In Touch With the Elements

The Five Elements

The Eastern medicine paradigm formulates five elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, and Metal.  I first become aware of them and their effects on my life years ago when I began acupuncture therapy for chronic upper respiratory infections. The elements are our creative and controlling energies and ideally should all be in balance.  Out of balance, they are known as the causative factor and become apparent to a trained acupuncturist, who can then restore balance with the placement of needles along your body’s meridians.  After Western medicine offered me nothing but years’ worth of antibiotics, I turned to this Eastern alternative and it worked for me.  I liked the idea of communing with these elemental forces of nature, plus it gave me something to thing about while needles were being stuck in me.  It wasn’t until I came to African, however, that I understood the profound effect that these elements can have on one’s daily life, in a veritable way. Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, and Metal all play a crucial role in the the developing world.

Fire

Without fire, most people in Africa would not eat.  Most meals are cooked over open flames so fire is a bare necessity.  Fires are also used to burn crops after harvest, heat irons when doing laundry, and boil water for the afternoon Attaya (traditional sweetened tea).  Fire also burns, ever so brightly, in the sky.  The sun is prominent overhead for the majority of the year, exuding extreme heat which permeates everything and everyone.  When you are this close to the equator, seeking shade becomes a daily pastime for both people and animals. When folks back home ask me how it is here in Senegal, my first response is usually, “it’s hot!”  The sheets on my bed and the clothes in my wardrobe feel like they’ve just come out of the dryer.  Cinder block walls radiate the day’s heat inside, even throughout the cooler evening, making sleeping indoors uncomfortable.  The brightness of the sun against the light sand is blinding.

 

Water

As you can imagine, water is a sacred commodity in Senegal.  Many people spend much of their day porting it from one place to another.  I’m lucky to have a faucet at my house, but most of my neighbors rely on wells.  Even with my faucet, water is not guaranteed.  Like, the electricity, water outages are frequent and unpredictable.  Growing up, my dad had a sailboat, so I’ve always had a great respect for the open waters, but after living here in the Sahel, I’ve learned to respect the mere presence of water, as well as its weight, its taste, and its health.  Aside from a drop or two that fell unexpectedly last week, we haven’t seen rain since the first week in October.  When it arrives next month, it will come with a force, dumping great amounts of water on the thirsty soil.  Children will strip naked to bathe in its showers, shrieking with laughter as they lather up.  But it won’t be all fun and games. The trash and manure that line the streets will become soaked in giant puddles creating public health enigmas.  Storm drains clogged with trash will back up and flood the streets blocking roads and creating traffic jams.  Clothes that were once too hot to wear will soak up the moisture in the air begin to mold.  Standing water will cultivate mosquito larvae and the air will be filled with biting and disease-carrying insects.  So, although it’s greatly desired most of the time, when it comes water often wreaks havoc.

 

Earth
The earth feels old and tired in Senegal.  The soil is sandy and lacking nutrients.  Where it’s not sandy, it’s rocky and hard.  Sand and dirt are tracked everywhere and swept continuously.  The earth is dry and expansive, its colors melding into the structures that sit atop it.  Those structures are made from its rocks and its grasses.  The earth here struggles to provide sustenance and farmers are in constant struggle to make it work for them.  Because the terrain is flat, the sky is big in this part of the world.  Trees are few and far between, so the wind flows freely and fiercely at times, picking up sand along the way which then finds its way into every nook and cranny.  The great majority of people’s living space is in the open with dirt floors and the sky overhead.  People here in Africa have known this earth a long time and can attest to the fact that it has not always been kind to them.

 

Wood

As I mentioned in my last post, gathering wood is a daily role for many women.  Wood is needed for fire, fire is needed for food, it’s all a big cycle. The trees that are left in this area of the world become prey to people in need of firewood and live tree limbs are hacked away without a care.  If they're not taking their limbs, they're scraping off their bark to make traditional remedies for common ailments.  Miles of land stretch on with only the baobab (a spiritually protected tree, which happens not to burn well) in sight.  Luckily, I live with host-father who’s spent his life learning and teaching others about the importance of reforestation and the benefits of an environment diversified with many plant species.  Some days, it feels like he is on a one-man mission trying to implement change and modify behavior.  For now, he’s got my help, and each year a new group of students to carry on his message.  The land is vast, however, and the message has far to travel.

 

Metal
Concrete and metal form the basis for most structures in Senegal and the sound of the two of these together is one that I will never forget.  It’s a loud harsh clang that is mimicked by the native language.  Metal on metal is also the sound of meals--spoons scraping against bowls and platters.  Metal absorbs heat and therefore augments that problem of daily discomfort.  Roofs radiate the heat inside, doors swell up mid-day and are hot to touch and hard to open, window shutters clang in the wind.  Scrap metal is used to enclose compounds or to make toys. Small children can often be seen rolling metal hoops down the road like scene from colonial Williamsburg.  Others spend time constructing their own toys, making figures and cars out of old wire or tin cans.  It's also common to see young children with razor blades in hand.  These thin, sharp, cutting edges replace scissors, which most family don't own, so no one thinks twice when they end up in the hands of a small child trying to cut a piece of cardboard into a doll.  I have to admit, this is hard to watch.

 

 

My Thoughts
Communing with the elements can mean leading a harsh existence, but it can also make you intimately aware of your environment.  I know that in 14 months, I'll be packing up my hot or moldy belongings and headed back to my life in "Amerik", where we have insulation, carpeting, air conditioning, and public sanitation systems to shield me from some of these discomforts.  We also have four glorious seasons which help generate growth and make my little spot on this earth a beautiful place to be.  I would hope that I will never take these basic elements for granted again, but in all likely hood, I will, because I can.  Hopefully, I'll always remember what my friend Marla recently told me, that "most of the world is like Senegal, or India, or Laos", where she just traveled. "We were born into a rich and civilized country.  We can cannot be sorry for what we have, we can only have an open heart and be more in tune about what other's need and, above all, be thankful for what we have."

Love, Loss, and Not Letting Go

Part I - Love and Loss in the Information Age

Being 4,000 miles from home poses many challenges, physically, emotionally, and logistically.  Moving out of my house with little notice and leaving behind people and pets who I love was just the beginning.  Since my arrival, I’ve had to adjust to a daily life filled with cultural and language obstacles.  Most of this I was prepared to face, knowing it may be difficult at times.  I’d made contingency plans for logistics back home, I faced each cultural roadblock as a learning experience, and I continue to struggle with communication issues, but these are all things I was prepared to do because I expected them.

What I was not as prepared for was the unexpected--the real life things that happen to people everyday, but that you don‘t think will happen to you., especially when you are so far from your support system.  I was not prepared for the sudden death of a close friend, my faux-uncle and confident of 20 years, who was diagnosed with brain cancer a few weeks after I left the States.  He passed away soon thereafter, and the memorial service which I was very sad to have missed occurred the same day that the long-term relationship that I‘d left behind, hoping it would somehow be strengthened by a temporary physical separation and an exercise in self-reflection, took an unexpected nose dive and crashed to its ultimate demise.  I was not prepared for my sister to suddenly have serious health problems taking her in and out of the hospital with no definite diagnosis, leaving my family worried about what might happen next.  I was not prepared for my 13 year old dog who I left with a dear friend to develop a malignant tumor that would cause him to be put down, even though I knew in the back of my mind that he might have passed away from natural causes before I returned.  And lastly, I was not prepared to be attacked on the streets of Dakar last week, as an mugger tried to take my purse, leaving me with minor physical injuries, but emotional side effects that might stick around a while.

The loneliness and helplessness that come when you can’t actually be with the ones you love in their time of need, or in your own, take on a new dimension when your support network can only be reached through modern technology.  It’s the “boy in the bubble” scenario (Travolta, not Seinfeld).  I have the ability to speak with people over the phone or on Skype and to chat with people on Facebook and Gmail, which is a luxury Peace Corps Volunteers of the not-so-distant past certainly did not have, but it’s not the same as true human contact.  As the world gets more and more reliant on these communication methods, this is a good reminder that these will never replace the need for a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on, or a glass to clink.  That being said, this is certainly the next best thing if you’re physically separated so I guess there a balance to be had.  Recently, a friend who was surprised at how accessible I was on-line asked me if I thought being so connected took away from my overall Peace Corps experience and I quickly responded, “No, it’s my lifeline.”   In retrospect, the answer is really YES, it does change the experience, but in a way that I’ve come to appreciate.  Being able to share my experiences, celebrate someone else’s joy, or provide some words of support makes me feel less lonely and less isolated.  My intention when joining the Peace Corps was to use the advantages I’d been given in life to give back to others, experience a world unknown to me, and in the process maybe discover something about myself.  I certainly had no notions of an “Into the Wild” fantasy where I cut off all contact with the outside world.

This ability to communicate with others has opened doors I never would have imagined.  People whom I’ve never met have found me through my blog or through other friends and have reached out to me to thank me for my service or to let me know that they‘ve been inspired to do something new and life-changing themselves.  Old friends who I’d lost touch with are back in my life and are cheering me on through my journey.  Classrooms of kids are being introduced to a part of the world they’d never heard of before and are becoming inquisitive about their global surroundings.  None of this would have been possible had I only the antiquated third world postal system to use for communication.


 Part II - Not Letting Go

Women of my generation have been trained from a very early age what to do in the case of an attack.  In fact, I’d had a refresher just a few months ago during our Peace Corps Pre-Service Training.  Most of the advice you’re given focuses on how to protect yourself from a physical and/or sexual assault and how to alert other people’s attention to what‘s happening.  For a robbery, though, the advice is almost always to let the attacker have what he asks for to avoid being physically assaulted.  Somehow, probably because my robbery took the form of an sudden attack, my instincts told me otherwise.  As is likely the case in most of these incidences, my assailant appeared from out of nowhere.  One minute I was walking down the street and the next minute I was being dragged down it.  The mugger came running at me from behind and tried to grab my purse which was strapped diagonally across my chest.  Since it didn’t just slip off my arm, I was thrown to the ground and my hands immediately latched onto the strap to stop him from taking it.  My grip became gecko-like, and my fingers held onto that strap as if my life depended on it.  Ironically, had I just let go, I probably wouldn’t be as bruised and battered as I am now because our struggle continued for quite some time.  I kicked and screamed and was determined to not let him prevail.  My friend who was walking just a stride behind me saw the whole thing tried to hit the guy to get him to stop, but he quickly elbowed her in the eye and knocked her to the ground.  People from the surrounding compounds came out in droves to assist us and ultimately chased the attacker off, luckily, without my purse.  We were just outside the apartment building where we were spending the night with an American English teacher we’d met when all of this occurred, literally just several feet from the door.  The building guard came out and helped us inside as we were both bleeding and in shock.  We called our Peace Corps security officer and within a half an hour, the Country Director was there to pick us up and take us to the Med Hut (the medical unit at the Peace Corps office) which was just 500 meters away and where the security office was awaiting our arrival.

Although our injuries were minor (scrapes, bruises, a black eye, and sore muscles), we were both pretty shaken up and stayed in the Med Hut for several nights.  The Peace Corps medical officer was great and the security officer followed up on the case first thing the next morning.  Apparently, the neighbors who’d come to our assistance recognized our attacker as someone who lived in the neighborhood and had done this before.  One of the neighbors accompanied us to the Gendarmerie (the national police) to identify him, which was great, because despite the fact that I’d spent several minutes looking at my attacker straight in the face while trying to fend him off I don’t think I’d be able to identify him in a line-up.  It’s strange what the mind chooses to block out.

Unfortunately, our experience dealing with the Gendarmerie was not as positive as our experience with the Peace Corps staff.  The intake officer took one look at us and, before even hearing what we had to say, went on a tirade in Wolof about how stupid Toubab women are for walking alone at night and how we should have expected something like this to happen.  The officer in charge was not much better, as the first question out of his mouth was, “Why didn’t you have men with you?”  Aarrghh!, this patriarchal society makes me want to scream sometimes!  Although they were quick to judge us for the incident, in the end, they did take it seriously and plan to arrest the guy.

The process is interesting.  First of all, the reason we were dealing with the Gendarmerie and not the Police is because the attack occurred in the Village of N’Gor (a small village within the city limits of Dakar) and the Gendarmerie has jurisdiction over villages.  Once our initial complaints were filed, they gave the neighbor who accompanied us an official stamped warrant and asked him to take it to the Village Chief.  The warrant requested that the father of the young man who attacked us bring his son in voluntarily.  When I asked what would happen if they didn’t come in, they responded that they’d round up a group of people to go get him in the night, a veritable modern-day posse.  Wow!  We should find out what came to pass on Monday.  At this point, I’m not sure if we’ll be called back to Dakar to testify in an actual trial or if they’ll just throw him in the slammer based on our complaint.

It’s been several days now and my wounds have scabbed over and the swelling has gone down.  My back, arm, and leg muscles still ache from the struggle, but I suspect that, too, will subside in the coming days along with my headaches.  The initial shock that I experienced which left me a bit nauseous with wobbly knees and insomnia only lasted 36 hours or so.  What remains, I’m afraid, is a overactive startle-response that’s left me panicked three times already.  The day after the attack, my friend and I ventured to a grocery store a couple of blocks from the office to get some food to cook while we were there.  It was late afternoon and although we were on-guard, we felt safe enough walking there from the office as this strip of road was heavy populated and it was still light outside.  This was the same grocery store I blogged about a couple of  months ago that was overwhelming to me when I was in a normal state of mind, so I was a bit over stimulated on this trip and found it difficult to make decisions.  We wanted comfort food, but didn’t want to go through the process of having to decide what to buy and then cook it for ourselves.  This is definitely where a “mom” would have come in handy.  Anyway, that’s the position we found ourselves in, so I was standing at the cheese counter (naturally--all comfort food contains cheese) and the lights suddenly went out.  My knees gave out, I gasped for breath, broke out in a sweat, and collapsed into the side of the cheese case. This sudden change in my environment was so startling, yet power outages are daily occurrences in Senegal. The generator popped on within seconds and I quickly recovered.  Yesterday, something similar happened.  I was able to catch a ride halfway back to my site with the Peace Corps security officer and a team of people who were heading to a meeting in Thiès.  They planned to help me at the Garage and put me in a Sept-Place back to Diourbel.  Along the way, we stopped at another volunteer’s village for a quick visit.  I asked to use her bathroom and while squatting over her toilet, a squirrel jumped from a tree onto the tin roof, clamoring above my head.  The same physical reaction occurred, yet I was precariously hovering over a Turkish toilet.  I guess this was a prime location to have the shit scared out of me, but apparently (and thankfully) that turns out to be just a figure of speech!  I was able to pull myself together.  Even today, as I’ve been typing this story, a group of young kids came into our compound looking for my host-Dad.  I told them he’d just left for a few hours and they said they’d come back later.  I shut the door of the compound when they left, so I could continue writing undisturbed, however, a few minutes later I heard a knock at the door.  My room is quite a distance from the door, so it took my a minute or so to get there and the knocking continued as I approached the door.  When I opened it, the young girl on the other side was not standing where I had expected her to be, but was in the process of climbing up the door to peer over the top.  This caught me so off guard that I jumped back and lost my breath again, hyperventilating and scaring this poor little girl who was just coming back to find out what time my host-Dad would be returning.  Yikes!  I guess I’m going to have to live with this side effect for a little while, but hopefully, it will pass sooner than later.

It may sound silly, but I’m glad I walked away from this experience without having my purse taken.  Somehow, it feels empowering not to have let him have it.  I know I’m lucky that he didn’t whip out a knife or seriously hurt me, but if he’d gotten away with my things I would have felt so much more violated.  There are a lot of strong women in my life and each of them, upon hearing this story, has commended me on not letting go of my purse.  It may not be text-book advice to put up a fight for things that are surely replaceable, but it definitely made me feel less helpless.

Writing about these experiences for my friends and family to read is not the same telling you in person and then sharing a hug, a glass of wine, or a much-needed bowl of comfort food, but it has helped me process what's happened and hopefully will help me move on.

As I know from past experiences, "time will heal all wounds."