Peinard!

Peinard! That’s way I am, at least says Sheikh Niang, my colleague at work who teaches French. He, like all the Senegalese, love to tease. In fact, nothing gets my prinicipal laughing harder than when I jab back. He says I have integrated quickly and now I’m Senegalese. So what is peinard? It’s someone who doesn’t have a worry in the world, someone who is carefree. With a teaching schedule of 11 hours, I could see why Sheikh would say that! And when on Wednesdays and Thursdays, I leave school at 10:30 a.m. after only two hours of teaching, I then hear “Veinard!” Loosely translated: lucky bastard! So, you see, life here, in many ways, can be very nice!
I’ve gotten out of my daily habit of jogging on the Corniche because some days during the school week, I get home from work too tired to work out. Okay, believe me, life is different over here. You have to wake up early--never with enough sleep; haggle with a taximan to get a decent fare--that’s tiring day in and day out; go to school where you can’t put your bag down anywhere because it’s so filthy everywhere; endure the rollercoaster of your stomach and bladder after breakfast without relieving yourself because there is no working toilet; feel ahamed every morning that you haven’t learned enough Wolof to respond to the follow up greeting that comes after “How are you? Fine” and invariably is different from each colleague; try to express yourself on more than a superficial level in French with your colleagues and explain appropriate behaviour to talkative teenagers in French with a word or two of Wolof thrown in; walk over an hour home to avoid paying a taxi everyday two ways or to avoid being squished like a sardine into a filthy make-shift bus where pickpocketing is rampant; greet and chat with the building security guards for 20-30 minutes before going inside because the greeting is culturally expected and the chatting part of the frienship; change your sweaty clothes, grab a bite for lunch, and then lie down for an afternoon siesta because you’re wiped and it may not even be 1 p.m.! So, veinard I am not!
Well, last Friday I decided to go jogging as I don’t teach that day. In fact, I am writing this entry today, Friday morning, because I have some time and have just had my peanut butter and coffee. So, I was running back from the Mosque on the beach and a handful of middle school boys noticed me. Of course, when you’re not black over here you get noticed pretty quickly! I had on a workout shirt sporting a bandana on my head; it’s the closest I can get to looking like a serious athlete. So, just like out of the neighborhoods of Philly when Rocky Balboa starting jogging and training for his fights, the kids started jogging behind and with me. It was unbelievable! There I was leading a whole delegation of future wrestlers or soccer stars down the corniche amazed by their determination to keep up with me but not to pass me out of respect. I turned to them and asked “jusqu’à où?” which means “how far are we going?” They said “all the way!” A few fell off the tail and two stayed with me. Those two then started to tire and asked, “Toubab, jusqu’à où?” I said all the way! Soon the two became one, and right before I reached my street to turn off, the sole runner started to slow down. I turned to him, gave him a high five and went home beaming! Their determination, their smiles were priceless! And then, the sometimes celebrity/novelty status that comes with the word “Toubab” from young Africans was just awesome. Toubab means white person. It’s a term that comes from the Arabic word, “Tabeeb” which means doctor and was often the first/only white person many Africans encountered decades ago. It can be used with positive or negative connotation today, but it was definitely one laden with fun that day.