Pressure

"All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume." -Noam Chomsky

I have known that something has been bothering Coumba for a while. She smiles and laughs at jokes but otherwise she appears to be somber, deep in thought and off some where far away. I asked her once what was wrong and she said she was poor. I could tell it was a figure of speech but I didn't know how to delve into it. So I said I hope you find a resolution for your problem. There is no resolution, she said. A few days later she told me that she had been trying off and on to have a baby and had not been successful in all the years she had been married. She said she is still trying and hopes to be pregnant by December. I wished her the best of luck and added her, her husband, and their future children to my prayers.

When I was still stateside I read a brief article on the website of the International Museum of Women about the Malian diva Oumou Sangare, a famous singer who at one point was trying desperately to have a baby. There is saying in Mali that if a woman is too successful, she won’t have children. I wonder how much of that difficulty is a self-fulfilling prophecy for successful women who expect to have trouble conceiving because they have been successful... Oumou finally conceived a son, Cherif, and her song "Denko", about the business of having children, is accessible through the link to the article. Her biography and pics are accessible through the other link.

Friday after work Coumba went to drive Sogona and myself home and it was only then that I discovered that they had decided we were going to Sogona's place. We parked the car and I trudged behind Coumba and Sogona through the empty stalls in the market. Since it had rained recently there were a lot of muddy ruts, some of which we had no choice but to walk through. I cringed at the thought of my all-terrain closed-toe sandals getting covered with mud, even though I had worn them on that day knowing that it was a possibility. Then I looked up and was shocked and humbled by the fact that Coumba and Sogona were walking in the mud in heels, nice heels!

After the market we went up a few stairs in an apartment building and Sogona let us into her place. Her husband works in Senegal and her nine-year old daughter has sickle-cell anemia and is often sick so she stays with Sogona's mother during the week. Coumba started cutting up onions and tomatoes and Sogona started to prepare the rice and fish. While her livingroom looked much like a livingroom in the States, the kitchen was a water faucet, sink, and cooking stove out on the terrace. We flipped through the channels and there were programs from England, France, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Ivory Coast, even some Indian programming. They asked me if we got the same programming in the States and I was ashamed to admit that we are pretty isolated and do not have access to programming from a lot of different countries.

In what seemed like no time at all we sat down to a meal of a-chat-ay, a dish from the Ivory Coast. Rice mixed with onions, tomatoes, salt and vinegar and fried fish. Sogona asked if I was going to eat with my hands and I said yes. Coumba asked again (remember she refused to let me eat with my hands at work) and I said yes again. She raised her eyebrows at me. We sat down and began to eat and the food was absolutely delicious.

Coumba put a bit of mustard pepper in front of everyone and once she tasted it she declared it was very strong and reached to remove my pepper. I had already eaten some and liked it as I am very used to hot dishes and I asked her to leave the pepper there. No it's too strong for you, she said. No it's fine, Coumba leave it. And Sogona protested too on my behalf. Coumba relented but as she sat down she again said, It's too strong for you, under her breath. I ate a big handful with lots of pepper in it just then as she watched. I told her it was fine and I wasn't a child. Sogona laughed and then Coumba offered, Yes you're my child to watch over while you're here. Sweet sentiments but really...she's all of 5 years older than me.
I guess since I've been watching for a while know I got the hang of rolling the food into a ball... I'm just very slow. They had all made huge dents in the food in front of them while I was still starting out. So what I finished eating 15 minutes after them. I did it and without dropping food all over myself.