Peter Forberg

80 degrees perched on the 4th floor of a plaster apartment is not sleeping weather nor sleeping terms and conditions. We have not agreed to this. I thank my lucky stars for the bat that appeared at 10:30 PM last week and at first seemed to me to be a sloppy hawk. No, it was a perfect bat, with wings as long tennis rackets and a dropping flight pattern that made it primed for the hunt. It competes with the owl for the place in my heart.

2 weeks ago Nick was sick and I joked in French1 at the dinner bowl that Americans who get sick in Senegal think that they will soon die. I do not fear death,2 but now I wake up in a sweat and untangle myself from the mosquito net. Papa and sister are looming over me, having decided that there is no need for overhead lighting.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” he says, her “How are you feeling?” apparently not clear enough. I explain I’m fine, just a little case of food poisoning. “What have you eaten?” Pretzels, oranges, Powerade– “Yesterday?” Bread, peanut butter, a hamburger, chicken with pasta. “Do you need to go to the hospital?” I think it was the hamburger. Nods of agreement. “Do you have medication?” I’m fine, again, really, and they wish me good night.

Buy chewable pepto bismol and always take your probiotics, also chewable. Preferably flavored. Treat your body like a baby while abroad in a country where the food has a grudge. You are a baby, and cuisine is killer.

If you ever find yourself in Dakar after classes get out at Cheikh Anta Diop University in the Fann Quartier, do yourself a favor an avoid the “double humburger [sic]” priced at 2000 CFA but charged at 1500 CFA from stall #13 in the outdoor cafeteria. I promise you, you’re not missing much.

Tomorrow the host niece remembers my comment and says, “Now you think you will die.” No, I say, I only have one body and I want to be nice to it. This is the same reason I give to my professor when I miss two days of class. Americans need to work less.

Down the street is a restaurant called Wonderfood. It sells hamburgers that I will never buy. You tell me if the logo looks familiar.

wonderfood

For educational purposes: in Senegal, people eat around a large (usually metallic) bowl. Some people sit on stools or couches, mostly older folk, but most just find ways to take up less space than usual. The right hand holds the spoon or fork or torn off piece of baguette used to grab the food inside, which is almost always rice with some onion-garnished protein. The left hand does not touch the bowl or the mouth for that is the hand used to clean oneself.

I do not think this post is valueless, but it was written when I was empty. I was living for three days on mandarins and pretzels and Powerade. The smell of fish sent me spinning. We have fish for 2 meals a day. I will keep the post as is, for posterity.

1 I will often talk about Nick in French as if he is not there to my host family, usually my host sister. This is never to insult him. I only ever speak the truth. In fact, I frequently insist that he is more intelligent than me and has better luck with women, which is apparently important to our hosts. Still, he has received the nickname “Karma Boy” for his unlucky streaks, while I have received the nickname “Lucifer” for being a “many face devil.”

2 I do fear death.