KORITE

KORITE… a very “chill” affair. I woke up Wednesday thinking Korite would be Thursday, but was surprised to hear the sound of people doing nothing while the day was still cool (and early) enough for them to being doing normal household chores, like laundry and cleaning and such. I was surprised after the fact that I was able to correctly identify “the sound of people doing nothing”, but all I can say is, when I listened to the compound (before opening my door), I got the distinct impression that people were doing nothing and it must be Korite. And it was.

There was a big prayer service in the schoolyard. I was encouraged to go and take lots of pictures, so I did. I found myself caught in one of those moments when it is really inappropriate to laugh out loud and thus, incredibly difficult to prevent yourself from doing just that. I was in a line of women seated in the back so that I could take some pictures without disturbing those praying around me. A very small boy was seated in the row in front of me. Very small, like maybe 1 year old, give or take a few months. He “had an accident” loudly and messily at a very inopportune moment in the service, which in itself wouldn’t have caused too much laughter to contain. But, the only slightly older child next to me began imitate the sound over and over and over. And it was so hard to keep a straight face, especially since I was in a place where it was SO inappropriate.

After the prayer service, I headed back to my compound and helped cook dinner: Meat and Sauce. “Sauce” is basically anything oil-based that goes on your grain. “Mafe” is generally non-oil based. So our sauce had oil, meat, macaroni, potatoes, tomato paste, and cabbage. Along with the standard pepper, onions, and garlic. After lunch we hung out, visited other compounds, and then I made tortillas and salsa, to share a little American snack food with my family. The salsa was met with some approval, but the tortillas (which were nothing special in my opinion… I over buttered), the tortillas were a RAVING success. They would try a little piece and say “WHAT DID YOU MAKE THIS WITH?” Oh, well, this is mostly tomatoes and… “No, we see that, tomatoes and onions, but THOSE. What’s in THOSE?” Umm… flour, butter, some salt. “Next time you make them, I want to see!!!”

It was a very relaxing holiday. Much more low-key than I had anticipated. There is one part that I found interesting (and occasionally confusing). The kids, and some older women, went around from compound to compound, sort of like trick-or-treating, asking for small change. That was fine. I had sort of heard about it before so I’ve been collecting my small change for the last few weeks. But then some of the women in my compound came to my hut and asked. It was fine, just a little strange. I didn’t really expect them to come to me. Maybe go to other compounds sure, but well, I don’t know. Confusing, but not really frustrating.

After Korite, I went into Kolda and met the new stage. There were 6 trainees that came down to Kolda and we had a good Mexican-themed feast ready for them. Today the SED (Small Enterprise Development) kids came to Velingara and saw what there is to see here. They headed back to Kounkane and will be there tonight before going to Jiaobe, the largest Lumo market in West Africa, tomorrow.

While I was in Kolda I was walking back from the market and got caught in a rain storm. I found shelter in a boutique on the road and sat for about an hour with a bunch of guys huddling out of the rain. They spoke Wolof, so I didn’t get to talk with them much, but I did watch one of them put on a rain jacket and go out in the street during the heaviest part of the rain to empty his trash into the small river now flowing along the side of the road (remember the flash-flooding I talked about earlier?). He’d had a few rice sacks filled with garbage that I’m guessing were to be taken to the dump (if you can call it that—dumping pile is more accurate) but when the ditch on the roadside filled with water swiftly flowing downhill, he took the opportunity to slowly empty the trash into the stream so that it would be washed farther down the street and into the large ditch on the main road. I debated writing about that because I don’t want to present an image of Senegal as the dirty, trash-infested, third-world nation pictured in the sponsor a child advertisements. I just don’t want the implied disapproval and pity that such an image might evoke. It’s true that trash management is a huge issue and often an overlooked part of developing infrastructure. Maybe not overlooked so much as under-prioritized. But to add balance to the image, it reminded me most of being in Paris, when each morning the street-cleaners would flood the gutters with water to wash the street trash into the sewers. It made the city look cleaner, but after seeing that little bit in the morning, it was a little disheartening. Like the clean image was all a big scam, because really there isn’t anything very neat and clean or environmentally healthy about washing the trash into the drains. It’s still trash that didn’t make it into the thousands of trashcans that ideally would keep Parisian streets clean. So I refrained from judging the Senegalese man’s actions in view of the practices of what I’ve heard described as one of the cleanest (looking) cities in Europe. Of course, maybe I was just misinformed on that count.