Life in Dakar

January 25, 2011

Today, we all arrived at WARC, which is where we take classes, only to find out that our International Development professor actually couldn’t come in today, so we basically have the morning off until noon. I walked to school today in 27 minutes, which is a new record for me! Though let it be said that I was walking alone and quite briskly. It’s so nice for it to be sunny and warm here, even though it’s January and I know that it’s freezing cold in Iowa. Speaking of Iowa, it’s very strange to be getting all the emails from Grinnell telling me about such and such meeting at one time or another…and I am on a different continent entirely. If anyone is ever on Skype very early in the morning (or very late at night!) there’s a chance I might be on, and you should give me a call!

So, I’m going to try to describe some of the aspects of my daily life. Dakar often smells like exhaust and garbage, which can sometimes be overwhelming. There is a whole lot of pollution in the air, especially on my walk to and from school. I live in Mermoz, which is a very nice neighborhood and pretty safe. It’s not the nicest neighborhood in Dakar, but it has a lot of character! There are almost always people around, and there are a lot of goats everywhere. In almost all neighborhoods, there are stray animals (dogs and cats) wandering around, while there are usually goats tied up on the side of the road. More than once, I have been startled by some goats bleating when I didn’t know they were there!

The food here is really different from Western food, most of the time. We eat a lot of fish and meat; the fish is almost always served whole, head, tail, eyes and all. Also there are a lot of bones which you have to pick out. The first couple of days, I was crunching on the bones all the time, but I have developed a method to picking out the spine which usually seems to work pretty well. Most of the food has been pretty spicy so far, and it gets even spicier when you put piment on it.

Another part of our daily life is the power cuts, or coupures. For the first couple of days, there was barely any power, except for sometimes at night. However, it’s been getting a bit better lately and there has been power almost all the time that I am there. It’s especially nice to have it at night and in the morning when it’s dark and I have to take a shower. Speaking of showers…

Lesson number one about Senegal: no one tells you how to take a bucket shower. My first morning in the house, there was a bucket of warm water and a bucket of cold water, and I really had no idea what to do with them. I pitifully tried to sponge myself with my washcloth but I was quite unsuccessful at getting all of the shampoo out of my hair. The next day, I figured out the method of how you are actually supposed to do it! It works so much better to use a measuring cup as kind of a spigot, and that way you don’t dirty the whole water bucket with your soap. Also, since the first day my showers have been freezing cold. It’s refreshing! It’s actually not too bad once you get used to it.

I live in a small little pink room on the second floor of my house. There is kind of an open air courtyard in the middle of the house next to the kitchen where the kids often play and we always eat breakfast. You can almost always hear Arfin and Gigi being rambunctious in the courtyard, since it barely ever rains and it’s usually pretty warm.

On Sunday, I went to the beach with some other students. It was very warm and we had fun playing in the waves and relaxing on the sand. Though it did start to get a little windy and chilly in the later afternoon. When I went home, everyone in my house was wearing sweaters and thought that it was very cold! It was so funny to see our different perceptions of cold, especially compared to the US.

Something funny that happened the other day: we were taking a taxi through downtown Dakar, where people are always trying to sell you things through the window, particularly small bits of food and phone cards. However, one guy came up to our cab with a long-handled broom and dustpan! We thought this was so absurd and hilarious, and tried to imagine someone buying that through their car window: “Oh, I’ve been looking for a broom! I’ll just buy one while in my car!” Also, another guy on the street had a t-shirt that read “Scappoose Track and Field”! Portland folk know that Scappoose is a pretty tiny Portland suburb, so it’s pretty strange that this shirt got all the way to Dakar. But it did make me think of GDS class and how companies like Goodwill and Salvation Army will sell clothes to developing countries: I have no doubt that’s how this t-shirt arrived here.

Another crazy experience that made me think:

My friend Samantha and I were walking to my house for dinner, and she was thirsty, so we stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall boutique where they sell all sorts of little food items. There was a man sitting in the stall as well as a man behind the counter, so we said “Salaam aleikum” to both of them and Sam started to pick out a soda from the refrigerator. The man sitting in front of the counter said “Passe-moi un Coca” (pass me a Coke) and so she did, assuming that he worked there. He then started to talk to us for a little while, but when Sam went to pay for her drink, the man behind the counter pointed to the two sodas (hers and the man’s) and asked her for a price which included the two drinks. We were both a little confused, and she told the man that no, she only bought one. He insisted that she was buying two, one for herself and one for the man. We were both a little shocked, and she didn’t have enough money for two, so I stepped in to pay for her. We had both felt a little bit tricked, since the man didn’t ask for her to buy him a Coke, he asked for her to pass him a Coke. However, we weren’t about to take it back from the man after we had already given it to him. It’s a learning experience, and also completely different from the “customer is always right” attitude of the states.

That’s all for now. I have 47 minutes until Wolof class and I should find a small snack before then. People here eat lunch so late! I don’t think I’ll really be able to eat until 2, since I have a class from 12 to 2. We don’t eat dinner until 8:30, usually!