In The News!

I've made it big... (Patrick, too)...

http://www.titanpride.org/s/653/index.aspx?sid=653&gid=1&pgid=15&cid=292&newsid=41

Chicago - Dakar connection

Don't know if this news reached everyone... but recently a young Senegalese man who had just finished defending his doctoral thesis at the University of Chicago was murdered in Chicago. His family lives in one of the neighborhoods next to mine here, and it is big news. Everyone is morning his loss, and because people know that I'm from "near Chicago" everyone keeps asking me how dangerous of a city it is. He was helping support his family here financially, and had wanted to return to Senegal. Below are some articles from the Chicago Tribune about it... The first about the actual murder and the other attacks that day, and the second about the man and his family here in Senegal.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/tuesday/chi-manshot_20nov20,0,7907219.story

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/tuesday/
chi-manshot_20nov20,0,7907219.story

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-schmich_21nov21-column,0,2252718.column

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/
chi-schmich_21nov21-column,0,2252718.column

**I'm not sure if the long URL's will work on this, so if not, cut and paste the two separate lines to make them one complete URL in the web browser; The first two are the same, the second two are the same**

More Pictures!!!

Second album of Africa pictures...

http://iwu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026889&l=e745f&id=41600114

Lazy Sunday

Sunday afternoon, my friend Anna and I made a play date with kids from our families. We took them to a restaurant on the coast, Chez Fatou, that has tide pools for kids to play in next to the ocean. It's right next to a famous surfing beach, and Sunday it was packed with surfers as well. I brought the three youngest kids in my family and she brought the two youngest in hers. They quickly became friends and started wandering around. It was really nice to just sit, relax, and talk to Anna while the kids ran around below. They splashed around, built sand castles, through a Frisbee around, swam a bit, searched through the rocks for sea creatures, and such. They borrowed our cameras and took tons of pictures. Moctar came and sat with us for awhile watching all the surfers. He couldn't keep his eyes off of them. The waves were pretty incredible and some of the surfers were incredible as well. We stayed there long enough to watch the sunset over the ocean… which was the first time I have done that here. It was absolutely gorgeous. When we got home Mohammed kept saying "La plage etait trop belle" over and over… which means "the beach was too beautiful." He really liked it and now the kids want to hang out again, so Anna and I are trying to decide what our next trip will be.

Well, the government made concessions to all the street vendors and beggars so many of them are back out. The government says it will build a new market and allow the vendors on certain streets at certain times. In the meantime, the shoe tree is being rebuilt outside my house, so I'm happy!

Ile de Madeleine

There are three main islands off the coast of Dakar: 1) Ngor - a beach/resorty island, 2) Goree - the historical island with museums about the slave trade and history, and is filled with vendors, 3) Madeleine - a huge rock jetting out of the ocean that is a National Park. On Saturday, I went to Isle de Madeleine with a group of friends. It was the last of the islands that I had not been to. The National Park Office is on a dirty beach a little bit outside of downtown and consists of a building with tents beside it where I think the workers sleep, and a sign that reminds you to take care of wildlife. We had to pay 5,000cfa ($10) each for the boat ride to the island. But once we got there, there were only the people from our boat the entire day… so about 12 people total. It was wonderful! The ocean around the island is such a beautiful turquoise. The rock formations are absolutely incredible! There's a lagoon in the middle of the island to swim at and a very small beach. We made ourselves comfortable on a rock slab that jetted into the lagoon. We all went swimming and wandering around the island. I made it along one side, but was unable to go hike to the top and see all the baobab trees because my back was hurting a lot (I know I sound like an old woman, but I was in an unbelievable amount of pain after a while). So I relaxed and watched the ocean and the waves. There was a lot of wildlife on the island as well, birds, crabs, fish, and such. When swimming in the lagoon, beautifully colored fish came up and swam around me. So very cool. I repeatedly tried to catch one of them, but it was on to me and always was just a little too fast. Shade is very limited on the island, unless you hide in the shadow of some of the rocks… which is doable. But I'm definitely darker than I was when I arrived there Saturday morning. Later that night I was hanging out with some friends who told me that if I go back to the island a few more times I'll be Senegalese, because I will be so dark. I think it's more likely that if I spend much time on the island I will turn into a tomato. Not many Senegalese go to the island due to the high price of the boat ticket when there's nothing on the island. Many Senegalese can justify the 5,000cfa it costs to get to Ile de Goree, because there is so much on the island… but the appeal of nature and the national park on Ile de Madeleine simply doesn't cut it for them. But it's quite beautiful.

Thanksgiving in Senegal

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! This was definitely my first time celebrating Thanksgiving outside of the States, and it definitely took some effort. I had been trying to come up with a way to celebrate with my family all week. The night before Thanksgiving I told my 6 year old host sister that the next day would be a holiday. She told me it wasn't true. I continued to insist on it, and she told me to stop talking, haha. But she was curious enough that she walked into the kitchen and asked her mother. She then walked back out to me and said "I told you there wasn't a holiday tomorrow," (in French, of course). My host dad then walked out of the house and I told him that the next day was a holiday and he said "oh yeah, Happy Thanksgiving!" very enthusiastically. So I looked at my host sister and said "I told you there was a holiday tomorrow." I then told her and my host brother Mohammed that no American children have school on Thanksgiving and that no one works. They could hardly believe it. Mohammed was very jealous that he had to be in school when other kids didn't have to.

After my classes I made a trip to the biggest most American supermarket in Dakar with one of the other Rotary Ambassadors. We searched and searched for anything that remotely resembled thanksgiving… pumpkin-flavored anything, cranberry-flavored anything, or turkey. We were very disappointed not to find a thing. I even looked through the toys to try to find an American football, but they didn't have those either. Instead, we ended up getting chips and pop (to serve for the football game-watching portion of the holiday) and then ice cream cakes as a special dessert. I also bought some paper and markers.

When I got home, I gathered the kids together and taught them how to draw turkeys by tracing their hands and then coloring them in. They absolutely loved it and wouldn't stop making them! Halfway through that production, I got out the chips and Fanta which everyone enjoyed. I told Mohammed that I had looked for an American football but couldn't find one. He disappeared into one of the bedrooms and came out with a rugby ball that an Irish girl had given them. So, we made our way into the backyard and played a very weak version of American football with a rugby ball, but it was tons of fun. Afterward the father came out and told us we were throwing the rugby ball wrong and gave us lessons on how to play rugby.

Afterwards, I headed to the Baobab Center where I take language classes to have Thanksgiving Dinner. The Kalamazoo College students who are studying Wolof at the center planned a huge catered Thanksgiving Dinner for the students and the professors. There was also a "Get to Know American Values" cultural orientation right before the dinner. The session lasted an extra hour and a half, so I was there for an hour and a half of it as I waited for dinner. But the conversation was interesting to hear our professors give mini-presentations on things like personal space and individuality, which are very different in the States than they are here. The professors all found it very interesting and made lots of great comments and asked lots of great questions. Things like children moving away from their family at age 18 is such a foreign concept to the Senegalese.

After the conversations, the one American who works at the center told a very detailed version of the Thanksgiving story which I had never heard. I found out later that she had wikipedia'd it and put three stories together to form the one she told. Afterward, it was time to eat! The Kalamazoo girls made salad and mashed potatoes. The rest of the food was catered by 10,000 Girls (the organization I will work with in January and February). There was turkey and stuffing and corn bread and all sorts of things. With the spices used it was a pretty southern Thanksgiving, but it was absolutely delicious. All the Senegalese people ate the food very quickly and then left to go home. All the Americans sat around talking until about 11pm. It was relaxing and great! Much of the conversation was about the States, which I haven't talked much about with other Americans in quite some time, so it was nice.

Short Update on the Riots

Here is what the BBC had to say about the riots. I'm going to translate an article from the local paper this weekend to give you more of an idea. The first one talks about the riots (minimally) and the second talks about the government's concessions. They really don't do the situation justice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7105772.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7107583.stm

Riots in the Streets and Seafood in Tanks

This morning I had made plans to go with friends to a market to buy some fabric in order to have some African outfits made. So at around 11am, I headed out to find a taxi in order to meet them there. The first taxi I talked to gave me a high price and told me there were problems at the HLM Market I wanted to go to, he said there were police everywhere. I didn't believe him, but he insisted on it being a bad situation and he said that's why he was charging so much for the taxi ride. I turned him down, and stopped the next taxi, who gave me the regular price. We made our way to the market, and as suspected, nothing was wrong with it when we got there. My friends were stuck in traffic cause they were trying to get out of downtown to come to the market, so I wandered around the market trying to waste some time while waiting for them. I decided to give them a call, so I took a side street out of the market to a more residential area which was (A) quieter, and (B) a less likely area for someone to try to steal my cell phone. So after talking to them I was chilling by the side of a house waiting for them to show up. A Senegalese guy came up and started talking to me, and he turned out to be very nice and didn't ask me if I was married and didn't tell me that he was looking for a good wife. His mother walked by a few minutes later, so I met her as well. I quickly found out that I had met him before the last time I was at the market because a friend of mine almost bought fabric from him, but I didn't mention that to him. Anyway, he kept me company for a few minutes until my friends arrived and told me that if I wanted to buy fabric I should stop by his mother's shop.

Once Sandra and Maria arrived, we started wandering around trying to find good deals on fabrics and wrap-skirts. We had been there about 20 minutes when Sandra's phone rang. It was one of our friends asking where we were and telling us that there were riots downtown and that people had set Sandaga Market (the biggest downtown market) on fire. He said that it was university students protesting the government's action of kicking out all illegal vendors from the streets. So he warned us not to go downtown and said the mass of people was probably going to march back towards the university which is a few suburbs over from my house, but in the opposite direction from where we were. So he said we were more than likely safe where we were. A few minutes later my phone rang. It was the coordinator of my language school telling me that classes had been cancelled and we should probably stay home. We, on the other hand, continued to shop. We knew that if anything were to arise, we had a straight shot home in a direction away from the riots, downtown, and the university. I bought the fabric I needed and the other girls got what they were looking for. Towards the end of that there was a buzz in the marketplace… something was going on but no one was really saying anything. We decided it was probably a good idea to start heading out. Maria's boyfriend called because he was worried about us, he had been downtown and had a lot of trouble getting out of downtown due to all the commotion. As we made our way to the main street, people started rushing around the market; not everyone, but some. Some people were frantically closing up shop, others were peering in the opposite direction that we were walking. I kept looking back, but couldn't see anything aside from a police vehicle, which isn't a big deal and was more of a security measure. As we got closer to the main road, more and more people were rushing around, but again, some people were just sitting there with all their merchandise out still trying to make sales. When we reached the main road, we could see thick smoke in the distance downtown. The street in front of the market is always chaotic, but this time empty taxis wouldn't even stop for us, so we could tell that people were getting nervous. We made our way down the street in the opposite direction of downtown trying to get past all the car rapides to find an area where a taxi would have room to pull over. A guy came up to us with car keys in his hand and said he had a taxi, so we started following him (that sounds sketchy, but it's normal in Dakar; there will be groups of taxi cars parked somewhere with the drivers sitting around them, and they'll send one person out to call people over to them). But before we reached his group of taxis Maria got a taxi to pull over for us, the guy who had been leading us to the other ones told us "it's important to get in the car and leave," and we did so. There was nothing unusual or strange in any of the neighborhoods we drove through on the way home. The kids at my house said they saw things on television about the riots. But there's nothing on now, so I'm waiting to see the 8pm news.

After I stopped home, we headed out to Almadies to have lunch and relax away from the chaos that is downtown today. Afterwards, we went to a small little business on the coast which collects crabs, lobster, fish, and all sorts of sea creatures that people buy to eat. My friends have been there before, so the nice old Senegalese man who runs the place gave us a little tour. He showed us "today's catch" which was still live and in cages in the water. He pulled the things up out of their cages to show us. There wasn't much today but there were some of the strangest crabs that I've ever seen, including one that kept splashing and getting us wet. The man was so nice talking all about his best customers who always come down to chat with him, because the actual shop is closer to the street and not right on the coast where he works. There was a cut-up watermelon on a table in the room and of course he told us to "come and eat" with him and the others, the Senegalese hospitality as always. It looked good of course, but we politely declined. He also collects shells and sells them to the women who make and sell necklaces. I'm going to go back and visit sometime hoping that next time all the cages will be full so there will be a lot to see.

Oh, Senegal

There is one thing here in Senegal that I just can't seem to get used to… it's socially acceptable to pick your nose. Mid-conversation with a Senegalese person or while one of my professors is explaining something to me in class, they simply go right ahead and pick their nose without breaking eye contact. This occurs on a daily basis, multiple times a day, but each time someone does it while talking to me it takes every ounce of my self-control to keep myself from reacting to it. People use Kleenexes when they have a runny nose or a bad cold, but for your everyday situations they just blatantly pick their noses. It is definitely something that I won't miss when I return to the states. It's particularly difficult to see someone do that and then seconds or minutes later, shake someone's hand.

Another thing… bras are not a necessity here. Most women and girls don't wear them. If they're dressed up to go out at night or they are girls around my age who are wearing western clothes, they're usually wearing a bra. Otherwise, bras are more of a rarity. Around the house, this goes without saying. When it's very hot, it's not unusual for my host mother to be without a shirt on in the house, or at the very least only wearing a bra on top. In the streets, it is not unheard of for a woman to be showing a lot of cleavage or an entire breast. It's not the norm, but it’s not unheard of. More often, those showing the former are younger women about my age and those showing the latter are older women whose clothing falls loosely on them. It is common for the shirts and tops of outfits to fall off one shoulder, no matter what the age of the woman/girl. This society does not have a problem with women showing "skin" from the waist up… but the area between the knee and the waist must be covered at all times unless at the beach.

Rotary

I had a nice long conversation with the son of my host counselor about Rotary last night. I've known since the first day I went to a Rotary meeting here that there was something a bit different about my host club than other Rotary clubs with which I have had experience. The meetings were incredibly formal. I quickly learned that everyone in the club was part of the elite in society here. Whether they are high up in the United Nations, or own a very successful business here, they all came across as people who were quite important. Laurent, the son of my host counselor, said that it's difficult for the club to involve me in all of their activities because of the way that everything is run. And that was quite clear to me from the very beginning. Despite that, they have been incredibly welcoming. They're very strict about what is talked about at their meetings and they haven't invited me to every meeting because they don't want to bore me when they discuss things that are not pertinent to the project I'm helping them with or when there is not an interesting presentation. They are the oldest club in West Africa and by far the most formal. I learned that their name, Rotary Club Doyen, means the Elders' Rotary Club. The rest of the clubs here are newer, younger, and as I've learned from the other scholars, don't really have a system yet and don’t know what projects they want to work on. I do really like my club, but I also look forward to attending some meetings of other clubs and giving the rest of my speeches to other clubs.

Guests in the Classroom

Recently there has been an assortment of animals that have decided to join my French class. The first one was a cockroach, who must have been on the underside of the table I was working on. It fell on my lap and I flicked it to the floor. My teacher, Aminata, jumped up and yelped a little. But it ran away and we didn't know where it was. We continued the lesson, and then the little bug came scurrying across the floor. She yelped again and took off her shoe and killed it.

The next day, I heard a noise in the corner. I turned around to see a lizard that was at least a foot long standing next to the bookshelf. I told Aminata what it was and again she jumped up and this time ran out of the room and called after Kata, the daytime guard for the center. I, on the other hand, crouched down to get a better look at the thing. Then I went next door to borrow the camera of one of the other students and took a few pictures of the lizard. Aminata was laughing at me and told me to come with her out of the room. She called it an insect and obviously was a bit afraid of it. So I followed her out. Kata grabbed a kid from the street and together they turned the entire classroom upside-down until they had found the lizard again and shoed it out of the building. Once the classroom was put back in order, we finished up class.

And then the next day, there was a huge insect of an unknown variety chilling on the side of a box in the room. Aminata again took her shoe off and ended its life.

Today, Aminata picked up a book in the room that was all about reptiles and amphibians. She started flipping through the pages until she jumped and shuddered… she's so afraid of them.

I'm waiting to see what will be the next creature to visit our class...

A Weekend in Kaolack

This weekend I travelled outside of Dakar to Kaolack. It is the city where I will be living and working during January and February. It's about 3 1/2-4 hours outside of Dakar, depending on what form of transportation one takes. Thanks to a lunch meeting I had earlier this week, I secured transportation to Kaolack for me and my two friends with an employee of USAID… which means we were in an SUV driven by a chauffer. We figured this would be the safest and fastest form of transportation… but that ended up being debatable. We were supposed to meet them in one of the suburbs about 15 minutes away from my house at 6am… we arrived at 6:04am… they finally arrived to pick us up at 7:15am; the driver overslept. In the meantime, we made friends with the security guards at USAID who quickly tried to get my friend Anna and I to hook them up with one of our American girlfriends. Once we finally got on the road, the driver drove very fast, faster than many other cars on the road (granted, many of the cars drive very slowly, but it was still a bit too fast at times). We also ended up having to stop once because a piece of the car became detached (nothing important, just a corner siding panel), and again because the driver got sick right before we arrived in Kaolack. We made it there in about 3 1/2 hours. Dakar has one major highway in and out of it, which means that traffic is ridiculous for most of the day there, read: Chicago during rush hour. The roads outside of Dakar are amazingly nice. Paved, have white dotted lines and other various traffic markers. Nothing like the roads inside the city of Dakar. There's a decent amount of traffic on the highways. When we left there was such a thick fog that you couldn't see more than 50 meters in front of the vehicle. After it passed, you could see forever… flatland with brush and baobab trees everywhere. I quickly saw villages of thatched-roof huts, women walking to the communal well, people working in the fields, all sorts of the things that many people picture when they think of Africa. The animals remained sheep, donkeys, goats, cows, and some pigs… no giraffes or elephants or anything like that. We passed by one accident which involved four cars which was pretty bad, there was definitely at least one person dead. Those are not unusual on the roads outside of Dakar. Our car however was playing Christian praise & worship music (of the megachurch variety) and the Muslim man sitting next to me never stopped praying with his prayer beads. So, we were set.

Eventually, we arrived in Kaolack. It's a city with two paved roads. All the rest of the "roads" are sand. In the morning, women brush the sand in front of their home to make it even. There is trash everywhere in Kaolack. Everywhere. I thought Dakar had a lot of trash, but Kaolack has it beat. It's simply spread everywhere within the common areas of the city, and in some places is piled up. While there, I didn't see any other white people besides me and my friends. So every child we saw yelled "Tubab!" and smiled and waved at us. It's also much warmer in Kaolack than it is in Dakar, at any point of year. Right now it's getting to the cooler part of the year, so it was only 100 degrees in Kaolack when we were there.

When we first arrived in the city, we went directly to the restaurant run by 10,000 Girls (the organization with whom I will be working). Everyone raves about the food at the restaurant. I ate cashew, banana, and blueberry pancakes. They were absolutely delicious! There was no power in the restaurant, which we found out was not unusual. Because Dakar is doing reconstruction projects, most days out of the week the electricity from Kaolack is diverted to Dakar. That will make living there even more interesting!

After breakfast, my friends and I were taken to the school run by the organization. It's in one of the suburbs of the city. There are boxes of books stacked in each room of the school and in the hallways… they're everywhere! Some of the boxes have been opened and in some areas there were books strewn everywhere; so that was a bit frustrating to see. But, alas, I finally saw the work that has been waiting for me. And there's a lot of it. My friends and I got to work right away in opening up all the English Literature books (29 boxes = over 900 books), sorting and inventorying them, and packing them back into boxes. The room was small and cramped, the temperature in the room was definitely over 100 degrees and there was no air circulation. After a little while some of the girls at the school brought us watermelon so we took a break to eat that. We had only gotten back to work for a few minutes before one of the girls came back to get us because she was going to bring us to her house for lunch.

So, we walked about 10 minutes to a lovely house. It was such a typical Senegalese compound… it was filled with people. All of the extended family was in that house, people of all ages. The majority of them didn't speak any French. Instead they spoke Wolof and Pulaar, which made communicating interesting. The people here, if you don't speak their language, they immediately begin a game with you to teach you their language. They repeat things over and over, waiting for you to repeat them. So I learned a bit of Pulaar, but definitely don't remember any of it now a few days later. But this means that when I'm there in January and February, my Wolof will definitely get much better and I'll probably learn some Pulaar. The house was lovely. It was built for running water (sinks, real toilets, showers), but there was no running water to be found. Instead, there was a well in the back of the compound and they brought buckets of water into the bathroom. The family was absolutely wonderful and friendly and welcoming… taranga at its best. Because we were guests, they honored us by letting us eat by ourselves… on the floor of the bedroom where us girls would sleep later that night. It was nice of them, but of course we would've rather eaten with some of the people of the family, but it was not our place to appear ungrateful for the special eating arrangement they had provided for us. They gave us coca cola as well to drink since the water in Kaolack is the worst in the country; it makes foreigners quite sick, and rots the teeth of the locals. They provided us with spoons to eat with, which surprised me, but was quite nice. Eating rice and fish with your hands gets quite greasy and messy for the unskilled hands. After lunch we relaxed, played with the kids, and watched television with the women for awhile. Then we headed back to the school.

We continued to sort books. We were able to finish the entire English Lit section which was an incredible amount of work. My friend Andrew got sick partway through the work, but he had been sick the day before, and I think the heat and non-existing air circulation just made the situation worse for him. He also thinks that the water filter system he used to be able to drink the local water didn't work correctly. He didn't get terribly sick, but he definitely sat down outside to break for awhile. I was so incredibly grateful to have Anna and Andrew around to help me with all of that work! Andrew was especially helpful in lifting the terribly heavy boxes of books.

When we finished our work, it was almost dusk. We went outside to find a bunch of guys from the town playing soccer in front of the school… in the midst of piles of trash. You will have to look at the pictures I will put in a photo album to really grasp the reality of the amount of trash in this city. After we went back to the house, I told Andrew and Anna that I wanted to buy them ice cream for helping me work all day. So, one of the brothers of the family took us back downtown Kaolack. We bought ice cream bars from the local boutique and sat outside eating them. When we were done, I was holding onto my trash. The Senegalese guy we were with through his on the ground and told me to do the same. I told him I simply couldn't. And he told me that I had to, because that's what the Senegalese do. I told him that as an American, it was very difficult for me to simply throw trash on the ground. So the guy took the trash out of my hand and tossed it onto the ground. Anna mentioned that she had found a trashcan, so Andrew picked my trash off the ground and put it with his in the trashcan. Not ten seconds later, one of the little boys who had been sitting nearby us on the street ran over to the trashcan and pulled out one of the wooden sticks from our ice cream bars and stuck it into his mouth. He simply wanted something sweet. On the other hand, he didn't touch the wrappers that had been thrown on the ground. It was such an eye-opening experience for me.

After the ice cream, we went to get some dinner. As in all Senegalese restaurants that are not targeted solely at the elite or tourists, the majority of things on the menu were not actually available. Always when eating at a restaurant here you have to pick four things that you think you'd like to eat, then wait for the waiter or waitress to come and then inquire about what is actually available while hoping that one of the four things you chose is available. I was absolutely delighted to find that they had falafel… it was the first time in Senegal when I not only saw it on the menu but they actually had it. I was quite pleased.

After dinner, we went back to relax with the family. They pulled a huge mat out onto the cement in the back of the compound and we all sat down and relaxed. One of the girls brought out her laptop and we watched music videos. After the music videos were over, we listened to music and talked. Occasionally one of the girls would get up and dance. Since we were a ways out of the city, we could see the stars in the sky perfectly, it was wonderful. The music videos we watched were all Senegalese music. But the music we listened to afterward was the most random assortment of French songs, Backstreet Boys, and everything else you can think of.

When it was time for sleep, Anna and I went inside to our room to get ready. The boys all slept outside. I'm pretty sure that the only people in the house were the women of the household, Anna and I, and perhaps the father. All the other male members of the family slept outside. Mattresses were laid out on what would translate to the porch of the house and mosquito nets were put up over them. One of the girls came into Anna and I's room and told us that the boys sleep outside and the girls sleep inside… thirty seconds later we heard someone lock the door to the house.

In the morning, we woke up early and took a taxi to the main transportation hub of Kaolack. The place is a huge mess of people trying to take your luggage and direct you to their form of transportation. It's madness, to say the least. My friends and I arranged three spots in a Sept-Place which is a station wagon which has been converted to seat eight people all facing forward. They're typically cramped, ill-ventilated little vehicles that get really hot when stuck in traffic. Our experience wasn't too bad, but we also weren't stuck in traffic. My two friends and I were cramped into the backseat together, but since we knew each other, we didn't have a problem leaning on each other to try to sleep… it would be completely different if I was sandwiched in the back between two people I didn't know. The passenger sitting in front was a well-dressed Senegalese businessman. The three passengers in the middle were 50-something men from Mauritania… all decked out in head wraps and everything. One of them really did look like he had just gotten done trekking across a dessert with his camel. They were all very friendly. Since we left so early in the morning, traffic was not too big of a deal. We were stopped for a few minutes on the way into Dakar, and in those few minutes the inside of the car heated up quite a bit, but as soon as we got going again the wind coming in from the windows made it bearable again.

Anna, Andrew, and I grabbed lunch before heading back to our houses. We went to a new "fast food" restaurant in a neighborhood by us that a Lebanese family just opened (it's put in quotations because fast food still takes at least 20 minutes here). We were shocked at how much we felt like we had just returned to a very modern city. But compared to Kaolack, Dakar is definitely modern. There are more than two paved roads, and sidewalks exist, and all sorts of other fancy new things, haha.

When I arrived home my host mom was just finishing eating lunch with the kids. She was really excited to talk to me about Kaolack because her whole family is in a smaller city named Fatik which is about a half hour away from Kaolack and I passed through it on the trip. So it was really nice to sit down and talk with her about her family, because she doesn't talk about them and her home often. She even started teaching me more Pulaar. The kids were also fascinated to hear what I thought about Kaolack, since it them it's just an incredibly hot and dirty city.

All in all, it was quite a weekend.

A Different Sort of Downtown

Downtown is definitely different right now. There is a large presence of police, gendarmerie, and the army. The markets have shrunk, some of them to half their original size. There are no longer people who come up to the window of your taxi to sell you things or beg. The streets just basically look empty. My favorite sandal vendors are no longer on Avenue Pompidou. The guys who always tried to sell me phone cards in front of my friend's restaurant are no longer there. It is a much, much different Dakar. Almost, quiet. So we'll see how long this lasts. There are still a lot of empty make-shift structures hanging around left by the illegal vendors, but the police will soon dispose of those outside of town.

Rotary Speech

I gave my first Rotary speech in Senegal on Tuesday night. Finally! And it went really well, too. It was only about 5-10 minutes, but that was all the time they allotted me. I was given a special introduction at the beginning, but I spoke at the very end. The people were interested in it and were a great audience. As a cultural ambassador, my role was to talk about myself, my life in the states, my experiences in Senegal, and my relationship with Rotary. They got quite a kick out of me describing walking to class in pants, a coat, boots, a scarf, a hat, and gloves. It's a bit difficult for some of them to imagine that, since here in Dakar it's the middle of November and the temperature dips to around 80 degrees at night. After I gave my speech, my host counselor talked about me for a few minutes and described me as a true Senegalese now. He said that I set a good example as the first Cultural Scholar for the club, that I was very independent, and kept emphasizing how Senegalese I had become. It was quite nice of him and as far as me becoming Senegalese… quite an exaggeration! But it was nice of him just the same. But it was an example of this country's "taranga"… or hospitality. They pride themselves on it. And they really are incredibly hospital and treat guests amazingly. Sidenote: the national soccer team here is nicknamed the "Lions of Taranga." After the Rotary meeting, many people came up to me and thanked me for the speech, and thanking me again for giving the speech in French. They said all other Americans who had come had given the speech in English and needed it to be translated. So it meant a lot to them that I made the effort to give it in French.

Clearing Out The Streets

Somehow I have failed to take time to truly describe the anarchy that is downtown Dakar. Essentially, there are people everywhere. Everywhere. And not like New York or LA. They're everywhere. The sidewalks which were intended for pedestrians are filled with people selling all sorts of things… shoes, electronics, sunglasses, souvenir-type things (although I don't really understand who buys them because there are hardly any tourists here), etc. Those who don't have little stands set up lay their merchandise out on blankets. Those who don't have blankets walk around carrying the merchandise. They're everywhere. And always weaving between the cars and traffic are tons of guys trying to sell phone cards, girls selling water, and beggars of all sorts who approach car windows. At lunch and in the morning and around 5-7pm, Dakar is gridlocked with traffic… it takes forever to get somewhere that should take 10 minutes (forever meaning 45 minutes - hour). I remind you that this city isn't all that big. With the people selling things on the street, you never really know how the people actually acquired the merchandise to sell it. And there are rip-offs of every brand you could ever want… not Abercrombie, but plenty of Gucci, Prada, and D&G.

Do people go "home" and leave the streets in the evening? No. Sure, some do. But a good part of the street vendors are constantly there, sleeping next to their merchandise. Life is very very hard in Senegal, and those people need to take any opportunity available to them to make a sale and get some money. Not only do you walk by street vendors after midnight, but anytime after Dakar you can see people sleeping on the streets. Not just vendors or occasional homeless people like you would see on the streets of any city in the States; you will see mothers with five children lined up side-by-side sleeping. That is one of the most difficult things for me to see. It absolutely breaks my heart.

There are tons of handicapped people in Dakar. So among the thousands of street vendors you see people dragging their bodies along the ground (I'm not exaggerating) because they can't walk, and others limping, and groups of people in wheelchairs. Sometimes begging, sometimes not. There are also lots of women from other countries who walk around and beg. Not to mention the thousands of Talibe (little boys supposedly sent to live with holy men to study the Koran, but instead spend the majority of their day begging. They don't have shoes, their clothes are always the dirtiest, and they carry an empty tomato can to collect money and food for themselves).

Basically… the streets of Dakar are filled with lots of people who are trying to scrape by to sustain themselves. Of course those people live and "work" side-by-side with the Dakarois who have a lot of money. That's just how Senegal is.

The President, Abdulaye Wade, made an announcement that he was going to clean up the streets of Dakar. So last night, at midnight, the police, gendarmerie, and army met at Place de l'Independence (the main square in downtown Dakar) and started clearing out all illegal vendors and people on the streets. This is not the first time an initiative like this has taken place, but it is the first time that a program has been put in place to keep a place which has been cleared from filling up again. They started at midnight, so I figured that they'd be busy downtown all day. But that was not the case. By lunchtime some police had made it the 15 minutes from downtown to my house. When I returned home from class for lunch today, I found the shoe tree in front of my house gone. There is a big tree in front of my house that had hundred of shoes hanging from it. There were always people there selling the shoes. Sure, it's not exactly legal, but as you can tell from the paragraphs above, that isn't exactly unusual. Anyway, when I arrived home the tree was visible because there were no longer hundreds of shoes hanging off of it, and the stand is demolished and laying on the ground next to the tree. I also found out that my friend who lives next door to us was the one in charge of that tree and he has been taken in by the police. So I'm waiting to find out what's going to happen with him. There's tons of illegal activity here (vendors, taxis without permits, child labor, etc) and the police either turn a blind eye until something bad happens or they fine the people (pocket the money) and let them continue their activities. So this really is quite a change from usual.

Not to mention that I have no idea where all these people are going to go when they're cleared out. I've heard people say that they hope they go back to the villages. A lot of them aren't Senegalese, but are Malians, Guineans, and such without homes here. Not to mention that their way of making money has been taken away. I don't see how this program is actually going to work, but we're all waiting to see how things progress. It was a Presidential decree that the governor of Dakar approved, so it didn't go through the national assembly. (Sidenote: the governor of Dakar happens to be the brother-in-law of my morning French professor). The morning papers were filled with articles about the current situation, the decree, and the potential impact of all of this.

On the other hand, I'm very curious to go downtown later tonight and see the status of things. Some people I've talked to are excited because they say it will make the city more like what it used to be without all the overcrowding and the dirt, when sidewalks were clear and people compared it to European cities. We shall see...

Reality and a Muslim Sound of Music

Last week, a boat broke off the coast of Mauritania, which is directly North of Senegal. It was a boat, a pirogue (a fishing boat), filled with 150 men fleeing to Europe. 48 people died and the rest were returned to their countries of origin. The boat left from the Casamance (Southern) region of Senegal. Most of the people on the boat were Senegalese, but some were Guinean as well. The week before a boat trying to make its way to Europe was stopped by police; everyone on that boat was dead except for one person who had been without food for 20 days. It is a harsh reminder of the economic situation here in Senegal. Some people here simply have nothing. Many have no hope. It is very tough to get a job here. There's a debate going on about whether or not there's a famine in the Northern part of the country. The President recommended last week to decrease the monthly salary of all government employees (well, all those trained in national schools; aka, not maids and cooks who happen to be employed by the government) by 1,000-3,000cfa ($2-$6) depending on their salary. There was an outcry from the population against the initiative. The President recommended it to create fund for the poor in the country. The fact that the government blatantly recognized the fact that there is a great need among the population here is a huge deal. Because those who are not in power are the ones arguing that there is a famine. It is the government which is arguing that there is not. Therefore the suggestion of the creation of the fund was a huge admission on the part of the President and the government.

I was out of my house late Sunday morning and when I arrived in the afternoon it was almost as if I had arrived on the set of a Muslim Sound of Music. The five children of my family were in the backyard on plastic chairs facing a chalkboard and a teacher and they were all chanting at once. Except instead of Julie Andrews, it was a teacher of the Koran. And instead of songs, it was the Koran as well. It was the first time I had seen this, but I have learned that the man comes twice a week to teach the children. But he usually comes on Wednesday afternoons while I am at school, and this was the first weekend since the end of their summer vacation that he has been here. It was quite a sight. The blackboard was filled with Arabic. The kids are being taught the language along with the memorization of the Koran. It was quite fascinating to watch and listen to. He was there for about a half hour after I arrived.

I have a new French teacher now. One of the ones I've had the whole time I stopped learning from. He was more interested in telling me stories than actually teaching me French, so I asked to have a new professor. And the new one I have is incredibly demanding, which I'm not going to like pretty soon, but which is really necessary for me. I know my French is going to improve rapidly again, because it had plateaued for a little while.

A Busy Saturday

Sarah, a friend of the Danish girl who used to live with me, decided to take the kids from my family to the beach on Saturday. So I also went with them. We went to the Ile de Ngor. All but Dany went and I've not been told why he wasn't allowed to come with us. We took a boat to the island, and Marianne was terribly afraid. None of the kids know how to swim. Moctar doesn't even have a bathing suit so he went swimming in his underwear. It was really fun. The kids went splashing in the water and Sarah and I tried to teach Moctar and Mohammed how to float but failed. I went swimming out into the water and Moctar almost fell over with shock he couldn't believe I could swim out that far. Moctar managed to get us some very delicious sandwiches for less than a dollar each… French bread with chicken nuggets (think Sweet & Sour Chicken from a Chinese place, without the sauce) and sautéed onions. It was delicious! We swam and relaxed and had quite a bit of fun.

Afterward, I met up with a friend of mine and we headed to the Piscine Olympique where there was supposed to be a soccer game between my language school and the British Embassy. It was supposed to start at 3pm. I arrived at 3:15pm and there was no one there. We waited around for a bit and then wondered if we somehow had the wrong place and left. I texted one of my professors, but he never got back to me. I found out today that EVERYONE showed up late to the game and it didn't start until around 3:45pm even though it was supposed to start at 3pm. So I was terribly disappointed that I missed out on that. I had brought my tennis shoes and everything.

Since I didn't think the game was going on, we headed to one of the markets. I was searching for shoes and my friend was searching for fabric. We poured through shoes and fabric for 2 hours just until the market closed but didn't end up buying anything. But it was great to look at all the fabrics because I plan on buying some next weekend. Now at least I know what's available and what the prices are. The fabrics here are incredible. People spend a lot of money on good fabrics so that they have a few good outfits, and then wear them a lot. I'm looking forward to having some fancy outfits made.

Later that night I went to an Ethiopian restaurant that my Senegalese professors have been telling me to go to since basically the first day I arrived in Dakar. It's not advertised at all and is down a side street and up a set of stairs above a boutique. It's located in a suburban neighborhood two over from my own neighborhood. The restaurant itself is on the roof of a building. It's beautiful! It's all open air and there are tapestries and such hanging everywhere. There was a special live band playing as well, so we were lucky. The atmosphere was wonderful but I must say the food was not all that good. I mean, it was good, but of all the Ethiopian restaurants I've been to (maybe 3) the food was not as good as the others. But it was a really relaxing night to enjoy on a rooftop in Dakar.

Embassy, School, Concert, and Little Sister

Last week I visited the US Embassy to check in with them and get some questions answered. I went with a friend of mine who had never been there before either. The taxi dropped us off at a corner and insisted that the building we were in front of was the US Embassy. I looked up at the building and although there were police outside of it you could still walk right into the building so I kinda figured it wasn't the right one. So we walked down the street, which we realized was blocked off and that's why the taxi dropped us where he did. Anyway, down the blocked off street, next to the Lebanese Embassy, is a giant fortress of an embassy… the US Embassy. Tons of guards and the tightest security I've seen anywhere. I've been told that the US Embassy has much more security than any other building in Dakar. And that the Senegalese were annoyed when the US Embassy was allowed to close down the street in front of it for security reasons, cause it was a major street in downtown Dakar. The security process to get into the building was equally strict. But although it took way too much time, all went well. The Americans get to walk by the 50 or so Senegalese who are waiting around probably asking for visas and walk straight to the back where there's a special waiting room for US citizens and the waiting time is less than 10 minutes. I ran into the woman who runs the organization 10,000 Girls at the embassy and talked to her a bit more about the libraries, so that was convenient.

Thursday I visited a school (Ecole Point E II) where a group of former Rotary Scholars started a school lunch program a few years ago. It's a school in a rich neighborhood but the kids who go there come from the surrounding neighborhoods and most have hardly any money. There were many kids who didn't have anything to eat for lunch. Since the program started, the scores of the students have improved and the attention span in the afternoon has increased. The kids at the school were so great. We almost started a mini riot when we got a picture taken with them because they were so excited and basically started trampling each other… but no one was hurt. The school started an organic garden last year and it's located on the roof. The students help out with it and all the food gets used in the school lunches. They are typically given rice, beef, and some vegetables. The program was originally financed by Rotary clubs and private donors from the states, but now the students who are able to pay 150cfa per meal (about 60 cents American). Those who can't afford it are able to eat anyway. But the 150cfa per student does not come close to paying for the meal, the rest is still financed by people in the United States. They are concerned about having the means to keep the program going. So if you or your group or your organization or your church would like to get involved in a meaningful way of helping students who have nothing to eat… let me know. Many of the students who eat through the lunch program get most of their daily calories from that meal because their families don't have the money to nourish them well. The three Rotary scholars who started the program are still helping manage it from the States and are in constant communication with the project manager here in Dakar.

Friday night I went to a live concert downtown Dakar. It was a Senegalese band who broke up 7 years ago and Friday night was their reunion concert. They want to put together at least two more albums. The theater was packed with people. The chairs were filled early and there were tons of people standing all around as well. The group is called Misaal. All their songs are in Wolof. They played for about 2 1/2 hours. They were absolutely incredible! The crowd was involved immediately, and all the Senegalese there knew all the words to the songs. The first song began with a chorus that had the lyrics "Asalaa Maalekum! Maalekum Salaam!" which is the basic greeting here in Wolof. So the singer sang the first part, and the audience replied with the response. It was fabulous. My Wolof is extremely limited, so I didn't understand what most of the songs were about, but I was able to pick up on some things and that was great! People from the audience came down and started dancing in front of the stage facing the rest of the audience. I wish I had a video of the way they dance, cause I can assure you it's not at all anything that you're used to. There are a few clips on youtube from the concert… they're not very good but you can get an idea of the kind of music as well as the noise of the crowd…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXaVdzpaeH4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQNPLlyjV_s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1eNAMYGnlE

My host sister just walked up over to me singing a song that can be translated as… "There is a girl in the living room, working, on her computer, and her name is Shannon." She has been whining about everything all day, not seriously, but she thinks it's joking. Every time something doesn't go her way she says "It's not fair!" (C'est pas juste) really loudly and flails her arms and proceeds to hide her face and fake cry. It may sound cute or funny, but I assure you it's extremely annoying. Right now I promise you that she just changed her made up song to "I am sitting here singing, and now I'm going to sing a phrase that Shannon doesn't like me to say, it's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair." She is so starved for attention. She just decided that because I'm working, she must work to, and started counting really fast.

Someone was knocking on the front door to the compound about 2 minutes ago. There is a doorbell, but they were knocking. Marianne called "Ko Kan La" (who is that? In wolof). No one answered. Fatou ran over and called the same thing. No answer. So then she walked away muttering something and headed to go answer the door. Mohammed and Marianne (who are on the couch by me) quickly knocked on the wood table and Marianne insisted that I do so as well. I asked why, and Mohammed explained that when Fatou walked to the door she muttered that it was probably a sorcerer that made the knocking sound on the door. So, because sorcery was talked about, they had to knock on wood and I had to as well. Oh, Senegal.

I found a way to quiet Marianne's singing. I started quietly singing "Away in a Manger" and she was quiet so that she could hear me. Perfect : ) And now she has started singing a real song, not a made up one, which I can live with.

Various Things

Last Friday night (the 2nd) I went to a concert downtown. It was jazz rap, incredible. A four piece jazz band (drums, guitar, bass, keyboard/other percussion) and a rapper. I've been told that they're very popular in France. I guess the guy was very popular about a decade ago, when he was more-or-less a gangster and sang about nightclubs and violence. But since then he has reformed and become a religious Muslim. He still sings a lot of his old music, but his new music has a completely different message. The guy is West African but the band is all French. It was completely packed with people, Senegalese and French, all singing along and dancing.

The first Saturday of every month the owner of the Oceanarium in Dakar throws an outdoor party, so on Saturday night I decided to check it out. It didn't happen last month due to Ramadan, so this was my first experience. It started around 1am and got busier as the night went on. $5 got you in the door with a ticket, a few steps in the door there was a table with an 8 year old passing out cds for free that actually had good music on them. The setting is right on the coast, so it was beautiful. But the temperature was so warm! And of course got hotter as more and more people showed up. The party is known for being a more casual affair, which means the Senegalese women are not completely decked out as they normally are when they go out at night… but they still would've upstaged anyone out for a Saturday night of dancing in the States.

I've gotten to the point where I'm quite fed up with the proposals of Senegalese men. I've been brushing them off for almost two months now, and I'm so sick of it. I can't have a conversation with a guy here without him asking whether or not I'm married and going on from there. This includes relatives of my family, neighbors, men in the neighborhood. But it doesn't stop there. My taxi driver on Friday evening repeatedly told me that he loves me and asked me to marry him. He slowed down the cab and asked me if I wanted to come meet his family instead of going to meet up with my friends. When I refused he requested that he accompany me to hang out with my friends. He promised he would marry me, we could move to America, he would work hard, and then he could buy me a big house. It was such a ridiculous situation, and yet sad, because I know that if I gave that guy the opportunity he would want it in a second. Life here in Senegal is very difficult and I'm seen as an instant ticket to America. Often I have to tell guys that I live here in Senegal now, suggesting that I will not be returning to the States. And then they usually complain, since their "free ticket" doesn't want to leave, and they give up.

I've started teaching my six year old host sister ballet. She saw a commercial for some ballerina Barbie and immediately begged me to teach her because she knows that I dance. So that has been interesting. She has absolutely no patience, but it usually ends up with her "fluttering" around the room on her tip-toes and me telling her that she's doing it just like the ballerina. Because when I actually try to teach her stuff, she copies the motions incorrectly for a little while and then begs me to teach her how to flutter around the room. But it's fun and at least it gets her away from the television for a little while. It's always on now, and the kids are glued to it when they're not at school.

The heat has been uncompromising this month. Which also means the electricity has not been cooperating. When it's really hot outside, everyone tries to turn fans on, and then the electricity gets cut. We've had quite a few days where it has hardly worked at all. I'm very lucky that the school where I study French has a generator. It is supposed to cool down next month, so I'm interested to see how cool it will actually get. It's well over 80 degrees no matter what time of day it is now.

Clips of My Life in Senegal

One of the live music places that I've gone to and one of the performers I've seen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc1hsqtTkdc



Looks a lot like my suburb... but not nearly as busy. Also, replace the sound of the music with taxis beeping, children yelling, and all sorts of other city type noise... that'll make it a little more true to life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSDLyl5ZSRk



And this gives you a better idea of downtown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fViEQk-cofE

Bugs!

I don't think I've said much about the bugs here. They're everywhere. My new favorite "game" is to see how big a bug I can see in the bathroom whenever I'm in there at night or first thing in the morning before the sun comes up. I think over 4 inches has been the biggest, with antennas that made it two inches longer. The past two night when I've gone in there I've let a huge bug walk out the door as I walk in. It has almost felt like it was using the bathroom before me and then it was my turn. I remind you that I do not have a window or screens, so bugs are not stopped from entering my bedroom. It's not uncommon to see a parade of ants on my wall heading somewhere. The ants are always very small so you can't tell that there's a parade in progress unless you're near them. There are a few friendly spiders who have made my room their home. Or I have made their room my home. One hides above the door, another behind my suitcase, and the third seems to always be perched on the wall above my dresser. But I figure they're keeping other insects from being around. I haven't eaten a meal since arriving without having to swat flies away from my food. This is true whether I'm inside or outside of my house. Sometimes in the morning they are particularly obnoxious during breakfast, but they're never as bad at lunch or at night; that is probably because there are more people around at the later meal times. One corner of the couch in the living room seems to always have a fly or two around it. And this week, for some reason, a swarm of black flying insects seem to swarm around the front walk so every morning when I leave for school I have to walk through them while swatting at them with my hands. And there are the tiniest of ants that just appear out of nowhere. You can hardly see them, but you can feel them crawling on you. Frequently throughout the day I have to squash them between my fingers and flick them off of my arms or legs.

Sickness

I think I'm quite lucky. I've been here a month and a half and this is the first time I've gotten sick. And stop worrying, because by the time I post this I will be fully recovered. The night of Halloween, my stomach felt a little funny… which is not a rare occurrence here. I didn't feel sick, it just didn't feel completely settled. Yesterday, the problem escaladed throughout the day. I vomited a few times early in the afternoon and felt much better afterwards. My stomach just felt like there was something in it that wanted to get out. I hadn't eaten anything unusual either. By last night, I was very very uncomfortable. I never had a fever, but my stomach was very angry for some reason. I didn't eat anything yesterday except for a bit of rice with onions. Just enough to test to see if I could digest it and not throw up, and it was fine. I spent a lot of time on my bed last night. Today, I got up and ate some bread for breakfast, feeling better than last night. But I was incredibly weak, obviously, because I had hardly eaten yesterday. And as time went on this morning, I felt worse and worse. So my host dad told me not to go to class. So, I basically spent the whole day lying on my bed or lying outside in the back of the compound on a mattress (when the power was out and the house was uncomfortably warm). I ate a bit of lunch, and that tasted good. For most of the day, if I was laying on my back I felt fine, but the second I stood up or walked around or even sat up I felt quite sick. But this evening, I feel much better. Not 100%, still a bit weak, but my stomach is no longer extremely angry with me. It’s not pleased in general with me, but it no longer hates me like it did last night. And I don't mind sitting up, and I'm hungry for the first time since Halloween. So I really can't complain. I'm sure after sleeping tonight, I'll be fine tomorrow.

Also. Being sick does not exclude me from eating with the rest of the family. Yep, that's right. Even though I was obviously sick today, I ate lunch and dinner with the other family members… which means eating out of the same dish. Granted, I stayed in my own little section of the dish, but after I was done (because I didn't eat much) they finished off the rest of the plate, including what was left in my section that I had touched with my spoon which had repeatedly been in my mouth. And I remind you that when I say section, I simply mean the area of the plate that is directly in front of me. There's no ridge or wall between the sections, it's just one huge bowl, and by the end of the meal, all the sections have blended.

**Cultural Note: My host dad asked me if I had drank any milk. He told me I should because milk is the best thing to drink when one is sick to their stomach. He told me to be sure to avoid all carbonated beverages, such as Coke, because that would surely make me more sick. When I lived in Switzerland, my host mom was adamant about drinking coke one teaspoon at a time when she was sick, because that helps you feel better. And at home in the States, sips of Sprite are supposed to help settle your stomach.

Halloween

Halloween is not celebrated here in Senegal. If people know about it, it is because they know it from American movies they have seen but have no idea what time of year the holiday takes place. On the other hand, All Saints Day is a national holiday here due to the 5% or so Christian population. So all government jobs were closed today, but really, most everything else was still open because people need the money. When I ate breakfast yesterday morning, my host dad said something about yesterday being a holiday and I was confused and told him that no, today was the holiday. And then he said "Happy Halloween!" I had actually forgotten, and he was shocked that I had forgotten. Classes went as normal, of course, except that one of the profs said "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" every time he saw a student. On my way home I bought a bunch of candy at the boutique on the corner for my host siblings. I gave them the candy and explained the holiday to them. They couldn't believe that the majority of American children were dressed up in costumes and walking house to house at night begging for candy. But they liked the fact that they were getting candy, too, because of it.

Because today was a holiday, lots of people were out late taking advantage of the fact that there were no classes (at the university, too) and people would be going to work late today. My American friends and I were trying to come up with a way to celebrate Halloween, without dressing up in costumes. So, we ended up going out dancing for a bit with our local friends as well. The big Halloween moment for the night was when the DJ played Michael Jackson's Thriller.

Street Life

As I walked home from class yesterday, I passed by quite a commotion at a telecenter. A woman was inside fighting with I think the man who runs the place. They were yelling at each other and it had gathered quite a crowd of people. I feel like in the states, if something like that occurred, people would back away. But here, it attracts a HUGE crowd of onlookers. I wanted to take a picture, but it didn't seem appropriate.

Further along on my way home a man pointed at me (he was about 40 feet away from me) and yelled (I'm not exaggerating) "YOU'RE AN AMERICAN!!" So I was definitely caught off guard, not to mention a bit unnerved. The man continued to walk towards me, and there was no way I could deny my American-ness, so he walked along with me while I was on my way home. He spoke so very very loudly. Great way to draw even more attention to myself, but I couldn't get him to stop, and he seemed excited enough to finally be speaking in English again. But I knew what he was getting at… that he wanted to get back to America, and saw the young American girl walking through the neighborhood as his shot to do just that. I told him it was a shame that I lived in Senegal now and wouldn't be returning to the states. He asked if I was married and I said yes, with two children. He said it was a shame, that I was too young, and I should've waited to marry a Senegalese guy. At the very least, he left without asking for my phone number.

Dakar at 4:30am: Sitting on the front porch is usually reserved for men and old women. There are always men sitting outside of houses talking, not only because this society is built on the art of talking, but also because so many of the men are unemployed right now. I want to be able to sit outside on the porch during the day and observe what's going on, but I'm kept from doing it because it's not generally accepted for women to do the same. So last night, I took the liberty of sitting out on the front porch since relatively no one was around at 4:30am and I was awake. It seems like that is the time when this city is the most pleasant. Usually, there are people everywhere, animals everywhere, traffic running you over, strange smells, pollution, all sorts of things. And so of course, at 4:30am, the city is still not completely asleep… but compared to usual all is calm. There was a rooster crowing from one of the houses across the street. I could hear the holy men at the mosque praying. There was always at least one taxi driving down the street, and men occasionally walking down the main road. One of the kids at the shoe tree in front of my house was still awake, but the others were sleeping on mats on the ground. The city was so silent compared to normal… almost calm and relaxing. Which is quite a switch from normal. And no, don't worry, I don't make it a habit of being awake at 4:30am.

This and That

Yesterday was a bit of a break. I cancelled my morning classes (well, postponed them til next week) so that I could go to the U.S. Embassy and get some things taken care of. It worked well, since my professor had to take a trip yesterday anyway so this allowed him to leave earlier. However, when I was on the way to the embassy I found out that Citizen Services is closed on Friday mornings. So, I went back to bed for a bit. I then went back to the center where I take classes around 11:30am, thinking that I'd work for a bit and then hopefully get my class started an hour early, so that I could leave early and say goodbye to the Danish girl I live with, cause she left for Denmark last night. Well, it turns out that I was not on the schedule for yesterday afternoon, and I have no idea why. But I had no classes at all No one had made me aware of this, and I still don't know why my afternoon classes were cancelled. Many of the professors were gone, but my afternoon one was there, they just assigned him to a different student for the day. Strange. Anyway, I ended up working on things until about 4pm. It was nice to have a day to work at my own pace, not to mention sleep in, and I bought my own lunch instead of going home. It was a really nice change of pace.

Leila, the Danish girl, left last night to go back home. So now I'm the only student in the house. It doesn't feel much different from normal, because she had been gone traveling for the past two weeks.

Last night I went to a Demb Ak Tey, a traditional Senegalese dance performance. It was called a ballet, but of course did not resemble ballet at all… except it was dancing with a storyline involved. It took place in Casamance, the southern region of Senegal. The entire performance was in Wolof, except for the introduction and the closing which were in French. It was incredible! The way that they danced was incredibly energetic. Their bodies were constantly moving, pulsating, jerking, jumping, flipping. Africans have a way to dance that is so different from any type of American or European dance. The movements of the entire arms and feet are just as much a part of the dance, if not more so, than the core. There were drummers on stage the entire time. All of the music was drumming or drumming and singing. I was tired simply watching them. Some of the storyline included a traditional wrestling match, death, and village life. At the beginning of the performance, during the introduction, the man in charge said that someone from the percussion troop had died within the past two weeks. But that in Africa, you don't weep for the dead... you dance for the dead, and you sing for the dead. So that's what they did. The picture of the percussionist was up at the back of the stage during the entire performance. The performance took place outdoors, downtown at the French Cultural Center.

Afterwards, I went out with friends to grab a bite to eat. The majority of the restaurants downtown are owned by Lebanese people, no matter what type of food is served. But a friend of mine was craving falafel, so we ended up going to a fast-food type place with chwarma, hummous, falafel, and whatnot. Except, they had run out of falafel, which is a terrible disappointment. But I had a chwarma sandwich and it was delicious!

Today, I went to a new beach with friends of mine. New to me, not new to Dakar. It's called "Secret" and is very very small. It's actually designated as a surfing beach because the waves can be amazing sometimes. There were very limited waves today, and thus not many surfers. There's hardly any sand, just lots of rocks and sea urchins and such when you're trying to make your way to the water… but we made it. We swam out a ways and actually ended up swimming up the coast to another beach. It was sooo much fun. We were between the two points of the peninsula to the West, one where there is a lighthouse, and the other which is the Western-most point in Africa.

I ended the night at Just 4 You, which is a nightclub type thing near the University in Dakar. They always have live music, and it's more of a sit down outside at a table and order a drink while listening to music and dancing if you'd like kind of place. The music was Orchestre Baobab, which is a well known music group here who has performed in Europe as well. They were really good, and played a lot of music that sounded more suited for Cuba than Senegal. But it was wonderful!

Poverty

Every morning after I talk with my French professor for awhile, he gives me a topic for a "petit paragraph." Yesterday morning my paragraph was on the topic of poverty. He told me I should write about poverty in the United States and any poverty I've seen in Senegal. He told me that it was a shame that I haven't been to a poor country yet, and said maybe Costa Rica cold count as that. I found it fascinating that he didn't consider Senegal a poor country. Sure, there is poverty in Costa Rica, but it's not like the poverty in Dakar. And there is definite poverty in Dakar and throughout Senegal. I can't walk to class without someone begging me for money… children, women with babies, etc. Even the man who works at the corner store that I always go to has a habit of asking me for money.

In the classroom/office where I have French class in the afternoon, there is a world map directly above the desk where I sit with my professor. My professor looked up at the map yesterday and fell silent. After a few moments, he said "Look, Senegal is the center of the world." On the map he has, Senegal IS conveniently located relatively in the middle. He went on to talk about how because it's the center of the world, it attracts people from all over the world. He said people from every continent come to Senegal. There were approximately 1.5 million residents in Senegal at the time of independence (approx. 1960), but now there are 12 million. He said that the people who came from all over the world brought poverty with them. Senegal was never a poor country and it never had poverty. Not until 1980. But now it exists here.

We talked about China and the influence of the Chinese on Africa, which was a big part of my senior seminar research for International Studies. Zator, my professor, talked about how China can make things very cheaply. He then went on a tangent about sheep in Senegal, how they're everywhere, but that they are very expensive. After a long pause, he said, in French, "Perhaps the Chinese will find a way to make cheap sheep." He then proceeded to almost fall off the back of his chair and laughed for quite some time. He then gave me a high five and we got back to what we had actually been working on... reading a newspaper article.

I thought it might be interesting to share some basic statistics about Senegal with you. Brought to you by CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/).

Median age: 18.7 years

Infant Mortality Rate: 60.15 deaths/1,000 live births

Life Expectancy at Birth: 56.69 years

Total Fertility Rate: 5 children born/woman

Literacy:

Total population: 39.3%

Male: 51.1%

Female: 29.2%

Unemployment rate: 48%

Population Below Poverty Line: 54%

PICTURES!

You've waited long enough...

http://iwu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025751&l=b27de&id=41600114

Phone Number

Feel free to call me at any time... preferably not between the hours of 6pm and 3am (Eastern and Central US times), as that corresponds to my sleep pattern... at least during the week. If calling from the US:

001.221.77.706.18.31

Rotary and Television

The fourth Rotary Cultural Ambassadorial Scholar has arrived… so we're gaining force and beginning to take Dakar by storm. Today, I started looking into the possibility of us helping out with a school lunch program that was started by prior Rotary Scholars for poor kids in a neighborhood near us. I'm also interested in starting a "pen pal" program, even if just until the end of the year, for a French class in the States and an English class here in Dakar. One of the main things I'm supposed to do as a Cultural Scholar is to build cultural understanding between my home and host countries, and I think this would be a neat way to do that while letting students practice what they're already studying. How many Americans have African pen pals? How many Americans can point out Senegal on a map? I think it could be really neat, so if any of you know a French teacher that who might be interested in getting one of their classes involved, let me know.

The past few nights I've spent time watching television with my Senegalese friends. Last night, what caught my interest was music videos. We watched a handful of Wolof rap videos produced here in Dakar. They were all so very different from the rap videos in the United States which typically showcase immense wealth, or violence, or women with limited clothing. One of the videos we watched was for a song about a domestic dispute. A man and woman got in a fight, she served him his dinner and he threw it on the ground. They then walked into the courtyard of their house and start circling each other like a wrestling match. Very soon, all the men and women of the neighborhood show up, the women behind the woman and the men behind the man. They're all cheering on their respective competitor. Eventually, the man throws a punch at the wife but he misses and manages to lose his balance and fall into a bucket of water. The wife grabs a club and heads in his direction to slug him, but when she reaches him and holds the club up high, the women intervene and keep her from attacking him. The song is all about how relationships shouldn’t be violent and uncomfortable like that. The video would cut between scenes of the domestic fight, and the rapper surrounded by women all dressed the same (and fully dressed) who were dancing and singing the chorus.

Song #2: It showed a man and women arriving downtown Dakar together, holding each other's hands, sitting down on a bench together. Then the man got up to go buy a snack, and a white foreign man sat down next to the woman and started making conversation with her. The woman left with the white foreigner, so when the man returned she was nowhere to be found. He runs around Dakar searching for her, and finally finds her arm-in-arm with the foreign guy. He then tries to start a fight with the foreign guy, but the foreign guy gets scared and runs away. The man then brings the woman back home and starts asking her why she did what she did, and then leaves her alone in the room and puts a dog at the door to guard it. They make up, and in the end all is good. The entire video is absolutely hilarious and is meant to be comedic. The guy is really goofy, and my friends told me that all his music videos are funny like that.

I've also learned a lot about traditional wrestling. I watched it a bit last night and a bit today. The best way to describe it I think would be between sumo wrestling and American wrestling. The men wear short tight biker shorts, with a diaper-type piece of clothing over it. The men are also in extremely good shape. They don't look huge and built up, just very very in shape, aside from their thigh muscle which are massive. Each match begins by each "warrior" doing a dance with the people who accompany them. The actual competition begins kind of like how someone who isn't very politically correct would describe a fight between girls… almost like they're trying to scratch each other, but more like flailing their arms at one another. But then one gets hold, and that all changes. The objective is to get the opponent to the ground. If their head touches, they lose. If their butt touches, they lose. If the whole side of their body touches, they lose. My friends say it's very complicated, but that's what I gathered. And instead of the referees announcing the decisions to everyone at once, they tell one player, then the other, and then everyone else. The players are allowed to grab hold of each other's minimal clothing. They definitely have moves, a mixture of wrestling and judo. I'm not one who likes wrestling, but this is incredible to watch.

Cows

Tonight, I walked out of my home to come here to the telecenter... there were 5 cows in my front yard. I remind you that I live on a major street. But they're there, sleeping now, and they scared my host sister to death. I have no idea who they belong to, nor does my host family. Their horns are about a foot long, and when I took a picture of them, two started butting heads. Oh, Dakar.

It has been awhile...

It has been too long since I've written! This week, my classes continued as normal. Tuesday evening I had a meeting with Rotary where my host counselor presented the project to the entire club for discussion, the project of building a maternity clinic in a village outside of Dakar. I received more details about the entire project and saw the pictures of the site again. In addition to the two Rotary clubs here in Senegal working on it, there is a Japanese corporation involved, and individual donors. It's quite a large project, but it is obviously much needed in the area.

I've managed to get a ridiculous amount of mosquito bites on my legs. I think I got them yesterday morning when I was waiting for my class to begin. I'm quite annoyed about it. I got a lot of bites around my ankles when I first arrived, and the occasional one since then, but now I have tons. I'm not exactly pleased with the situation.

Wednesday, Viola Vaughn, the woman in charge of the 10,000 Girls organization in Kaolack met with me. And now I have an internship for January and February! Not to mention some work to do before I begin it. I am now in charge of setting up libraries at a large number of schools in Senegal. There are over 39,000 books sitting at the port in Dakar with my name on them. They must be transported to Kaolack. There, I will have to sort through the books and figure out how the system will be organized. Once some kind of system is set up, the books have to be transported to each of the schools and the libraries must be set up. I also must find volunteers from each of the schools to serve as librarians for some time before and after school. In addition, Ms. Vaughn has hired a truck and a driver for a book mobile. I have to meet with a man at the US Embassy in Dakar who really likes book mobiles in order to learn how to run one, and then I'm in charge of setting that up as well. Basically, the truck will serve as a moving library and will travel to the villages which don't have schools. I have to decide which villages, how often, all of that. So, basically, I have my hands full. But, I'm really excited! The books are both textbooks and books for pleasure reading. Books are very rare supplies in the rural areas of Senegal. They will allow the kids to think about things outside of their immediate community and their daily lives, in addition to providing them with an opportunity to study more on their own outside of the walls of the schools. The main problem I see is that the majority of the books are in English, because they were donated by the USAID. Although many of the schools to teach some English, I'm going to try to see if I can't get more French books donated. I also know someone who writes books in Wolof, some of which have recently been published. So I'm going to try to raise some money to buy a bunch of those to disperse among the schools so that the children can also have access to a few books in their first language.

Taxis in Dakar are quite special. There are hundreds of them. Every time I walk down the street to go to class, to the store, or to a friend's house, taxis always slow down and honk because they assume since I'm a white person that I should be riding in a taxi and not walking. If I'm walking down a street, and an empty taxi passes on a cross street, quite often it will back up and wait til I reach the end of the street to see if I need a ride. They're all average taxis… yellow with the light up sign on top. None of them are in good condition. The windows often don't work right, and they're always halfway down, when they exist. Often at least one of the windows is shattered or cracked and held together by plastic. Inside the taxi, the dashboard is filled with stickers and random items. From the rearview mirror hangs prayer beads or a cross. They go very fast, and have their own way of driving which is much different from in the States… but all cars here in Dakar are like that. In the States, if I saw a car that looked like one of these taxis, I would assume that it doesn't work. But here, they just keep on keepin' on. They're like the Little Engine That Could. And they drive very fast. They probably wouldn't pass their driver's tests in the US if they drove in the same method that they do here. And if you're ever stopped, or slowed down on the street, there is immediately someone trying to get you to buy a phone card or begging for money through the window. The cops also have a habit of pulling cabs over, even when there are passengers in. They write up a ticket and then asks the cabby for money, if the cab driver gives money to the cop then the ticket gets ripped up. I've heard stories of cabbies asking the passengers to pay, or stopping for gas and asking for the passengers to pay for it… but that has yet to happen to me. Typically, the cab drivers are nice enough. But some also have a habit of pretending that they know the place that you're going to when they really have no idea. The entire cab experience is a bit more difficult when that is the case AND your cabby only speaks Wolof. Regardless of all of that… it is rare to see an accident. In fact, I haven't seen any yet. For any of you worried about my method of transportation, take comfort in knowing that the security officials at the US Embassy suggest taxi over any other sort of public transportation… not that it says much about the other forms.

Corite

Today has been a day of recuperation for the country, and I joined in on that. I spent much of today sleeping and resting at home. It wasn’t until a friend of mine called me at 4:30pm that I actually got out of bed for good. But the friend of mine who called me had also not gotten out of bed yet.

Yesterday was Corite (the end of Ramadan). The celebrations began on Friday night and I began by going out dancing with my friends all night. Saturday, my host mother cooked all day to prepare the lunch time meal which we ate around 3pm. Relatives of my host family came over and spent the day with us. The kids, aside from the eldest and the niece, were at relatives' houses. It reminded me much of Thanksgiving. Eating, sitting around, and talking. My host mom never really joined us, because she stayed in the kitchen or cleaning or staying occupied otherwise. But she would come into the room where the relatives were and laugh and laugh with them, but just for a few moments before returning to her work. The relatives were incredibly nice. It was entertaining enough to simply watch them interact with each other. They were very loud, very involved in each other's problems, and had advice and suggestions for everyone. One of the aunts was in an argument with someone else who had married into the family and kept picking up the phone to argue with another relative about the situation. Every time the phone rang, she made everyone in the house be quiet so she could hear. The relatives quietly teased her and joked about the situation. I would say that everyone in the neighborhood could hear her, but I'm sure all the festivities at the nearby houses were just as loud. The way that families work here just amaze me. The well-being of the family is the first priority… but not just the immediate family, the extended family. If a woman has a job here, her money is not given to her immediate family… it is given to her father's family, because she is part of his household, not the household of her husband. It is up to the husband to provide for the family. The woman shares with her original family and saves the rest for herself. Typically. I don't believe that is the case in my host family, because my host father does not have a job.

The food for Corite was delicious. Chicken, beef, Moroccan couscous, all sorts of vegetables, and various sauces. We're eating the leftovers today. Again, much like Thanksgiving. Typically, part of the celebration involves making a tour to visit all the neighbors, but my family didn't do that. And also, our neighbors didn't visit us. Which I hear is very unusual, but perhaps the neighbors were at their respective villages for the celebration.