Saying Goodbye

Me and my best friend, Hawa, on my last day

"Whenever I think of my family, I will think of you. Whenever I think of Badion, I will think of you. You are my daughter and I pray that you have peace, success and happiness in your life. For you to have these things, is for me to have these things because we will always be family."

My host dad said that to me on Sunday morning after the two hour drive to Kolda from my village. After crying for an hour the night before, having said goodbye to my friends and siblings, then crying on the ride out of village very early in the morning, I thought perhaps I had got beyond it. Then he said these things and the only thing I could do to keep from becoming yet another puddle of tears was to hug him as hard and as long as I could.

Hugging isn't really done here. There are playful hugs, the 'side hug', but emotionally driven hugs? No. Especially between men and women. That just isn't done. It's even awkward with kids. It's such an American thing to do. But he didn't hesitate, he hugged me back just as tightly.

The last two weeks of being village were incredibly strange. Emotionally, that is. The days were the same. The routine, the food, the topics of conversation, all of that was the same. But under all the sameness was a kind of sadness. Especially with my closest friends and the teachers. The feeling of 'we don't have much more time together' pervaded every encounter and conversation.

On the flip side was that people didn't either believe I was really leaving or didn't understand that when I said I only had a month, or two weeks left, that was actually how much time I had left. At one week my host dad told my namesake host mom that we needed to figure out what we would do for my last day 'goodbye-thing' and she just stared at me like it was the first she'd heard of it. Time is extraordinarily flexible here. No one wears a watch and since most people cannot read French they don't know how to set the time and date on their cell phones. So while a meeting may start at 9am on paper, people will show up at 1030 or 11 (if at all) or show up the next day thinking that was they day of the meeting. Weeks and months are obscure. Time of the year is referenced by seasons (Mango, hot, rainy, cold) or big religious holidays (e.g. Korite, Tabaski). So things just kind of happen as they do,when they do and you just have to get used to it.

Or go crazy.

After two years, I'm way more laid back about timing and just seeing what the day brings. If I can do what I want to do when I want to, awesome. If not, *shrug*. Tomorrow is another day. But then things like COS dates come in and we are ripped back to the iron clad time schedules of the West. So when my host mom looked at me as though I'd grown a second head, I was both sympathetic and a bit irritated. She'd known this was coming. Calender or no calender, a month is still a month and a week is still a week. How is this a surprise?

She wanted to do a massive party with music and a goat to eat. I had absolutely no desire to do such a thing. Thankfully neither did my host dad, who immediately came to my rescue and put the kabosh on the whole idea. All I wanted was to have a lunch or dinner, my family and work partners, talk, drink tea and then say my goodbye before going to bed. I was leaving after all, and it wasn't going to be easy to say goodbye to the people I cared the most about in private, let alone in front of a giant audience. So it was agreed that we'd have a better than average lunch and dinner (cow meat for lunch, and chicken for dinner), invite people to come spend some time at the compound, talk, eat and drink sugary milk and tea before I went to bed. Then the next morning - early before anyone got up - someone would take me to Kolda.

That last week passed in a blaze of intense heat. The real Hot Season is just kicking into 2nd gear and I'm eternally grateful I won't have to face the real deal for a third time. February is like an oven on pre-heat, March on bake, April on broil and May all pretense is thrown out the door and we are all just submerged directly in a pile of coals.

Along with the heat was the awkward moments spent with my friends and family. People starting to come to terms with my departure and an endless barrage of people asking me for my stuff. Even towards the end, I felt that perhaps leaving wouldn't be too hard. Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't get overly emotional. My siblings would be the hardest to leave, but the rest? I could handle it.

In true Senegalese style, nothing on Saturday worked out the way we'd planned/hoped it would. Three huge political meetings were happening on that day to prepare for the upcoming local elections. Two in my village and one in the Department capitol some 60km away. My host mother, Oumou, and her son, Jarta, went to the one in the capitol. I honestly thought I wouldn't see them again that day. Part of me was happy about that - Jarta is my absolute favorite sibling. He's mine. He calls me 'mom'. Having to say goodbye to that little bundle of wonderful was going to rip out my heart. I managed to put myself in a limbo like stage: maybe he'll be back in time, maybe not. I'll wait to emote about it later.

In the mean time, all the meetings kept people who said they would come for lunch from coming and it was a quiet, normal lunch time in the Mballo compound. The afternoon went on in its continuing heat. I took down my collage of photos, distributed my benoirs and buckets among my host moms and neighbors. Evening came and I helped cut up onions and pound pepper and garlic for the dinner. I bought one chicken, my host dad another. We almost never eat chicken - I've maybe had it 3, possibly 4 times, in the last two years - so this was a meal I looked forward to eating.

Chicken for Aisatou! Woo! Bring on the onions!

I packed more stuff, gave more things away, and spent time with my friend Hawa as my host mom's cooked the meal.

The meetings finally got over around 6pm, so all the women had to go to their own compounds to cook their families' dinner. Which meant that no one came for the dinner at our compound. My dad was very upset by this. While I was a bit disappointed, I also felt a bit relieved. Less pressure when I made my 'goodbye speech' and fewer people to potentially see me cry.

Oumou and Jarta did return early that day. Around 8pm they showed up and Jarta threw his little arms around my neck before starting to play with my braided hair. I couldn't let him go. I just wanted to hold him for the rest of the night, but since he had no idea that this night was different than any other, he eventually squirmed out of my grasp and played around the compound.

In the end my counterpart and a handful of women showed up for milk and tea and I read out my little pulaar speech that I had written (for which I had a TON of help from another 3rd year volunteer who was in my village the day before). Thank God it was dark because I choked up at the end and my eyes were burning by the time I was done. It wasn't particularly personal, as that isn't really culturally acceptable when in larger groups. These kinds of things are more about asking for forgiveness for wrongs done and forgiving others. Making sure the people of the village know that I was happy and that I am leaving without anger or bitterness and then giving a few traditional blessings (peace, prosperity, health, etc).

Near midnight I finally went to bed, but not before Jarta called out for me. "Neene!" (mom!) At one and a half, he's at that age where he likes to hand random things to people. In this case it was an empty can of condensed milk that we'd just finished drinking. All I could do was grab him up in a big hug, tell him I loved him and then quickly hide in my hut before I burst into tears.

Throughout the last two years, there have been many, many days where I wished that that day was my last one. I'd begged for the end of service to arrive faster. But when it did finally arrive, I didn't want it to be the last one. I knew it was going to be hard. I knew saying goodbye to people like Penda, Jarta, Oumou and my dad would be hard. I just didn't realize how deeply it would hurt.

I don't even know what time I finally fell asleep, but my alarm went off at 5 the next morning and I had to go through the last bits of packing before meeting my host dad outside to make the trip to Kolda. My cat, Tennan, who has single-handedly kept me sane for nearly two years, kept circling my legs and rubbing up against me. Could she sense that I wouldn't be coming back?

Let's just say she didn't help make leaving any easier.

There is one last cultural thing that should be noted: the left handed hand shake. Using the left hand is pretty much taboo here. You don't hand things over, or take thing with the left hand. You don't eat with the left hand or shake with the left hand. The left hand is used for...well, there's no toilette paper here so fill in the blank. Only when a person is leaving for a prolonged period of time do you shake with the left hand. It's like purposefully making a cultural mistake. The significance being that you must return to correct the mistake.

Sunday morning I woke up extra early in order to avoid seeing anyone and making my departure that much harder. This too is a cultural practice: leaving when no one is around to spare the final goodbyes and emotional displays. But my host moms, host grandmother and several siblings got up to say goodbye. After two years of not using my left hand to interact with other people, shaking their hands with my left hand felt incredibly strange. And wrong.

I was so grateful that it was dark out. I climbed on the back of my dad's motorcycle, tears already pouring down my face, and tried to focus on keeping myself as warm as possible in the very cold morning air as we zoomed out of the compound, past the health post, the school and down the dark dirt path out of my village.

My host dad and Jarta

Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. Saying goodbye to my host dad was especially tough. I already miss him and everyone else.

So now it is a week and a half or so until I get on the plane for America. In the mean time, I have time in Kolda to go through all of my things and then several days in Dakar to finalize all paperwork, grants and signatures so that I can actually leave. I'll try to make one last post before before I leave.

Cheers to all and a big thank you to everyone for all of the support in the last two years.