Earthsky Interviews
Private: Two years in an African village
01-28-2007 - Human World
This is her story about the people of Saare Modou: what they are like, how they live and what they care about.
In many ways, Saare Modou fits the stereotypical image of African life. The people are herders and subsistence farmers who live in mud-walled, thatched-roof huts without running water or electricity. Many are chronically malnourished, and few have attended school. However, those stereotypes do not encompass the lives of Saare Modou’s residents.
They are Muslim, so the five daily prayers structure the days and Islamic observances and celebrations mark the passing of years. There is a month of fasting for Ramadan and then a feast celebrating its end. Every year the village plans and saves for Eid Al-Adha, the “feast of the sacrifice,” when every family that can afford to kills a ram. People eat mostly millet or corn couscous or rice with peanut sauce. Fruit, vegetables, fish, and meat are special treats.
In Senegal, the standard daily wage is approximately three dollars a day; however, very few people have standard daily jobs. In villages, the men work in the fields during the rainy season. The boys look after the family herds-cows, sheep, and goats. The women have an endless cycle of cooking, cleaning, and fetching water. Young girls know that when they are married, usually in their mid-teens, they will move from their family’s households into their own huts in their husbands’ households; however, they often only move a few kilometers away to a neighboring village. The men all aspire to have at least two wives.
One of the women in my host family, Kanni Jallo, is typical of the women in the village. At 36 years old, she has three children (most women have more), all of whom she gave birth to in the village. Her oldest is 19, married, and about to have her first baby. Kanni came to the village at the age of 15 to be married to a boy she’d never met before. Her husband works abroad in Spain, sending money back to support his extended family in the village; she has traveled the eight hours to Senegal’s capital, Dakar, once. She is her husband’s first wife; his second wife is the same age as his and Kanni’s oldest daughter.
Life is hard and, realistically, won’t ever get much easier, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no joy in the village. A day of pounding grain or picking cotton is balanced by a night of talking and laughing under a night sky filled with brilliant stars. Most of Kanni’s possessions fit into the metal trunk that she received as a wedding gift, but each photograph and piece of fabric in that trunk is a treasured object.
Wealth trickles into the village in the form of cell phones, a generator-powered TV, and cinderblock buildings to replace the mud huts. The villagers see more and more of the outside world through TV, the Western clothes that make it to the local market next to the fish and vegetables, and pictures and stories from men who go abroad. Europe and the U.S. are seen as promised lands where work brings money, and all the boys aspire to emigrate.
Most won’t ever make this it. Either they never get the money and documents to travel legally, or they are turned back while trying to make the often “dangerous, illegal journey”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/5331608.stm.
But in Saare Modou, people are working for change. The women’s group does traditional beadwork, which they sell to tourists and the Peace Corps community. With the profits from these sales, they have opened a bank account and given out small loans. Kanni, as secretary of the village women’s group, writes the group’s records in one of her daughter’s old school notebooks.
With Peace Corps assistance and USAID funding, the village had a second well dug; now that they have a more secure, plentiful water supply, they will be able to garden during the dry season. The vegetables they grow will provide extra nutrition and a potential income source.
To most Americans, Africa is not a place so much as a condition, synonymous with disease, war, and poverty. We see pictures of shantytowns and starving children, and we file Africa and Africans away in our minds as something foreign to and separate from us. If Africa is unknowable, it is unreachable, and if it is unreachable, it is someone else’s problem. Change will comes when we realize it is none of those.
Clare now lives in Oakland, California. More of her writing and photography can be found at “claremajor.net”:http://claremajor.net
Thank you, Clare, for your thoughtfulness in giving of yourself to the villagers of Saare Modou, as well as giving your story to us who are happy to know and understand this unique place and its people.
Clare, your article gave great insight into senegalese village life. It is truly inspiring to see that people can still find joy amidst such desperation.
I am currently applying to the Peace Corps, inspired by a 5 month study abroad program I did in Dakar. I was wondering if I could have your email adress to ask you a few questions regarding the Peace Corps? Feel free to drop me a line at your convenience. david@tangletown.com
It was a true pleasure reading your article.
Thanks,
David
Super interesting! Thank you.
Hi all – Thanks for the responses. It’s reassuring to feel that I can communicate some small part of those two years. I am of course happy to answer any questions about Senegal, my village, and/or Peace Corps