September 17, 2007 (Day 2!)

I'm sitting in my room during my "lunch break." It's quite strange to have a lunch break when no one around me is eating. This morning, my three host brothers and two of their friends walked me to the Baobab Center where I have classes. My host dad told me it was just a 10 minute walk, not far at all, and in the same neighborhood as my house. It would have been a 5 minute walk at the pace I've been walking my entire life, but here, it's a 10 minute walk. It was not exactly a simple route either, but the kids dropped me off. Eventually, I had to find my way back to my house, and I definitely did not make it back the same route. But eventually, after a 10-20 minute walk and a stop at the corner store to buy water, I made it back. The boys will be walking me again this afternoon until I get the hang of it. However, this morning it looked like quite a mini parade, as I had two boys a few feet ahead of me and three boys a few feet behind me the entire way. I had quite the 10-16 year old entourage.

This morning I went on a walking tour of the city with one other new student at the Baobab Center. My tour guide was a local university student, Khadia, who is studying English and would really like to move to the United States. She thinks Michigan sounds wonderful : ) The other girl taking the tour with me was named Sandra. For any of you from IWU, she reminded me so much of Professor Gearhart, just with dark hair. We made our way to the post office, supermarket (the same one I stopped at on the way out of the airport), ATM, a doctor's office, and various other places. The children are on holiday right now, so there are kids everywhere in the streets. There are also simply people everywhere in the streets. Some selling things, others simply hanging out. It was terribly hot and many people were simply laying down and napping. Unemployment here is 50%, so that helps explain a lot of the people hanging around and not working.

We ran into a few kids who were begging and other kids closer to my age who were trying to sell phone cards and newspapers. They get your attention, but at least the ones in this area of the city aren't nearly as insistent as street-sellers I've seen in larger U.S. cities. I was talking with a man at the Baobab Center about my walk around the city and he said many of the children who beg on the streets are actually students of the Koran. It's somewhat of a tradition that some of the children leave their parents and go live with a teacher who teaches them the Koran. The parents send their children without any money, so the children turn to the streets to beg for money to support both themselves and their teacher. He said you can look at it from a very exploitative perspective, and in some cases that is so, but one can also look at it as a boarding school in which students have to make money to support themselves. He said if you ask one of the children to explain their situation, it sounds much more idealistic coming from their mouths. He also said that many of the most successful merchants and powerful people in government in Dakar were students like those begging on the streets when they were younger. The government does not support the schools, obviously, otherwise the children would not have to beg. But it's a very touchy subject in the city. Last year there was a tremendous march from Dakar to another city to bring attention to the situation of child beggars. Those in power don't want to get rid of the "schools" for those students, but they also don't want to legitimize them by giving them government support since some of the schools are more shady than others. Thus, at the moment the schools remain as they are. There has been private support of some schools to turn them into more boarding-type schools so that the students do not have the financial need to go out on the street and beg.

White people here seem to become instant friends. There are a few of us here and there. Right now, it's easy to track down foreigners because we're the only ones stopping for a bite to eat around lunch time. While I was walking to the Baobab Center this morning with my entourage, a white man came up to me and asked me if I was going to the Baobab Center. He was walking to work and our paths were the same for a few minutes. He's French and is doing some internet work here in Dakar, but is a university student back in France. I have heard the ex-patriot community here is easy to meet and hang out with, probably because we stick out quite a bit. But the Denmark girl I live with said that it's just as easy to make Senegalese friends, even with guys as long as you are up front at the beginning and tell them you're not looking for a husband.

Also, there are nine students studying at the Baobab Center from Kalamazoo, MI. They are K College students studying abroad in Senegal until February.