Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Just thought I'd give a shout out to everyone back home, I'm thinking of you all today and always thankful for your presence in my life. I'll be celebrating theoretically with 8 hours of class, a pretty solid holiday I think.

Classes tomorrow!

I've heard rumors today that the strike is finally over! So classes start tomorrow, which is really exciting, relieving, and slightly stressful because I am slightly confused about the meeting time and place of several of my classes.  Oh well, whenever I can't find a class I just take it as a sign that I shouldn't be in it anyways.  Faulty logic?

Picking up where I left off last week, my roommate finally moved in Thursday night.  She is really awesome, and in my personal opinion, I have the best roommate of all the Americans here.  I say that because I like to brag, but also because my roommate is really friendly and social.  From what I hear, the other girls practically have to force their roommates to talk, and their roommates seem completely comfortable with one or two word responses.  In contrast, the moment my roommate (Juliette) comes in the room, she starts talking about anything and everything.  Frankly, I love that, because most women here don't talk much to me.  Juliette is a third year student in the Geographie department, she's also Catholic, which makes her part of a minority her on campus and in Senegal, and her father is from Cape Verde? so she speaks French better than Wolof.  Although, her French is extremely fast and I find her challenging to keep up with most of the time.

Besides hanging out with my roommate a little, I've been fairly occupied with this little church choir.  Little might be a bit of an understatement, because on Friday at our first rehearsal there were four people, including myself and Carlie (one of the other Americans).  Friday was slightly awkward as I was teaching the other two people songs in english and wondering why one the Senegalese girl there was asking if I had an arrangement for multiple parts.  We had our second rehearsal on Sunday, and there were about 6 other people there besides Carlie and I, three of whom are students at my University and are really good singers.  It appears that we could actually sound like a pretty good choir, I just need to be able to keep a straight face when the women singing the same part of me sings, "Open the eyes of my fart" instead of "open the eyes of my heart." I'm sure that what I'm saying when we sing in French is pretty far off too, but nonetheless, fairly amusing.  After a few choir rehearsals, I feel like I'm finally meeting making some quality friends, so that's definitely a nice feeling. 

Outside of choir rehearsal last weekend, I spent a little time in town bumming around a small little "grocery like store" where I found a jar of what the Senegalese refer to as peanut butter.  After trying said peanut butter I beg to differ, it just tastes kind of gross and is extremely liquid.  Maybe they gross peanut smoothie, I'll suggest my new name for their product.  In addition to visiting the downtown area, I hung out with some guys that Carlie met during dinner one night, and Carlie and I beat them in several rounds of scrabble (some in French, some not...).  The scrabble players are definitely a fun group of people. Campus here is divided into different villages, I live in village g, and I think there are villages from a to k or l.  Village A is an all male village, also home to the scrabble players, and is much livelier than the village I live in.  When I was over there, there were guys running around playing soccer, doing pushups, praying, blasting music, and being kind of crazy.  As of late, the excitement in my village occurs when one of the numerous cats jumps out of the bushes at me when I'm not expecting it and I scream.

Monday I had my usual french class, choir rehearsal (ok, so it's not really everyday), and then the other Americans and I went over to Baydalleye's house for dinner.  Baydalleye is the professor in charge of our program here as well as the head of the English department and the dean of the letters and sciences college.  Dinner was really fun because we don't get to see Baydallaye too often because he's so busy, and the food was a billion times better than what we eat on campus.  Yesterday after French classes Carlie and I trekked all over Saint-Louis with the rest of our choir to meet the tailor who is making our choir uniforms.  Yes, we are apparently wearing matching outfits during our concert, which is on December 6th, I expect you all to attend...  The tailor experience was interesting because we went fairly deep into the marketplace and down a row of what looks like storage garages, but are actually individual tailor shops with probably 50 people working on different garments.  Honestly, it felt kind of like a sweatshop because of how many people were crowded in such a small place.  

Today I had my first Wolof test, hopefully it went alright, I studied a pretty good amount of time for it, which I think amused my roommate who doesn't seem to do much studying.   The rest of the week I'll be trying to figure out classes, and then this weekend we're traveling to Touba, which is the site of the grand mosque here in Senegal.  

In reference to my previous blog, I said that people can be fairly assertive when buying things from shops on campus and in town.  I hate to say that they are rude, because that is my view of how they act from the perspective of someone from a culture very different, but I do spend a lot of time standing there looking kind of silly.  We'll see if I grow a little backbone!

So you're probably wondering what I do all day....

First, I'll give you an update on the strike...still going.  I believe that they're on strike until Monday now, but I heard rumors of the second cafeteria opening on Monday, and that is one of the main sources of the student unrest.  This week has been pretty good even though I haven't had my formal classes, at least I'm more aware of what's going on on campus and I don't go to each class and see if it's meeting and then go back home like I did last week.  There was a large amount of time wasting involved in my trekking across the desert several times a day last week. Besides not wasting time, I've had my usual French and Wolof classes this week.  Sometimes I forget there's a strike because I've had four hours of class each day this week, so at least my brain isn't turning to mush.  

My new roommate is currently in the moving in process.  She began moving in on Monday, when she kind of barged in with several brooms and disassembled her side of the room to leave it immaculate an hour later.  Since then she periodically drops by to unload some stuff into her closet, but I've only seen her a total of maybe 30 minutes since Monday.  I'm not exactly sure where she's been staying, but I think she'll be moved in for good by this weekend.  From the short conversations we've had, I gathered that her name is Juliette, she's Catholic, and seems really nice.  Although, she's a little shy and I definitely am the who initiates every  conversation, which I'm totally ok with because I have no pride when it comes to being awkward.  

The past few days I've had some nice forays into Saint-Louis! Friday I made my first trip to the post office, which was a much better experience than some of the other girls have had.  One day they attempted to mail postcards and the workers at the post office told them that they didn't have any stamps, hmmm.  The only hiccup I had on Friday at the post office is when the postal worker told me to come to his room so he could give me his shirt? Kids say the darndest things... I did venture back to the post office yesterday and that was more of an adventure.  If you're looking into some insight into how I keep my cool here in Africa, I'll let you know that I don't always. Frankly, I feel a little bad because, as most of you know, I'm not the most tactful person, and at one point yesterday I told one of the workers that the post office was a little disorganized after they sent me running back and forth and out of the post office without getting anything done.  Granted, after that comment I had about half of the post office trying to help me send one thing, so I think I maybe am just picking up a little of the Senegalese fayda (boldness).  For example, when I go to a boutique to get my almost daily can of pineapples, I stand in front of the counter for a few minutes until the boutique man feels bad for me and asks me what I want.  At the same time, I would estimate that 6 Senegalese people walked up, shouted what they wanted, through money at the guy, took their sugar or whatever, and left. Personally, I think that they don't really have much patience in, but I know that's just what they're used to in terms of customer service.

On Saturday Carly and Emily and I visited the museum in Saint-Louis, which is a very nice building on the end of the island with two floors of exhibits.  The first floor is filled with random exhibits ranging from the animals of Senegal, to geological history, to general history of humanity, to French colonialism.  Although the exhibits aren't the most informative, I think it's pretty interesting just seeing what they think is important to display in a museum and compare it to what our museums are like.  My new question is, do Senegalese people actually visit this museum, or is it more for tourists? I'll have to look into that. 

Sunday I went back to my little protestant church.  I think I'm gonna keep attending services there, at least for now because there were more people and there seemed to be a different pastor who spoke a little louder so I had more of a chance of understanding the sermon. Plus, there were African drums accompanying the music, which was really fun.  Admittedly, most of the music is very traditional hymns, but I gave them some songs in English so we'll see how if they use it.

That's a bit of what's new with me, temperatures are scorching hot, around 105 degrees between 11am and 4 pm, so it's tough to motivate myself to do to much more than read books and learn Wolof. with my fan blowing on me.

strike strike strike strike strike strike strike strike.....

Newsflash! students here are on strike until Wednesday (and by Wednesday, I mean, December?) That's not really a newsflash for me because we are nearing two weeks of student strikes because of difficult living conditions here at the University. Oh well, Senegal is as much a cultural exchange opportunity as it is an academic exchange program.  

sorry for the short post, i'll update tomorrow

when they say strikes....

Well, it's the end of my third week here in Saint-Louis and it was a pretty uneventful week.  You got the extent of my class experience from my last blog post because classes did not happen the rest of the week. To clarify, I did try to attend my classes, but no one seemed to show up for them, including the professors.  Actually, it was the students who were on strike this week though.  I think they were striking because of general living conditions being difficult here, like the cafeteria problems I mentioned before.  Instead of improving, the cafeteria wait has been getting worse and worse to the point that you can wait two hours just to enter the cafteria.  The other Madison girls and I are thinking about purchasing some cheapo plastic chairs and tailgating in line as we wait, any thoughts? Just kidding, but it could be fun.  Thursday night was by far the highlight of the week because just as we were about to enter the cafteria after over an hour of waiting, this group of about 20 huge men stormed the entrance and pushed their way in.  One of the girls with me knew one of the guys in rebel force and he told her he was busy and didn't have time to wait so he just went on in.  Sounds good to me...maybe people would notice if I did that though, hmmm.  Oh, and last night I believe there was a fight in the cafeteria. I'm not really sure what happened but people were crowded around the windows and the line did not move a single inch for over 45 minutes.  

In case you were wondering with anticipation about the resolution of my struggles from last week, I have electricity! More specifically, I fixed the problem myself after causing a minor explosion in the outlet.  As it turns out, all I needed to do was flip a switch in the tiny little box on my floor in my dorm and voila! Plus, today I went into town and bought another power strip, third times a charm I guess.  Besides the electricity, I'm pretty much over my cold/flu whatever it was, which is glorious!, but I have yet to fix my bed.  I've actually taken to sleeping on the other side of my bed which is almost normal, and I suppose I could turn my bed around instead of putting my head where my feet are.

With regard to my roommate situation, it's kinda back to the drawing board for me.  My roommate of last week was really a sweet heart, but she transfered to a school in Dakar and moved out on Thursday so I am once again roommateless.  Honestly, it's pretty nice having my own space, but I think it would be good for me to have a roommate because it would be easier to get to know other girls.  Boys are much more outgoing here, and I actually made a friend the other day.  I decided that I would only be friends with someone if I talked to them more than once and they seemed genuinely friendly both times, so it's kind of exciting and we all feel like we are starting to fit in here better!

Classes in Africa...

So I just started my second week of classes here at Gaston Berger University, and I have to admit that classes may be the most frustrating aspect of life here in Senegal that I've encountered so far. Picking classes was initially a challenge picking the departments would list classes such as history 110 or geography 301, so the only way to find out what the class is about is to go to class.  I suppose that doesn't sound bad, and it's not, except when you think that you're at French literature and the professor starts speaking in Spanish and then you have to stealthily sprint out of the classroom.  Side note: stealthy does not really apply to tubabs in Senegal, and I really did run out of the room because the professor was shouting something in Spanish at me and I didn't know what to do. haha, good times! Obviously, my class changed it's meeting time or room, but it took me an entire week to figure out when the class actually meets because all of the department administrations are on strike and Professors don't seem to exist except for when they arrive 20 minutes late for class.  

I feel the need to step back because I'm starting to sound like a crazy bitter tubab, it was just a challenging week.  Besides, not all of my professors are bad.  So far I have found two classes that I plan on sticking with the semester, so that's good right? One of the classes is geography of health, which has potential to be really great, if we ever move on from the history of the field. The other class I like is political history of Africa, which is the first lecture style class I've encountered so far. To clarify, by lecture style I mean that my professor speaks to our class with informative statements using the blackboard to clarify terms as well as occasionally interacting with the class.  Every other class I've attended was dictation style, where the professor reads their notes and we write what they say basically word for word.  In theory this should be easier with my mediocre level of French, but I find it quite difficult if they talk quietly or too quickly.  Hopefully I'll have some more success with classes this week, I'm planning on trying out some econ courses because that department didn't start last week due to strikes.

Classes were really the extent of last week for me.  Because I attended more classes than I planned on taking, and because I have my French and Wolof classes on top of those, I didn't really have any free time.  Although, I did have my three meals a day at the cafeteria, which became quite difficult because the rest of the student body decided to return last week, and with only one cafeteria open for 5000 people, we had to wait in line for 45 minutes each meal. It's not really a hardship, it's just another example of things I find slightly frustrating here and generally inefficient!

My weekend jumped off to a rough start Thursday night, when I learned from my host brother that he and his wife separated.  It's pretty sad because they have a little boy together, and I know that the family dynamic will have changed a lot by the time I go back to visit them in December.  After I received a text message from him, I proceeded to plop down on my bed and snap the board under my mattress in half, oops.  Admittedly, the last few nights have been fairly uncomfortable because my mattress sinks into this weird pointy hole now.  Friday was also fun because I woke up feeling pretty sick, and then later that night I decided to make tea on my hot plate plugged into my not so functional power strip.  Another oops moment occurred when a flame shot out of the outlet... now neither mine or my roommate's outlets work, but I did get a mosquito net on saturday so even though I don't have a fan, the bugs can't get me.  Saturday was an interesting day because I was hanging out in a friends room since they had electricity, and when I returned to my room there was a very small person sleeping in the bed across the room.

Apparently, the small person is my roommate, or was my roommate.  She informed me today that she is transferring to a private school in Dakar and is leaving on thursday, I hope I didn't scare her away! She's pretty cool though, so I'm a little sad.  Her name is toko san? I think, and she's not from Senegal, story of my friendships here, but she's an english student and doesn't really speak Wolof.  I'll be sad to see her go, she seems to understand me when I speak French so it's kind of refreshing.  Sunday I went to a tiny tiny church outside of Saint-Louis.  The church itself is the size of an old one room school house, and there were only five people at the service so it was a little different than what I'm used to.  Plus, after the service they asked me to teach their choir some songs in English so they can perform in December, I don't think they could hear me singing... When I got back from church, i noticed that the entire floor of my room was a puddle, and soon after my roommate explained to me she was cleaning, a little more intense than my usual sweeping, but much appreciated! After lunch, the Madison girls and I set off across the desert to find some hotel with a pool that we are allowed to use for free because the owner knows someone who is important or something.  The trek itself was interesting because we got lost in some village with the sun beating down and the sand burning our feet.  Not that I can complain though, we found the pool and it was wonderfully refreshing, even though I would describe it as tubabtastic.  That's about my weekend in a nutshell.  It was pretty low key due to me being sick and the internet not working, but I hope all is well in the states! 

Man senegalaise laa

As you can probably figure out yourself, the title of this post means, "What's for dinner?" Just kidding, it means, "I'm senegalese."  I'm not really sure why I decided to title my post that, because I'm definitely not Senegalese, but I guess I just wanted to show off my excellent Wolof skills :) Believe me though, I can say more than that, which seems to be a source of amusement, friendship, and problems here in Senegal.  Obviously, the Senegalese find my terrible pronunciation amusing, and they usually are more willing to be my friend if I try to speak their language.  In contrast, people that I think are just trying to be friendly and help me learn Wolof, such as the security guards, always seem to turn into creepers and invite me to come to their house or somewhere else awkward.  Hence, I've decided that anyone who is eager to be my friend is probably a creeper and I will treat them with alot of caution.  I'm not sure if that's judgmental, but the other girls on the program say that I'm the extreme version of friendly and I need to be a little tougher.  I've also been working on my game face to scare away the overly aggressive street vendors, maybe i'll post a picture of said face...

Moving onto more substantial topics, my roomate still has not arrived and I'm starting to think she's scared of me.  Fortunately, I have a few friends here at the University.  For example, Ousmane, who is a grad student in the English department and is getting paid to be my friend/tour guide/ go to person for everything, is very nice and helpful.  We had several meals with him last week because he was showing us how the cafeteria functions, and we frequently run into him and his girlfriend and force them to sit with us.  Speaking of his girlfriend, her name is Aminata,she is also a grad student, and I am just assuming that she's his girlfriend because it's taboo to ask him about her.  Aminata became my instant friend because I kind of made a fool of myself showing her this cute face that my host brother Isaa makes when he's doing something naughty.  Consequently, every time I see her she makes the weird face at me and goes on about how we are friends.  Besides those two, I talked to someone in my dorm building yesterday and she was nice, so that's good right?

Last week I visited Saint Louis a few times, which maybe sounds confusing because my University is theoretically in Saint-Louis.  Actually, the University is about 10 minutes outside of Saint-Louis, and to get into town you can take a taxi for 50 cents or a bus for like a dime.  The taxi drops you off at the far end of a fairly long market, and after you walk down the market and over a large bridge, you reach the actual island of Saint-Louis, which is surrounded by a river and the ocean.  For all of you who are coming to visit me (just kidding) I scoped out some very nice hotels with toilets, toilet paper, pools, restaurants, and of course lodging.  Oh, and did I forget, the beach! I just thought I'd share because I know some people out there believe that Senegal does not have any hotels, which is totally not true! Plus, you would be the only one on the beach because november through june are the "cold" months here in Senegal, and none of the Senegalese go to the beach then.  Trust me, it gets chilly at night, but during the day it is at least in the high 80s.  Besides beaches, Saint-Louis is home to alot of colonial architecture similar to the slave trade island I visited called Goree island.  The bright colors and generally cleaner streets make it, in my personal opinion, nicer than Dakar, but also a little more touristy.

My few visits to Saint-Louis have led me to the post office, where I did receive mail and a package unopened, hint hint (once again, just kidding).  Besides a post office, I was searching for a supermarket like the nice big, airconditioned ones in Dakar, but they don't exist here in Saint-Louis.  That's not really a big deal, you just have to shop around at various boutiques and smaller shops to find what you need without getting ripped off.  Yesterday the girls and I went out to lunch and spent the afternoon roaming the streets of Saint-Louis.  I definitely like it here, and with classes starting today I'm starting to remember what it's like to be a college student.  

I'll let you know how classes are soon, and share what life is like after the election results!