Leavin' on a jet plane (again).

Today sitting on the beach with some of my girlfriends, I saw something that made me realize that I really will miss Senegal. We were all relaxing and enjoying the sunshine, but everyone else on the beach was engaged in training exercises of various sorts. This is pretty typical- guys do lunges, sprints, push-ups, etc. It just seems to be a part of the mentality of being a man in Senegal. Fitness is a big deal. There was one man in particular, however, who caught our attention. This man was running sprints back and forth in front of us, which wasn't in itself very notable. What was notable was the fact that his baby sheep was running behind him. Like one might expect a dog to do in the States. No leash of course, but the sheep was running back and forth, turning when he did and bleating the whole way. Adorable. And not something I can expect to see more of in snowy Minnesota. It's seeing things like sheep running with their owners that I can already tell I will miss when I go home. I really have started to feel at home here.
This morning we had a 're-entry session' where we discussed the big lessons that we've learned and things we want to take away with us. Everyone has funny stories of dysfunction and total confusion, but at least it seems to have amounted to something. I think I need to get home before I really figure out what this semester has meant, but I am happy to have been here. It's been a linguistic and cultural haze, but I have loved the adventure. I can already tell that my travel bug will be back within months of my return. Too bad I probably have other things (like going to school and getting a job) to do before I can take off again. At least my adventure isn't quite over yet. In fact, the amount of time I have left is the length of a normal vacation! It's funny how my perspective on time has changed.
And now- celebrating a few months well spent with my friends in Dakar and hopefully getting my laundry done before I get my butt on an airplane to take me away to France!

Movin' Out

At this point it is getting really difficult for me to believe how long I have been abroad. The idea that I only have three days left in Senegal creates such a confusing mix of joy/remorse that I don't really know what to think. I couldn't be happier to be going home (CHRISTMAS! SNOW!) and to see all my friends and family again, but I can also tell that there will be things that I miss here. The food, the car rapides, the weather- Senegal has been a nice place to spend my fall. I feel like I have learned a lot and I definitely had a good time. 

I'm still thinking about what exactly I have to say. There may be another post coming soon.

As it is, Joe and I have started imagining our French adventures and thoroughly intend to freeze for the first few days while we search for winter coats. Wish us luck!!

December 2nd- What??! It's December!?!?

So I am sitting in my room in Mbam on the eve of my last day here. I can't really decide how to feel, but I am happy with the way things have turned out. It's strange to think that it's already December! Now is the time when I really want to get back to contact with the outside world (seriously- cell phone reception has been awful, the power's been off, and I have only been on the internet once in six weeks), but I also want to put Mbam in my pocket and carry it away with me. The people in my life here are wonderful and I can tell that while I am as confused as ever about the big questions lurking behind development, this experience is going to help me come a little bit closer to some answers. It was definitely a worthwhile life experience to pack up and move to the Senegalese countryside. I can't really account for my six weeks with any real accuracy; all the days blur together. But I do know that my activities have been varied and have offered me a sense of what goes on here. My computer is almost dead and I don't really have much time to write, but I wanted to say a little bit about how I am feeling. This day feels sort of important. It marks the end of this internship and really, the end of the program. We have a week left in Dakar, but I have no doubt that will fly by (especially because my 21^st birthday is coming up next Wednesday! I can't believe it's already December...) and then I will be off on another adventure in France until the holidays. Time is a funny thing when days pass at the tempo of a West African village, but months disappear in what feels like seconds. I was interrogated by a very drunk Senegalese man this evening in broken French/Wolof/English about what I had learned here. I felt as though I couldn't answer because to tell you the truth I have been too wrapped up in the experience to sit back and reflect on it in any genuine fashion. This may seem bizarre given that without outside distractions I have spent a huge amount of time thinking and writing in the past six weeks, but that's mostly been personal and I can tell it's going to take me a long while afterwards to figure out exactly what this semester has meant. I realize now it was a lot braver than I realized to come and do this internship business. I don't expect anyone to praise me or pretend I did anything good for the world; I know that this trip was about me and my education. But I am still happy that I managed to laugh my way through the experience rather than having a nervous breakdown when things got crazy (and they did, occasionally, get a little crazy) It's funny to think that until I met David (the Peace Corps volunteer in Mbam) on Tuesday, I hadn't spoken English in over a month. I guess the Thursday before Emma came and we spoke some English, but that too was in the fifth week of my stay. I will be curious to go home and find out if there are things about me that have changed- besides my skin tone and hair color- that I haven't yet noticed. I am so up in the air on so many questions right now, I hope I can get my head on straight before heading home. Even if I can't, I am not too upset because I have made a really important decision- my first breakfast back in the states will be at the Original Pancake House on December 23^rd. Oh the important things in life!   

November 27th- Peanuts, booty, and movin' on.

Today was a great day. Nothing all that earth shattering happened, but it was wonderful for its simplicity and the sheer number of positive experiences I had.

I woke up early, but before my alarm, which is something that happens often here. I've found that one of the things I love most about living in Mbam is my sleep schedule. I am free to let myself go to bed when I'm tired, whether that's 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock and drift off to sleep without worrying about an assignment that's imminent or whether or not everything is done for the day. Things always get done, and if they don't, there's always time in the morning. And I love waking up here! I always wake up fairly early, usually between 6 and 7 o'clock, to the sounds of birds and donkeys and brooms sweeping the dirt outside. It's such a calming feeling. I roll over, look at my clock, and realize that I still have an hour or so to take for myself. I usually lay in bed, listening to music or writing and relaxing as the sunlight slowly starts creeping through my shutters (we don't have windows). I love that most days I don't even have to set an alarm even though I always do because I don't want to look like a big lazy butt sleeping all day- my family here is constantly being productive and even if I can't always help, I don't want to spend my day napping.

So I woke up at a nice leisurely pace. More leisurely than normal, in fact, because I had nothing scheduled for today. It's Saturday, after all. I took my time getting ready and then headed to the boutique with Kordue to buy bread and candy for her. Then I ate breakfast before running off to see Pape, who was going to the peanut fields.

Binta told me to go along with the boys who were going to work on the peanuts, so I jumped on the donkey cart and off we went. One of the donkeys had a baby last year, and the yearling trotted behind the cart the entire time, accompanied by Pape's dog Chuey. I loved that every time I looked behind us, there was a small donkey and a dog trotting side by side.

Upon arrival at the field, I realized that my lurking question about what happens to the rest of the peanuts was finally going to be answered. When we came back from harvesting, we usually only brought a few pagnes full of plants to process, which left a large number of peanuts sitting in the field to dry. It turns out that the men go out with rakes and pile all of the smaller piles together in one great big pile and then let them dry for a few days. After that, they return with rakes and very strong sticks and do some of the most repetitive work I've seen yet! First, they pull off the whole plants in large stacks using rakes. Then each man takes one or two fairly solid sticks and starts hitting the plants, knocking off peanuts and small pieces of dried plant material. After this initial processing, there are always still lots of peanuts on the plants, so the remaining large pieces get put in another pile, where they get hit again. After the second round of beating, the plants that remain get put in their own stack, where they will later be beaten with an even bigger stick and get used for feeding animals and collecting peanuts. This means that there are three separate rounds of really tedious hitting of peanut plants which in the end leaves piles of loose peanuts with small pieces of plant mixed all together. So after the entire gigantic pile of dried peanuts is beaten the requisite number of times, the harvesters use the wind, throwing the pile up in the air (okay it isn't really throwing- there's sort of an art to it I guess) and letting the peanuts drop while the wind carries off the foliage. So finally there are all these peanuts sitting in the field to be painstakingly collected and sold to the government cooperatives for 175f CFA per kilogram. What a process. With peanuts, the work is never done. The Senegalese are the first to admit it, but everyone grows them anyways. I guess it's valuable because they can keep half for food and seed and depend on making a profit off the rest by selling them to the government. It makes some sense to have a cash crop in the mix, especially one you can still use for food if the market falls through.

So my afternoon was full of observing Pape abuse peanut plants. I tried to help, but was laughed out of the job (no surprise there- it's pretty physical work). Tomorrow, I hope to go back, but with a bucket so I can collect loose peanuts instead of just sitting around and eating all the peanuts that we're trying to harvest. Eating the peanuts straight from the field is my favorite part of going harvesting. There's nothing better than freshly roasted peanuts straight from the dirt they grew in. We were in the field over lunch, so I ate as many peanuts as I wanted. And after awhile Pape set a few plants on fire and we ate the charred peanuts directly off the ground. I love when they are prepared like that! They stay in the shells so that the peanuts are warm and taste a little bit roasted, but are rarely burned (even though the shells are totally charred and turn my hands black as night and get all over my face so that all of the black people around me make fun of my pale skin). There's nothing better than freshly harvested food, especially when you can prepare it at the field! Really, I was in the field for something like six hours, but I can't really tell where the time went. It didn't feel like six hours.

And the day just kept on moving. When I got home everyone made me eat a little rice and fish, given that I'd missed lunch, and I rested a bit before drinking some attaya. Then it was off to the well! I have become pretty decent at carrying my buckets and tonight I made the trip all three times with the other ladies! They usually stop me after one or two tries with concerned warnings about doing damage to my neck, but tonight they let me keep going, which was exciting! It makes me feel accomplished and I am glad to be able to pull my weight occasionally. I also managed to make it to the tailor tonight, so hopefully I will have a new skirt to wear around town in my last week! And we ate a delicious rice and peanut pudding dish for dinner. I was still full from the peanuts from earlier, but the porridge was delicious nonetheless! It was rice and peanuts pounded together and then cooked and mixed with some milky yogurt type deal (lait caille I think, but it also could have just been condensed milk), sugar, and some orange flavoring. Everyone told me to eat my fill so that I can get the jaayfonde I have been hoping for! Jaayfonde is a Wolof word equating to “badonkadonk” and it is the goal of every Senegalese lady to have one. I added getting one to my 'to do in Senegal' list awhile ago, but have yet to make significant progress.

So there you have it. A day that was fairly unremarkable in the grand scheme, but will inevitably remain clear in my memory for a long time. I can't believe I only have a week left here. I am really starting to grow attached to the people here in Mbam, especially the ladies of my house. I can tell that leaving is going to be really sad, but also strange given that this means that I only have two weeks left in Senegal, and about a month left being abroad. It's bizarre to think about because I have spent a lot of time thinking about leaving and the time has finally arrived. I also think that I have unconsciously become very used to my surroundings and am going to be a little surprised when I (inevitably) experience the reverse culture shock everyone keeps warning me about. Right now I can't see the changes that I know have occurred in myself, so it will be an odd feeling to leave and have them all become apparent. Or maybe they won't. Or maybe I haven't changed. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

November 26th- A little piece of the homeland comes to Mbam

Yesterday (November 25^th), we brought a little piece of America to Senegal by holding a grand celebration at my house for Thanksgiving. This has become a tradition at Binta's house, where they are accustomed to hosting exchange students. The shopping list alone suggests the magnitude of what the feast would be: four ducks, ten kilos of potatoes, five kilos of onions, two very large squashes, one kilo of butter, and a flurry of garlic, spices, sugar, and other condiments. We were going all out for sure.

I was happy to have another student from MSID, Emma, who is in the region come to join the party! It was nice to have another toubab hostess around to help explain the festival and to celebrate and savor the delicious Thanksgiving foods.

We started preparing the night before, as we did for Tabaski. The neighbor ladies all came over and the kids ran all over town (and to neighboring towns) to find enough of everything. We sat chopping and peeling all night, getting ready for what would be an early morning as well.

The work continued from six o'clock the next day when we started boiling the potatoes in the grand marmite. There were a ton of potatoes, and we were cooking over a woodfire, so this was a process that was going to take some time. Both the squash and the potatoes were boiled thoroughly and then pounded using the huge mortar and pestle we have. It was way easier than mashing the normal way! I think I need to find a mortar and pestle for sale in the US. But a giant one like the ladies here use for pounding millet. I was so excited to be making American classics! The potatoes got a savory seasoning of garlic, black pepper, chili pepper, butter, milk, and a little bit of Maggi (the ever prominent Senegalese bouillon mixture) and the squash ended up with nutmeg and sugar. Talk about bringing America en mini to the middle of Mbam! I also brought wild rice from home that we boiled and seasoned and added on the side of the plate for everyone to try. We ate the duck with a Senegalese style onion sauce and white rice with vegetables. The entire meal was absolutely delicious. I ate my fill and we followed lunch with ice cold juice made from hibiscus and baobab fruits.

The best part was the number of people who came to join the feast. There were something like fifteen random kids from the neighborhood, seven teachers from the school I work at, and countless other neighbors, not to mention everyone who lives chez Binta. We demolished all of the food throughout the afternoon. It was quite impressive really.

I was just happy to have a little time to relax and feel at home. It was nice (although a bit strange) to be able to speak English with Emma and to feel a little in control as a hostess/the person who knew what the holiday was about. Everyone ate so well and the American dishes (especially the squash!) made it seem like real Thanksgiving. It was also a nice way to begin the end of my internship. It's hard to believe, but I only have a week left here! I have started counting the days, looking forward to internet connections and moving on to the next stage, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be happy to leave! I have really come to love the people around here. I'm picking up a bit of Serer and I finally don't feel overwhelmed by the masses of ladies who pepper me with questions when I run errands. The community is so open and welcoming, especially the people living with Binta. I have been shown the greatest hospitality in being here and I was happy to get to celebrate one last time with everyone before I begin writing my final paper and preparing to take my leave of Mbam.  

November 24th- Busy busy busy- and hey I'm over my fear of roaches!

Apart from a minor touch of a stomach bug (what else is new?), today was probably one of the best days I have had in Senegal so far. Actually, scratch that, even with the stomach issues (which were minor, I swear!), today was one of the best days I've had in Senegal.

My mood from the moment I woke up was fairly jovial. I can't be sure if it was the return to routine (today marked my first day back at the school after the break for Tabaski) or my overcoming the major homesickness I was feeling a couple days ago, or perhaps it was neither of those things, but my day started out bright. I thoroughly enjoyed my rushed breakfast of baguette and chocolate before running to school with Thiarma. I taught the CM1 kids about the importance of trees and thought that the lesson went fairly smoothly. I was also glad to be entrusted with the class all on my own. The instructor had to go run an errand (something that happens with some frequency at Mbam II, and, I would think, other schools as well) and so I got to have some time with the kids. They are a lot different and more relaxed when it's just me around, so I had fun.

And returning to the house, I couldn't help but be in a good mood. I stopped at two boutiques in search of phone credits (which I successfully found!) and loved greeting everyone along the way. Upon my return, I almost immediately left again with Kumba to do our daily market run. I found out we were going to eat mafay- one of my favorite Senegalese dishes!- for lunch. Delicious! It's a thick peanut-based sauce that also has fish, tomato, and other veggies. So good. And filling. I helped her cook lunch and we enjoyed a leisurely lunch hour at home. There weren't all that many people around, which I think I found really relaxing after the craziness that was the week of Tabaski. The kids were mostly at school and some of the company has left.

After lunch it was apparent that Kumba was leaving again, and I asked to go along. She was leaving with Ndiaye (one of the neighbors who may as well live at the house) in search of peanuts. I love going to the fields to work, so I was really glad to get out a bit. It turns out that peanut cultivation in Mbam is more tedious than I ever could have imagined! The plants have already all been pulled and processed, but you can imagine that with all those little peanuts, many of them fall off in the dirt in the course of harvesting. So today we went to the field and combed it by hand in search of the individual peanuts that are left on the soil. It was a long, sweaty afternoon full of pricked fingers, aching backs, and really hot water. But it felt so good to be working, doing something, moving, that I hardly minded. Kumba and Ndiaye told me many times to “Repose-toi!” but I ignored them and kept up the work. We picked up a few buckets full of peanuts (that was a lot of work for what I thought to be a fairly paltry reward....) and headed home. On the way we stopped to pick the blossoms of red hibiscus plants (here known as bissap) and to gather firewood. At this point Ndiaye was carrying a seven-foot long log on her head and Kumba was carrying a bucket full of peanuts and millet with some firewood tied in a bundle on top. I was a little ashamed at my bucket full of peanuts and bissap blossoms, which paled in comparison to the loads these ladies were carrying, but I am still learning so I can't be too hard on myself.

After the field it was to the well! I did my usual ancillary tasks while wearing Birane on my back. The ladies are always so funny, making fun of me in Serer and Wolof, trying to see if I understand. Tonight I got the whole gamut: how could I have a baby already? No one even saw me pregnant! That couldn't be my baby- it's black! Who's the father? Where's my husband? Etc. All of it made me laugh and I was content that Birane didn't cry once even though I had him for more than an hour and he's usually a big mama's boy.

After the well was my typical bucket shower and the beginnings of my stomach discomfort. Ah such is life! But I ate a good dinner of cere with some sort of sauce and fish and now I am relaxing and enjoying a little 'me' time.

The last big development of the day is that I am definitively over my fear of cockroaches. You may be wondering how it is that I can know that so confidently when months ago I was trembling with fear over their very existence. Well tonight a large cockroach crawled out of the latrine while I was using it and rather than getting afraid, I was just glad that I didn't pee on it before it started trying to crawl on me. If that doesn't prove that my fear is gone, I don't know what does. I can't believe how living in the brush has desensitized me to everything. Snakes, lizards, roaches, bats, birds, you name it! I am really at ease with my surroundings.  

November 21st- A typical Mbamois day

A typical day

After living for a month (!) in Mbam, I feel as though I can begin to describe what a typical day looks like. Keep in mind that for me there really isn't a 'typical' day, so to speak, given my general lack of structured activities. Within a moment's notice I can be whisked away to a wedding or a funeral or to the river or any number of other things. But, on the whole, I feel confident that I can generalize to give the impression of how I live here.

Tuesdays and Fridays I teach at Mbam II, the local elementary school. This is my only true structured activity from week to week, so these days I can count on pretty well.

6:45 am- wake up, throw open shutters to sounds of cocks crowing, donkeys braying, and birds singing. Luckily, I can count on sunny, clear skies.

7:20 am- Take my breakfast. Here it is Cafe Touba (spiced Senegalese-style coffee) and a baguette with chocolate spread. Yum!

7:45 am- Wander down the dusty path to Mbam II with Thiarma, who is in CM there. She walks with her gal pals and they all speak in Serer, so I have absolutely no idea what they're saying. Occasionally they attempt to communicate in Wolof though, which is nice.

8:05 am- Class gets called to session. I head to CM II to wait my time to teach

Sometime before 11 am- Give my 30-ish minute lesson, which generally seems to fall unheard on an uninterested audience. Except the fact that I'm a toubab seems to make them care a little bit.

11 am- Wander back home with Thiarma, probably for the day. Sometimes I head back in the afternoon to plant trees or work some more, but usually not.

11 am-1 pm- Run around doing errands with Kumba. This usually means repeated trips to the 'marche,' a shady spot under some trees where lots of ladies sell spices, veggies, and fish.

1pm-3pm- Enjoy lunch and attaya (with so much sugar I am fairly certain I'll be diabetic on my return stateside). Lunch is always served with rice and usually is some fish and veggies with sauce. I LOVE the produce here. So much squash, cabbage, carrots, eggplant and manioc. Binta's family eats well!

2pm-4pm- 'Repose-toi!' Usually some lazy activity like reading, napping, journaling, blogging, etc. It's siesta hour so I never feel all that guilty about taking some really necessary 'me' time.

4 or 5 pm-7pm- Run more errands with the ladies. Usually involves me carrying a heavy bucket on my head that is not nearly as heavy as the ones the Senegalese ladies carry. We make daily trips to the well, where I carry a 20-ish pound lidded-bucket and the other ladies have multiple trips with open-topped, 30-40ish pound ones. The women of this house haul ALL of the water that we use- drinking, bucket showering, cooking, etc- from a well about 1/3 mile from our house. Oftentimes we also head to the mill, the tailor, or visit friends during this time. It's also the hour to prepare dinner! I am occasionally of use, but only occasionally. My skills are limited to using a mortar and pestle to grind pepper/other spices and chopping vegetables.

Sometime between 7 and 9pm- Dinner time! Binta sometimes makes me something special, like a rich sauce with baguette or pasta, but the average night is cere (millet-based cous cous) with fishy or peanut sauce! Yum! Neex na!

After dinner- Take my daily bucket bath. This has become increasingly unpleasant with dropping temperatures. It's still in the high sixties, but that feels cold when you're basically outside with a bucket full of well-water that was pulled only hours before, without the benefit of a day in the sun.

All night long- Lounge. Watch television (occasionally, when the power isn't out). Work. Read. Etc. Usually head to bed long before most Senegalese people. It's funny, but getting into bed with a mosquito net feels like a lot of work nowadays.

On days that I'm not at school, I spend the morning running errands with Kumba. We go to the river to barter for fish, or to the fields to harvest peanuts, or to hunt for fruit. Sometimes we head to the fields in the afterlunch lazy period too. Everyone works their hardest to avoid making any effort during the hottest hours of the day. This is especially true of me because I get made fun of a lot everytime I burn, or tan for that matter. The fact that my skin changes color almost daily really amuses my family here. For the most part, the days all blur together in a contented whirl of activity. The ladies of the house are my lifeline. Even when I am in the most foul mood, Kumba, Khady, and Ke manage to make me laugh and run around the village like a fool. There's something very nice about wandering around on dirt roads with the ladies at sunset. The sky turns lovely shades of pink, blue, and purple, and there is always a slight smokey haze rising out of the huts. Add the silhouettes of baobab trees, the random wandering of animals, and the fact that there is a full moon that rises before the sun sets and you can imagine that Mbam is basically the most picturesque place on the planet. I can already tell that this whole experience is going to feel very surreal when I leave.

November 20th- Jours feries and the post-Tabaski doldrums.

This week has been interesting. It was the week of Tabaski, so naturally everyone took the entire week off. For me, that meant that I was introduced to an entirely new, completely transitory, new cast of characters. Family from out of town flocked to Mbam, including three nephews of Binta's who were staying at my house. This was in addition to the fact that many of the people I'd grown used to seeing daily, including Ke, Thiarma, Khady, Jean and Joe went back to celebrate with their families in other villages. I had no work to do given that it was a holiday and was faced with a new social makeup. One of the houseguests made me feel really patronized all the time, so I got fairly cranky pretty quick. My emotions have been really up and down and I can't decide if its a result of hormones, culture shock, my headcold, or all three.

Even with my uncertain emotional state, I can't help but count this week as a success. I have eaten really well, given that the sheep came just in time to make up for the lack of fresh fish that's started. I got to see a ram slaughtered and celebrate a major Muslim holiday in a Senegalese village, with all the luttes and dances and accompanying gaiety. Really, I have done quite a few new things and will remember Tabaski fondly.

The funniest development this week was discovering the way that jours feries happen in Senegal. I needed to know which days school would be canceled, given that I volunteer at the elementary school in town on Tuesdays and Fridays. Tabaski was Wednesday, so naturally Tuesday and Thursday classes would be canceled to allow people to visit their families. Everyone at the house immediately started complaining that the break was far too short. After living in Senegal awhile, I have to agree. If anyone is planning to leave town at all, three days is barely time to make it out the door. But the decision had been made by the school authorities, so I figured that people would deal and I planned to go to school on Friday. When Thursday night arrived, Binta said that she wasn't sure if there would be class the next day. I asked how that was possible, given that I had talked to the director and he assured me there would be class on Friday. She told me that sometimes things happen and classes may or may not happen. Hm, vague and confusing. But I woke up the next day and headed to school anyway. When I arrived, I found about half the student body, one teacher, and the director at Mbam II. Apparently everyone else just couldn't make it back in time. How hilarious! The two men were trying their best to find a way to hold classes, I think more than anything to make a point, but they just couldn't manage. They ended up having short sessions with two or three of the classes, and afterwords everyone got to go home. It was so funny to me to see that the holiday was universally regarded as too short, so people just didn't show up. Even funnier, the high school usually has class Saturdays, but after canceling Friday they went ahead and canceled Saturday too, so the break turned from a three day break into a five day break.

I couldn't help but think of the lead-up to Korite, when everyone claimed that they weren't sure which day the celebration would be. I can't help but think that the Senegalese really knew all along that school would be canceled but didn't want to say it out loud for fear of jinxing it or something. Ke Ndiaye didn't even bother to come back to Mbam on Thursday, which to me seems to indicate that she was pretty sure there wouldn't be class Friday. I think it's really funny that a day off happened by the force of everyone's unified (but unplanned/undiscussed) unwillingness to rush their Tabaski for the sake of following rules and schedules. I guess this happens other times too. Every year the Senegalese celebrate the Magal de Touba, a day that celebrates the exile of a major Mauride religious leader, Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, and everyone at the University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar decides not to show up. But I guess that's just the way things work here. I find it understandable, especially in the case of Tabaski, when everyone wants to go home and physically cannot make the trip in the three days allotted to them.  

November 19th- Peanuts!

One of the things that has most enchanted me so far with my internship has been the opportunity to harvest peanuts. Peanut production in Senegambia is one of the major vestiges of the colonial era and the chance to see the process in action made me really excited. Yes, I am the world's biggest nerd. I also love agriculture, so that is pretty exciting too.

The colonial powers used taxes as a way to draw the Senegalese into the cash economy and peanuts often became the answer to the problem of how to make money in the first place. The French encouraged peanut production because at the time peanut oil was used to make fine soaps. During the colonial era, peanuts were exported raw from Senegal for very cheap prices and then transformed into finished products in France that the French could then sell for high prices. It was a really nice system to make the French a lot of money. And Senegalese peasants needed to grow something of value to get the cash to pay taxes. So wasn't that a nice little system.

The point is that peanut cultivation is a really important part of Senegal's culture and history. Mafay- a rich peanut sauce- is one of my favorite foods in the village. In fact, peanuts are now used in many Senegalese dishes and most families (including mine here) have a field where they grow a combination of millet, peanuts, bissap, and other crops. I am astounded at the diversity that one little plot can contain. After spending my life in the Midwest, where monocultures are rampant, it is really nice to see an agricultural scheme utilizing a little more diversity. But yes, peanuts. I was bumming about not getting to visit the Gambia until I realized that getting to harvest peanuts in the Sine-Saloum River Delta is probably a lot cooler experience to report upon.

It is so cool to be able to see every step in the cultivation of the food I eat here. Admittedly, the family eats rice imported from Vietnam with lunch almost every day, but the cous cous (it's Senegalese cous cous- or cere- which means it's millet based) we eat for dinner was all grown in Mbam and processed in my backyard. All the vegetables and fish and meat that we eat come from the gardens, nets, and yards of men and women in nearby houses. Watching the women pound millet is one thing that will never cease to amaze me. I have tried to do it, and it takes a phenomenal amount of strength. They literally shake the ground with their efforts. It takes a lot of time and energy to make this local production work. People are never truly idle. The women almost always have a pestle or some food item in hand and the boys are constantly chopping millet for horses or wood for fires or reeds for palisades. Peanuts, I have learned, are a truly tedious food. There are so many steps to make them ready for eating. In the fields, a horse with a plow turns the plants. The harvesters (that's me!) follow the horse, dusting off the plants, and placing them in piles all over the field. They then sit to dry for a day or two before we stack them in pagnes and carry them home on the charette. Once home, everyone sits around with the plants, pulling the peanuts off the stems individually and placing them in buckets. But even then, we have to remove the shells before they can be eaten. Sometimes they are burned in a pile of brush before the shells are taken off and we eat them, fresh roasted from the ground, but other times we take off the shells and leave the peanuts out to dry in the sun. After all that, they are finally ready to be used in our food. It takes so much time. Particularly cumbersome are the steps where one has to individually remove and deshell the nuts. What a pain. It also really hurts my fingers cracking open all the shells.

It sounds like I'm complaining but in reality I'm having the time of my life! It's still sort of novel for me to be doing the tasks that I'm sure become menial after awhile. Life in the brush is work, as Binta is so fond of telling me. After living here for a month, I can see it is true. It takes so much time to make everything work. Water must be carried from the wells (I have learned to walk with a 10-20 kg bucket full of water on my head!), food brought from the fields and boutiques and markets, fires built and wood chopped. I understand why everyone takes a siesta almost everyday. I feel so worthless; my skills are regularly surpassed by the four and eight year olds living in the house. But I guess that's to be expected. My family here has hosted many toubabs and so I figure they understand if I fail a little bit.  

November 17th- Tabaski!

This semester I have been fortunate enough to get to witness some very important events. I was in Dakar for a large part of Ramadan and the celebration of its end, Korite, and now, a little over a month later, I am in Mbam and we've been celebrating again! Today was Tabaski, a Muslim holiday celebrating the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael that always takes place in the months after Korite.

I have been looking forward to Tabaski for a number of weeks now, especially after I learned that it is a holiday marked by eating all day long. The reason that so much eating gets done is that Tabaski is the ram-slaughtering holiday. Every household buys a male sheep and butchers it in the morning, eating all the pieces as the day wears on.

The days before and after Tabaski are always taken off work and school in preparation for the holiday (everyone leaves Dakar and heads to their villages...we had lots of company!), so naturally the celebration started the night before. After taking our tea and eating dinner, I headed off with the ladies of my house (actually just Khady and Sayjo and some of their pals) to a dance. It was at the elementary school, which made me laugh, but the school made a better forum than the party in a field I went to the week before, so I went with it. The dances in Mbam always feel like barn dances to me. The moon was full and the music could be heard all through the village. One thing that strikes me about fetes in Mbam is that there is a serious mixing of generations. Last night I went with ladies of high school age, but at the dance there were many people younger and older than any of us. The age range was quite honestly early teens to mid thirties. But that is normal for Mbam. The Senegalese habit of staying out all night apparently holds true in the village as well. I was made fun of for being a party pooper when I decided I wanted to go home at 2:30 in the morning...by a fifteen year old. But the party was very lively and I learned a dance that hails from Guinea-Bissau called “The Obama.” Obviously a night well spent.

But the adventure didn't end when we left the dance! Sayjo and Khady and I walked home and woke Kumba up to let us in. After returning from the restroom (you have to go outside to access it), Kumba was out in the yard looking around. She looked at me with a look of bemused alarm and said “LE BEGUE, IL EST PARTI!” She was referring to the ram that had arrived on the top of a bus with our visitors from Dakar earlier in the evening. Apparently he didn't want to be breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and he had made a great escape effort just as we arrived. He was still wandering around the courtyard, but started to run as he realized we were coming for him. The entire house woke up to the cries about the escaped sheep and the whole lot of us ran around, weaving through the road and the yards of our neighbors, trying to catch the sheep. I was useless, laughing too hard to do anything and way too afraid of my lack of skills even if I did get close to the sheep. But there was something really wonderful about running around at 3 am trying to catch an escaped sheep under a full moon.

Poor sheep. I fell asleep to his perturbed “baaah”s after he was more securely attached to a tree out back. But I didn't sleep long! The ladies of the household wake up very early the day of Tabaski to finish preparing the sauces and vegetables they started preparing the night before. That way once the men return from the mosque to kill the sheep all that remains is the cooking of the meat! So after sleeping very few hours, I woke up and went out to see what was going on. I was fairly useless because I don't know how to cook anything, but it was interesting to watch. Senegalese women are pros at making food for the masses, using huge pots over open fires to make gigantic batches of onion sauce and french fries.

The sheep was still sitting and bleating sadly- knowing, I think, what awaited him. And he was right to be afraid. With the return of the men from the mosque at around 10 am, they set to work digging a hole to drain the ram's blood when they decapitated it. I was pretty excited to see the sheep get butchered actually. I had never witnessed the butchering of an animal before and I was really curious to see how it went. So the men dug a hole (using machetes because I have stolen all the shovels for my projects at the school) and the poor sheep was laid to rest. I was fairly surprised by how quickly they managed to remove the skin and finish the cutting of the meat. The whole process took maybe an hour. And they were using really dull knives. I was also impressed by how calm I was watching a sheep get killed. All the guys were making jokes and trying to get me to help and playing with its testicles (obviously the 8 year old and the 16 year old were taking the lead on that one). Oh yeah, and the guys were butchering the sheep on the door to my host brother's hut. Typical.

With the sheep freshly killed, Binta and Kumba set to work preparing the liver, which would be our breakfast! It didn't take long (remember they did all that preparation before!) and before you know it we were eating a delicious breakfast of lettuce, french fries, freshly slaughtered sheep's liver, and a rich onion sauce. So tasty! And it was only 11am!

The whole day passed in that sort of fashion. We hung around the house, making attaya, visiting, getting visits, and eating various parts of the sheep. I can't be sure exactly which parts I ate, but I do know that I ate a lot of things that I would probably not appreciate knowing the identity of. Actually I know I ate intestine and probably some testicle and a bit of the jaw, so I can't imagine that there is much more unknown that could bother me. There was a lutte and a dance tonight, but after last night's adventure, and looking forward to another adventure tomorrow, I think I need a break.

Oh Tabaski! What a rush. The sheep was too much. And we ate the entire thing. Literally the entire sheep, with the exception of its horns and its hooves (which are saved for another festival thirty days from now), is now gone. Oh begue!  

November 15th- Donkeys, funerals, and la lutte

A blogworthy day if I've ever had one! It started out so slow and ended in a bang. I definitely experienced the full range of human emotions today. And I feel like each portion really needs its own blog but I don't really have the time or battery power to make that happen, so here we go.

This morning was slow. Really slow. Well, for me at least. Everyone else was in the midst of a major house cleaning and getting ready for Tabaski and the millet sacrifice, both coming up fast. It was one of those times where there was so much to do that no one really had time to teach me to do anything or tell me what I could do to help. I was more in the way than anything else, so I just held Birane and waited. I guess I helped a little bit with the laundry, but that hardly counts. I was also really tired because I slept poorly last night (something didn't sit well with my stomach...bummer). And lunch just really wasn't all that fulfilling, which normally wouldn't bother me, but I had really been craving a delicious saucy Senegalese lunch and it didn't happen.

So I was just sort of existing here chez Binta. I was starting to feel like I was in a rut again, starting to lose my good spirits.

And then Binta came out dressed fancy, looked at me a little sideways, and asked if I was ready to go. Apparently Mame Ndiaye's aunt died (that gave me the impression that she was old, but in reality the deceased was a young woman, not yet married or with children) and we were about to go to the funeral. In fact, Joe was already off fetching the donkey that would drag our butts to Gague for the service.

This was all news to me! I think it's easy to forget that the toubab doesn't understand most of the conversations around here because everyone laughed and apparently they'd been talking about it quite a bit. So they threw me back in the boubou I wore to the wedding last week and about ten minutes after being told I was leaving, I was sitting on the cart with Joe and Binta and one other lady, ready to hit the road.

It was at this point that the familiar feeling of being someone's pet began to return. Much like my frustration with the wedding the week before, no one had consulted me about wanting to go to the funeral. It seemed like a private event that would be rude for me to encroach upon, but then I told myself to snap out of it. Clearly I was going and it would only make things seem longer/more painful for me to whine internally about having to go at all. Binta was offering me a really special chance to see a unique part of Serer/Senegalese culture that I otherwise would have no access to.

So there we were. In Gague. We did the typical rounds of salutations and ate a little rice and meat and then we sat. By this point my impatience was gone and I was interested in what was going on. The genders were separated, although it seemed more by choice than anything else. No one in the yard was talking, only an occasional whisper or donkey braying could be heard. I didn't know what we were waiting for, but it was clear that everyone was waiting for something. Then a car, clearly carrying the body, pulled up. It was then that the crying began. I don't mean crying as in tears, that was going on all the while, I mean crying as in shouts of anguish so profound they send chills down your spine. This tradition is forbidden during Muslim burial/funeral ceremonies, but is a traditional part of Serer rituals. Binta was explaining (I think) that it is a way to let others know that there is a deceased member of the household. I had never heard such anguish expressed in a human voice before. There was one woman who seemed to be crying “WHY?” over and over again. I know she probably wasn't speaking English, but it sounded like it to me. And it was very appropriate. After the body was brought in (they brought the corpse directly into a tented area where only very immediate family would go for the traditional washing and other rituals), the crying continued. After awhile, important friends, family, and colleagues of the deceased spoke and the body was carried out and to the cemetery to be buried. I didn't attend the internment, but when most everyone else had gone, a group of women stayed behind, pounding grains. I don't really know why, but there were so many of them that the ground shook. Overall, it was a very moving experience. I have been to funerals before, but never have I been to one with the pain so audibly expressed.

So the funeral was over and it was time to go back to Mbam. Binta had a car waiting, but I opted for the donkey cart with Joe (following Pape's, of course) instead. I am so glad I did. The air was fresh and the sky was mostly clear. The stars are so bright here and the moon is getting close to full. The landscape is gorgeous and there are really no lights to speak of when you're out on a road that runs through fields of peanuts, millet, and hibiscus plants. The donkey attached to our cart was sort of hilariously angry. Every time Joe whipped it (something that it took me a few weeks to get accustomed to. I still tend to flinch every time, but an slowly getting used to it) the donkey kicked its hind legs into the cart. Apparently he hasn't been trained much yet (or so Binta said). The cart was pretty light with only the two of us, so that donkey really got us going fast. I was so sublimely happy, sitting in a fancy dress, without any shoes, and riding through peanut fields on a donkey cart that was cruising along in the moonlight. Joe and I don't really talk all that much when we're together, I sort of get the impression he doesn't like to speak French, but we exchanged a few jokes and the ride was entirely pleasant, if not smooth.

When we returned home, there was a delicious noodle dish and baguette waiting to be eaten! So delicious! And the drums and music from a lutte séance were audible in our neighborhood! So I changed quickly into a lighter dress (everyone was complaining about the cold but I thought it was lovely) and headed out with Ke, Khady, and Thiarma. The lutte was lowkey but entertaining. The victor received a goat and a few thousand CFA as a prize. It was sort of like a barn dance, but for Senegalese people.

So it's fairly obvious to see that my day was a total rollercoaster. Boredom, alienation, sadness, joy, it was all there. And now it is late and tomorrow I am getting my hair braided for Tabaski, so I had better sleep. I wish I had more of a chance to explain, but it will have to wait!

November 3rd- Kids and cultural adjustment

Week one has just ended and already the thing that I have been noticing the most is the incredibly large role that children play in making things work around here. Binta doesn't have any children of her own (at least not that I know of), but there are no fewer than seven people under the age of thirty living with us. There's Ke (18), Jean (16 and since Senegalese people don't really dig the whole 'J' sound thing his name is pronounced 'Zean'), Khady (17), Joseph (22 and pronounced 'Zoe' of course), Kumba (also no idea but has a baby), Binta Jr. (8-9ish), Kordu (4) and Birane (4 months). There's also an older man named Doudou who lives in one of the buildings out back, but I don't really know his story. The young people living in this house basically run the place with Binta (the older version) acting as the conductor. It is amazing to see how much work they do, even Kordu. I am by far the least productive member of the household, except maybe Biran.

The girls of my age group (I am including Ke, Khady, and Kumba) do all of the cooking, most of the housework and go to class all day. They wake up at five or six each morning, do a load of chores, go off to school, and come home in time to go harvest some peanuts, get some fish, and make dinner. It is astounding. One of Binta's favorite phrases is “Life in the bush is work!” and it couldn't be more true. Thiarma (apparently Binta is a nickname for this? Or maybe Thiarma is the nickname for Binta? And here I am referencing the nine year old) comes home from school during the lunch hour to eat and then proceeds to do all the dishes for the rest of the house and buys produce before heading back to school. Kordu is just starting at the church school in town so she is at home most of the day, but whenever I walk in the door I find her toying with the mortar and pestle or getting people water to drink or bringing Binta dishes.

Everyone is so capable. It is clear that a child's education here begins very early. My family in Dakar always told me that Senegalese children learn to work with their hands first, cooking and doing work around the house, so that, if nothing else, they will be able to subsist. They apparently really meant that. Ke and Khady are able to cook just about any traditional Senegalese dish. Their ability to make the ground shake when they pound millet and dance is something that I think should be reserved for two hundred pound men. Kumba does all of these things with a baby on her back. And Kordu is practically still a baby and can already use a mortar and pestle far better than I can.

My inability to contribute in any meaningful way gives me a sort of inferiority complex. I realize that the people of my house have had years of practice and that I, given the time, could probably do the same, but for the meantime, I can't help but feel a little helpless at always having my food served to me on a silver platter (literally- my meals always arrive on a silver tray) without having put in any legwork myself. I always offer to help. Sometimes the ladies take me up on it, which almost always ends with laughter and jokes about my clear lack of skill. The other day, for instance, Ke was sweeping the house. This is a daily activity because the buildup is pretty incredible. Women here use hand brooms, ones that require arm strength to use. And as always, the ladies encourage me to use my right hand while performing any meaningful task, something that inevitably makes banal work exceedingly difficult. I started sweeping, doing what I thought to be a fine job, and Ke started laughing and pointing at 'dust' that remained on the ground (this 'dust' was invisible to me and I didn't see any more dirt move when she redid the room a minute later). A friend of mine told me that the Senegalese believe in negative reinforcement, using mild insults to inspire harder efforts. I hope that was the case because I was left feeling a little sheepish. So sometimes they accept my help laughingly and other times I get scoffed out of the kitchen. I guess with my untrained hands I could do more harm than good. It's fortunate that I have already undergone the process of culture shock once this semester because I do feel like I am more patient this time around. I am definitely more open to the possibility that not every giggle is a judgment of my skills.

It is difficult to sit around on a chair and watch everyone working without feeling inferior, guilty, or both. Sometimes I don't want to offer to help because I think that I will get laughed at or make a fool of myself or break a social code that I don't know exists. I can usually talk myself out of these excuses and end up offering to help anyway, usually to one of the common responses I listed above. Then starts the guilt. I sit around on a chair, sometimes playing with Kordu or a neighbor boy named Alioune, and watch other people work. It makes me feel very separate and privileged. I am here as an intern, to learn, so watching and doing small tasks around the house when I can is probably a fine contribution, but I really want to be a more active member of the household. I feel like I am capable of doing more than I am and it pains me to see people, many of whom are way less than half my age, working all the time, oftentimes for my benefit, without being able to give back. At the same time, it has only been a week and I would guess that my involvement will increase as I give myself time to learn. Patience is a virtue that Senegal imbues in large quantities.  

October 27- When I was clearly experiencing the initial high of cultural adjustment...

So much to say and so little time to say it! I am writing this as a blog hoping that sometime I will have the opportunity to post it, but who knows if that will ever happen? I can't believe I have only been here three days! I feel like so much has happened and I already feel very at home. Binta, my new host mother, is amazing. She is childless, but has 6ish (I can't actually tell who really lives here...) students boarding with her and also a number of relatives. The house is very lively at all hours and I have made fast friends with a four year old girl named Kordu who speaks only Serer, so our games are all basically just her using me as a jungle gym. I really like it here even though my life has devolved into this blurry mush of French/English/Wolof/Serer. Everyone here speaks Serer all the time, which means that they greet me, hear my response in Wolof and then switch to that and French for my benefit. It also means that I can't understand anything anyone is saying unless they are speaking directly to me. It's funny, but also I think it makes me more relaxed since I never really have to listen or worry about the conversation unless I hear “Mariam” (my Senegalese name that everyone uses here) or “Ndubu” (the Serer equivalent of toubab). The village is really beautiful. It is very green and there is a nice fusion of thatch roofs and cement block houses that makes everything into a lovely jumble of buildings. And there are a billion animals running around at all times. Today I took a tour around town with Djiene (that has to be spelled wrong), who will be my supervisor. Mbam is beautiful and ASPOVRECE (my org's name) has some really cool projects going on. Lucky for me, there are projects going on. Apparently sometimes people show up and there is really nothing to do.

It has been a lively few days here! Day one I didn't do much but sit around and be a bit awkward. Yesterday however, I had so many exciting firsts! I went to the market in Foundiougne with Kumba (Binta's niece who lives here with her four month old son Birane). We took a charette/sarett/horse cart! I was so excited! It was fun, but I also pity any woman who has had to give labor on one (yeah, that happens...more often than most people would like to admit I think) because it is not exactly a luxury vehicle. They are basically the car rapides of Mbam, given that fare was 100 CFA and the riding was hilariously bumpy. After arriving at the market I ran into Ousmane Diouf, an acquaintance from my first night here. It was lucky because I needed to go further into Foundiougne to buy myself some water while Kumba did some shopping and Ousmane is a jakarta (I have no idea how to spell this but it is pronounced exactly like the capital of Indonesia so that is how I will spell it) or a young man who drives around on a motorcycle and ferries people around town. I paid him 200 CFA each way to get to the store to buy water, making jakartas Mbam's taxi equivalent. It was only after I finished my ride that I realized that I HAD NEVER BEEN ON A MOTORCYCLE BEFORE! What a momentous occasion! I really enjoyed it and also look forward to the fact that motorcycle is how I will get around for the next five-ish weeks. The only other really notable moment from the market was when we were leaving. While trying to get on the horse cart, I missed, hit my thigh, and fell off. That was pretty funny for every Senegalese person nearby who laughed and said “Ndubu!” but also resulted in a pretty gnarly bruise forming on my thigh. Such is the life of an amateur charette rider.

Today! What a day! Even more exciting than yesterday!!! I can now add “peanut harvester” to my list of firsts on this trip. Next time you buy that nice little jar of Jiff, think of me! I spent most of the late afternoon in a random field pulling peanut plants from the ground in the wake of a horse and plow. It was tough work, but really rewarding. The plants didn't really look like I expected, but I guess I had never seen peanuts in a field before. And also, peanuts fresh picked are delicious! They are sort of green tasting, like an underripe banana, which I really enjoy. I was doing the whole take on off of every plant I pick thing...oops. The worst was coming home after we finished only to realize we still had to pull all the peanuts off the plants for deshelling! The work of a peanut grower is never finished. I can't believe how much time it takes! I was also far dirtier than I can ever remember being in my entire life. My entire body was eight shades darker than normal because there was a thick film of sandy dirt covering every inch of my body. I could literally scratch off the layers with my nails. Never has a bucket shower felt so good. I am exhausted right now, but it is the entirely satisfying feeling of knowing that I spent the day doing physical labor, from walking, to helping cook, to picking peanuts, to sorting the plants, etc. I also made bissap with Binta, which was so refreshing to come home to! There is just so much going on and I am bummed that I won't be able to post blogs more often because I feel like everything I do right now requires story time. I guess I will do my best to sum it up here and put away some gems for later.

Back in Dakar!

Ah! So the past month was a complete whirlwind. Yesterday I woke up a little before 5am and my host siblings walked me to a bus stop. Unsurprisingly, the bus is supposed to leave around 5:30, but we waited for more than an hour. The bus was really easy and I made fast friends with a number of the apprentices (the equivalent of the car rapides guys- they hung out the doors of the bus and tapped on the roof when people wanted to get off) who laughed at my poor Wolof abilities. The journey took quite awhile- we had to wait for a ferry to cross the river at Foundiougne- but I ate a lot of sugared peanuts and enjoyed the ride. The bus driver was playing mbalax loudly and I had a nice window seat to enjoy the Senegalese landscape as we went. Last night I passed a relaxing evening with some of my friends here indulging in all of the foods we didn't get access to in the village- pizza, hamburgers, ice cream, etc. It was so nice to catch up! I was also pleasantly surprised by how comfortable I felt immediately when I got home. My house here really is like home! I missed my mom and we had a nice chat to catch up. I am sad to only have a week left. There are definitely things I am going to miss. I feel like I am finally at ease and now I'm leaving! But I couldn't be happier to be heading off to France and I can't wait to get home in time for the holidays!
I have been keeping blogs since I left for my internship, so I will start to post some of those now. It may seem a little anticlimactic since I am already back in Dakar, but I figure since I won't actually be home for another few weeks, maybe it will have a similar effect.
Also here's a link to my facebook album with a few photos from my time in Mbam:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2065439&id=1271100054&l=101149d525

IM ALIVE

So I am alive and well. Dont have time or typing skills on a french keyboard to say much more.
Mbam is excellent and the time is flying.
I have been working at a school and harvesting peanuts and searching for fish.
And tqking bucket showers of course/
And riding horse carts and jakartas (,otorcycles).
I am sorry this is a lame update but I lack sufficient time for more.

Mbam diggity

Monday morning is the day! How exciting! I can't wait to get out of Dakar and see another way of living here. I could use a bit of a break. I really haven't ever lived in a big city and I think I will appreciate a few weeks of calm and quiet in a smaller village. I have heard only good things about Mbam and the family that I will be living with. I really have no idea what to expect, which is really part of the fun. I will try to post some updates because I think that I will end up with some good stories, but if I fail I will be typing journals and will try to post them later.

So basically I may or may not have internet access, but hopefully I will be able to recount some epic tales of adventure at the end. 

Right now most MSID students (myself included) are really making a lot of excuses to spend money on delicious things. Last night I ate pizza for dinner and a hamburger for lunch. Hamburgers are so delicious here! Usually the most basic hamburgers come with egg, cheese, ketchup, and french fries all on the bun with the burger. So good. So basically I am bleeding money, but then again I can't really complain about $20 weekends because I usually spend that at school. And I am in Senegal having fun! I think tonight I am going to try to go see a concert by Daara J, a well-known Senegalese hip hop artist, tonight. 

Also of news lately, Dakar has little to no natural gas/propane available. This is very unfortunate because it means that the power has been spotty (and that's being generous) and today my family has been cooking with charcoal. Charcoal cooking is slow and much more annoying than cooking with gas. My mother has been grumpy all day. Also the streets have been full of people toting around heavy gas tanks, wandering from boutique to boutique in search of some cooking fuel. Really lame Dakar. Good thing I am leaving for Mbam!

On the road again...

So I am in my last few days of classes here in Dakar! Tomorrow is my busiest day yet academically (yeah it is not quite as rigorous here as my classes usually are...) as I have a Wolof oral exam and a final presentation for Country Analysis. I should probably be studying now, but a blog sounded like more fun.
Monday morning everyone who is leaving the city for their internships is going to pile onto a bus and go on yet another Senegalese road trip to do the drop offs. And I thought that getting left at our host families was intimidating! It's going to be really scary watching other people get left all over the country, although I am fourth on the list so I won't have long to wait for my turn.
Today I found out that Mbam has running water (and I mean taps, not indoor plumbing) which is exciting because I probably won't have to haul my own water. Waly has told me that it also has electricity, which is excellent news. No internet, but apparently there is a big road running through town so it won't be all that difficult to catch a ride to a bigger city to get internet if I want.
Also we are trying to plan an expedition to the Gambia. I would be sad if I left Senegambia without seeing James Island! It may get expensive, but I think it would be well worth the adventure. And also expensive is relative. I am thinking in the neighborhood of US$100 and cringing. Can't imagine all those fools in Europe bleeding money. Many other students are much closer to the border than I am, so I think it is quite reasonable to think that I can do it if I can find a few days.
So for now I am just finishing up classes, buying enough toilet paper to last me 6 weeks, and celebrating by eating all the cheese and fruit my paltry budget can buy.

Not having electricity is really inconvenient

The one overwhelming thing that I have noticed about living in a developing country this week is that a lot of things are just sort of inconvenient. It makes me realize that growing up I basically had everything at my fingertips all of the time and that living in a place where the power is always on, food and water are typically in stock, and a constant stream of natural gas is available for my cooking needs is pretty nice.

There have been a number of incidents that have made me think twice (or three times or five times) about this question of convenience. Right now, for example, I am sitting in the dark because the power has been randomly turned off again. SENELEC has some problems keeping up with the bills, so the government tends to shut off the electricity. They turn it off in phases so that only a couple neighborhoods are affected at a time, but sometimes there are multiple outages in a day and sometimes the outages last for hours at a time. It is unpredictable to say the least. The power has been on much more consistently in the past week or two, especially when compared to the middle and end of September. But even still, it goes out fairly regularly. Saturday night it also went out, as I was sitting enjoying a nice beer at a bar in my neighborhood aptly called Le Mermoz (Mermoz being the neighborhood I live in...). Obviously life goes on and in that instance the bartender pulled out some lamps and we continued our merrymaking, but sometimes it is much more difficult to do things in half darkness. I know that electricity is not a necessity and that I was fortunate to grow up in a place that has it nearly 100% of the time. Actually, it's a bit funny because for the first month and a little bit that I was here, when the outages were especially frequent, they didn't really bother me at all. But now they're wearing on my nerves ever so slightly because they're so infrequent that I let my guard down, only to be thrust into darkness when I am least expecting it. It's really fairly bratty of me to be annoyed about the outages, but there's something really unpleasant about it getting dark at 7:30 and then having to rely on my headlamp for light while I go about my business.

Senegal has a pretty significant energy crisis. They are a petroleum importing country that depends on a lot of big Western businesses to supply gas and oil. This morning I saw a newspaper headline about how most of the big gas importers- Total, Shell, etc- are dry for the time being. When Senegal doesn't pay its bills, the gas sits on ships in Dakar's harbor. And sometimes the ships don't even make it that far. Last week my brother ran around for almost two hours looking for gas for our stove. Many Senegalese families use gas burners similar to camp stoves for all their cooking and my family is no exception. With the gas shortages of late, it has on occasion become nearly impossible to find gas for cooking. We were completely out one day last week and he had to go all the way to Liberte 6 (another neighborhood that is a twenty to thirty minute walk away) to get gas. In fact, Liberte 6 made the news that night for having received a large shipment of gas, basically the only neighborhood on the whole peninsula to have done so. People flocked from everywhere to get their hands on it. It really puts things in perspective. People in the US would laugh about the prospect of having to go further than the corner Holiday station store for gas. It is just so convenient living in a really rich country where we don't even have to ask where the next shipment of gas or oil is going to come from. And it is so inconvenient to have to worry about whether or not there will be gas available to cook tonight's dinner.

And then comes the question of water. In Dakar the water is almost always on, but somedays it is inexplicably very unavailable. There was one Saturday about a month ago when the water was off for the entire city for a few hours. None of us ever figured out why, but it was really inconvenient for people who were trying to cook dinner and for people who had just returned from the beach and really needed to wash the sand out of their hair.

It is also interesting to see the problems in the supply chain that exist for the average business in Senegal. Last week every boutique (small shops on the corner of almost every street) in my neighborhood was out of 10L bottles of mineral water, a product that is common. At Le Mermoz on Saturday night, a friend of mine had to request three different kinds of soda pop before arriving at one that the bar actually had. At restaurants it's common to get a menu only to try to order and be told that the kitchen literally has two or three items available. It's hard to tell if these types of incidents are the result of poor supply chain management, goods shortages, or if there's a completely different reason that I can't even imagine. Whatever it is, it always causes a little laugh when one of us tries to get one of our top five options at a restaurant or bar and can't manage.

So yes, convenience is lacking in a lot of ways. It is usually just sort of hilarious. Most people on my program seem to take it in sort of a 'why am I not surprised that this isn't working right now' way. It also makes me feel like a privileged brat that I am so accustomed to always having things at my fingertips. I take that back, it makes me grateful that the US has the infrastructure it does. It's just so convenient to be able to turn on a light at night, have my fan on while I sleep, and order most anything I want at restaurants. Being here proves that these luxuries are in no way necessary, but that it is really a luxury in itself to not have to worry about the day-to-day stuff of life.  

Reality Check

The other day walking through the market I saw what I can only describe as half of a man. I didn't really dare do a double take for fear of being rude, but from one glance I was able to notice that this man had no legs and that the upper half of his body was the size one would expect from a toddler. On this oddly small body, there was the face of a man clearly more aged than myself. He was sitting on the sidewalk on a blanket, without a wheelchair or any other type of aid. It was heartbreaking to see this person on the ground, sitting so low that it would have been easy to miss him entirely. It was equally striking to me that he had been able to survive at all. His disability was extreme and he obviously lacked the means to get the attention he deserved. I had to figure that only some combination of insane mental determination, social support and luck had allowed him to successfully make it through so many years of life. While there was something a little bit intriguing about seeing this man at the market, it also really disturbed me. He didn't even have a wheelchair.

When I decided to come to Senegal I figured that I would see things that would make me uncomfortable. I knew that the abject poverty faced by so many would probably inspire some sort of white/American/privileged guilt. What I didn't really expect was the disproportionate (and visible) proportion of urban homeless/poor that would have handicaps. Walking down the street to school I encounter a number of the same beggars everyday. I would estimate that there are between five and seven familiar faces greeting me each day on my walk. Of this group, three are in wheelchairs and another man could probably use one, but sits on a blanket on the ground instead. Many of the people I see with handicaps seem to have suffered from polio as children, their feet and legs characteristically twisted, while others have lost limbs altogether. Many people are in wheelchairs or use canes and crutches to walk, which is rather depressing to see, but the other day I was realizing that even sadder is the fact that those are the lucky people. I have been noticing with increasing frequency (probably because my attention has been drawn to it) the high number of people who clearly need a wheelchair or cane, but don't have them.

Last weekend in Saint Louis we were sitting outside a bar when a man crawled up to the table. He had crossed the street on his hands and knees, almost getting hit by a number of cars in the process. It's an awkward feeling to look at a man who clearly has very little in life, take a sip of an overpriced drink, and try to ignore his calls for help. There are so many people here who ask for help on the streets; it is difficult to say no, but also impossible to say yes to everyone. I realize that I am rich in comparison to so many people, but my bank account certainly can't handle unbridled charity. There are days when I offer a couple coins to beggars, or maybe some extra bread to the talibes, but I honestly don't do it very often. It is a little overwhelming to look at the scale of the problem and attempt to do anything about it because even if I give someone 50 CFA or some baguette today, they will be back on the street tomorrow. I know that just because the problem won't be solved doesn't mean I shouldn't help, but it is distressing to walk around and see so many people who are subsisting on the goodwill of others, clearly lacking any government support or consistent means. I feel like giving a few piddly CFA isn't going to do a thing. And realistically it won't. It might make their life a little easier for today, but in the long run the problem is going to continue to replicate itself.

I was warned that there would be challenges in processing the things that I saw here. It's strange because for the first month or so of being here I was able to write off a lot of what I see on the streets everyday because I had mentally prepared myself for the fact that extreme poverty would exist here. Because I knew that I would see it, I was able to brace myself and detach my emotions from the issue. But in the past week or so, especially with my observations about how disproportionately people with handicaps are affected, this barrier has been shattered. Seeing the same sad scenes everyday wears on one's ability to accept reality without getting emotionally involved.  

Nam nam nam

I have been avoiding writing this post because I really think it is going to turn out rambly and not be nearly as interesting as it probably could be, but nothing all that interesting or funny has happened this week, so I am giving in.

The food here is really delicious for the most part. In fact, at my house it always is. We don't often eat the mystery meat that so many people complain about and I have never been served Senegalese cous cous (which I hear is pretty awful). I do often find myself being grateful for the multivitamins I brought along, however, given that a large part of the diet lacks fresh fruits and veggies. And also contains a ton of processed, bleached flour and refined sugar. 

I don't really know what my family eats for lunch because to be honest I am never actually home during the lunch hour. I am pretty excited to (probably?) eat lunch with my family at my internship to see what lunch is because it is the biggest meal of the day.
A typical dinner is meat, carbs, and sauce. My family most often eats beef, although fish and chicken are also common. We almost always have baguette, although lately the price of bread has been high so that isn't really guaranteed. Dinner always also includes at least one other starchy something. Rice is everywhere and french fries (made from real potatoes fried in palm oil) are often featured. Yassa, or onion sauce, is the most common condiment. Other nights, this spicy something or another that probably contains a ton of MSG douses my rice. My family also loves ketchup, although I usually opt out of that. Vegetables are not altogether common, but some nights there will be boiled cabbage, manioc or carrots. My family also often makes this mushy pea dish that is: mushy peas, yassa, beef, and fried potatoes. Delicious! I eat so much here. My family has stopped eating from a communal dish and serves me my own plate. On an average night I eat enough food to feed two or three of my normal self. I justify it because my lunch is usually just fresh fruit and yogurt. 
I will try to take some photos of my dinners and add them someday soon to make this a little more exciting...

Saint Louis (Another Senegalese Roadtrip)

Saturday morning I woke up sometime around 5:15 to get a taxi and head to Saint Louis, the first colonial capital of French West Africa. It is one of Senegal's largest cities (after Dakar, of course) and is situated on the coast just a few miles south of the Mauritanian border. The city itself sprawls on both banks of the Senegal River and also encompasses a small island in the middle of the river itself. Bridges connect the island to both river banks. The city was completely different than Dakar, and completely wonderful. We spent most of our time on the island, which has a thriving ex-pat community and is home to most tourist amenities. (Because lets be real, this weekend we were being the world's biggest tourists.) One of the coolest/most unique features of Saint Louis is that most of the original colonial architecture has been maintained. This makes the island a colorful, open, and beautiful place. The buildings are painted bright shades of yellow, blue, and red, with shutters and balconies and other ornate details. There is also very little traffic on the island because it is so small, making it really nice to wander around.

The view from the back seat of the sept place

Let me backtrack for just a minute to talk about how we got to Saint Louis. Travelers leaving Dakar have a number of options for shared transport. There are buses operated by the Mauride brotherhood, minibuses that squish way too many people into them, and sept places (station wagons that offer seven places for passengers and their baggage, plus the driver). There are probably more, but those are the three I hear about most often. The sept place is slightly more expensive than the minibuses, but is generally considered a more comfortable option, so the five of us opted to take that. The other group of students was already at the station when Alyssa and I arrived, a fact made obvious when we pulled up in our taxi and immediately were greeted by two men saying: “Toubabs going to Saint Louis? Your friends are over there.” And indeed they were. Sometimes the toubab title is useful. Luckily there were other passengers headed to Saint Louis (the sept places don't leave until they're full), so we were able to leave almost immediately. We were squished three to a row, but it was surprisingly comfortable (and also a little too hot- but really how is that different than any other day?). The drive between Saint Louis and Dakar was fast- it took us only about 4 hours to travel the 310 kilometers between the cities. The road connecting the two cities is well known as the nicest road in Senegal, and it showed. Rather than the bumpy, slow ride that we enjoyed on the way to Toubacouta, we went highway speed on a road whose biggest problem was an occasional pothole. It was ritzy to say the least. The drive was fairly uneventful, although it was nice to get to see the Senegalese landscape in yet another region.

A typical building.

We spent most of the day on Saturday zigzagging across the island, taking in the sights and sounds. The architecture continued to amaze and the weather was amazing- a nice breeze coming off the river and not too hot. The island was so calm in comparison to Dakar. There weren't many people wandering around and this part of the city lacked the constant barrage of advertisements and vendors that are so common on the streets of Dakar. It felt amazing to get out of the city a bit, even if it was just to a smaller city. We also enjoyed a delicious lunch at a Moroccan restaurant and went to find our hotel, a cute little place called La Louisiane on the north side of the island. The day went fast, and soon we were gathering to eat dinner and find some way to amuse ourselves for the night. The island is home to a number of fine eating and drinking establishments; we frequented a number of them during our evening excursion. We started off eating some burgers that had a skewed bun to burger ratio but were delicious nonetheless. Then we continued on to a nice hotel bar where we enjoyed a few drinks, kept an eye on a Senegal-Mauritius soccer match and got offered many tours of Saint Louis and the surrounding area. Even though we were bothered by a number of beggars and vendors, the streets were much calmer than they ever are in downtown Dakar. We were sitting outside on the street and only got the occasional proposition. It was nice. Eventually we decided to hit up another bar where there was live music- a great little reggae group that made it hard to hear, but provided excellent ambiance. We made friends with some Guineans and danced a little, which put us all in a great mood. Obviously, we couldn't go to sleep after the band finished, so we continued on to a bar called the Flamingo that we had noted earlier in the day. The bar was calm, although Lonely Planet tells us that it is where the best parties in Saint Louis can sometimes be found. The service was great and there was a pool in the middle of the bar area. It also sat directly on the river's edge, which provided lovely panoramas. We had a great time there, chatting with the bar tenders and other patrons. There was a very silly man named Pierre who worked for the American embassy, a bassist named Becaye from a local band, and another man who only spoke Spanish? The night was definitely a success, and we managed to stay at the bar chatting in Frolof (French + Wolof) until well after 3 am. By that point we were tired and hungry, so we grabbed some really rich donuts and hit the hotel, where I actually didn't successfully get to sleep until more like 7 I think. Silly silly toubabs.

We all woke up tired, but content to wander, so we walked off the island and attempted to get close to the Mauritanian border. It turns out that even when you walk to the end of the road in Saint Louis and get close to the river that everyone always says is the border you are actually still about 7 kilometers from the border. We weren't altogether successful, but Joe and I have convinced ourselves that the tree line we saw down the beach had to have been the border, so that is a personal victory. The beach was worth walking to as well. There were lots of people fishing and the waves were lovely. There was also a group of Senegalese preteens who laughed at my nose piercing and tried really hard to get us to dance. It's really hilarious watching them laugh at us for being really white.

And after the march to Mauritania, we were pretty much ready to go. It had been a long night and the day was much hotter than the previous one had been. So we squished too many of us into a taxi and headed out of town to grab a sept place back to Dakar. Again we got lucky and got to leave almost immediately, which we were all grateful for because it was nap time. Sleeping in a sept place isn't exactly comfortable, and it was very funny to watch my friend Griffin's head bob on and off the shoulder of the stranger sitting next to him. At one point the woman turned around to me and Alyssa and started laughing at him. It was one way to pass the time. The drive home took even less time than the way there and after failing to figure out the car rapides leaving the sept place station, I just hopped in a taxi to go home.

So that was my weekend as a tourist in Saint Louis. I would highly recommend the city to anyone who happens to have a little time to kill in Senegal. I am a little bummed because I lost one of my favorite earrings at the hotel, but I guess I should have looked a little harder for it if I am going to complain. And I also got pretty sunburned. Oh well, c'est la vie. The weekend was just what I needed to clear my head a little bit and I would have been mad at myself if I spent three months here without setting foot in Saint Louis. It was well worth the adventure.  

A General Update

Hit the beach yesterday with my brother after dropping by a tailor to get a dress made. I hope it turns out cute and not homely because I fear that there may have been something lost in translation when I tried to explain what I wanted. Also, she asked me to draw a picture and then drew something totally different, so I feel like maybe she's just going to make whatever she wants. At least it will probably turn out nice looking if she's made it before. Stay tuned for that! But yeah, hit the beach for awhile. Just bummed around and started working on homework (which I actually have!?!) when I returned. Found more cockroaches in my room. Hilarity ensued. I could tell the story, but cockroaches have been getting way too much press on my blog, so you'll just have to guess. I will just say this: it involved me sitting on my bed, finding a cockroach close to my head, and panicking with a spray can full of insecticide. My mother also made many comments about how silly it is that toubabs are afraid of cockroaches. She's right. Also it is sad that I pretty much just told the story. I could have made it much more dramatic, but c'est la vie.

Wolof is always one of my favorite classes. Our professor is phenomenal and it is hard for me to believe that I walked into a room less than a month ago not knowing a single word of the language! Apparently a lot of people speak Wolof at my internship site. I figure some people will speak some french, but maybe that is a bad assumption to make. It's intimidating knowing that my ability to communicate with people might be limited to a language that I have spent 50 hours learning. I guess I will be known as a really quiet girl for the first time in my life.

Speaking of my internship, in a couple of weeks I will be headed to a village called Mbam for a month and a half. I don't have a very clear idea of what I will be doing there yet, but the possibilities seem pretty endless. From what I can gather, the village has a few thousand people and is a member of Senegal's 'Eco-village' network. The people living there have quite a few grassroots projects, in various areas such as: animal biomass/renewable energy, mangrove reforestation, lifejacket fabrication, and permaculture. I think it is going to take some initiative to get involved, but if I am able to think of a cool project it could really take off. I think I will need to make the acquaintance of a well-connected polyglot. Also I won't really have internet there. Foundaigne, a town about 5 kilometers away, has internet, so I guess I can have it as often as I am willing to walk for it. Savor the blog posts now!

I don't have many deep thoughts about life in Senegal at the moment, but I figured I would give a general life update until I think of something better to write about. This weekend I am planning to go to Saint Louis, the former colonial capital, with a few of my classmates. I have no doubt that this adventure will provide ample blogging material for next week. Basically, I am telling you to wait for me to do something exciting so that I can write about it and this little info blurb is going to have to suffice for now.

The Streets of Dakar

A couple years ago I decided that most cities are probably pretty much the same. I acknowledge that they all have their own personality and unique skylines- anyone who has talked to me very often knows how staunchly I defend the Twin Cities as one of the best metropolitan areas in the States- but at the heart of it cities are all comprised of lots of concrete, industry, skyscrapers, noise, serious people, etc. Dakar is really no exception. Traffic is crazy, taxi drivers honk mercilessly, and business people walk around in very nice suits. 

The thing that I notice about Dakar is the garbage. Every day my route to school takes me past an area that is littered with organic and man-made waste. I can't be sure if people leave their piles of garbage there or if it is a low-lying area that naturally attracts trash moved by wind and water, but every day a clean-up crew is there, filling garbage trucks with all the debris and hauling it away. It smells awful and looks pretty disgusting. This problem with garbage exists on a large scale here. Material culture has moved in, but the culture of reduce, reuse, recycle (or even don't be a litterbug!) haven't had time to evolve yet. I have seen people carrying garbage bags down to the beach, only to watch as they dump out the garbage and take the bag back to refill it and repeat the cycle. It's discouraging, but what else can one really expect? The infrastructure for garbage disposal doesn't exist.

The funniest byproduct of this trash conundrum is the litany of polyester braids, animal innards, and people's clothing that finds its way onto the roads. I wish I had started a count of the number of extensions I see on the road because everyday I see at least two or three. They also hang from the tailpipes of many taxis. Fake hair is everywhere! But so are other things you would never expect to see on the road. The other day one of my friends saw the hindquarter of a cow laying on the street. I also often see rats the size of small cats decaying and feral dogs and cats eating the remains of unknown and unlucky little critters. Its part of the reason that leaving the city last weekend was so nice, although garbage was a problem there as well. Garbage is an inevitable part of human living in the modern era, I just wish there was a more pleasant way of dealing with it. 

Return of the roaches

I have been working a lot at conquering my fear of cockroaches lately. Last night, after my return from Toubacouta, I made a big step in facing that fear. I walked into my room to find a dastardly bug crawling on my bedsheets. I swept it from my bed, after which it ran behind my brother's trunk against a wall. I grabbed my shoe (chacos make great roach stompin' shoes if anyone was curious) and prepared myself to exterminate the disgusting insect. I took a breath and pulled the trunk from behind the wall, awaiting the roach's attempt to flee- which never came. It sat curled in the corner, just waiting. Alright, well that's how it's going to be roach. That won't stop me. I hiked up my pagne (a wrap around skirt, mine is floor length) and stood on top of the trunk, readying myself for the kill. I dropped my chaco repeatedly, squishing the bug, and then closed in to bash on it a number of times. When I was done, the roach was dead, guts spilling out, no sign of moving antennae, on its back. Pleased with a job well done, I decided to wait until morning to clean up the carcass and went to sleep confidently on top of my sheet, knowing my foe's life force had been extinguished. That was my rookie mistake.

This morning I awoke to see a roach slowly limping across my bedroom floor. It can't be, just absolutely cannot be, the same bug. But I was wrong. That blasted cockroach survived! IT HAD RESURRECTED ITSELF AND WAS TRYING TO ESCAPE! I couldn't believe it, so I checked the corner where I had left my victim and, sure enough, the bug was gone. So I grabbed my chaco and commenced again, finishing off the job I believed myself to have finished the night before. I felt a twinge of remorse at killing the handicapped little roach, but also decided that this had become a mercy killing. It was dragging itself by its two weak little front legs, innards still spilling out one side. It's a miracle that it lived, but I also can't allow those pests to lurk in the dark corners of my room. Absolutely not. Do I regret what I did? No. I only regret that I didn't succeed the first time around.