Greetings are important here. You greet everyone: vendors, family, people on the bus, friends, your boss, the cleaning lady, people who are praying, eating, talking, sleeping. For good measure I even throw a "Ça va?" towards the neighborhood mutt.
It's a way of manifesting politeness and showing respect. "I see you. I'm acknowledging your personhood. I recognize that you are here with me." This different mode of interaction took me a while to internalize. In the States, we don't like to bother people. If someone is in the middle of a conversation or lost in thought, we'll let them be. We show our politeness by not taking up people's time and respecting their mental space. In a crowded elevator I just look at my shoes and leave my fellow passengers be. I don't believe one system is inherently better than the other. I like the Senegalese emphasis on interconnectedness but I've often wished my seat-mate on the bus would just leave me to stare out the window for a bit. Over time though, I have internalized the Senegalese style. I reach forward for that hearty handshake. It feels proper and necessary, a comforting physical assurance of my relationships with others.
Over the months that I've been here so many of the things that I found surprising or striking or just different have become more ordinary to me, more expected. Like the lengthy greetings, the sound of planes landing and the calls to prayer are a part of my daily rhythm. I know Friday nights are couscous nights in my house. I can walk to my favorite haunts on autopilot. My daily life here has begun to actually feel "daily." This all took a considerable amount of time to grow accustomed to and now as my time here comes to a close I've started thinking about the reverse process: how to say goodbye.
I've made a list of things I want to do before I go back to the States, and I've accepted that I probably won't get through all of it. I took a solo trip to Mbour, a city south of Dakar, to prove to myself that I've learned enough to travel alone. I've collected coins and bottle caps and filled my journals with maps and receipts.
Recently the departure pangs have started, mirroring my feelings when I prepared to leave State College. In the middle of a wonderful night out or a meal with friends, there will be a heart-ripping realization: it's almost over; I'm almost through; this will end all too soon. Any memory of discomforts or difficulties fade and I can only think of the fantastic adventures and my glowing new community. How could home compare again? Will there be anything but boredom, anything but the confines of the places I have always been and the things I have always known? These irrationalities so perfectly mirror the fears I had to allay before I left back in September. My fear of the unknown has been replaced by the fear of the known.
I have a little more experience this time around. I know it will all work out in the end andI'll be happy as a clam again in State College. The will be things from Senegal I miss and things I'm glad to be rid of. Perhaps most importantly, the spirit of traveling and adventuring is not something I have to leave behind. I have the unique opportunity to rediscover home all over again.
And I'll get hot water showers. It's the little things.
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