Time Out of Line

It has been nearly a year since our last posts here. I don't know how I let it slip - I enjoy this little dia-blog. What a year it has been. Here we are on the cusp of another transition. How to choose between wants, desires, and fears? What will we choose, and, by extension, what does that say about what motivates us? I look forward to seeing where we end up, as resolution of this last chapter and as the start of a whole new chapter for you and me, for us.

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.