One of the first words that you learn in Senegal is teranga. You can translate it into hospitality if you accept that something gets lost in translation. With the experience I have today, I’d rather translate it into “the guest is King” and Senegalese people are extremely proud of the hospitable attitude that makes them so famous in West Africa.
When you walk down the street and see someone eating, especially if from the big communal bowl (which is a pretty frequent sight) they will say “come on and eat”. It’s a sign of politeness but they would be happy and not surprised at all if you joined in for a few spoons.
Teranga is great when you are on the receiving end: as soon as you get into somebody’s house you are ceremoniously served steaming hot (instant) coffee and there’s always a rice meal waiting for you. If you are invited to lunch, you are requested to bring absolutely nothing (lest you offend Mylady) and you are not expected to even make the gesture of helping clearing the table.
When you are a guest, it’s all gravy, but when you host it’s no small feat. Being married to a Senegalese gave me access to the kingdom of the Ladies of the House, which simply put means feeding an unpredictable number of people who show up at their convenience.
For two years, I fed people Monday through Sunday and they never ever even brought a banana. I did not exactly like it (being the feminist that I am) but my popularity went through the roof.
This art of entertaining presents also an other fascinating peculiarity: when someone goes through the trouble of showing up at your door uninvited (not even making so much as a phone call) you have to drop all your plans and entertain the disrupter. You were supposed to go pick the kids from school? You had a private meeting with Mr. President? Sorry but that’s not Mamadou’s problem…
I understood this at my own expenses with my husband, when at the beginning of our idyllic love story we were not living together and I would wait for him for hours (I am not exaggerating here). He would come back all happy and chatty and when I would mention that he was late he would say he was sorry but he just could not say no to a visitor. Get on with your life, girl!
An extraordinary discovery I made living in closed quarters with Senegalese people though is that they are, in fact, horrified by uninvited and unannounced visitors. They won’t admit it (it took years to my husband to open up with his wife about it) but they consider “sucking the unpleasant” as one of the many things they do, whether they want it or not, in a society that asks the individual to put the other at the center.
It is certainly a concept that I have a hard time living by but from which I benefit when my husband, a Senegalese male firstborn (the Dauphin of France!), has a bunch of family members and friends ready to host and feed us without notice, if only we fell like going over to their house.
We don’t really take advantage of this, being my husband reserved and a lone wolf, but just knowing that we can ship the kids over for a weekend is highly refreshing.