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.