Dundu Afrikan yi

February 28, 2011

Oh dear…it’s been an exorbitantly long time since I last wrote a blog post, but at least it’s still February! (though only barely, I admit) Well, in the interim, I have been to Toubacouta (a village several hours south of Dakar), and have nearly finished with classes. Toubacouta was really wonderful: it’s primarily a tourist village, so we had quite ritzy accommodations. Seven out of the ten of us got sick at once point or another, though, which was unfortunate. While we weren’t sick, though, we were able to attend many traditional dance ceremonies, a traditional wrestling ceremony (la lutte), and learn a lot about development in a rural area. One of the site visits that most affected us was the visit to a community garden in the village of Dassilamé Sérère, which has a gardening coop run almost exclusively by women. It kind of seems like the men just sit back and relax while the women spend all their time in the fields. Anyway, Gabe had the idea to start a project to fund a pump for their well: right now they have to haul all the water up by hand, and a pump would make their work a whole lot easier. A couple of us are really spearheading this project, and we intend to set up a website in the next couple of weeks where we can take donations to fund our well pump project. I’ve sort of fallen into place as the treasurer for this project, and I will definitely post a link once we get our website up and running. In the meantime, please think about if you would be willing to donate to fund a well for these women.

It’s been really hard for us to believe that we have less than two weeks of classes! Most of us are going to St. Louis for spring break, which is in the north of Senegal (it’s the old colonial capital). We’ll spend 4 nights (I think) in St. Louis and then head back down south to the deserts of Lompoul, where hopefully we can do some roughin’ it and riding camels, possibly. After that, I will be headed to my internship! I’m going to be in a little village of about 4,000 people called Leona, which is about an hour south of St. Louis, I think. I’ll be teaching in the equivalent of a middle school, and most likely I’ll be working with 12 and 13 year olds. I’ll be teaching English and maybe another social science topic, as well as doing administrative duties. I might also get a chance to work in the primary school! I can’t tell you how excited I am, despite going to a tiny village where I will probably eat fish for three meals a day (ceeb u jen, here I come!). Speaking of food: I know this is a sidenote, but today the WARC cafeteria served curry (Indian-style except for the beef), and it was delicious. Not very Senegalese, but just what I’ve been craving. Normally I can’t eat the large portions that they give us, but today I ate the whole darn thing, and it only took about an hour.

This morning, as part of our International Development class, we visited the Liberté 6 barracks. Normally, I’m not the biggest fan of my International Development class, but today was easily the best day we’ve had yet. The strange thing is, Liberté 6 is a very well off neighborhood, but there are these slums right in the middle of it. ENDA Tiers-Monde, which is a local NGO, funded people to move from more established poor areas to Liberté 6, but the effect is very chilling: poverty in the midst of bourgeoisie. ENDA sponsored them and built them schools and everything, but the schoolrooms aren’t even used because there are no teachers. It was strange to see little chairs and desks in perfect condition but with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs because they were so rarely used. About halfway through our tour of the barracks, a group of children ran up to us, as they did in Toubacouta. In many parts of Dakar, being approached by a mob of children means that they are usually asking for money, but in the barracks it was more similar to the village. They are not as accustomed to seeing white people, and thus immediately run up to you and hold your hand (or stroke your hair, or laugh at your moles, etc.). The minute we brought out our cameras they went crazy and wanted pictures taken left and right; very different to many parts of the city where people don’t want you taking pictures, or want you to pay for them.

It was really amazing to see people living in such squalid poverty, especially when contrasted with just across the street where there were modern-looking apartments. Everyone was really making do, though, and they were very proud to show us their houses, which were honestly no more than shacks. It’s also astounding to realize that while this NGO was perhaps helping them by moving them out of the banlieue, they either ran out of money or left before they could really implement the programs, like the school, that they had planned for, and so constructed a school that no one uses. It was quite a contrast from when we visited the Ecole de la Rue (street school). Even though the Ecole de la Rue started off with almost no money, they are really making a go of it by getting university students to volunteer as teachers. The whole thing is funded by one man’s profit from his farm, and he has invested so much into this school that it’s become more sustainable. By no means is it a perfect system, but they are able to send students from the street school into public school, and it seems like a more effective way of getting them out of poverty. Liberté 6 just seemed like an unfinished project, where the conditions hadn’t really improved much and, while there were some necessary infrastructures that had been put in place, ENDA hadn’t done enough to sustainably implement their programs.

On a completely different note, this weekend Regina and I paid a visit to Marché Sandaga where we bought (fake) hair to put in tresses. I think my host sister is going to do it tomorrow…it should be interesting and I will definitely post pictures. I can’t deny I’m a bit nervous, especially for the fact that I won’t be able to wash my hair as long as I keep it in. Regina is also blonde, and we probably bought all the fake blonde hair that is sold in Dakar…there’s not exactly a high demand for it. I also bought some more fabric this weekend at the Foire Internationale de Dakar! Hundreds of merchants came from a bunch of different African countries, and I bought some absolutely beautiful fabric from Benin. Still not sure what exactly I’ll have made…maybe another taille baisse, but maybe I’d like to have clothes that are a little more Western-style, I don’t know.

The Foire, which we visited on Saturday, was also a bit of a study in contrasts. When we first walked in, it literally felt like some sort of strange expo in the States, like a Homes and Gardens show. There were a lot of booths selling very different things: some were selling home furnishings, some were NGOs, and we talked to one man about aquaculture. There almost didn’t seem to be anything linking them together, besides a common interest in Senegal. There was also a complete other pavilion where merchants were just selling things from their home countries, which was quite cool. You can get a lot of the same stuff at Marché Sandaga, but Sandaga is so overwhelming: at the Fair, there weren’t people constantly following you around and trying to get you to come to their stalls (though that did happen a bit, let’s be real, we are in Senegal).

Anyway, it’s probably getting close to dinnertime. There’s a coupure so that means no electricity for now, though we were really lucky to have it for nearly two days straight! It’s always funny to see who gets courant (electricity) and who doesn’t, and sometimes it’s not what you’d expect. Of course, neighborhoods where influential people live don’t often get power cuts, but on the flip side, wealthier neighborhoods like Mermoz get cut a lot more often than poor neighborhoods like Pikine. Why? Mermoz is a very calm neighborhood as well, so there aren’t going to be any riots in the street if there isn’t power. Apparently, in more turbulent, poverty-ridden quartiers, people will take to the streets and start burning tires in the case of a power cut. Speaking of power cuts, I keep thinking about something my host niece Florinda said the other day. We were walking back from buying beer for my host mom (they’re Catholic, so they sometimes like to faire la fête), and I asked Florinda about her birthday. First of all, she doesn’t know when her birthday is, only that it is two days after her mother’s wedding anniversary (how she knows when that is, I don’t know). I asked her about her last birthday and she told me that she prayed and prayed and prayed that there would be electricity for her birthday. Instead of praying for gifts, she prayed for courant. Something that we in the US take for granted so much is so important here, where we don’t have it all the time. Now that I think about it a bit more, though, it makes more sense to me. She can’t really expect to get many gifts for her birthday, so instead of praying for something she knows won’t be fulfilled, she prays for something that is up to chance, and it’s no one’s fault if she doesn’t get it (well, maybe Abdoulaye Wade’s [current president] fault).

OK, dinner is soon. I’ve been attempting to keep up with current events in Libya but have not been doing such a great job. No one needs worry that the unrest will spread to Senegal, though; I would be extremely shocked if the movements from the Middle East reached us. A couple of weeks ago I asked my host family what they thought of the situation in Egypt and they had no idea what I was talking about, though I think they’re more informed about Libya. All is pretty much safe and sound here, and though people are angry at Wade, as always, at the moment Senegal doesn’t have the willpower to take to the streets.

Kudos to you if you read through this whole post—it was quite longer than I expected. Pictures, as always, are on my Facebook, though I will try to put some up here soon. Also, in the vein of trying, I will try to be a more regular updater.

Ba beneen yoon!

A necessary update

February 6, 2011

It’s been way too long since I actually wrote a blog entry! Oh dear! Anyway, Dakar life has been really great so far, if extremely tiring. Every night when I go to bed, I’ve been falling asleep almost immediately, even if I’ve just been relaxing all day! At the moment, four of us are sitting in MyShop, which is a bizarre little extension of the US in Dakar: it’s a little convenience store, plus burgers, pizza, and ice cream, and American music constantly playing. A lot of toubabs hang out around here, and it’s near school, so it’s a convenient meeting place. Also there is free wifi, which is a great incentive! Yesterday Regina and I spent most of the day working on our schoolwork in restaurants, which went well until one VERY DRUNK Senegalese man kept harassing us (keep in mind this was at about three in the afternoon). It was really inappropriate and wouldn’t have happened if we had been Senegalese instead of white and blonde. On our walk home, we saw the cutest little lamb in the road, and someone had tied a baby’s bib on it. We stopped and started to take a picture, but a man just ran out of the nearby house and started shouting, “Il faut payer!” (You have to pay!) We were again really shocked at this and just kept walking instead of taking the picture. It’s very strange to be immediately judged just because we are toubabs, and to have people try to take advantage of us.

Mostly this week has just been a lot of getting more comfortable with Dakar and everything. On Friday, Megan and I took a walk around Mermoz, and ended up managing to get to Katie’s house in Liberté 2 (without a map and without getting lost!!) It was great to just hang out at her house in the afternoon when we don’t have class.

All of us have been spending a lot of time at the beach, which is really nice, as the weather has been wonderful lately (if a little chilly sometimes—all you Midwesterners can laugh at my wimpiness).

Oh, also I’ve been honing my bartering skills at markets and taxis, where most things are ridiculously overpriced and you really have to work to get the prices down. But it really does help if you have a Senegalese person with you when you are trying to negotiate a taxi, and they can get you a much better rate than you would normally be able to get. Taxis are everywhere! I would say almost half the cars are taxis, which are yellow and black and look like they have parts taken from at least four different cars.

Anyway, I am getting quite sleepy so I think I will leave it at that for now! But if I can I will post something in the next few days. Look at my facebook for pictures! Heather

Another post! I am in class but we are on a break!

January 28^th, 2011

Things seem to be settling in a little bit more since I last wrote, and it helps a lot that I am learning a lot of Wolof very quickly. We started classes on Monday, so this is the first weekend that is a real break for us, rather than just more fun activities. It’s Friday afternoon around 6, which is usually when we eat at home. The sun is still shining away here, though. It usually gets dark around 7:30, and when the sun goes down, it goes down fast. You don’t want to be caught in the dark alone. Today, we ended class around 2:30, after three full hours of Wolof. I feel like I am learning a lot of Wolof, but it’s all jumbled in my head and I can’t really form sentences. We’ve really only had three classes so far, but it goes so fast that sometimes I feel really lost. Today we learned what felt like every single verb we would ever need to use, but when I came home I still could barely understand anything that people were saying in Wolof. I was proud of myself for picking out the occasional word here and there, and I did learn the word for ironing. In theory, I can form simple sentences like “Maangiy jangi ba ci kanam,” (I am going to school so see you later!) but it really gets all jumbled. We’re also diving straight into grammar, which is completely different from French and English: instead of conjugating the verb based on tense, you conjugate the pronoun. So “laay” is first person present and “laa” is first person past (I think). Goodness gracious! Also, I had a little bit of a private linguistic anthropology moment in class today: to ask if someone has brothers or sisters, you literally ask “Do you have olders and youngers?” And you always specify older or younger siblings when you are talking about them. I thought that was pretty cool, and it also displayed the importance of age and the respect that comes with it in Senegalese and Wolof culture.

Today, we also went to the tailor! On Wednesday a whole group of us went to Marche HLM, which is the main fabric market. It was quite crazy and there were so many fabrics, African patterned and otherwise, to choose from. I ended up choosing an African printed fabric which is blue and cream colored and has stylized birds on it, and I could only get six meters of it, which is way more than enough to make an outfit. I also got a three piece packet of more Indian style fabric, which was pink and orange. Each of them were 4000 CFA, which is about $8. Today I went with Marie-Louise, one of our maids, to the tailor, where I paid 10000 CFA to have two outfits made. I think I got a taille baisse, which is like a two piece dress, and a shirt with pants, but I honestly have no idea what the tailor is going to make. I just pointed at some dresses in magazines that I liked and he flagged them. I’m going back on Wednesday to see what he comes up with, and I know it will be a surprise either way! With my limited French and Wolof, I sometimes feel really stupid. Also I had no idea what I wanted in terms of an outfit, but I’m sure I will like it when I see it.

Speaking of markets, yesterday Katie, Ian and I went to these Moroccan markets in downtown Dakar, near Marche Sandaga, which has a reputation for being one of the craziest markets. And let me tell you, it is quite insane. We were basically the only toubabs (white people) there, which made us such a target for people trying to sell us stuff, especially if we stood still. At one point the three of us had I think six or seven people trying to talk to us, which was quite overwhelming. After we escaped the craziness of Sandaga, we went back to the Moroccan markets, which were a bit calmer. I ended up buying a very interesting garment: at first glance, it looks like a dress, but you first wrap it around your chest, then swing it through your legs, and that comes around so you can wear it like a coat. And then you finish it off by tying a belt around your waist. So it’s like pants, but very loose fitting and more like a skirt actually. I really hope that I can wear it in the US, because although it’s probably not the same quality as a tailored piece, it’s very comfortable.

My family situation is also settling in, as is everything else. Funnily enough, I have talked more with the maids, who speak extremely limited French, than anyone else in the household. They are so nice and welcoming, and I especially like talking with Fatou, who speaks no French. Usually, we don’t really have actual conversation, but I try to practice my Wolof by reciting the days of the week or some equally mundane thing, like all the verbs that I have learned, or all the different body parts. She thinks it’s pretty funny, and I feel stupid when I can’t even understand the most basic sentences. But she is really great at helping me learn. It does make me uncomfortable how materially privileged I am compared to her and Marie-Louise though. This afternoon she asked me for the equivalent of 50 cents so that she could buy a phone card to call her mother. Of course I gave it to her, because unlike when people approach me on the street, I would have felt extremely selfish saying no. I hope a pattern of asking me for things doesn’t develop, because I would have a very hard time saying no. Though, I really should try to help out the maids as much as I can: even though I live in a comparatively well off family, the maids earn barely anything and they work all the time, I don’t think they ever get time off either. Fatou joked that starting Monday, I should be the one to buy the attaaya tea, and while we all laughed, it makes sense since I have comparatively so many more resources. I think I will buy the ingredients for attaaya, though I have no idea how exactly to make it. I know it’s a little block of green tea (I think it’s green, at least), mint leaves, and a whole lot of sugar. I wouldn’t be surprised if each little glass of attaaya has a full ½ cup of sugar in it…and I’m talking little glasses, too. I should definitely be taking more pictures around the house, especially when we make attaaya.

My proud accomplishment today was that I took the car rapide! Car rapides are quite hard to describe, and I don’t think I have a picture of one, though I will take one tomorrow and try to post it ASAP. They are buses that are extremely brightly colored and painted with all sorts of religious imagery and sayings. Most of them have eyes painted on the front, along with “Alhamdoulilah” (praise God) written in big letters. Regina, my German host sister, was planning on taking one to her class this morning and so I tagged along! Car rapides are very small and cramped, but even though we felt like sardines in this one, I’m sure you can fit double the amount of people in there. It’s only about 50 CFA, or about 10 cents, for my commute, which takes about 30 minutes walking. The man collecting money didn’t ask me for it, though, and Regina said if they don’t ask, you don’t have to pay it. So I stepped off the back of the bus, which was probably still moving a bit, without paying, and got to school quite early. It was a good experience though, and now I am not nearly as intimidated by it as I was before. Barely any toubabs take the car rapide, so Regina and I stood out a bit with our pale skin and blonde hair. I will definitely do it again, though!

Ba ci kanam!