March 25, 2010
We have a garden going at the elementary school over in Diamagun Deux (our quartier). Aside from creatures eating every leaf that shows its face, we have been taking good care of it and has the potential to be somewhat successful…maybe….
Today I headed over to meet my kafinol (friends, in Mandinka) at the garden to make our tree nursery. We have to plant 100 trees in little bags wrapped up tight in a little tree pepiniere. Between the three of us, we knew it would take some time but as we arrived at the garden, there were tons of kids ready to help.
Side note about children in Senegal: They are bored. They don’t have dance class or soccer practice; parents don’t need them all home at a specific time. They are also interested in anything a toubab (white person, ie our identity to anyone who doesn’t know our names) does because we are weird and do funny things. Therefore, we had children at our disposure to help fill 100 pepiniere bags.
Once we were finished, we started to become agitated at the snotty kids stepping in our beautiful garden. Again, they had nowhere to be so they were just hanging around. I had to lure the girls (who were particularly interested in the toubab girl, me) over to the side where they started to take off all of their waist beads and give them to me. I am now in possession of six sets of waist beads made for ten year olds. Cool.
Then, Jenae (Kumba) started a dance party to lure the kids further and further away from the garden. This dance party drew in more and more children until there were about 70 riled up children dancing with the toubabs. There was nothing we could do; we were stuck. They chanted toubab and grabbed us and touched us as we walked out of the school. At this point, all of the children were following us. We signed to each other “Go to Bakary’s go to Bakarys! (Spence, who lives closest to the school). The children followed us to his compound and tried to get in. Some made it in while others waited outside while Bakary’s host brother played body guard outside. I officially felt like a celeb in a weird alternate universe sort of way. The crowd dissipated and we were free. For the time being at least…
In other news, I dropped my sunglasses down the douche (hole in the ground for toilet). At least they were from target and not the prescription ones. Also probably not the only thing that will find itself down there in the next two years. Just hopefully nothing will be expensive or alive…
