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