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!