This past weekend was pretty fantastic. Friday morning I got my hair braided (again). Now I am constantly told that I am “vrai senegalaise” and people constantly tell me to send my American mother a picture of my hair. Friday evening I tried Indian food for the very first time AND LOVED IT. Saturday morning I volunteered at a handicapped children’s center, which consisted of assembling and dissembling puzzles with some five-year-olds for a few hours. I plan on going back there every weekend. Saturday during the day I went to an artisanal market, where I spent way too much money on stuff that I hope isn’t too touristy. Alyssa (whose Senegalese name is Fatima) and I were in a jewelry boutique where a man was trying to sell her a necklace portraying the hand of Fatima (in Islam the hand of Fatima is supposed to have healing powers). This vendor asked me my Senegalese name, and I said I didn’t have one, so he gave me the name Aisha. Admittedly this is not the first Senegalese name I have been given, but it is the first one that I have been able to remember/I really like the Aisha, so this one is sticking. Not to mention, I have started to feel bad about forcing people to try to pronounce the name Rebecca. That night I went to a concert featuring the popular Senegalese hip-hop group, Daara J Family. Although the venue was kind of upscale, it was really cool to be part of such a diverse audience. I’m pretty sure every racial group was equally represented, which rarely happens here. Sunday I spent the entire day at the beach, and except for getting sea urchin spikes stuck in my foot, it was a beautiful afternoon.
Monday and Tuesday this week there was a “grève du pain,” (strike by the boulangeries) so there was no bread anywhere in Dakar. This was a rather frustrating few days, and I realized just how much bread I eat in a given day. They were protesting all of the power outages.
So, rather upsettingly, the other night I realized just how desensitized I have become to poverty and people begging. A boy came up to me, holding a prescription note. There was obviously something wrong with his eyes and he was clearly sick and/or handicapped. At first I just said “Ba beneen yoon,” which means “next time,” something that we’re supposed to say to all people/kids who ask for money. But then, I realized that this kid wasn’t a talibé (will explain what that is momentarily), but a kid who truly needed help and medical attention. As this popped into my head, I froze. By the time I could spring into action, he had walked away to ask someone else. I was so upset, I just wanted to go and hide and cry and wonder why the world is so unjust. Instead, I resolved that I would not allow myself to stay so desensitized. I bought a package of cookies/crackers that I keep in my backpack, and now whenever I pass a talibé, I give him a cookie. Talibés are young boys who go to Koranic schools (because their parents send them there) and are forced to roam the streets begging for money. In the rural areas, these are supposedly reputable schools; the begging is for the boys to learn hardship and grow as a person for it. They are still taught the Koran and they are still given decent living conditions. In the city, namely Dakar, these Koranic schools have become very corrupt. Now instead of teaching these boys the Koran, the teachers use them simply as money-making machines by putting them on the streets and then beating them if they do not collect a certain quota. One of my professors here works for Amnesty International, and she brought in pictures that showed the harsh conditions these boys are forced to live in. One picture showed a boy with welts and cuts all over his body. We were told that when these boys come up to us, we shouldn’t give them money because that is just prolonging the system. Instead, if we want to be charitable, we should give them food because they are most likely hungry. On my walk to school every day there are always a group of boys holding little buckets who come up to me and ask for money. Now, when I give them each a cookie, their faces turn from miserable and disconnected to happy. Even if it only lasts a minute, these boys deserve to experience some level of happiness in their lives.
I just finished Zenzele: A Letter to my Daughter, a book I read for my literature class. I must say it was one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read. I recommend it.
Last night was a ridiculous series of events. I had gotten sick three days ago, but this time I decided to skip out on the doctor visit and take my leftover meds from last time. I was still feeling pretty miserable yesterday, and altogether not having a great day. When I got home, Soso had dinner ready for me: rice and lentils. I took a shower and donned a pair of shorts and a tank top, an outfit I only wear around the house before I go to bed. I was sitting on the couch reading when Soso put down a glass of beer in front of me and said, “Ca fait du bien” (that will do you well). She then put a bed sheet on the ground and proceeded to lie down on the ground with her bottle of beer watching TV. Suddenly, a visitor came to the front gate, catching Soso off guard. I’m guessing he was a guy from her church. She panicked that she didn’t have any beer left, so she gave me some cash and told me to go to the liquor store around the corner. I laughed the entire way there… there I was, wearing shorts and a tank top, going on a beer run for my host mom in Senegal. When I got back her and her guest kept refilling my glass and insisted that I drink all that they gave me. Conclusion: Soso can put a smile on my face, even after the worst days.
I finally got a gym membership. Running outside just does not appeal to me when I get unnecessary attention for wearing shorts, it is hot, and I constantly inhale exhaust fumes. I went to an exercise class this morning and was put to shame by some middle-aged European women... pretty much exactly what I expected would happen.
And now onto a four-day weekend!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Les reflechis mi-semestriel
My semester/time here in Senegal has reached the half-way point. I feel like I should reflect on my experience as a whole thus far.
If I had to use one term to describe the past two months, it would be "eye opening." In many ways I knew what to expect as far as cultural differences go, as well as obvious issues that come with traveling to a developing country. What I didn't know was how I would personally react to everything. I have felt some pretty extreme emotions since coming to Senegal... I knew that unemployment and poverty are major issues, but there is worlds of difference between hearing that in class or reading it in a book and seeing Polio survivors without legs crawling around on the street begging for money. I also knew that Senegal's current government is somewhat corrupt, but seeing people burning tires and rioting in the streets in protest of government actions (namely, turning off the power whenever it sees fit) puts a new face to that as well.
One thing that I did not expect is the overall bitterness of the Senegalese (or West Africa in general) towards former European colonizers. All problems are blamed on the fact that the French took all of their wealth. I have never felt so guilty for simply being white than when Elizabeth (who was living at my house at the beginning of the semester) told me in reference to my upcoming visit to Goree Island that I was going to see what "you white people did to our ancestors." (Goree was a hub in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade era). In my African Literature class, literally every book or short story has framed the antagonist/bad guy as the Westerner. One of the Senegalese students told my American friend here that Africa should kick out all the white people and close its borders to them forever... this was not coming from an older person, but a 20-year-old college student. It was sad to hear this, because I hoped that our generation would be accepting of others, no matter what continent or country they are from.
I am incredibly happy with my decision to study abroad here, though I have not fallen in love with the country like so many other students do when they study abroad other places. I have learned so much, not just about Senegal, but also about myself. This experience has forced me to question and reconsider a lot of my former beliefs. For instance, I went into college thinking that I would study international development, then work for an NGO, and essentially save the world. After being here for just two months, I have to say that I have seen just as much negative as I have positive in terms of Western-based NGOs. First of all, so much development work seems to be a second form of Western domination; many development projects force Western ideals on African people, assuming that Africa must modernize in the same way Europe and the US have. One topic that is very frequent in class discussion is womens empowerment as well as excision (female circumcision). The latter topic makes me so angry and I am entirely against it, but as an outsider, I recognize that I do not fully understand the role it plays in society here. There have been many western NGOs that have come to Senegal teaching about its health risks and why it is "wrong," but people continue its practice anyway. Any real societal change has to come from within the community itself; people do not appreciate outsiders coming in and telling them their traditions should be stopped. One of the more frustrating things here is that since gerontocratic hierarchies are so powerful, anything the elders do not agree with won't happen. So much work in terms of womens rights is halted because the female elders do not agree that women should have the same status as men. Rather self-defeating in my opinion, but that's the way it is, I guess. Anyway, that's my rant.
There are many things about Senegal that are starting to grow on me, however. The weather is cooling down a bit and is actually quite beautiful now. I also really just love how generally laid back everything and everyone is here. The food is also becoming more appealing, although I still miss my American food (read: Starbucks). All of the people here are gorgeous, and I love the fact that women do not have this societal pressure to be super thin. I recently discovered that soda is made with REAL sugar here, not high fructose corn syrup, and is rather delicious. This may be a bad thing, because I never drank soda before because I didn't like the taste, so this may start to be an unhealthy habit. I am really surprised I have not gained at least fifty pounds since getting here, but all my clothes still fit so I am not going to worry about it.
Random story: two nights ago, I was lying in bed, pretty much asleep, when I heard something scurrying around my room. I was sure it must be a mouse or some kind of small animal, but when I turned on the light, I found the largest cockroach I have ever seen in my life fluttering around on the floor. I went psycho on this thing... It is definitely the largest creature I have ever killed. For the rest of the night, I was so paranoid that an army of giant cockroaches were going to come and avenge the death of their friend. Thankfully I haven't seen any since.
If I had to use one term to describe the past two months, it would be "eye opening." In many ways I knew what to expect as far as cultural differences go, as well as obvious issues that come with traveling to a developing country. What I didn't know was how I would personally react to everything. I have felt some pretty extreme emotions since coming to Senegal... I knew that unemployment and poverty are major issues, but there is worlds of difference between hearing that in class or reading it in a book and seeing Polio survivors without legs crawling around on the street begging for money. I also knew that Senegal's current government is somewhat corrupt, but seeing people burning tires and rioting in the streets in protest of government actions (namely, turning off the power whenever it sees fit) puts a new face to that as well.
One thing that I did not expect is the overall bitterness of the Senegalese (or West Africa in general) towards former European colonizers. All problems are blamed on the fact that the French took all of their wealth. I have never felt so guilty for simply being white than when Elizabeth (who was living at my house at the beginning of the semester) told me in reference to my upcoming visit to Goree Island that I was going to see what "you white people did to our ancestors." (Goree was a hub in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade era). In my African Literature class, literally every book or short story has framed the antagonist/bad guy as the Westerner. One of the Senegalese students told my American friend here that Africa should kick out all the white people and close its borders to them forever... this was not coming from an older person, but a 20-year-old college student. It was sad to hear this, because I hoped that our generation would be accepting of others, no matter what continent or country they are from.
I am incredibly happy with my decision to study abroad here, though I have not fallen in love with the country like so many other students do when they study abroad other places. I have learned so much, not just about Senegal, but also about myself. This experience has forced me to question and reconsider a lot of my former beliefs. For instance, I went into college thinking that I would study international development, then work for an NGO, and essentially save the world. After being here for just two months, I have to say that I have seen just as much negative as I have positive in terms of Western-based NGOs. First of all, so much development work seems to be a second form of Western domination; many development projects force Western ideals on African people, assuming that Africa must modernize in the same way Europe and the US have. One topic that is very frequent in class discussion is womens empowerment as well as excision (female circumcision). The latter topic makes me so angry and I am entirely against it, but as an outsider, I recognize that I do not fully understand the role it plays in society here. There have been many western NGOs that have come to Senegal teaching about its health risks and why it is "wrong," but people continue its practice anyway. Any real societal change has to come from within the community itself; people do not appreciate outsiders coming in and telling them their traditions should be stopped. One of the more frustrating things here is that since gerontocratic hierarchies are so powerful, anything the elders do not agree with won't happen. So much work in terms of womens rights is halted because the female elders do not agree that women should have the same status as men. Rather self-defeating in my opinion, but that's the way it is, I guess. Anyway, that's my rant.
There are many things about Senegal that are starting to grow on me, however. The weather is cooling down a bit and is actually quite beautiful now. I also really just love how generally laid back everything and everyone is here. The food is also becoming more appealing, although I still miss my American food (read: Starbucks). All of the people here are gorgeous, and I love the fact that women do not have this societal pressure to be super thin. I recently discovered that soda is made with REAL sugar here, not high fructose corn syrup, and is rather delicious. This may be a bad thing, because I never drank soda before because I didn't like the taste, so this may start to be an unhealthy habit. I am really surprised I have not gained at least fifty pounds since getting here, but all my clothes still fit so I am not going to worry about it.
Random story: two nights ago, I was lying in bed, pretty much asleep, when I heard something scurrying around my room. I was sure it must be a mouse or some kind of small animal, but when I turned on the light, I found the largest cockroach I have ever seen in my life fluttering around on the floor. I went psycho on this thing... It is definitely the largest creature I have ever killed. For the rest of the night, I was so paranoid that an army of giant cockroaches were going to come and avenge the death of their friend. Thankfully I haven't seen any since.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Une serie d'événements ridicule
I managed to get sick again (Sunday the 10th, to be exact). This time I was cursed with a sinus infection. In addition to my nose, throat, and ears being in intense pain, the network of back muscles surrounding my formerly fractured spine decided to start cramping up and hurting really badly. So, for the second week now in my tenure here in Senegal, I have had to take many medications. That being said, I decided to take it easy and not go out Wednesday or Thursday night.
I find myself pretty much incapable of sleeping in. I typically wake up around eight, maybe nine the latest. This is rather ironic, because I don’t start class until eleven everyday and could sleep in until ten if I really wanted to. Anyway, on Friday (the first day of the weekend for me here) I woke up knowing that the rest of my friends would not be awake for at least a few hours. After eating my baguette and drinking my instant coffee, I decided I wanted to go for a walk. There is a very European/Western mall probably two kilometers away from my house, so I started to walk there. Unfortunately all of the boutiques at this mall are extraordinarily expensive, but there is a grocery store/supermarket, so I decided to peruse the aisles. One interesting thing about this store: all of the customers are European. This could be because the concept of an all-inclusive grocery store is a very Western thing, or maybe because it is more expensive (although the prices for many things are very in-line with the gas station). As I walked through the store, my instinct was to smile and say “Bonjour” to every person I passed. When I went to do so, however, I was not greeted back, nor did others even acknowledge me. Everyone just minded his or her own business, not making eye contact with anyone else. After living in a setting for the past two months where everyone always says hello to each other, there was something a little off-putting about this. I realized that I have unknowingly warmed up to the African sense of hospitality. Then, I further realized why people I pass walking down the street often seem so surprised by my acknowledgement of them: most toubabs do not give off a friendly air.
That evening I went to “English Conversation Club” hosted by the Youth English Society (YES). YES meets every Friday evening to have a group discussion in order for the members to practice English. They asked some American students/native English speakers to take part. This week’s topic was NGOs and development in Senegal. During this discussion, I learned that many young people/students in Senegal have a very pessimistic outlook on their future due to the extremely high unemployment rate. Many of them feel that their only hope is to find a way to get to the United States or Western Europe, where there are many more jobs. As an American college student, the thought of the future and my being able to get a job is often on my mind, but I still am confident that I will land a job with a decent salary. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be a college student knowing that there will be no work upon graduation. One of the women in the group said that she visited the United States and came back to Senegal, and if she has an opportunity to leave Senegal again she will never come back. “Brain drain” operates with full force in Senegal; the best and brightest, people whom Senegal really needs in their workforce, leave and do not come back.
Later on that night, I met up with some of my fellow students, and we decided to go to a bar where there would be Salsa dancing. I happen to love Salsa dancing, although I must admit that I am very much so out of practice and do not know exactly what I am doing. Unfortunately, not everyone else in my group appreciated Salsa dancing, so we went to a different club instead. This one was much more of a discotheque/club scene with solely hip hop music. Since clubs here are literally open until dawn, we didn’t leave the place until almost four in the morning.
A group of us arrived in Marmoz, our neighborhood in Dakar, around four in the morning to find an alimentation/food stand still open. As strange as it was to see this open, it was even stranger that the place had a line. In fact, I found it altogether pretty crazy just how many people were out and about at that hour of the night/morning. Having just come back from a club, we decided to get sandwiches. We ended up getting the same thing (what I like to call a “chocolate sandwich”): A giant roll of bread with a spread similar to nutella, except instead I think I was just entirely chocolate. The best part: the sandwiches cost just 250 CFA (50 cents). We sat on these cement “benches” that were really just road dividers turned over on their sides. As we sat beneath the night sky full of stars, we reflected on just how ridiculous our current situation was. I walked home with my comrades, went into my house, and noticed that my cell phone was nowhere to be found.
And thus, the cell phone episode began. I tried to remember the last place I had the phone: sitting on the benches eating the sandwiches. Conclusion: I must have dropped it or left it on the bench sometime between getting the sandwich and getting home. I told myself, “okay, the situation is not entirely grave, I have a range of where the phone must be.” The thought of paying for another phone along with the logistical nightmare of getting a new number was enough to make me cringe. However, it was currently 4:30 and still completely dark outside and I was all by myself, so going immediately back out to look for it was not really an option. I figured that the sun would be rising in about two hours, so if I could stay awake until then and then go out as soon as it started to get light outside, I may be able to find it. I couldn’t just wait until I woke up the next day because it would definitely be found and taken at that point. So, I forced myself to stay awake, and by six, I was so tired that I decided that I couldn’t wait any longer to leave. I put on my running shoes so I could make a quick getaway if needed/so I could pretend like I was just a toubab on her morning run (entirely untrue). As I started to walk out the front door, Soso, who was already awake, came running to see what was going on. I explained that I lost my cell phone and needed to find it right away. I expected her to reply with “you’re crazy, go back to bed, you’re not going to find it.” Instead, however, she looked at me and told me that I absolutely needed to go and find it, right at that moment. So I ventured off into the dark, hoping that the sun would rise any minute. I got back to the benches where we were eating the sandwiches less than two hours previously and started searching the ground, to no avail. I was starting to get really upset at this point, not to mention I was very, very tired. It was the morning hour when many people go to the mosque, which was right across the street, and I was getting some really strange looks. I decided to ask the man who sold me the sandwich if he had seen a cell phone lying around anywhere. He immediately recognized me as the girl who bought the chocolate sandwich two hours before. I attempted to explain what was going on in calm, composed French, but it just came out as, “J’AI PERDU MON PORTABLE ICI IL Y A DEUX HEURES!!!” He took my phone number called the phone over and over again as the two of us searched the ground for the phone. Another man who was in line for the food stand started to help us too. Suddenly, this [presumably] homeless man that had been sitting on the benches, kind of crazily just singing to himself, started reaching in this gap that was in the cement benches. One of the men helping me asked the homeless man if he had seen my phone.
“Is it black and red?”
“YES!”
“It’s in here.” He points to this small crevice in the cement bench.
For the next ten minutes, the three men try to get the phone out. When they couldn’t get it out by reaching in the gap, they tried to tip the bench, but it was too heavy, so they finally found a stick/tree branch that they fished it out with. The man had wrapped my phone many times in newspaper and stuffed it in there. The two men told me that I should thank the homeless man for putting my phone in a safe place, so I did thank him profusely, but I still wondered what thought process went into putting a cell phone there. I thanked the other men for helping me, and then I ran back home, arriving at my house just as the sun started to rise.
I went to sleep at seven in the morning, and when I woke up three and a half hours later (once again, unable to sufficiently sleep in), I really wondered if all that had been a dream. I checked my phone, and sure enough, I had a plethora of missed calls at about 6:15 in the morning from the man who helped me find the phone.
I cannot believe that those guys were so adamant about helping me, but I will be forever grateful to them for it.
I find myself pretty much incapable of sleeping in. I typically wake up around eight, maybe nine the latest. This is rather ironic, because I don’t start class until eleven everyday and could sleep in until ten if I really wanted to. Anyway, on Friday (the first day of the weekend for me here) I woke up knowing that the rest of my friends would not be awake for at least a few hours. After eating my baguette and drinking my instant coffee, I decided I wanted to go for a walk. There is a very European/Western mall probably two kilometers away from my house, so I started to walk there. Unfortunately all of the boutiques at this mall are extraordinarily expensive, but there is a grocery store/supermarket, so I decided to peruse the aisles. One interesting thing about this store: all of the customers are European. This could be because the concept of an all-inclusive grocery store is a very Western thing, or maybe because it is more expensive (although the prices for many things are very in-line with the gas station). As I walked through the store, my instinct was to smile and say “Bonjour” to every person I passed. When I went to do so, however, I was not greeted back, nor did others even acknowledge me. Everyone just minded his or her own business, not making eye contact with anyone else. After living in a setting for the past two months where everyone always says hello to each other, there was something a little off-putting about this. I realized that I have unknowingly warmed up to the African sense of hospitality. Then, I further realized why people I pass walking down the street often seem so surprised by my acknowledgement of them: most toubabs do not give off a friendly air.
That evening I went to “English Conversation Club” hosted by the Youth English Society (YES). YES meets every Friday evening to have a group discussion in order for the members to practice English. They asked some American students/native English speakers to take part. This week’s topic was NGOs and development in Senegal. During this discussion, I learned that many young people/students in Senegal have a very pessimistic outlook on their future due to the extremely high unemployment rate. Many of them feel that their only hope is to find a way to get to the United States or Western Europe, where there are many more jobs. As an American college student, the thought of the future and my being able to get a job is often on my mind, but I still am confident that I will land a job with a decent salary. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be a college student knowing that there will be no work upon graduation. One of the women in the group said that she visited the United States and came back to Senegal, and if she has an opportunity to leave Senegal again she will never come back. “Brain drain” operates with full force in Senegal; the best and brightest, people whom Senegal really needs in their workforce, leave and do not come back.
Later on that night, I met up with some of my fellow students, and we decided to go to a bar where there would be Salsa dancing. I happen to love Salsa dancing, although I must admit that I am very much so out of practice and do not know exactly what I am doing. Unfortunately, not everyone else in my group appreciated Salsa dancing, so we went to a different club instead. This one was much more of a discotheque/club scene with solely hip hop music. Since clubs here are literally open until dawn, we didn’t leave the place until almost four in the morning.
A group of us arrived in Marmoz, our neighborhood in Dakar, around four in the morning to find an alimentation/food stand still open. As strange as it was to see this open, it was even stranger that the place had a line. In fact, I found it altogether pretty crazy just how many people were out and about at that hour of the night/morning. Having just come back from a club, we decided to get sandwiches. We ended up getting the same thing (what I like to call a “chocolate sandwich”): A giant roll of bread with a spread similar to nutella, except instead I think I was just entirely chocolate. The best part: the sandwiches cost just 250 CFA (50 cents). We sat on these cement “benches” that were really just road dividers turned over on their sides. As we sat beneath the night sky full of stars, we reflected on just how ridiculous our current situation was. I walked home with my comrades, went into my house, and noticed that my cell phone was nowhere to be found.
And thus, the cell phone episode began. I tried to remember the last place I had the phone: sitting on the benches eating the sandwiches. Conclusion: I must have dropped it or left it on the bench sometime between getting the sandwich and getting home. I told myself, “okay, the situation is not entirely grave, I have a range of where the phone must be.” The thought of paying for another phone along with the logistical nightmare of getting a new number was enough to make me cringe. However, it was currently 4:30 and still completely dark outside and I was all by myself, so going immediately back out to look for it was not really an option. I figured that the sun would be rising in about two hours, so if I could stay awake until then and then go out as soon as it started to get light outside, I may be able to find it. I couldn’t just wait until I woke up the next day because it would definitely be found and taken at that point. So, I forced myself to stay awake, and by six, I was so tired that I decided that I couldn’t wait any longer to leave. I put on my running shoes so I could make a quick getaway if needed/so I could pretend like I was just a toubab on her morning run (entirely untrue). As I started to walk out the front door, Soso, who was already awake, came running to see what was going on. I explained that I lost my cell phone and needed to find it right away. I expected her to reply with “you’re crazy, go back to bed, you’re not going to find it.” Instead, however, she looked at me and told me that I absolutely needed to go and find it, right at that moment. So I ventured off into the dark, hoping that the sun would rise any minute. I got back to the benches where we were eating the sandwiches less than two hours previously and started searching the ground, to no avail. I was starting to get really upset at this point, not to mention I was very, very tired. It was the morning hour when many people go to the mosque, which was right across the street, and I was getting some really strange looks. I decided to ask the man who sold me the sandwich if he had seen a cell phone lying around anywhere. He immediately recognized me as the girl who bought the chocolate sandwich two hours before. I attempted to explain what was going on in calm, composed French, but it just came out as, “J’AI PERDU MON PORTABLE ICI IL Y A DEUX HEURES!!!” He took my phone number called the phone over and over again as the two of us searched the ground for the phone. Another man who was in line for the food stand started to help us too. Suddenly, this [presumably] homeless man that had been sitting on the benches, kind of crazily just singing to himself, started reaching in this gap that was in the cement benches. One of the men helping me asked the homeless man if he had seen my phone.
“Is it black and red?”
“YES!”
“It’s in here.” He points to this small crevice in the cement bench.
For the next ten minutes, the three men try to get the phone out. When they couldn’t get it out by reaching in the gap, they tried to tip the bench, but it was too heavy, so they finally found a stick/tree branch that they fished it out with. The man had wrapped my phone many times in newspaper and stuffed it in there. The two men told me that I should thank the homeless man for putting my phone in a safe place, so I did thank him profusely, but I still wondered what thought process went into putting a cell phone there. I thanked the other men for helping me, and then I ran back home, arriving at my house just as the sun started to rise.
I went to sleep at seven in the morning, and when I woke up three and a half hours later (once again, unable to sufficiently sleep in), I really wondered if all that had been a dream. I checked my phone, and sure enough, I had a plethora of missed calls at about 6:15 in the morning from the man who helped me find the phone.
I cannot believe that those guys were so adamant about helping me, but I will be forever grateful to them for it.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Les vacances d'automne
On Saturday, le 2 Octobre, I woke up in anticipation of fall break. Me being the paranoid person I am, I worried that all of our plans were going to be somehow ruined. We had booked a mini bus the day before to take us from Dakar to Mbour and had to partially pay up front. At first the driver wanted us to pay up front in total, but that was too sketchy and we managed only to pay partially up front. I dragged my bags across Mermoz (my neighborhood in Dakar) to campus to meet up with everyone else, wrought with worry that the driver/bus would take the money we gave him yesterday and run. Thankfully, he showed up and the twelve of us piled into our party bus. At this point, my next worry was getting to the rental house, as we did not actually arrange to go directly to the house, but a hospital in Mbour where the landlord would meet us. We met him and arrived at the house safely, alxumdulilay.
Now, before I continue, I feel it is worth mentioning that I had every reason to be very paranoid. Our fall break plans had already completely fallen through once, almost twice. Of course, my original hope for fall break was to somehow get to Timbuktu, but after conducting a little bit of research I learned that it takes at least a week to get to Timbuktu from Dakar. Thus, getting there, seeing the city, and coming back within ten days would have been virtually impossible. Not to mention, the cost of a visa to Mali alone was enough to nix my plans. (Zach: I apologize I did not heed your “DBAP,” but it seriously would not have worked.) Anyway, as I wrote in my previous entry, our plans to visit the Cassamance were not approved due to recent violence in the area. We had dropped 31,000 CFA on the ferry tickets to get there and back (over $60). We managed to switch the dates of the tickets, so now we are going for a whirlwind weekend tour of Zinguenchor, the capital of the Cassamance (this area is safe, supposedly), in the middle of November. This is not the ideal situation, but at least we did not completely lose that money. In regards to fall break, the “don’t trust anyone” message from orientation did not leave my brain. If the landlord had not shown up, our entire break would have been ruined.
The house was breathtaking, at least in the first impression. The beds were very comfortable, there was air conditioning in all of the bedrooms, the upstairs and downstairs had a giant porch, and the backyard was connected to the beach. I was expecting that we would have the house to ourselves for the week, just like how my Frisbee team gets beach houses for spring break each year. It turned out that the family that keeps up the house (the actual landlord is some guy in France) actually lives on the compound of the house in a small house next to the garage in the front yard. This had positives and negatives. Positives: the husband, Felix, acted as a guard at night and during the day, so we did not have to worry about people breaking into the house; the wife, Faatu, cleaned the house during the week and cooked our meals for us; the four-year-old daughter, Aminata, was super cute and hung out with us all the time. Negatives: being American college students, we were somewhat expecting a spring break-esque week, and now we had the responsibility of keeping the noise down and not just waiting until the end of the week to clean up after ourselves.
Unfortunately, we quickly learned that power outages are not limited to Dakar. In fact, for the first half of the week we were in Mbour, I estimate that we lacked power about 90% of the time. This was not much of a problem during the day, but it made the nights pretty much unbearable. The fans and air conditioning in the bedrooms relied on electricity, so without power the rooms became very stuffy and hot. The only thing more uncomfortable than being in a super hot room with little airflow is being in said room under a mosquito net. I quickly gave up on the mosquito net, which caused me to get eaten alive. I seriously have never seen so many insects in one place. By just the second or third day we were there, all of us looked like we had a bad case of chicken pox all over our legs. There soon was a shortage of cooking gas, making it difficult for us to make dinner (Faatu prepared our breakfast and lunch everyday). By the fourth day we were there, the water had also stopped working. This ended up being the breaking point for a few of us. If it weren’t for the ocean right next to us, we may have lost it completely.
The ocean was super warm, almost to the point of it being weird. Swimming was quite relaxing most of the time, although we had to deal with some serious creepers. Very few women go to beaches in Senegal, so a group of 20-year-old white girls must be quite the sight. Sometimes men would just not leave us alone. Even if some of the guys from our group were with us, we would still get harassed. Soon we realized that if we swam out far enough, we would not be followed. Thus, I got a bit of exercise treading water. The creeping did not end after we left the beach, however. Men would still follow us around even in town. I started to get really frustrated, and I wondered why they would not leave us alone… Mbour is a popular vacation spot for Europeans, and I saw a few other toubabs walking around. Then it hit me: Mbour must rarely see toubabs under the age of 65. None of the Senegalese people in Mbour believed us when we said we were American. Many said that they had never met an American before, and then asked us if we personally knew Obama. Of course, saying we were American also attracted some unwanted attention, so by the end of the week we were making up all sorts of fake identities. A few times we said we were French, which one man responded to by asking (in French), “Why don’t you speak better French then?” A few of the girls in my group who have really fair skin were called Swedish a few times so they finally just went with it and started speaking fake Swedish/gibberish to each other. This backfired when we were trying to ward off creepers by saying we were German, because the creepers spoke German as well. One my friends meant to say, “I only speak Spanish,” but instead said “Yo hablo espanol… seulement” (three words in Spanish, followed by a French word… unconvincing). Not all the men were creepers; some were really cool. We could usually figure out if someone was a creeper or not within the first five seconds of interaction with them. If they gave us a menacing stare, called us something like, “la plus belle,” or tried to touch us, they were creepers. Then there were others who genuinely wanted to be friends with us, such as a semi-professional wrestler named Harlem and a few guys from the Baye Fall community. Harlem looked very intimidating at first, but ended up being a gentle giant: he is at least six and a half feet tall and built like a WWE wrestler. The Baye Fall guys just chilled and drummed and danced on the beach for much of the week. One of them spoke English and introduced us to himself and his best friend, a tennis ball. I have never seen one person so amused by one inanimate object for such a long period of time. He would dance holding the ball, he would walk around balancing it on his head, he would continually toss it around, and if he trusted you, he would ask you to play catch with him. The Baye Fall are known for smoking a lot of marijuana, and there was indeed a strong smell indicating its presence. They were so peaceful and seemed to always be happy and having fun though, and a few of us joked that we would just stay in Mbour and become a member of the Baye Fall.
Monday afternoon we went to downtown Mbour on horse drawn carriages. There aren’t any buses or car rapides in Mbour, but there are tons of horse drawn carriages. These carriages are essentially just one giant wooden board put on top of two wheels. I felt like I was going to fall off several different times. We were quite the spectacle: a bunch of toubabs on a horse drawn carriage. A few people even took pictures of us. We went to the “coming of the fishermen” which apparently is a big deal… Once a month a bunch of fishing boats come to the port of Mbour to drop off the fish they have caught. Anyway, I could smell this place way before even arriving. I don’t know why I didn’t realize that the place would reek of fish before getting there, but I was quickly wanted to kick myself for it because the smell that I dislike most is the smell of fish. In addition to the smell being stronger than I ever imagined possible, you could actually taste fish in the air. When I looked at the ground, all I could see was all the fish guts and skeletons blanketing the ground. I literally had to focus all of my energy on not gagging and/or throwing up, and I really thought I was going to lose it. I felt a little better when everyone else seemed to be having a similarly hard time. Unfortunately a man came up to us and decided to give us a tour of the market, stopping every ten feet to explain in depth each type of fish or boat. I must have looked really sick because at one point he asked me if we should take a break so I could sit down. I did not want to be rude and explain that the fish was just too overwhelming for me, so I pushed onward. Once we left the fish market/shore, I took one of the deepest breaths of my life.
On Wednesday morning, we toured Bandia, an animal reserve full of giraffes, zebras, monkeys, rhinos, impalas and birds. One of the first animals I saw was the same type of bird as Zazu from the Lion King. I yelled out, “Zazu!” and pointed at the bird, and our guide started laughing. “Oui! C’est Zazu!” When we stumbled upon a warthog, the guide just pointed and said “Pumba!” This of course is the name of the warthog character in the Lion King. I did not really know how to react to this man knowing all the names to the Lion King characters. It probably means that Americans and/or Europeans come to the Bandia Reserve shouting the names of all the characters in relation to the animals. Needless to say, I found it pretty funny.
Thursday we toured the Delta region in Senegal. It somehow took us three hours to get there by van (it was only supposed to take about an hour). It was interesting to see some of the smaller villages, but at the same time somewhat awkward. I’m all for local tourism or avoiding the major typically touristy cities, but something about going and walking through these villages did not settle well with me. Here we are, a group of Americans, walking through a village that would otherwise be minding its own business. Our guide tried to encourage us to take pictures, but somehow taking pictures of people in their daily lives seemed very patronizing to me. I know that I would not want a group of foreigners disturbing the peace in my village and snapping photos of me as though I were some kind of prop or attraction. One man came up to me and asked me what my favorite part of the village was. I replied that I liked all the baobabs, because they do not exist in the United States. Upon hearing this, the man insisted that I take baobab fruits/seeds with me and start a colony in the US. I tried to explain that this was illegal, but he then repeatedly told me that there was no way that Obama would outlaw baobabs. Then I tried to explain biodiversity and how baobabs would interrupt the natural species of plants and animals in North America. Then he told me that I was just close-minded for believing that. We ended the conversation by agreeing to disagree. On the way back to Mbour we passed a group of kids playing what seemed to be tag or some kind of running around game. When we got closer we saw that the person who was “it” was actually a boy running around with a potato sack on his head holding – I kid you not – two machetes. He kept banging them together and running around chasing the other kids. Meanwhile, our guide just laughed and waved to them, not noticing our mortified faces.
The culture and behavior of people differed tremendously from Dakar to Mbour. I can’t help but think of the analogy that Dakar is to Senegal what Chicago is to the State of Illinois; people in Chicago act much differently than people in downstate Illinois, just like how people in Dakar have different mannerisms than the rest of Senegal. During orientation week, we were taught that the Senegalese have the concept of “Teranga,” or hospitality. This seemed like a very positive thing during orientation, but now that I have really experienced “Teranga” I can say that it is really overwhelming. Sometimes (most of the time) I really like my space, and I do not feel like having a conversation with every person I pass on the road. Also, people can be really pushy. The whole idea that “everything belongs to everyone” seems to be abused when random people come up to me on the street and say “Give me 100 Francs”. Since there is no real concept of private property here, people did not seem to have a problem with just walking into our backyard and sitting down and talking to us. I had a hard time dealing with this at first, especially when some random guy just decided to take a nap under one of the trees of the backyard for the entire afternoon. By the end of the week, I didn’t find it surprising when a person I had never seen before was standing in my backyard asking for a glass of water. Also, gender roles were very apparent in Mbour. Women were generally nowhere to be found, while men were always hanging out in the beach and the streets. Polygamy is legal in Senegal, which means that men can have multiple wives (although a maximum of four) but women can only have one husband. This has its roots in Islam, but I can’t help but wonder how a country like Senegal expects to develop and achieve gender equality if practices like this exist. Simply judging from how most of the men on the beach acted towards us, it is obvious that there is a serious lack of respect for women. I do not find this too surprising, but it still is upsetting. In sum, I feel that it was a very worthwhile break. Leaving Dakar and going to a more remote part of Senegal was much more of an educational experience than anything I have learned in a classroom.
Now, before I continue, I feel it is worth mentioning that I had every reason to be very paranoid. Our fall break plans had already completely fallen through once, almost twice. Of course, my original hope for fall break was to somehow get to Timbuktu, but after conducting a little bit of research I learned that it takes at least a week to get to Timbuktu from Dakar. Thus, getting there, seeing the city, and coming back within ten days would have been virtually impossible. Not to mention, the cost of a visa to Mali alone was enough to nix my plans. (Zach: I apologize I did not heed your “DBAP,” but it seriously would not have worked.) Anyway, as I wrote in my previous entry, our plans to visit the Cassamance were not approved due to recent violence in the area. We had dropped 31,000 CFA on the ferry tickets to get there and back (over $60). We managed to switch the dates of the tickets, so now we are going for a whirlwind weekend tour of Zinguenchor, the capital of the Cassamance (this area is safe, supposedly), in the middle of November. This is not the ideal situation, but at least we did not completely lose that money. In regards to fall break, the “don’t trust anyone” message from orientation did not leave my brain. If the landlord had not shown up, our entire break would have been ruined.
The house was breathtaking, at least in the first impression. The beds were very comfortable, there was air conditioning in all of the bedrooms, the upstairs and downstairs had a giant porch, and the backyard was connected to the beach. I was expecting that we would have the house to ourselves for the week, just like how my Frisbee team gets beach houses for spring break each year. It turned out that the family that keeps up the house (the actual landlord is some guy in France) actually lives on the compound of the house in a small house next to the garage in the front yard. This had positives and negatives. Positives: the husband, Felix, acted as a guard at night and during the day, so we did not have to worry about people breaking into the house; the wife, Faatu, cleaned the house during the week and cooked our meals for us; the four-year-old daughter, Aminata, was super cute and hung out with us all the time. Negatives: being American college students, we were somewhat expecting a spring break-esque week, and now we had the responsibility of keeping the noise down and not just waiting until the end of the week to clean up after ourselves.
Unfortunately, we quickly learned that power outages are not limited to Dakar. In fact, for the first half of the week we were in Mbour, I estimate that we lacked power about 90% of the time. This was not much of a problem during the day, but it made the nights pretty much unbearable. The fans and air conditioning in the bedrooms relied on electricity, so without power the rooms became very stuffy and hot. The only thing more uncomfortable than being in a super hot room with little airflow is being in said room under a mosquito net. I quickly gave up on the mosquito net, which caused me to get eaten alive. I seriously have never seen so many insects in one place. By just the second or third day we were there, all of us looked like we had a bad case of chicken pox all over our legs. There soon was a shortage of cooking gas, making it difficult for us to make dinner (Faatu prepared our breakfast and lunch everyday). By the fourth day we were there, the water had also stopped working. This ended up being the breaking point for a few of us. If it weren’t for the ocean right next to us, we may have lost it completely.
The ocean was super warm, almost to the point of it being weird. Swimming was quite relaxing most of the time, although we had to deal with some serious creepers. Very few women go to beaches in Senegal, so a group of 20-year-old white girls must be quite the sight. Sometimes men would just not leave us alone. Even if some of the guys from our group were with us, we would still get harassed. Soon we realized that if we swam out far enough, we would not be followed. Thus, I got a bit of exercise treading water. The creeping did not end after we left the beach, however. Men would still follow us around even in town. I started to get really frustrated, and I wondered why they would not leave us alone… Mbour is a popular vacation spot for Europeans, and I saw a few other toubabs walking around. Then it hit me: Mbour must rarely see toubabs under the age of 65. None of the Senegalese people in Mbour believed us when we said we were American. Many said that they had never met an American before, and then asked us if we personally knew Obama. Of course, saying we were American also attracted some unwanted attention, so by the end of the week we were making up all sorts of fake identities. A few times we said we were French, which one man responded to by asking (in French), “Why don’t you speak better French then?” A few of the girls in my group who have really fair skin were called Swedish a few times so they finally just went with it and started speaking fake Swedish/gibberish to each other. This backfired when we were trying to ward off creepers by saying we were German, because the creepers spoke German as well. One my friends meant to say, “I only speak Spanish,” but instead said “Yo hablo espanol… seulement” (three words in Spanish, followed by a French word… unconvincing). Not all the men were creepers; some were really cool. We could usually figure out if someone was a creeper or not within the first five seconds of interaction with them. If they gave us a menacing stare, called us something like, “la plus belle,” or tried to touch us, they were creepers. Then there were others who genuinely wanted to be friends with us, such as a semi-professional wrestler named Harlem and a few guys from the Baye Fall community. Harlem looked very intimidating at first, but ended up being a gentle giant: he is at least six and a half feet tall and built like a WWE wrestler. The Baye Fall guys just chilled and drummed and danced on the beach for much of the week. One of them spoke English and introduced us to himself and his best friend, a tennis ball. I have never seen one person so amused by one inanimate object for such a long period of time. He would dance holding the ball, he would walk around balancing it on his head, he would continually toss it around, and if he trusted you, he would ask you to play catch with him. The Baye Fall are known for smoking a lot of marijuana, and there was indeed a strong smell indicating its presence. They were so peaceful and seemed to always be happy and having fun though, and a few of us joked that we would just stay in Mbour and become a member of the Baye Fall.
Monday afternoon we went to downtown Mbour on horse drawn carriages. There aren’t any buses or car rapides in Mbour, but there are tons of horse drawn carriages. These carriages are essentially just one giant wooden board put on top of two wheels. I felt like I was going to fall off several different times. We were quite the spectacle: a bunch of toubabs on a horse drawn carriage. A few people even took pictures of us. We went to the “coming of the fishermen” which apparently is a big deal… Once a month a bunch of fishing boats come to the port of Mbour to drop off the fish they have caught. Anyway, I could smell this place way before even arriving. I don’t know why I didn’t realize that the place would reek of fish before getting there, but I was quickly wanted to kick myself for it because the smell that I dislike most is the smell of fish. In addition to the smell being stronger than I ever imagined possible, you could actually taste fish in the air. When I looked at the ground, all I could see was all the fish guts and skeletons blanketing the ground. I literally had to focus all of my energy on not gagging and/or throwing up, and I really thought I was going to lose it. I felt a little better when everyone else seemed to be having a similarly hard time. Unfortunately a man came up to us and decided to give us a tour of the market, stopping every ten feet to explain in depth each type of fish or boat. I must have looked really sick because at one point he asked me if we should take a break so I could sit down. I did not want to be rude and explain that the fish was just too overwhelming for me, so I pushed onward. Once we left the fish market/shore, I took one of the deepest breaths of my life.
On Wednesday morning, we toured Bandia, an animal reserve full of giraffes, zebras, monkeys, rhinos, impalas and birds. One of the first animals I saw was the same type of bird as Zazu from the Lion King. I yelled out, “Zazu!” and pointed at the bird, and our guide started laughing. “Oui! C’est Zazu!” When we stumbled upon a warthog, the guide just pointed and said “Pumba!” This of course is the name of the warthog character in the Lion King. I did not really know how to react to this man knowing all the names to the Lion King characters. It probably means that Americans and/or Europeans come to the Bandia Reserve shouting the names of all the characters in relation to the animals. Needless to say, I found it pretty funny.
Thursday we toured the Delta region in Senegal. It somehow took us three hours to get there by van (it was only supposed to take about an hour). It was interesting to see some of the smaller villages, but at the same time somewhat awkward. I’m all for local tourism or avoiding the major typically touristy cities, but something about going and walking through these villages did not settle well with me. Here we are, a group of Americans, walking through a village that would otherwise be minding its own business. Our guide tried to encourage us to take pictures, but somehow taking pictures of people in their daily lives seemed very patronizing to me. I know that I would not want a group of foreigners disturbing the peace in my village and snapping photos of me as though I were some kind of prop or attraction. One man came up to me and asked me what my favorite part of the village was. I replied that I liked all the baobabs, because they do not exist in the United States. Upon hearing this, the man insisted that I take baobab fruits/seeds with me and start a colony in the US. I tried to explain that this was illegal, but he then repeatedly told me that there was no way that Obama would outlaw baobabs. Then I tried to explain biodiversity and how baobabs would interrupt the natural species of plants and animals in North America. Then he told me that I was just close-minded for believing that. We ended the conversation by agreeing to disagree. On the way back to Mbour we passed a group of kids playing what seemed to be tag or some kind of running around game. When we got closer we saw that the person who was “it” was actually a boy running around with a potato sack on his head holding – I kid you not – two machetes. He kept banging them together and running around chasing the other kids. Meanwhile, our guide just laughed and waved to them, not noticing our mortified faces.
The culture and behavior of people differed tremendously from Dakar to Mbour. I can’t help but think of the analogy that Dakar is to Senegal what Chicago is to the State of Illinois; people in Chicago act much differently than people in downstate Illinois, just like how people in Dakar have different mannerisms than the rest of Senegal. During orientation week, we were taught that the Senegalese have the concept of “Teranga,” or hospitality. This seemed like a very positive thing during orientation, but now that I have really experienced “Teranga” I can say that it is really overwhelming. Sometimes (most of the time) I really like my space, and I do not feel like having a conversation with every person I pass on the road. Also, people can be really pushy. The whole idea that “everything belongs to everyone” seems to be abused when random people come up to me on the street and say “Give me 100 Francs”. Since there is no real concept of private property here, people did not seem to have a problem with just walking into our backyard and sitting down and talking to us. I had a hard time dealing with this at first, especially when some random guy just decided to take a nap under one of the trees of the backyard for the entire afternoon. By the end of the week, I didn’t find it surprising when a person I had never seen before was standing in my backyard asking for a glass of water. Also, gender roles were very apparent in Mbour. Women were generally nowhere to be found, while men were always hanging out in the beach and the streets. Polygamy is legal in Senegal, which means that men can have multiple wives (although a maximum of four) but women can only have one husband. This has its roots in Islam, but I can’t help but wonder how a country like Senegal expects to develop and achieve gender equality if practices like this exist. Simply judging from how most of the men on the beach acted towards us, it is obvious that there is a serious lack of respect for women. I do not find this too surprising, but it still is upsetting. In sum, I feel that it was a very worthwhile break. Leaving Dakar and going to a more remote part of Senegal was much more of an educational experience than anything I have learned in a classroom.
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