A new haircut for my travels

BEFORE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AFTER

This is my materpiece. A razor, a mirror, and a quick check with my guard Emmanuel to make sure I didn't miss any spots. Well, you have to admit, the hair is a bit wild in the "before" picture. It has been two months since I left the US and had a "real" haircut. This one is just a razor to the head, and although I could find a "real" one in N'Djamena (somewhere, though I don't know where) - well, it's just easier with the razor to do it myself, at home, and on my own time. Besides, it is too hot for a real haircut - the high today was 103 degrees F.

The real reason for the haircut, besides trying to ditch the hair-out-of-control image, is to feel and look good for my vacation. Well, as good as I can look anyway! I think I look better in real life - I am not a fashion model, and taking a self portrait with your telephone certainly doesn't make it to GQ magazine. Might help if I put on a shirt, I suppose.

Ah yes, enough about my head - talking about my vacation. I am travelling on Monday to Dakar for a week's "rest and relaxation." WFP gives me one week every two months just to attain this result. I will take most of the day to get there, and it will take two days to get back. Here is my travel plan (travel routes in purple and red, click for a clearer image):

I am going primarily to see some Senegalese friends, some American friends working in Dakar, and some other friends who work with WFP who happen to be coming to town for a conference this week. And of course, I will be seeing Fatim (see previous blog entries). Hopefully I will get some good stories to share - see you in a few weeks!

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In response to my last blog entry, my friend April wrote to me to remind me of her piece on Guinea regarding "gris-gris" (pronounced gree-gree), or those magic amulets that I discussed in my last entry. I was present for most of these stories (she was "informed in part by my experiences and research," she says).

Rereading her piece, I was reminded of the story of my roommate Michel. I was away when Michel fell sick, but returned to see him answer the door to our apartment in a very poor condition just before being medically evacuated to France. Once in Paris, he was admitted immediately to the hospital. The doctors found nothing wrong with him, released him, and he fell sick again. What April says is absolutely true, that I called her concerned that the doctors could find nothing, imagining that somehow some African witchcraft had been released to raise havoc on my friend. Well, not to give away the end of the story, I leave you to read April's story called "Gris-Gris-ed."

http://www.aprilwrites.com/travels/grisgris.html

Eat and Sit

A loves B, B loves C, and C doesn’t give a hoot about the whole fiasco. This is an unsolvable algebraic nightmare. Perhaps it’s because I sit here single at the age of 35 that I might be a bit jaded about love. However, intimate relationships require the will of two parties – perhaps one person being a bit more committed than the other, a bit more persuasive than the other, sometimes a bit more conniving than the other.

At some time or another, many of us have certainly wished to be that conniving person in the relationship. A magic love potion would certainly do the trick – just introduce a bit of powder into your loved ones drink and voila – instant love! Magic fairy dust and love potions – this is the stuff of fairy tales, you say? Oh yes, fairy tales and West Africa.

During the time when I was in Guinea from 1998 – 2005, I received many warnings about eating food from strange people. The fear wasn’t that the meal would be poorly prepared and give me stomach sickness that would have me ensuring that the next 2 days would find me no further than a 30-second run from the toilet. Nor was it that the host had some sort of vendetta against me or foreigners and wanted to poison me and every white person that ever lived. It was much simpler than that – it was about finding a “good catch” (a foreigner, thus with lots of money) and winning his love by adding a bit of magic dust to his food.

What exactly are the effects of such a concoction? One afternoon, my friend Kadi answered this for me as I was having a meal at her house. As I teased her, she denied lacing my food. How can I know this, I asked. She replied that had she indeed spiked my food with such a substance, I would be unable to live without her – that I would be forever following her around town and regretting every moment that I spent without her!

My friend Yaya Bah explained to me the history of the potion, which is known in Guinea as “nyami joro,” the Pulaar words for “Eat and Sit.” Pulaar (or Fulani) women have always been the most desired women of all the different ethnicities because of their beauty, he explained. This presented a constant problem to the Pulaar race because their women would be taken away from their tribe and her children would lose touch with the Pulaar culture. In order to counter this, the Pulaar people developed “Nyami Joro.” The substance is fed to the man and it causes the man to fall so in love with the woman that he also invests in her village to build a home for his family before even investing in his own village. In this way, the Pulaar people have been able to preserve their culture and their wealth.

I have a personal story about Nyami Joro related to a Guinean malinké girl that I was dating for a few months. One day, the sister from my host family told me not to eat anything that my girlfriend prepared for me. At first I was shocked, and then recognized the issue at hand. I heeded the advice, and I did not eat anything that she prepared. In the past, though, I had eaten many things that she prepared. And, had she tried to give me Nyami Joro, well I did “eat”, but it didn’t make me “sit”. Perhaps it just doesn’t work, or maybe you have to believe in it to work, or maybe she just went to a bad medicine man and got some poor quality stuff. Whatever the case, shortly after this incident, we stopped dating.

In the beginning, my ability to accept love potions was right along side the many other bizarre beliefs of Guinean society: the transformation of people into animals, magic amulets providing protection against evil spirits, and bush devils that build village infrastructure (bridges and houses). But little-by-little, I began asking questions about the relationships around me like: why is he dating that girl who treats him like dirt, or why would he date someone that is so ugly? In my mind, I came to only one response: Nyami Joro.

Maybe I am mistaken about the equation involving A, B, and C. If I apply the logic that I learned in Guinea, I think that it can be resolved after all. With a little algebraic manipulation, A loves B, A feeds B Nyami Joro, and consequently B loves A. Then, everyone lives happily ever after, including C. Maybe that was me, C, just sitting back and observing it all!