Wednesday, September 30, 2009
PS
I don't mean to sound really cold hearted about the sweat shop thing, it was just too absurd. Too too absurd.
Sweat Shop!
This is not the second part of my Toubacouta post, but... Today I bought a pair of patchwork African pants at a sweat shop! It was what we here at MSID call a "funtresting" experience- while many of the things we do here are interesting, but not necessarily fun, and others are interesting, but also boring, this one was fun AND interesting.
6 of us took taxis downtown to le marche Sandaga, (in the N'ice Cream region,) and then split up. Rachel, Trina, and I stepped into this shop so Rachel could try on a dress. It was too small, but this random guy said, "Venez! J'ai des robes grosses." ("Come on! I have fat dresses.") We followed him around for 5 minutes before we ducked into what was definitely a sweat shop. There were young men and a few children sitting at around 25 sewing machines churning out dresses, bags, pants, mumus, etc.
By this time we had around 5 guys following us around handing us random articles of clothing. I spotted the sweetest pair of pants ever, Rachel found a couple things she liked, and then our entourage lead us up 3 flights of stairs to the "changing room"- a side room off of a second sweat shop, where there was a mat on the floor where one or two preteen boys were passed out sleeping. Rachel, worried for our safety, asked our friends "Est-ce que ca c'est prudent?" Our 5 assistants just laughed. They waited by the open door while we changed, yelling out every 4 seconds, "Can we come see now? Now? Now?" We picked out the items we wanted and spent around 20 minutes bargaining our sweat shop liaison, and when we finally bought our 3 items for 15,000 CFA, (around 3o bucks) everyone was happy.
Anyhow, I can honestly say that this was my favorite sweat shop I've ever been to. More on Toubacouts tomorrow!
6 of us took taxis downtown to le marche Sandaga, (in the N'ice Cream region,) and then split up. Rachel, Trina, and I stepped into this shop so Rachel could try on a dress. It was too small, but this random guy said, "Venez! J'ai des robes grosses." ("Come on! I have fat dresses.") We followed him around for 5 minutes before we ducked into what was definitely a sweat shop. There were young men and a few children sitting at around 25 sewing machines churning out dresses, bags, pants, mumus, etc.
By this time we had around 5 guys following us around handing us random articles of clothing. I spotted the sweetest pair of pants ever, Rachel found a couple things she liked, and then our entourage lead us up 3 flights of stairs to the "changing room"- a side room off of a second sweat shop, where there was a mat on the floor where one or two preteen boys were passed out sleeping. Rachel, worried for our safety, asked our friends "Est-ce que ca c'est prudent?" Our 5 assistants just laughed. They waited by the open door while we changed, yelling out every 4 seconds, "Can we come see now? Now? Now?" We picked out the items we wanted and spent around 20 minutes bargaining our sweat shop liaison, and when we finally bought our 3 items for 15,000 CFA, (around 3o bucks) everyone was happy.
Anyhow, I can honestly say that this was my favorite sweat shop I've ever been to. More on Toubacouts tomorrow!
Monday, September 28, 2009
TOUBACOUTS '09
Made it back safe and sound from Toubacouta, (fondly referred to by the group as "Toubacouts,") yesterday evening- we had such an amazing trip! I had been intimidated by the thought of doing my internship in a small village after the classroom phase ends in four weeks, but this visit actually got me pretty excited for the change of scenery. Being in a village is like being on a different planet compared to Dakar, and I'm looking forward to the experience.
But the trip. I'll try to summarize our activities as briefly as I can, though I already know this post is going to be loooong. Fasten your seatbelts.
We left the WARC at 7 AM on Wednesday morning and started our slow journey South towards the Saloum Delta. The drive was wild- once out of Dakar the scenery changed dramatically. We passed salt marshes and large desert like expanses, as well as stretches of grassland dotted with huge, gnarly baobabs and tall palm trees. We drove through smaller towns as well as past villages, sometimes as small as just a few huts. (Yup. Huts. With thatched roofs and donkeys and goats running around and everything.)
We stopped for lunch in Sokone, where Professor Sene was born and raised, and where his family still lives today. His brother is the mayor of Sokone, and though he wasn't in town, he let us eat and rest for a couple hours at his gorgeous house. Below- Professor Sene addressing our group and introducing us to his family, a bunch of girls chilling on mats before lunch, and watermelon with Lisa and Claire in front, and Sean, myself, and Rachel in back. Watermelon obviously lead to seed spitting contests- I held the lead for a long while til Superman Sean spat one halfway to Toubacouta and we called it a day.
We poked around the Sokone market before leaving town, which was WONDERFUL! The main difference between le marché in Dakar vs. Sokone was the lack of obnoxious street vendors in the latter. In Dakar, as many as 5 or 6 vendors will follow you around literally for an hour, pointing out likely stalls and offering ridiculously inflated prices, no matter that you never asked for their help. "I'm your friend, lady!" they'll say- if you choose to ignore them, they often go so far as to ask you why you hate all Senegalese people or why you're racist. In Sokone, I was left peacefully alone to browse the stalls, and ended up buying 6 meters of absolutely beautiful fabric for 4000 CFA, about $9 American.
En route to Toubacouta from Sokone we spotted a soccer game on the side of the road and convinced Waly to let us get off the buses to take a peek. Reggaeton music was blasting from loudspeakers, and it was generally a good time. Photo below.
A lot of the roads were absolutely terrible. Though Toubacouta is only _____ km from Dakar, we didn't arrive until around 5 PM. We did make a couple stops, but the drive was telling of the difficulty of travel in this country. One of our buses got stuck in the mud a little ways down the road from the hotel, and we had to get out and push! We finally arrived at our hotel, which was beautiful. I shared a small bungalow with Rachel and Rebecca, who are great, and the group spent the rest of the evening in the pool and eating dinner.
On Thursday, we met up with 5 or 6 Senegalese students from Toubacouta who ended up accompanying us on a lot of our activities over the next few days, and then spent the day touring Toubacouta and some of the neighboring villages. We met with the Prefect de Toubacouta, an official appointed by President Abdoulaye Wade to oversee Toubacouta and many surrounding villages. We also met with le President de la Communauté Rurale, a man elected by the people (all Senegalese citizens over 18) in the same district.
We visited la poste de santé (health center) in Toubacouta, which was a real shocker. There was one nurse, one midwife, and four other assistants to serve the 9000 inhabitants of the district of Toubacouta. The poste had an ambulance, but it hadn't been working for over a year. It was stocked minimally with medications and supplies, but trips to Dakar to restock are only made infrequently. Also, there's a huge problem nationwide with vaccinations and other medications which need to be kept cold- refridgerated trucks aren't exactly common here, and once these supplies are delivered, frequent power outages make it nearly impossible to keep them cold. Lastly, the roads in the district are so poor that seriously sick people often can't make the trip to the poste, especially after a heavy rain. It had rained the night before we visited, and the nurse explained that he would be traveling himself to the villages in the afternoon so that he could care for sick who might not have the means to get to the poste.
In the afternoon we drove to a village called Soukouta and met with a women's group based in that village. With a small initial grant, the group had undertaken projects that yielded some profit, and had eventually saved enough to start a self-run bank in the village that gave micro-loans to members of the community. Super awesome! They are currently focusing on replanting mangroves in the delta, which we actually got to help them with the following day.
After meeting with the women's group, we drove to a village called Ndoumboudj (say that 5x fast) to visit a cas de santé (Mom- literally a "health hut" :-). Le cas de santé represents health care on a smaller scale than the poste de santé in Toubacouta. The hut had only one room, and only two volunteers. Neither had any official medical training, and the hut was stocked only with very basic medicine for ailments like fever, pain, and diarrhea. Many mid-sized Senegalese villages have un cas de santé, though villagers with more serious sicknesses must travel to la poste in Toubacouta, the regional hospital in Kaolack, or even all the way to Dakar.
Below are some pictures from Ndoumboudj- Olivia and some locals sitting under the village's arbre de palabre, or discussion tree. Many of the villages had big trees like these, with roughly hewn tables and benches under their branches. Local disputes are discussed here, and no one leaves the table until the group reaches a consensus. Next we have Jasper and Waly outside of the cas de santé, some outside the cas, and a shot of a hut and a donkey.
After leaving Ndoumboudj, we drove right to the border of the Gambia, just so that we could all say we'd been to the Gambia. It was great- just across the border everyone spoke English, and I went to the bathroom in a police station and saw a prisoner in a cage! (Seriously.) Below is the physical barrier between the two countries, and Rachel and Rebecca, my roommates, leaning over the dividing line.
On our schedules for that night, all that was written was "Séance de lutte traditionnelle." (Traditional wrestling.) We started off in the buses, singing songs lead by our Senegalese student guides all the way, with NO IDEA what we were in for. We drove out into the middle of a field and parked on one side of a tall concrete wall. We walked through the gate and all stopped dead with our mouths hanging open. I was overwhelmed by the stench of sweat in the air, as well as the sound of a woman nearly screaming songs in Wolof over the microphone to the beat of 6 or 7 drummers. There were around 600 people sitting and standing, but mostly dancing around a sandy clearing lit only by two naked light bulbs hanging on a string and one long flickering fluorescent bulb.
In the clearing were several dozen extremely muscle bound Senegalese men, most of them wearing brightly colored thongs, strutting around, dancing, yelling, pouring gris-gris (good luck water, basically,) down their barely-there bottoms, and pounding their chests. In amongst the strutters were pairs actually wrestling- they would face each other and take a football lineman stance, then start smacking each other on the head until one got aggravated enough to really grab the other one. No kicking or punching was allowed, so pairs of men would struggle, trying to push and pull the other to the ground. The first to fall lost. Pairs of wrestlers frequently crashed into the audience, and audience members leapt into the ring every other minute to dispute wins, losses, and unfair match ups with the referees.
It was one of the most wildly unfamiliar sights I have ever seen, I'll never forget it. My camera's flash wasn't strong enough to get many good pictures, so you'll have to use your imaginations a bit. Below is one lutteur strutting his stuff in the ring. This was a pretty typical uniform, minus the shorts. Next we've got a wrestler who would sit about 5 feet from me when he wasn't wresting or strutting- we called him Jane Fonda, which sounds a lot like Djay Funday, (probably not spelled right,) which means "big booty" in Wolof. Jane Fonda did, indeed, have a massive booty. He actually ended up winning the whole tournament! Under Jane Fonda is a boy who kept showing off his dance moves, and in the background two lutteurs mid combat. Sort of hard to make out, I know. Lastly we've got the official lutte drummers, who beat those drums the entire night. They were amazing.
Oooooookay. I've been working on this post for a couple hours now, and I'm only on day 2. My fingers are bloody stumps from typing, so I think I'll finish tomorrow, but enjoy the pictures from the rest of the trip and I'll 'splain tomorrow.
But the trip. I'll try to summarize our activities as briefly as I can, though I already know this post is going to be loooong. Fasten your seatbelts.
We left the WARC at 7 AM on Wednesday morning and started our slow journey South towards the Saloum Delta. The drive was wild- once out of Dakar the scenery changed dramatically. We passed salt marshes and large desert like expanses, as well as stretches of grassland dotted with huge, gnarly baobabs and tall palm trees. We drove through smaller towns as well as past villages, sometimes as small as just a few huts. (Yup. Huts. With thatched roofs and donkeys and goats running around and everything.)
We stopped for lunch in Sokone, where Professor Sene was born and raised, and where his family still lives today. His brother is the mayor of Sokone, and though he wasn't in town, he let us eat and rest for a couple hours at his gorgeous house. Below- Professor Sene addressing our group and introducing us to his family, a bunch of girls chilling on mats before lunch, and watermelon with Lisa and Claire in front, and Sean, myself, and Rachel in back. Watermelon obviously lead to seed spitting contests- I held the lead for a long while til Superman Sean spat one halfway to Toubacouta and we called it a day.
We poked around the Sokone market before leaving town, which was WONDERFUL! The main difference between le marché in Dakar vs. Sokone was the lack of obnoxious street vendors in the latter. In Dakar, as many as 5 or 6 vendors will follow you around literally for an hour, pointing out likely stalls and offering ridiculously inflated prices, no matter that you never asked for their help. "I'm your friend, lady!" they'll say- if you choose to ignore them, they often go so far as to ask you why you hate all Senegalese people or why you're racist. In Sokone, I was left peacefully alone to browse the stalls, and ended up buying 6 meters of absolutely beautiful fabric for 4000 CFA, about $9 American.
En route to Toubacouta from Sokone we spotted a soccer game on the side of the road and convinced Waly to let us get off the buses to take a peek. Reggaeton music was blasting from loudspeakers, and it was generally a good time. Photo below.
A lot of the roads were absolutely terrible. Though Toubacouta is only _____ km from Dakar, we didn't arrive until around 5 PM. We did make a couple stops, but the drive was telling of the difficulty of travel in this country. One of our buses got stuck in the mud a little ways down the road from the hotel, and we had to get out and push! We finally arrived at our hotel, which was beautiful. I shared a small bungalow with Rachel and Rebecca, who are great, and the group spent the rest of the evening in the pool and eating dinner.
On Thursday, we met up with 5 or 6 Senegalese students from Toubacouta who ended up accompanying us on a lot of our activities over the next few days, and then spent the day touring Toubacouta and some of the neighboring villages. We met with the Prefect de Toubacouta, an official appointed by President Abdoulaye Wade to oversee Toubacouta and many surrounding villages. We also met with le President de la Communauté Rurale, a man elected by the people (all Senegalese citizens over 18) in the same district.
We visited la poste de santé (health center) in Toubacouta, which was a real shocker. There was one nurse, one midwife, and four other assistants to serve the 9000 inhabitants of the district of Toubacouta. The poste had an ambulance, but it hadn't been working for over a year. It was stocked minimally with medications and supplies, but trips to Dakar to restock are only made infrequently. Also, there's a huge problem nationwide with vaccinations and other medications which need to be kept cold- refridgerated trucks aren't exactly common here, and once these supplies are delivered, frequent power outages make it nearly impossible to keep them cold. Lastly, the roads in the district are so poor that seriously sick people often can't make the trip to the poste, especially after a heavy rain. It had rained the night before we visited, and the nurse explained that he would be traveling himself to the villages in the afternoon so that he could care for sick who might not have the means to get to the poste.
In the afternoon we drove to a village called Soukouta and met with a women's group based in that village. With a small initial grant, the group had undertaken projects that yielded some profit, and had eventually saved enough to start a self-run bank in the village that gave micro-loans to members of the community. Super awesome! They are currently focusing on replanting mangroves in the delta, which we actually got to help them with the following day.
After meeting with the women's group, we drove to a village called Ndoumboudj (say that 5x fast) to visit a cas de santé (Mom- literally a "health hut" :-). Le cas de santé represents health care on a smaller scale than the poste de santé in Toubacouta. The hut had only one room, and only two volunteers. Neither had any official medical training, and the hut was stocked only with very basic medicine for ailments like fever, pain, and diarrhea. Many mid-sized Senegalese villages have un cas de santé, though villagers with more serious sicknesses must travel to la poste in Toubacouta, the regional hospital in Kaolack, or even all the way to Dakar.
Below are some pictures from Ndoumboudj- Olivia and some locals sitting under the village's arbre de palabre, or discussion tree. Many of the villages had big trees like these, with roughly hewn tables and benches under their branches. Local disputes are discussed here, and no one leaves the table until the group reaches a consensus. Next we have Jasper and Waly outside of the cas de santé, some outside the cas, and a shot of a hut and a donkey.
After leaving Ndoumboudj, we drove right to the border of the Gambia, just so that we could all say we'd been to the Gambia. It was great- just across the border everyone spoke English, and I went to the bathroom in a police station and saw a prisoner in a cage! (Seriously.) Below is the physical barrier between the two countries, and Rachel and Rebecca, my roommates, leaning over the dividing line.
On our schedules for that night, all that was written was "Séance de lutte traditionnelle." (Traditional wrestling.) We started off in the buses, singing songs lead by our Senegalese student guides all the way, with NO IDEA what we were in for. We drove out into the middle of a field and parked on one side of a tall concrete wall. We walked through the gate and all stopped dead with our mouths hanging open. I was overwhelmed by the stench of sweat in the air, as well as the sound of a woman nearly screaming songs in Wolof over the microphone to the beat of 6 or 7 drummers. There were around 600 people sitting and standing, but mostly dancing around a sandy clearing lit only by two naked light bulbs hanging on a string and one long flickering fluorescent bulb.
In the clearing were several dozen extremely muscle bound Senegalese men, most of them wearing brightly colored thongs, strutting around, dancing, yelling, pouring gris-gris (good luck water, basically,) down their barely-there bottoms, and pounding their chests. In amongst the strutters were pairs actually wrestling- they would face each other and take a football lineman stance, then start smacking each other on the head until one got aggravated enough to really grab the other one. No kicking or punching was allowed, so pairs of men would struggle, trying to push and pull the other to the ground. The first to fall lost. Pairs of wrestlers frequently crashed into the audience, and audience members leapt into the ring every other minute to dispute wins, losses, and unfair match ups with the referees.
It was one of the most wildly unfamiliar sights I have ever seen, I'll never forget it. My camera's flash wasn't strong enough to get many good pictures, so you'll have to use your imaginations a bit. Below is one lutteur strutting his stuff in the ring. This was a pretty typical uniform, minus the shorts. Next we've got a wrestler who would sit about 5 feet from me when he wasn't wresting or strutting- we called him Jane Fonda, which sounds a lot like Djay Funday, (probably not spelled right,) which means "big booty" in Wolof. Jane Fonda did, indeed, have a massive booty. He actually ended up winning the whole tournament! Under Jane Fonda is a boy who kept showing off his dance moves, and in the background two lutteurs mid combat. Sort of hard to make out, I know. Lastly we've got the official lutte drummers, who beat those drums the entire night. They were amazing.
Oooooookay. I've been working on this post for a couple hours now, and I'm only on day 2. My fingers are bloody stumps from typing, so I think I'll finish tomorrow, but enjoy the pictures from the rest of the trip and I'll 'splain tomorrow.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Korite weekend
Another interesting weekend come and gone! Can't believe I've passed the three week mark.
Saturday was full of adventure. I sent a mass text out to my fellow students to meet at a grocery store near my house so we could all pay Elke's family a visit. I walked there expecting to see only a few people, but there ended up being around 15 of us, a veritable parade of toubabs! Professor Sene had told us on Friday that it is traditional to give money to a family when they lose someone, so we collected around 7000 CFA and handed it over to Maman Binta, who accompanied us to Elke's house. We walked upstairs to find a room absolutely full of Senegalese women in traditional dress, all sitting around fanning themselves and cheerfully chatting. Not exactly what I was expecting, but interesting. We were ushered into the room where we had to squeeze our sweaty gross selves into the little space left on the floor. Maman Binta presented us to the mother of the household, who was sitting on a mat towards the front of the room. She gave her our money, and the mother expressed her gratitude. We then spent 20 minutes or so being stared at by the 30 women in the room, and practicing our basic Wolof skills. Not exactly the typical American wake, but I liked it- a house full of colorfully dressed people coming to talk and laugh with the family, share food, and simply be present seems a greater comfort than people in black crying and offering somber condolences. Maman Binta later told me that we had done a very nice thing, and that the mother was very touched by the gesture.
After visiting Elke's, a bunch of us decided to hit Ngor beach encore, which turned out to be pretty ... funny? Myself and friends Rachel, Britta and Amanda taxi-ed over and stopped at a gas station to pick up some snacks. We walked in and saw two other toubab dudes in camo hunter hats buying beer in the back, which didn't strike me as odd until they very nearly ran up to us and said "Y'all speak ENGLISH??" They were from Indiana and absolutely thrilled to run into some other 'Mericans, and gushed about their plans to drink beer and take in NFL Sunday the next day. I nearly peed myself with internal laughter. Things got a little fishy when we asked them what they were doing in Dakar. They said they live here in the city, and that they were "students". This didn't really make sense, as they obviously in their late 30s, at least. After a few more minutes of conversation, they told us they were actually here "doing humanitarian work". Then, just as we were about to leave, they told us that they really wished they could invite us over for football and beer, but that they actually worked for the U.S. State Department and weren't at liberty to discuss their work here, or tell us where they were staying. Ooookay.
Anyway, we left the gas station with our munchies just in time to see a Senegalese woman pull off her shoe and try to attack someone- it took 4 guys to hold her back! Not very important, but it reminded me of this one time when my high school basketball coach threatened to "take off his left shoe and whoop me Taliban style".
We made it to the beach, finally, where we met up with other friends Sean and his young host brother, Rebecca, and Jasper and his host brother Moustapha who's around 26. We played soccer and swam for a bit, and then who should show up but.... Our secret service spy friends from the gas station! I stuck around the beach just long enough to hear some of their favorite things about Dakar, ("You can drink and drive!") then went for a swim with Rebecca, Rachel, and Moustapha.
While we were bobbing around laughing about the weird secret Americans, Moustapha asked us if he could share a secret of his own. Of course we said yes, and then he turned to Rachel and said, "I want you." With a little splash. We bobbed around awkwardly for another few minutes, until Rebecca tried to break the silence, saying, "I think Rachel has a little smile on her face!" Unfortunately, the French words for "smile" and "mouse" are very similar, (smile = sourire, mouse = souris) and she ended up saying, "I think Rachel has a little mouse on her face!" Moustapha offered to kill it, and once I had managed to stop laughing I headed ashore. After saying goodbye to the American spies, ("If you were wondering why I only bought two beers at the gas station earlier, it's cause I have a lot more at home!") I caught a cab home.
Sunday was Korite! In the morning I went to pick up my outfit from the tailor, who was looking haggard after pulling an all-nighter trying to finish everyone's outfits for the big "party". I put that in quotations because the "party" actually consists of cooking all day, eating a huge meal around 3 PM, then snoozing through the late afternoon. It was fun to walk around the neighborhood, though, and see all the cheerful people preparing food and smell the smells of yummy cooking. Also, Maman Binta's food was pretty fantastic- we barbequed chicken and shish kabobs, and had it with a traditional Senegalese onion sauce and home made french fries. Yum!
That night, one of sister Raissa's good friends Nana had her 17th birthday party at Grandma Binta's house. Raissa and I headed over in the early evening, so I assumed the party would start around dinner time- wrong! The party didn't start until 11PM, so I spent around 5 hours sitting around, tying and re-tying my skirt. When the party finally did start, every one hit the dance floor, old and young alike. Young Senegalese can really move- there were girls as young 4 dancing their hearts out, completely confident and having a great time. Maman Binta made sure I was nearly constantly dancing, no matter that everyone else found my dancing hilarious. We left around 2 AM, completely wiped out.
Yesterday we had the day off from school. I went over to Elke's house for a late lunch, as her family is of the Mourite sect of Islam and celebrated Korite Monday rather than Sunday. The Mourites strictly follow the lunar calendar and refuse to celebrate Korite until the new moon has been sighted. The moon wasn't technically out until Sunday night, but the rest of the Muslim population was content to call 29 days of fasting good enough and celebrate on Sunday. Anywho, I had Korite #2 with Elke's family, who all laughed at my shameful eating-with-hands skills and fetched me my own special toubab bib. After another late afternoon siesta, I walked with my brother Pascal to meet Jasper, Moustapha, Rachel, Eben, Vu, Sean, and Rebecca to play basketball! We walked to a court about 5 minutes from my house and scrimmaged for a couple hours, which was loads of fun. Felt very nice to get some good exercise.
So, that's about my weekend! Here are some pictures, which include some of the cool animals I've seen since I've been here. Turns out there are two baby kittens living on our neighbor's roof! Other sitings include a praying mantis, a chameleon (this morning!! on the way to the grocery store!!) a dead rat the size of a house cat, really cool birds, a spider as big as my fist, a pelican (!!!), and giant snails!
Tomorrow morning we're taking off en masse for a field trip to Toubacouta, a village south of Dakar in the middle of the Saloum River Delta, a national park home to mangrove forests and such super exciting creatures as manatees, flamingos, and hippopatami! We get back Sunday. I'm going to take a bunch of pictures and have many adventures, so prepare yourself for another long post.
OK sorry I still haven't mastered how to put pictures in the right order, but here they are!
Elke and I in our Korite garb
Me and some people at Nana's birthday party- I adopted this baby all day so I wouldn't die of boredom
Little ones all dressed up- the girl in the green on the right and the one in blue in the back had some mooooves! They were all great fun.
Maman Binta in back, Raissa in yellow, and the house maids enjoying the Korite feast
Me pounding something or other into a paste. Mom, Maman Binta wanted you to see this one!
OBAMA FLAVOR
Emma and Claire in front of N'ice Cream!
Kitten on the roof!
Praying Mantis at WARC
Ngor beach
The island where Akon owns a house!
My street in Liberté 3
Maman Binta making her delicious samussas in the back yard
Le salon
The bedroom I share with Raissa. Mom, please note the mosquito net and the lack of bedding with which to make the bed every morning.
Saturday was full of adventure. I sent a mass text out to my fellow students to meet at a grocery store near my house so we could all pay Elke's family a visit. I walked there expecting to see only a few people, but there ended up being around 15 of us, a veritable parade of toubabs! Professor Sene had told us on Friday that it is traditional to give money to a family when they lose someone, so we collected around 7000 CFA and handed it over to Maman Binta, who accompanied us to Elke's house. We walked upstairs to find a room absolutely full of Senegalese women in traditional dress, all sitting around fanning themselves and cheerfully chatting. Not exactly what I was expecting, but interesting. We were ushered into the room where we had to squeeze our sweaty gross selves into the little space left on the floor. Maman Binta presented us to the mother of the household, who was sitting on a mat towards the front of the room. She gave her our money, and the mother expressed her gratitude. We then spent 20 minutes or so being stared at by the 30 women in the room, and practicing our basic Wolof skills. Not exactly the typical American wake, but I liked it- a house full of colorfully dressed people coming to talk and laugh with the family, share food, and simply be present seems a greater comfort than people in black crying and offering somber condolences. Maman Binta later told me that we had done a very nice thing, and that the mother was very touched by the gesture.
After visiting Elke's, a bunch of us decided to hit Ngor beach encore, which turned out to be pretty ... funny? Myself and friends Rachel, Britta and Amanda taxi-ed over and stopped at a gas station to pick up some snacks. We walked in and saw two other toubab dudes in camo hunter hats buying beer in the back, which didn't strike me as odd until they very nearly ran up to us and said "Y'all speak ENGLISH??" They were from Indiana and absolutely thrilled to run into some other 'Mericans, and gushed about their plans to drink beer and take in NFL Sunday the next day. I nearly peed myself with internal laughter. Things got a little fishy when we asked them what they were doing in Dakar. They said they live here in the city, and that they were "students". This didn't really make sense, as they obviously in their late 30s, at least. After a few more minutes of conversation, they told us they were actually here "doing humanitarian work". Then, just as we were about to leave, they told us that they really wished they could invite us over for football and beer, but that they actually worked for the U.S. State Department and weren't at liberty to discuss their work here, or tell us where they were staying. Ooookay.
Anyway, we left the gas station with our munchies just in time to see a Senegalese woman pull off her shoe and try to attack someone- it took 4 guys to hold her back! Not very important, but it reminded me of this one time when my high school basketball coach threatened to "take off his left shoe and whoop me Taliban style".
We made it to the beach, finally, where we met up with other friends Sean and his young host brother, Rebecca, and Jasper and his host brother Moustapha who's around 26. We played soccer and swam for a bit, and then who should show up but.... Our secret service spy friends from the gas station! I stuck around the beach just long enough to hear some of their favorite things about Dakar, ("You can drink and drive!") then went for a swim with Rebecca, Rachel, and Moustapha.
While we were bobbing around laughing about the weird secret Americans, Moustapha asked us if he could share a secret of his own. Of course we said yes, and then he turned to Rachel and said, "I want you." With a little splash. We bobbed around awkwardly for another few minutes, until Rebecca tried to break the silence, saying, "I think Rachel has a little smile on her face!" Unfortunately, the French words for "smile" and "mouse" are very similar, (smile = sourire, mouse = souris) and she ended up saying, "I think Rachel has a little mouse on her face!" Moustapha offered to kill it, and once I had managed to stop laughing I headed ashore. After saying goodbye to the American spies, ("If you were wondering why I only bought two beers at the gas station earlier, it's cause I have a lot more at home!") I caught a cab home.
Sunday was Korite! In the morning I went to pick up my outfit from the tailor, who was looking haggard after pulling an all-nighter trying to finish everyone's outfits for the big "party". I put that in quotations because the "party" actually consists of cooking all day, eating a huge meal around 3 PM, then snoozing through the late afternoon. It was fun to walk around the neighborhood, though, and see all the cheerful people preparing food and smell the smells of yummy cooking. Also, Maman Binta's food was pretty fantastic- we barbequed chicken and shish kabobs, and had it with a traditional Senegalese onion sauce and home made french fries. Yum!
That night, one of sister Raissa's good friends Nana had her 17th birthday party at Grandma Binta's house. Raissa and I headed over in the early evening, so I assumed the party would start around dinner time- wrong! The party didn't start until 11PM, so I spent around 5 hours sitting around, tying and re-tying my skirt. When the party finally did start, every one hit the dance floor, old and young alike. Young Senegalese can really move- there were girls as young 4 dancing their hearts out, completely confident and having a great time. Maman Binta made sure I was nearly constantly dancing, no matter that everyone else found my dancing hilarious. We left around 2 AM, completely wiped out.
Yesterday we had the day off from school. I went over to Elke's house for a late lunch, as her family is of the Mourite sect of Islam and celebrated Korite Monday rather than Sunday. The Mourites strictly follow the lunar calendar and refuse to celebrate Korite until the new moon has been sighted. The moon wasn't technically out until Sunday night, but the rest of the Muslim population was content to call 29 days of fasting good enough and celebrate on Sunday. Anywho, I had Korite #2 with Elke's family, who all laughed at my shameful eating-with-hands skills and fetched me my own special toubab bib. After another late afternoon siesta, I walked with my brother Pascal to meet Jasper, Moustapha, Rachel, Eben, Vu, Sean, and Rebecca to play basketball! We walked to a court about 5 minutes from my house and scrimmaged for a couple hours, which was loads of fun. Felt very nice to get some good exercise.
So, that's about my weekend! Here are some pictures, which include some of the cool animals I've seen since I've been here. Turns out there are two baby kittens living on our neighbor's roof! Other sitings include a praying mantis, a chameleon (this morning!! on the way to the grocery store!!) a dead rat the size of a house cat, really cool birds, a spider as big as my fist, a pelican (!!!), and giant snails!
Tomorrow morning we're taking off en masse for a field trip to Toubacouta, a village south of Dakar in the middle of the Saloum River Delta, a national park home to mangrove forests and such super exciting creatures as manatees, flamingos, and hippopatami! We get back Sunday. I'm going to take a bunch of pictures and have many adventures, so prepare yourself for another long post.
OK sorry I still haven't mastered how to put pictures in the right order, but here they are!
Elke and I in our Korite garb
Me and some people at Nana's birthday party- I adopted this baby all day so I wouldn't die of boredom
Little ones all dressed up- the girl in the green on the right and the one in blue in the back had some mooooves! They were all great fun.
Maman Binta in back, Raissa in yellow, and the house maids enjoying the Korite feast
Me pounding something or other into a paste. Mom, Maman Binta wanted you to see this one!
OBAMA FLAVOR
Emma and Claire in front of N'ice Cream!
Kitten on the roof!
Praying Mantis at WARC
Ngor beach
The island where Akon owns a house!
My street in Liberté 3
Maman Binta making her delicious samussas in the back yard
Le salon
The bedroom I share with Raissa. Mom, please note the mosquito net and the lack of bedding with which to make the bed every morning.
Friday, September 18, 2009
A very quick, upset stomach restricted hello
I was going to take some time to write a very long post with pictures, but my stomach is telling me that that is just not going to happen, so I'll keep this short.
Some bad news- a student named Elke lives literally just around the corner from me- she told me that one time she looked out her living room window and saw Papa Anicet taking a shower in our bathroom. Her host father was 78 and had Parkinson's, and last night he passed away. I met him once and he couldn't speak and didn't seem very with it- still was very unexpected and sad for her and of course her family, and certainly hard to know how to act and what to do to help them in such a situation. She'll stay on with them though, and Professor Sene told the rest of us that a visit to the house would be appropriate. I'll probably go tomorrow.
Happier things- today I went back to N'ice Cream, and tried Mozart flavor! He was delicious, though I think he and my stomach had artistic differences. Also, today is the day I'll go pick up my dress for Korite from the tailor! I can't remember if I already talked about Korite, but it's the big party at the end of Ramadan. Should be this weekend, though it depends on when the new moon shows up.
OK got to go-
Some bad news- a student named Elke lives literally just around the corner from me- she told me that one time she looked out her living room window and saw Papa Anicet taking a shower in our bathroom. Her host father was 78 and had Parkinson's, and last night he passed away. I met him once and he couldn't speak and didn't seem very with it- still was very unexpected and sad for her and of course her family, and certainly hard to know how to act and what to do to help them in such a situation. She'll stay on with them though, and Professor Sene told the rest of us that a visit to the house would be appropriate. I'll probably go tomorrow.
Happier things- today I went back to N'ice Cream, and tried Mozart flavor! He was delicious, though I think he and my stomach had artistic differences. Also, today is the day I'll go pick up my dress for Korite from the tailor! I can't remember if I already talked about Korite, but it's the big party at the end of Ramadan. Should be this weekend, though it depends on when the new moon shows up.
OK got to go-
Monday, September 14, 2009
I'm alive!
Hallo!
Sorry for the long blog absence- Joe, if you're reading this, I didn't drown in any floods, not to worry! I was sick for 3 or 4 days last week, which was dumb, but I'm fully recovered now (knock on wood.) I was concerned I had malaria, which my host family thought was hilarious, and went to a clinic, but I'm fine now, so no worries.
I've been here for exactly two weeks now, which is bizarre- some days it feels like I've been here for so much longer, others it feels like I've been here no time at all, but it definitely doesn't feel like two weeks.
We started classes last Monday, and they've been going alright- most of the professors are great and hilarious. Everyone has to take Country Analysis, which focuses on the history/culture of Senegal; International Development, a class whose sole purpose, as I understand it so far, is to make sure we all despise the World Bank and IMF; and Wolof. Wolof has been pretty ridiculous so far- all of us toubabs are divided into 4 groups, split between two professors. I think I got the short end of the stick professor-wise- Aissatou, while very kind, tries to teach us in one day what would normally take weeks to go over in any other intro language class. In a two hour class last Friday, we "learned" 3 different verb tenses, negation of verbs in all of these tenses, (every one is different,) and 5 different sets of pronouns. Try absorbing that much information when you're sick, the air conditioning is off because the power is out, and someone is smashing bathroom tile with a sledge hammer 10 feet from the open classroom window. I thought my head was going to explode!
Other than those three classes, everyone gets to take one other course of their choice, in whatever "track" interests them. I'm signed up for Environmental Studies, and am also auditing the Education track. I missed the Environmental Studies course last week because I was sick, but the Education class was great- the professor is really intelligent and thoughtful, and the class was really interesing. I'm excited to see what the Environment class is like this week!
Although we're in class for a lot of hours every day, we really don't have a lot of homework other than a couple papers thoughout our first 6 weeks in Dakar. It'll be nice to have an academically laid back semester.
Otherwise... This past weekend was pretty interesting. Friday afternoon my host sister Raissa took me to one of Dakar's markets to buy fabric so I can have an outfit (a boubou) made for Korite, the big party holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan (this coming Sunday!) The market was absolutely jam packed with people looking to buy and vendors selling everything from baby clothes to shoes to fabric to bootlegged CDs to pots and pans. I ended up buying a dark turquoise fabric hand woven with hot pink ribbon for the pagne, or skirt, and pink fabric for the top. Last night Raissa took me to a tailor right around the corner from our house- in sum, I'm paying 16,000 CFA, or 36 dollars, to have a fancy outfit made just for me. That includes the price of fabric!
Friday night was this girl Melinda's birthday, so a bunch of us toubabs went out to a club called Just 4 U. They have live music there every night! Some of the kids brought their host brothers and sisters, and we all sat around a big table, talked, and drank West African beer. After a while we all got up and danced, which was great fun- some of the Senegalese guys were trying to teach us mbalax, the crazy knee jerking arm waving booty shaking Senegalese dance that makes all beginners look extremely foolish. It was pretty awesome. I'm excited to go out when Ramadan is over and more Senegalese people are out and about on the weekend nights!
Saturday I went with the host family to Grandma Binta's house. After chilling for a while, I made plans with some people to go to a beach called Ngor. I invited my host sister and a couple of her friends to come along as well, which turned out to be a mistake. In Senegal, everyone shares everything- food, clothes, belongings, etc. This is generally a really nice thing, unless you spend the entire day catering to my host sister Raissa, the queen bee of moochers. I ended up paying the entire taxi fare to and from the beach and the fee for renting an umbrella and a mat, which I didn't even want. On top of that Raissa asked to borrow my phone and used 800 of the 1000 credits I had just bought that morning, and "borrowed" money to buy food, which she has yet to pay me back for. After we met up with my friends Amanda, Emma, and Britta, she also promptly inhaled literally half of the pizza they had just bought for lunch. Last time I take her to the beach!
Moochers aside, though, the beach was absolutely stunning. The water was perfect, and the palm trees, grass umbrellas, floating pirogues, and the circle of men beating drums completed the scene. There is also a beautiful island a little ways offshore at Ngor that you can pay to take a boat to- apparently Akon owns a house there! Didn't get to go this time because Maman Binta made me solemnly swear I wouldn't "traverse the water" because of choppy conditions, but I definitely want to go back. We had a great time anyway, though, just lounging, floating, and people watching.
Yesterday, I went on an adventure with my neighbor Elke downtown. We successfully rode the bus, an experience unto itself, and then went to my new favorite place on earth, N'ice Cream. (YES.) They have Obama flavored ice cream there! It is delicious chocolate with crunchy chocolate chunks. If Obama really tastes like that I'm sure all of his Secret Service agents are constantly trying to lick him. They also had a flavor called 'Mozart,' but I just couldn't bring myself to mix the two. Next time.
Soooo yes that was my weekend! Right now I have class, but I hope you are all well. I miss home a lot, and love reading all your comments... Keep em coming!
Also, I had to buy a new sim card for my cell phone because the last one never worked, so here's my new number-
011 221 776107558
Please call! And if someone reads this and talks to my dad soon, could you pass the number along? I don't know how often he gets internet.
Baax suba
Sorry for the long blog absence- Joe, if you're reading this, I didn't drown in any floods, not to worry! I was sick for 3 or 4 days last week, which was dumb, but I'm fully recovered now (knock on wood.) I was concerned I had malaria, which my host family thought was hilarious, and went to a clinic, but I'm fine now, so no worries.
I've been here for exactly two weeks now, which is bizarre- some days it feels like I've been here for so much longer, others it feels like I've been here no time at all, but it definitely doesn't feel like two weeks.
We started classes last Monday, and they've been going alright- most of the professors are great and hilarious. Everyone has to take Country Analysis, which focuses on the history/culture of Senegal; International Development, a class whose sole purpose, as I understand it so far, is to make sure we all despise the World Bank and IMF; and Wolof. Wolof has been pretty ridiculous so far- all of us toubabs are divided into 4 groups, split between two professors. I think I got the short end of the stick professor-wise- Aissatou, while very kind, tries to teach us in one day what would normally take weeks to go over in any other intro language class. In a two hour class last Friday, we "learned" 3 different verb tenses, negation of verbs in all of these tenses, (every one is different,) and 5 different sets of pronouns. Try absorbing that much information when you're sick, the air conditioning is off because the power is out, and someone is smashing bathroom tile with a sledge hammer 10 feet from the open classroom window. I thought my head was going to explode!
Other than those three classes, everyone gets to take one other course of their choice, in whatever "track" interests them. I'm signed up for Environmental Studies, and am also auditing the Education track. I missed the Environmental Studies course last week because I was sick, but the Education class was great- the professor is really intelligent and thoughtful, and the class was really interesing. I'm excited to see what the Environment class is like this week!
Although we're in class for a lot of hours every day, we really don't have a lot of homework other than a couple papers thoughout our first 6 weeks in Dakar. It'll be nice to have an academically laid back semester.
Otherwise... This past weekend was pretty interesting. Friday afternoon my host sister Raissa took me to one of Dakar's markets to buy fabric so I can have an outfit (a boubou) made for Korite, the big party holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan (this coming Sunday!) The market was absolutely jam packed with people looking to buy and vendors selling everything from baby clothes to shoes to fabric to bootlegged CDs to pots and pans. I ended up buying a dark turquoise fabric hand woven with hot pink ribbon for the pagne, or skirt, and pink fabric for the top. Last night Raissa took me to a tailor right around the corner from our house- in sum, I'm paying 16,000 CFA, or 36 dollars, to have a fancy outfit made just for me. That includes the price of fabric!
Friday night was this girl Melinda's birthday, so a bunch of us toubabs went out to a club called Just 4 U. They have live music there every night! Some of the kids brought their host brothers and sisters, and we all sat around a big table, talked, and drank West African beer. After a while we all got up and danced, which was great fun- some of the Senegalese guys were trying to teach us mbalax, the crazy knee jerking arm waving booty shaking Senegalese dance that makes all beginners look extremely foolish. It was pretty awesome. I'm excited to go out when Ramadan is over and more Senegalese people are out and about on the weekend nights!
Saturday I went with the host family to Grandma Binta's house. After chilling for a while, I made plans with some people to go to a beach called Ngor. I invited my host sister and a couple of her friends to come along as well, which turned out to be a mistake. In Senegal, everyone shares everything- food, clothes, belongings, etc. This is generally a really nice thing, unless you spend the entire day catering to my host sister Raissa, the queen bee of moochers. I ended up paying the entire taxi fare to and from the beach and the fee for renting an umbrella and a mat, which I didn't even want. On top of that Raissa asked to borrow my phone and used 800 of the 1000 credits I had just bought that morning, and "borrowed" money to buy food, which she has yet to pay me back for. After we met up with my friends Amanda, Emma, and Britta, she also promptly inhaled literally half of the pizza they had just bought for lunch. Last time I take her to the beach!
Moochers aside, though, the beach was absolutely stunning. The water was perfect, and the palm trees, grass umbrellas, floating pirogues, and the circle of men beating drums completed the scene. There is also a beautiful island a little ways offshore at Ngor that you can pay to take a boat to- apparently Akon owns a house there! Didn't get to go this time because Maman Binta made me solemnly swear I wouldn't "traverse the water" because of choppy conditions, but I definitely want to go back. We had a great time anyway, though, just lounging, floating, and people watching.
Yesterday, I went on an adventure with my neighbor Elke downtown. We successfully rode the bus, an experience unto itself, and then went to my new favorite place on earth, N'ice Cream. (YES.) They have Obama flavored ice cream there! It is delicious chocolate with crunchy chocolate chunks. If Obama really tastes like that I'm sure all of his Secret Service agents are constantly trying to lick him. They also had a flavor called 'Mozart,' but I just couldn't bring myself to mix the two. Next time.
Soooo yes that was my weekend! Right now I have class, but I hope you are all well. I miss home a lot, and love reading all your comments... Keep em coming!
Also, I had to buy a new sim card for my cell phone because the last one never worked, so here's my new number-
011 221 776107558
Please call! And if someone reads this and talks to my dad soon, could you pass the number along? I don't know how often he gets internet.
Baax suba
Monday, September 7, 2009
Heat Rash and Ramadan
If you think these things have very little in common, think again. The hunger that most of the Senegalese endure daily while fasting for Ramadan is incessant, as is the horrible itching of a heat rash that spreads all over your arms, chest, and neck. Moreover, Ramadan fasting and a heat rash tend to make all those involved irritable and tired. I think I'm going to try to fast one of these days before the month ends, so I will be sure to let you know the combined effects of fasting and heat rash.
Other things I have learned this past week:
1) "A toute a l'heure," which means "See you soon," in French, can be more accurately translated as "See you in 4-7 hours!" in Senegal.
2) The French word "legere" means LIGHT, not HEAVY, as I thought for the first week. This might have caused a few misunderstandings- the first morning with my host family, Papa Anicet asked if I slept well, and I nodded and answered, "Yes, I slept very lightly!" After our visit to Gorée Island, where the majority of enslaved West Africans were housed immediately before they were sent on ships to the Americas, I told my host family that the visit was "sad and very light."
3) Most probably, when you hop in a taxi, the "taxi man" won't know street names.
Other things I have learned this past week:
1) "A toute a l'heure," which means "See you soon," in French, can be more accurately translated as "See you in 4-7 hours!" in Senegal.
2) The French word "legere" means LIGHT, not HEAVY, as I thought for the first week. This might have caused a few misunderstandings- the first morning with my host family, Papa Anicet asked if I slept well, and I nodded and answered, "Yes, I slept very lightly!" After our visit to Gorée Island, where the majority of enslaved West Africans were housed immediately before they were sent on ships to the Americas, I told my host family that the visit was "sad and very light."
3) Most probably, when you hop in a taxi, the "taxi man" won't know street names.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Un Tour de Dakar
OK! I'm back from our morning tour of Dakar, here are some more pictures pour vous! The first is the coast line near La Porte du Millénaire, a monument built in 2000, see third pic. Second is Emma and myself- Grinnellians en Afrique! Next we have Britta and I posing with a guard at the Presidential Palace. I automatically liked Britta when I met her because her name is almost Brita, my Grinnell roomie's name. Next one down is me and Adji, one of the program assistants- she's super duper! After the Presidential Palace we stopped at Cap Manuel, a military post left over by French colonists. Pictured beneath me & Adji is a giant pit where the French stored canons, and beyond the pit the ocean and the Madeleine Islands beyond. Some of us were planning a weekend excursion to the Madeleine Islands, until Professor Sene, the program director, (also a super hero,) told us that there was nothing there except "des reptiles et des plantes." Next we've got Claire saluer-ing a HUGE pelican we met on the beach at La Pointe des Almadies, the western-most point on continental Africa! The next few pictures are of beautiful beaches on or near the La Pointe des Almadies- we saw a little restaurant called "SECRET SPOT". Last, we stopped at La Mosquée de la Divinité. Super great!! Now I'm off to lunch with some toubabs. Some of the kids here did the presession, so they've been here for a month already. They have some Senegalese friends who are throwing all us newbies a party tonight, and apparently a pig will be killed in our honor. Don't worry, I'll take a video!
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