sarahinsenegal

Big Dave went where?

2006-04-19T19:02:00.000-05:00

Finally a much awaited update. Many folks have commented over the frustration at seeing that mutton leg so much over the last three months. So here is another much more pleasant picture.

Dad came to visit a couple of weeks ago. It was really a great time. Admittedly, I was anxious to see how it all would go over, but it was great to hear him say in the end that it was the most stimulating trip he had ever taken. Hey, it is Senegal--how couldn't it be?!

It started of by me waiting nervously at the airport what turned out to be 24-hours early (Sarah: learn to read an itinerary!). I though he had gotten stolen by some fast-talking con man. I called home enough times to make Amy think that someone was stalking them in the middle of the night. Once she figured out what was going on, she calmly informed me that Dad wasn't stolen, he was in his bed sleeping. So I ended up having to spend another day by the pool, drinking, eating, and watching movies at the nicest hotel in West Africa. Nice but expensive mistake.

So I finally picked him up at the right time the next day, we had breakfast at the hotel and then played a round of golf at the hotel. The golf was really the only reason I chose the hotel, and from the state of the course would have been in no ways worth it other than the fact that afterwards one could say that they'd played a round of golf in Africa. For good old Midwestern folks like us, that is pretty cool. Dad did say that the view off the ocean rivaled Pebble Beach.

We then headed off from Dakar to the south of the country, the Casamance. We spent the first day and night in a beach resort area which we found to be filled with seemingly more French pensioners than Senegalese. The taxi ride from the airport to the hotel was a bit of a shocker for my dad. It was his first real taste of Senegal. Anything at the Meridien (our hotel in Dakar) can be safely known as "fake Senegal."

Urgh, I think I am too tired to walk through this with such detail. I think a list of highlights will have to do:

1. Well one thing that really stands out a major learning experience was the transport. One driver killed a dog, another came close to taking my dad's right arm, and after it was all said and done we still got from one point to another "safely."

2. We had a great time hanging out in a little upstream village called Affiniam. Dad met an American psychologist turned traveler and drank so much beer that I couldn't pay the tab. I found a sweet family to talk to and kissed their kids, who I will hopefully never forget.

3. We took a stroll around Zuiginchor which startled my dad as much as it reminded me of why I wanted to move there.

4. I smoked my first cigar with my dad. P.S. His was a Cuban.

5. Dad ate lots of ceebu jÃ«n--the first of my family and friends to do so! He loved it.

6. He met, loved, and graciously entertained my friends in Saint-Louis. We also made stops to meet the missionaries who had taken me in for Christmas as well as those who I'd been hanging out with weekly.

7. We sat at my tailor's in an open-air market and had a big pair of African-print shorts made for Dad. Mamadou was charming and did great work.

8. I caught and kissed my first goat. Sadly, we weren't ready enough to get a picture taken. I've tried again a couple of time, but have been very unsuccessful.

9. We visited a bird sanctuary and saw an ENORMOUS flock of pelicans. Our guide also made fun of a big group of package-tour Frenchies in the boat ahead of us. It was great. (Poor French people.)

10. We ate really well, with the slight exception of me never being able to get a good shrimp cocktail.

11. Much, much, more...

Thank you Dad! I love you! I really appreciate you coming to Senegal!

Tabaski!

2006-01-14T05:47:00.000-05:00

It was a good thing that my back was turned to the center of the courtyard while I was chopping onions for the noontime meal, otherwise I could have seen the rapid slaughter of five muttons. There was nothing terribly ceremonial about what they did. No incense or chanting or presenting things at an altar like I associate ritual sacrifice. They just butchered the animals in the yard and feasted on yapp (wolof for meat) all day. I found the whole situation to be more intimidating than nauseating. They kept urging/commanding me to eat more and more. I just couldn't choke it down. The cuts that we were eating weren't particularly well done, very tough and fatty. Later the little boys of the household had a wild time boiling up the testicles and munching on those bad boys. They asked me if I wanted to taste. I passed politely.

Sarah in a Bubu!

2006-01-14T05:32:00.000-05:00

So here I am: typical Senegalese style. Everyone has tailors that make their clothes. It is pretty cool. I wonder if this get-up will fly in Ann Arbor.

Cascade de Dindéfélo and Ségou

2006-01-14T04:53:00.000-05:00

These are taken in the Bassari country where I had my bicycling adventure.

The woodworker

2006-01-14T04:21:00.000-05:00

This is a woodworker I met in Ziguinchor. I was struck by his shop's exterior and wanted to take a closer look. I ended up sitting with him for a while and he allowed me to photograph is work. He was sweet and quiet and kind of sad. He told me about how he has to rely on his daughers that are living in Dakar for support because he cannot make enough money to live off. He looked at my camera and started saying things about how Africans could never make technology such as that, and that if you ever saw it here it was because the toubab brought it. I don't think he really believed me when I told him how much I liked his country.

Ziguinchor

2006-01-13T13:38:00.000-05:00

Here is an old Catholic Church in Ziguinchor built by the French. There was a funny sign over the to both wings of the sanctuary: it commanded people to dress properly for church and showed a diagram of proper attire--the model parishoners were Frenchies dressed in colonial high fashon, everything buttoned, petty coat and all. Ironic.

Here is the pirogue we rode in down the Casamance river. The boats are painted really beautifully and come in all sizes. Pop a motor on a good sized one and you've got a deep sea fishing vessel. Crews of guys will regularly go out to sea for weeks at a time to catch fish. Most all of it is caught with nets.

Here is the village we stopped at up river. You can see behind the thick Baobab trunks the grass-roofed huts. There seemed to be mostly fishermen and agriculturalists here. Lots of cute kids too, of course.

Abéné

2006-01-13T13:33:00.000-05:00

This is in Abéné, a sleepy tourist village just south of the Gambia on the coast. The Casamance is so lush and green compared to further north. Lots of birds too. It is beautiful.

Kaolack

2006-01-13T13:27:00.000-05:00

This is the Canadian girl, Zuzana, that I met in Kaolack. Looks like quite the traveler, huh? We're just outside of Kaolack on the way to the Gambia to do the border crossing.

Christmas in Kebemer

2006-01-13T13:15:00.000-05:00

Iris and Eden, two M:MM missionaries. We're in the market in Kebemer. Iris grew up in the Congo, her parents are Dutch and Swiss. Eden grew up in Senegal, her parents are in Chicago now where her dad is pastoring a church. Missionaries seem to birth missionaries.

Here we are in the Wolof village near Kebemer preparing lunch. My job was to clean the rice, meaning you sift through it with your hands and pick out all the debris. It is one of those tediously calming jobs. The young girl to my left is Iris's 17-year-old daughter Jessica.

A long vacation

2006-01-09T07:35:00.000-05:00

It has been a while.

I spent Christmas and the days just before it with an American family in Kebemer, Senegal. It was so refreshing...plus I got to eat Christmas cookies. We spent a day in the village where they work. It was great to be there, see the children, talk with the women.

Then I traveled south stopping in Kaolack for a night where I met a wonderful Canadian girl. We ended up running into each other two other times without planning to: for New Years in Ziguinchor and just yesterday in Dakar. In Kaolack I stayed in a clean little Catholic mission house and got a good night's sleep just before the craze of crossing the Gambia. It included a mob of Gambians scrambling to convince me that I needed to change my money with them, a ferry ride across the river where I thought I would get trampled, and a really pleasant ride in a mini bus where I met a lovely Senegalese woman. She invited me to stay with her family next time I passed by Kaolack. She was really pleased that I was in Senegal and that I was studying her language.

Finally I arrived in Abéné, just south of the Gambia. I met up with the other Americans and we had a really nice time. We spent some time on the beach and saw a cultural festival. It was a bit tiring to be there for too long because there were so many people that wanted to talk to you and sell you something all the time. I figure that the town's only real substantial form of income is tourism. Lots of people made little crafts aimed at the tourist market. It seems like kind of a hard way to make it by. I met a nice Gambian guy while I was there who drempt of going to New York for college, but he was unable to attain the visa. It seems like the same story over and over.

After that we were in Ziguinchor. It was nice to be able to slip away a bit more anonymously in a larger city. I really enjoyed the feel of things down there: slow and relaxed. We took a piroge ride up the river to visit a remote village, see the mazes of mangroves, and do some bird watching. I decided that Zig was someplace I would like to live if I ever got the chance. It is kind of like Africa's version of Ann Arbor.

We then headed east toward the border with Guinea for some time in the back country. It was wonderful: waterfalls, mountains, and barely any trash. I took off on a solo bike trip about 70 km long. It did it in two days, climbing a mountain and hiking to a waterfall inbetween the two legs. I think that the next time I decide to do a bike trip I'll have to get a better seat and a pair of padded bike shorts.

Then I headed straight to Dakar, leaving Kedougou at 4am on a bus that was twice over its intended capacity. It was a bit crazy, but that is the story here with cheap local transport. I took a sept place after the bus, which carried a sheep as part of its cargo. The poor thing was stuffed in a bag, stapped on the roof, and left to contemplate the impending sacrifice. This coming Thurday is Tabaski. The holiday where each family sacrifices a sheep in commemoration of God's faithfulness to Abraham in providing a sacrificial animal instead of his son. The short of it is, in a country of 94 percent Muslims--we'll be eating mutton forever!

Well the time is just about up at the cyber. Love you all!

Awa, my friend who taught me to do laundry

2005-12-16T08:36:00.000-05:00

Here is sweet little Awa. She lives in a village near campus. The other day she wandered into my room and she ended helping me with my laundry and sharing a snack of coke and biscuits.

I asked her what she did for fun and she said she didn't really. She had too much work to do. I told her she was too young to be a master at laundry and she laughed at me.

I am constantly amazed at how capable the kids are here--caring for themselves and each other. I see troups of kids that can't be more than 7 roaming the streets or doing tasks for their families. And another crazy thing: when kids fall down here they don't really cry.

Another story to follow the previous

2005-12-16T08:30:00.000-05:00

Nichole told me the other day about perhaps the funniest things she has seen since coming to Saint-Louis.

The goats here fart a lot. That in and of itself is funny, but there is more. She saw a mama goat fart in the face of her kid goat. The mama turned her head to look to see where the sound came from, as if she didn't know it was from her own self. The kid proceeded to burst into a fit of tears. Screaming and wailing like they normally do. Ha!

Story from an expat that is worth broadcasting

2005-12-15T09:07:00.000-05:00

So my good friend Nichole shared a good one with me this morning.

When Nichole was a kid she was at Pizza Hut with her family for a meal. They were gathered around the table when Nichole's dad ripped a really raunchy fart. So loud was this fart that all the servers in the restaurant dropped their trays of pizza and a clamor of pots and pans was heard from the kitchen along with the exclamation "FUCK!" from the mouth of the cook. Nichole's family left the table in disgust, leaving her dad there calmly finishing his pizza. He was informed by the manager when paying for the meal that he had to also include the cost of the chair he had been sitting on. His fart was so powerful that it ripped a whole in the vinyl.

In other news: I am doing well. Just took my first Wolof exam. Yay!

Grapefruits for Hootis

2005-12-08T18:54:00.000-05:00

2005-12-08T18:18:00.000-05:00

Université Gaston Berger: classroom, my village, pathway on campus

2005-12-08T18:10:00.000-05:00

Baobab reverve on the way to Mbour...I love them!

2005-12-08T17:56:00.000-05:00

Lovely Popenguine...

2005-12-08T17:42:00.000-05:00

Me and Nichole under mosquito nets in Popenguine.

2005-12-08T17:32:00.000-05:00

This was taken on the beach north of Saint-Louis near the Mauritanian border. Those are fishing boats called "perogues."

Photo Update

2005-12-08T07:33:00.000-05:00

So here is a picture of me. I am in my room at Gaston Berger. See those curtains? My roommate just got them. She is really excited about them. This is now the second roommate that really likes pink. If my hair looks shorter, that is because it is. I just took a shot at cutting it myself. Let’s say I was about 80% successful and my friend cleaned up the difference. The dress I’m wearing is one of my favorites. I bought it in Dakar just before we left to come to Saint-Louis. It is basically a bag with strings at the top. Very comfortable. You can’t see it, but I am completely covered in mosquito bites. I am trying to practice good self-control and not scratch so they heal without scars. So far so good. I did have my first bout with bed bugs this weekend while travelling. Not so bad. Behind me is my desk by the window. It is a nice little place overlooking some sand, trees, and of course trash. All in all, I’m pretty comfortable here. The space is actually bigger than the Sassy Triple, though that is not hard to do.

I haven't dropped off

2005-12-07T08:36:00.000-05:00

Well it has been too long.

Since the last post lot of things have happened. It is been nearly a month. I think I am going to try to kiss-and-make-up with my blog. I've been neglecting it for far too long.

Now I'm in Saint-Louis. Waiting for the classes to actually get started. The students are striking because the administration didn't deliver on promises for new dorms. There are a lot of new students that are displaced. I don't get it. It seems like they are screwing themselves by quiting their own classes. That is just the way things go around here.

I just got back from a crazy five day traveling stint. Me and my friend Nichole went down south of Dakar to the Petit Côte. The beaches were great.

Highlights include:
1. Developing my hitchhiking skills
2. Getting three free home-cooked meals (strangely, each one was cooked by men)
3. Seeing Commando starring Arnold Schwartzenager dubbed in French in an old bombed-out theater
4. Swimming atop Hôtel d'Independance in Dakar
5. Wandering through 200m of beach-side fish markets in Mbour
6. Meeting a djembe troup and dancing in Popenguine
7. Seeing Baobab tree reserves

Stuff that sucked:
1. Getting bit by bed bugs
2. Looking like I have chicken pox due to the number of mosquito bites
3. Still not being able to avoid the marriage proposals

Events at the Corniche

2005-11-12T07:51:00.000-05:00

So I have been able to avoid any "security incidents" as the embassy calls them until just the other day.

The Corniche is a road that runs along the coastline of the country and it is a really popular place to run, especially by where I live. There are cement sidewalks but also dirt footpaths that are set back a bit from the road, closer to the water. I guess the car emissions, noise and dirt had been getting to me, so I decided to walk on the footpath. I ended up walking myself into a dead-end where the option was either to jump a really tall and dangerously flimsy fence or scale a cliff. It would have been no big deal to just go back the way I came except for the seedy looking guy who I had seen out of the corner of my eye and tried to avoid as I passed him the first time.

Just as I was contemplating what to do, he popped his head around the corner and motioned me toward him, like he was going to show me the way out. I purposely kept my distance from him as I retraced my steps. As I was nearing the exit, he turned and came at me from the front, trying to shove me to the ground. I shoved him back and yelled at him not to touch me. I could see in his eyes that something was not right. I don't know if he could understand the French I was shouting at him. He grabbed at my bag and I lifted my fist like I was preparing to sock him in the face. He did the same and I said, "What? You want to hit me? I've only got books in there. No money! You want to steal my Bible? I'm just a poor student, not a tourist." I wrestled my bag away from him without too much effort and ran off, getting myself covered in these awful birrs that nearly cut you up.

I tried to alert some men on the street to what had just happened and they were totally apathetic to it all. They basically told me that they could do nothing, that they were not the police, and that they were just coming home from work, minding their own business. Their advice: don't walk there again. (As if I couldn't have discerned that myself.)

Just a couple minutes later a guy stopped me and asked me if I had a husband, nearly a daily question here, and I said no, and that I was currently really tired of and annoyed with Senegalese men.

All in all, I am glad to have my responses tested a bit. Nothing bad came of it, and certainly I learned a good lesson. More than anything it makes me sad. Situations like that are born of desperation and poverty. It also makes me frustrated and I will, to some degree, always represent resources to exploit--but that is only because people that share my same skin exploited and abused this country so thuroughly.

I keep praying to have wisdom as to how one is to live righteously in such a broken situation. Shame over it can eat you up, as well as the desire to save the world.

Exerpt from email to Hootis

2005-11-08T15:50:00.000-05:00

...
wow a white guy just walked into cyber cafe. that has never happened before. i can't tell if he is american or french, huh. beyonce's soldier is playing on the radio. i might as well be on state street.

we had some disgusting couscous for dinner tonight, not the worst, but the second worst thing i've eaten with my family. really, only two things have been bad. you know me, i am a freaking garbage disposal when it comes to food, not too choosey. the couscous was just sort of granular rather than nice and fluffy and rice-like, it was an edible approximation of sand. and, man, i go running when they serve meat here. it is not that it is particularly bad, but you have to pick through so much fat and cartilage. it just takes a while and is annoying. and certainly, i know that earlier that day it had been handing upside-down from a metal hook, skinned, but mostly in its bodily form, flies and taxi fumes all the heck over it. oh what the heck, who cares!

being here has made me more lax, i know that is hard to imagine, about sharing food and germs. everything is shared. we eat out of the same bowl, usually drink out of the same three cups or so. it is kind of nice and homey feeling. it is like the communion cup. i always prefer to slurp along with the rest of the church rather than dunk my individualized portion of bread. solidarity, eh? even if in germ too. that is big here. thank goodness it is washing some of my american-adam-individualism away, or so i think. ahh. it is good to finally be mostly comfortable here.

today i was hanging out the back of one of the jalopy public trans buses. it felt right. i've lost some of my american sense of propriety and caution, thank goodness. live looser! hey that sounds a bit bad, eh? (don't worry mom, i survived)

Seizures in Sengal

2005-11-03T08:32:00.000-05:00

Laura, one of my fellow expatriots, fell the other day as a result of a spontaneous seizure. She fractured her nose and scraped herself up pretty badly.

You wouldn't believe how they take care of banged-up toubabs here. She spent three days in a "swanky-ass" hotel/hospital, as she called it, and probably received more care and attention than she would have gotten back at U of M hospital. Not exactly the bush clinic that one would expect.

I spent the last of the three days with her. No matter the details--posh or not, American or Senegalese--hospitals are hard places to be in. All other moments spent in them come rushing back, uncontrolled. I found myself thinking of my grandpa, my mom, my sister, myself, and the string of memories found along this common thread of hospitalization. It was good that I was studying Job. Not that I found myself to be in such a dejected state as he was (frankly, I was no where near; I was chatting with friends, sipping soda, and relaxing in, get this, air conditioning) but it was good to think on the nature of suffering and the human response to God. The question at the heart of the book is whether not it is a compromize of God's justice when the innocent suffer. That is a question I have to wrestle with here daily, or atleast as often as I allow myelf to slow down and actually evalutate what is going on around me.

Things Change in a Week

2005-10-29T16:02:00.000-05:00

It is hard to appropriately summarize this last week, so I guess I won't really try. Let's just say that things change as you begin to settle in. I've finally stopping feeling like I am just floating around here. I am starting to be able to connect myself to the ground I'm walking on each day.

So something that we were advised was to be patient in finding friends here. There is a long and perpetual period of sifting through people with bad intentions and insincerities. It is hard for me because especially when I am excited I want to love and trust everyone.

I figured that things were going a bit sour when Ibrahim asked me if I was going to be around after Ramadan.

Here, Ramadan puts the whole community in waiting. People are fasting--from food (dawn until dusk), from sex, from everything it seems. People are passed out on the side of the road sleeping away the difficult hours of the afternoon. Most everyone is staying at home and trying to get through it.

So Ibrahim keeps asking after me, and he probably thinks that if he tries hard enough I'll go to bed with him. Good thing is, there is this other guy that lives at the house who I think I can trust and who understands that I don't want to mess around. I am not used to being so much on the critical edge when I interact with people. Smiling and giving the benefit of the doubt can get me into trouble here. It seems a bit against my nature.

It is just a generally frustrating thing because in someways men are the only ones who will give you the time of day at first, so you have to choose between sleezes or isolation. Ah, that makes it sound more dramatic than it is.

Hello, I'm Ibrahim from Senegal

2005-10-23T17:40:00.000-05:00

Mama, my friend has a question: Pourquoi le fromage, quand quelqu'un n'arrive pas à dormir?

I'm hanging out with my new friend Ibrahim who I just discovered the other day. It is a little strange in Senegal, or atleast different, because when someone new enters the house, they don't do anything close to a grand tour. It is necessary to discover things yourself as you go. They say that you only see what you know, so I can hardly see or discover anything at all. Each day something new finally emerges and I am starting to get the eyes to see it. So after four days of staying with my Senegalese family I saw that we had a second story, go figure. So I went up there and found that I actually am living with three really nice students from a local university. It was such a relief to be with these guys because it feels more natural. I have difficulties knowing how to be a Senegalese daughter, but just being a friend to a nice group of guys is easy. Plus they like Lauryn Hill.

So today I went to Goree Island. It was a really interesting place, sad place, confusing place. It was the last place where the slaves were taken before the big trip across the Atlantic to our country. There is a door there that is called "la porte d'aller sans retour." It was daunting to stand there and think of whose footsteps you were standing on. At the same time it was absolutely crazy, all these tourists bustling to take a photo, clicking away.

Me and my friend from the program decided to say a bit later on the island and have a bit of an adventure. We were going to walk around the island when we were met by a troup of young guys with drums, singing the end of the Ramadan fast. We walked the island with them, dancing, and holding the hands of the children. We went through the back alleyways and little niches that we would have never found ourselves. The sweet little toddler that I was carrying fell asleep on my shoulder despite all the noise and dansing.

The troup was a part of something they call the Baye Fall. A bit like Islamic Rastafarians. They were great but a little bit tripped out. The people at Baobab Center told us that if our host parents knew we made friends with them, they would think we smoked a lot of pot. T'inquiete pas! Je ne fume pas! They were great though, very relaxed as you could imagine. I will go to a big Baye Fall party next Thursday. I'm excited, there is a toubab (Canadienne) who dates one of them, so we should be fine.

Comforted by HipHop

2005-10-22T11:48:00.000-05:00

So one thing I won't miss is good old school hiphop. I'm sitting in a café d'internet and bopping my head to it. It only cost about 50 American cents per hour! One thing is for sure, the French keyboard is a pain in the rump. I keep having to ask, "Où est l'apostrope?" It is okay to feel stupid. I think of all things, that is teaching me the most. I take myself less seriously and laugh more. It would be much harder otherwise.

I took my first sortie to downtown several days ago. It is difficult to be in a big "toubab train" as we call it. (whitey train) Vendors flock to us, knowing that we've got resources to spend. It is intimidating because they follow you and tell you elaborate stories about how they need you to buy this bracelet because otherwise they won't have money to buy their kids shoes. At the same time there are some that are really hospitable and kind. It is difficult to not stereotype Senegal even while being here. A temptation we all have to fight.

Now I have two diabetic grammies

2005-10-20T12:35:00.000-05:00

My grandmother and maman are wonderful. Mariama is the grandma; she is the head of the household. She has 5 adult children, some of whom live with us--but I haven't figured it all out yet. (I'm going to try to make a kinship diagram, but it is hard when it is bad luck to ask how many kids someone has--the demm might take them away!)

Ouily is her daugher and she is my mom. She has one daughter of her own who is 21. Ndeyene Marie is a bit of a princess. I think it will take some time for us, but I have heard that that is how it goes here amongst women especially. We'll figure it out, afterall, we share a room!

The biggest delight of the house is the little Papi. He is Mariama's grandson. When I took my first walk around the quartier, everyone understood what I meant when I said I lived "chez Papi." He is 6, extremely smart and social. We spent a lot of time playing with shadows from my mini maglight cast on my bedroom wall. When it was time for him to go to bed he ran to me an slobbered sweetly in my ear, "I'm gonna sneak back in here after they put me to bed!!" He is my greatest comfort.

Trouble Sleeping

2005-10-20T12:28:00.000-05:00

So it has been difficult to sleep here. Yes, it is very hot, but I don't think that is the problem. For the first couple of nights, I must have been anxious or something so I would sleep for maybe two hours ou trois. Now that I have been staying with my family, it is much better. They are really able to put me at ease. I have never seen such honest hospitality. Now my problem with sleeping is that I would rather spend time with them! God is really good to have entrusted me to them.

Our first nights

2005-10-20T12:14:00.000-05:00

Here is a photo of the street where my hotel was for the first couple of days. This is taken from our second story balcony.

Continuation of the previous story...

2005-10-20T12:09:00.000-05:00

So the interesting thing about culture and especially being in one not your own is that things are never as they seem. So I was a bit huffy about this guy asking to have sex, as you probably were too - mom and dad - but I really misunderstood this young man.

In Senegal, social connections are essential. People are able to advance in society more though who they know than what they can do. Alors, because I am American he wanted to have "relations" with me, as in friendship or business connection. He was planning for the future if ever he had need of an American friend.

When I asked notre guide about this situation she said that Senegalese are really very descrete, no one would ask me to have sex unless I gave him some reason to think I was a prostitute.

"Can I have relations with you?"

2005-10-19T09:24:00.000-05:00

While we were taking a guided tour of Dakar on the first day, I young man started walking beside me. He began to ask me where I came from and what I was doing in Dakar. After I explained that I was American he asked me in English, "Can I have relations with you?"

This was the first time that anyone on the street spoke to me in Senegal. And I thought to myself, "Wow, I know they said that sex is negotiated differently in Senegal and that they'll find me to be particularly interesting, but this is REALLY forward!" So I looked to the ground and shook my head emphatically saying "Deedeet!" ("no no" in Wolof)

Mes premiers jours a Dakar

2005-10-19T04:35:00.000-05:00

So it is hard to describe what has been happening. I feel like I am on sensory overload. Everything is different and interesting and new. We have been here for...oh I cannot count the days/hours...umm, three days and then some. The first two days were spent at an appartment with the girls of the programme. It was big and clean. There were people hired to prepare meals for us and wash dishes. They were so hospitable it made you feel bad. Ens was this fellow who was to watch after us. He guarded the door and made sure that we had everything that we needed. My favorite part so far was just standing on the ground level with him and his friends while we were waiting for our tranport to our host families. We talked to the people on the street; I drank my first Coca Cola in Senegal; and we just watched things.

A young girl with a baby resting on her hip calmly walked past and Ens called them back. He stuck out his hand and that baby spit into it on silent command. Ens then bowed his head and wiped the spit of the child on his forehead like a prayer. He explained that the child was a grand marabout. I think it means that he was in line to become the next marabout. A marabout is a Muslim religious leader. They have a lot of influence and power in Senegalese society. The people revere them.

People on the whole have been very helpful and hospitable. Young Senegalese women mystify me a little bit, though. They don't really acknowledge you and my host sister and her friends didn't really show much interest in me. There seems to be secret rules of entry. But the men, they certainly like us toubabs (while people) a lot. It is like I am walking into a crossroads of sex, gender, tradition, race, colonization.

I have to go to class, more later.

Jamm ak Jamm

Ps. I will try to post photos soon; I have to figure it out.

T minus 4 Days

2005-10-11T18:59:00.000-05:00

Being in Minneapolis wiped me out, so today consisted of a lot of sleeping. I'm stalling for some reason. I'm not getting packed, not cleaning up, not getting ready to go. Probably just laziness.

Amy got home. It is good to be with her. There are a lot of good things that have happened in our relationship since I left home for school, but there is also the fact that we just don't spend any time together. I've been hanging around my parent's home for the last couple weeks and still feel like I haven't seen her. The world doesn't stop when I come back into town. I think it should, though.

I am going to miss a lot of her in the next year. Graduation from high school, parties, college acceptance, getting ready to go away, maybe boyfriends, and on.

Akward Firsts

2005-10-10T11:27:00.000-05:00

So I am finally doing what everyone has been doing for a while. Yes, getting off the no-tech high-horse. Here is my first shot at a post.

I'm off to Dakar on Saturday. What I've been stalling for is now putting a choke-hold on my time and I have to think about how to function. So I have been laughing a lot and trying the best I can to love people.

Hattie and I had a first at Rendez-vous this morning: coffee in the rain on the smoker's balcony. Looking at the graffiti, top-of-the-roof metal-work, and a corner of the School Ed, colors of ivy finally changing. It was good: no dramatic, teary ending-ness--just being with each other.