(I wrote this last night and it is clear to me today that the first four paragraphs should be erased, but whatever. if you are reading this it’s only because you love/like me and you already know a lot of what I say is pointless, so deal with it.)
Remember when Grayson was living in Hong Kong and he used to call home on Saturdays from the pay phone outside the MacDonald’s, claiming he felt like a king? That’s a good comparison for yesterday’s café experience. I’m not living in a halfway house with junkies or anything, far from it, but I felt the way he used to sound on the phone.
As of today I have officially finished with trash literature, at least for the near future. This isn’t due to any admirable resolution on my part, I’ve simply read all that’s available. I’m moving on to Phillip Roth’s “The Human Stain.” Roth’s cover has a ringing recommendation from the Chicago Tribune, claiming “In American literature today, there’s Phillip Roth, and then there’s everybody else.”
Well, we’ll just see about that. As Julie said, good literature is just a story that leaves you feeling bad about life. With a title like “The Human Stain,” Roth is right on track.
Streets of Laredo was available too, but even though I’ve read it I was concerned because the cover had fallen off and I didn’t want to lose the last pages mid-read. That happened to Julie once when she was in the Peace Corps, and that particular book had a great ending, so I don’t want any parallel experiences. (hey, if anyone has an extra copy of “Terms of Endearment” laying around will you send it to me? It’s the best book to cry to, and since I will probably want to do a fair share of that the book will be a great excuse and I won’t feel like such a loser for bawling.)
Okay, enough about my books - obviously no one (with the possible exception of mom, and I hope this post isn’t causing her to doubt her parenting skills) cares what I am reading. It was the Laredo reference that distracted me.
I don’t think the Senegalese have pets. There are a lot of animals here; mangy cats and dogs, chickens, horses, etc.. The animals are investments, and there is not a lot, if any, affection muddying up the relationship. One of the cute baby goats on the street today had a red string around it’s neck. The string made me think of Tabaski, when I am told that cute little goat will have it’s throat slit so it can bleed out before being prepared for the Tabaski feast. I wonder if the owner was thinking about that when he chose the color red for the collar. On second thought there probably wasn’t a lot to choose from.
I hear Tabaski meat is quite the treat. I also hear that in the villages it is really good for the first day, then it’s placed in a bucket and served up for a second and third day. Supposedly it starts to smell on the afternoon of the second day, the heat nicely aiding the decomposition process.
Honestly though, I don’t know if that story about the three day meat is true. I can never be sure people aren’t trying to scare me away with stories about village life. I do know that several city people have told me, in complete seriousness, they could never live like “savages” in the villages. I understand where they are coming from, you probably have to be at a certain place in your life to want to give up things like electricity and running water. Still, when they are looking at me and warning me about what I will experience I feel like they are hoping there’s still a chance to change my mind. Then I wonder why they care enough to bother. Maybe people in third world countries are nicer.
Back to the animals. There are a lot of them, including two adorable kittens born a few weeks ago at the training center. In between the volunteers taking turns lightly petting them and making funny cooing noises, a language professor kicked one when it got to close to her. We must have looked pretty dirty to her after we spent all day petting the thing. (I looked especially nasty when, sick of kneeling in the sand/manure pile we were using to fill up our seed bags, I chose to sit down in my skirt).
Lower than cats on the totem pole though are pigs. This is a Muslim country, and pigs are reviled as filthy, disease carrying beasts. Muslims won’t even eat pork, it’s that bad. Someone told me some people will even go out of their way to run over pigs when they see them on the roads, chalking it up as a good deed. Again, unverified story.
There is a herd of piglets in my neighborhood, my host-brother tells me the Catholics are to blame, and while they probably aren’t too popular with most of the people, I am delighted by their presence - a sentiment I’ve learned is best kept to myself.
I was so thrilled to see the pigs the first morning my host brother Ee-Hadj walked me to the bus stop that I excitedly told him the story of Laredo, my pet pig. I blame the excitement for erasing my judgment. So entertained by the sight of the piglets, I gave Ee-Hadj a detailed account of the best parts of life with Laredo. At first I thought he liked the story, “he slept in your room?!” he asked, just as animated as me, “he liked to snuggle?!”
“Yeah, and he…” I said, rambling again before I gradually registered what could only be described as repulsion on Ee-Hadj’s face.
As one person summarized for me later, I might as well have said that I like to keep piles of feces laying around in my room.
I had incriminated myself pretty badly by the time I realized my error, and knew I didn’t have time to turn the situation around before the bus arrived. Still, who am I kidding? What could I say - pigs are actually sacred in America? He’s not stupid. He is, however, pretty cool. And with some quick begging, a hurried reminder of how culturally ignorant I am, he agreed to keep it our secret. Nice guy, that Ee-Hadj. I think he’s kept the secret too, because I am still allowed to eat out of the same bowl with everyone else.
p.s. Quick observation before I say bye. I know I’ve mentioned to you that toilet paper is not used here, water is. I have NOT mentioned that water is unreliable and can cut out with no warning. I find that very unsettling.
The toilet adjustment is pretty funny though. There’s only one per family, and used to our private or semi-private bathrooms and what with the no paper thing, all the volunteers are sketched out about the whole bathroom business. We all feel reasonably at ease in the dorm bathrooms at the training center, something about comfort in the familiar, and in the morning everyone can be found in their favorite bathroom. I think of us as toilet refugees.
p.p.s. my host mom was complaining about cutbacks in the Peace Corps budget and blamed it on “that problem you’re having in Iraq.” She slipped it in mid-sentence. I loved that.
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