Happy New Year! May 2009 be full of Peace and Love. I have a lot of catching up to do, so here are some snippets of what I've been up to since I last wrote:

11/30/08: On the road to Saint Louis....
In the bus on the way to Saint Louis I continued plowing through Alice Walker's The Temple of My Familiar while listening to Oumou Sangare. We came to a pit stop - not the bus - but Alice, Oumou and me. I looked up out of the window and caught a glimpse of orange light leaping through leaves and branches on the patchy landscape. I had a sudden vision of some lighter version of myself jumping from the bus and running into the Sahara field to sit on the earth facing the setting sun. Of course I didn't actually do this, but in my mind part of me was there. It felt so real, the hard dirt and chill breeze. That sensation of feeling completely content to be connected with the earth made me feel sad for my other states of disconnection. I saw my happy, lighter self looking down at an estranged, burdened self walking through the concrete jungle of New York City. In my mind one tells the other to keep trudging along. It's okay, enchanted places still do exist in the world.

Reflections on the road back home....
Everything about the six hour bus ride home worsened my mood. I was already 'in a funk,' as my mom would say. Students looked at my tattered book cover and asked me what I was reading. Most had never heard of Alice Walker. This disturbed me. Once again I realized that I was on the 'singing bus' and had to suffer through bad pop and commercial hip hop sung by a bunch of college girls. The cries of glee in response to TI and R.Kelly singles made the fact that no one had heard of Alice Walker, who was the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer, even more disturbing.

Earlier in the day we had done a brief walking tour of historical sites on the island of Saint Louis. The first stop was a square, surrounded by busy traffic, in which a full size statue of a French colonialist named Faidherbe resides. Our resident expert on the slave trade and colonial history gave us a good sense of the context for the imposing presence of the statue: a history of conquest, both physical and metaphysical, and a list of so-called 'contributions' the man had made to Senegal (for which the country thanked him on a plaque beneath his booted feet). When our historian asked if we had questions I wanted to blurt out mine: Why is this despicable thing still standing? Serigne beat me to the punch by saying that, as a Senegalese, he finds it extremely offensive. A confused look from the crowd: but hadn't Faidherbe done much to help the country develop, taught useful skills? Does one need to conquer to teach? Skills for what? To what end? Is what was give even slightly comparable to what was taken away? These are the questions many are not comfortable asking themselves. One thing the historian said really did stick with me: the slave trade was not just the transfer of muscle, it was the transfer of skills. Agriculture, textiles, blacksmithing, cattle-raising - all of these skills laid the foundation for the world's largest economy to prosper.

Hours later, looking out the bus window at the billboards of hair products and those ancient Marlboro ads that have long been banned in the U.S., all of these tangential musings seemed to merge into one stream.

Click here to see some pictures of my trip to Saint Louis, which is, in spite of my somber thoughts, a beautiful place.

The Eighth Mouton...
I spent Tabaski with my former host family at the house of the family matriarch, Maambooy (Grandma). Not having sufficiently learned my lesson about the timing and procedure of Senegalese holidays during Korite, I showed up at 10am absurdly overdressed for what was to be a day full of work and lounging. So I replaced my new taille basse with a house-dress borrowed from Moussou and insisted on cutting onions and potatoes with the rest of the women,even though without a cutting board the onions took me twice as long and my french fries looked slightly deformed. When the men returned from the mosque they quickly changed out of their glistening basin robes and prepared to kill the moutons (sheep), a symbolic sacrifice honoring Ibrahim's willingness to obey God and sacrifice his son, Ishmael. The men dug a pit in a corner of the large courtyard where all of the moutons were tethered to tree trunks and posts, skittish at the sight of the assortment of knives on a nearby table. One by one each mouton was brought to the pit, slaughtered and drained of its blood. Every move of the knife was made with purpose and precision so that the animals suffered as little as possible. There were eight moutons in all, and that poor eighth animal, not knowing he would come last, suffered through witnessing the death of each of his friends. I must say though, the moutons, once grilled or stewed, were delicious. I was surprised at how easy it was to eat what I had just been pitying hours earlier. In many ways the killing and consumption of sheep for Tabaski is a much more humane practice than the way we raise and slaughter turkeys in the U.S. Most Americans have probably never even see a live turkey - we act like they are delivered to us by from the heavens. Wouldn't it be great if every family in the States had to buy or catch and then slaughter and pluck their own thanksgiving turkey? Recipe for disaster or step towards a more humane society?

The Nigerian Bureaucrat who almost stole Christmas...
Our quest started months ago.when Duma and I first bought our tickets to Nigeria for the holidays. It all seemed so simple then: we would get a letter of invitation from mom, and armed with our tickets, passports and photos, we would go to the Nigerian consulate and obtain visas. We were on our best and most demure behavior from the beginning, even though we were treated with contempt by a miserable Nigerian bureaucrat who informed us, in a long-winded snarl, that we would need residence permits to obtain Nigerian visas. So we made our way to the police station designated for foreigners to get residence permits. There we learned that such permits required an authorization from one's 'chef de quartiere,' a neighborhood representative. I won't bore you with the details...but needless to say, what ensued was a veritable Dr. Seuss riddle of document chasing. In the end we had spent lots of money for a pile of documents that are obsolete.

When we finally submitted our applications and passports to the miserable Nigerian bureaucrat, he didn't even ask for all of the documents we had collected. We returned two days later, as instructed, and were greeted with even more contempt. What visas? What passports? What money? Get out of my face! Granted, I was in the man's face at that point and my once demure composition had apparently disappeared with our passports and our money. I glared at him and thought I could see his little heart shrinking beneath the official ID he wore on his chest and was so clearly abusing. That's when I knew that he wanted a bribe. Desperate, I called my mom as a last resort. Sounds like you are going to have to cry, she said in a matter-of-fact tone. There was a silence as Duma and I tried to register what Mom had said. Cry? Yes, that seems to work in Nigeria - I've seen it done before. It was the most bizarre recommendation, but worth a try.

We went back. We were again very polite and composed (Duma was, I couldn't even speak to that miserable man). But when he slammed the glass door in Duma's face we knew it was do or die. When he came back into the lobby we cornered him. Why won't you let me go to Nigeriaaaa!, Duma wailed as tears came gushing down her face. I knew then that we were on. I just want to spend Christmas with my familyyyy!, I sobbed. The man began to slowly back away in panic. He was still shouting back, but we could see the fight dying in his eyes and his little heart starting to grow. Finally he reached into his back pocket, yes his back pocket, and pulled out our passports, which had been already stamped with visas.

And that, my friends, is how we were able to spend the holidays with my family in Abuja. The 2008 Oscars for most dramatic performance go to Nomaduma Masilela and Courtney Keene. Thank you, thank you.