Mali

Hey guys! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I just thought I'd give ya'll a little update on life in Senegal. Currently, I'm in Dakar staying with my host family, but tomorrow I live for Bamako, Mali. We are traveling via bus, which should take about 50 hours. The word sedative sounds really good to me when I think about 50 hours...But it will be an adventure. We'll be in Mali for the week, and the classes ... start?

I spent Christmas here in Dakar with my host family and with the Catholic family of one of the other Americans. It was a nice holiday, but because Senegal is a Muslim country it definitely didn't really feel like Christmas. Hopefully traveling to Mali with go smoothly, it's a little sketchy right now because I bought my bus ticket from a man sitting in a car in the parking lot of the train station. Don't worry though, it's the mode of transportation recommended by my host mother.

Happy holidays! I'll update when I return

what's new?

Ok, before I start on what's new with my life here in Senegal, I need to backtrack. I left off last week with my adventures two weeks ago in Dakar with my host family while we celebrated the Muslim holiday tabaski. I skipped one crucial portion of that day, dinner! I vividly remember hovering awkwardly over a pot of soup in the kitchen with Nathalie and holding a bowl while she ladled goat soup into it. More specifically, the vivid portion of my memory focuses on the large goat jaw that became the center piece of the bowl. I was slightly confused because Nathalie told me that the goat legs are good for making soup, but this was definitely a jaw complete with teeth and tongue. Consequently, i had a lovely goat tongue soup for dinner that night (and for lunch the day after) and Nathalie kindly shared the tongue meat with me...i don't think i will eat tongue willingly again.

After Tabaski, I spent the rest of the week in Dakar hanging out with my host family and visiting the malian embassy more times than necessary because I'm not the brightest knife in the drawer. Wednesday morning, Carlie, Maria, and I trekked off to the Malian embassy with hopes of returning with visas for our upcoming trip. When we arrived at the embassy, we realized that between the three of us, we only had enough money for one visa, plus, Carlie and I left our passport size photos at school in Saint-Louis, so we decided to return in the afternoon. Unfortunately, most of the people in Dakar were still recuperating from the holiday, so none of the shops that would take photos for us were open. We ended up just kind of wandering around the streets of Dakar in search of any shops that were open, and what we found was a really cool book store and a nice little crepe and ice cream restaurant...

Thursday, we eventually got our photos taken and began the process for the visas. I think that the people at the embassy found us mildly entertaining because they tried to force us to drink tea and told the security guard he was scaring us. I spent the majority of my time in Dakar with my host family. In general, I feel pretty comfortable there and Isaa is always crazy/trying to hurt me/being cute so I'm always entertained. Although, they may have been more nice to me than usual because apparently they had a nasty encounter with a bandit from Nigeria. Apparently, a few weeks ago, a woman from Nigeria knocked on their door and asked if she could stay with them because she had no money and no place to stay. Being extremely generous and trusting, my host family let her stay for five days, and then after five days they gave her the boot. Then, 9 days later, while I was there, she showed up at our house with police officers, and accused my host family of stealing her things. On top of that, she also took tons of fabric to various tailors throughout the city and is trying to cheat them out of their money by claiming that they didn't do what she wanted, so she doesn't have to pay. It's pretty messy and I feel bad for my host family because they were just being nice, but I think they like having me as a house guest much more now compared to a crazy bandit.

Besides following the story of this bandit lady, I didn't do much in Dakar. Friday I collected my visa, and Saturday we ventured into the downtown area to see what it would cost us to fly to Mali. Unfortunately, the travel agency only accepted cash, and I don't normally carry a few hundred dollars in cash around with me so...instead, we went to a very malllike building where Maria shopped for jeans and the shopkeepers handed me jayfonde sized jeans that were ridiculously huge. As usual, I got sick when I was in Dakar, I'm pretty sure this one was Isaa induced because the poor kid was coughing and crying much of the time I was there. Hence, I caught Isaa's cold, and it's been kind of dragging me down the last few days. I still haven't managed to shake the cold, but the doctor on campus prescribed me alot of strange things so hopefully I will heal right up. Speaking of which, I meant to catch you all up on what I've been doing since I left Dakar on sunday, but I'm feeling pretty wiped out right now. The week was low key like I said, because my classes never really happened until thursday. I think maybe professors were on strike during the beginning of the week, but I am definitely looking forward to January when we will be down to business.

Classes thursday were pretty good though. I was two for three on classes that day. In on class, the professor assigned me to write an essay on the economic crises in the US, hmm, well that could be challenging since I don't know much about it nor am I living in the U.S. right now. Oh well, at least it's homework! (I can't believe I said that). The week and weekend were a little rough in general here because of being sick and mainly because my Grandma passed away during the week. She was a really cool lady, and being away from home has given me a different appreciation and perspective on her life and on my family.

Tabaski

It’s been a while since my last post, and I have tons of stuff to share with you all. The last week has been really interesting and slightly draining. Last Monday the other Wisconsinites trooped back to Dakar, the capital city where I spent the first month, to celebrate the Muslim holiday Tabaski with our host families. We traveled via sept places, which for all of you French speakers out there is a taxi for seven people. Actually, it’s a fairly small station wagon that comfortably seats five, but manages to cram 8 (including the driver) inside. I got squished into the middle seat of the second row, which was pretty uncomfortable because I had nowhere to put my feet, and the women on either side of me usurped all available space. The other Americans got squished in the back row, which is also uncomfortable; I’m not sure which is worse actually. But, four hours later we arrived in Dakar at the ridiculously crazy bus depot, which is a bunch of other sept place vehicles, some buses, and lots of men chasing you trying to shove you in their taxi or carry your luggage for you against your will. It was quite entertaining, but I realized quickly that I wanted to be out of there asap.

Upon arriving at my host family, I rang the doorbell, and Nathalie came to let me. If you’ve been keeping track of my adventures here you would understand why I was slightly confused by her appearance at the gate. But I’ll remind you, my host brother Habib, Nathalie’s husband texted me a few weeks ago saying that things between them weren’t working anymore. I took that to mean they were splitting up, and since this is Habib’s mother’s home, Nathalie would be heading out. Not so much, the whole family was there, just as I left them. So I put on my game face like I knew nothing, and I kept it on the rest of the week. If you want more info on that story, we can plan a phone date sometime…

Moving on, I went in the back entrance of our house, and found 4 rams outside in the patio area, and my family about to sit down to eat. I was a little thrown off by the rams because I was expecting two, one for my host dad and one for Habib. Nathalie explained to me that they were the rams belonging to various other members of the family and one that my family bought for our maid I’m pretty sure and that there would actually be five because Habib had yet to purchase his ram. Needless to say, five goats were fairly noisy and messy, but nonetheless entertaining because Isaa liked to test the waters and see if the goats would bite him. Oh, and as a side note, I sometimes refer to them as rams (sheep) and sometimes as goats because they are actually sheep, but they look like goats. So yeah, I know that clears things up, but I’ll post some pictures so you can actually understand.

In general, it was really fun returning to my host family. I was kind of hesitant about going back there, just because I’m never sure how things work, and because one of the other girls called home and her host mom pretended that she didn’t remember who she was. My experience was very different, my whole family was there when I got home and they all remembered me. Sama yaye (wolof for my mom) gave me a hug/kiss because I am awkward and haven’t figured out Senegalese greetings yet, but she seemed legitimately happy to see me. Plus, later in the week, when I asked if I could stay until Sunday, she lectured me about how I’m her daughter and she doesn’t understand why I keep asking because it’s my house too. She was very sweet, and I felt much more comfortable the second time around.

I’m kind of skipping around, so I’ll get back to my time line. I arrived Monday afternoon, and I spent the rest of the day attempting to help with the preparations for the holiday. Basically, they let me chop potatoes for French fries, but it’s something so that was good. The next morning, the day of Tabaski, I woke up pretty early and put on my finest jeans and tee-shirt with hopes of helping around the house. I’m pretty sure the rest of the family besides Nathalie, Isaa, and the maid and I were at the mosque in the morning, so I spent a few hours watching some strange men washing each of the rams. Then, around 10, they started slaughtering the rams. Suddenly, my house was full of cousins and random family members I'd never seen before, as well of some very gory butchering. Unfortunately, my host mom wanted me to take pictures of all of the happenings, so I spent more time than I planned to watching them kill the goats. Hence, when they started serving food (goat meat and french fries) around noon, I didn't eat too much. It was quite and event, and once seemingly everyone in the neighborhood had eaten their fill and the women had cleaned up all of the mess from the goats, the party ended. People returned home around 3 in the afternoon. Nathalie told me all the women would be napping, because later in the evening they get dressed up and go visit friends and family. It's similar to what we did on the last Muslim holiday, but Nathalie, Habib, and Isaa and I went out and visited some of their relatives. I may have donned a fairly Senegalese outfit complete with a hair wrap that a tailor in Saint Louis made for me.

It was quite an interesting holiday, kind of like a strange version of thanksgiving. One of the most intriguing traditions, is that women bring the legs of their goats to various influential people in their lives, such as their parents, or whomever gave them away in their wedding. Consequently, I got to haul goat legs around Dakar for Nathalie because she was exhausted from all of the work she did that day. I'll fill you in on the rest of my week tomorrow, I have once again gotten sick. Part of my monthly routine here in Senegal, although this cold comes courtesy of Isaa, who got our entire family sick last week, poor kid.

Sing Sing Sing

Last week turned out to be quite an eventful week in terms of student/administration interaction.  I left you all with a lovely message about protests over student scholarships turning violent, which was I truthfully cannot deny.  I heard that two people were even severely injured from being hit by stones.  Plus, some of the other girls got some crazy photos of tear gas, which I'll try to get ahold of to post.  It was definitely eventful, and the students eventually got their way, I believe the strike officially ended Wednesday night.  Each wednesday night the some of the other Americans and I go over to our friend Ousmane's room (he's the grad student in charge of shepherding us around campus) to help him practice his English.  Hence, I was trying to figure out why he insisted on walking us home that night, and I realized it was because there were several hundered students gathered around this small building which is the site of scholarship dispersal. Apparently, that was the first time scholarships have ever been given out at night, and by at night i'm talking 11:45pm.

Unfortunately, when the students decide to stop striking, the professors don't necessarily run to campus to begin teaching, and I heard some rumors that professors were on strike Thursday and Friday of last week.  Ultimately, I had zero classes last week, but I got to tour several of the classrooms themselves wondering where everyone else was.  Some of the other Americans and I are worried that when we eventually have class, we will have forgotten how to be students. Hmmm, speaking of which, this week is includes the muslim holiday Tabaski.  The holiday is symbolic of when Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac, and then I think sacrificed a ram instead.  Consequently, each married male is supposed to purchase a ram, sheep, or goat to slaughter.  It sounds gruesome, but I'm planning on returning to Dakar tomorrow to spend the holiday with my host family.  Because 95% of Senegal's population is muslim, I believe that we have all of next week free from class so that students could return home to celebrate.  Although, it seems that most of the students do not plan on returning before January, because there will be one week of classes, and then the Christmas vacation will begin.  It's all pretty backwards to me, but at this point I plan on visiting my roommate in her hometown Mbour for Christmas, and then traveling to Mali.

My weekend was consumed by my much anticipated choir concert.  Friday afternoon we had rehearsal, and Carlie and I spent some time in town before.  We ended up coming home with some pretty wild looking outfits for the upcoming holiday and small travel bags.  We'll see how the outfits work out, but it was pretty entertaining, because we just went into this shop we frequently visit and said we wanted something for the holiday. As it turns out, she made a few outfits for some Canadiens who never returned to pick them up, so she sold them to us.  When I put mine on the tailor was beside herself because she said it fit perfectly and was meant to be...good sales tactic I think, but it will be fun to wear.  

Choir rehearsal Friday was short because only 3 other people showed up besides Carlie and I.  It was slightly disconcerting because the lead singer decided to go to Dakar and return the day of the concert, and the guy who was leading the rehearsal kept trying to add really cheesy choreography to the songs.  Saturday I spent 3 hours doing laundry by hand in buckets, I'm hoping that I will become really buff like all of the Senegalese women. Granted, I'm operating under the assumption that they are buff because of laundry, could be wrong.  After laundry, Carlie and I showed up at Celia's house at 4:30 ish for our "rehearsal." We were supposed to be there at 4, but we learned that you should always come a half hour late for rehearsal, and when we did, there was still no one there.  After talking with Celia, we learned that we still needed to get our outfits for the concert, so we headed off to the tailor in town.  Going into town was a bit more of an adventure than we expected because every vender in Senegal was out selling stuff for the upcoming holiday.  In addition, the tailor had to make several adjustments on our clothes, and it was just kind of a mess because they mixed up whose clothes were whose.  That was slightly problematic when I got stuck in Carlie's shirt, and had to yell aidez-moi (help me) at Celia and Valerie, the other girls with us at the tailor.  On top of that, Valerie's 7 year old daughter decided her new favorite game is to abuse me, she's a little bigger than Isaa, but it seems like i'm a magnet for abusive children.

The concert last night was really wild.  It was supposed to start at 9:00 pm, and we were still rehearsing at 9:15 when Celia's mom ran in and shouted that we needed to leave because everyone else was already there. So, we all hurriedly put on our outfits, and climbed into a bus that took us to the chamber of commerce.  When we arrived, we sat in the bus rehearsing and eating some random couscous concoction in a the usual large communal pan.  The concert eventually started around 11, and there were three other choirs besides us.  All of the other choirs had around 30 people, we had 8, but we still had a good time.  It definitely wasn't flawless, but seeing as I didn't know any of the people there, I didn't feel nervous.  Finally, the concert ended at 2 am with a crazy version of the Hallelujah chorus, and then Carlie, Jeff, and I road back to campus in Jeff's mom's car, which was a mercedes.  A little different than the usual taxi with doors that swing open when they turn.  Today we had church and were supposed to sing again theoretically.  Jeff and I arrived at Celias at 9:45 (we were supposed to be there at 9) to find no one else there and Celia still in bed.  Then, we walked over to the church where the service was to begin at 10, and found 3 people. You would think I'd get used to stuff just moving a little slower, but it still takes me by surprise.  The service was pretty long, and we never ended up performing, but it was fun to be around so many people who were dancing and singing so joyfully.  

AT 3:30 I caught a taxi home, and I'm pretty sure that upon arriving at the University the taxi driver pulled a goat out of the trunk.  All in all, it was a very interesting and fun weekend, and now I need to go pack so we can leave tomorrow morning at 7 and try to make it to Dakar. Happy Tabaski!

Just kidding

I ended last week with high hopes for my upcoming classes.  Thursday my professors never arrived, I'm not sure why really, I think they weren't prepared for the strike to end so they decided not to come teach.  Oh well, that gave us an opportunity to run into town and pick up our packages.  Apparently, due to strikes within the University administration, the person in charge of picking up the mail from the post office decided not to pick up the mail for over two weeks.  Hence, our Thanksgiving consisted of a much anticipated journey to the post office and then some time hanging out and munching on the American snacks we all received in our packages. The post office itself that day was an interesting experience because, the man who is supposed to examine packages before we are allowed to retrieve them, didn't come in until an hour after we arrived there. That was fun though as we had some nice bonding time with the post office crew, and the suspense made it more fun to receive things from home.  

Friday I had my usual Wolof class, but I believe that the other classes didn't meet because someone somewhere was on strike.  If my classes get going, I shouldn't have class on Fridays, which makes things kind of nice, although I will have wolof and french, so I guess that I means I do have class.  In the evening Carlie and I headed of to choir rehearsal, which was kind of rough because the choir leaders had differing visions for our upcoming concert. One of the leaders named Jeff is a fun, lively guy who loves to dance and sing and has told me multiple times that he aspires to be "a star."  He's pretty showy, which contrasts a little with the other leaders named Celia and Noa who are quieter and generally act like Jeff is crazy.  As usual, i spend a lot time during and outside of choir contemplating the connections between the various choir members.  For some reason I decided that Jeff and Celia are dating and that Celia and Noa are brother and sister, but after rehearsal on Sunday I began contemplating whether Celia and Noa are dating. Kind of awkward, let's hope they're either one or the other... Just kidding, but my point is that from the American perspective, relationships here are kind of cloudy and you never really know how to interpret your surroundings. 

After choir, the other americans and I celebrated Thanksgiving american style by going out to a nice restaurant and have chicken and bananas foster! It was quite delicious, and I especially appreciated the lack of intestines in my meal, which have become a staple of the lovely dishes served up at the cafeteria.  Saturday we ventured off on an excursion to Touba, a city inland of Saint-Louis and home to the largest mosque (I forget how to spell that in english) in all of Africa.  The journey to Touba was about 3.5 hours (one way) by our strange van contraption with a door that mostly closes.  I definitely enjoyed the excursion, the mosque was huge, and apparently ground breaking for Islam because it allows non-muslims and women to enter the Mosque.  Most of the beautiful decor is done by craftsmen from Morocco, and you can definitely tell that the Mosque has a moroccan atmosphere.  According to our tour guide, the Mosque was all (or maybe mostly) privately funded through fellow muslims, and the money they receive from donations contributes to the constant construction going on at the site as well as pays for all of the water in the entire city of Touba.  The entire tour of the Mosque took less than an hour, and then we jumped back in the van and headed home. I'm not sure that it was worth the several hour, slightly nauseating car ride, but now I've seen the biggest mosque in Africa and I can appreciate Senegal a little differently.

Sunday we spent the afternoon at our Wolof professors house, where his daughters prepared ceebujen for us.  Carlie, Emily, and I went early after church to attempt to help cook, but the most we did was smash some spices up in a little bowl.  Strangely, I loved the ceebujen we had on Sunday.  I think it's funny how by the end of my stay with my host family I was sick of ceebujen, and now I love it because it is so much better than the food on campus.  As usual, after lunch we all had a mini adventure trying to get home, because our professor's house was kind of in the middle of nowhere and we couldn't find a taxi to take us home.  Consequently, we walked home, which wasn't too bad except that it was in the 90s and we were walking alongside the highway in the middle of the desert.  Hence, it was a little hot.  Plus, I was trying to hurry home because my roommate lost her keys and needed me to let her into the room. Sorry Juliette! After I got home I left right for choir rehearsal, which was pretty fun, although a little different because Jeff forgot to come.  The concert is this Saturday, and it will be quite interesting.  In theory, we enter the room walking in two lines and dancing in unison.  Yes, I did say dancing, slightly problematic for me, but I'll try to find some rhythm in the short time I have left.  After choir I had to return home by myself because Carlie was sick, and that turned out to also be an adventure.  In order to get home, I had to catch a cab into town, and then take a car rapide to the University.  I'm pretty sure the taxi I got in was also carrying two prostitutes who were very friendly, but kind of creepy.

Classes this week still aren't happening.  The students decided to strike again, and this time they're going at it much more aggressively. They blocked the road yesterday and today, which is slightly problematic because I can't get to town to get an outfit made for the upcoming Muslim holiday next week.  Moreover, this morning after learning that classes weren't happening, Carlie and I attempted to run into town with one of our Senegalese friends. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the gate to enter and exit the University, we found the road block, hundreds of students milling around, and then suddenly strange projectiles being hurled at us.  It seems that the striking is becoming violent with both students and police throwing rocks and small explosives at each other.  I hope they get their scholarships tomorrow for the sake of classes and safety!

I'm not really sure what the rest of the week will be like at this point, hopefully classes will resume tomorrow.  I loaded some more pictures, it was kind of tedious, but hopefully you'll get a sense for what the University is like here. It's a work in progress.  Happy December!