Day Sixteen: Rambles

Wild goats seem to be everywhere

Mariama on the edge of Soucouta

Laundry day

Home

***

Soucouta is a small village only a kilometre away from Toubacouta. Mamadou, Youssoupha and Mariama wanted me to see it. Since it was during the biggest heat of the day, they insisted I ride on the back of a moto, rather than walking.

The people don’t speak any English. French, Warlof and Serai are the words I hear. (I don’t know how to spell the last two.)

Mamadou took me into his home and I met his grandmother. She was old and pretty in her flowered blue dress and head wrap. She smiled softly and extended her hand.

Folks young and old called out greetings to my friends as we walked the land and the streets. Kids ran and jumped in the 37 degree Celsius sun (98 Fahrenheit). I slogged with the young ones to the edge of the sea, which felt like a narrow river. Mud lay exposed in the low tide and we walked the less gooey parts. Ahead of us hundreds of crabs scurried away to their wetter holes in the sand. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of this migration.

I stood on the moist earth and talked to the water in puddles to my left: “De l’eau … vient ici tout de suite! Je t’attends.” (Water … come here right away! I’m waiting for you.) I stood still with my arms crossed. The young Senegalese gaped at me, then burst out laughing. Dumb white guy, expecting the tide to come in since he told it to. It was great fun.

How incredibly dry Senegal is. The wind blows the sand. The sun bakes the earth. But at least there’s the river and the sea. And through it all the folks of Soucouta and Toubacouta adorn themselves with smiles and splashes of colour.

Before the wrestling competition – drummers on the left and the two female singers on the right

Wrestlers warming up and showing off their bods before the fights begin

Youssoupha, Mamadou, Mariama and Bruce

***

And then there’s the night, when I can breathe easy again and lounge around in t-shirt and shorts. The Senegalese, however, need longsleeved shirts and jeans to ward off the chill. I’ve even seen a down jacket or two.

It turns out that last night was the final session of the Soucouta wrestling competition. I’d thought it would continue to New Year’s Eve. Singing and drumming were scheduled to happen pretty much uninterrupted from 10:00 pm until 2:00 am. Towards midnight, the wrestling would start.

I wanted to go. The four of us walked to Soucouta in the dark, drawn by two female voices beaming from the sound system. They alternated lines of music … seemingly forever. The drums smashed out their beat as we approached the glare of the stadium lights. It was actually a very small space. Only about two hundred of us went inside to witness the spectacle, one white guy included.

Hypnotic … the rise and fall of the singing and the frenzied rhythms of the drumming. The spotlights shone into the darkness, and all around eyes in dark bodies turned towards me. There was no feeling of animosity, merely curiosity.

I sat in a chair at the edge of the wrestling ground. In a flash, Mamadou was at my side, telling me I couldn’t sit there because I hadn’t paid an extra fee. At least that’s what I thought he said, as the music blared and I tried to pick out French words from his quiet sentences. I moved to another side of the arena and sat down in the dirt. Worked for me.

Wrestlers were strutting their stuff in the middle of the open space. Some would pour water over their torsos – naked or clothed – and keep running (dancing?) in a circle. One fellow tossed dirt over himself. All this while the two female singers kept up the drone of the song, while the drummers pounded the skins. The event flowed out from loudspeakers to the world of Toubacouta and I suspect far beyond.

Around 11:30, the first two wrestlers stripped down to loincloths and came to the centre of the field. Judges gave instructions. They crouched towards each other as the drums started up again. Soft touches on each other, reaches to the ground to get dust on their hands, feet moving left and right … then the fierce grabbing, the hips engaged in a supreme effort to throw the other, feet pounding into the sand as the dance moved twenty feet from the centre point. One fellow flipped backwards and fell to the earth, his opponent pressing down. Somewhere a whistle sounded and the match was over. The victor stood above the vanquished, who clutched his knee in agony.

Woh … intense or what. Now I wanted my bed … 2:00 am was a bridge too far. The four of us returned on the black roads towards Toubacouta, with vague human shapes passing us by. Mariama and I walked. Youssoupha and Mamadou shared the moto. I wanted them to stay and enjoy more matches but they would have none of it. Jo had made it very clear to them beforehand: take care of Bruce.

Yes, indeed, I am being cared for in this country, and in this life. I’m in the middle of something big.

Day Fifteen: The Space Around

There is you over there and me in here … or is that so? Perhaps your skin isn’t the end of you. We might be far broader than that, stretching and stretching till we touch the stars.

Maybe there’s a huge space around everything – a sense of outflow, of joining me to whatever’s beside. And time expands too … into a softness, a lingering. It could be that even the difficult moments blend into the air and extend themselves back into the past and forward into the future. Maybe there’s nothing distinct and limited at all, no edges marking “this” from “not this”.

There is space around the beings and moments of the world – softening them and enriching them. I just need the eyes to see.

Just now, it was easy. Ali, Nima and I sat together. I showed them a video on my phone, of Aretha Franklin singing You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman to an audience that included Barack Obama and Carole King, the co-writer of the song. The three of us cuddled and the singer touched not only a Canadian heart, but also Senegalese ones too, despite the language difference. I feel in my being that this is true.

I could feel us extending together … being with Carole, Aretha, Michelle and Barack in that faraway where of Washington, D.C. and that faraway when of 2015. It wasn’t my brain that knew we were all together, but it was nonetheless so. People of the ages 4, 11, 70, 77, 55, 58 and “dead” were united across such permeable boundaries. The space around us kept reaching outward, animating whatever it touched.

Last night, not so easy. Wrestling is one of the big sports in Senegal and there’s a competition in a nearby village happening now. The singing and drumming starts each night around 9:00 pm and lasts till 1:00 am. This will be going on for the rest of 2019.

The voice easily crosses the few kilometres between Soucouta and Toubacouta. I couldn’t sleep. I felt into the space around but there were jangles in the way. The staccato sound, the fatigue, the unfamiliarity of it all. In my better moments, I sank into the sweetness of the tones, feeling the rhythm of the song. And then the walls closed in. Contract … expand … contract … expand …

Still I knew … all moved outwards, dissipating as the night said hello. I was home, within all that the word can mean.

Day Fourteen: The Body

Is it a microphone … or is it a trowel? How I perceive it is up to me. The same goes for my body. I’ve spent most of my lifetime seeing it as a problem … fat, weak, U-shaped rather than V-shaped. What if there’s no “reality” to any of that? There’s merely a body here – white, thin in most places, of seventy years. How about no judgments, just a witnessing of the physical life’s ebbs and flows?

And now a new moment: Gnima wants to hold my cell phone (I’ve learned how to spell her name since last time). So I give it to her, knowing that her 4-year-old hands could easily drop it. It’s simply a new way of seeing things. I wonder if I can apply this to all of my life. What freedom is available here?

Now Gnima is cuddled up against my chest as I tap these words. She’s enthusistically examining her hands while commenting en français. Another now has her up and away, tossing the shark-face beach ball to herself. Everything feels loose, untethered.

I watched a soccer game two days ago – the young men of Toubacouta in red, the fellows of another village in green. I watched their grace, their speed and joyed in the flow of movement, the deft flicks of the ball to teammates, the explosive shots on goal. There’s no need to refer all this back to Bruce. I can merely celebrate youth, power and the lungs going full out. A better choice.

Over the last few days, the body has spoken:

1. It wants to rest, walking some and reposing a lot

2. It struggles with the heat of midday in Africa

3. It coughs a lot in the dust and fumes of Senegal, and enjoys puffer times each day

4. It balances precariously between constipation and diarrhea, seeming to lean towards one or the other at every moment

5. It feels midnight pains and knows that there is a way through this. There is intelligence here.

6. It sees the absurdity of tanning, of accomplishing an appearance that will fade over the span of Canada’s winter.

7. It doesn’t want a lot of food, being in the middle of a sufficiency that doesn’t require adding to the essence.

Let us be at ease then, dear Bruce – in mind, spirit and body. Let us abide here within the African moments. Let us continue the study of French so that I may come closer to my friends. It is enough.

Day Thirteen: Touch

Nima, Bruce and Ali

Back home in Belmont, Canada, I volunteer in a class of 10- and 11-year-olds. They’re marvelous kids. In our culture, if an adult touches a child who’s not in his family, he’s suspected of being a bad person. Therefore I don’t initiate hugs with kids. Still, if they come at me with arms open, I don’t turn away. We hug.

Our society is so touch poor compared to Senegal. Yesterday an old friend came to visit. Ali and I became buddies when I travelled to Africa for the first time – last December. He spoke very little English and I spoke very little French but we connected. Deep communication includes the subtleties of language but goes far beyond that. There are the eyes … and there is the touch.

Ali snuggled close in the chair with me and fingered the bracelet on my left wrist. He gave me that bracelet long ago, gesturing that I should hold up my arm and then slipping it over my wrist. Back then, the beads were held together with yarn, and one day in Toronto, in my room at the bed and breakfast, the beads spilled onto the floor. Happily I found them all, and soon began the search for repair.

Kids at school tried their best with more yarn but soon that one broke as well. The owner of a jewelry shop experimented with a few things, without success. Finally she found a stainless silver chain narrow enough to enter the holes of the beads. Two days before I flew to Belgium and later Senegal, Ali’s bracelet reappeared on my wrist. And now he was touching the beads and the skin beside them.

Ahh … the warmth of the skin, two arms just resting together. There is an abiding with no desire to move on to something else. Ali is fascinated with my grey hair and sometimes runs his fingers through it. He’s also made valiant efforts to braid little bits of it … amazingly with a little success!

Ali and his brother Ansou accepted my offer of bracelets from Canada. Several kids in the Grade 5/6 class created them for the Toubacouta children. Right now I can’t remember which Canadian child provided the adornments that now rest on the brothers’ wrists. “That’s okay, Bruce. The donor will be revealed in the fullness of time.”

I’ve never been a dad or a grandpa. Oh … what I’ve missed! With the help of Ali, Ansou and a whole bunch of young ones in Belmont, I get to know all about family. Lucky me.

Day Twelve: Les Jeux

Ahh … the games people play, in Toubacouta and around the world.

In the evening, after the heat of the day has floated away, the folks come out of their homes to be with their friends. In Canada we have the sport of curling, where large round stones slide down a sheet of ice towards a bullseye. In Senegal players loft heavy metal balls into the air, with backspin, trying to get close to a target rock. The atmosphere is intense. No smiles, but plenty of furrowed brows. As the game wound down, the young man in the picture made a brilliant shot, knocking his opponent’s ball away from the rock. There was no cheering … except for me. The grim intensity wore on.

Farther down the street, I came upon a game of checkers, or was it chess? Actually it felt like something different. Silence from the players and spectators hung in the air. All were focused on the wisdom of the next move. Strategies swirled in the space. I leaned closer, and at one point, reached toward a piece on the board. Truly a dumb move, designed solely to bring attention to myself. The gentleman on the right in the photo shot me a withering glance, and I slunk off to the edge of the gathering. The game continued amid a flurry of brain activity, with nary a muscle moving.

How about a shark face to lighten the proceedings? I had told the kids in Belmont, Canada that last December I’d played soccer with some children, using an empty peanut butter jar. Sophie, an 11-year-old student, suggested I buy some beach balls at the Dollar Store, and inflate them in Africa. Great idea! So I did.

As I lifted this ball to Nima, her face shone. She held it to her chest with such love. It was hers. Nima experimented with throwing it way high and especially liked tossing it backwards. It didn’t matter that her skills were marginal … the smile said all. I loved seeing her chase down the ball when it bounced away.

Now it was time for the Nima and Bruce show. High throws, bounces, wild kicks, rebounds off foreheads … we did it all. Just a simple beach ball was spreading the joy. Really playing the game was just a convenient excuse for laughing together. Nima and I were really good at that.

O Senegal … thanks for allowing me to be with you.

Day Eleven: Yesterday and Tomorrow

The Keur Saloum Hotel is a fifteen-minute walk along the dirt streets of Toubacouta from Jo and Lydia’s place. I walk through the entrance, greeted with a “Ça va?” (How are you?) from the security guard. I proceed unimpeded because I’m a white tourist with money to spend. The black residents of the village would not be allowed in, and that makes me sad. In the words of Werner Erhard, this is meant be “a world that works for everyone”.

Now I sit by the pool, writing these words. I see many pink blossoms floating on the blue of the water. Pink and blue … the colours of young children. I want the beauty of the world’s moments to endure but alas those flowers might block the water intake, or perhaps the pink ones might disturb swimmers. Whatever the reason, an employee is soon out there with a big net, and in minutes the blue is pure. I get the likely practicality but I’m sad once more.

What life of beauty and inclusion is available to us all? What richness of spirit can stroll through it all, reaching towards the future? Even if I don’t have the words to describe such a reality, I know it’s real.

***

For twenty years, Jo played guitar throughout Europe with a band. His life has been permeated with and enriched by music. Over the past few days, he’s spoken glowingly about a wide variety of luminaries – Hoagy Carmichael, Leonard Bernstein, Aretha Franklin, The Who, José Carreras … Back at the house, the little speaker often tells me about The Beatles. They’re really the only musicians from Jo’s heart that are in mine as well.

I remember the Ed Sullivan TV show in 1964 when the mop heads were introduced to North America. Fifteen-year-old girls in the audience were going crazy, leaping in the air and professing their love. I was that age as well, and although I kept my butt on the couch, I realized that there was something new here … and exciting.

I know many of The Beatles’ songs by heart. They’ve been absorbed through my skin, become part of me. However, I’ve never paid much attention to the words. Until yesterday, and Yesterday. The words came onto me as I sat innocently on the patio. Was I really hearing what I thought I was hearing? If so, have I allowed myself to be hypnotized over all these years? Have I become a different person than the oh so receptive teenager of the 1960s? The answer is “Yes”.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday

Oh no, I disagree. I face the future, not the past. I look back, sometimes fondly and sometimes shaking my head, but that’s not where my action is. I still have challenges, of course, but they are outshined by possibility, togetherness, smiles.

Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be
There’s a shadow hanging over me
Oh, yesterday came suddenly

I don’t think in terms of fractions, and whoever “me” is lies both within and far beyond the boundary of the skin. There is no weight coming down, except so very briefly. There is open sky, with room to roam to the stars.

Why she had to go I don’t know
She wouldn’t say
I said something wrong
Now I long for yesterday

There is companionship of the heart. It surrounds me. Jody has died and yet there is love on all sides. Some people some close, some back away. All is well. I say wise things. I say dumb things. And I keep saying …

Yesterday love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday

No games. Open arms welcoming the world. Yes, I give myself time alone to renew but my home is in the marketplace of life, being with people.

Rather than “On I go” it’s very much “On we go”
Happiness is here

Day Ten: Chez Boum

Monsieur Boum is an institution in Toubacouta. His restaurant on a dirt street in the centre of the village draws many locals, a sure sign for tourists like me. Boum is a jolly fellow and remembered me with a big smile when I walked into his place yesterday afternoon. Last December, I believe I surprised the chef when I opted for snake rather than pasta. Delicious … just like chicken!

Jo, Moustapha and I were planning to have dinner at Chez Boum last night since the woman who cooks for them and Lydia was travelling to nearby Gambia for a funeral. Earlier in the day, I was at the house when Fatou heard the news about her beloved great grandmother. Moustapha told his wife in very fast French and I didn’t catch on right away. Seconds later, tears were rolling down Fatou’s cheeks.

At last year’s dinner, I sat on Boum’s patio and watched a young girl in a colourful patterned dress playing across the street. A wall of cement blocks framed her in the twilight. As I took in the same sight yesterday with a bottle of Coca-Cola Zero in my hand, there was only the wall. I missed the young one.

Refreshed, I strolled on in the heat. Hours later I returned to find Moustapha and Jo enjoying their beverages. They shone in the light of the patio. Against the wall there were voices in the dark, ghostly figures reclining in ghostly chairs.

Jo and I launched into some topic in English. Oh, I remember … it was the adventures of Baziel (his son), Olivia (his friends’ daughter) and Bruce in Canada last August. Jo and I flowed. He can flow in Flemish, English, French and German! After a few minutes, I actually noticed that we were speaking English, and remembered that Moustapha knew very few of those words. It made me happy to tell Jo that we should switch to French. Down deep, I knew that I’d soon be in the place where Moustapha currently was, and that was okay. I’m on a journey towards speaking the language well and there’s a long way to go.

Jo and Moustapha kept at it for at least twenty minutes. So fast, so expressive, so incomprehensible. I smiled while imagining me as one of those smooth “gens de français”.

Jo went for the steak, Moustapha for the chicken, and I for the very local fish. Our meals arrived beautifully displayed and the tastes were a perfect match for the sights. To be savoured.

Along came two Belgian fellows to the next table. They lit up. I coughed. They and I kept going with the activities of the moment. I looked at Jo and said “Je vais” (I’m going). And I meant it – delicious flavours or not. There was no place far enough from the smoke. The gentlemen got the hint and moved to the end table. Thank God. I whipped out my puffer and did the deed. Who knows why my lungs are so sensitive but they are. So be it.

Another glowing was Boum’s face as we oohed and ahhed through the meal. We were pleased, he doubly so. At the end we waved goodbye to our chef and walked off into the tropical night. Day was done, and our tummies were happy.

Day Nine: Just Like Home

I lay in bed this morning, watching the breeze flutter the leaves outside my window. Just like home. Nearby the mosquito netting billowed … ever so softly. The hush flowing through the tree was familiar. So was the growling of my stomach.

But then there’s all the rest …

Around 2:00 the morning before, I awoke to a choir of male voices, singing melody and harmonies in another language. Within the fogginess, I wondered if this was real. I still don’t know.

At 6:30 am or so, an hour before sunrise, another song is sung. The Muslim imam climbs the steps of the Toubacouta mosque and begins his long nasal notes. No words come to my ears but the tune easily enters in. There’s no doubt a holy message wafting over the village as he calls the faithful to prayer.

A piercing tone comes. It has to be man-made. It sounds so mechanical, like one of those kids’ whistles that squeals at different pitches as you work the plunger. But fear not … it’s completely natural – a bird unknown to North Americans. And unseen by this one.

Roosters and chickens make themselves known throughout the day. I’m able to make animal sounds, such as horses, cows, sheep, dogs, cats and assorted feathered creatures. Yesterday afternoon, I sat on Jo and Lydia’s patio and called back to the scurrying birds. The roosters looked confused. My fellow humans laughed.

Goats are everywhere in Toubacouta. Short little bleats come and go in the air. The brayings of the many wild donkeys last longer and somehow bring to mind science fiction novels. No doubt Stephen King could make good use of a few of them in his pages.

While dozing this morning, I was assaulted by raucous clapping. It sounded like The Price Is Right was happening outside my door. I haven’t seen any TVs in Senegal and this noise sounded so foreign to the flow of life in Africa. And after only three days here, it was foreign to me.

So … the feeling of home is broadening. It’s not about a particular continent, a particular culture. It’s where I can sink into, whatever the sounds around me.

Just like home.

Day Eight: The Language

I’m sitting here on Tuesday afternoon fresh from my digital copy of French All-in-One For Dummies. I’m no dummy but yesterday’s experiences among the French speakers of Senegal was truly humbling. Most of the folks here know either no English or just isolated words. My high school French knowledge has declined to muddled snatches of vocabulary and sentence structure. Guess that’s what 55 years of non-use will do to a guy!

I listened to a brisk conversation between Moustapha and Jo last night, with musical interludes as Jo improvised on his guitar to the compositions of Fleetwood Mac. The melodies were a blessed respite from the angst of understanding virtually none of the words flowing between the two. Surely I know some French!

As I sat back and shook my head sadly, I was in the middle of a deep “not knowing”. In my spiritual experiences of the past few decades, I’ve sometimes fallen into the wavery bliss of letting go, of not needing to be smart, coherent or even reasonable. Floating free in a land devoid of achievement, with nary a landmark to be seen. Being there isn’t scary anymore.

However, yesterday’s untethered state pulled me towards deficiency. I wanted to know the words, the meanings of the flowing sentences. And then … it was okay that I didn’t. The real now needed to be embraced as a whole experience. Tomorrow (now today) would give me the opportunity to return to the hotel and its WiFi, and to download the Dummies book. Monday evening was simply another version of all being well.

Earlier in the day, I was out walking with Mariama, the 20-year-old woman whom I’m sponsoring. She’s studying Math, World History and an unremembered science at school. We both sighed – long, exasperated ones – as we felt our inability to communicate. We were both sad. Last January, when I agreed to support Mariama, I knew I was coming back to Senegal right around now. So I had eleven months to improve my French. I did virtually nothing. The faraway yearning for contact didn’t get the job done. But yesterday’s tortured journey on foot together hit like a sledgehammer. And so I’m ensconced in a cozy chair at Keur Saloum, studying vocabulary and grammar.

How strange … I just threw in the word “ensconced”. It just came into my head. I love words. I love letting them spill out, and trusting that they’ll be good and true. It’s like a graceful dance, and such a contrast to my crawling en français. But hey … either way, I’m moving!

On we go, Mariama, Moustapha and Fatou