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February 12, 2006

The Listeners

Living here in Djibo, in the old part of town known as Hong Kong, we are constantly getting visited. Koyngal woni endam goes the Fulani proverb - the foot is fellowship. Normal social relations are maintained by going as often as possible to the house of your friend, relative or neighbour and pronouncing various greetings and blessings to them. Paul Riesman was an anthropologist who lived for several years among the Jelgobe (the Fulani of the Djibo area), and in his resulting ethnography he wrote the following:

In the course of our stay among the Jelgobe it appeared to us that greeting people is the most fundamental act for the day-by-day maintenance of the social fabric...the ritual aspect of the exchange is emphasized not only by the invariability of the formulas but also by the tone in which they are spoken; the voice has a strained and chanting quality.

If I am at home during the day, one of the most common sounds I hear is the creak of my gate hinge, followed by the words Cok-cok or Salam aleykum. Depending on how I am feeling, I either bound to the door with a merry 'Aleykum asalam' on my lips, or slouch to the door with a muttered prayer for patience. In the latter cases my greeting ends up having a 'strained and chanting quality' that would impress even Riesman.

One day last year, before Cris and Ira joined me here, I got a visit from Mamadou Bagadumba at nine o'clock in the morning. Being visited by Mamadou Bagadumba is an almost daily occurrence, but what made this time memorable is that it was extremely hot and I had a sore throat (although not a particularly bad one). I was not in the mood for visitors, not even Mamadou who is modest, funny and likeable. The gate creaked, Mamadou cried 'Salam aleykum' and I sat inside reading a PG Wodehouse story and ignored him. Paul Riesman would have turned in his grave.

'Jam waali, Sambo,'cried Mamadou. I stayed quiet and turned a page as quietly as I could. On finding no one home, most Fulani would give up and continue on to the next greeting-station. But Mamadou is not most Fulani. He sighed and murmured 'Allahu akbar' (God is great) and sat down to wait.

By ten o'clock it was already forty degrees and I was getting thirsty - but I could not drink because my water pot was outside the front door right by where Mamadou was sitting. Imagine my relief when the gate creaked again. He's gone, I thought, and I was just about to dash out and plunge my head into the water pot when I heard voices outside. Mamadou had not gone - someone else had come.

'Salam aleykum,' said a whiny voice.
'Aleykum asalam,' said Mamadou.
'Toy Sambo woni?' (Where is Sambo?)
'O walaa gaa.' (He's not here)
'En dooman o ndelle.' (Let's wait for him then).

So it was that I became a prisoner in my own house, a restless spirit creeping around in bare feet and reading Wodehouse and becoming slowly but steadily dehydrated. I felt like one of the Listeners in Walter de la Mare's poem, with Mamadou as the traveller whose every word 'fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house'. I half expected Mamadou to shout, 'Tell them that I came, and no one answered,' but he never did of course.

Morever, unlike the traveller in the poem, Mamadou and his companion did not go away. More greeters arrived instead. At two o'clock in the afternoon I gritted my teeth and emerged shamefaced from my hideout. Five men stared accusingly at me through the slits in their turbans. 'Salam aleykum, ' they said. 'Accana kam hakke' (Sorry), I replied. I had broken every Fulani rule of hospitality listed in Riesman's Ethnography, as well as a few that aren't.

Market-day preaching and village visits and radio projects are worth nothing if I lack grace in my normal everyday interactions. So my prayer request this month is for grace and patience and Christ-like love. Pressed down, shaken together and running over as per Luke 6. Especially as hot season approaches.

Alla beydu jam (May God increase your peace).

Posted by sahelsteve at February 12, 2006 08:45 PM