Top Quotes: “Learning to See: And Other Stories and Memoirs from Senegal” — Gary Engelberg
“To manage death and help people to cope, Senegalese culture, like other cultures, structures the mourning process. When Alpha’s father died, he explained that after the burial, which for the Muslims occurs, if possible, within 24 hours of death, there were ceremonies and prayers on the third day, the eighth day and the fortieth day which correspond to the itinerary of the body and soul as they move through the stages of putrefaction and returning to their maker. Old men from the mosque are called in to read all the verses of the Quran, following which porridge with sweet yoghurt (lax) and little biscuits or hard candies are distributed to all who attended. Alpha’s mother, like all Moslem widows, was expected not to leave the house and to remain in mourning for four months and ten days after the death of her husband. During this period of mourning Alpha and the family took care of her needs. But after this period, she was expected to end her mourning.
Alpha explained that on the Christian side of his family they were more flexible in terms of the time between death and burial. Since his brother had married a Catholic woman, Alpha was well placed to compare Moslem and Christian customs. Catholic widows, for example, wear black for a year and do not go out after sunset. Burials are often delayed for days and sometimes weeks.”
“When I commented on how frustrating it was to try to run an organization when people kept taking time off for funerals, Alpha explained that most Senegalese feel a strong obligation to be present at the burial of people they have known well, or even those they have shared a neighborhood with or are somehow connected to through the intricate lacework of relationships that binds this society so tightly together. I began to see how comforting it must be to have all your colleagues come to your home in a group to share in your grief and to show your other relatives how much consideration they have for you and for the defunct.
When Moslems and some Christians present their condolences, they use an interesting Wolof phrase — “srigindigal” — which signifies “Remember, you are not alone.” When it is broken down it translates roughly as “Look up to see those ties that bind all of us together.”
The highly organized process of presenting condolences at Catholic funerals is particularly impressive. After the burial, mourners from the tight knit Catholic community line up literally around the block and teams of designated young people manage the movement of the impressive crowds that keep coming all day long. At these moments, the solidarity of Senegal’s Catholic minority is palpable.”
“Alpha explained to me that the cracks in time at noon between morning and afternoon and at sunset, between day and night belong to the spirits and that it is important for everyone, but particularly for vulnerable people like young children and pregnant women to get out from under the trees and off the streets at that time. I am not talking about some little traditional village in the bush. I am talking about the residential areas of Senegal’s cosmopolitan capital Dakar with a couple of million inhabitants!”
“It was estimated that over 80% of Senegalese consulted traditional healers instead of or in addition to Western medical practitioners. The doctor himself believed that certain ailments were best treated by African medicine.”
“Coexisting alongside Christian and Moslem beliefs about death is that invisible parallel universe, the world of the spirits that is as real for most Senegalese as the world Westemers see. It is a world not frequently spoken of, especially with foreigners. But when you have been here for a while, you begin to see glimpses of it all around you: the water on the doorsteps at dawn, the birds in the goal posts during half time, the children disappearing at one in the afternoon, the frequent visits to the healers and the ever-present amulets that all come together in an intricate, internally logical system.
The Senegalese perceive much danger in the world around them associated with different kinds of spirits that shadow every person and every object.”
“Because of Senegal’s role in the French empire many Senegalese soldiers had fought at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam and, if they survived, had returned home with Vietnamese wives. In fact, there was an entire community of Senegalo-Vietnamese families and their offspring in Dakar.”
“For decades if not centuries, the most visible, gay men in Senegal, the more effeminate men and the cross-dressers, had an integral role to play on all levels of Senegalese society. They were advisors to princes, assistants in organizing political campaigns, companions, advisors and helpers to powerful women leaders, organizers of weddings and baptisms, hair braiders, cooks, tailors and most visibly, spectacular dancers in the street sabaars or tam tams periodically organized by women’s groups in big circlès in the neighborhoods or towns. Women came to them to find out ways of making their husbands love them or getting rid of co-wives. They advised women on the latest hair and clothing fashion and on the tailors currently in vogue.
For gay men, the sexual side of things was always discreet as it was between men and women. The British historian Michael Crowder wrote about homosexuality in Saint Louis in the 1950s. He described the discreet meeting places for gay men where they could pick up other men for sexual relations. He noted that the older Moslems advised against these practices. But he found that Africans were very tolerant. They could disapprove of certain behavior on moral grounds without having recourse to physical violence against the behavior they denounced.
But there was always an undercurrent of distaste for homosexuality in Senegal that occasionally found its expression in insults and rock throwing by young people against goor-jigeen especially when they left their neighborhoods. The locals were rarely bothered since all the young people had grown up together, everybody knew everybody else and their families, and parents would reprimand their children for annoying the goor-jigeen if they did so.”
“One of the more frightening aspects of being a goor-jigeen in Senegal was the fear of being forced to have sex, by relatives, by friends, by strangers and even by the police. Aliou was clever and avoided situations where he could easily have been raped. He did, however, when he went to new places, occasionally experience verbal abuse, insults and threats and in one or two cases, physical abuse in the form of stone throwing. He rarely spoke of the sexual aspect of his relationships with anyone other than fellow homosexuals and even then, he was selective in his choice of confidants. His partner Badou helped to protect him from abuse when he could. Aliou noted that many of the gay men he knew kept their sexual inclinations and relationships a secret to avoid ostracism, stigmatization, and physical or verbal abuse. Many were bisexual or even married specifically to hide their homosexuality.
Aliou was lucky to have a “husband” but more important to have the support of his neighborhood, of the women in his family and of his gay community mentors. His father and brothers were not particularly pleased that their son/brother was so effeminate. But he was so smart and so sociable that they enjoyed his company and overlooked his sexual ambiguity. In many ways, he somehow escaped many of the negative attitudes and perceptions that form the backdrop for the lives of many gay men in Senegal. Badou was very supportive, but totally discreet and kept a respectful distance from Aliou’s family.
Aliou was in his mid-twenties in the early nineties when the AIDS epidemic began decimating the gay community. But for many years, this community was largely ignored by the authorities. Studies around the year 2000 finally revealed the existence of a significant underground gay community in Senegal. Later studies showed high HIV infection rates — ten to twenty times higher than national rates — in this group. The risks of the spread of the virus posed by and to this community became clear. They were finally written into the national strategy.
Many of Aliou’s gay friends became mediators in medical facilities and facilitators who organized awareness-raising sessions among gay men. For these young, disenfranchised men, AIDS created not only employment but purpose in life. They became useful in new and different ways. They were helping to stop the spread of AIDS in their country and protecting their community.
Some of the gay men living with HIV had the role of announcing test results to newly diagnosed HIV-infected gay men like themselves. They helped these, men regain hope after the shock of the initial announcement of test results, by presenting themselves as examples. “I have had the virus now for three years”, they would explain, “but if you take your anti-retrovirals and improve your lifestyle, you can live a nearly normal life for many years to come.”
From these friends, Aliou learned about the dangers of unprotected anal intercourse and condoms and how to use them. Gays gradually began to organize themselves in associations in Dakar and throughout the country’s 14 regions. Aliou was now pushing forty and did not join an association but nevertheless kept abreast of things happening in the gay community.
Things got much worse in 2008–2009, when a new wave of homophobia swept over Senegal. It was fueled in large part by a religious backlash to a growing visibility of gay men in the tourist centers on Senegal’s Petite Côte and a supposed gay marriage covered in a local tabloid accompanied by photos. Aliou and Badou were in a gay club in Saly one night when the police raided. Everyone was having fun just being spontaneous and outrageous in ways they could not do in daily life. The police emptied and closed down the nightclub that was owned and run by a gay French man. Some of their friends were beaten and spent the night in jail, but were released the next day.”
“The fact that African gays at the conference came out and actively advocated for their rights elicited a strong backlash. It came from a more extremist version of Islam, and part of a general Moslem radicalization slowly imported over the years from the Middle East by returning koranic teachers and imams. Homosexuality was increasingly perceived as an import from the Western Satan and a tool in the culture wars between Islam and the West. They were shocked and enraged by the conference.
And so began the dark years. For the first time, as he approached fifty, Aliou began to experience real fear and rejection. The changes that ensued included stricter application of the law forbidding acts against nature that had been largely dormant for many years, just like some of the sodomy laws on the books of certain American states. Regular sermons and hostile public discourse and media expressing the ambient homophobia all led to harsher treatment and greater exclusion of gay people. It made gay bashing fashionable, acceptable and even proof of being a good Moslem.
Aliou tried to dress more conservatively and even tried to change the way he walked, to avoid having stones thrown at him in neighborhoods where he was not known. His relationship of 23 years did not survive the new pressures in the community. Badou could no longer live in an environment that defined him daily as nothing more than a gay man. He could not stand the constant persecution anymore and finally decided to seek asylum in the Netherlands. He begged Aliou to come with him, but Aliou did not want to leave his country. He could not imagine himself living in Europe, even with Badou at his side. They reluctantly decided to part company leaving Aliou, who was nearing fifty, exposed and alone for the first time in many years. It took Aliou a long time to recover from this unexpected separation.
A once relatively tolerant and compassionate Senegal had begun to fall under the influence of the more conservative Moslems who were using the fight against homosexuality as their battle cry. Their strict interpretation of Islam was in the ascendance and no one wanted to be seen publicly as a bad Moslem. They created a sort of Senegalese schizophrenia. On the one hand the Senegalese based their lives on fundamental cultural values of tolerance and understanding and, on the other, they believed in adherence to stricter Moslem or Christian religious values. By emphasizing religious orthodoxy, the extremists were able to push a significant segment of Senegal’s 85% to 95% Moslem majority into a frenzy of anti-homosexual activity.
Under the leadership of an Islamic NGO, the fundamentalists had several major successes over that two-year period. They sent delegations to all the heads of Senegal’s powerful Moslem Sufi brotherhoods where they succeeded in creating fear and panic. They told stories of obscure Western gay lobbies advocating for gay marriage and the rights of a growing horde of gay men in Senegal who would soon trample on traditional Moslem values. They spoke of young people being “recruited” into homosexual prostitution as an alternative to unemployment. They threw the issue of pedophilia into the mix to make sure that no right-minded person would refuse to adhere to their cause.
They succeeded in convincing leaders of Senegal’s brotherhoods to deliver coordinated, repeated sermons against homosexuality and homosexuals every Friday in mosques across the country. Aliou felt increasingly ashamed and alienated when he heard imams speaking out against homosexuality. He was a practicing Moslem. He had not felt he had done anything wrong. He was just being who he was and loving the men he loved. Now, for the first time in his life, he really wanted to hide.
The anonymous article about him finally came out in Senegal’s internet newspapers and on the front page of one of Senegal’s dailies. It turned out to be one of the better-written, more sensitive articles on gay men that had come out in the Senegalese media and flew off the newsstands. The Senegalese have an insatiable appetite for stories about homosexuality. As expected, there were many negative reactions. But what was most surprising and what pleased Aliou, was the large number of positive, sympathetic responses. Readers who wrote letters to the editor signing their names under the disguise of initials or pseudonyms were released from social pressures and freed to express a more tolerant ‘live and let live’ attitude. It was the beginning of a timid, new, more open social dialogue that would continue for years to come.
Aliou was now older and alone. Many gay men including several of his friends had died. Others, like Badou, had gone into hiding or exile, making it difficult for medical authorities to continue their work with these communities on AIDS prevention and care. After the homophobic events in 2009, prevention and care activities for this community were virtually suspended for over nine months. This placed the entire Senegalese population, in cluding Aliou, at greater risk of HIV.”
“Government figures including the Prime Minister and Minister of Justice were all human rights activists, prior to entering the government. But early in his presidency, the new Senegalese leader was challenged by the religious right to state his position on changing the law on unnatural acts. The political storm created forced the new, liberal-minded president of Senegal to declare that the decriminalization of homosexuality and gay marriage would never occur under his regime. His country was not ready. He and his Ministers became virtual hostages of the extremists in order to preserve their political careers. This created a sort of omertà around the issue of homosexuality that set back progress in the liberalization of attitudes and laws concerning LGBT in Senegal.”
“An aging Aliou lived on sweet memories. There were no more casual relationships with handsome young men. Though he and his one true love had lost contact over the years, Badou was often in his thoughts and dreams. He had gradually been transformed into a quiet activist in his declining years. He was not a public speaker, but he was very effective in one on one discussions with friends and acquaintances. His ability to listen and his respect for the secrets of those who confided in him made him a trusted “aunt” for his community. Each day, both young and older gay men came to sit with him and talk as he crocheted and listened to them intently, occasionally offering an insight or a suggestion.
Like a growing number of Senegalese, Aliou was terribly uncomfortable with the new trends in the practice of Islam in his country and equally uncomfortable with the institutionalized persecution of a segment of Senegalese society. The silence in government circles beçame deafening. There was a need for people to begin questioning their own prejudice and that of their society and speaking out. He was convinced that they could search for solutions in their rich cultural heritage. Aliou hoped that the creation of the Observatory, like the publication of the article about him years before, would be another trigger for the many more liberal-minded Senegalese from all walks of like who were viscerally uncomfortable with the increasing dominance of a more conservative form of Islam, to begin to react publicly despite their fear of being labeled as “bad Moslems.””
“All the men of the neighborhood came to the courtyard of the mosque and prayed as one, over Aliou’s body, shoulder to shoulder, to ask Allah to forgive him and have mercy on him as they would do for any deceased person from their community. Aliou’s body was carried to a waiting black panel truck with a decorative serrated border around the roof that served as a hearse. Many of the men accompanied the body to the cemetery where Aliou was lowered into the waiting grave in the hands of his friends and neighbors and laid on his side facing Mecca.
This was unlike the scenes in some other places in Senegal where gays were refused burial in the local cemetery by angry crowds or even had their corpses exhumed and dragged through the streets. Here the community had mobilized. Back on Rue Treize, they had set up chairs and a tent that blocked traffic. After the burial, hundreds of people from the neighborhood and elsewhere whose lives Aliou had touched, gradually joined the mourners to present their condolences to his sisters and brothers and their families. There were many testimonials, all of them respectful, loving and grateful. At one point, when Aliou’s favorite younger sister, Maimouna, looked up through her tears, she thought she saw a tall, dark man with greying hair and gleaming hazel eyes standing silently and watching from a corner of the tent.”
“One volunteer tells the story of hailing a taxiaround midnight and announcing his destination in Wolof. The taxi driver turned around and looked at him with a terrified expression and thenfloored the gas pedal because he thought he had picked up a djinn (spirit) since he had never seen a white person who spoke Wolof.”
“Margot was not really interested in the sights of Tivaouane. She had a mission and very little time. She was armed with pictures of her mother and went directly to the neighborhood where she knew her mother had lived. She learned some basic Wolof greetings, and with the help of a local interpreter, began asking people of her mother’s age if they had known Ginny Neely. She showed them the pictures and told them what she knew about her mother’s work with Peace Corps in Senegal. Most Senegalese knew “les volontaires américains” or as many pronounce it “Peace Corpse” with no intention of disrespect. To Margot’s satisfaction, she gradually met people who had known and worked with her mother as a Volunteer. But she was yèt to understand the extent of what she had discovered.
Two of the women still had photos of her mother that they had saved. They were a bit faded and worn from time and hand-ling but were clearly important souvenirs for their owners. In the pictures, Margot saw a younger and very happy version of her Mom. She could feel the excitement of the Peace Corps adventure through the photo. In a couple of pictures, she thought she was looking at herself. The women spoke warmly of her mother and the good work she had done at the social center to provide skills training for members of women’s groups so that they could develop income-generating activities. Margot was proud that her mother was remembered so warmly by women who could not speak English and barely spoke French.
But her discoveries were not yet complete. A third woman’s eyes filled with tears when she learned that her old friend Ginny had passed away and realized that she was talking to Ginny’s daughter. She fondly pressed Margot’s upper arm repeating the word “massa, massa doom” a wolof expression used to relieve pain in others. “Take heart, my child, take heart.”
Her name was Fatou. She noted Margot’s resemblance to her mother. She invited Margot into her little home and began serving Senegalese tea, ataaya, telling Margot about moments shared with her mother, as she brewed the three successive little glasses. Margot instinctively knew that this woman had been very close to her mother.
After a while, the woman pulled out an old, rusted metal box from under her bed where she kept memorabilia. She pulled out an envelope yellowed around the edges by time and handed it to Margot. As she pulled out the card it contained, Margot realized that this woman had saved the wedding invitation that Ginny had sent her 31 years before. Her mother had wanted to share this important passage in her life with her old Senegalese friend. “Of course, she knew that the woman could not come to the wedding,” Margot thought to herself. But she understood that her mother had wanted Fatou to be part of this significant passage in her life.”
“Then came the final surprise of Margot’s mission. Arame introduced her daughter who was a younger version of her mother, with the same almond-shaped eyes. She said her name was “Neely” and explained that she had given Ginny’s last name “Neely” as a first name to this daughter. Her mother’s name had been pronounced daily in Arame’s house for 25 years! Her memory was alive and well in Tivaouane.
It was evening and the gentle call to prayer of the mosque was hypnotic. Back in the room of her funky hotel, Margot was now seeing what her mother had seen and hearing what her mother had heard. She was beginning to understand the relationships that her mother had managed to weave with these extraordinary women from a totally different culture. She realized how deep and lasting the relationships were and finally understood why they had been so important to her mom.
While Margot was in Tivaouane, two of the women took her to the house where her mother had lived as a volunteer. It was a simple three-room banco house with a corrugated tin roof. Margot imagined the noise it must have made when it rained. She pictured her mother sitting with her roommate reading by candlelight in the evenings. Her mother had told her that they did not have electricity. But things had obviously changed.”
“On her return to North Carolina, she sat with her father and brother for several hours recounting every detail of her time in Senegal. There were tears. There were smiles and laughter. She showed them pictures of the people she had met and the places she had visited. Then she leaned over and whispered into her father’s ear. He smiled and nodded his head.
The next day, Margot and her father and brother visited the cemetery where her mother was buried. When they arrived at her mother’s plot, they quietly removed the weeds that had grown up around the grave. Margot slowly reached into her bag and respectfully placed the small stones she had carried back from her mother’s house in Tivaouane, one by one, on Ginny’s tombstone.”
“Senegalese always share food. They have been taught to share since they were children. An adult seeing a child walking around eating bread or fruit or candy will invariably say: “Mai ma” — give me some — so that the act of sharing becomes ingrained. Those children grow up to be uncomfortable eating alone without inviting the people around them to join.
Riding on the bus between Chicago and DC, as evening fell, and Rudy took out the sandwich that had been lovingly prepared for him for the trip, he turned and offered to share it with the stranger sitting next to him. The man was surprised and initially refused but finally accepted on Rudy’s insistence. The man was obviously hungry and enjoyed the gift of unexpected sustenance.”
“Kolere (pronounced ko-lair-rey) was one of those key wolof values that he regularly explained to his foreign students. He explained to them that it encompasses loyalty, gratitude, appreciation, obligation, and recognition. It remembers and acknowledges the good that people have done for you and values the ties that have been created by those good deeds. They say that “kolere faces backwards”, (kolere ginaaw ley fete]; it looks back to the past and is based on not forgetting and on maintaining the connections that have been created during past social interactions. It is another element in the glue that holds together the intricate Senegalese social architecture.
Ideally, it is a noble value that can even pass from one generation to the next. On Tabaski, the feast of the lamb, for example, which commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael, a sheep is sacrificed in each Moslem home. The meat is distributed to family and friends. A daughter whose mother is deceased may send a leg of lamb to a person who was kind to her mother when she lived, but has no blood relationship with the family. For centuries, on the feast of the sacrifice, known as Eid-al-Adha in Arabic, Moslems have sent portions of freshly sacrificed lamb to Christian friends. The Christians, in turn, have for hundreds of years, been sending buckets of ngelaax (a millet and peanut porridge) to their Moslem friends in Senegal around the Easter holidays.
Rudy enjoyed explaining how, with the help of strong oral history, some of these kolere relationships can become familial obligations and can be passed from one generation to another. Families not related biologically can become bound together over time in a preferential relationship that the great grandchildren may not fully understand. Nevertheless, they take this relationship as a given and continue to nourish it, having been inculcated with a sense of duty based on kolere. These relationships can expand to include not only gifts but protection and a “no violence” policy towards this family that make arguments or litigation unthinkable. The focus is not on the value of the debt but on the value of the relationship.”
“Bthe time I arrived in Senegal in the mid 1960’s, Senegal had already become a haven, a place of asylum, for the Haitian intelligentsia fleeing the brutal Duvalier regime thanks to President Senghor’s welcoming policies to his black diaspora francophone brothers and sisters.”
“El Hadj Omar made a great tour to the east, passing through Al Hazar University in Egypt, Algeria, and Fez in Morocco — all the religious centers of Islam. He also in some ways dominated the West African environment by his democratic and liberal doctrine and by the patriotic sentiments that he expressed to liberate Africa. From the beginning of colonization in W. Africa to the time of Faidberbe, he brought together many people from Guinea to Mali, Boundou, the banks of the Falene, through the Petit Cote, where he settled for a while to recruit disciples to conduct his jihad against the invasion of W. Africa by the colonizers. He worked cautiously, starting first by Islamisizing surrounding populations. While these populations already had their own cults and religions, the policy in West Africa at the time required a unifying factor. This unifying factor was Islam and an Islam as conceived by El Hadj Omar.”
“We laughed about the time my Dad, when he was alive, had been interviewed by a newspaper reporter about living in a retirement village. He told her it was like living in Death Valley! When she quoted him in the headline of the article she wrote, all the neighbors came to complain to my father that he was ruining the property values!”
“It is very embarrassing, but whenever you do anything good for anybody in Senegal, they insist on talking about it, over and over, whenever the occasion presents itself. They keep reminding you and letting you know, and everybody around them who happens to be present, that they haven’t forgotten and are grateful. It took me years to stop feeling embarrassed when they did this. I would turn red as a tomato. Reputation is important in Senegal and by contributing to your good reputation by telling others about your good works, they are, in a sense, returning your gift. “Good deeds people do for you should be talked about…” kuu lay def lu baax, dan koy wax they would tell me in Wolof when I tried to quiet them down. The tone in their voice translated as an unspoken admonishment “Don’t be ridiculous, any child would know that! Why shouldn’t we talk?”
In fact, in this culture, the act of visiting someone is in itself a gift. People honor you and your home by coming to visit you. It is not the host who is doing something kind by receiving a guest. It is the guest who is doing something kind by coming to visit. Although she did not fully understand the intricacies of the social mechanisms, my Mom knew she was being honored every day that she was here.
The Senegalese immediately adopt another posture when they are dealing with older people — especially when they see white hair. They become respectful and solicitous. They lower their eyes and try to anticipate your every need. They remind you how much you have to offer them by sharing your long experience with them and they listen intently when you talk. Especially when you tell them about your life experiences that occurred at times before they were born. Maintaining the connection between the present and the past is a cultural priority for the Senegalese. But that is the subject of another book. A wolof proverb reminds people that it is good to have older people in the community — Mag mate bay cim réew — and that the word of an old person will be quickly confirmed in reality — Waxu mag du fanaan alla — the word of an old person does not spend the night in the bush.
Actually, the Senegalese are very conscious of age, in general. Among siblings, it is important to always remember who is older. The younger sibling owes respect to the older sibling. They are regarded as junior parents and given the same respect you would give a mother or father, especially when the brother or sister is the oldest in the family. An older sibling can send a younger sibling on an errand or give instructions just as a parent would. They will often carry their younger siblings on their backs when they are infants or small children just the way their parents would or take them to their first day in school. This hierarchy is maintained through life and they do not hesitate to discipline their younger brothers or sisters when necessary. The younger sibling can never catch up to the older sibling, but can exercise his older brother or sister status on his/her younger brother or sister. When two people argue, it is not unusual for one to say to the other “Hé maa la mag!” (Hey, I am older than you — meaning you should respect me). In an interesting cultural twist, in the case of twins, Senegalese believe that the first born is the younger of the two twins because his or her older brother or sister still in the womb sent him/her to check things out, a privilege only older siblings enjoy.
There is a whole system here where it seems as though all of the younger people in society have been given the responsibility of monitoring your aging process. You do not feel it as a younger person yourself, but as soon as you begin to gain a certain maturity, younger people spontaneously begin to call you tonton (uncle in French and Wolof). You may not realize you have changed, but they do. The first time you are called tonton is always a shock. You look around at first to see whom they are talking to before you realize that you are now the tonton. And by some strange coordinated choreography, all young people begin calling you tonton at the same time.”
“Soon after a foreigner arrives in Senegal, one Senegalese or another will invariably ask, “What is your Senegalese name?” And if you don’t have an answer they will say: “Well, now you are Ibrahima Diop” or “You are Aissatou Diallo” and that usually becomes your official Senegalese name for the rest of your stay in Senegal.
By giving the foreigner a Senegalese name not only do the Senegalese let you know you are welcome, but it allows them to relate to you beçause names carry information on ethnicity, caste, family connections, regional origins, and much more. This allows Senegalese to situate the foreigner in the local system and activate all the established conventions, relationships and behaviors prescribed in Senegal’s intricate social architecture.
The family name is repeated in greetings usually followed by an honorific suffix particular to each name. It would be the equivalent of meeting John Smith in English and saying: “Smith, Smith, Smith The Tiger.” A Senegalese greeting me, as Ibrahima Ndiaye, will say: “Ndiaye, Ndiaye, Ndiaye Diatta Ndiaye” or “Gayndé Ndiaye” (Ndiaye the lion) and I will respond “Diop, Diop, Diop Juba, Diop” (Diop with a tuft like the black crowned crane). Everyone in Senegal knows these suffixes by heart, although the young people in the cities are starting to forget them; “Tourl Mande More (refers back to the Mandé empire), “Sarr Celem” (Sarr the Camel), de my favorite “Seck, Seen Ginaar” (Seck, your chickene), which is short for “Seck Seen ginaar amul but ci kaaw amul buh c suul” (Seck, your chickens do not have upper or lower teeth). Some of them refer back to family totems, others to historical facts about the origins of the family and still others I have yet to fully understand makes for great subjects of conversation with older people who know the origins of these suffixes.
Other conventions require that somebody named Ndiaye meeting somebody named Diop, for example, will immediately start teasing saying: “Diop, you are my slave” or “You really like to eat rice, don’t you?” or any number of other friendly insults. The person named Diop will immediately retort, creating much laughter, backslapping and relaxing the discomfort of meeting someone you do not know for the first time. These exchanges exist for different pairs of names called “kaal” and everyone knows them (Gueye/Niang, Seck/Gaye, Ndiaye/Diop…). This”teasing cousins” relationship warms the atmosphere by indicating we are connected, and facilitates initial contact even between strangers or consolidates existing relationships.
Anthropologist Dennis Galvan tells us:
“Beyond these regularized insults, the rhetoric of joking kinship also prohibits open conflict between these metaminarical cousins. Joking kin are usually expected, in spite of (or perhaps because of…) the teasing, to show special willingness to support or provide material resources when their cousins are in need. Moreover, it is widely expected that joking kin are especially suited to intervene in the internal conflicts of the group with whom they are paired as cousins.”
“The unusual name “Saaku” which basically translates as “old sack” was part of a Senegalese tradition that gave the children of mothers who had previously miscarried an ugly name so that the spirits would think they had no value and would not take them away. This is why you meet people named “Ken Begul” (nobody wants her), “Begouma” (I don’t want her), “Sagar” (old rag) or “Saraax” (something given away for charity).”
“I could not stand by and let a promising kid like Saaku be relegated to a menial job or sent out into the rural areas to farm peanuts. I went to see Papa Bouna and offered to pay Saaku’s school fees at the Catholic College Sacré Coeur that also had a majority of Moslems in the student body. The College had an excellent reputation. He agreed and a few days later, Saaku was admitted.
The next weekend, Papa Bouna called me and explained that it was very difficult and expensive for Saaku to commute from the Island of Gorée every school day that required a ferry ride before taking public transport to the other end of the city. Since Sacré Coeur was within walking distance of my house, Pa Bouna asked if Saaku could come to live with me and come back to Gorée on the weekends.
I had not foreseen that possibility. I realized it was a measure of the trust that the family had in me. I agreed, a bit reluctantly, and overnight, I went from being a 23-year-old bachelor living alone to the “father” of a fifteen year old boy!”
