Régléing Machines*

While hiding from the sun in my hut after lunch the other day I was interrupted from my nap by a neighbor, Saibo, tapping at my door. I took my time getting out there to see what he had for me, but when I did I couldn't help but to laugh out loud... to the point where I made Saibo laugh, although I think he was nervous laughing. What he had waiting for me I had not yet seen in Senegal, a metal detector - now, I normally think of old men on the beach with metal detectors but I immediately knew this thirty-something man was going to take this machine (his word choice) to the jurra to find gold. The problem with his plan for this new toy was that the instructions only came in English (well done whoever managed to market that in Senegal).

That's where I came in. I warned him that I didn't know much about these machines, but that I'd do what I can. I had to ask for more information though; where did he get it (Kédougou), how much did it cost (a lot of money, especially in Senegal), and a few other things while I familiarized myself with the metal detector. Well I paged through the book, pushed a bunch of buttons, made it beep, my personal favorite was this calibration thing where I had to move it up and down over the same spot for a while. When I felt confident that it was set up I tossed my keys and class ring on the ground, and Saibo pulled out the gold he had collected processed the day before. When it was behaving somewhat predictably I passed it over and told him to keep playing with it and made no promises that I had actually made it work right. I consider him a friend, so I trusted that he wouldn't blame me if it didn't work right and we moved on with our days.

I didn't think too much of it, but then the next day another two machines showed up on my doorstep to be set-up along with the news that Saibo apparently had a big find the night before. The rumor was that it was plenty more than the metal detector cost him. With that the flood gates opened, I'm pretty sure the last few days I worked with most of the metal detectors in and around Khossanto. People were stopping in from neighboring villages to see me. It got to the point that earlier today I had to start telling people that I wasn't going to réglé (French, to set. Very common word here) any more machines after today. I was in someone's compound with 5 men and their various metal detectors, half of which didn't even have directions in any language. One of which had a huge battery pack and just a bunch of dials and a headset, no readout screen anywhere. I honestly wouldn't have had any clue what to do with it if I hadn't dealt with the other machines over the past couple days.

Something pretty I found along road

By the time I got through all the machines the head of the household we were in was acting as my translator - most of the men there were Bambara, from Mali. The language is closely related, but my limited vocabulary (and I assume accent) made it somewhat difficult for all of us to fully understand each other. I did my best to let him know that I don't want to be dealing with a bunch of people asking me about metal detectors during my last couple days in village. It sounded like he explained it very well; we'll see just have to wait and see how well that works... I also need to make sure to warn my new PCV neighbor about this situation. Once you say yes it's hard to say no... I may have started something here.