Muscle Memories

If living in a new culture is like one big cranial work-out, surely some muscles tone and tighten. Some muscles even appear where there was only bone and skin before.

In about three weeks, my Mom is coming to visit. After staying in Senegal for 4 days, it's off to Paris. I've been brainstorming a list for my Mom of things to expect in Dakar to lessen her shock so she can perhaps enjoy herself a bit while here. The problem is, I have these muscles now, and it's hard to remember a time when I lacked them. All of the sights and sounds that shocked me originally feel familiar now. In the continuous work-out of living here, my mental muscles have strengthened and adapted to Dakar-- and now that I'm accustomed, it's hard to separate the things that felt strange.

There's the call to prayer that you hear several times every night, as long as you're within a couple miles of a mosquée (which you probably are, being in Senegal). When I first got here, I remember waking up to it every night-- that ominous, nasal voice chanting Arabic over a sleeping city. I don't even hear it now. It's too ubiquitous to notice.

The extended greetings have grown familiar. Of course, when you see someone you know on the street, you shake their hands and dive into the syncopated back-and-forth: "Assalamalakum! Malekumsalaam! Nanga def? Mangi fi rek. Yaangi noos? Waaw, mangi noos bu ba. Yaangi ci jamm? Waaw, jamm rekk allahamdulilah. Ca va? ca va bien? Oui, ca va. Ca va. Ca va?" It'll be strange to not partake in this long process of checking up on the well-being of an aquantaince when I'm back in the States.

Recently I remembered that in the States, we don't haggle for everything. In Manhattan, one doesn't stand outside the taxi before getting in, arguing with the driver about the price for five minutes. In the States, there are less children begging, and there's not a universal symbol that denotes a beggar: the empty tomato paste cans used by all the talibes as a receptacle for coins and sugar cubes.

The car rapides? The sand and trash everywhere? The people balancing large bundles on top of their heads as they stride swiftly down the street? The eating with hands out of one big bowl?
It's strange trying to pinpoint the things that shocked me months ago, because it's the same things that feel so familiar now.