More Pics

Here are more pics from Senegal...

Honeycomb

I realize I've eaten gallons of honey in my life, the best originating right before my eyes in the north orchard of Meadow Farm. There has been light honey, dark honey, thick honey (like molasses), eucalyptus honey, honey in a tube, honey on bread, in bread, pies, yogurt, pancakes, chili, peanut butter banana honey sandwiches, in juice and tea, the list is endless. Honey is one of those foods that brings forth my inner child giddiness.

That being said, my bubbling excitement (which translated into some type of a skipping jig jog) came as no surprise to me but rather to my friend Mbara who had invited me to join a late-night honey search party. I had tasted a lick of the last nights find and couldn't wait to indulge my taste buds a second, third, perhaps even a fourth time.

Just outside my family's compound was our first stop. A troop of bees had set-up shop inside a large tree trunk. Smoke was produced to sedate the bees as they were ubruptly disturbed by the hacking of the ax. Mbara reached his already swollen hand (from bites the previous day) into the growing openning, pulling out clumps of carefully made honeycomb...dripping with sweetness. Next Omar took a turn and then Barbacar, each reaching in farther and farther to mine every drop of gold attainable. I watched in anticipation as well as providing a baking soda paste for their accumulating stings.

There was no waiting for our first tastes. Barbacar broke a piece of the comb, shoveled additional honey on top and placed it in my hand. I slowly deposited it into my mouth. Add honey straight from the comb to my list, there is nothing like it. Honey oozed from each small compartment as I repeatedly closed my teeth on the chewy wax.

We quickly stored the bucket in my hut before heading out into the country side to find more. Although the search was unsuccessful, for me just to be out tromping around at night was a new adventure. Women just don't do it here.

When we retrieved the honey from my hut I watched as the party of five gathered around, squatting on their haunches as if around the dinner bowl, and proceeded to eat as much honey as humanly possible. For the next five or ten minutes, all that could be heard was ravenous slurping sounds...

I believe I heard bees humming in the branches of the baobab tree bordering my garden. My mouth is already watering...

Cinema, Senegalese Style

Last night, as a Senegalese theater group was beginning to develop the night's storyline, folks from seemingly every corner of the village made their way in front of the small, 13" tv screen. Boys and girls sat up front as well as wedged into any free space available (including my lap). Others, the adults, found themselves a stool or plastic container to sit on, creating layers of dark bodies and illuminated faces filling the entirety of my family's compound.

As usual, I put full effort into the wolof words, spilling way-to-fast for my comprehension from the lips of the actors, in hopes to follow the plot line. And as usual, it wasn't long before my concentration on the film began to slip from the screen to the even more intriguing world around me.

To my right sat one of my host mothers. She was cradling her youngest child, Mama. Moments earlier I had been tickling Mama as she "researched" one of my eyeballs. Just recently Mama began calling me "yaay" which means mother in Wolof. In her eyes, I'm not a stranger, the "toubab", white, American, or a money-source, I'm just another mother. It's incredible the joy a two-year-old can bring a soul.

To my left sat a young girl, daughter of one of my favorite women in the village. She swayed back and forth, front to back, as her body surrendered to fatigue. Occasionally an annoyed friend would slap her awake as she played bumber bodies in her sleep.

A group of boys up front randomly scatter as a small dark creature scurries away from the realized blockade of bodies...they are scared to death of snakes, even the harmless types. Yet, it was probably a frog or lizard.

I smile a lot to myself here. There are so many unvoicable moments and even if I was articulate enough to voice them, with whom would I share? You, I guess.