Eggs and television

My roommate ate 25 eggs in 5 days. Do you think there's a direct relationship with television and egg consumption?

2015

Yes, the second gold rush in San Francisco. I was talking with a friend from Chicago yesterday, she told me that they don't put ketchup on their hotdogs / sausages there, apparently because they respect the hotdog / sausage too much to sully it with ketchup. Fair. We got into a discussion of what kind of foods come from our home cities, and they asked me about San Francisco. I said that in the last 10 years or so, I said it's characterized by appropriated ethnic foods, organic and obscure things, which are bourgie and expensive. Fair?

Teranga? Teranga!

What is teranga you ask?! That's like asking an American, what is this "freedom" that you speak of? Teranga translates to hospitality or welcoming. Senegalese are fiercely proud of their teranga, it's part of their national identity. I just asked a passing Wolof teacher how he would define teranga - he said "doing everything possible to make your guest happy". The Senegalese football team is named the "Lions of Teranga", which is probably my favorite application of the word. Something about combining the aggressiveness and masculinity of football with the graciousness of hospitality. For a football team I'd more likely expect "Lions of...victory / courage etc". In November there was a conference for Francophone African countries, hosted in Senegal. There were giant posters all over Dakar with President Macky Sall "Welcome to Senegal, country of Teranga". It sounds a bit Africa cliché, this kind of endless generosity, and I suppose it is. It also comes with the expectation for proportional reciprocity (not immediate but in the long term), which gets quickly complicated because of all the disproportions here.

1853/2015

A passage from the Sisters Brothers, partially set in Gold Rush San Francisco:

“You must understand, gentlemen,” says one character, “that the tradition of thrift and sensible spending has vanished here. It simply does not exist anymore. For example, when I arrived this last time from working my claim I had a sizable sack of gold dust, and though I knew it was lunacy I decided to sit down and have a large dinner in the most expensive restaurant I could find…so it was that I ate a decent-sized, not particularly tasty meal of meat and spuds and ale and ice cream, and for this repast, which would have put me back perhaps a half a dollar in my hometown, I paid the sum of thirty dollars in cash.” “Charlie was disgusted, “Only a moron would pay that.” “I agree, said the man, One hundred percent I agree. And I am happy to welcome you to a town peopled by morons exclusively. Furthermore, I hope your transformation to moron is not an unpleasant experience.”

I love your story of Samba

I'm amazed by how friendly some people still are in San Francisco. Oddly, I find certain cab drivers and the older, non-stereotypical rideshare drivers to be the chattiest. This is an unexpected niche; MUNI riders and walkers aren't very friendly, but private car people are. Just a thought.

Taranga? Prisoner? Man I would be so late to everything in Senegal. I do poorly enough here, and that's not because I'm some hybrid.

Samba is the cultural ambassador to the Baobab Center. In his late forties, he lives in his family's compound in Dakar "we transported the village to the city". He is the afternoon tea maker for the office, an essential job; if there were one job of a cultural ambassador this would be it. He serves teas number one, two and three, spaced out over a few hours. He brings each glass to you on a plastic frisbee turned upside down, and always comes back to retrieve the glass. No matter where you're sitting, he'll find you. His outfits always match. Each day he comes to show you his outfit, and asks, would you like one too? He can get it for you no problem, what is your size? When Senegal played in the African National cup, he stripped down to his shorts and undershirt in the lecture room to put on his Senegal jersey and shorts. He jogged laps around the table, laughing. He invited me to lunch when I first arrived, and I stayed, a prisoner of taranga, for lunch and dinner, at 6pm. I'm not too sure what a cultural ambassador should do, but I think he does it perfectly.

Reality bends

In an interview with the municipal councilman of Patte D'Oie on land rights for urban agriculture in the municipality. On word choice:"I like to use the word 'primitif (primitive)' instead of traditional or native because the root is the word 'premier (first)". Then on post independence reforms: "At midnight of 17 June 1964, all the land that was not registered to the state became national domain. 80% + of the land in Senegal was not registered. This all became the land of the state. So, from this moment, all primative property rights «disappeared». But actually, this didn’t disappear at all. Why? In 1964 this law was voted. But no administrative or legal or social framework was set up to enforce or apply this. The law should be applied. But it wasn’t."

Shoes again

The second pair of shoes I bought at the flea market were running shoes. Before that, I was wearing my hiking boot heavy walking shoes to go running. In my running shoes I feel so light, three laps is a whole new story. The elimination of a pound or two, and everything is different. Can you think of a context in which you could eliminate a weight (literal or not) for the better?

Shoes and cows

Visited the Saturday flea market and discovered the heaping pile of two dollar shoes. I bought a pair of leather Aerosole sandals, the kind I had in first grade. I thought about their travels, from a design board in America to a factory somewhere in Asia most likely, to someone's feet in Europe or America, to me, an unlikely client in Senegal. Two dollars? They once were the skin on a cow, and have traveled thousands of miles around the world. Two dollars. For these shoes I'd become an economist.

Evening With My Mom

A walk over windy Potrero Hill; purchasing a biography of U.S. Grant and learning that the S. wasn't part of his given name, and rather was given to him as a cadet at West Point; sitting in a parklet and watching the street trees blow; recommending the French onion soup to a dapper couple on an early Valentine's date; a superb burger; a roquefort joke; carrying on in a familiar place.

Report Draft

The conceptual grading plan has been designed to maximize the extent of floodplain planting areas with a shallow depth to groundwater in order to support the establishment of willow and cottonwood riparian forest revegetation areas. Areas where the depth to groundwater is anticipated to be greater will be targeted for revegetation with mixed riparian forest that contains more drought tolerant species such as coast live oak, buckeye, box elder, and elderberry, and the highest elevation portions of the site may be revegetated with coastal scrub and grassland habitat. The braided distributary channels across the floodplain are primarily designed to convey flood flows. These areas, designated as Maintained Flow Conveyance Areas (MFCAs), will be revegetated to grassland habitat and maintained to prevent the establishment of woody vegetation that may impede flood conveyance. The farm field will be cover cropped until agricultural operations begin and is the only portion of the site that will be not be revegetated to native riparian habitat.

'Wallace Stegner wrote forty-seven years ago that “Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed,” and something else will go out of us if the resourcefulness, rootedness, and richness of rural culture disappears.'
- Rebecca Solnit
What rural resourcefulness are you observing in Senegal? She uses rootedness in a positive light, but perhaps that's a rose-colored view on what others would describe as trapped or immoveable?

Yesterday I happened to sit next to two women who impressed me. First, a Senegalese professor of African literature who teaches and writes about women in Senegalese society. She married before she finished high school, and had her first child at 18. Her daughter is now 42, making her 60. She went to France to earn her PhD. Did she go alone, were her children grown? I didn't ask. She was careful and articulate with her words, but there were such incongruous lines of thought, I didn't know where to place her. When she started studying literature, Senegal was freshly independent from the French. There was "no" African literature, so started with French. She told me this as a fact, but didn't express judgement. She said to me: "Women and men in Senegal have equal access to opportunities, these days, there is no problem. It is only that the women have to continue with the housework, so they have less time for research and their own projects. Instead of getting married at 18, they now wait until 23 - 25. You would be shocked at the expectations that Senegalese men have for their girlfriends. But in the case of foreign women, Senegalese men understand that they have their freedoms". I wondered, do Senegalese men really understand the relative freedom of western women? Accepting without thought or consideration and understanding are two very different things. (Especially when there is monetary motivation to accept). If they could understand would they adjust their moral grounding, would they be inspired to change? If women don't have such a loud of a voice in Senegal, how can Senegalese men ever grow to understand? I had been thinking to myself that so much is based in education. Yet this educated professor choreographed a graceful distinctly non contentious dance around an inherently contentious topic, which is the focus of her professional career. Is there an intellectual dishonesty in that? Was it humbleness that prevented her from admitting the challenges she overcame? But by not giving significance to the challenges she faced, was she politely writing off huge and structural problems in Senegal? Or was it me that did not understand, perhaps the logic to her carefully structured strategy, but to what end? Second, another mother, an African American here at the language center with her daughter. They attend the same college in Massachusettes, each earning their BA. Mother in International Studies, daughter in Environmental Science. They found a way to study abroad together.

Garlic is never questionable! Always yes, always yes. Peanuts, we see, have their time and place and are not for cracking fresh orthodontia. Bay leaves and Baileys, both can be brought camping, but not used together. Cracked crab pairs with butter, but crabs make their own. Are spices good for you? I mean beyond adding to life generally? Cinnamon dresses a spicy stir fry so well. Crisp celery adds structure without flavor, but preserves well and improves its neighboring vegetables. Food is way of talking about being alive while talking about something specific.

Garlic! And what of onions? There is a national dish, Yassa, which is onions, salt pepper spices, over rice. One part onions, one part rice. When will Senegal be ready for an onion festival of such proportions? In Wolof, the word for "garlic", and "question" are the same

A trip to the dentist today, to translate for a friend. The fish tank gives me comfort, as does the stack of magazines, and dull art. I pass the time looking at light dental reading. All the teeth are numbered, but start at eleven. What happened to one through ten? I try to imagine a child with ten baby teeth, five up and five below. Ah ha, the dentist arrives and he is French. He speaks enough English to say "We glue it. Pay later". Without thinking, I offer my friend peanuts on the way home.

"When I say friends I mean friends. Not anybody and everybody can be your friend. It must be someone as close to you as your skin, someone who imparts color, drama, meaning to your life, however snug and secure it may be."
- Henry Miller

"There must be an art to sharing your neuroses with someone else without frightening them away but showing your human weakness." "I think that's love"