Ba beneen yoon, Senegal

And...it's my last post in Senegal. I leave in less than seven hours to return the United States, and I'm pretty sure that this is the most anxious I've been since I arrived in Senegal. The room and house that I have called my home the last four months has been stripped of all my possessions - which are all wrangled in two large suitcases - and I am at a loss for what to do. I've been restless the past three days and I'm ready to simply apparate home and bypass saying goodbye to my family and friends here. Although in fact, I might as well be apparating - you step on board a plane and nine hours later, you have left everything behind and you are in a utterly different world. I have gotten to the point where I have realized how completely exhausting the last semester has been - I'm constantly on guard and on edge - every moment I am awake I am on display, I am being watched, I am being tested on my understanding both of the language(s) and cultural understanding.

I can't wait to go home, but I'm realizing that for every positive there is a potential caveat. Being able to understand the conversations around me will be a nice novelty, but will it simply overwhelm me? I can't wait to eat American food, but the thought of not eating yassa poulet around the bowl again is difficult. I look forward to the day when I won't be stared at and harassed for the color of my skin, but I am also sad that I will not longer receive the usual "nanga def?" from my favorite guard on the way to school.

I'm still processing my experience here. There are things that I love about Senegal. There are things I absolutely detest about Senegal. I think that I have possibly learned more about America than about Senegal itself during the time I have passed here. I never used to think of myself of having a great love of country, and still instinctively recoil from expressing it, but everyday I have been here, I have thought about how lucky I am to be American. I can leave the country whenever I want, I can go basically anywhere in the world. I don't have to defer to men - I can look them in the eyes and shake their hands. I don't have to get married if I don't want to. I can throw my garbage in a trashcan when I walk down the street. I can go to class in the morning without having to get up hours before to gain room in the classroom with thousands of other students. I can breathe clean air.

But it's more than that. I don't like the attitude that many who look at the African continent adopt, the idea that countries in Africa are somehow a boost for our own self esteem, a benchmark by which we can judge our own prosperity. It certainly gives one a different perspective to come to a developing city like Dakar, but I have always been aware that I was the one who chose to come to Senegal, that I am the student here. I am so thankful to have the means to be able to come and learn and live for a short while in a place that few Americans are able to go. I am thankful to have been welcomed into a community and a family who has taken care of me and taught me so much. I am thankful to have made friends who have been the greatest source of support and laughter.

And thus with two and a half hours left before I leave for the airport, before I start my journey back to the United States and the inevitable culture shock that comes with it, I say goodbye to Senegal. I will shake the hands of the host family with my left hand, not the customary right, so I will have to return to correct my mistake. In Wolof, there isn't a word for goodbye. The closest is "ba beneen yoon"- until the next time. So, ba beneen yoon, Senegal. A la prochaine fois, ba ci kanam, leegi leegi...I'll be back someday, inch'allah.

Sunday in Touba (through pictures)

Entering Senegal's holy city, Touba and the focal point of the Mouride Sufi brotherhood. This is the place where the Mourids' leader, Cheikh Amadou Bamba lived.

As women, we had to cover our heads and shoulders while we were in the city, especially around the mosque. This was unfortunate as it was a very hot, windy day as one can clearly see from my makeshift hijab blowing in my face.

As non-Muslims, we couldn't go inside the actual mosque, but we could tour the outside areas (shoe-less, of course). It was the most beautiful building in Senegal, and one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I can't imagine what it's like when it is filled with people praying.

The windows and tile work is so ornate

Lamp Fall, the tallest tower. It was also the first to be built in the 1930s. Apparently there is a red light at the top that is a beacon for all Senegal's Muslim population.

The mosque with a person for scale (thanks, Warren). The construction is ongoing and funded by donations - often from the little talibes bowls. The brotherhood has a huge network of connections, especially control over peanut plantations.

Touba is so clean compared with most places in Senegal. It's jarring to see the beggars just outside when everything else seems so sterile.

108 days and 110 Malarone later...

For the past four months, the little orange bottle of anti-malarial medication sitting on my shelf has been a gauge. Before I left, the bottle was completely full - the pills and possibilities seemed both endless and terrifying. The first month, despite taking a pill a day, the bottle seemed to refill itself. I stared at the contents as if by will I could make time pass faster, could deplete the bottle more quickly. But somehow, it has become emptier and emptier without me realizing. And now, at day 108, I shake the bottle and the little group of pills rattles ominously. I'm almost done; the possibilities are disappearing out of reach.

I leave Senegal in ten days, and I have come to the realization that the only thing more difficult than coming here is leaving here. I'm realizing that the "later" that I've been referring to in my thoughts - the later when I'll buy this, I'll go to the beach, I'll try this flavor of ice cream, I'll make paper snowflakes with my siblings - has come to be now. There are only so many tomorrows left, and I've come to the rather frightening realization that there will simply be things that I will not be able to do or accomplish.

And the thing I didn't expect about all of this is how difficult it is to stay engaged the last weeks. Instead of wanting to absorb and do everything, I've been fighting the instinct to mentally check out from my life here. I have been gradually listening to more and more of my American music, reading more English novels, watching American movies, in unconscious preparation for going home. I've been trying to accustom myself to the fact that I will be leaving, so I don't take things for granted. I absorb the smells of the streets, the feeling of the breeze on the car rapide, the sound of the five am call to prayer and the low murmur of my host mothers' prayers.

I am torn between wanting to return to my family and friends and the U.S., a place of which my estimation has grown considerably in the last few months, and feeling a complete sense of loss at leaving a country and a home that I cannot say with certainty I will ever revisit. My host sister doesn't understand. She asks when I will come back, and when I say I don't know, she asks, "Christmas vacation? No, well, January then? So you are coming 'home' in February then?" It's difficult to tell her no. So I have began to respond in Wolof, "waaw, dinaa nibbi, inch'allah." Yes, I will return "home," if God wills it. Inch'allah.

American cravings, week 15 update

It's been a long time since I last posted. But  after Thanksgiving, Tamkharit, a research trip to the village,  two Marche Sandaga and one HLM trip, a cold, and countless Yogo Glaces, I'm still alive and attempting to stay mentally IN Senegal for the last 13 days I am here. However, this does not stop me from creating the following list of food that I will require upon arrival to the U.S. This post is aimed at you, Mom!

• orange juice
• fresh milk - not the French kind that doesn't need to be refrigerated and tasted vaguely of plastic
• sharp cheddar cheese - I've been living the past four months with "La vache qui rit" synthetic cheese spread. Enough said.
• pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, really anything pumpkin - I need to consume the fall that I missed
• apple cider
• candy canes - the Listerine mints here just don't cut it
• peppermint ice cream - the one flavor of ice cream that is seemingly impossible to find in Dakar
• ham - I'd rather never eat Senegalese "ham" again
• Cheerios - I'm not usually a cereal person, but approximitely 105 straight breakfasts of Nescafe and pain (au chocolat, au fromage, au confiture), I need to switch it up
• bagels
• chocolate chip cookies - especially if they are warm and melty
• chips and salsa/guacamole - one of the few types of food that is pretty impossible to find in Dakar. If someone opened a Mexican restaurant aimed at ex-pats in Dakar, they'd do a killing   

I've also started hallucinating a little about the first chai latte I will have upon arriving in the U.S. In my head, it sounds great, but in real life, at 6 am after a nine hour flight, I will most likely simply stumble off the plane in a daze clutching my bags suspiciously and wondering why no one has asked me to buy phone credit yet.

Camel-riding, bird-watching, and plenty of time in a Korean tour bus

I rode a camel this weekend.

I should really just end my blog post there...what else is there to say? But I know that would not be an acceptable explanation for my mom, so I'll back up a few steps.

This weekend marked the last formal excursion for our program, the last time all fifty-some of us would be traveling together in Senegal. Interestingly, the odd Korean tour bus which had originally arrived to pick me up from the airport was again used for the trip. As I pushed back the gold tasseled brocade curtains, I couldn't help but remember the last time I had been traveling on this bus, eagerly – if a little apprehensively - taking in my first glimpses of Dakar's suburbs. How three months change things...

We arrived at our first destination, the village of Lampoul, around four hours north of Dakar. From this village, we climbed in the pickup trucks that would take us to our logement. We sped offroad through what looked to be the quintessential African savannah – sans animals – to what was to be our campsite. The campsite was comprised of a gaggle of large tents for sleeping and a larger canopied area with tables and cushions for eating. After claiming our tents and mattresses, I got my first glimpse of the desert.

It was incredible. Out of the various ecosystems I studied in middle school, I would have never expected to rate the desert as a favorite. But being out on the dunes as the sun was beginning to set, studying the wind's patterns in the sand and feeling the rapidly cooling night air as we explored barefoot the little peaks and valleys was utterly amazing. When the sun set, a few of us escaped the drumming of the fire circle and went out to the dunes and laid on the sand, completely overwhelmed by the multitude and apparent closeness of the stars. And the next morning, a few early risers and I went out to watch the sun rise over the desert, reveling in the cold crispness of the air.

Ah, and the camel riding....My valiant camel-riding (and Cape Verde) partner and I experienced the most interesting, and potentially most worrisome, ten minutes of our life as we were led out on the desert with our dear camel friend who was actually quite tall and quite terrifying. Once I was able to suppress the feeling that I was going to fall off – or lose my shoes – it was an enjoyable experience.

On Saturday morning, we reluctantly departed our campsite to continue on our way to Saint Louis. Originally, we were supposed to go bird-watching that morning at Djoudj, but due to a late departure (Senegal-style), and a motorcade accident which blocked the street - and gave us a glimpse of Karim Wade, the president's non-Wolof speaking son – we changed plans and headed to Saint Louis instead. Except, it's Senegal, and there's always a jafe-jafe, a problem. In this case, President Wade was inaugurating the bridge that connects the island of Saint Louis from the mainland, and that bridge was consequently closed. So, we did the next best thing, which was stop at a hotel just outside of the city, drink some Coca and Fanta, and swim in their pool for three hours.

After a long wait in traffic, we finally made it to Saint Louis, the former colonial capital and World Heritage Site, and ate some much needed yassa. The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring the city and boutiques, which is completely beautiful and so different from Dakar. It honestly seems like you have been transported to a European city which has somehow been permitted to crumble and detriorate a little. In the evening, my friends and I went to a bar which overlooked the river and its sparklingly modern, newly inaugurated bridge, and later went to the evening's free outdoor concert which was, like all things Senegal, three parts interesting/fun and one part uncomfortable/underwhelming.

The next morning, after having received very little sleep, the majority of us headed to the Parc National des Oiseaux du Djourdj, a beautiful park near the Mauritanian border. On our way, we saw what may be my favorite part of Senegal with its Fulani villages, roaming cattle, and wheat fields. At the park we took a boat tour of the park, which is situated on the Senegal River. It was so beautiful there, and so different than the country that is at the outskirts of Dakar. We saw many species of birds, some wild boar, and what looked to be a giant, swimming komoto dragon, but my favorite by far were the pelicans. It was their time of year to lay their eggs, thus we saw literally hundreds of these giant birds.

When we finished our tour, we ate lunch, and then boarded the buses to begin our trek back to Dakar, which, although long was fairly comfortable – which may be due to my Senegalese bus conditioning. In any case, I arrived back around 11, exhausted and with a pile of homework that still awaits my attention.

Tabaski

Last Monday I celebrated my first Tabaski. Known as Eid-al-Adha in the majority of the Muslim world, the holiday, in a nutshell, commemorates the to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahima to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a sheep— to sacrifice instead. While this religious meaning is still absolutely vital to the holiday, it also can be argued that the same commercialization that people grumble about during an American Christmas is experienced in a Senegalese Tabaski. The whole city basically shuts down the week of Tabaski and people spend an absolutely huge sum of money on clothing, jewelery, shoes, hair, and of course, the sacrificial mouton(s). There are lots of sweepstakes advertised the months leading up to Tabaski, and usually the grand prize is, surprise, a number of large sheep.

For me, however, Tabaski was the normal Senegalese holiday....as my friend says, "you go in expecting fireworks, and you end up with a lot of sitting." Except this time, there were fireworks, in the form of mouton killing.

On Sunday, my family went to the home of my host aunt and uncle in a neighboring quartier of Dakar. That night, the two maids of the aunts house, my host sister and the cousin and I went on an expedition to Marche HLM which is the huge fabric/clothing/jewelry/shoe/everything market in Dakar. It was absolutely insane at around 7 at night before Tabaski - I cannot even describe how crowded and chaotic it was. I could barely breathe I was so densely surrounded by shoppers and sheep and fabric and people advertising their deals with speaker systems. (Note: being called a toubab is much more embarrassing when it's projected via microphone to the amusement of my host family) I kept having visions of those stories about being trampled in crowds, but luckily - or not so luckily for our doomed sheep - we all survived. We picked out shoes and jewelry for the maids - there were a LOT of colored rhinestones involved - then I went home utterly exhausted and went to bed.

Post Sacrifice Sheep Carnage

On Monday, the actual day of Tabaski in Dakar (Senegal's extremely influential and powerful marabouts changed the day of the holiday from the rest of the Muslim world), the women and children ate breakfast while the men were at the mosque, and then the sheep slaughtering began. Originally there were sixteen sheep, although mysteriously by Monday morning eight of them had disappeared, presumably given away to sheep-less families. My host uncle did the ceremonial first slaughtering of the sheep which was held in a little tiled pen type area with a drain for ultimate blood draining. Then three men who the family had hired killed the other five and did the butchering. We brought out chairs and watched this entire process, from living sheep to pieces of meat in freezer bags. I am proud to say that I was present for the whole event, despite everyone in the family repeatedly asking - a little hopefully, I think -  if I was scared. Not sure that scared was the right word - curious, a little disgusted, perhaps - but not scared. RIP, my mouton friends.

On mange!

Anyway, the women in the family then spend the entire afternoon packaging and cooking while the men relax and visit. Typical. We had lunch later in the afternoon, and I did love that along with the sheep  - which is rather greasy and tough - we ate a lot of salad which was very different from the usual Senegalese sides of rice, fries and bread. Then we had a delicious cake with a white chocolate sheep on the top, which struck me as a little morbid.

Charlotte, my host sister, and I on Tabaski

Charlotte thought a tiara was a nice addition to my Tabaski outfit

After lunch everyone took naps, a favorite Senegalese pastime, until around six when we changed into our fancy Tabaski outfits (yes, I did have my own made by the tailor) my host uncle held social/political meetings with important and intimidating looking men, and the teenagers went out with their friends. I floated awkwardly from playing with the kids to sitting watching Tabaski specials with highly made up Senegalese singers on TV with the maid until we all headed to bed a few hours later, exhausted from the day's work....I mean....holiday. As with most events in Senegal, it seems a lot more fun to be a man than a woman on Tabaski.

Things have just finally settled down in Dakar post Tabaski. The neighborhood seems oddly quiet, devoid of the majority of its sheep inhabitants. I can't help but congratulate the little herd wandering along the highway when I walk to school. They are some lucky sheep...until next Tabaski, at least.

Programme bi ci Simal

Simal children at school

A day in the village:

typical Simal classroom

8:00 - I would wake up and sit outside with the mother of the family for a while, then she would send me off to take a bucket shower. I would apply yet another layer of bug spray, and then someone would bring me bread and an atrociously sweet powdered "cafe au lait." I should mention here that they rarely let me do anything for myself.

11:00 - The little girls in my house would have a break from school and they would come home for a snack and to take me back to school with them. I would then sit in the shade in the school courtyard with the teachers for a while and discuss the differences between Senegalese and American schools and American movies (one young teacher was especially interesting in the prevalence of gangs in the US). Then they would invite me in various classrooms to observe their classes, but that is the subject of a whole other blog post.


2:00 - I would return home and be served what seemed to me, a non-fish eater, a whole plate of fish under the shade tree. After I had begged off eating the entire portion, they would dump a cup full of peanuts in my lap.

3:00 - Attaya time! Attaya is the traditional very sweet, very strong tea that is served in three shot glass servings. In the village, making attaya can, and does take, hours. I had never actually seen the whole process before, and was utterly disgusted and impressed by the tea-sugar ratio. During this time I would help shell peanuts, pound couscous, or write or draw in my journal. My family was very impressed with my limited watercolor skills...

Making couscous!

Watching the soaps

6:00 - Shower number two!

8:00 - Dinner time: I would be served another absurdly large portion of some seafood dish, and after, watch the news with my host father (in French, hooray!)

9:00 - I would end the evenings by watching soap operas sitting on the floor with my host sisters (I'm pretty sure that Senegal is where the world's soap operas go to die) and playing unintelligible handclapping games with the smallest girls. Then I would apply another coat of bug spray and go to bed under my net, protected from the mosquitoes and crickets and giant beetles and lizards and whatever other creatures were waiting to attack me in my room.

Dem naa willas

I've been MIA the past couple of weeks because I've been busy (and the have experienced occasional 23-hour Dakar power outage). I should note that I have been Senegal-busy...which does not at all equate to UR-busy. When I say Senegal-busy, I mean that I have had a week of class where I traveled to do a lot of sitting in the shade and eating peanuts and then returned to a full inbox of emails and eager host siblings.

In any case, last week was my highly anticipated "rural visit." For many in my program, these visits were actually semi-urban or even completely urban visits outside of Dakar. I was lucky - or unlucky, depending on your perspective - to snag one of the actually rural placements. The majority of students were placed with a Peace Corps member and another student, something I anticipated for myself as well. However, I didn't receive any of my preferences, and soon found out that I was placed with a host family in the village of Simal in the Sine Saloum delta, located about four hours south of Dakar. Although a group of students and I would travel together, we would ultimately be alone in the village that we were assigned.

This journey into the unknown, I realized, would have completely freaked out pre-Senegal Abbey. But Abybatou was surprisingly unconcerned...perhaps a little disturbingly unconcerned. It had all the appropriate elements of concern: taking a five hour 'bus' ride wedged between a breastfeeding mother and our unreliable guide (appropriately named Ass)? Check. Being dropped in an unknown town in the middle of nowhere? Check. Being taken by an unknown man via horse cart to an unknown village to an unknown family? Check. Not knowing the last name of the unknown family? Check. Not knowing Serer to tell the driver I didn't know the last name of the unknown family? Check. (luckily, I'm pretty sure he knew I was clueless. People have a way of picking up that the blonde girl wandering aimlessly with her backpack in the middle of a tiny rural Senegalese town probably has no idea what she's doing.) But oddly, I was not really that uncomfortable...I had a strong - maybe naive - sense that I'd make it there eventually, and I did, with a little help from some village children.

The trip to Simal by horsecart has to probably be one of the coolest things I've done since I've been in Senegal. The village is inaccessible by car, so the only way people get from the main road in Fimela is by horsecart, foot, or moped. The reason for this is the amazingly long stretch of sand flats and shallow ocean that separates the villages, and I traveled on the back of this cart through this odd environment - it was kind of otherworldly. This twenty minute journey was also characterized by a lot of children running along the wagon shouting "toubab!" which was kind of cute and kind of scary at the same time.

This was the first of many "is this really my life?" moments I had during the week. Being the only foreigner living in a rural West African fishing village was absolutely surreal. I was treated with such kindness and generosity during my time in Simal that convinced me that teranga was really still an applicable Senegalese word. My entire family, and the village itself, were so welcoming and open and happy to have me there for a short period of time where I felt like I was gained so much but was able to give very little.

I lived with a large family; there were at least 12 people who lived in the house, perhaps more, but as always in Senegal, it's unclear who is actually part of the home. Notice that I say house - I did not live in a hut. The place where I lived was more of a compound of sorts, comprised of a walled-in sand yard where the main house and its various outbuildings (kitchen, "bathroom", sheds, etc) were located, and a garden where the well and animals were kept. The father in the family was the director of the primary school in the village and was an important leader of the village, so he had a rather large compound with electricity and even television, but no running water. This was one of the many ironies of village life: having satellite television and designer cell phones but also fetching water from the well everyday.

An American in Paris...in Dakar

Last Friday, I went to dinner and a movie - well, movie and a dinner - at Institut Francais in downtown Dakar. The Insitut Francais was founded by Senegal's first president Senghor as a "dynamic fusion that reenforces cultural and linguistic communication between France and Senegal" which for us means a easy place to go on a Friday evening.

The movie - "Midnight in Paris" - ended up being an interesting choice for our situation. It's an American film (with French subtitles) about an American writer - Owen Wilson, oddly enough - who escapes the roughness of daily life by traveling through time to a different era, the "Golden Age" of Paris and interacting with his idols in the artistic community. The movie was utterly escapist, and after being in Dakar for two months, it was almost painful to see the plush beauty of Paris. After the movie, I felt such an extreme sense of disorientation, as my friend said, the film had not entirely ended and we too were occupants of another world that was not quite real.

All around us in the calm, sparklingly lit courtyard of Institut Francais were foreigners who seemed to emerge blinking from the depths of Dakar and congregate together in a grand show of being toubabs. They all seemed to come here within the walled compound to try to ignore where they were, to dine on overpriced salads, drink wine, smoke, and rediscover their suppressed European. It was a fantastical picture, this community of outsiders who find and greet each other in their odd mixture of European and Senegalese clothing, but to me, it was completely unsettling. Senegalese waitstaff bustle through the crowd of French couples waiting for their tables, and I can't help but be overwhelmed by this living realization of continued colonialism, this sense of trying desperately to cling to luxury and familiarity as the talibes and beggars wait right outside the walls.

And it's odd the way we American students are drawn to its leafy security for the same reasons. Even though, as I think about it, I have friends studying in Paris who find that atmosphere  - the atmosphere that is recreated at Insitut Francais - in Dakar foreign and utterly unknown. Yet for us, the mere connection of being Westerners in an strongly unfamiliar world seems enough. But even here, the closest we get in Dakar to our American home, we are still outsiders. We stand out from our European counterparts with their already established community. We are not welcome as part of this group; we are still visitors that are in some ways closer to the Senegalese community than the French. I sometimes forget the fact that I am not black when I am with my host family, but with the Europeans in  Insitut Francais, I never forget that I am from the United States. At the end of the night, I go back to my Senegalese home, and return to the closest thing I have to a sense of belonging.

Takk ci Senegal

I've been back from Cape Verde for two weeks, so I figured my blog had better return to Dakar as well. :) Sidenote: I apologize to my immediate family to whom I've already relayed the content for this post...it's a good chance to see if anyone outside of you is reading my blog.

This weekend, I was invited to go with my family to the wedding (takk in Wolof) of my host mother's cousin (cousin being, like all Senegalese familial titles, an ambiguous term). The festivities were divided into two parts - the part at the house, and then the part on the street. On Saturday afternoon, I left for the wedding located in Medina with my host mom, my host aunt, and the maid, Diarra. My host uncle and host brother, Papi, arrived later, and the two little kids were dropped off at a cousin's house.

The first part of the marriage located in what looked like someone's home with a courtyard with lots of chairs set up surrounded by open rooms on both sides. And there were women everywhere - the older women were lying on beds or in chairs or on the floor - and there were some children - both boys and girls running around playing or running errands for their family. When we arrived, I followed my host family around greeting the elder women, and then began what was the first of long periods of sitting, a common theme in Senegalese celebrations. We ate our dejeuner in groups around bowls - this was when a few men including my host uncle and brother came - and then were given sodas and bags of water. It was kind of amusing to see everyone drinking their bag of water in their formal, elaborate boubous. Then they laid down fabric and the bride arrived in outfit one, a traditional looking Senegalese gown that was blue and pink with long sleeves and embroidery. Simplicity and elegance are not the goals of the Senegalese bride; this one sported almost neon-colored makeup and feathers in her hair - everything.

Next a group of women - seemingly the female representatives of the bride and groom's family - congregated in a circle around the bride and a lot of yelling and arguing happened. Very little of this I could understand - from a combination of my small Wolof vocabulary combined with my increasingly developed body language reading skills, I soon realized that the family was basically going through a ceremonial argument about bride price. People came over and gave the bride gifts and money, and there was a lot of what seemed like lecturing. My host mom wrote down how much money everyone donated in a notebook, and then another woman with a loudspeaker walked around bullying people into giving even more money. This was, unsurprisingly, a very chaotic period of time. Then we sat for another couple hours while women gossiped and my host mom ran around organizing things and I did what I do best - sitting and watching. I mostly just followed what someone - usually Diarra - motioned for me to do.

I should also mention that during this whole process, random people from the street wandered in and out trying to sell things - handbags, laundry detergent, sponges, etc. And a band just wandered in playing music and expecting donations of money. Typical Senegal.

After a while, we left and went to sit in a large tent that blocked the entire street and listened extremely loud Senegalese music playing (note, if you want a taste of the most popular songs, Youtube Viviane N'dour - "Waaw" is a very popular song at the moment). The chairs were arranged like a traditional church would be, with an aisle in the center and a stage like-area in the front that was later unveiled. I cannot do the decorating justice; it was kind of like a terrible mixture of Valentines Day and Christmas - I have never seen so many flashing twinkle lights. We waited for a really long time for all the women to file in. Then the DJ - somethings really are like the U.S. - told us to all stand, and the bride walked down the aisle accompanied by what seemed to be her attendants. But instead of any sort of ceremony or culminating event, this was simply a queue for guests to standin line to give gifts and take pictures with the bride...really anticlimactic for me since I couldn't understand what everyone was saying in Wolof. During this time passed out what looked like TV dinners to everyone sitting in the street, and that was about the extent of it.

My host mom spent a lot of this time directing people and yelling at the clandestine musicians who kept trying to sneak back into the tent but she occasionally would find me to make sure I was eating - a common theme in my household - and usher me to get pictures of the bride. Note: I'm pretty sure no normal person in Senegal has a camera outside of their phone. Photographers would continually be walking around taking pictures of people and then return a couple hours later with the printed versions to sell to them. Anyway, by 9:00, my host mom found me sitting silently with the maid, proclaimed that I looked tired, which I was, and told my uncle that I should return with him, Papi, and the maid, who looked a bit less thrilled to leave than I was. Although I felt like I was about five years old, I was extremely thankful...the whole thing was exhausting even just to watch.

A few points worth mentioning: this entire event lasted over 7 hours for me...my mom and aunt stayed there for about 10 hours. The bride also had three different dresses during the course of the night. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, also note that the groom never made an appearance, as far as I was able to understand. The real marriage takes place at the mosque, with only men present, so this was mostly a celebration for the women. Thinking about it, Senegalese weddings are the perfect style for the Bridezilla-type...it really is just her day.

As my uncle rather exasperatedly asked afterwards, you've never seen anything like that in the U.S., have you?

Cape Verde: Cidade Velha

It's already the middle of October, and the end of this trip report is long overdue. Early Friday morning we boarded the ferry for the return trip to Praia which was rocky but not as torturous as the trip there, partially due to the fact we watched Twilight which seemed even more absurd in Portuguese. After arriving in Praia, we took a taxi the twenty minute journey to Cidade Velha, the old colonial capital of Cape Verde.

We stayed in a rather remote hotel in the valley only accessible by walking an extremely rocky, goat-filled road.



After checking into the hotel, we went to explore the old fort that once protected the town from pirates. We weren't sure how to walk there, but with the help of what seemed like the entirety of the town, we climbed the steps (accompanied by more goats and a few pigs) up the mountain and finally arrived at the fort. The views from here were absolutely amazing!



We returned back down to the town, and after another futile search for ice cream and a brief chat with a Peace Corps volunteer, we ate dinner at a little restaurant literally steps from the ocean and watched the sunset on our last night in Cape Verde.

The next morning, we packed up our belongings, did a little shopping in the town center - the bargaining here was much less productive than in Dakar - and then hiked to see the old colonial era convent which was reconstructed using traditional labor only a few years ago.

It was so pretty and quiet here, and we got to see more of my favorite bird, the kingfisher.

Late in the afternoon, we left to go back to the airport. Unfortunately - if not surprisingly - we quickly learned that our flight was yet again cancelled and we couldn't go out until the next morning. After a few minutes of contemplating the seemingly overwhelming task of finding someplace to stay in the the relatively unfamiliar city of Praia, the airline offered to put us in a hotel back in Cidade Velha. It seemed like absolutely luxury - a hotel room with air conditioning, television, a pool, and free dinner and breakfast. What started as a frustrating delay turned into another mini-vacation before returning to Dakar.

Cape Verde: Fogo!

I loved all three places that we visited in Cape Verde, but Fogo was probably the most interesting. Since we only had one day to stay on the island, we hired the German owner of the B&B, Mike, to plan a day-trip for us. He was somewhat of an inspiration to our CIEE Cape Verde study center dream, as he and his wife had settled in Fogo when they saw an advertisement for a B&B for sale, and after a brief trip, had moved here knowing no Portuguese or Creole. I'm pretty sure that after five minutes, we were all ready to pack up and move to the island as well.

We first traveled by van up the winding roads from the little town of Sao Filipe to the base of the volcano. While we had thought that we wanted to climb the large volcano, we soon realized that we were vastly underprepared for the all day hike. The hike up the little volcano was difficult enough; as it was just an uphill climb on loose, prickly gravel. The volcano is active, and as you reach the top, you can smell the sulfur and feel the heat through openings in the rock.
It is an amazingly beautiful and bizarre looking place; as my friend said, it looked like the lovechild of the Grand Canyon and Mars.


Destroyed by past lava flows, a very small town has popped up in the shadow of the volcano. It was probably my favorite little town we visited. Although it doesn't sounds like a beautiful place to live, the contrast between the barrenness of the volcanic landscape and the little hut-like houses surrounded by trees and flowers was unique and oddly magical. After the madness of Dakar, it was just so tranquil and quiet. We stopped and ate a delicious Cape Verdean lunch here.


After lunch, we did the normal tourist-y wine tasting that was actually comical in our lack of wine knowledge or taste. Then we headed back to Sao Filipe where we explored the quiet streets, searched (in vain) for ice cream, and played another rousing game of Bananagrams. That night we found our way to a restaurant that we thought would have pizza, but instead, we ended up eating the West African equivalent of hamburgers - with a fried egg, of course - and watching a French music video countdown, which was actually quite entertaining. We returned back to the B&B and prepared for the next morning's ferry ride back to Santiago and our last destination, Cidade Velha.

Cape Verde: Arriving in Fogo

So I ended the last post with the beginning of our journey from Praia to the island of Fogo. I should preface the account of our experience by saying that I love traveling on boats - I think it's a generic trait that I inherited from my dad. I also love the occasional three hour break in air conditioning and watching third-rate American comedies dubbed into Portuguese. Yet all of these lovely factors could not make up for the fact that the ferry ride to Fogo was one of the longest four hour periods of my life.

The extra sea sickness bags should have been the first tip off; we were only on our way for a half hour when the first sounds of retching began. I have been pretty impressed with my sturdiness in Africa. Neither Senegalese mystery meat, sour milk dishes, 100 degree heat indexes, or precariously rocking ferries have defeated me (inchallah). But the combination of sounds and smells of people being sick all around me, the sight of the ocean rising and falling outside of my window, and the atrocious Adam Sandler comedy were the closest I've gotten. Oddly enough, the four American girls managed much better than the Cape Verdeans on board, much to the relief of the stoic ferry attendants who spent most of their time handing out extra seasickness bags and cleaning up after their passengers.

Despite the fact that we were extremely grateful to be off the ferry, the arrival into Fogo caused some panic. We arrived around 9pm, a little over an hour after we thought. It was dark when we arrived in the rather industrial looking port, and we were unable to see a road or any sign of life at all. We only saw a chain link fence with a police officer and a large crowd of people congregated close behind it. As the people around us mulled around searching for their bags, we moved closer and clung to our backpacks with a shared panic with what my travel companion termed a gazelle herd mentality. The question of "what have we gotten ourselves into?" - so commonly employed in Dakar - suddenly became relevant in Cape Verde.

You know how when Snow White is fleeing the witch, she runs through the forest and sees monsters all around her? And then she realizes that they are only trees and all the cute little forest animals pop out and comfort her? The Snow White phenomenon seemed to happen a lot to our group who had been trained in Dakarois worst case security scenarios. The mob of swindlers and thieves behind the fence turned out to be relatives waiting for their families to arrive; the reason we couldn't see the road was because there were mountains around us. After we had calmed down and regained our senses, we found a taxi who knew the owner of the B&B we were traveling to and who could speak a little English. Still a bit flustered and unfamiliar with the Cape Verdean currency, as the driver pulled away from our B&B, we realized that we had majorly overpaid. In Cape Verde unlike Dakar you don't barter for taxis, and in our confusion, we hadn't distinguished the difference between 5000 CFA and 5000 escudoes. While Mike, our friendly German host, explained the layout of our rooms and the plan for the next day, I was the first to realize what had happened. We were almost sick at the thought that we had gotten completely ripped off, not in Dakar, but on the little island of Fogo. To console ourselves, we went to the little restaurant nearby to get some dinner and then returned to our lovely, IKEA-like room and went to bed.

The next morning, we had another amazing breakfast - this time with absolutely delicious homemade guava jam - and prepared for our tour of the island with Mike. But before we left, we had a surprise: our taxi driver from the night before who we had roundly abused had returned rather sheepishly because he had realized that through a miscommunication we had given more money than the actual fare and he returned the remainder to us. Our day was already off to a good start!

Cape Verde - Beginnings and Tarrafal

I haven't posted on here for a while now, but I've been trying to catch my breath ever since I've returned to Cape Verde. Presentations, papers, tests, and demanding host siblings have all gotten in the way of creating a trip report until now.

First things first, Cape Verde is AMAZING. It is far and away one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and a welcome change from Dakar. Although I've grown attached Dakar, it was lovely to spend a week somewhere much cleaner, greener, and more lowkey than my host city. It is hard to believe that the seemingly lush island was uninhabited until the 1400s (thanks for the history lesson, Grace!) when the island was used for trading of goods - and slaves. The majority of the plants on Cape Verde were actually not native to the area which is even more difficult to believe since the palm, banana and papaya trees seem so natural for the area. Cape Verde is a former Portugeuse colony, so while they are not far apart, Cape Verde and Senegal are wildly different in terms of language, culture, and people.



We arrived on Saturday evening after a surprisingly pleasant trip on Senegal Airlines. After our earlier cancellation fiasco and our experience with the other refined forms of Senegalese owned transportation (car rapide, anyone?), we were shocked at how nice it was while on board. On an hour and a half trip from Dakar to Praia, we received a beverage and sandwich and muffin, something we Americans regarded with a little too much enthusiasm. When we landed in Praia, on the island of Santiago, shortly before dusk, we began having our first bouts of culture shock. It was disorienting and we continually marveled, a bit suspiciously, of what we were and were not experiencing. The customs official was polite and friendly? We didn't need to ward off countless men with luggage carts or phone cards? We couldn't see through the floor of our taxi? It was a bit unsettling, and by the end of the first day, we made a decision to consciously not make any more comparisons between Cape Verde and Dakar.

Language became a problem really quickly. The prepared young adventurers we are, we completely forgot to bring our guidebook or learn any Portuguese or Creole phrases before we arrived. Whoops. So the two hour drive to Tarrafal must have seemed like an eternity to our cab driver as the four American girls in his car could only interact with him through "hola," awkward hand gestures, and uncomfortable laughter. It was an odd ride, mostly though the dark on winding roads, presumably though the mountains along the coast. But our faithful driver pulled through for us, and we arrived in Tarrafal at a small, beachside hotel called the Baia Verde.

We had arranged all of our hotels ahead of time. Our decision making process was basically comprised of internet searches and random guidebook selections. If it was cheap, it was worth consideration. We either have great intuition, or a lot of luck, or both, because all of our hotels turned out to be great. The Baia Verde is comprised of a series of bungalows situated behind a wall on an amazingly gorgeous beach. We really enjoyed our four days here which consisted of relaxing on the nearly empty white sand beach, swimming in the clear, warm waters, and exploring the tiny, quiet fishing town of Tarrafal.

With the help of our friendly, English speaking tourism official Carlos, we managed to visit, via covered pickup truck, a former concentration camp outside of the town. In this camp, political prisoners from Portugal and the Portuguese African colonies were kept for years.

The next day we resolved to climb the mountains to the lighthouse that we could see from the beach. We had been told by Carlos that the hike was about an hour and a half to the top, and after spending a month in Senegal where people think you have lost your mind if you want to walk five minutes, we figured that that would be a total overestimation. It wasn’t. What started as a stroll through tree-covered path along the coast turned into a scramble up loose rocks and thorny paths littered with cow droppings and the occasional giant cow. As we started up the mountain, we noticed a teenage boy following us. Through a mixture of hand signals and Portuguese/French cognates, our new friend Etu (at least we think that was his name) managed to lead us to the top of the mountain losing two shoes in the process.

On Wednesday, after another delicious Cape Verdean breakfast, we caught one of the many sixteen person vans that constitute public transportation in Cape Verde to return to Praia in order to take the ferry to Fogo. Bags piled on our laps, music blaring, we drove nearly three hours through the tiny towns that dotted the coastline to the capital. We found a taxi that took us to the port where we ate lunch and watched a Portuguese soap opera that could rival even its Wolof counterpart in terms of melodrama. When the ferry arrived, we tried to understand the luggage requirements – a more complicated process when you have no idea what is going on and cannot speak the language – and we finally boarded the ferry. We were shocked by how pleasant it was inside, clean and air-conditioned with comfy, airline style seats and flat screen TVs. We were almost sad that our journey was only three hours long.

Well, we were sad. I guess we should have known when the attendants began handing out Dramamine and plastic bags that our trip may not be as pleasant as we anticipated…

"C'est une expérience"

Living as an American in Senegal is always challenging, but I feel like the past few days have been particularly...culturally enlightening. Life here can be chaotic, hot, dusty, and utterly frustrating at times. Some days, during the stiflingly hot walk back home from school I think that I might just snap at the next person who hisses at me to get my attention, the next cab that honks because they think that no white person would ever want to walk, the next talibe who shakes who holds out his hand and insistently asks for money. But I have found that I am pretty good at being tolerant - much to my surprise - by simply taking the attitude that no matter what irritating experience I have, it's an experience.

When we travel downtown to go the the Cape Verdean embassy only to find that it moved six months ago, then spend an hour wandering around the Corniche chatting with every embassy guard to figure out its location, it's another story to add to my journal. When the power goes out for twenty hour periods of time, it's another image to add to my mental scrapbook. When I realize that I don't know the name or relationship of the child who has been living in my home for almost a week now, it's another anecdote to tell my friend. It's Senegal, it's West Africa, it's different. I didn't come here for things to be the same.

But sometimes, this attitude is sorely tested. Today, my friends and I tried to travel to Cape Verde. We had booked hotels, we had planned transportation, we had a schedule of where we wanted to go. I think that was our first mistake. After getting up at 4 am - an ungodly hour in Senegal - and my host parents had driven us to the airport, we tried to check in. We found that our interactions with the air staff went something like this:

A: Asalaam malekum. Can we check in for the flight to Cape Verde here?
B: We don't have a final list of passengers yet. Wait over there.
20 minutes later:
A: Ca va? We want to check in for the flight to Cape Verde.
B: Cape Verde? Today? You want to go to Cape Verde today?
A (confused): Yes, our tickets are for the 7:30 flight today.
B (laughing): You aren't going on a flight to Cape Verde today. There's no plane leaving for Cape Verde.
A stares: Are you joking with us? I thought you said we were waiting on a list of passengers?
B (still laughing): No, it was cancelled a week ago. They should have contacted you. You can fly out tomorrow. Get a new voucher. By the way, do you have a husband?

The airport to begin with is an extremely stressful place. As soon as you leave the building, you are mobbed with people hissing and calling, "change argent? change argent?" or "you need taxi?" This atmosphere, combined with having slept very little, the fact that you know you are getting ripped off for the taxi but not feeling coherent enough to argue about it, and a general sense of frustration and disappointment, soon becomes very overwhelming. But it's an experience. A frustrating, irritating experience, but an experience nonetheless. C'est dommage, mais c'est Afrique, as my host mother said when all four of us dejectedly returned to my house. It's too bad, but that's Africa.

And as we laid in my bedroom after the family had gone to work or school, trying to figure out how we could spend our day, we tried to put it in perspective. We haven't spent much time exploring Dakar yet and we can start today. My towel wasn't dry anyway, now it has time to dry. I over-packed, now I can narrow down some of my clothes. It's frustrating, yes, but it's okay. And as we talked, we realized that even the weirdest, most annoying situations here turned out to be okay.

Though people here - either through aggression or obliqueness - can be the cause of the problem, they are always part of the solution. When the bakery didn't have change for the pastry I tried to buy, they told me instead that I could take it, and come back to pay when I could. When yesterday, we found ourselves in a sketchy situation walking home from school, a man stopped his car on the side of the highway and walked us for five minutes to our destination to make sure we got there okay. After our morning today, my host family made all four of us breakfast and suggested alternative ways we could spend the first day of our vacation, even if it wasn't in Cape Verde.

C'est Afrique.

After four weeks...

Things I miss about the U.S.:

1) Change: So having change (monnaie in French, wecchet in Wolof) sounds like nothing. In the States, I had no appreciation at all for coins. Sitting here, I am thinking wistfully of the pouch full of American coins that I left back at home. Everything in Senegal revolves around change - having change, making change, keeping change. It's one of the little things that should be nothing, but ends up being extremely stressful. I need to have change to get on the bus or car rapide to go to dance and drum classes, to pay for snacks from the little boutiques all around Dakar, to buy a mango at the fruit stand. I need change to so I don't have to uncomfortably give the vendor that I've bargained with the money I originally said I didn't have. I find that I actually spend more money in order to break the 10,000 CFA bill so that I have change for the next day. One of the most satisfying events that can happen to me is to be able to get a few coins back....only to spend them again.

2) Public transportation: I've started taking the car rapide to get to my music classes in the evening, and the bus back to Sacre Coeur. Like everything else in Senegal, it's crowded, unpredictable, and always a bit questionable. I used to complain about when the Metro was delayed or overly crowded. Practically any bus system in the U.S. looks extremely attractive compared to this.

3) Clean air: I never really thought about the air around U.S. cities as being particularly lovely, but Dakar's mix of smog - there are people burning garbage, cooking over open flames all around the streets in addition to bigger sources of pollution - dust, exhaust, and general humidity makes walking less than pleasant. I simply cannot understand how Senegalese women keep their clothing so spotless in the midst of all this.

4) Mexican food: enough said.


What I do not miss about the U.S.:

1) Cell phone service: The cell network in Senegal is way more reliable and easier to use than that in the U.S - the country seems to run on Orange, the major cell provider. For about $30 you can buy a cheap phone, and then you buy a little card that has a code worth X amount of credit. For 1000 CFA, or about $2, you can send about 50 texts or talk for 10 minutes. It's super easy, fairly inexpensive, and perfect for study abroad students. And all cell phones have a flashlight built in... wonder why...? :)

2) Hot showers: Cold showers after a day in Dakar feel a million times better than any hot shower in the U.S.

Babacar's birthday

Today is my (now) seven-year-old host brother's birthday. In many Muslim families, birthdays are not celebrated, but my family is an exception. It was basically like an American birthday celebration except there are no presents although I gave him a little bag of American bouncy balls, stickers, and pens that I brought with me from the U.S. We had his favorite meal, something that I think is a Senegalese version of Chinese food - eggroll type things with lettuce, some little spicy noodle dish, and chicken. There was definitely soy involved. Then we had fruit juices which I was so excited about - it's not often I get something cold to drink, let alone juice. We lit the candles on his cake and sang happy birthday in English, French and Wolof. It was a really fancy cake that was more like a layered custard and was delicious. All in all, a reassuringly "normal" event.


"Petit Papa's" cake



Babacar preparing to blow out the candles while waiting for us to finish the three versions of Happy Birthday. Note: this is one of the few occurrence when a light is turned off by choice. We only lost power (I'm cursing myself by writing this now ) once and Babacar cried something along the lines of "the power can't be cut on my birthday!" and then it came back on. Why hadn't anyone thought of that before? :)


A photo of Charlotte, Babacar and my favorite aunt, Astou - my host mom and uncle had gone to bed at this point and Dairra, the maid, was taking the picture. My siblings were so obsessed with taking photos that I know have a picture of every possible combination of the five of us.

Weekend at Toubab Diallo

As classes really start up and I begin to have some actual homework, my blog posts have become a bit less frequent. I have been in Senegal for over three weeks now. In some ways, I feel like I have been here forever, but in others, I feel like I just arrived. Communication is obviously the biggest challenge for me. It's interesting because since I've been here, I have had to switch my language base from English to French. As I learn Wolof, both inside and outside of class, I must resort back to French when I do not understand or need to ask a question. It's a different way for me of refining my French, as while I do not hear it all the time around me, I am dependent on my French skills to learn another language. While I'm struggling a little to gain a basic knowledge of Wolof, my French has already become a bit more natural than when I arrived. Although, as my host uncle reminds me, it would be even better if my friends and I didn't speak English together outside of school. However, I am valuing my sanity more than my language skills at this moment.

This weekend was definitely a good way of restoring a bit of sanity in a city and country that causes one to go a bit insane. My program in Dakar arranged a weekend away in Toubab Diallo, a fishing community a couple hours away from Dakar, for the students and staff of my program. We left on Saturday morning in two air-conditioned buses that, as a friend remarked, were the nicest place she'd been in since the plane to Dakar. This was the first time that I have left Dakar, so I particularly enjoyed the drive. While some of the time is spent on highways, much of it is also spent crossing through crowded, bumpy streets full of people and goats. I particularly loved seeing the baobabs that seemed to sprout up everywhere once you nleave the city. It is all very pretty and green at the moment, something I didn't expect after three weeks in Dakar.



I know I said this in the last post about Goree, but Toubab Diallo is seriously one of the prettiest places I've been. The village itself would shock most Americans - it's basically homes that look like a series of little boxes, often with walls around them. But people are friendly, and the children who shout "toubab!" when we walk by seem less malevolent than those of Dakar. My favorite was one little girl who followed us a certain distance and when we stopped to say hello, she solemnly studied me, then pointed to her eyes. After a few seconds, I placed the sunglasses that were on my head over my eyes a bit uncertainly, hoping that she wouldn't demand to have them after. But she simply said "oui," smiled, and trotted off.

Our hotel was really, as my host siblings like to say with distorted American accents, cool. Toubab Diallo is known for being an artist community, and the place we stayed was basically a work of art. It was spaced into two little sections - one right on the ocean, and another a bit farther back that includes workshops, and a couple of areas for performing music or dance. The stone buildings were all distinctive, decorated with patterns of tiles and shells and topped with thatched roofs. The whole area was surrounded by gardens, sculptures, and little seating areas that included hammocks.

My group of seven girls was lucky, as we had a room that had a bathroom, loft, and a direct view of the ocean.

As part of our stay in the hotel, we could choose to take either a dance, drum, or batik class. I chose to create a batik. We were given squares of fabric, stencils, and pencils and were told to create a design. After we had outlined this, we painted in the areas with hot wax. The fabric was then dyed (mine was red) and hung to dry. After it dried, everywhere that was wax was white, and the rest was red. Then we added another layer of wax and and dyed it a new color. When it was all finished, the areas that were coated with wax the second time were the only areas that remained red, and the rest was a dark green. There was really no way to mess the process up - everyone's batik ended up looking really good at the end.

On Saturday evening, we saw a music and dance performance - with participation - and after we simply sat outside by the ocean.



The waves were pretty rough during the weekend we were there, and there were a lot of rocks, so while the water was really nice and warm, it was hard to stay out too long.


Sunday was mostly a beach and reading day, and when we returned, I think everyone felt a lot more relaxed and a little more sunburned.