Twins!
A few weeks ago my sister Ami came back from her husbands village, Diofior, to stay with us and brought two new additions to the Diouf family. The boys were born in Kaolack by C-Section quite a few weeks premature. Although they are extremely tiny, both babies seem to be otherwise healthy which is a real blessing in a country where infant mortality is still so high. New babies are typically named after a family member or close friend, which is why families of thirty often have two Aladjis or three Awas, but it is traditional to give all twins the same names. If they had been girls, or a girl and a boy their names would have been Awa and Adama. Twin boys are always named Ouseynou and Assane. Since "it takes a village to raise a child" and you can only feasibly tie one baby on your back at a time everyone in the family has been pitching in and passing the boys around. I was a bit shocked the first time someone handed me a newborn baby and then just walked away, but I've gotten used to it now. Ami will stay with our family for at least a month and eventually go back home to her husband's village.
With the first of the rains just a few months away its time to start thinking about patching up the grass roofs, so the boys of the village spent the last week under the shade tree tying up long lines of thatch. They stretch a piece of rope bark tight between two sticks, lay down a row of grass, then weave another piece of bark over and under the individual bundles. Once everything is secure they us a machete to straighten up the edges then roll it up to be transported and eventually unrolled around the frame of sticks that make up a roof. Since nothing goes to waste here the extra grass cuttings get swept up by the women to be stuffed into mattresses and the roaming donkeys and goats eventually come by to clean up the leftovers.
Sleepless in Senegal
Donkey's braying, babies crying, dance parties that last until 3am, roosters crowing, the dawn call to prayer...there are a lot of things in this country that could interrupt a good nights sleep. Fortunately for me I've learned to tune out these nightly noises and I normally manage to sleep through the night. Unfortunately these past two weeks have been a different story. Since the hot season keeps my hut at a toasty 95 degrees until well after dark I have elected to sleep outside on my newly constructed cement slab, where I at least have the benefit of some air circulation. Falling asleep under a starry desert sky is infinitely more pleasant than sweating to death in my hut, but along with the hot season have come a couple of new neighbors that make staying asleep nearly impossible. Several weeks ago I awoke to loud rustling, fumbled around for my headlamp, shined it across my yard and was greeted by the sight of not one, but two cat-sized rats climbing over my millet-stalk fence. Apparently that mysterious hole that appeared next to my latrine last month has been inhabited by a family of gigantic, man-eating rats who have been coming into my back yard every night and walking me up with their terrible squealing and fence-top acrobatics. My family insists that they make good eating and so I sleep with a shovel next to my bed in case I manage to corner one, but so far no luck. I don't think I can count on Bin Bin to take care of this one, because these rats are easily just as big if not bigger than he is. Looks like I'm on my own.
Spa Day in the VillageBombs Away
I was startled awake the other night by an enormous crack and awoke the next morning to find this baobab tree behind our compound had come crashing down in the middle of the night. The bottom had rotted out and was completely hollow inside, and I guess the weight of the top of the tree was just too much to support, so it snapped clean through about 9 feet above the ground. There was no wind that night, so I wonder what the straw was that broke the camel's back. Maybe a lizard ran up the wrong side of the tree or a bird landed too far out on a branch. The trunk has to be at least 10 feet in diameter...if you turned it on its side you could drive a car right into the open space. Amazing that something that has been standing for hundreds of years could just come crashing down without the slightest warning. I climbed up to the top of the wreckage and took a really neat panoramic shot of the outskirts of my village.
Will someone please explain to me why Senegalese people are terrified of frogs, chameleons, and baby chickens but not of camel spiders? In Seereer they're called horse scorpions, and in the hot season they appear in droves. They average about 6 inches long, run up to 10 miles an hour, and have gigantic pinchers that open both horizontally and vertically (think the movie predator). What's not to be afraid of?!? Even though they're not poisonous I would much rather have to deal with a scorpion than a camel spider. Scorpions run away. Camel spiders run directly at you at 100mph holding their scary little feelers out front and then dodge your flip flop at the last second to sprint between your legs and hide under your mattress. Its an absolute nightmare.
Extreme Makover, Hut Edition
These past couple months I've been working on sprucing up my living situation. My wall had started to split again in the same place it did during the rainy season so I bought a sack of cement and had it patched up. Then I went the extra mile and filled in most of the holes in my floor to try and keep the biting ants at bay. I built a shade structure in the back yard out of neem branches and sacket fencing so I can hang a hammock, trucked in 50 buckets of dirt and 20 mud bricks to make a cement bed outside and bought some string to make clothes lines so I don't have to drape things over my fence anymore. A while back I bought some chicken wire and set up a large garden space on the other side of my fence so I got rid of the back yard garden in favor of more lounge space. It might not be a four star hotel but it sure feels like home.
VACATION!
Between the heat, babysitting duty, giant rats, and horse scorpions I think this is a good a time as any to take a break from the madness of Senegal and visit a different hot, buggy, African country. For the next month I'll be trekking around Tanzania, seeing the Africa that everyone imagines when you mention this continent. I'm going to climb Kilimanjaro, relax in Zanzibar and verbally abuse lions from the perceived safety of a safari vehicle in Serengheti, Ngorongoro crater and Uldavi gorge. Look forward to a nice long trip report when I get back. See you in a month!
