Since my last post, life here has been a flurry of Jaxanke/Malinke practice, Community Based Training host family goodbyes, Peace Corps language proficiency tests, swearing-in, goodbyes with fellow stagieres as newly minted volunteers began to take-off for far-flung, donkey-cart or mountain bike accessible villages. Life has brought moving, many learning sessions, and the eating of much sometimes delicious rice and bitter tomatoes and other foods I am beginning to enjoy.

Yesterday, the day after my 27th birthday!, brought something new. We woke early and drove for 11 hours across one of the hotter regions of the continent of Africa on one of the hottest days of the year and after trying to sleep and trying to read and trying to cool off by pouring hot water out of my nalgene on my shirt and hat and bandana I took time to just sit and try not to think or study or plan and instead just be with the heat. The process of being with heat was natural, almost inexorable, but it was a good time and I think I realized something I had not understood about the language I have been learning. In the Jaxanke culture people greet each other thoroughly and eventually the greeter asks about the state and the condition of the greetee's life by asking if they are with certain things.

For instance, a typical greeting begins thus:

Kor tanante (are you not with the evil? Or, are you in/with peace?)
Tanante (I am not with evil)
Heera siita (Are you with peace?)
Heera doron (I am with peace only)

Greetings continue apace until the state of the family, the community and environmental conditions are inquired after. This lengthy set-piece conversation has seemed perfectly perfunctory and impersonal to me but it is not. The Senegalese style of greeting is an effective method to keep relationship ties intact and it is an intentional act of neighborliness. And the realization I had was that with its emphasis on the immediate state of the greetee, mindfulness ala Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are, dominates the discussion in Senegal. For all the hand-wringing we hear about young men spending all their afternoons making attaya, at least these guys know what they are doing with their time and they accept the fact. This realization is a little liberating because I usually feel guilty about how worthless I am during the hot part of the day. But now I know a little better how to be with the heat and hopefully the next five-weeks until I can return to Kedougou-meme and drink cold water will be more chill, if not cool.

To sum up, during my torrid trip moving south to Kedougou, after Peace Corps classroom cultural and technical training had ended and I had passed my language proficiency assessment with a (semi)acceptable score my purpose for living in Senegal finally seemed clear as I sat on that old, sprung seat and I felt (momentarily) comfortable and almost grateful for the varied sensations of life. And then, I felt really hot and sweaty again and wished I could go swimming or drink ice water.
Well, heera doron.