Of Raciness and Religion

December 10, 2007

I sense surprisingly little hostility from my local neighbors, not even when they tell me that all of the big properties in this swank neighborhood are owned by Americans. Further, there really does not seem to be any festering resentment towards white colonialist types; more than one Senegalese has said to me: “I may be black and you may be white, but if we are cut we will both bleed, and our blood will be red.” (Such conversations, by the way, are invariably conducted in French, as I have yet to learn the major local language, Wolof. French is spoken only by the educated minority, around 30 percent or so of the total population. As a non-Wolof speaker, I would have a lot of trouble if I were living in a rural area. From what I am able to report at present, Wolof is an interesting language: “yes” is “Waaw,” pronounced “wow,” and “Jerejef” is “thank you.” I will be sure to keep you posted as my language skills progress).

Senegal has a number of different ethnic groups, of which the Wolof constitute the majority at 43.3%. Other groups include the Pular (23.8%), Serer (14.7%) and Jola (3.7%), each of which has its own language. When during a lesson we had on colonialism and its effects on indigenous cultures I asked my students whether they thought that Wolof grammar, etc. should be taught properly in schools, they shrugged and said nah, no one in the outside world outside uses it anyway, hence learning it formally would be a waste of time. I asked them whether that means the Danes shouldn’t learn Danish or the Icelanders Icelandic since their respective languages are spoken almost nowhere else. (I think the point I was trying to make went right over their heads, as it so often does, but I’ll try again soon, inshallah…)

Given all the different ethnicities, there are also any number of religions. The majority of the population (around 90%, I think) is Muslim, the remainder mainly Roman Catholic. In my class, it is relatively simple to tell the two apart: the Muslim kids have Arabic- inspired names like Fatima and Mohammed, whereas the Catholics have French names like Benoit or Marguerite. On the one hand, there are devout Muslims who pray 5 times a day or more and may not shake a woman’s hand, then there are those Muslims who drink beer (Flag and Gazelle are the two most popular local brews) and/or palm wine, plus there are many Catholics and Muslims who intermarry and most families don’t seem to think it matters a great deal one way or the other.

There is a lot of tolerance and joking amongst different religious and ethnic groups here; I might almost have ventured to say that Senegal is more of a true melting pot than the US. (I am the least tolerant of everyone, I suppose, because I deeply resent the daily call to prayer at around 5:30 or so each morning, which is why I am now up and working on this column. Granted, in Germany the church bells would chime, but not at this – dare I say it?! – ungodly hour. Although the mosque is at quite some distance from where I live, it often sounds as if the muezzin is in the room with me. If he would only desist, this poor schoolteacher would have the untold luxury of sleeping until 6:10 a.m).

To continue, however, just when I thought I had discovered the truly tolerant society, I then discovered that there is a Wolof caste system: often your last name will be an indication of whether or not you are descended from the nobility. Intermarriage with members of the lower castes is still frowned upon, as it is thought to bring misfortune upon a family. Those descended from the nobility even dislike having their hair cut by a member of the lower class, as they fear their hair might fall out (!). Among the younger generation these ideas are starting to fade a bit, but despite (or perhaps because of?) devout religious belief there is still an enormous amount of superstition: belief in the evil eye, wearing of lucky charms, etc.

In the final analysis, everyone reassures me that things here in Senegal could not be more secular, and I am increasingly inclined to believe them: at a recent wedding reception I attended I was careful to dress very conservatively, so as to offend neither the Catholics nor the Muslims who might be in attendance, only to be utterly flabbergasted at the amount of flesh on display. Many of the outfits would not have been out of place at a New York City nightclub, and there I was, looking just like Mary Poppins, albeit minus the scarf and the umbrella!

About the Author : Tamara-Diana Braunstein brings us her stories from Senegal every week. She was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a restless wanderer who earned an MA from the University of Freiburg and has worked in a youth hostel in the French Alps, a law firm in Montreal, the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as in university press publishing. At the moment her home base is Dakar, Senegal, where she is supposed to be teaching but is doing far more learning, as you will see by reading her blog at www.senegalschoolmarm.blogspot.com