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!