I would like to start by apologizing for my negativity in the previous entry. Sometimes academics and Senegal just don’t mix.
Thursday we were advised (by our professor/the program director) to not let final exams and papers deter us from having a good time in our last days in Senegal. I heeded this advice by going to the beach yesterday and I plan on attending a concert later tonight. The papers will get done… inshallah. I’ve already taken the written portion of my French final, and the more I think about it, the more sick to my stomach I get about how badly I probably did… So for now I’m just going to pretend it didn’t happen. French grammar/syntax/style is perhaps one of the most frustrating subjects I’ve ever studied.
Thursday was also Soso’s birthday. I had already made her a card, which I intended to give her with a present containing an Obama t-shirt and a little blue beanie baby/teddy bear that says “American University” on it. Unfortunately I did not have any wrapping paper, and when I pulled the Obama t-shirt out of my bag, I noticed that it somehow got weird orange blotches all over it. So, I settled on just giving her the little AU bear. She ended up loving it, and put it right on her living room shelf. I noticed that she was already preparing for her birthday party, to take place that evening.
I went to the tailor that afternoon to pick up a dress I had been anticipating for quite some time. I had found some gorgeous fabric at one of the markets, and dropped it off at the tailor to make into a dress. The dress at first glance was beautiful, and I couldn’t wait to wear it that night for Soso’s birthday dinner. I got home that evening, and as soon as I went into my room, the power went out. I proceeded to change into the dress, only I noticed that the waist of the dress was missing elastic, nor did the dress have any zipper – essentially, the dress fit my body shape perfectly, but I really had no way of putting it on or taking it off since the waist section was much smaller than my hips and my shoulders. Nevertheless, I was determined to wear it, so I managed to get it on. Unfortunately, as soon as I got it on, I realized it was inside out… and this was not a dress that one could get away with wearing inside out. I went to pull it off, but the dress would not budge. The waist section just would not slide over my shoulders. I could not get this dress off. I had only one option: to cut the dress. Unfortunately even still, I did not have any scissors. And then, as I stood there, in the dark of my electricity-less bedroom, stuck in an inside-out dress looking ridiculous, Soso knocks on the door to tell me that I need to come to the living room because dinner was getting started. I tried to explain my situation, but she didn’t understand. I asked for scissors, and she said that she wouldn't be able to find any in the dark. The living room was well lit because of all the candles, so one would obviously be able to tell I was wearing a dress inside out. I told her that I would be there in a minute. Thinking fast, I dug through my bags and found my nail kit containing a tiny pair of scissors, and proceeded to cut/tear the dress just enough so that I could get out of it. I grabbed the first dress I saw (that I knew actually fit me), and ran out of my bedroom (by this time really sweaty) to find the living room full of people.
Soso gave me an empty glass and asked what I wanted to drink, referring to the table covered in bottles of alcohol. I said that beer would suffice, and she asked me if I was sure I didn’t want whiskey or gin instead. For reasons I would rather not disclose, I distrust Senegalese hard alcohol, so I insisted that beer would suffice. I sat down and saw that everyone else was drinking whiskey on the rocks. I also noticed that the majority of guests to the birthday party were men… and all of them were referred to as “frère.” I deduced that I was drinking in the company of a bunch of priests. This conclusion was validated when each asked me why I never attended mass with Soso, and that they would expect to see me this Sunday. I must say that this party was the first time I’ve ever felt peer pressured by priests/monks to drink more: “Rebecca, il faut boire tout le bouteille!” (Rebecca, you have to drink that whole bottle!) Of course, the women served the dinner, and with it plenty of red wine. After dinner, Soso brought out four large bottles of champagne. By the end of the party, Soso was dancing and singing with a bottle of champagne in hand, refilling empty glasses. All the while, the electricity never came back on.
As I helped clean up after the party, I reflected on how fortunate I’ve been to have such a wonderful abroad homestay. It has been very unorthodox, as most students have large, Muslim, conservative families, and I have just one host mom who is Catholic and likes to dance with bottles of champagne on her birthday. Soso has never failed to make me smile, even after the toughest of days. She has played such a great role in my semester abroad that I will never be able to remember Senegal without thinking of her.
Yesterday I went to the tailor first thing in the morning to see if there was any way the dress that I had destroyed the night before could be saved. The tailor gave me a look that read something along the lines of, “What the hell did you do?!” She said that she would try her best to salvage it, but she couldn’t make any promises. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
It may be because I have only nine days left, but I have realized how much I’m going to miss elements of life here. Although it is easy to complain about the incessant heat, I would take the heat and hours at the beach over frigid Chicago winters any day. I also am sad that I will not be able to include random Wolof words and phrases into my daily speak after returning to the US… of course, I still could, but nobody would understand and the fun of it would be gone.
Léegi léegi!
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