Village Life

One of the professors on the trip with us is originally from Senegal, and Thursday night we had the opportunity to visit his village in rural Africa. After a very long, 8 hour bus trip from Dakar (with several stops along the way), we arrived in Tene Toubab just as the sun was setting. We were met with horse drawn carts to give us a ride from the road into the village.

We were greeted by the entire village - men, women, and children welcomed us with drumming and dancing. The dancing here was very much like drumming, feet pounding on the ground in time to the beat. Children that could barely walk were up dancing - it is so incredible to witness the infusion of rhythm into the soul of these people. I would not have missed this night for anything.

The village still leads an extremely rural existence. There is no electricity, and there is only recently the addition of running water. Once the sun set, pitch darkness set in very quickly. The people here truly live off the land. Their houses, fences, everything is made out of natural materials. The sense of community is overwhelming. The people eat together in a common area, raise their children together, really live together. It is human nature to complicate things, and I don't want to make the assumption that people in rural areas have less problems, less heartache than we do in our "modern" world. But human interaction still exists in a way that gets lost in our technology - our texting and emailing and facebooking that allow us to stay in touch without ever actually touching.

The children (and the adults) were so excited to have pictures taken and be able to view them after. I made lots of friends, but one little 9-year old girl named Kumba eventually grabbed my hand and didn't let go. She had a stutter and seemed more stoic than the rest of the children. I could tell she was so pleased to have my attention when it was so clearly wanted, but I didn't see her really smile until I gave her a piggyback ride all around the village. I wonder what that stutter means for her - and what it will mean as she gets older. She was crying when I left, and I gave her my watch because it's all I really had to give her.

How incredible it is to think that both this life and mine co-exist in the same world. And I wonder how the presence of a modern world impacts that of the rural. To know there is a place called America, where a group of "rich" people came on a big bus and gave us lots of presents and played with us and then drove away back to that place from which they came. Are stories of their own, like our professor, who moved abroad told with reverence? Do children begin to look down on this rural life or at the very least hope to leave it behind them? Will rural life eventually collapse - and the beauty of community and nature sacrificed in the name of comfort and possessions and technology?

I could have stayed here a long time, possibly forever. And maybe I'll be back - not here exactly, but somewhere like it. To learn the stories of these people and share their lives.

Now we are spending a few days in an artist's community called Sobo Bade, aka paradise. I'm attending an African drumming class in an hour!