Good bye

Last night, Lucy came to my room at 3:30. Please would I take the baby? He'd been screaming all night; neither baby, mother or father had slept at all. What's more, Lucy hadn't napped the day before and Coco's birthday celebration the previous night had kept all of us—baby included—out until after midnight.

Of course I could take shrieking Phillipe. They rolled his little crib into my room. He was newly nursed. I was delivered diaper supplies. I was given thawed breast milk and a sanitized bottle. "One condition," I said: "That I see neither of your faces before noon," and closed the door.

Phillipe and I did fine. Poor child was miserable, one reason being that he had gulped so much air in his carryings-on that he needed help in getting it out. He went to sleep thereafter for almost four hours, a course record.

Over the month there have been many episodes a little like this in which I've fallen into a helpful solution. Sometimes just by being a degree detached, I've helped unravel knots of mythic size. I think this is perhaps part of a grandmother's assignment? I guess I'll be shaping my new role for a long time—just as I tried to figure out motherhood as each day passed.

It would have been so easy for me to write satirically about the comedy of life with a baby. But it really isn't comic at all. Although the life under this roof with a newborn requires humor, it's hard for Lucy and Yves, requiring energy and ingenuity that aren't always there. The jokes about sleeplessness don't seem funny with civility and a tiny life in the balance; now when routines have shot up by magnitudes in degree of difficulty, and a cup of coffee is the Impossible Dream.

I deeply regret having to leave tonight. I'll miss the beautiful windows that look out on the sandy, colorful world; the gold and blue curtains that—with the furnace of parental love—keep the evil eye  away.

The awareness of being useful is a phenomenal gift: I'd forgotten just how much it is. I'll go home with new skills: hand laundry, showering without running hot water, getting my price on what I want, and helping my daughter become a confident mother. Not bad for one month, the one that started everything anew, January 2014.

"A bientôt," I'll tell them when I leave for the airport in a few hours. "See you soon?" November, probably. Babies redefine everything, don't they, the speed of time's passage most of all. 

Knowing my place; doing my part

Noting that my days in Dakar are numbered, I concluded a couple of days ago that certain business really had to be accomplished, and soon. It was the pilgrimage to Point Almadies.

Accordingly, I put aside my plastic-woven bag with seashells attached from Mali  that my daughter's mother-in-law had so kindly given me—the sort of bag every proper lady around here carries. For something as serious as the Almadies trip, I hauled out my TravelSmith handbag.

My TravelSmith purse has enough secret pockets to make a Boy Scout ecstatic; more zippers than could fit on a biker's jacket; and radio-interference technology that might melt a snooper's earbuds. It has exterior pockets just the right size for a water bottle and a hand grenade.

My TravelSmith bag with suicide pills, snake
bite kit, currency counterfeiting press.

I think the mission of TravelSmith is to make American travelers feel safe and secure no matter how frightened they are of the foreign destination it is their expensive privilege to visit. Why do Americans think everyone is out to get them? Probably because in the gear purchased from TravelSmith, people look so absurdly outfitted ("Are those people on the patio lost mountaineers?" "How kind of you to bring your hand-held rocket launcher to dinner.") And in such style-proofed clothing, TravelSmith patrons could be no other than Americans. "Come get us! Who else would go around looking so bland, wrinkle-free and boring?"

So, I dressed for the part. A taxi found me (that's really the way it works). He took one look at that purse and demanded triple what he should have. I spat in his face, quoted him my final offer. He laughed. I walked away, to the cab that had pulled up across the street, stalling for the outcome of my first parlay. Surprise!—just like that, I was speeding along the Corniche to the Artisanal Market at Point Almadies—in the first cab.

Point Almadies is a little outcropping on the coast just beyond Lucy's school, the US Embassy and the hotel that was until recently the Meridien Le President—now the King Fahd. The point is deep into wealthy-tourist land, near all the resorts and not-grocery-store casinos, and quite as many white people are seen as Black. It is the central place for wealthy tourists to sit by the waves, drink juices and cocktails, eat grilled fresh seafood, and enjoy life.

At the far end of the point is the artisanal market, where many craftsmen and -women display and sell their goods, and many others sell their junk. All are enthusiastic about clients to the point of being hostage-takers. But if you want a few things genuinely made in Senegal, this is where to find them. The place is not too big. On follows a narrow path set in a square with tiny shops on each side. Everything is close in both senses of the word.

Toy car rapide, a type of bus commonly seen around the city; highly
decorated, highly unsafe, overloaded, very cheap

I set out to buy a couple of necklaces and to find some other interesting small things for gifts. I knew that there would be wood carvings, djembes, jewelry made from all sorts of things—seeds, shells, sea glass, semi-precious stones, metal, wax cloth, ceramic beads, and you name it. I wasn't sure what else there would be, and it would be fun just to find out. I had gone there with Lucy on my first trip to Senegal in 2009, but then I'd been escorted and it had been the briefest of tours. My plan for this, my first solo market experience, was first just to tour the market, glance at all the stalls to see what there was, and then retrace my steps for more careful study and purchase.

Collage art made from the wings of many species
of butterflies. Very beautiful and fine.

I could have foreseen that a plan as logical and neat had no chance at all of being executed. It was, in fact, daft because every assumption behind it was wrong. I imagined one artisan to each booth; deal with one, move on to the next. Instead, the stall keepers are all-for-one and one-for-all in their business plan. The moment I arrived at the shop placed at the market gate, not only was I completely ineffectual in my effort to assure the shopkeeper that I'd return later, but I was surrounded by his compatriots, a heckling chorus of men encouraging me to linger, to buy, or to be led off to neighboring shops. I was literally surrounded.

Did I allow myself to become flustered? Hell, no! After all, I had my nuclear handbag! I had my Western clothing with not a snippet of wax nor any sign of going native about me. Take that, you swarming, pesky would-be bandits!

Leather wallets on long straps. One big pocket,
one little one under the flap. Made for the
TravelDumb company, but I got one anyway.

I figured that I'd take a page from Lucy's book in making my independent trip to this major tourist market. I'm sure that nearly all their business is with foreigners and most of that with Americans. But just as Lucy uses the obviousness of her being American to grab the power when they are discomfited to find that she speaks fluent Wolof, I'd decided that I'd do nothing to disguise my nationality and comparative wealth—as if I could. I'd just fulfill their assumptions.

But my surprise way to seize negotiating control would be that I not only understand the need to negotiate prices, but I have by now an excellent sense of what things are worth. Vendors can hector, distract, push, and finagle, but when they name a price, they free me because I've caught them. They inevitably cite a price at least three or four times beyond even the range of reasonable for the item. I can make it clear with a glance that they've lost me with the first move. If it's something I want, I'll stay and get my price. But if, as usual, it's not, the absurd offer is my "Get out of here fast and free" card.

I had a pretty good time and I bought a few lovely and curious items, some just because of the interesting stories about them and how they fit into the culture: A set of seven teak faces carved with different numbers of points and caps on top is a calendar for the illiterate. Each is set out in order to remind the family which day it is. Friday is the fanciest, that being the day to go to the mosque.

Tomorrow is my last day here. I fly out on Thursday at 1:30 in the morning. Business class. Deluxe. 

La France

Any Westerner dropped into this neighborhood, near the mosque in Cite Assemblee, in the Oakam district of Dakar, has to be stunned by the foreigness—the "African-ness"—of the place. The novelty of sights, sounds, smells, architecture and landscape scream out that the visitor is on a different planet. All one's prior understanding of the world means little. It is fabulously exciting—or it makes you retreat into a primal defensive posture! How could you be farther from Western culture?

I've been lucky to stay here for a whole month this time rather than for the 10 days of my previous visits, for I've gained insights that those briefer visits didn't allow me time to absorb. What I gathered then was all about Africa. What I'm finding not too deeply beneath the African skin this time, though, is France.

Senegal was only one of the current countries that composed French West Africa until 1960. It stretched as far north as Mauritania; as far west as French Sudan and Niger, and south to Ivory Coast, Togo, and Dahomey on the Gulf of Guinea. French is still the common language through this enormous part of Africa. All business, governmental, educational, and governmental affairs are conducted in French.

Turn on the TV and the local stations have Senegalese production values (low) and trappings, but the language is bound to be French. But more often, cable subscribers, like in this household—receive only foreign programming in French. The daily influx of programs are French films, dramas, and comedies, and French news programs both straight up and hilariously sharp and satirical. I've become a fan of French TV, in fact. It's chic, depends more on smart graphics and less on computer-generated effects, and its speed is due to wit, not to the leveling, old-boy humor so typical in the US.

There are plenty of American shows and movies, always dubbed. The big favorite is Criminal Minds, followed by Person of Interest. There are also French versions of familiar reality shows, like Dancing with the Stars and The Voice. The latter two are virtually grotesque in an evening's scheduling for being so American, with every part of the production being hyperbolic.

local honey, very earthy!

brown sugar from France

The most surprising and sobering lack of American presence, though, is on the counters in the stores. I'd expected the shelves of the markets and pharmacies to be stocked with relabeled American products, but it simply isn't so. Certainly at Casino, the French grocery chain, their house brand and most of their products are French. But even the day-to-day items we buy more cheaply at the boutique or the local mini-market are rarely American. Vegetable oil comes from Morocco; honey, yogurt, grains and most day-to-day vegetables are local (carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, nuts). The after-school or lunch-box treats comparable to Hostess or Little Debbie in the US are various brands from Turkey. But just about everything else is from France, including medications, soaps, lotions, and personal products for sale at the pharmacy. (Well, Huggies has that market cornered.)

Senegalese "Nutella"

If you want to celebrate anything, you go to the patisserie and purchase a cake. Cakes here are unmistakably French. There is no baked good that faintly resembles an American cookie or pie or crumbly cake with butter cream icing. Everything is filled with mousse, made with next to no flour, and decorated with impossible butter or meringue fantasies. Every bakery is a trip to Paris.

I've mentioned alcoholic products before. American beers are available but they buy no means corner the market. African, Chinese, and beers from Western Europe fill the shelves. I have found a new favorite, in fact, from Portugal: Sagres, canned in 250 cl cans—about half a pint.

So, no, the US doesn't have hegemony over the consumer economy of Senegal. This has implications for my family that I'm only now digesting. I'm delighted to find that there is a world out there not entirely under American influence; Yves, who deals in international distribution, even shrugs and confirms that America has little day-to-day effect here.

But the implications inside this house are that though Phillipe will grow up in a bilingual household, the emphasis will always be on the French. It's a French-speaking culture and it will be up to his mother to insure that he speaks, reads, and writes English like the American citizen he is. Yves, of course, knows English, but he's not fluent, and husband and wife usually speak French between them. Wherever the child goes, he'll hear French and communicate in French.

French pharmaceuticals, eyedrops and headache
redlief

In short, West Africa remains not only Francophone, but profoundly Eurocentric.

Which raises the question of where little Phillipe will go to school. Though Lucy teaches at one of the best private bilingual schools in the city, there's always the American School at the top of the list, with education entirely in English along American pedagogical principles. Diplomats, the vast UNESCO community, corporate officers send their children there.

But American and European models of education are very different,  forming students for further study in very particular university systems. If you go to the American School, you're not preparing yourself for the Sorbonne. So making that decision about secondary education is making a decision about which world one's child will live in.

Lucy's students are among the brightest Dakar has to offer, and they come from the wealthiest, most cosmopolitan families. But there are parents among them who tell their children that an American university will not be an option because of the enormous expense compared to European and African universities, and because they believe that the value of an American education isn't what it once was.

At this point, Lucy and Yves think the European route is the better one; that the secondary school is more rigorous and that university in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, England or Portugal can be both excellent and economical.

I'd never thought about any of this. My American daughter, becoming part-Congolese and living in Senegal and raising a son who is culturally largely French and could end up going to university anywhere in Europe where he can study in French or English or both.

In a week I return to Ohio. It's a little further away than it was when I came. But it's where John will someday improve his English as he learns about the western part of the world with wonders untold. And he will help me keep improving my French as I try—forever!—to wrap my mind around his world, going east.

Aisa's tailor shop

Having spent a day-and-a-half in bed suffering the debilitations of food poisoning, it was heartening finally to pull myself out of bed this afternoon, heat the water for a shower, eat a banana and resume my very busy fashion agenda. Last weekend Coco, Yves completely amusing and fashionable sister, took me fabric shopping at a couple of her favorite places. This is something I really couldn't have done by myself in Oakam, for stores are, like this one, hidden away in the dark interior warrens of market spaces. The one we visited is, in fact, in a passage underneath a stadium, and it is lit by a single lightbulb. There are hundreds of gorgeous cottons folded over wooden poles, hung in rows from the high ceiling to the floor. The proprietess doesn't hesitate to reach for and display anything that catches your eye. With these wild designs, just to see one fold is never to get the idea. When a length of the cloth is opened up, one finds it to be something entirely different, with colors, motifs, and directional designs a sample never begins to reveal. I had so much fun looking through the mounds of fabric we accumulated on the floor, trying to make decisions on designs in no way comparable, they were each giddily unique.

But choose I did at last and the woman cut off the lengths I desired and I paid her, though in bills too large, so she had to make change. It was typical that she didn't have enough cash on hand to make change, so she had to leave us to scour the neighborhood. What's more, she didn't have sandals, so she borrowed Coco's. What the heck. Coco was wearing Lucy's, which had seemed a little more suitable or going to town than her own. Why would Lucy mind?

I love to have clothes made when I'm in Dakar. My most beautiful dress, covered with elaborate embroidery cost about $20. But the real appeal is the brilliance and assertiveness of the wax fabrics and the imaginative, comfortable modes of dress. On this trip I've been especially lucky, too, because there's a tailor shop in Lucy's building. The woman immediately across the hall employs two men who sew in a small room that has a roll-up wall so it can be accessed from the street. But because Aisa and I have become frequent callers, we just come and go across the hall and skip the formality of my calling by the proper shop entrance.

I feel like it's a privilege of familiarity to come and go through their apartment. She has three children, all girls, the youngest of whom she is breast-feeding. We often do business in the living room while she nurses and the 2-year old comes and goes. When Aisa comes to Lucy's with completed clothes, the three of us sit together and I'm the one who's not nursing or speaking Wolof.

How the clothes get made is a process both practical and mystical. The tailors speak Wolof, as does Aisa. Aisa speaks just enough French for professional necessity. My French for tailoring is almost specific enough. But there is a lot left between the spaces. Measuring and marking are vague by my standards. Tailors don't use straight pins, but sort of pinch the fabric together, squint at it and seem to have the idea. They do write down numbers on crumpled pieces of paper, but no words accompany them. When I take something back because it's too large or needs modification, Aisa and the tailor look at it, mutter together while handling the cloth and I try to make sure that we're on the same page. And it nearly always results in the fit I was hoping for.

Most of my projects are done now and I have lots of scraps. These will go for my last commission. The tailors will make a little quilt for Phillpe's crib, giddy with African colors.

"Don't you worry about your daughters?"

Lucy moved to Senegal immediately after college in 2009. She's had many adventures here, some of which I know and others I'm sure she hasn't shared with me. There's been lots of general hassle for a single white woman, the expectation that she prove herself tough. There have been robberies (even their rings were stolen before the wedding), false friendships that ended in apartment looting…A lot to send children crying home and mothers into apoplexy.

Likewise, Lucy's big sister Eva has traveled literally around the world with her backpack, ridden her bicycle solo from Boston to Portland, quit her job without another in hand and is gone on a five month journey of investigation that includes hiking in the Mojave desert, snowshoeing in Idaho, visiting the Dominican Republic and landing soon in Dakar for two months to meet her nephew, and perhaps to intern with  the BBC.

"Don't you worry about your daughters?" That they get robbed again and again in a foreign land? That they camp all alone in the desert? That they travel across the Sahara on a bus that breaks down multiple times? Or grow ill from dehydration because that next South Dakota town is many miles farther than it looked on the map and the water bags are running low?

Who? Me? Why should I worry?

My line, which is more than a line—which is something I deeply believe—is that when my children propose undertakings that frighten me, I must remind myself that neither has ever entered upon an adventure unprepared. Lucy moved to Senegal fluent in Wolof, with a knowledge of the city's layout, and with a job in hand. When she's had losses, she's been angry and upset, but she flies into action, seeks help from the right sources, and come out alive and wiser. She knows she'll have more troubles and lives her life to minimize risk.

Likewise with Eva. The proposition of a summer cross-country bike ride alarmed me, but when I asked her to tell me the details, she had already taken a self-defense course, researched routes, knew everything about bicycle maintenance…She'd left no stone of preparation unturned.

Why should I worry, my children being so bold yet so wise in the conduct of their explorations?

So. Lucy came into the the kitchen the other night when I was straightening up; she wished to offer me an apology. I was surprised: She'd given me no reason to be angry about anything.

She regretted having been snappy with me about the Nigerians. Readers of that post who may have returned to it will find an addendum I made with deference to Lucy after I had told guests my amused version of the Nigerian story. She had earnestly reminded me that those Nigerians represented the possibility of harm: They fit into the culture of the Evil Eye that is so real here.

Her apology in the kitchen was for having been unreasonable with me. "It's just that she feels so responsible for anyone who falls under her protection!" Do the Nigerians cause her any problems? They do not. She has no contact, avoids them, never speaks to them. But they are always among the threats in her expanded peripheral vision, and one must be wise about the potential in this environment. She knows well that I understand by now not so much as to return the greeting of people on the street: The chances of bad intentions are at least 50-50. She knows that I understand and obey. So when I joke about the Nigerians, in her heart of hearts she knows that I am creating a story from the circumstances and my own point of view, not mocking her mores or those of her host country, which I deeply respect.

That conversation shocked into focus all my fears for my daughters, the fears that I have consigned to logical management in order to let the girls go, take their own risks and thrive as they wish. They are grown and know infinitely more than I do what they are capable of and what's best for them.

But I am afraid! I do worry! And I handle my fears by telling stories that reshape events to cast them in the point of view of an ironical and loving white, American mother, a point of view that makes clear that there is indeed an phenomenal gap between their aspirations and attitudes and mine. It's impossible for me to enter their points of view, as it is to lose mine. And why would I want that? I will never be of this African life; I can only filter it to incorporate at much as I can. I can try to filter, too, my attitude toward all that I would never accept back home.

Looking up from the family courtyard.

Lucy and I talked about this. We both know that I behave myself as instructed and that I work sincerely to understand her world. But it hadn't occurred to either of us how great is the role of my storytelling—not only in interpreting life in Senegal, but in managing my distress and fear of what I encounter and my concerns about the future. When I'm ironic or comical, I'm in a space that allows me to acknowledge the distance from my usual, Western life and standards, and my efforts to grasp the ones I'm moving among. Sometimes it's like bridging a canyon with your fingertips and toes. And in those stories, the Roadrunner, the superhero, Walter Mitty—all of them make it across, we don't understand or care how.

If I just keep writing what presents itself to my notice, I may not understand how—with my feet on Cape Cod and fingertips in the Senegalese sand—I make one world of the two. On the African shore, Lucy's daily life integrates her cultures.

I bring home clothing made by local tailors from gaudy wax fabrics, the spirited colors and designs of which warm me year-round and remind me of this place with this part of my heart. Otherwise, my stories fill the gap. They are always about me, trying to understand my next of kin, her family, her New World in always inscrutable Africa.

Our mornings

Sometimes I get up at 7:30. Sometimes at 10:00. I sleep with the white noise of the mosquito-prevention fan. The door of my room blocks any other sound in the apartment. So unless Lucy knocks loudly to request help, only my consciousness gently suggests when it's time to get up. My windows face the alley, with walls and apartment buildings opposite, so even at the brightest part of the day only indirect light reaches the room. I could lie in twilight all day with little idea of passing hours to nip at the remains of a conscience undermined by semi-tropical lethargy.

Sometimes, though, Lucy does knock in the morning, looking weary and holding her harumph-ing baby. Phillipe has decided that it's day before his parents have heard reveille. He's always correct: after 6:30 it is indisputably day. He's got every right to be awake. But Lucy passes him off to me and she and Yves do their best to get another hour before he cries again to be nursed.

Phillipe, at three weeks now, is no longer the flexible newborn of soft bone and flesh he was, but a person with a substantial, formed body, and with feet on legs that extend all the way to the extremities of his giraffe pajamas. His head is no longer subsumed by his cotton cap with the self-assured duck that used to dive over his eyes. Phillip holds your gaze and even follows events across the room with his eyes. He can hold his head up now. He does not whimper his complaints, but bellows them. His cries are clearly distinguishable from those of the cats that fight or mate in the vacant lot.

Once the family has resigned itself to being up and awake, morning routines begin in a lackadaisical way. If I'm up first, I make coffee in the expresso maker. If Lucy or Yves gets up during the process, I give it to them. If not, I count myself lucky and luxuriate in it all by myself. I put on a big pot of water to boil figuring that someone will want a shower during the next hour; it would be nice to have preheated water and not to have to wait.

And if there's still no family stirring, I do dishes. They are always with us. They have low priority, especially in the evening when everyone is ready for bed. We soak them with Madar to keep the ants at bay, and that's more or less effective. In the morning, we have to empty the drain rack of the dinnerware and new glasses (to the living room Alfa-made shelves); the flatware (into used jam and mayo jars), and cooking pots, which we throw under the counter, helter-skelter. When the rack is empty, we wash the dirty things one by one with a Madar infused sponge, rinse each under the tap, and leave it to dry in the rack. I've adjusted to the fact that there is no hot running water. I just use extra detergent and scrub extra hard.

Dishes are something that get done throughout the day—or don't. If the ant mobs come, whoever's in the kitchen will wash up quickly. For Lucy, it's often a quiet retreat to do dishes.

When Lucy is finally out of bed and nursing Phillipe in the living room, I make our breakfast of coffee and oatmeal with raisins, sugar and milk. It's a luxury for her to have breakfast come to her, and I'm pleased to offer a pleasant resignation to day after her night of waking up every two hours under pressure.

And eventually Lucy makes breakfast for Yves. Though I could do this, it's part of their obligation to one another, a marital ritual they are determined not to give up. She makes him an omlette and serves it with a good chunk of baguette. It's family rhythm and routine, respect, and reassurance that they can keep the thread of familiarity weaving through their new life.

Yves or I usually need to make at least one trip to the corner boutique for a baguette, water, milk, a new lighter for the range, or eggs for the omlette.

In the morning I scrub the baby's clothes out in the courtyard under the tap, rinse them well, and hang them out to dry on the lines. Phillipe is clearly on a great growth spurt due to his prodigious amount of nursing. Nursing has its consequences, ultimately ending in the laundry. I have become quicker at this work and stronger. I call myself the Meisterwringer, but my joke is lost on the family.

While I occupy myself with that, Yves and Lucy give the baby his bath together: They enjoy it. Phillipe howls but settles down when he's fresh and dressed in clean clothes. This begins his most alert and fun part of the day, when his parents love to play with him. He interacts with them, looks around, studies things, and is beginning to try to reach toward things.

Morning also includes showers for Lucy and Yves. I save mine for the afternoon since the morning is so busy. All these morning activities happen in whatever order and at whatever speed allows Phillipe to have one of us with him at all times.

Which brings us around to the definition of morning. Lucy and I may be eating oatmeal at any time between 8:00 and 11:30. Baby's bath is usually no later than noon or 1:00, but that's not a given. Showers, dishes, laundry, the trash if we hear the whistle…All the essential routines and the wake-up schedule are complete between 2:30 and 4:30 in the afternoon. That is, most of the day is the morning.

Lunch might be leftovers; a ripe local canteloupe; a hearty, fragrant meal of  beef stew with rice that sister Coco surprises us with; a chunk of baguette with Chocopain--the local version of Nutella, made with Senegal's biggest export, peanuts.

So when is dinner? It's at 7:00 one night, 11:00 the next, or, if Coco has brought us beef stew for lunch, we snack and gratefully fall asleep as early as we can. Morning over, another comes quickly.

The trash cycle

Just like in America, one sees huge garbage trucks with hydraulic crushers ply even the narrow, sandy streets of Cite Assemblee. I understand it's the same throughout Dakar. Unlike in American neighborhoods, however, there is no intermediate step between the household trash and the garbage truck.

In the States, we collect our cast-offs in sturdy plastic bags manufactured for the purpose. We fill and deposit them outdoors in critter-defying, great big tubs, securely sealed where they await scheduled curb-side trash collection day. That's when the garbage truck comes in. We do not sully our hands further with the trash; well-paid, strong, gloved city workers heave the contents of our garbage bins into the truck and move on. A great system.

In addition, we have become a nation of recyclers. We add less to landfill; we, reuse things or return them to their original states to be formed anew.

In Dakar, between the trash accumulating in the kitchen and the behemoth truck roaring around the lanes, there is a considerably less direct route. Unlike the American flow chart, here it is like a series of ant paths that meander across each other with more or less purpose.

First, there are no trash cans, either within dwellings or outside them. All the trash in this household is collected in flimsy plastic shopping bags that brought home purchases from the boutique, the pharmacy, or the big Casino market. These bags dangle from the door knobs of the kitchen and the bathrooms. We never throw away a plastic bag.

The corollary to this is that you don't carry your own shopping bag with you to the store or even to the fruit-seller's stall. If you do that (as I did a couple of times) you deplete the household stock of garbage bags. If you think about it, all plastic bags that come into the household are recycled. And I guess all the vendors expect you to take them anyway, so there you are.

Once the kitchen bag is filled, or the one with diapers, they must go somewhere. Most of them get piled outside in a little mountain in one corner of the courtyard. I am sure this is appreciated by the mosquitos and flies and perhaps reduces the number who are lured into the house when the maid fails to close the door.

Others, the ones that are filled with really smelly garbage or organic materials sure to rot are tied off and put in the freezer. A goodly portion of the freezer is stuffed each week by lumpy bags of garbage that would otherwise be reeking and making it very unpleasant for me to do the baby's laundry under the courtyard spigot.

But how do you get the garbage to the truck, and when? Where is the collection point?

This is where it gets interesting. Apparently there is no designated pick-up day: Most days the truck is somewhere around. You have to listen for the whistle to know if it's near. This is simply a sharp, high whistle—the plastic whistle you had when you were a kid. The sound carries because the environment is so peaceful that every sound of unusual nature or volume instantly gains attention.

Last Tuesday when the maid was here, I told Yves that I heard the whistle. There was a rather tall accumulation of bags in the courtyard, and I the freezer was stuffed too. Yves, Lucy, and the maid all leapt into action and charged out the door (after many unlockings of inside and exterior doors), each dangling four or five bags from both hands. They came back empty handed.

On that occasion, they had delivered the trash not to the truck, but to the horse cart driver who serves as intermediary. You can pile your bags on the cart for a small fee and when the cart's full, the driver finds the truck and empties his load. Another way is to take all the trash to the boutique across the street. The boutique owner will keep it briefly when it's clear that the truck or the carter will arrive before too long.

And of course, you can always just throw it all directly into the truck when it passes by. I've seen this—plenty of people do it—but it always looks comical to me. People are very small compared to trash trucks, and three or four grocery bags of refuse aren't much compared to the volumes Americans are used to seeing heaved into those mighty jaws. But that's the way things work here.

In terms of recycling, 1.5 liter bottles are much in demand and are reused as much as possible. We buy filtered water in 10 liter quantities, but dispense it into 1.5 liter bottles that are used time and again. In the courtyard, there are stacks and stacks of used bottles.

Lucy tells me that they are kept for the maid to take way to use and to distribute to friends. They are much in demand in the many households where juices are made. It's very common to produce one's own juice from bissap (hibiscus), mangoes, oranges, baobab…you name it. And of course, they're used for water in all its uses.

Alas, this system that functions well by its own logic could still benefit from one major, missing component, that being the introduction of public trash receptacles and a means for orderly emptying thereof. The streets, the empty lots, the private properties are shocking by Western standards, covered with trash, old clothing, animal droppings, and emptied basins from household cleaning—or whatever other liquid you can think of.

This apartment is on the corner of the building, with typical views out of both sides. The building door, guest room, and living room look onto the alley, a normal residential byway. I have to take pictures through the screen and between the wooden safety bars, but these are representative of the little landscape beloved of the grazing cows and fearless, fighting feral cats.

Out the other side of the apartment, overlooked by the master and baby's bedrooms, is a vacant lot for which the landlord is responsible. He is, to his credit, as responsible for it as every landlord in the city, for I have seen not a single one in any better shape. Lucy and Yves once cleared it themselves. Their landlord was surprised that they had and muttered about reimbursing them but quickly forgot about it. I think that this landscape is so pervasive that is literally not seen. Little boys play here and set off firecrackers. At nights, the cats fight. Boys and men urinate and defecate here.

There is one nicely kept soccer field, kept by the boys who want to play there. But unless there is a public agreement that a particular place serves the interests of many, it will not be maintained by citizens, and there seems to be no public infrastructure for doing so.

Children must go outside to play, but here, the ones at liberty to do so are dirty and rough and almost feral. Where will Phillipe play? Over the years, I will find out. I hope he will have freedom in a clean outdoor space, outside his apartment.