Pecadom Plus Day 1: To Causerie Or Not To Causerie

I arrived in Saraya and we all went to the Linn Inn.  The Linn Inn of course is the hut of the Linn’s (Pat and Anne).  It’s a rather large hut since there’s two of them and I’m super jealous of it.  Also, Pat like rigged the whole thing up with ropes and pulleys and whatnot to the point where I’m pretty sure in case of a flood we could sail it down the Gambia to safety.  Regardless of how awesome the Linn estate is, we divided up the TDRs and the ACTs.  I was to go to Dalafing to shadow the Dsdom there.  

 Yay maps!

It was only like 7k away on a paved road.  But seriously, the road was paved.  It was like an American road.  I can’t stress how nice it is to ride a bike on a legitimate paved road (It’s paved because its on the road to the gold mines and the gold companies fronted the resources to get it paved). 

LOOK AT THE ROAD!!!!!

                So I arrive in Dalafing and call the Dsdom to arrange where to meet him… and there’s no reception.  Shoot.  Ok, now what?  This is going to be awkward.  I pull over to the side of the road at a random guy’s house to ask where I can find him.  “Ou est-ce que je puex trouver monsieur Danfakha?” (I’m pretty sure that means “where can I find mister Danfakha”).  Fortunately apparently everyone in Mande territory knows each other, and he directed me to the Danfakha residence.  Unfortunately the dsdom wasn’t there, so I had to sit there awkwardly for about half an hour unable to communicate because I don’t speak Malinke and they didn’t speak French.  So the dsdom arrives, now it’s time to get down to business.  I tell him in broken French who I am and that we can get started with the causerie (a causerie is basically a meeting where someone presents information to the group.  The dsdoms give causeries to the women’s group about how to identify malaria and what to do if they believe someone has malaria.  I was told that they were supposed to give a causerie when I got there.)

“What causerie?” he responded.

“You know, the causerie that you’re supposed to give to the women’s group.”

“There’s no causerie today…”

“But they told me that you were supposed to give a causerie today…”

“yeah… that’s tomorrow.”

“No, the sweeps are tomorrow, the causerie is today.”

“Oh… well, we can call a meeting today then!”

So basically we go to the chief’s house and tell him that we need to throw a causerie.  The chief is understandably perplexed, but with some persuasion we get him to agree.  As he walks off into the sunset to gather the women I hear the fading clarion call of a gilded horn carved from the horn of the mightiest ram seen in these parts in a hundred years, sounding its voice to assemble the masses.  Not really, but that would be pretty cool.  He just went to different compounds and asked people if they would come.

There was a pretty poor turnout of only about 15.  That’s understandable though because people have stuff to do and can’t drop everything to listen to a toubab talk.  With everyone there, the dsdom says its time to start the causerie.  

He turns to me and says, “let’s start.”  “Ok, then begin,” I tell him. “…yeah, you’re giving the causerie, you’re white and it would be better if it came from you”.  I’ve never given a causerie, my public speaking skills are subpar, and I can barely speak French.  However, we were given a handout in French outlining the key parts of the causerie, and apparently since being white carried so much weight, I started talking about malaria.  It was dead silent, blank stares looked back at me as I tried to explain the signs and symptoms. At the end of what seemed like forever I asked “are there any questions?”  There were none… because literally no one understood what I said.  None of them spoke French.   The Dsdom then started talking in Malinke, saying what I assume is the exact same thing, and facilitating an engaging conversation. 

Seriously, why did I make a fool of myself in French if no one would understand me and it would just be repeated in Malinke?  Oh well, C’est Senegal Quoi!  The Dsdom said that we would give another causerie the next day, you know, because no one actually came.

With the causerie finally over, I biked back to the Linn inn.  I was supposed to get back at around 4, I got back at 8.  We went out to eat in Saraya (which is actually a pretty nice place, the restaurant was excellent, some good ceeb bu jeen).  And as I went to bed that night after the frustrations of the day I couldn’t help but fall asleep to the thought of “what could the next 4 days possibly have in store for me”.