Coming Full Circle

June 30, 2008

The end of the school year is approaching, and it seems I have come almost full circle, because just the other day I was introduced to a young man who came to Dakar for a ten-week internship. An interesting fellow, he is a computer science and religion major from Indiana, and he described with something vaguely akin to relish the giant cockroach that tried to ’spoon’ with him on his first night in town.

He then recounted his own trip to the tailor’s, a mere 2 bedraggled shacks down from a spot used as a central goat meetin’-and-greetin’ spot, and he managed to take it all beautifully in stride. I remembered my own first meeting with the school principal during which we were interrupted by the bleating of goats, and this in turn was followed by a flood of memories: I remembered my first ride on a suitably rusty car rapide, the view of fly-covered sides of beef hanging in the midday sun, and the brightly colored boubous of the mango sellers before they were turned from the pavement.  

In some ways, I almost envy the young man with so much of his experience still before him; then again, I find myself excited to think that I have already been through this stage and will have new worlds to discover when I come back for year two of my teaching contract. The first year has been a cornucopia of so many new sights and sounds and smells and experiences that I can hardly begin to imagine what else might be around the bend.

I love picking tart little limes right off the tree or plucking stems of fuchsia bougainvillea for my table or fragrant basil or lemongrass for my kitchen much as I love the the custom of saying hello to everyone you meet or listening to the beat of the djembe as we sit around a fire grilling fish, watching the surfers catch the last waves at sunset.

I love the novelty of the head wraps and the fashions, even down to the purple eyeliner the women here use to extend their brows. I feel sad that I have not yet begun to make inroads into understanding the people here, really understanding their codes of conduct, the unwritten rules of their society and the things that are most important to them, but perhaps that will come in time.

In a way, perhaps it is good that I cannot begin to imagine what awaits me in year two. I could never have envisioned what the experience in Senegal would be like: the loneliness and isolation and downright misery of so many moments contrasted with the fun of singing ‘one, two, three o’ clock rock’ with some of our younger students after a party or awkwardly practicing the mbalax with the girls who help do my wash; the joy of taking tea for hours under the shade of a mango tree and sitting down to a communal platter of fish and rice contrasted with those initial days when I climbed under my mosquito net at 7.30 pm for fear that a killer insect might get me, putting an untimely end to my adventures…

Having survived relatively unscathed until now, I am reminded of the words of an early 20^th century Greek poet who said:

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge. […]

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.

-          Cavafy, Ithaca

The same may, I think, be said of Dakar.

Since one of the benefits of the schoolteacher’s existence is the awesome vacation time, I expect that this may be my last post until September, as I will be doing what we all love best: setting out on the road in search of more adventures!