic bags to indicate the previous excitement.

Monday was fairly normal as well until afternoon when extended family began to come in for the Inde, or naming ceremony on the next day.  I think it was the calm before the storm.

When I woke on Tuesday I went ahead and got into my comci, or traditional garb.  At 7:30 there was already a gathering of women over a very large pot of cafe Touba and a large pile of bread.  I went to join the women and eat bread and drink a cup of coffee.  After two cups of coffee, way too much, large mats began to be pulled out and blankets laid apon them for people to sit and ataya, senegalese  tea, was already being cooked, and greetings were happening on all sides of me as people began to come in.  Cafe Touba and bread continued to be passed around and preparations were beginning for our lunch.  After that the ram was slaughtered hilal in the center of our galle and then cleaned on the side by my uncle and my neighbor as fire after fire began to be lit to cook the onions, rice, and sheep.  That was about 10 am.  Until lunch we sat on mats, moving whenever the sun caught us, and drank ataya and talked and napped and listened to a badiraado or traditional Pulaar guitarist play music.  When the food was finished, serving tray after serving tray went out peoples heads to all areas of our galle and then began leaving the galle go to neighbors and other people in the community.  Enough food was eaten to justify mass napping and lounging and drinking of ataya and greeting.  My sister received a name, Fatamata Dia, after my aunt, and the women and kids gave money and candy and other gifts with lots of clapping and commotion.

Things wrapped up around 7.  Many of the people I had been talking to during the day insisted that I visit their village and then they lead their saretd out of the compound with up to a large number of people on board and the rest of us relaxing under a darkening sky on stick beds.  I usually drink ataya once a day, and if I have drank it twice in a day I will usually turn down the third round.  Well at the end of the day I counted that I had drank 3 cups of cafe Touba and 7 rounds of ataya, with three glasses per round; a new record for me.  I also turned down 3 rounds which had I drank would have given me a nice even 10.  Set goals not limits right.

Well originally this was intended to be a short blog post to justify a picture of my new sister, but maybe as people are learning I have a hard time keeping these posts short and Senegal has yet to give me little to write about.  Well the next day I wanted to get back into my routine.  I headed to the master farm and started working on some of our ongoing projects.  About 11 o clock Guyloode told me that the naming ceremony in a neighboring village that was supposed to be in a week was actually today and that we would go later.  Although I had some reservations due to exhaustion and no traditional clothes we went to another naming ceremony in Mboyen at galle mBoye.  The events were pretty close to what had happened the day before.  The men sat around and ate, talked politics, and drank ataya.  My lips hurt from the overdose of ataya the day before but  i still powered through.  I left in the afternoon and went to a garden owned by one of the men at the naming ceremony and then headed home exhausted around 5.  With my galle and rest in sight I heard a yell from a familiar galle but an unfamiliar person to come and greet them.  I walked over, bent under the shade structure, and as I extended my hand my lower back threw its hands up in surrender of all the bending to shake hands over the two day period.  My knees buckled, my non greeting hand grabbed my back, and by brow cringed.  I had not the endurance for the amount of greeting as I had done in those two days and I learned a valuable lesson.  You have to work your way into a two day greeting marathon.  You can't expect to be able to greet like that overnight.  A week later I am still feeling this reminder.

Now, my sister is a little over 2 weeks old and she is pretty darn cute.  After 2 weeks I was allowed to see her and now I show her to all of y'all.

Fatamata Dia