Il faut eat bu bax!

Towards the end of a long wedding I attended recently, as dinner was being served at 1 am, someone who swore he spoke English shouted this across the room at me. In fact, he combined French, English, and Wolof. It's a good example of the confusion regarding languages I still constantly feel here and it's meaning, you must eat a lot!, also summarizes how it goes during Senegalese dining.

These days I often find myself spending a lot of time with people who don't speak English. This is great, because it means I'm forced to practice speaking in French. And sometimes I leave feeling wonderful because I was able to communicate and understand more than the simplest of things. But I also often leave feeling so confused and wishing I could somehow be fluent in not only French, but Wolof too, because some people don’t speak French at all and just about everyone prefers speaking in Wolof. So why have I spent so much time and money learning French and have only learned very simple phrases in Wolof? And it just takes so long to learn languages! Oh the frustration!

Anyway, one great thing about this fact that I spend time with non-English speaking people means that I have branched out on my own. I’ve become more involved with the dance community here and have made many friends and acquaintances. I’ve had some wonderful opportunities to dance with beautiful dancers, to collaborate with them, and perform with them. I’ve also watched some inspiring dance performances and discovered that modern dance and improvisation, which I value greatly and thought existed mainly in the Western world, exist here as well. All that said, my patience is constantly being tested as everything here is, as one friend often says, “Senegalese style.” What does this mean? It means things such as rehearsals and performances are unorganized, planned at the last minute, then changed at the last minute, then changed again at the very last minute. It means that people don’t always respond to my calls and texts about rehearsals. It means that even if a time and place are set for a rehearsal, people may show up 2 hours late or not show up at all. And it means that sometimes I just don’t hear from dancers for a long time and I do a lot of waiting, not knowing what’s going on. And to top it off, the language barrier makes everything more confusing for me. So I just asked Ewan, is there a point when I just can’t be patient anymore? Will I burst? Can I just keep waiting and relying on other people like this?

I guess this is what it means to be a dancer here, or maybe to be an anything here. It requires patience and it requires being ready for anything, always.

And to bring things back to the title of this post, at every meal with Senegalese people, they do a good job in making sure I eat a LOT. Recently someone informed me of how important it is that I gain weight here so that when I go home, people will know that Africa was good for me. If I go back skinnier, people will think that Africa was not good for me. I’ve had many conversations about the different outlook on body image here with other Americans. It’s a compliment here to tell someone they’ve gained weight, and I’ve noticed that all body types seem to be good body types. I love this outlook, and whether I get fatter or skinnier here, I’m pretty sure that Africa is good for me. :)