WUMM: the origins

This is the first in a series of my village stories, to be written over the next couple of hours, days, weeks, months, whenever I feel like it actually. I realize that I am now almost exactly one month out from my departure from Senegal, but it still beats through my veins. My life in America is constantly interrupted by thoughts of my life in Senegal, wondering what I would be doing if I were still there, what my friends are doing, or what my families are doing. And so I'm going to keep the stories alive, mostly for my own sake, but you are more than welcome to enjoy them as well.

This is my way of not forgetting.

The title of this series is "What's up? many much..."? and it in itself is quite the story. Before I can tell you that, I have to tell you some things about my village host family. So far you know that I lived with a lot of people, and at the time of that post, that's all I knew as well. Throughout the following days and weeks, I learned a bit more about my family.

I can safely say that my host family in Mbam is not your traditional family, not even in a Western sense. For one thing, my mom was never married and never had kids. This is like UNHEARD of in Senegalese society (there it's the traditional grow-up-get-married-pop-out-kids-raise-them-to-take-care-of-you-in-your-old-age life cycle). So someone, especially a woman, who doesn't get married is for sure working against the grain. I never found out exactly why she never got married, but my theory is that she's just way too free-spirited and independent for ANY man to marry. Bineta Basse would not fit well into the Senegalese wife box. That's not to say that she doesn't do all the things married women do...Bineta was, as I mentioned before, the matriarch of my compound. Anything to be done as far as taking care of the household had to be approved by her first. Now, Bineta has like 20+ siblings (her dad had 3 wives, go figure) that are scattered all over the world. One of her brothers (who lives in Dakar) has a wife who lives in Mbam, in my house. Her name is Mamy Sarr, and is 6 months pregnant with her first child, who will be named after me should it be a girl. Yeah. I was a little overwhelmed with that announcement. Mamy is not much older than me, and takes care of most of the cooking for the family, as well as a lot of the household chores. Her husband has a 4-year old son, who's mother lives somewhere else, but he lives in my family. The raising of this child, Staffa (one of my many husbands), is headed by Bineta and Mamy Sarr, but supplemented by everyone else in the compound. Another nephew that lives in my family is Cheikh, whom I mentioned before. He is 22ish and goes to school in Foundiougne, so he lives with his aunt. He also is somewhat in charge of the manly chores, like getting firewood and harvesting the family's peanut fields. Those are all the people that I know for sure how they are related to my host mom.

Other than that, there is Fatmag, an old man who eats and sleeps in my compound, but I otherwise have NO idea how he's related. He's just sort of there. He doesn't really talk much either. But you know, whatever. Then there's Pape, Marie-Noelle, Badara, Jean, Joe, Pauline, Racki, and Assan, who range in age from 12 to 20ish. They are generally from neighboring villages, but go to school in Mbam, so they live with my host mom during the school year. I don't know if they're actually blood related, but what does that really matter in the end. They get a roof over their heads and food to eat, and in exchange, they help with the daily chores. So really, my family is just like a bunch of people that live together, but aren't necessarily related by blood. But that didn't matter. They acted more like a family than lots of real families. They acted more like a family than my Dakar family, who are all blood related. These people live life together, they work together, study together, eat together, celebrate together, suffer through life together. The sense of community is one of the strongest I've seen in my life, and I really miss it.

Anyway, so it was inevitable for me to spend a lot of time with everyone, considering the all-the-time togetherness. During afternoons of hanging out or whatever, we would joke around in all the different languages we know. Now, all these kids in school, are learning English. So this of course meant that I was a good practice subject for them. At some point, I started greeting them in English by saying "What's up?". That of course got many confused facial expressions, until I explained what it meant and that the proper response is "not much". Now I am well aware that this is not the ONLY response, but it is the most common and easiest to explain. From then on we got into the habit of greeting each other with this exchange, although their responses ended up being pronounced "no much" more than anything else. One day, my boys and I were riding the horse and cart to a neighboring village and they wanted me to quiz everyone. So going around the circle, we practiced "what's up, not much" several times. When I got to Cheikh (who knows more English than the others), he responded "many much". To me, the "what's up, not much" exchange is as normal and concrete as "nanga def, mangii fi" to a Senegalese. It had never really occurred to me to respond with anything that would imply things were actually going on in my life, so when Cheikh answered "many much" I was caught off my guard. My initial and uncontrollable response was to laugh and laugh I did. This was met with several inquisitive expressions, because the others didn't know what he had said, and Cheikh didn't understand why I was laughing. All grammar rules aside, to him it was a very logical answer. If you could respond that there wasn't much going on, why couldn't you say lots of much?

After realizing that it did indeed make logical sense, once again all grammar aside, we explained to the others what it meant, and enjoyed the rest of the ride. From there on out, all of my boys would greet me by saying "what's up Amy?" instead of the normal sereer "nafiyo?". It became our little tradition. With Cheikh, it opened the door to practice english on a daily basis. While sitting around waiting for dinner, we would go through the following script: "What's up?" "Many much." "Like what?" and then tell each other about our days in english. It ended up being a really good bonding experience, being able to share language and get to know each other at the same time. I think that a lot of times, we have a tendency to just go through the motions of greeting each other without actually intending to find out how someone's day actually was. Why else do we always answer "fine" to "how are you?" and "not much" to "what's up? and "maangi fi" to "nanga def?". In America and Senegal alike, we have a tendency to just ask out of a need to be polite or keep up a tradition, not out of a sheer care for the person to whom we are speaking. Why should we always say "not much", when there really is "many much"?

I miss my boys terribly, and can't wait for the day when I can go back to see them, ask "what's up" and find out the "many much" that's been going on in their lives.