A Day in the Life of Koura Ngom

Me: Namfi'o!
You: Mexe meen
Me: A Naaya?
You: O ndik rek
Me: Nam tig o tig ke?
You: owe naaya
Me: Taa mbind na?
You: O waa ma. Nam Ne'ee?
Me: Koura Ngom ne'eem no Senegal
You: Tam Inooro?
Me: Amerik inoorum, ndiiki Ngunjan inoorum
You: Mam geno?
Me: Mbind Sathioke genum no Ngunjan.

Welcome to the exciting and complicated language of Seereer. So what the heck was that all about? In English that exchange went a little something like this:

Me: How are you?
You: I'm fine
Me: Is everything good?
You: Everything is good
Me: How are things?
You: Things are good
Me: How is your family? (literally "where is your family")
You: They are good (literally "they are here"). What is your name?
Me: My Senegalese name is Koura Ngom
You: Where are you from?
Me: I am from America, but now I am from Ngunjan
You: Where do you live?
Me: I live in Mbind Sathioke

I know you haven't heard from me in a while, and there is a very good reason for that. Last Monday was the start of my community based training (CBT) home stay with my Senegalese family. I'm now living in the village of Ngunjan about 45 minutes from Thies, and even if our village did have internet I wouldn't have time to use it. I'm back at the Peace Corps training center in Thies now, so I figured I'd give you all a sneak peak at what I've been doing every day.

First off let me set the scene: I live in a family compound called Mbind Sathioke (Sathioke's House...it is named after the person who built it). There are 42 people in my family, spanning three generations. It is impossible for me to keep everyone's name straight, but most people are named after other people in the family so I can usually guess pretty close to the mark. In my section of the compound there are about 15 people that I interact with on a regular basis, most of them are my brothers and sisters. My father's name is Mordu Mgom, and my mothers name is Ya Nogoy. Ya Alima, Ya Diouf and Ya Badji are the other three wives that live in the compound, and their husbands are the brothers of my father. I have 5 sisters between the ages of 12 and 17, and 6-8 younger siblings between 5 and 10. There is also an infant named Mousa and finally Falou...a 4 year old boy who they call my son because his mother is the same age as me. It is hard to figure out exactly who all of the children belong to as they are raised by the whole family, not just one woman. My 7 year old sister is usually the one in charge of the baby. We also have a group of men in their 20s, called Xadim (friends), living here who are either teachers at the school or students at the university, but do not belong to the family.

Our compound is surrounded by a wall with a gate at the very front, and our part of the compound has 5 cement and tin-roof buildings arranged in a square all facing a central courtyard of sand with three trees. The rooms all open onto the courtyard (think motel style), and my room is in the corner of a building where my mother and Ya Alima live. My window (hole in the wall) is opposite from the door and looks out on the other half of the compound, specifically the horse tam-tam, who is tied up 5 feet from my window. I have a bed, a mosquito net, a small table, a water filter and a plastic mat in my room.

Every morning I wake up around 5am to the sounds of Africa...birds scrambling around on the tin roof, somebody pounding millet, babies crying, and of course tam-tam whinnying directly outside my window. I look at my bedside thermometer which registers around 78 degrees and I roll over and try to fall back asleep. At 7am I drag myself out of bed greet my family, grab my water kettle and head to the pit latrine to go to the bathroom and brush my teeth (stay tuned for a special "hygiene in Africa" entry). On my way back to my room I greet everyone in the compound with "Waldo" which means "good morning." My mother brings my breakfast (bread and coffee) into my room and I eat it on my mat while I watch my younger brothers and sisters head off to school. At 8:30 I walk down the street to the school to work on establishing our garden, which last week meant the other trainees and I were raking trash, digging dirt and hauling loads of manure to mix with the sand that is supposed to pass for soil here. On my way I greet everyone that I pass with a similar exchange to the one at the beginning of the post. In Senegal it is considered extremely rude not to greet everyone you see, so the 500 feet to the school can sometimes take upwards of 10 minutes.

Some days we finish early and have an hour or two of Seereer lessons at our tutor Assane's house, but lately we've had so much to do that we stay in the garden for several hours. Around 11:30 the temperature is flirting with 100 degrees and the sun is too unbearable to continue shoveling and raking so I head back to take a bucket bath and have lunch with my family. In Senegal lunch is the big meal of the day, and all of the children go home to eat with their families. Usually we have Maalo fo Lip wish is basically rice with vegetables, fish, and tons of oil. The Senegalese don't use forks or spoons, instead I dip my right hand into the bowl (left hand is the toilet hand), squeeze out the oil, mash the rice into a ball and try to get more of it in my mouth than on the ground. Friday night my sisters complemented me on my improved eating technique...maybe someday I will actually be able to eat until I'm full! After lunch the children go back to school and I usually play with my "son" Falou or some of the younger kids who aren't in school yet. Maybe if I'm feeling ambitious I study my Seereer.

At 3 I walk across the street to Assane's house for another language lesson, greeting everyone again, even if i just greeted them a few hours ago. Assane makes tea and we all sit on the floor to discuss Seereer grammar and Senegalese culture. After 3 hours of trying to learn in the extreme heat my brain is absolutely fried, which means its just about time to head back to the garden. After another hour or two in the garden we are absolutely exhausted so we trudge down to the boutique to buy a cold fanta from Mbai Faye and sit on some old tires outside the shop. We sip our drinks in between trying to figure out what the men outside the shop are trying to say to us. Usually they are asking me to marry them or telling me they love me, to which I respond "Ha'aa, jegaam o kor." No way, I'm married! I need to buy myself a cheap ring to make it more believable.

The evening is by far my favorite time of day. I get back to Mbind Sathioke with about an hour of daylight left, so I usually try and get my homework done before it gets dark. After my work is done its party time. Sometimes my family asks me to break out the ukulele and sing them a song while everyone dances, but usually the children teach me a Senegalese game and I teach them an American one. Around 9:00 I crowd around a big bowl with 5-7 of my sisters to eat dinner, which is always ground millet with a bean sauce. It has the consistency of extremely muddy water, but the flavor is really growing on me. It has that "really good for you" taste which is a welcome feeling in my unbalanced diet. After dinner I spend another hour or so hanging out with my younger sisters and then retreat to my room for my first alone time since I left my room in the morning. I make another trip to the pit latrine and brush my teeth under the tree in the yard then crash into bed around 11pm. My thermometer still reads between 88 and 95 degrees so I lay as still as absolutely possible and try to get some sleep before I have to wake up and do it all over again.

I will be in that routine 7 days a week for the next two months, with occasional visits to Thies for technical training for the environmental program. At the end of that time, if I manage to pass all of my language exams and the Peace Corps deems me fit, I will travel to Dakar to be sworn is as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. Then I get to move to another village and actually start helping people. In'shallah.