How can you be in two places at once...

I am living one life in two places. It isn't that I'm not fully present here. I am. I am also semi-present, mentally I mean, in the United States. On the walk home I chat with friends about restaurants on the west bank campus, stopping at the little market/boutique to practice Wolof greetings and buy a bottle of water. I thank the man in Wolof, say goodbye in French, then continue my English conversation.

My first name is Johanna. My last name is Gorman-Baer. I live on the West Bank, in Minneapolis.
Maangi tudd Aminata. Maangi sant Gorman-Baer. Maangi dëkk Liberté 3, ci Dakar.

My sister is fourteen and stays up late for hours writing stories on her laptop. My sister is fifteen and stays up late for hours text-message-chatting with her (semi-secret) boyfriend on her cell phone. My father rides a van to work at the local university library. My father rides a moped to work at the local university eco-magazine. My mother bakes pies. My mother fries fatayas. Every morning I wake up and walk 15 minutes to school, where I have class sometimes 9-6. Every morning I wake up and walk 45 minutes to school where I have class sometimes 9-6. I speak French, English, and am learning Wolof. At school I have internet access and am two blocks from the ocean. I use my laptop to write papers and blog and check facebook and I leave it locked in the WARC office every night before heading home to watch Shaggy and Scooby with my brother. At dinnertime I have started to pick out words I know in Wolof, and I eat with my right hand even though my siblings use forks.

Last night I dreamed in French. I dreamed that me and a few classmates from WARC had internships helping translate for Solo and Ensemble music competitions at high schools in the midwest USA. We couldn't go to the supermarché because the Sénégalais mafia was there and they only spoke Wolof, which I tried to understand but couldn't. My dream was in french, and it was set in Wisconsin, featuring my friends from here and events from there. That is how I am now. It's better to wish you were here than to wish I was there. And I wouldn't be anywhere else for anything. The worlds are two different to find a "comprimise", they're not competing for space in my mind, just both completely occupying it. At the same time. Does that make sense?




I met some of my sister's friends last night. We went to buy bread for dinner and a few girls were there. One- a tall, loud girl in a red shirt and blue skirt- runs up to me calling me friend and asking why I didn't hug her right away. She smiles so widely and speaks so quickly my head spins. Before I can reply she embraces me, chattering in Wolof to Raïssa and the others. They start laughing and chattering back and I can catch the word "toubab" and they ask if I know Mariana who was the last girl who stayed with my family, who apparently was very very popular with all of them. The energetic girl stops talking, and stares at me. I stare back. Finally she says "you're pretty" and they all laugh. She asks if I'm ready to be her friend.

Now, this might just be my own personal cultural baggage, but when I heard the phrase "are you ready to be my friend" I thought it would be followed with either a request for money or some sort of dare. She insisted she just wanted to be my friend. I said of course we could be friends but was so confused and thrown off and every once in a while I'd catch one of them just staring at me, then laughing, and hardy any French was being spoken, just Wolof, and I was so glad when we finally walked home, although my sister acted like nothing was strange. All she said in terms of explanation was that that girl was crazy, and lived with Bifals.

Then we went back home and my uncle came over and we shared a sheep's head. And by that I mean he and my dad shared a roasted sheep's head. I picked at the pieces that were recognizably muscle and tried to ignore how easily I could identify what the rest was.