A Little Bit Sad

It’s Thursday morning. I am 36 hours from departure, and my heart is in my throat. I just heard Seal and Paul go downstairs for a bottle…that would be a bottle of milk, not a bottle of booze. Seal in the morning is adorable…fresh and ready to face the day, a little slow in warming up to anyone who isn’t Mama or Papa or Ba, but always, he is eager and curious and engaged with the world.

Although time is passing rapidly, we’ve not been graced with a hassle-free life week. The brakes went out on the car and the week has been packed with meetings, so we’ve been transiting by taxi, which is a life-threatening experience in itself. The generator has continued to break down, producing an enormous headache for Paul, who really wants his family to be comfortably living with the modern conveniences of the 21^st century with refrigeration and television and a mixing board for his studio. And air conditioning!

I’ve wanted these last few days to be easy, effortless, memorable. They will be memorable because they were just like all the other days…the days came and went, with good news and bad, with laughter and with tears, with demands and relaxation, with greeting new friends and with letting old friends go, with sure knowledge that this part of my life is ending but faith that another part is beginning.

Oh my…when I wrote those words, I felt my heat slam against my chest.

So I’m going to take a page from the experience of living here with Seal. Today I have the sure faith and absolute confidence that my life is perfect. There is enough of everything, exactly the right amount of time for everything I do, everyone I know, every place I am. I will have what I have.

Dervish

The last two days have either been a whirling dervish or a whirlwind. A dervish is a Sufi dancer who spins to achieve a meditative state of ecstasy. A whirlwind is an atmospheric disturbance. In Kansas, it could be a tornado; off the coast of Senegal, it could be a waterspout…As we are not achieving anything close to a meditative state of ecstasy right now, I’d have to opt for describing the last few days as whirlwind-ish.

On Sunday we had a bon voyage lunch at Mami and Papi’s. They didn’t know it was bon voyage until I produced a “gateau.” Since coming to Dakar, wonderful French cakes from the Graine D’Or patisserie have become a part of Sunday at Mami and Papi’s. For many Swiss and French people, actually for many people regardless of national origins, chocolate has a unique way of transforming any occasion from the mundane to the special. For Mami, a gateau from Graine D’Or is the nearest thing to ecstasy I’ve ever witnessed. So we ate cake and “au revoir-ed”. And that was Sunday.

On Monday, our mission was to figure out how to get my second bag to New York without having to schlep it from Dakar to Brussels to Basel to Amsterdam to London to New York JFK. And to do it for less than $600. Off we went to the cargo area of Yoff Dakar to explore the options. We not only discovered South African Airways Cargo…a bargain at $300…but we witnessed what happens in cargo areas. In short, they do not—as you always suspected--treat your cargo with kid gloves. And that’s why boxes shippe cargo often look like they were dropped from a 10-story building.

En route back to the house, we lost the brakes on the car…gone…cruising along at 40 kph on a heavily trafficked road, and suddenly, no brakes! Fast thinking and great driving got us home safely. The whole time I was thinking “who needs or wants this kind of drama?” And that was Monday.

Today we had the first of four hospital meetings today and tomorrow. [Why not cram as much as possible in before I leave?] Philippe Barry, who runs an organization that focuses on corporate social responsibility, has met with us previously. At this morning’s meeting, he concurred with our decision to go mobile and introduced us to yet another executive at the Ministry of Health who is looking for projects to support. Nathalie will be meeting with her in two weeks to further explore the possibilities of a public-private partnership whereby the clinic will provide preventive health education, based on the theory that keeping Senegal healthy is good for the economy. Philippe has joined our board of advisors and is helping us find other Senegalese influencers who are interested in improving health care delivery. Later this afternoon, we have a Hospital of Hope board meeting. Although I’m just an observer, it’s nice to be included because I’ve been emailing Olga, Brigitte and Guenther for the past six months. Next week in Basel, I’ll get to meet them. They’re a dedicated group of Novartis executives who really want the Hospital to succeed and are working to make it happen.

And that will be Tuesday. After which, there will only be three days until I depart. I’m focusing on staying engaged and involved…riding to school this morning with Seal, because he wanted my company…it was absolutely the high point of a very rich day.

Good and Simple

Around 6 pm I decided to walk over the beach. Most of my beach time is mid-afternoon because I like the sun. Late afternoon around here we are usually talking and cooking and playing with Seal, so I haven’t often thought about watching the sunset on the west coast of Africa.

If ever I made a good decision, this was it. It was tranquil. That time of day when we sit and wait for nightfall. Like me, others were on the cliffs above the sea, just looking and waiting for the sun to drop below the horizon. The sky was clear, except for a few high, light scattered clouds. The surf was perfect for the 15 board riders who were taking advantage of 20 foot waves. The rapidly approaching sunset was reflecting on the ocean, wrapping everything in golden light. The evening breezes were light and steady and refreshing. The only sounds were waves crashing and sea birds calling.

It was easy to be content, even knowing that I will be leaving in six days.

Simplest Things

It was clear, hot day. I walked over to the beach, and as I crested the small rise that leads to the rocky shore, the azur blue of the sky and the sea were blindingly beautiful. Everything sparkled…little glints of rock on the beach, waves catching the sun.

A slight movement caught my eye, and I turned just in time to glimpse a butterfly, black with four white spots on its wings. So simple, so graphically arresting and apparently so common: Hypolimnus missipus…the Mimic. Not sure why it’s called that…maybe it’s mimicking a black and white cow or black and white party dress.

It made me very happy.

left. Nearly six months have passed since I left New York on March 31. I will be departing Dakar on October 1. Hard to believe. Even harder to believe is the lump in my throat.

Yesterday Paul asked me when I would come back to “be with us”. Maybe it’s our diminishing language barrier, but he asked not “if” I’m coming back but when. My response was choked: “When I can, Paul.”

This morning, the naked and absolutely adorable Seal, fresh out of his bath, came running into the office where I was reading the New York Times online. He bounced up on the couch and screamed “Fany, Fany, Fany!!!” He was just as excited as we should all be at the start of a new day. Who is going to be that excited with me when I get back to New York?

These six months have been such a mix…certainly unsettling and isolating, but also productive and satisfying. Lots of good work has been accomplished, although we don’t have a hospital building to show for the time and energy invested.

Very soon I will be sharing the website address so that you can see the fantastic work of our volunteer website team: Bettina Klupp in Basel and Emily Collazo in New York. Soon, our fundraising brochures in English, French and German will be printed: the work of Carol Winer and Julie Farkas in New York. Over the weekend, I will be recording a new video with Paul and Nathalie, ready for posting on YouTube.

Every day I have experiences that, if I had had them earlier, might have led me to a decision to stay in Dakar. Currently, I’m having a fantastic time getting acquainted with Emily and Rachel who teach at the International School, but grew up in the Kansas City area and taught in New York before hitting the global teaching circuit. They are fun and fresh and know so much more in a month than I’ve picked up in six. They are a wealth of information about where to go and what to do. Same goes for my French teacher Anne, who is burning a path through downtown Dakar, seeing everything and meeting people from everywhere in the world. It’s been fantastic to have a glimpse of Anne the person to accompany Anne the teacher.

But I am leaving. I’ll spend two weeks in Europe, and then head home. My flight arrives at JFK at 11:30 a.m. on October 14. I’ve been told 69^th Street has been repaved. I already feel the temptation to kiss that fresh black asphalt, as I did when I returned to New York in 1997 after a 2.5 year exile to LA and DC.

In a world that’s recovering from a global recession and financial melt-down, I am blessed to have the security of a job on my return. I’ve accepted a position with GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (www.glsen.org), the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students. It was founded in 1990 and is responsible for the development of more than 4000 gay straight alliances in schools across the country. I will be joining the development team as Senior Manager, Institutional Relations with responsibility for relations with public, private and corporate foundations.

I am trying to look forward, aware of the past’s richness…aware that even a quick glance backward reveals an amazing web of interconnections: people, experiences, awakenings.

Adult Reading!

Some of you may recall that we have rabbits in the back yard. We had four on Friday. On Saturday morning we had five. The logical deduction would be that the rabbits finally got busy and had a baby. One baby rabbit? Not possible. Rabbits are not born in bunches of one, like elephants, bears, horses and humans. No, bunnies are born in bunches. And we haven’t had any…not one…four adult rabbits and in five months, not one baby bunny. No, we had five because Paul went to the market and bought a new rabbit.

So we had five adults for a very short time. And then we had two and a lovely lunch: rabbit in cream sauce.

The two who had been living with us, whom I had named Soufle and Meringue when they were white, were lunch. Mysteriously, Souffle and Meringue were white in the beginning, and then, they got un-white. Their fur didn't change color. And they didn't get dirty...they groomed themselves fastidiously as they always had. They just got unwhite. Not very pretty. And then they started fighting, because as some of you may recall, they were both boys, destined never to have the babies we wanted.

Nathalie got a baked bunny recipe from her mom in Switzerland. Paul and Ba did the dirty deed and cleaned the carcasses. Nathalie and I browned the meat, stuck it in the oven and an hour later, we served it with Mama Cretin’s fabulous sauce over noodles. It was great at lunch…after sitting for eight more hours in the fridge, it was even better as left overs on Sunday evening.

Let me know if you want the recipe. Happy to share it, especially if you‘ve been waiting for your rabbits to breed and they haven’t. I heartily suggest you put those rabbits to good use.

Acceptance

Paul and I are going to the market early. I have to start over on a project. Our first stop will be a fabric store. Then we have to find a tailor. Third step seems to be the hard part: Communicating what I would like to have made. This project should have been simple. On round 1, I was clear about what I wanted. Nathalie understood what I wanted, and she was clear in her translation. But the tailor didn’t understand…clearly, the tailor did not understand. Because what I got was not what I ordered.

Instead of the boubou shirt, I got a classic man’s shirt with long sleeves, a collar, snap buttons…the kind of shirt I could buy at the Gap. Only a cheap shirt at the Gap would have been of superior quality to the one I got. It is so poorly made the snaps began falling off immediately, the seams are crooked, the buttons don’t match the holes. The shirt was obviously constructed without a pattern, and in that respect, the tailor is clever. But it’s crummy quality, and it’s not what I ordered

Even more maddening, though the tailor did not make what I ordered, he expected to be paid. And he refused to leave without his money. The business practices in Senegal require patience and language skills, and I’m short on both.

Another example: The guy across the street has been selling me baguettes for 150 cfa (35 cents) every morning for six weeks. Yesterday, he charged me 200 cfa. I paid it because he said the price had gone up. Later in the day, Paul bought bread and the cost was 150 cfa, just like always. The price only went up for me. It’s called the white tax. I pay more because I am white. These days, Aita won’t let me accompany her to the market because the merchants raise the prices when they see us together. She makes me sit in the car.

I understand the origins of this practice…maybe not totally, at the deepest level. I understand that colonialism is responsible. I understand. I don’t like it. I wish I had the language skills to argue when it happens.