Baba

I walk through the cornfield to greet my host father Baba in the morning. I see him bend over to pick up a piece of split bamboo that he will weave to make a fence. The village will plant corn next month. Baba’s field sits fallow, a dead wasteland of dry soil and two lonely mango trees that have just shed their final fruit of the season. It has not rained in seven months. 

Baba wears a pair of work-torn dark grey pants and a navy blue suit jacket with no shirt. His short salt-and-pepper curls of hair highlight his receding hairline. It has been three weeks since he last shaved his head, a regular act for most Senegalese Muslims. A Guinean cigarette, smuggled across the nearby border, dangles out of the corner of his mouth, the smoke dissipating quickly in the morning breeze. The sun is bright and the air around me is already swelling with heat.

“Baba!” I say three times with steadily increasing volume. At my third call, Baba turns around and straightens up, saying “Hmm?” Then softly, in his deep baritone, he says “Mamadou, naamansii” in mumbled greeting, using my Senegalese name. A warm grin shines through the wrinkles around his eyes. I extend my hand and he grasps it limply. His fingers are dry and calloused. “Did you get some sleep?” he continues. As he moves his arms, his suit jacket opens to reveal the abs of a semi-professional midfielder. “Yes, I got some sleep,” I respond in Diakhanke, the local language spoken in the 400-person village of Afia Magasin. His gaze lingers on me for a moment before turning back to his work. Our hands part. The corners of his mouth are still fashioned into a subtle smile as he transfers his machete back to his right hand and picks up another piece of bamboo to split. This daily ritual of morning greeting is what I will miss most upon my untimely departure from Senegal.

I am again walking through the cornfield, returning to my family’s compound in the early evening after greeting a friend who lives across the village. In a few minutes, the sun will turn deep orange and dip below the horizon. Just before opening the back gate, I glance nonchalantly into Baba’s backyard over the four-foot-tall fence he made last year from large tree branches. I often take a look around as I enter the compound to get an idea of who is home and whom I may need to greet.

Baba is in the midst of a bucket shower. He is soaping up his chest with a loofah made from tree bark. Everything hanging out for all to see. I do not know that this vantage point gives me a direct view of his bathing area. The rest of my family knows, and they accordingly choose not to walk this path while Baba is showering. Or if they do walk through the gate, they know not to peek over the fence absentmindedly. But I do not know this. When I see him—all of him—Baba is smiling. White suds drip off his arms and chest, obscuring for a moment his toned frame. He has seen me coming, surely. He saw me walking home from across the field. He saw me approaching the back gate, which adjoins his yard. He saw me begin to turn my head to look towards where he stands. And yet, he smiles. His eyes gleam, and the corners of his mouth turn upwards as if they do not know how to frown. My cheeks, already red from the day’s heat, quickly flush. I break my eye contact with Baba and look back towards the gate. I can feel his compassionate eyes still watching me, chuckling to himself as the light of the day begins to yellow. 

It is late in the evening and I am sitting in pleasant silence outside with my host family, contently full with rice and watery, salty peanut sauce. I have lived in Senegal for 18 months. I do not know it yet, but a global pandemic is soon to mandate the evacuation of all Peace Corps Volunteers worldwide, cutting short my 27-month commitment. I have heard some news of the virus, but its severity has not yet become apparent. 

Baba, lying on his outdoor palmwood bed, asks me to count the number of small pebbles in his hand. He cannot read or write. The pebbles he scooped up total a sum so large it has taken him ages to count. But time is abundant in Afia Magasin. There are no smartphones to pull us each into our own world of text messages and games, no television to vacuum up our attention. Baba’s pebble-counting task is so easy as to be an insult to my intelligence. If I had been asked by someone my age, I would have laughed it off as a joke, saying “Really? I could have counted these pebbles at the end of my first month here.” But the rules are different when old men ask the questions.

A lump creeps into the pit of my stomach. This may be my last chance to show off my Diakhanke language and prove to Baba that his efforts to teach me have been worthwhile. So I do not roll my eyes, but instead count out loud, one at a time as I transfer the pebbles from my right hand to my left. “Kilin, fula, saba…” I project my voice more than I normally would so that Baba can hear each and every syllable. My host mothers, silently using their hands to scoop the last bites of rice from their shared green plastic bowl, listen intently from across the compound. As I get to 22, my eyes start to tear up. The specter of evacuation looms over my head like a rain cloud. I am thankful for the darkness to conceal my watering eyes and I do not let my voice waver. I continue to count the pebbles one by one as Baba watches from his position on the bed, one elbow propping up his torso. I finish counting and proudly proclaim, “Forty. Forty are here.” Baba smiles and says, “Mamadou knows. Mamadou knows our language.” ▩