Self Cultivation:
A Community Garden Reaps Far More than Vegetables
By Karin E. Dahlgren
I got out of the bush taxi in the town square and strapped on my pack. I looked around at the green-domed mosque, the women’s vegetable tables arranged beneath the baobab tree, the sheep sleeping in the shade, and thought, Here I am, my new home. After spending the spring semester as an exchange student at l’Université de Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal’s urban capital, I decided to move to the village of N’Gaparou to experience rural life.
Earlier that spring, I had found an internship at an NGO called Centre de Resources pour l’Emergence Sociale Participative (CRESP) in Yoff, the town just north of Dakar. One of its goals is to improve Senegalese communities by initiating and structuring sustainable development projects. While waiting for my May move to the village, I began interning in the two CRESP permaculture gardens at Yoff. As soon as classes finished, I moved to N’Gaparou to help another American intern build and care for a permaculture garden.
I was still standing in the town square when a woman walked by and greeted me: “Nanga def?” or “How are you?”
“Maa ngi fii rekk,” I replied. “I am here only.
When my host mother, Aï Samba Diene Seck, took me home and introduced me to the family, it was clear that I had a lot to learn. The open-air patio was crowded with men, women and children watching Brazilian TV. Aï Samba explained with pride that she owned one of the only television sets in the village. When the evening soap ended and everyone returned to their houses, I sat down in Aï Samba’s bedroom around the dinner bowl with my host brothers and sisters for a meal of cere mboum (millet with leaf sauce). They ate with their hands but insisted that I use a spoon. Tan as I was, my white skin glared under their gazes. They may have seen toubabs, or white people, every night on TV, but there seemed to be an uncertainty in welcoming a real white girl into their home.
Residents of this fishing community call themselves Lébu, a subgroup of the Wolof ethnic family. Compared to other job opportunities in Senegal, fishing is a reliable and lucrative industry. Nearly every mother in the village can say proudly that at least one of her sons is a fisherman; as a result, most families in N’Gaparou enjoy an above-average standard of living. We ate fish three times a day. N’Gaparou’s economy is strong—enough that villagers like to brag, “No one goes hungry here.”
The village is in the middle of what’s known as the Petite Côte, 70 kilometers of coastline south of Dakar, dense with ill-conceived hotels. Francophone tourism boosts the economy of neighboring villages, but the residents of N’Gaparou have noticed the toll this takes on the integrity of local culture, and they have resolutely kept hotels out of their village.
Whether rich or poor, a Senegalese host gives generously to her guest, especially of food. When I met all 20 members of my new home, names whizzing by, each spoke in rapid-fire Wolof as he or she gifted me a baignet (similar to a donut hole) or a crème glâcé (a frozen custard). Flustered by so much attention, I could barely pick out enough words to guess an appropriate response. Instead, I smiled and replied, “xamuma,” or “I don’t know.” By the time I excused myself for bed, I felt exhausted by embarrassment. In addition to the language struggle was the dizziness of knowing so little.
Meanwhile, as I tried to adjust, I had a job to do in the garden. Permaculture is a holistic form of organic, sustainable agriculture developed in 1978 by Australian ecologist Bill Mollison. It takes advantage of the circular relationship between agricultural progress and human living patterns to develop intensive, closed systems of efficient food production that mimic the natural ecosystem. By growing interdependent plants that have multiple uses and focusing on the symbiotic relationships between living organisms, permaculture maximizes diversity and emphasizes sustainable energy and resource management.
The permaculture garden in N’Gaparou is especially unique because it is built on the beach. We were experimenting with vetiver and algae to test whether they could be used to grow vegetables in high-salinity sand. Vetiver grass grows with minimum maintenance in tropical and semi-tropical climates. Its 3- to 4-meter deep roots retain moisture and nutrients, while impeding erosion. In N’Gaparou, we maximized on vetiver’s strengths by planting seedlings around each bed’s perimeter. We were also interested in re-establishing the maritime ecosystem between the land and the sea, a chain broken by the mansions and hotels crowded along the coast. In addition to demonstrating alternative land-uses, we mixed an algae-based compost with sand to nourish the plants. We hoped to show the villagers that the beaches possess value beyond that of a tourist attraction.
Daniel Ungier, my fellow intern, had started the N’Gaparou garden six weeks earlier. As on-site interns, we received little supervision or instruction from the administration in Yoff. Because of this, I was able to listen to the garden and structure my workdays according to its needs. Officially, my job was to care for the vegetable plants, add beds, explain the project to locals, organize and train a groupement des femmes (women’s group) to continue the garden on their own, and involve area farmers in the non-traditional uses of algae and vetiver.
Unofficially, I came to N’Gaparou with the intention to change the world by solving the problems caused by destructive globalizing trends. In the open structure of the garden project, I was free. Decisions were my own. My time was my own. At first, it seemed that imagination was my only limitation.
In reality, it was a baby garden and a brand-new project, and there were more limitations than I could have imagined. When I arrived, there were no flowers, not to mention vegetables. We didn’t know if anything would grow, or if there would be enough for a harvest. No villagers helped us. Preoccupation with daily challenges like learning to speak Wolof, taking showers, and avoiding abnormally large rats in my family’s squatter hole rapidly overshadowed my initial optimism. Even the freedom grew smothering. I was lonely. In the near absence of structure it was easy to feel like a slacker. But there are different ways to work hard, and I was limiting myself with an American definition. Aï Samba and Daniel counseled me: “defal ndank, mungi Zów.” “Take it easy, no worries.”
In order for the garden project to succeed, I needed to learn the Wolof culture and language. Aï Samba’s brother gave me a Senegalese name: Oumou Seck. Perhaps understanding the relationships and conversations around me would ease my overwhelming disorientation. But the more I understood, the less I wanted to hear. People seemed to be plain mean. My brothers’ friends would come to the house to lewdly hit on me. Interest in the garden shot up—men walking on the beach stopped in with marriage proposals. I felt objectified; my boundaries of human kindness violated. My expectations of privacy were also shattered. My family walked in and out of my bedroom as they pleased. And the climate of nearby conversations often made me uneasy—a tone that is friendly to a Lébu sounded violent to my American sensibilities. Often as I listened to people talking, just when I swore a fight was about to break out, they would laugh and shake hands.
It was even harder when the aggressive discourse turned on me. If diarrhea forced me to skip dinner, not only would everyone in my compound order me to eat, but the next morning in the market, women selling vegetables would ask with a snicker if I felt better. In addition to shouting “Toubab!” when I passed on the street, the women often suggested that I was a prostitute or mocked me, because I didn’t cook ceebu jën (rice and fish), the afternoon meal. I felt terrible. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. To add to my confusion, the same women who laughed at me in the market would call me daughter in the garden or tell me how much they would miss me when I left.
Meanwhile, the garden continued to expand and grow. The okra seedlings climbed up to my knees, then to my waist. We also grew tomatoes, purple eggplant, bitter eggplant, green pepper, red pepper, lettuce, cabbage, bissap, parsley, squash and melon. The first week in June, women began coming to the garden—not to look for vegetable handouts, but to work. Khady Diané and Aï Samba, the two women from my house, had been working in the garden all along. Suddenly, they were joined each evening by 15 additional women. They put me—barefoot in grubby pants and a dirty t-shirt—to shame when they showed up in their best boubous (fancy dresses) and high-heels.
Before my arrival, Daniel had teamed with a science teacher named Gorgui Faye to hold three meetings—largely unsuccessful—to encourage women to join the project. Now that interest had spiked and the garden was becoming the social spot of the evening, we enlisted Gorgui’s help again and held a fourth réunion to discuss the organization of a groupement. As outsiders, we interns offered information, supplies and the garden itself, but we were not in a position to build a group to care for it. We knew very little of the complex social structure, familial ties and past relationships these women shared. Instead, we arranged for the space, time and chairs needed for the women and Gorgui to work together to structure themselves. Several réunions and many heated arguments later, a workable agreement was settled. Of the 44 women, eight latecomers would work solely for knowledge and experience; the remaining 36 would divide the profits. One woman kept the caisse (moneybox); another kept track of the sales in a notebook. Khady Diané took charge of harvesting and selling the vegetables. By the end of the summer, the new intern and I had appointed three dirigentes (directors) to oversee the groupement in our absence. Aï Samba was one of them. Gorgui divided the women into nine groups, each group responsible for two beds. The beds needed water every morning just past sunrise and every evening just before sunset. They also needed general upkeep, such as regular weeding and keeping garbage out of the soil. Each woman was allowed three days absence per week, but any additional days would bar her from the groupement. By the end of the summer, only three women had dropped out.
As foreigners, our most important role in the garden was to give encouragement. As I got to know the women better, I also became a friend, a daughter and a granddaughter. Once in a while, when I wasn’t explaining something in the garden, the women treated me as an equal. More often than not, however, they were either mothering me—Put some shoes on your feet, young lady!—cracking jokes at my expense or ignoring me altogether.
The summer deepened and the rains crept into the dry season. The first good earth-soaking rain fell the last Wednesday of June. Raindrops washed windblown sand off the leaves. And with the rains came the heat—despite the ocean breeze, afternoons were often too hot to move. I began spending the afternoons resting on woven mats in the street with my host family. We would talk, make tea or nap. Slowing down in the afternoons caused me to slow down during the rest of the day too. I began to notice a subtle undercurrent of kindness in the sharp anger or hurtful laughter of the women.
Although it was what I wanted most, I struggled against being integrated into the community. I wanted my privacy. I over-valued my independence and individuality. What I did not realize is that in N’Gaparou, it is impossible to be independent or individual by the American definition. Physically, I depended on too many people: Aï Samba and Khady looked out for me, my sisters cooked and cleaned, the market women sold vegetables, the farmers grew the vegetables, and my brothers and their friends helped me out with social graces and card games. I was bound to the people of this place. What’s more, my host family could not conceive of me as an individual, separate person. In the village, I was not Oumou Seck. I was Oumou Seck the Toubab Who Lives With Aï Samba Seck and Who Works in the Garden. I was a representative of my American family. I came from someplace, and I belonged to someone.
Finally, I looked around at the social and cultural geography and realized that I wasn’t being treated much differently from other community members. Women teased each other about prostitution without the accusation or bitterness I thought I had heard. It occurred to me that N’Gaparou women talk mostly about sex—sex and cooking. And they talk about sex and cooking by making fun of each other with jokes and insults.
Eventually, I stopped feeling so much like an outsider and, instead, accepted my place as an outsider—a versatile position that included me in the community while also acknowledging my exclusion. My foreignness was incorporated into my local identity.
The longer I lived in N’Gaparou, interacted with the villagers and watched them interact with each other, I learned how to choose my friends. And as I learned to speak Wolof better, people made fun of me less and clapped for me more. By saying things as simple as “maa ngi ndékki,” “I’m eating breakfast,” I could elicit a proud response of “léegi, oulouf nga!,”“Now, you’re truly Wolof!” Perhaps the attitude changed because I had acquired some of the Wolof mannerisms and accent. Maybe in a region where toubabs are tourists, I had stayed long enough to be accepted.
At some point during the summer, the garden stopped being so important. I stopped worrying whether it would last, whether the groupement would succeed and whether I was doing my part to change the world. I was doing all I could. I was building a garden in the face of a colossal machine that I could not change. Giving 41 women more choices in food production and an extra dollar in pocket change every few months will not make them culturally, personally, politically or economically equal to their husbands, fathers and sons. Their work on the coast will not reestablish the maritime ecosystem between sea and land. I learned that the garden is important, but what is more important is paying attention to the people working in it. It is not what we have but what we believe in that makes us great or strong.
In the days approaching my departure, my family talked of nothing else. They wanted to hear my itinerary over and over; they made plans to send me back with gifts. The gift they most looked forward to was the hair extensions. Aï Samba asked my sister, Ami N’Doye Ciss, to tress my hair before I left so that when I got off the plane in Chicago, I would look so Senegalese that my family in America wouldn’t recognize me. I was dubious, but I agreed. Friday afternoon she began. I sat still for hours, and my mind emptied of everything but thoughts of leaving. I felt agitated and restless. It was one of the hottest days of the summer, and the braids on my neck were hot and scratchy—they pulled and hurt my scalp. As I felt less and less like myself, I lost my enthusiasm for the tressing. We broke for the evening water in the garden, and then dinner, and while we were watching the Friday night Brazilian soap opera, gnarly braids crawled down my neck and pulled out my skull, and I started crying. It was time to cry, but it was not the place.
Crying is not acceptable in Lébu culture. Mothers slap their crying children but never comfort them. Alarmed, Khady took me outside to a bench in the street where the stars were out and the moon was brilliant, put my head in her lap, and tried to soothe me. But I was choking and hiccuping and sobbing and couldn’t stop. Trying to stop only made me cry harder, even though Khady said, “Please stop, and with rising intensity, stop!” And then, urgently, “Oumou, you must stop, I am worried about you.” I was sitting on the bench staring straight ahead blinking hard through tears that were not stopping, and I was trying to explain to my Senegalese host mother that I was crying because I was happy and I didn’t want to leave. She began crying too, and Ami N’Doye joined us, and Aï Samba, who had been out selling fresh milk, walked up the hill to our house and saw us, and was angry. She was Wolof-angry as she ordered me to quit crying, and I couldn’t decide between fear and laughter so I cried harder. For all their resolution against my tears, Khady, Aï Samba and Ami N’Doye joined me and soon the four of us were crying together.
Khady made an executive decision that the braids were causing this mess. They were hurting my head. And so began the great detressing, and Aï Samba was cooing “Oumou, Oumou” and telling me how she will miss me, and Khady said Daniel is her son and I am her daughter, and I explained that I am sad that I cannot take N’Gaparou home with me for my family there to understand. And the braids were out and I was me again, Oumou and Karin, and it was exactly then when I realized that no one will ever completely understand me.
In leaving, I had more questions than when I arrived. I might have known more, but I understood less. I still wasn’t able to make too much sense of Lébu culture, but I had found a place in it. The women never stopped expecting me to get married within the year and start having lots of babies. But where I had once heard a frustrating misunderstanding, I now heard a blessing of good fortune. Perhaps I took away more from N’Gaparou than I gave. I know that of the many things I left behind, the most important was four women crying together on a bench in the shadow of the stars. Perhaps it was premature of me to have thought of N’Gaparou as my home before I had lived there or cried there. In the end, I discovered that the home I found in N’Gaparou isn’t a home beside the green-domed mosque or sleepy sheep, but a home in myself. Maa ngi fii rekk. I am here only.
At the time of this writing, Karin E. Dahlgren was set to graduate from Beloit College in May 2004 with a self-designed interdisciplinary degree called “Narrative, Imagination and the Cultural Constitution of Reality.” In the summer of 2004 she planned to leave for west Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. Contact her at kahlgrenus@yahoo.com