The Bush

Same day

I wanted to break these posts up as this is a months’ worth of updates!  My house is at the edge of the village.  From my one small window on that side I can see three neighboring villages where one speaks a language I do not know, called Pular by the Fula people.  I can say peace only, good morning, and thank you.  Just like I can say I hope there is no trouble and how are the home people, yes, no, and thank you in Mandinka.  Everyone all over speaks a little bit of everything.  It’s actually an incredibly impressive feat that would tickle any linguists interest.  I hope to pick up more of the other two to interact with the neighboring villages better as they are within my range but am going to focus on improving my Wolof first!

Between me and those villages though is the bush.  It’s a different landscape for sure than say the boreal forest in Fairbanks.  But it also is beautiful, even though it’s not green, and lush.  There is a patch of Baobab trees, some Dimba trees (Dimba is the local name for Bush Mango and is nothing like a Mango), Neem trees (the incredibly invasive weed tree that can squeeze out trees that it grows nearby with its toxic roots but can serve as a mild pesticide or mosquito repellent because of those same toxins that are found in the leaves), and a patch of mangos in the Fula village.  The ground is dry and yellow and barren now.  After the rains come most of it will be worked to produce rice and coos (millet).  I hear that the lands turn green.  I visited a friends village that got just a little bit more rain than ours has and it was beautifully picturesque with the roaming livestock and green pastures.  Not green like Ireland, but more green than yellow which was a nice treat for the eyes.

But I experience most of the environment from my ten or so km bike ride to the main road.  My road, is kind of a road, but is very un-road like.  I fight sand as one might fight slippery ice as my bike sinks and swerves through the rough sand traps.

Towards the end of my trek I pass what reminds me of what the surface of the moon might look like, or mars.  I don’t dread the distance or the sand as much as I dread the toubab shouts.  The high pitched and incredible intensity and excitement of the kids as they run screaming towards you yelling what isn’t met to be derogatory but is hard for it not to feel that way as they are essentially yelling “white person!” never fails to make the heart sink to the stomach.

Toddu ma! I am not called that!  So now, after teaching most of them what my name is, I get a lot of shouts that sound more like Loki or Lucky, which is close to my name, but reminds me of Lucky our kitty from home and makes me smile. 

The pure and rich incredibly overwhelming excitement they have for seeing a white person has mystified me.  I mean I get that we look foreign and stand out, but never figured that would render the reaction it gets. 

But then I had a realization the other day after thinking about what they must see or know all tourists to do and that they must see us as children from our culture must see Santa Clause.  Because what people mostly know here from tourists is that they give money, clothes, maybe cars, wells, electricity from solar panels, etc and etc.  Shoot I’d scream too if I believed in Santa Clause to deliver me from clothes barely holding themselves together, clean water, money, and a most definitely better life. 

But that’s what we get to do as PCVs.  To correct that stereotype and give a clearer representation of who we are, namely that we are all individuals and that one doesn’t necessarily explain the other.

But back to the bush.  It’s a beautiful ride and incredible scenery dressed with exotically colorful birds.  I’ve heard there are Hyena’s here and didn’t believe it until I learned the word for them, mbuuki.  If there’s a word for them they must be here.  While the bike ride through it brings some unwanted attention, it’s a ride that I try to soak in, even though I make it often, as I know that they are sights rarely taken in by foreigners.