thoughts on being here .. .

Some days that I’m here I really try to figure out what exactly I’m going to get out of being here. Frequently I’m frustrated with being here because I feel like my independence is gone, something that I really need. I take pride that in my moments/days of boredom I’m able to just go out and wander, find something to do, go sit in a café with a book, something/anything on my own. But here it’s just too hard to do. There is little here that is leisurely, and little to be done on my own. In other places that I’ve lived, like Chicago or DC, or while I was abroad I’ve been able to go out for a walk and window shop or go to a museum or a park. This isn’t to say that I do as much exploring as I should in the US (there’s plenty to see in DC that I have yet to), but at least there’s the option.

Here in Senegal I always feel like I’m waiting for something to do and for people to do it with, a feeling that I really am not fond of. Gradually I’m getting more comfortable with being in downtown Dakar, but even at my most comfortable it is not as though I’m going to go and sit in Place de l’Independance with a book- I’d get absolutely mobbed by people trying to sell me perfume/scarves/shoes/tupperware (no joke), and that is not exactly relaxing. It’s frustrating not having anything to do, so I spend a lot of time reading in my room (not to say that reading isn’t a great thing to do- I’m more than happy with a good book). Sometimes I wonder what my family thinks, since I seem to spend a lot of time in my room. But when I do go and sit in the living room there’s just a lot of TV on, and the conversations are brief. Sometimes there are good interesting conversations- and sometimes it’s just me and my Yaay (mom), who only speaks Wolof and thus there’s nothing much to say.

This all may be very linked with the mood around Senegal during the election. Everything is so focused on the election, and everything was closed today (Sunday), and yesterday we were encouraged to stay in and try to avoid any potential craziness (I don’t think that there was any). And the whole week leading up to this has been all about the election. It is an interesting time to be here, but I feel like it didn’t coincide well with my finally settling into Senegal. I think that once I get back from spring break (woohoo!) I should be able to settle in better and explore a bit more. But like I said, it’s hard to just lazily walk around- if you’re going to the market you had better be ready to buy! Maybe that means I’ll start having to buy people gifts :)

Another thing that I’m still not used to is being a part of a family where I’m responsible for telling them what I’m up to. Not that I’m up to crazy and suspicious things that I have to make an excuse for, but the concept of ‘maybe I’ll be here for dinner’ doesn’t always go over in the right way. They don’t mind at all if I am not here, and I frequently eat meals at school or out with friends, but it’s just the planning ahead that is difficult. My family is very lax with me- I had friends whose families are much more all over them about what they’re doing and eating at home, so I’m lucky in that respect. But sometimes it’s still hard. During the week it’s easier because I’m in school so I have a more fixed schedule, and can know better when I will or won’t be around.

Also, the food. Some days I can eat a lot of it, and other days, not so much. I do like the food here, but only to a certain degree. If they eat, let’s say, a cup of the food, I can eat about ¼-1/3 of a cup. I like it, but there’s only so much I can take! And I’ve probably had about 8 or so dishes here and they get repeated and mixed around, so some days there’s more to look forward to than others (I looooove this one omlette dish, with onions and fries and tomatoes on top of it- definitely enjoy that one).

I’m just really curious to know what the outcome of all of this will be for me, and at the end I might not know what that outcome is. It may take months after getting back to be able to understand what this semester in Dakar has done. I don’t think it will be a regret, and for the most part I enjoy my days here. The time tends to really fly by, and I keep feeling that it is insane that after spring break will be our halfway point, and just weeks after that we have our rural visit (a blog on that one some other time). Either way, being in Dakar is interesting, makes me think a lot, and has given me a lot of time to read. Eventually that leisure reading will be traded in for more projects, but I’ve got my work decently spaced out so at no point will I be overloaded (which I think should be the case when you’re abroad).

I’m going to spend the rest of the evening chilling out, probably reading (a friend just loaned me Heart of Darkness- have yet to start it) and maybe hearing some election news- they count out the different results from the different regions around the country over the radio. If one candidate gets 50%+ of the vote he wins, if not, three weeks from today there will be a runoff- so it’ll keep on going (very possibly). Since Americans will probably not hear about the Senegalese elections, I’ll make sure to post what happened!

Ok, enough reflection for one day (its being going through my head all day, had to write it down!). Hope everyone is well . . .

Update: I'm posting this on Tuesday (I wrote the blog Sunday night) because classes were cancelled yesterday because of the election. They still don't know who won, but everything was pretty much closed yesterday, so school was too. So I went to the beach :)

Elections in Senegal

Tomorrow is a big day here in Senegal- the presidential elections, which happen once every 7 years. I'll do my best to sum up what is going on. The current president, Wade, is running for another term in office. He is Senegal's third president (the others before held very long terms) and some Senegalese have been very happy with him. Here they seem very into buildings and roads, but more starting them than finishing them. Thus his term was spent on buildings that are only half completed (some are completed) and a lot of roads that are under construction. So he has a lot of work to finish up here, which is why a lot of people would vote for him. But wait- there are 14 other candidates, all of whom point out that Wade is 83 (or therabouts, we're not really sure) and probably such an old man isn't the best idea for president. One of his strongest opponents is his former Prime Minister, Seck, who's shocking departure came a few years ago.
The people here are very into the election, and a high percentage (no idea of what it is exactly) of somewhere in the 70% range actually vote, with a particularly strong youth-voter turnout. It's very encouraging seeing people so involved in their future (if only we did a better job in the US). However here it is hard to understand what exactly candidates stand for, and their promises are all the same, even moreso than you might think in the US. It's hard to understand what a candidate is really interested in doing or how they will differ from another candidate- everyone wants very similar things for Senegal.
Not too much violence thus far- people are supposed to not demonstrate today, in order to rest up for tomorrow, so hopefully things will be calm. But the past week or so have been full of people rallying for their candidate, and there is always stuff on TV (every candidate recieves 5min airtime to show whatever they want on the government news station) and people sporting their party colors. Inchallah it all goes off without a hitch tomorrow, and things resume to normal, but who knows. Reactions will be strong whether Wade remains in office or not- some people really hate him and others want to see him finish what he has started. My host family supports Wade, mostly because they think he should finish things up.
Hope everyone is safe and well!

Hooray!

At long last I have Spring Break plans! Yesterday we booked tickets to go to Cape Verde from March 2-11th. Cape Verde is a set of Islands (kind of like Hawaii) off the coast of West Africa, about a 1hr flight from Dakar. Our plans aren't totally concrete right now beyond flying in and out of Praia, which is on one of the larger islands. It is a little bit costly to fly from island to island, so we think we'll stick to the lower cluster and take boats between the islands. One place we want to go to for sure is Fogo, which is a volcano island, which we can hike up/around. It looks really gorgeous, and we think we'll have a lot of fun. The group looks like it will be 6 girls, all of whom I really like and look forward to traveling with. Like I said, we're going to do our best to be spontaneous (but I've already warned them that I am my fathers child and can't help it if I need some sense of a plan, at the very least!) and see where the trip takes us.
It's crazy that we're going so soon and that we just booked it yesterday, but that adds to the excitement, in my opinon. I'll be glad to get out of Senegal and see somewhere that I probably wouldn't end up at otherwise. They speak Portugeuse there (but it's its own country) so I'll need to brush up on that- rather, I need to learn some.
Otherwise I'm just hanging out at school- not too much work, which is nice. I have a midterm coming up in Islam soon, but I don't think that will be too challenging since his information is generally straightforward. Sometimes it gets a little tiring having to do so much thinking since it's in French, but I think it is helping me with my skills. That's all for now!

Three day weekends are nice :)

This past weekend has been pretty good. On Friday I slept in (well, as much as I can in my noisy household) which was a nice change from getting up at 7.45 for my classes. I met up with a few friends and we grabbed a taxi to take us to an area of Dakar called Ngoor. Once there we hopped onto a pirogue (their fishing boats) and took a ride over to the little island of Ngoor. We spent the day there, swam a little bit (the water is getting warmer!) and just chilled out. As I keep saying, it's very nice to have somewhere to get away from everything and just chill out. I also just finished reading The Kite Runner, which has been reccommended to me by multiple people and I just got around to reading. It was an awesome book, something that always makes me very happy. We left Ngoor at around 5pm, even though the sun was still up, in order to get back home and shower off all of the salt!
Saturday morning I met up with my friend Hannah to go and get a cup of real coffee (not the insant Nescafe stuff) and some pastries. There's a place that isnt too far from me which has just that, and I've been to a few times. While we didn't get any fancy pastries (too early in the day for so much sugar!) we did each indulge in a doughnut and some coffee. Not exactly like home, but pretty close- they do know their pastries in French speaking countries!
I went home to have lunch (I feel like I don't spend enough time at home sometimes, but when I'm there I don't feel like I'm doing much, so I don't feel too guilty) and then got my stuff together to go on an excursion to the Dakar zoo! I was expecting it to be of pretty low standards, and I was right. The cages were incredibly small and in a few different spots it was actually possible for the animals to put a body part outside of the cage. If you look at my pictures you'll get what I'm saying ( http://american.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2046230&l=b609a&id=7402326 ). A very curious experience seeing those animals like that, but also crazy how up-close we got to get! I think that the animals were probably under-exercised and didn't have much energy to try to do anything if you got too close. Aside from the monkey's who do everything they can to get food out of you- which is strongly encouraged and leads me to believe that it's a large part of their diet.
I went with Hannah and her Senegalese language partner and a friend of his, so we spent the afternoon speaking in French and talking about a wide varitey of topics. It was the first time I've hung out with Senegalese, so it was nice to talk to someone and get a youth's perspective on things here (for example, one of the guys clearly was not a fan of polygamy, and judging by his 8 brothers and 3 sisters, he was in a polygamous family). We came back around 6pm, just when it was starting to get chilly, and I ate at home. Same old same old in that region.
I've started to feel a little bit under the weather and I think it's because I'm not drinking enough water. Around here you have to constantly be drinking water, but you also have to buy your water, something I often fail to do. So I made it a point to go and get a 5Liter jug of water to keep myself well hydrated, and I've spent my Sunday pretty much doing nothing in hopes of saving up some energy. I think it's working, but who knows.
Hope everyone is doing well!

sometimes it's not so fun here

For the most part I like Senegal, I really do. But sometimes I just don't. Living with three little brothers sometimes makes liking Senegal really hard. The way that they discipline the kids here is very different from home (or at least my home). Here they use their hands and some loud words to get their point across to kids, and it can be very hard to be around. Not to say that I have ever seen anything that I feel is out of line, children are just really dealt with in a different way here. And it puts me in a tough spot because there are moments when I want to discipline the children (for going into my room without asking or for crawling all over me when I'm not in the mood) and it is very hard because I am used to using my words and asking children to stop, but nicely. It doesn't work like that here and the kids don't respond to that, so I have to talk more firmly than I'd like to.
So it's a challenge to figure out how to deal with things, but I think I am making a bit of progress, and I cannot fault the kids for being curious about all of the things I have in my room (like a flashlight). They don't have a lot by way of toys here, so they don't have a whole lot to etertain themselves beyond wrestling. It's a part of the culture that I don't plan to embrace, but that I do have to learn how to adjust to. The kids are well intentioned for the most part, and their mother has her hands full so everyone else helps with raising the kids. Things just get so insane (and loud!) somedays- so I go into my room and just chill out. Fortunately my family is ok with my personal time and never tries to get me to come out. I've done a lot of reading since I've gotten here- and I just got a hold of The Kite Runner, which I'm really excited to dive into!
It's all part of being here, of being in the homestay and living someone elses life.
Not always easy, but then there are the amusing moments, and the ones that put things into a different perspective- like walking out of your front door and seeing a very large cow tied to a post. The cow has been there for two days now, I think he's getting slaughtered this weekend for a baptism. I'm in Africa and that happens here and it's my (odd) life for now.

Learning Wolof

So thus far I've made some progress in my Wolof abilities. There are times when I cannot believe that I'm learning some random African language, and it feels pretty cool. Then I get home and try to listen in on converstations, and I can only manage to pick up bits and pieces of what is being said. It also has to do with how much I can manage to remember and put into things- its mostly greetings and goodbyes that I can do. When I get home people ask me how school is and how my family is in the states, which is just the gereral curteousy given to everyone. It just goes so quickly when they speak that I can't keep up!!! I think that by the end I'll have a better grasp on things and be able to follow along better. I'm still waiting for things to click and to start following along better.
In other language news, French is going well and I'm managing to follow along in my different classes that are taught in French. It's encouraging and a good feeling, but it will be seen how the papers end up going. I have a presentation tomorrow in my Social Anthropology class on Wolof Marriages- lets hope it goes well!
In other news, it is HOT here. Really HOT. And no air conditioning. Sometimes its really horrible, which stinks (but I do have a fan in my room, which is a plus bc if I leave my door open to circulate air A)flies come in B)mosquitoes come in C) my little brothers come in.) I've got to remember to stay good and hydrated amidst all of this heat (but it probably is better than being in the cold back home).
I hope everyone has a wonderful and lovely Valentines day- and yes, they do celebrate it here in Senegal. It's kind of odd because it's not as 'hallmark' but it is on its way to becoming very Hallmark, if you give it time!

Toubab Dialow

This past weekend I went to the incredibly gorgeous town of Toubab Dialow. We stayed at a hotel that is part hotel and part artists’ colony. Musicians and dancers and sculptors etc live there are work there, and it is very cool and laid back and an incredible place to visit. It has a bunch of mini villas with a bunch of beds or smaller rooms, and sprawls over a decent amount of space that overlooks the ocean. The style of the place is a lot like the architect Gaudi, with a lot of mosaic work covering the place, along with sculptures created by the owner of the hotel.

As soon as we arrived we set to making our batik artwork. Batik is a very cool art that is from Africa which uses wax and dye. The process is fairly simple, so easy for us amateurs to do. You have a blank sheet- a canvas-like material, and you draw a design onto it with pencil. We were given stencils to use to help us in our creation, or we could create something freehand. After stenciling what you want, you get a box of hot wax and a brush and put the wax over whatever portion of the cloth you want to stay white. You then let the wax dry and the cloth is dipped into a dye (of a light color like yellow or orange). After that dries you take the wax again, and put it over the areas that you want to stay yellow (I chose yellow). The wax guards the cloth against getting dyed. Then the cloth is dipped into your second color (I chose green). It dries and then is ironed (we didn’t do this part- I think that the wax gets taken off at this point). Then voila! A piece of Batik artwork!

Batik is used in all forms here- people have them as wall hanging, or clothing, or cushion covers. I think that really good batik is done when a person has a sense of what colors dye well together, and when they are able to master the wax, and create the fine lines that they want and avoid the wax covering areas that they don’t want. It was a fun and easy activity, and something that we were able to come and go from while the wax dried.

Other than that, well, we hung out. Crazy as it sounds, but our school took us on a trip to hang out, go to the beach, sit in hammocks to read and just generally enjoy Senegal. It was every bit as wonderful as it sounds.

It was really hot and sunny this past weekend (don’t worry, I wore my SPF) but the water was freezing and as salty as can be! Regardless, we dove into the ocean and frolicked in the waves, and they were some strong waves- at least it seemed like it to me! It was a wonderful way to be exhausted, and we all just hung out, going between sand and water. Of course there were the vendors etc, who like to bring their baskets of jewelry and armloads of sarongs and plop down next to you to sell their goods. But for the most part they’re pretty chill, and you just have to either say no, or casually look and work your way into a good price. I got a really pretty beach cover up/sarong in a nice jade greenish/blue color.

Saturday evening we had a nice multi-course meal after watching the sunset- we had tables that pretty much overlooked the water. It was nice to spend time with the whole group. Since we are all in our respective homestays, some in far neighborhoods, it was nice to see people for an extended amount of time. After dinner we attended a drumming and dance performance that some of the residents of the hotel had been working on. It was their final performance and focused around the new immigrations that are happening, of Mexicans to the US and of Senegalese to Spain (a common and dangerous practice that has killed many Senegalese in their voyage up to Spain in small pirogue boats).

Some parts of the performance were hard to understand, but I think that happens with some ‘interpretive’ dances. The dancers spoke in French and in Wolof at different parts, and while I only understood bits of the Wolof, I definitely got the French. An interesting performance in an outdoor amphitheatre (the dance floor was sand) accompanied by some amazing drumming! It definitely fit with the environment.

I was totally exhausted and wanted to be able to enjoy the next day to its fullest, so I hit the sack after the performance at the early hour of 12. I was very glad because I had energy when I got up at 8.15, and sought out breakfast. It was some toasted bread (and some pieces actually seemed to be wheat!) with butter and mango or bissap jam (as I understand bissap is a relative of the eucalyptus plant, and it’s used a lot, especially as a juice), as well as coffee/tea/hot chocolate with hot milk! Little things in life will make your day good!

Afterwards I went over to the beach with my friend Amy for some journal writing. It was very cool to climb up some huge rock, sit down with waves crashing beneath you and just write/soak it up. The rest of the morning was spent enjoying the sun, hanging out and doing nothing, just like the previous day J

At one point Amy and I walked a little bit outside of the hotel to see what kind of art was available. We came across a man who was working on sculpting something out of wood, which intrigued us. There is a lot of wood sculpture available here, but you never know if the person who sold it to you actually made it themselves. We were delighted to see someone crafting the sculptures, so we decided to investigate further. In the end Amy got him to make her a sculpture that she liked in a different size and a different kind of wood. I got him to make me a ring (which is what he was starting when we walked up). It fits my thumb perfectly, and is made of ‘le black and white’, which is ebony and a lighter wood- I don’t know how it works, but they’re two colors from the same piece of wood. He had the idea to carve a mask into the ring before I came up, so he let me pick which mask he would carve, and I got a crescent moon shape. I am very happy with it, and it’s very cool knowing who made it.

In the afternoon we had some lunch, swam a bit more and then loaded ourselves up for the bus ride home. It was a very laid back weekend, but educational at the same time because it showed us another part of Senegal, along with the cool artist’s environment we were in was enriching. My friend Cyrus brought his guitar with him, so we had impromptu sing-alongs to different fun songs, and the Senegalese would join in with their favorite songs. I plan on going back to Toubab at some point during the semester since it was so nice to get away from the craziness of Dakar (that seems to be a theme with my vacations!).

It’s back to school for now, and I’m sure that another week is going to fly by again! Hopefully I’ll have some news on Spring Break really soon!

A few of my favorite things . . .

There are a few random things about Dakar that I thought I'd share that I like about here:
1)The peanuts- peanuts are one of Senegal's natural resources, which means that they sell wonderful little packs of peanuts all over the place, for 25 CFA (about 5cents), and they make for a delicious snacks
2)the religious environment- I've really gotten used to the mosque blaring prayers at different hours of the day, and its so interesting to see people stopping what they're doing, rolling out their prayer mats and taking the time to pray. It's a devotion you definetly don't see very often in the States
3) Cafe Toubab- it's very hard to explain, but it tastes like a mixture between tea and coffee with some kind of spice in it. You can get it on the street from vendors and a dixie cup costs 50CFA, which is nice and cheap! Not to say that I don't miss coffee from the states, but it's a nice change-up
4) the weather- i'm not gonna lie, it is gorgeous here most of the time, and I love how warm it is in February- it's insane!
5) the clothing- everyone here dresses in such a vibrant and beautiful style. The men wear boubous, which are long baggy pants and long baggy tops with beautiful embroidery. And of course the women have their colorful and well tailored dresses- sometimes it's hard not to stare and covet their clothes!
6) the fruit stands with all of the nice and fresh fruit for such a good price

They're the little things in life that keep things going for me. I can't believe that I've been here for over three weeks already. The days seem to pass by pretty quickly. I'm doing my best to get involved in as much as I can, but sometimes it's hard when you just want to relax and chill out- something about being here is very exhausting! Nonetheless, I really feel like I'm settling into life here and I am enjoying it. In all reality I don't have that much time here so I have to make the most of what I do have!
This weekend the whole group is going to Toubab Dialow which has been described as an artists colony of sorts with a gorgeous beach- I am going to take a Batik class, and I cannot wait! People have really enjoyed the visit in the past, and I'm very interested in seeing other parts of Senegal.
Never fear, I do have work to do, and I am learning a lot in my classes. My two topic classes (Islam and Social Anthropology) tend to have a lot of connections between the two, so I can get frustrated with some repition, but for the most part its good reinforcement. I have a presentation in a week about the marriage tradition of the Wolof's- it should be really interesting. Here marriage isn't considered to be between a man and a woman, it is between two families. It's very complicated and a long process, and makes me glad to be able to marry whomever I would want to! It definetly gives insight into the culture.
Lunchtime now!- leggi leggi (means see you later!)

A reallllllly long post about my trip to Saint Louis!

Weekend trip to Saint Louis

What a fun and exhausting weekend. We started our trip out (I went with my friends Hannah, Gwen, Cyrus and Alec) by stuffing into a cab, all together and working our way over to the Gare Routiere (kind of like a bus station, only with taxis and cars). The second that we stepped foot out of our cab we were swarmed by people trying to get us to go in their sept-place taxis, which are essentially station wagons that hold 7 passengers. Typically they try to fill them up but you can pay the difference to have your sept-place to yourself, which is what we wanted to do. We had to do a lot of waxale (bargaining) in order to get the price in the area of what we thought was good, which was 30,000 CFA for the five of us (translates to about $60). All settled into our sept-place we headed out on our ride, which took around 4 hours. I slept part of the way, and the scenery isn’t all that remarkable, just a lot of trees and open space.

Getting to Saint Louis is pretty straightforward, especially since there isn’t much by way of highways here and the highways that there are take you straight to Saint Louis. The city itself is on the water and is some mainland plus two islands; on the Northern-most part of Senegal (you can see Mauritania from parts of it). To get over to the first island you cross a bridge that was designed by Gustave Eiffel, and originally meant for the Danube River, and got send to Saint Louis instead. Back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Saint Louis was the capital of West Africa, and therefore merited such a bridge. When the capital got moved to Dakar, Saint Louis just sort of stopped developing. Some of the restored buildings have a very old feel to them, and some compare it to New Orleans (which I’ve never been to, so I can’t really say).The islands are very small though, but hold a great deal of people. There are particularly a lot of Laobe people there because of its positioning on the ocean, and the Laobe are fishermen by heritage.

We got to our hotel by around 5pm and checked ourselves into the Auberge de Jeunesse, which turned out to be a great choice! We split into two rooms, girls in one and boys in the other. The beds were wonderfully comfortable and even came with mosquito nets (big deal here in Africa). In no time we were ready to set off on our exploring. Just because it’s getting ‘late’ in Africa never means that anything is closing, especially when you consider that people typically eat dinner around 9pm. We wandered around the island that we were on for a little while, getting a feel for the area and seeing what there was to do. In all truth there isn’t a whole lot to do in Saint Louis- although a lot of the locals will try to give you tours in their horse-drawn carriages. Forgoing that option we checked the town out by foot- crazy to imagine that it was once the capital of West Africa, considering its small size!

All weekend long we got plenty of “ah, toubab!” shouted at us. Toubab means, essentially, white person. There isn’t much of a response to it, since, yes, we are white, so we would just yell back ‘waaw, toubab!’ (waaw in wolof means yes) and just went with it. Mostly it was little kids saying it to us, and considering toubabs are in the vast minority, they like to point us out when they see us. Along our first walk we ran into a family who was very intrigued by us, and our friendly buddy Cyrus got us invited into their house in no time. We made our way into the mini shanty-town and went into their house, which was really just a room. The people in Senegal really believe in the idea of Teranga, which means hospitality, and despite their very evident poverty, they still wanted us to come and visit with them. After hanging out for a while and listening to some music (and then being cajoled into dancing ) we went on our way, ready to see what more hospitality we would come across.

During the whole weekend we put our faith in what we call ‘The Good Book” aka the Lonely Planet guide to Senegal. From that we picked out restaurants, and for the first night we went to the authors choice spot for great cheap Yassa Poulet. It’s a Senegalese dish that is a ton of rice and a big piece of chicken served with a sweet/spiced onion topping. Very good and definitely something that tastes like Senegal but isn’t too far from what we would have in the states. For that meal I opted to have some calamari shish-kabobs, which were a great choice! Following dinner we weren’t sure what we wanted to do, so we set out wandering for a mellow place to get a drink. Along the way Cyrus made more friends, who were a bunch of very rasta musicians who started an impromptu concert in the street and invited us to go to the beach with them for some music and dancing. After about 15 minutes of conferring (decisions and goodbyes are never quick in Senegal) we opted out of it after such fatigue from our long trip. We said leggi leggi (goodbye) and told them we’d try to meet up with them the next day.

In the end we went to a random bar that played Jazz music (there’s a huge jazz festival there once a year) and had a glass of wine. Tuckered out we went back to our Auberge and chose to call it a night, and opted out of setting an alarm. Alas, in Senegal that doesn’t mean much when you’re positioned close to a mosque, which starts blaring prayers over the loudspeaker starting at 5am. Since I live near to a mosque in Dakar I’m relatively used to it, but something about this mosque was particularly loud (it sounded like a debate of some sort, but since I don’t speak Arabic I can’t really weigh in on the matter). We all got up and had our complimentary breakfast at the Auberge, which was bread and butter (or jam) and tea (or coffee), which is what I have every day at home anyways. The only downside to breakfast was the flies. I don’t know if it is the general presence of fish in Saint Louis or what, but the flies were out of control there!!! They are inescapable in Africa regardless, but they were swarming everywhere this weekend.

Following breakfast we decided to venture over to the other island, which faces out to the ocean. We crossed the bridge, and it was like entering a whole new town. Crowded and crazy, it really felt like Senegal without the tourism. People were going about the business, with horse drawn buggies everywhere, cars honking and goats galore. The goats roam like nobody’s business, but they do their best to avoid cars. Yet there presence is everywhere in Saint Louis. I don’t know how people keep track of their goats, or if the goats even belong to anyone, but sometimes it feels like they’re running things. We checked out the fish market for a second but it got a little too crowded so we decided to head towards the ocean.

Once there it is very evident how polluted it is in this country. Even along the river between the two islands the river has a shore of trash, just mucking everything up. Along the coastline to the ocean there is still a great deal of trash. What struck me is that they don’t treat beaches here the way that we do in the US. In the US beaches are meant for luxury- here they are a source of income, a path to get the boats out to the ocean to fish. While standing on the beach we saw a few boats get heaved out onto the shore, loaded up with a motor and then sent out to sea. It’s really a community effort, with everyone joining in to push it out. Cyrus and Alec really wanted to, so they helped with pushing one boat out (resulting, of course, in Cyrus making more friends). After being accosted by some local kids who were a) interested in toubabs and b) wanted cadeuax (gifts) or money, yet very friendly and nice, we moved along. At this point we walked through the part of town that was next to the river, and walked by more fish and flies than I was interested in being near. To keep it brief I wasn’t enjoying it and felt very awkward being a spectator to these people’s everyday life, which obviously is not easy. Still, an important part of Senegal to see.

We headed back to our island and went to another Lonely Plant recommended restaurant, which was located on the Northern-most point of the island, where we had yet to venture. It was at this point that we were able to see Mauritania. At this meal I indulged in some Yassa Poulet, and as expected, it was awesome (and a HUGE portion!). Before heading back to our hotel so I could buy a Senegalese mask for my collection. I don’t know if I got a great price, but I didn’t mind giving the guy whose place was off the beaten path a nice sale.

Then we stopped by our hotel to put on our swimsuits and gather things to go to the ‘beach’. This required a cab ride, one in which we got ripped off, but it was a lesson learned- always remember to establish the price before getting into the cab! (we thought that is was a set price, which it is for on the island, but not for a distance like the beach). It was worth it though, once we got to the huge beach. It was tons of sand and lotsa ocean! It was too windy to go out, but we did run into our musician friends. They were very pleased to see us. We hung out and chatted and in no time started to give us African Dance lessons.

They really embodied the sense of Teranga, and were so friendly with us. Once it started to get colder they invited us back to the musicians area, which was some rented space on the beach, which had some tents set up, and a dog named argent (money). They invited us to stay for dinner, but we wanted to get back to our island before it got to be too dark. They took zero offense to this and were just happy to have run into us again. One of our friends helped us get a cab for the return, and for a great price too! Making random friends can be so nice, especially ones who play cool music and teach you how to dance on the beach.

We stopped into a café once back on the island where we snacked on pastries and I had as close as I’ve come to coffee this whole time (despite being on a continent where great coffee is produced, they’re all about instant Nescafe here). We wandered around some more, chilled out at the hotel and then decided on a place for dinner. Looking for something other than Yassa Poulet, we went to a pizza place. Despite the best efforts it’s never the same as at home. However, it does the trick, and breaks up the Senegalese food nicely. That night we chose to stay in at our hotel and play some cards in the nice outside space. A very nice chill night.

With an alarm set we got up for the next day and had breakfast and packed ourselves up. One last jaunt took us into the town and to a grocery store to get some food for lunch. Being college students we stocked up on snacks, and I decided to splurge on a box of Smacks cereal. So worth it! We checked out of our hotel and began our process of finding a cab to take us to the Gare to get a sept-place. A bunch of Toubabs with suitcases is like a flag being waved and soon we were entrenched in deal-making. We were determined to a) get a good price and b) have our own sept-place. After trying to get something set up on the island we decided it was better to go to the Gare itself and see what kind of deal we could work out over there. As soon as we got there (after finding a cab) we were leapt upon and the waxale began. It’s always very confusing because there are so many people talking at one time, trying to get you to take their cab, figuring out the price, so many different things.

Long story short, we managed a sept-place for a good price, and went on our way. And then stopped, and then went again, and then stopped for gas. Finally being really on our way felt very good. Too bad it was ridiculously hot without escape and our water was literally hot in no time. We toughed it out, though, stopped for some awesome Orange Fanta, and snacked our way home. Instead of going to the Gare in Dakar we offered our driver a bit of cash, and got him to drop us off in our neighborhood, which was worth the extra money just to not have to waxale all over again. Exhausted, but home, it was nice to get back to my place in Mermoz.

Time to head off to the Marines house to go watch the Super Bowl! Hopefully it goes as plans (and the Bears win!). It will be a verrrrry late night (the game starts at 11pm) but it should be fun to have some Americanism.

I can’t wait for more weekend trips!!!!!

Little update on life

The past few days have been pretty chill here in Dakar. Not to say that its not very hot and windy (which means lots of sand blowing up in my face). It's been mostly going to classes and hanging out. Classes are going well and I think that they will be very interesting. The only downside is that some professors can get very repetitive, and for students that have been recently sick they repeat the whole lecture, which is a waste of a day. I hope it doesnt happen too often. Regardless I think that they're going to be really informative.
My Wolof is progressing bit by bit and hopefully will start catching on soon. I really need to be able to use it at my house and so any sentence I can come up with is an achievement. I just have problems responding to people's questions- I get sort of stuck. I'm going to keep persisting though!
This weekend I have a fun trip planned with a few friends up to Saint Louis, which is in Northern Senegal, and is supposed to be awesome. I'll give a full recounting of what it is like, but I'm sure it will be an adventure since this will be a venturing without the whole group. But that's the fun of it all!
Also, I handed over one of my fabrics that I bought in the market to get made into a dress. I showed a (really bad) drawing of what I wanted to my Aunt, she took my measurements and said that she thought she knew what I wanted. Lo and behold, the next night, she had not one but TWO dresses for me to try on. There are some adjustments to be made still (the beauty of things getting tailored) but it was pretty exciting- especially since I was expecting one dress. She said that she would have them ready for me to have for this weekend. A great way to keep Flannery happy is through new clothes!
In other news, the impending Super Bowl was a concern for many of us Americans, but thankfully the embassy forwarded and email to our program director telling us that we are more than welcome to go to the Super Bowl party at the Marine House, which isn't too far from where we live. Granted, it won't start until 11pm, but it will be so worth it! I can't possibly miss a Chicago team in something like this. It will cap off a very long weekend, that is for sure.
Off I go to one more class, and then it's weekend time!!!!