A Teachers Home

In Senegal, as well as in most of the world, teachers are poorly paid, nearly to the point of poverty. It is no wonder that, during our visit, there was a mass teacher strike and most of the schools were closed as a result. One of our first experiences in Diass, the small village we had privilege to work in, was to have lunch and tea in the home of our host teacher, Mr. Moustapha Fall, affectionately known as “Mister Mister” by the community. His home was built into a communal apartment-type structure, where the kitchen and bathrooms were shared by all who lived there. His family’s living space consisted of a small hallway, connected to two adjacent bedrooms. The only furniture was a bed frame, a dresser, an old desk, a rolling chair, and a few small stools. The two windows had no glass – only large rusted metal blinds that let in very little light and very many mosquitoes. For lighting beyond the windows, a single 60 watt light bulb hung from two exposed wires in the ceiling. Despite these humble accommodations, the conversation, food, and joy of the family was robust. Moustapha’s wife and neighbors, aided by their toddler children, worked for hours in the communal kitchen to make a large dish of chicken yassa – a rice, onion, and chicken recipe common in West Africa. Due to the fact that there is no refrigeration, the food is all as fresh as it can be. The meal was beautifully presented in a single communal pan, roughly 2 feet in diameter. The pan was placed on a blanket on the floor. We all sat around the pan in a circle and ate together. The women ate with their hands, rolling little balls of rice with their fingers. They tore the chicken into strips and tossed the pieces into the part of the pan we ate out of, making sure that each of us had more than we could eat. After eating our fill (and then some), ataya tea was painstakingly made for us. This tea, prepared in a ritual of steeping strong Chinese gunpowder green tea in a small amount of water with mint and tons of sugar (occasionally with clove thrown in), is poured back and forth between multiple shot glass-sized glasses until a thick foam develops on top – a task that takes nearly half an hour to do. After that, each of us is given a small but powerful glass of tea. The tea is thick and sweet, much like the conversation that accompanies it. After the first glass, the tea leaves are steeped again, and the long ritual of pouring the tea between the glasses is repeated for a second time. The second steeping is not as strong as the first, but is sweeter still. The ritual continues a third time, making the entire experience last two or more hours long. Anyone who happens to walk by, whether stranger or friend, is welcome to join in. After tea, we sit in the open courtyard and tell stories about our classrooms, students, states, and nations. Goats wander in and out of the courtyard looking for scraps, not knowing that they may be the next days meal.