"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.

Football and Goree

This weekend, I was busy with the other CIEE students exploring Dakar. On Saturday afternoon, the program rented out two car rapides and we headed to the Senegal/DRC soccer game.



Having never been to a professional soccer game, let alone a African soccer game, I had no idea what to expect other than craziness. It was a pretty overwhelming experience - similar to American sporting events, but with a specific Senegalese flair. Unlike US games, it was weirdly quiet. No announcements or music to get people excited - not that the fans weren't excited enough - but it was only the sounds of the crowd and the constant presence of drums. It's also interesting for people who don't like sports in particular, because during the game there are many other things to watch: a constant stream of people selling little doughnuts, drinks, popcorn, nuts and bread, fans dancing, a small fire from a flare breaking out and being extinguished in the crowd, and a fan running onto the field and being quickly dragged away by a team of security officials. We're still wondering what happened to him.



Unlike the rest of Dakar, the security at the game was extremely tight. I think that this is due in part to the fact that there are so many people, and a stadium that is not built for crowd control. When the Lions of Senegal won and the game was over, the police that had been stationed around the edge of the field watching the crowd donned full riot gear in preparation for people storming the field. We had already been given instructions about waiting until most of the crowd dispersed to leave and to hold tight to our bags. I think we were all extra-happy that Senegal won this match.

On Sunday, we took a ferry to Ile de Goree, the small island off the coast of Dakar.



It's completely goregous with brightly colored colonial buildings, flowers, and picturesque beaches, but it also has the reputation of being the last stop in Africa for slaves being shipped to the New World. In fact, the tiny island once held 28 different slave houses. Today it's a World Heritage Site, and one such house is preserved as a museum. Here you can see the holding room for the slaves, all marked with small signs designating women, men, young girls, and children. Finally, you can see what is called the Door of No Return - the place where the slaves would be loaded onto ships. It's a really haunting place, especially considering the fact that this is where so many slaves died or were killed in the shark infested waters below.



After leaving the Maison des Esclaves, we toured a couple other museums on the island, had lunch, and then just walked around and explored.


Goree is a popular spot for tourists, so it seemed a little unsettling to see so many foreigners in one place. This also meant that the vendors could speak English as well as French, so the tactic of not understanding French didn't work as well as in downtown Dakar. Finally, we got sometime at the crowded little beach where the water was incredibly warm but not nearly as clean as one would hope. It was still an incredibly relaxing day and good to get away from Dakar for a while.

Adventures in Ouakam

It's Friday evening and the power is out. My little host siblings and I managed to watch a part of a French dubbed Disney Channel show in the short period during which the power was on. Now six of us sit in the darkened living room distracting ourselves from the fact that we will never see if Selena Gomez actually manages to make her brother reappear again by playing with puzzles, or in the case of my teenage host brother and I, on our computers.

This morning, a group of CIEErs living in Sacre Coeur embarked on a trip to Ouakam, a "village" of Dakar where other students lived. For most of us, it was our first time using public transportation without a guide, an endeavor much more confusing and unpredictable than in the U.S. There are a wealth of options for transportation in Dakar, but it's often problematic to find the one that works the best for where you are going and how much time (and patience) you have. It took a few questions and helpful pedestrians, but we eventually found the correct bus and the place to catch it.

Once in Ouakam, we were directed by the assistant on how to get from the station to the statue that overwhelms Ouakam and Dakar as a whole. It had rained during the night and morning, so the "road" was no more than a muddy mess that took us forever to navigate, but we reached it eventually.



The statue is supposed to encourage the African renaissance and be an inspiration to young Africans everywhere. There's really no way to describe how gigantic this statue is. Apparently, it is one of the largest statues in the world. It is immaculately taken care of with landscaping, a boutique, and bathrooms (all of which seem completely unnotable in the United States, but are completely shocking in West Africa). To reach the base of the statue, you go up a seemingly endless route of marble steps. Once you are at the top, there's an amazing view of the city and the ocean - not to mention a great breeze. You can also - for a fee, of course - ascend to the top of the statue itself. We were in awe.


But it's a little unsettling, to say the least, as you stand at the top of this enormous statue that depicts young Africans rising from the ground and look at the underdeveloped city below. It cost an exhorbitant amount of money to create this statue - rumored to be designed by North Koreans - and you wonder if President Wade really thought, "hey, this will solve all our problems! Dakar will be modern and exciting and able to compete with all the other cities of the world!" At the risk of sounding too much of a Harry Potter fanatic, it reminds me more than anything of the fountain in the Ministry of Magic after the Death Eaters, the one where the wizard and witch stand on top of all the enslaved magical creatures. But that may be too far of a stretch.

Anyway, after taking our obligatory photos we met up with a couple of the Ouakam students and followed the highway to the "beach." The one we found was gorgeous, but it's not really meant for swimming or sunbathing. Instead, it's where all the little pirogues leave, and the area is full of fishermen and people exercising. Still, we made our way down the steps past the giant mosque and put our feet in the Atlantic and washed off mud from our trip there.



We decided to walk down the Corniche along the ocean - accompanied by a friendly but worryingly persistant dog friend - to find someplace to get a drink and eventually found our way back to Mermoz where our university is located. It was a lot of walking, but we ended up not needing to figure out the bus situation of the way back. A successful first adventure.

Reflections on Living in Dakar, week 2

When talking to other students in Senegal, I've found that while all of our experiences are very different, we all agree that our lives here could be translated into a certain brand of comedy based on discomfort and awkward, bizarre situations. In addition to the fact that most of us have been in some capacity ill from malaria medication, copious amounts of rich food, and the heat, we have also been dealing with the rather stressful experience of living with a Senegalese family. I have been lucky in that my host family has been extremely kind and generous, but even so, it would be impossible to remain sane here without patience and a sense of humor. A fellow student was telling me today that she went to visit a friend during Korite, and when she arrived, the children of the household ran out from the kitchen bringing her french fries - a Senegalese favorite, for some reason. Unsure if it was acceptable for her to take them and not wanting to draw attention to the issue, she tried to clandestinely push the hot fries in her mouth as the children insisted on continuing to bring them to her.

I find that it's easier to deal with things here by expecting weird, unexplainable things to happen without internalizing them too much yet - it's simply a part of Senegal. There's a horse trotting around the highway untethered? Well, I am in Senegal. I'm hounded by vendors trying to sell the rich American something? I am in Senegal. We have to wait an hour on a packed, shuddering bus? I'm in Senegal. The power goes out for the fourth time during the day? I'm in Senegal. A man is slaughtering a goat on the walk to school? In Senegal.

But more than oddness, I find kindness, intelligence, and tenacity in Dakar. The same children who beg for money during the day play games with old tires with neighborhood children. The Koranic professor in traditional dress who visits my home plays a soccer video game with the six year old boy. The man taking care of his garden and a nearby in the neighborhood explains that he too is an American, and invites me to stop by for dinner with he and his wife anytime I wish to talk with him in English. The man in the boutique nearby gives me an ice cream bar when my host mother insists that I too, like the ten year old girl, am her daughter. Upon seeing us attempting to cross the busy VDN, a passing man walks out on the street to ensure that cars will stop and we are able to cross, then continues on his way. And in these small acts, despite being underdeveloped, Senegal is extremely rich.