Senegal: Only Peace
By Adam Benedetto

We arrive in Tambacounda. Abdouli, the sixteen year old, is complaining that he is hungry. We are all hungry and thirsty and getting crabby.

“I know a great restaurant here—really good steaks,” Christopher says, and we begin making our way there.

 “I want an Arab man sandwich,” Abdulai whines referring to a chwarma.

“There aren’t any in Tombacounda. But we’ll have some great steaks with vegetables as soon as we get to this restaurant,” Christopher says trying not to get frustrated.

But Abduli doesn’t want to give up, “I do not eat vegetables. I like the Arab-man sandwich.”

Christopher walks closer to me, and we pick up the pace leaving the guys struggling a few steps back, “Christ, it only took four days of rap videos and fast food to turn them into spoiled Americans,” Christopher says.  “The first few days they were really polite, and now they’ll only eat chwarmas.”

Christopher was originally stationed in Zimbabwe, but due to political instability, he was evacuated to Dakar a few weeks prior to my arrival. In that time he went to Misserah to see his ex-girlfriend Sara and ended up meeting the guys and inviting them to come to pick me up in Dakar.

After a steak lunch we catch a small van to Misserah. Before we get in, we see the shape of another van lumbering towards us with the sun setting behind it. The Senegalese will pile so many bags of onions, rice, bicycles, clothes, goats, and other goods on top of the truck that the silhouette is shaped like an “A.” The pile on top of the van is often equal or taller in height than the van itself. They are known to regularly tip over.

We get in; and before the van starts again, I am holding one baby in my left arm, a two year old on my lap, and balancing a bag of clothes between my knees. Christopher also has been made into a baby carrier.

“Do you know whose these are?” I ask.

“No, idea.”

We laugh. As the van stops, women pile out taking babies with them and other women pile on dropping their babies on our laps as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The kids sleep, or look at my strange skin, or cry. They’re just adorable, but I catch my mind drifting to the somber fact that one in four of them will die by the time they are five years old. On the ride I hold at least ten different babies, and that means that two of them will be dead within the next five years.

After twelve hours of travel we finally make it to the village of Misserah where Fatimata Malkalu (a.k.a. Christopher's ex- girlfriend Sara), who I know from the states, is stationed with the Peace Corps. She lives with the Malkalu family, of which the guys belong to.

Sara has gained a touch of weight, which looks good on her, and she’s also dyed her hair from blond to brown, but it’s her demeanor that seems to have changed most profoundly since last time I saw her. She has the expression of a person that has been pushed beyond her limits every minute of every day for a long time. It’s something you see in the eyes of a lot of the Peace Corp volunteers in Africa.

Misserah is a town full of babies. Some have clothes on, and some don’t. Some have parents, and some don’t—it doesn’t matter because the whole village is in charge of parenting. If you are in the village for more than an hour without holding a baby, there is probably something wrong with you. The kids climb on visitors and follow them around watching their every move. It’s hard not to want to perform for such an eager audience. Having just arrived after so many hours of travel, however, all I want to do is lie down.
   
It is good to see the guys back in their home environment. After one week of Dakar they had started watching television in the hotel room all of the time and complaining about eating anything other than fast food.  “Christopher, we turned these guys into Americans in a week,” I laugh.  Later that night I watch them squatting in the light of embers eating rice and peanut sauce with their hands, and it seems as though a natural balance had been restored.

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