Wednesday morning was kind of a wild goose chase because we wanted to look into some other lodging that was less expensive. We found a hostel run by a convent, which was a couple of dollars cheaper and very nice, but we decided it would be awkward to leave our little apartment, and it was likely that my host mother would hurt me if we didn’t stay there. Just kidding, kind of… That afternoon we visited the Bamako museum where a very tall women, with curlers in her hair and eyebrows drawn on her face with makeup that started out normal and then nearly stretched to her ears, showed us around. The museum itself wasn’t much of anything, but it was fairly entertaining to see her grabbing the exhibits, such as a traditional booboo, and then telling us to feel the fabric. Plus, I got a special bonus experience out of the museum visit; I locked myself in the bathroom. To clarify, there was no door handle from the inside of the stall, and I had to call Carlie to come let me out; hence, it wasn’t totally my fault.
I almost forgot, the best part of the museum, the garden out front featuring decorative statues that were a little past there prime. I got a nice picture of a mermaid with half a head of hair, but I had to be sneaky because a sign said you had to pay 50 cents for a photo. The rest of the evening we wandered around the fabric market and informed several vendors that we were Senegalese, not French or American; I bet we fooled them. If I remember correctly, that night was New Years Eve, and we celebrated in style by going to bed early and listening to fireworks going off in the city. All in all, it was kind of a lame way to celebrate, but due to some poor choices we made involving tap water and drinking it, Maria and I weren’t in the best condition to party it up. Thursday was our token tubab day, mainly because we were in need of some a little rest, and the entire city of Bamako shut down for the holiday. Consequently, we trekked over to a French hotel and enjoyed a day at the pool. Since we were at a French hotel, we tried out some French cuisine, which turned out to be a little gross because I unknowingly ordered buckwheat crepe. To give you a sense of the flavor of this crepe, imagine a soggy sponge that has been sitting dirty water for a week; it was tasty.
Friday Carlie and I visited the national museum of Mali. Honestly, this museum was one of the coolest parts of our trip, but I feel kind of sad saying that because it is extremely out of place in the fourth poorest country in the world. The museum was recently renovated, and featured some really interesting exhibits on fabrics in Mali and African artwork. Plus, we had free admission to the outdoor prehistoric museum, which featured caves with dioramas that I elected not to view after a flock(?) of bats came shooting out of the ceiling. That afternoon, we went on a hunt for a flight home and a small shop that featured some pretty cool crafty things. After visiting a travel agency, it seemed like we would be busing back home again (which I was really hoping not to do) because the price to fly to Dakar any day before Wednesday was $500.00, ouch! To try and cope with the thought of 50 more hours on the bus, we ate dinner at a restaurant/bar that was said to bring in an interesting crowd including Peace Corps volunteers and South African gold miners. I’m not sure about the gold miners, but there were definitely more Americans than Africans in the restaurant, not including us, and I decided to order something crazy and went with lasagna. I know that you all don’t really care, but I’ll share anyways, the lasagna was pretty good, but I think they forgot to add the tomato sauce.
Saturday we decided to check into the airline prices one more time, and found out they dropped about $300.00; hence, I returned from Mali Sunday evening by plane. After purchasing our tickets, we spent the rest of the day trying to find some shops our guidebook suggested, and after a wild goose chase in a $5.00 taxi (that’s expensive here…) we found what we were looking for, and it was closed! Sunday was another adventurous day because we decided to explore Mali’s “mountainous” terrain because it is so different from the incredible flatness of Senegal. To get to the top of a rather large hill overlooking Bamako, we took a taxi resembling the sept place I take between Dakar and Saint-Louis, but in this taxi we fit 9 people instead of 7! On the way up a man from Morocco explained to me that the drivers of said taxis have to be skilled because the cars have no brakes, haha. The rest of the day we milled around some markets, and then headed off to the airport.
We arrived at the airport about two hours before our flight was supposed to leave, and the airport officials told us we couldn’t enter the airport yet and to go sit next to our “papa” who was the other white person in the vicinity. Eventually, after some interesting sights, including several people bribing airport officials for various problems like not have the correct documentation, we boarded the flight. I hate to say it, but the flight was incredibly enjoyable! We were served dinner and had strange in-flight entertainment of a video of people pulling pranks on New Yorkers. That night we crashed at the apartment that some other Americans had rented, and the next morning we headed back to Saint-Louis. All in all, I think Maria’s comment, “It’s been real Mali, a little too real,” was completely legitimate, but it was definitely a great trip.
It’s been a while since my last post, and I can’t truthfully say I’ve been busy, but I’ve been finding a few more ways to keep myself occupied. Classes have finally started, and I’m only slightly worried about how I will pass my final exams in less than a month. Although, I’ve heard a few rumors that they will extend the semester because of all of the strikes. I’m planning on taking economic geography (with an oral final exam, uh oh), socio-anthropology of the economy (I’m confused too), and French on top of Wolof and my research. Speaking of research, the professors from Madison in charge of our program came to visit. Their visit was really nice because they had advice to give us on all kinds of levels, and they took out to dinner… I’ve decided to write my research paper on Protestant Christians in Senegal, and I’ll be starting with the church I’ve been attending here in Saint-Louis and working my way outward. I’m pretty excited about the project because I just get to basically sit and talk with people about their lives. It’s so much better than reading a bunch of musty books and trying to come to some conclusion about them like I’ve done in Madison.
Besides classes and meeting with professors, I’ve been trying to make a few friends on campus. I went to a dance last Friday, which is always interesting because it’s fashionable to arrive after 1 am and stay until breakfast. I made it until 4, I guess I’m a slacker. Additionally, last Sunday I attended the Catholic mass for students on campus and their new student integration ceremony. In general, the mass and ceremony themselves were not very interesting because the church was too small for everyone to fit inside so I couldn’t see or hear what was going on. But, my roommate, who I’ve title head of the Catholic party planning committee, gave me some food, and I got to talk to my other roommate Khady for like 3 hours. I really enjoyed that, and I thought it was interesting just because she is Muslim and still wanted to come to the integration.
Well, that’s a fairly long update on what’s been happening here in Senegal. Hope all is well back home, shout out to the nouveau President!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
"It's been real Mali, maybe a little too real..."
That’s what Maria, one of the girls who voyaged to Mali with me said as we boarded the plane to return to Senegal from Bamako, Mali. Truthfully, I was thinking the same thing at the time, but that was the end of the trip, and Mali really is a great country.
Our trip started on a bit of a strange note, because buying our bus tickets turned into a very shady exchange with a man working out of his car…We arrived at the train station the day before we were leaving to buy tickets, and we were slightly disappointed when the workers there told us that you can’t buy bus tickets there. But luckily, this man sitting next to his car in the parking lot sold us bus tickets for $50.00 and told us to return to the same place the next day at 9am. So, Saturday morning we arrive on time, and the man informs us that the bus is somewhere else, throws our bags in the trunk (it doesn’t close all the way), and tells us to get in. A few minutes later we arrive at the depot where we catch the taxis to go back and forth between Saint-Louis, and I have since decided that we could have skipped the middleman. Oh well, next time, haha.
Upon arrival at the “bus depot,” the bus departing to Bamako appeared to be nearly ready to go, so the timing seemed almost perfect. As it turns out, we were supposed to exchange the tickets for other ones; consequently, they didn’t let us board that bus and told us we had to wait for the next one. Five hours later, we hit the road; I guess it paid off to wait such a long time because the bus had so few passengers that we each had 2 seats to ourselves almost the entire trip. During the trip the rest of the day, we made a few stops, including a dinner break where we paid 30 cents to use a toilet that turned out to be a room with no hole in the floor (at least that I saw).
We made pretty good progress that night, and then during the day it was slow going because much of the road wasn’t paved, and we had frequent stops to pay of various police like officials. I’m not sure why we paid them, maybe because our bus didn’t have the appropriate papers? One particular instance had us worried when they told us to get off the bus and give our passports to some random man, but we quickly realized that we were at the Senegalese/Malien border and they needed to stamp my passport. A few hours later we crossed the border and arrived in Kai, a lovely town that suffered from and outbreak of dengue fever last month, where the bus driver informed us we would be spending the night and leaving the next day at 4 am. Theoretically, I would have been a little worried about this unknown stop, but after the previous few days I didn’t really think twice about it. Ok, I did think twice when I realized I would have to sleep outside on the floor of a gas station because the bus turned out to be at a sauna like temperature. Hence, my first night in Mali was a little bizarre, and with worries of dengue fever and spending a whole week in this country, I slept for about an hour.
Monday evening around 7 we pulled into the Bamako (the capitol of Mali) “bus depot” and proceeded to collect our belongings. After the 54 hour voyage, our backpacks that they stored under the bus were completely covered in dust, more specifically, my backpack, which is a dark red, was bright orange when they removed it from the storage area. Once we got our stuff, we attempted for about 15 minutes to escape the throng of crazy men yelling at us about how they know a nice hotel and strange things. Finally, we found a telecenter because my sim card from Senegal apparently doesn’t work in Mali (who knew?) and we called the woman who we would be staying with. Amazingly, she arrived 5 minutes after we called her in a very nice car, and brought us to her apartment right in the heart of Bamako. We had our own room with three beds, and we shared a bathroom, with running water!, with the rest of her family. The woman renting us the room is the sister in-law of my host mother, so she gave us a good price (at least she told us, it was like $12.00 a person per night), and she runs a restaurant downstairs where they sell Senegalese cuisine. To clarify, when I say restaurant, I mean they have a table with benches and lots of bowls of food. Furthermore, I just wanted to point out the irony in the fact that I went to Mali and spent the week living with Senegalese people and eating Senegalese or French food.
The following day, Tuesday, we got up, enjoyed a nice change in our breakfast habits with croissants instead of baguettes, and then we learned that the woman hosting us, Sokhna, asked her friend to show us around the city. As a sidenote, it was nice having him help us out because he had a car and he spoke english, but we felt slightly awkward because we were afraid we would have to pay him like 50 dollars. Anyways, the first place he took us was the Bamako zoo, bet you weren't expecting that one. I wasn't either, but it was really fun since I haven't been to a zoo in years, and I got to experience an African zoo. The zoo was complete with camels, donkeys, wolves?, hyenas, lions, and an assortment of really freaky looking birds. Oh, and I shouldn't forget to explain how most of the animals were kept in cages/pens, but we had a few awkward runins with camels and donkeys charging down the path at us. After the zoo we had a nice driving tour of Bamako, which is fairly different from Dakar, for a city so near to Senegal and with similar French influences. First of all, the ground is a dark red color, which is strikingly different from the light sandy color in Senegal. Plus, the region surrounding Bamako is very hilly and looks alot like the rocky terrain of Arizona minus the cacti. Another stark difference is that Bamako seems to make an effort to clean up trash off the streets, and on the street running past most of the government buildings there are legitimate trash cans.
After a lovely Senegalese lunch of ceebujen, our friends younger brother who is an actual tourists guide, took us to the Niger river for man powered boat ride. Our captain paddled our small canoe with a long pole that he pushed off of the bottom of the river with, evidently the river is not very deep. In general, the boat ride was very nice, but after we negotiated a price for two hours, the boat driver was intent on holding us to the two hours. Consequently, when it started getting dark at 6:15, the mosquitoes came out in full force to punish us for wanting to enjoy the scenic beauty of Mali. By 6:45, we told the driver to take us in and we'd pay him for two hours anyways...moral of the story, bring bug spray? Mosquitoes were a frequent companion during our stay in Bamako, probably because the daily temperatures in the mid 90s and overnight lows in the 70s kept them very happy. In fact, at night they were so bad, that Sokhna would spray our room with some scary toxic chemical that we had two wait 5 minutes before even entering the room, and then we would play a fun game of run into the room as fast as possible so fewer mosquitoes could enter. It seems to me that the mosquitoes in Mali are just alot more courageous because I got several mosquito bites in the shower.
That second night was little rough because Carlie got a nasty bout of stomach problems that could have been from our bad choices of drinking tap water the night before or the various strange things we bought from vendors on the side of the road during the bus ride. My theory is, you gotta keep things interesting, so might as well eat the sketchy meat sandwich from the woman shouting in strange languages at you. Although Carlie did have a good point, that if we get in a bad situation and someone asks if we made some bad choices to get us in that position, we would have to say, "um,which one are you referring to?" Just kidding!
I'll continue our adventures in Mali in my next post, but at the moment I'm back at school in Saint-Louis awaiting my benevolent professors and hoping they will decide to grace us with their presence. Although, I heard that tomorrow is another holiday celebrating the Muslim new year, so who knows really.
Our trip started on a bit of a strange note, because buying our bus tickets turned into a very shady exchange with a man working out of his car…We arrived at the train station the day before we were leaving to buy tickets, and we were slightly disappointed when the workers there told us that you can’t buy bus tickets there. But luckily, this man sitting next to his car in the parking lot sold us bus tickets for $50.00 and told us to return to the same place the next day at 9am. So, Saturday morning we arrive on time, and the man informs us that the bus is somewhere else, throws our bags in the trunk (it doesn’t close all the way), and tells us to get in. A few minutes later we arrive at the depot where we catch the taxis to go back and forth between Saint-Louis, and I have since decided that we could have skipped the middleman. Oh well, next time, haha.
Upon arrival at the “bus depot,” the bus departing to Bamako appeared to be nearly ready to go, so the timing seemed almost perfect. As it turns out, we were supposed to exchange the tickets for other ones; consequently, they didn’t let us board that bus and told us we had to wait for the next one. Five hours later, we hit the road; I guess it paid off to wait such a long time because the bus had so few passengers that we each had 2 seats to ourselves almost the entire trip. During the trip the rest of the day, we made a few stops, including a dinner break where we paid 30 cents to use a toilet that turned out to be a room with no hole in the floor (at least that I saw).
We made pretty good progress that night, and then during the day it was slow going because much of the road wasn’t paved, and we had frequent stops to pay of various police like officials. I’m not sure why we paid them, maybe because our bus didn’t have the appropriate papers? One particular instance had us worried when they told us to get off the bus and give our passports to some random man, but we quickly realized that we were at the Senegalese/Malien border and they needed to stamp my passport. A few hours later we crossed the border and arrived in Kai, a lovely town that suffered from and outbreak of dengue fever last month, where the bus driver informed us we would be spending the night and leaving the next day at 4 am. Theoretically, I would have been a little worried about this unknown stop, but after the previous few days I didn’t really think twice about it. Ok, I did think twice when I realized I would have to sleep outside on the floor of a gas station because the bus turned out to be at a sauna like temperature. Hence, my first night in Mali was a little bizarre, and with worries of dengue fever and spending a whole week in this country, I slept for about an hour.
Monday evening around 7 we pulled into the Bamako (the capitol of Mali) “bus depot” and proceeded to collect our belongings. After the 54 hour voyage, our backpacks that they stored under the bus were completely covered in dust, more specifically, my backpack, which is a dark red, was bright orange when they removed it from the storage area. Once we got our stuff, we attempted for about 15 minutes to escape the throng of crazy men yelling at us about how they know a nice hotel and strange things. Finally, we found a telecenter because my sim card from Senegal apparently doesn’t work in Mali (who knew?) and we called the woman who we would be staying with. Amazingly, she arrived 5 minutes after we called her in a very nice car, and brought us to her apartment right in the heart of Bamako. We had our own room with three beds, and we shared a bathroom, with running water!, with the rest of her family. The woman renting us the room is the sister in-law of my host mother, so she gave us a good price (at least she told us, it was like $12.00 a person per night), and she runs a restaurant downstairs where they sell Senegalese cuisine. To clarify, when I say restaurant, I mean they have a table with benches and lots of bowls of food. Furthermore, I just wanted to point out the irony in the fact that I went to Mali and spent the week living with Senegalese people and eating Senegalese or French food.
The following day, Tuesday, we got up, enjoyed a nice change in our breakfast habits with croissants instead of baguettes, and then we learned that the woman hosting us, Sokhna, asked her friend to show us around the city. As a sidenote, it was nice having him help us out because he had a car and he spoke english, but we felt slightly awkward because we were afraid we would have to pay him like 50 dollars. Anyways, the first place he took us was the Bamako zoo, bet you weren't expecting that one. I wasn't either, but it was really fun since I haven't been to a zoo in years, and I got to experience an African zoo. The zoo was complete with camels, donkeys, wolves?, hyenas, lions, and an assortment of really freaky looking birds. Oh, and I shouldn't forget to explain how most of the animals were kept in cages/pens, but we had a few awkward runins with camels and donkeys charging down the path at us. After the zoo we had a nice driving tour of Bamako, which is fairly different from Dakar, for a city so near to Senegal and with similar French influences. First of all, the ground is a dark red color, which is strikingly different from the light sandy color in Senegal. Plus, the region surrounding Bamako is very hilly and looks alot like the rocky terrain of Arizona minus the cacti. Another stark difference is that Bamako seems to make an effort to clean up trash off the streets, and on the street running past most of the government buildings there are legitimate trash cans.
After a lovely Senegalese lunch of ceebujen, our friends younger brother who is an actual tourists guide, took us to the Niger river for man powered boat ride. Our captain paddled our small canoe with a long pole that he pushed off of the bottom of the river with, evidently the river is not very deep. In general, the boat ride was very nice, but after we negotiated a price for two hours, the boat driver was intent on holding us to the two hours. Consequently, when it started getting dark at 6:15, the mosquitoes came out in full force to punish us for wanting to enjoy the scenic beauty of Mali. By 6:45, we told the driver to take us in and we'd pay him for two hours anyways...moral of the story, bring bug spray? Mosquitoes were a frequent companion during our stay in Bamako, probably because the daily temperatures in the mid 90s and overnight lows in the 70s kept them very happy. In fact, at night they were so bad, that Sokhna would spray our room with some scary toxic chemical that we had two wait 5 minutes before even entering the room, and then we would play a fun game of run into the room as fast as possible so fewer mosquitoes could enter. It seems to me that the mosquitoes in Mali are just alot more courageous because I got several mosquito bites in the shower.
That second night was little rough because Carlie got a nasty bout of stomach problems that could have been from our bad choices of drinking tap water the night before or the various strange things we bought from vendors on the side of the road during the bus ride. My theory is, you gotta keep things interesting, so might as well eat the sketchy meat sandwich from the woman shouting in strange languages at you. Although Carlie did have a good point, that if we get in a bad situation and someone asks if we made some bad choices to get us in that position, we would have to say, "um,which one are you referring to?" Just kidding!
I'll continue our adventures in Mali in my next post, but at the moment I'm back at school in Saint-Louis awaiting my benevolent professors and hoping they will decide to grace us with their presence. Although, I heard that tomorrow is another holiday celebrating the Muslim new year, so who knows really.
Friday, December 26, 2008
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
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
Monday, December 22, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
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!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
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!
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