Before I continue along my journey home from Southern Senegal I would like to highlight another of my shining moments during the village festival we were invited to. As we were watching the dancing I decided to stand on my chair to catch a better view of the action and random attire (such as leaves of lettuce). Unfortunately, when I decided to return to the ground I tipped over my chair into the three men in front of me taking them out and managing to land with my chair on top of me. It was a lovely graceful moment in which several got to see the spandex shorts under my skirt. Anyways, we left for home Thursday morning bright and early and made a few pit stops along the way. One of the pit stops included a visit to a man who works for the telephone company here in Senegal who generously slaughtered a ram for our arrival. The gesture was extremely nice but I haven't really been able to stomach meat since Tabaski. We also stopped at Touba on the way home so the newbies could visit the grand mosque. It was actually really cool to see the mosque again, and this time at night. Unfortunately none of us brought appropriate clothing to cover ourselves so we dressed in sheets of fabric we bought in the market the day before. As usual, the Americans looked very colorful and completely out of place!
Since arriving back in Saint-Louis I've been attempting to work on some papers (we'll see if I ever finish)...and just bumming around campus. We're theoretically transition from first semester to second semester so we'll see how it goes. Have a good week friends!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Safari time
Whew, sorry it's been a long time since my last post but I've had some awesome adventures recently. For a while my posts have been a little dreary sounding, and to be honest with you that's how i've been feeling. Here in Saint-Louis life just kind flows along, but when classes are unstable we don't have too much to keep ourselves occuppied with. First semester is wrapping up, kind of; some of my classes have finished while those in the poli sci department are about two weeks longer than other departments. This makes for tricky scheduling because I'm not sure what poli sci will offer but the second semester for geography and sociology and other departments begins tomorrow...But back to the struggles of life on campus, as my classes end I'm trying to take care papers and final exams so that I will receive grades for my classes, obviously. There have been a few dips in the road though, like when we showed up for an exam and the professor told us to come back two days later, but things seem to be ok now. That exam was for a class that has kinda been a thorn in my side all semester, and when the exam actually happened my professor gave me five minutes to answer the question, "what is the economy?" not exactly my idea of a fair test. Thats an example of small elements of life we can't seem to get right here, and they were starting to weigh all of the Americans down. When you're already frustrated, it seems alot harder to bounce back from the little bouts of racism, homesickness, or professors asking you out on dates that happen everyday here. Consequently, when I found out two weeks ago we were going to voyage to southern Senegal I felt an overwhelming sense of excitement.
Less than a week after Baydallaye told us we were going to be traveling we ventured off to explore southern Senegal. The trip began Saturday evening at 3 am when we loaded up a 12 person Nissan van with luggage, a cooler of water, and 13 people. Unfortunately the cooler was lovingly given one of the seats, so the 11 students crammed into the seats and blocked out the discomfort with images of safari animals. Sunday evening around 6pm we rolled into our first hotel in Tambacounda to enjoy some needed rest in a pool and bed. During the drive Dr. Barry, the professor who accompanied us, recieved a fun little ticket for not wearing his seat belt so we spent a little extra time trying to pay that off. I think the ticket was the officer's revenge because Barry wouldn't pay him off to let us continue. Additionally, much of the road wasnt paved so we had a bumpy and incredibly dusty few hours. Upon arrival at the hotel I slipped into my makeshift bathing suit (I apparently missed the memo on the swimsuits) and proceeded to jump into the pool and smash my face into the bottom. All in all, that was not the best decision I've made in a long time, and when I surfaced Carlie went camp counselor on me and forced me out of the pool so I wouldnt bleed everywhere. As I headed into our hotel room to clean up after begging ice from the restaurant, I found Ariel locked in the bathroom and Carlie perched on the divider between the bath and bedrooms. It took three hotel workers to break the door open and then Carlie broke the chair in our room when she descended from the ledge. Hence, we broke in the first leg of our trip with a messed up room and face.
Monday morning we left the hotel at 6am to head out to Nokolokoba national park home to wildlife and poachers. It was a lengthy drive but well worth the damage done to our car, poor driver. After we got settled in our hotel inside the park, we headed out on a safari. The park is home to a fair amount of wildlife including wharthogs, antelope, gazelle, monkeys, leopards, and hippopatamus. On our safari we saw a few different rivers that cross the park, lots of animals, a frightening suspension bridge, and alot of burned landscape. Depressingly, the park struggles with loads of poachers who burn the forest to scare out the animals. Later that day we got to go out in a boat on the gambia river to some hippopatomus. In total I think we saw 7 hippopotamus, which was so cool, although understandably they were pretty wary of us. Plus, the landscape around the river was incredbly lush and beautiful, like something out of a movie. After dinner our safari guide led us to a little spot where you can supposedly see the hippotamus out of the water when they come to feed, but it was too dark to see anything. Plus, after I went to bed the other kids claim that the guide seemed kinda sketchy, like he was on drugs...
Tuesday we left the park to go to Kedougou another incredibly hot city in southern Senegal. When we arrived at the hotel we learned that we were staying at a hunting lodge housing several french man with ridiculously large guns and a dead wharthog in the back of their truck. It's funny how we all judge tourists as if we are native Senegalese and these guys come in and shoot up our wild life. Immediately after arriving we jumped into a car rapide vehicle = really uncomfortable for a three hour drive down a bumpy, dusty road to see a waterfall. We stopped at a small village for lunch and then continued on foot through the woods until we got to the awesome waterfall. I'd estimate that the fall was 5 stories tall slipping down beautiful rock and filling into a small little pool. Definitely the highlight of the trip was climbing around the rock ledge and jumping into the pool from under the falls. Plus the water was ridiculously cold, so refreshing! After some photos and swimming and hanging out with some goofball kids swimming there as well we hiked back the car and drove 3 hours home. I think all of the traveling was well worth it because of the awesome sights and just the really fun group of people we were with.
Wednesday was a crazy foray into the nearby hills to a village who was celebrating the election of a new governmental official. During the clebration we saw several local village dance groups perfom, including the Basaryi tribe who are one of the only tribes in Senegal who have remain untouched from Islam and Christianity and still follow their animist beliefs. After the ceremony we had a fun traditional Senegalese lunch and then we visited the market to buy some fabric died with Indigo that comes from Guinea. After the markets we walked home and got ready to return to Saint-Louis at 5 the next morning.
Less than a week after Baydallaye told us we were going to be traveling we ventured off to explore southern Senegal. The trip began Saturday evening at 3 am when we loaded up a 12 person Nissan van with luggage, a cooler of water, and 13 people. Unfortunately the cooler was lovingly given one of the seats, so the 11 students crammed into the seats and blocked out the discomfort with images of safari animals. Sunday evening around 6pm we rolled into our first hotel in Tambacounda to enjoy some needed rest in a pool and bed. During the drive Dr. Barry, the professor who accompanied us, recieved a fun little ticket for not wearing his seat belt so we spent a little extra time trying to pay that off. I think the ticket was the officer's revenge because Barry wouldn't pay him off to let us continue. Additionally, much of the road wasnt paved so we had a bumpy and incredibly dusty few hours. Upon arrival at the hotel I slipped into my makeshift bathing suit (I apparently missed the memo on the swimsuits) and proceeded to jump into the pool and smash my face into the bottom. All in all, that was not the best decision I've made in a long time, and when I surfaced Carlie went camp counselor on me and forced me out of the pool so I wouldnt bleed everywhere. As I headed into our hotel room to clean up after begging ice from the restaurant, I found Ariel locked in the bathroom and Carlie perched on the divider between the bath and bedrooms. It took three hotel workers to break the door open and then Carlie broke the chair in our room when she descended from the ledge. Hence, we broke in the first leg of our trip with a messed up room and face.
Monday morning we left the hotel at 6am to head out to Nokolokoba national park home to wildlife and poachers. It was a lengthy drive but well worth the damage done to our car, poor driver. After we got settled in our hotel inside the park, we headed out on a safari. The park is home to a fair amount of wildlife including wharthogs, antelope, gazelle, monkeys, leopards, and hippopatamus. On our safari we saw a few different rivers that cross the park, lots of animals, a frightening suspension bridge, and alot of burned landscape. Depressingly, the park struggles with loads of poachers who burn the forest to scare out the animals. Later that day we got to go out in a boat on the gambia river to some hippopatomus. In total I think we saw 7 hippopotamus, which was so cool, although understandably they were pretty wary of us. Plus, the landscape around the river was incredbly lush and beautiful, like something out of a movie. After dinner our safari guide led us to a little spot where you can supposedly see the hippotamus out of the water when they come to feed, but it was too dark to see anything. Plus, after I went to bed the other kids claim that the guide seemed kinda sketchy, like he was on drugs...
Tuesday we left the park to go to Kedougou another incredibly hot city in southern Senegal. When we arrived at the hotel we learned that we were staying at a hunting lodge housing several french man with ridiculously large guns and a dead wharthog in the back of their truck. It's funny how we all judge tourists as if we are native Senegalese and these guys come in and shoot up our wild life. Immediately after arriving we jumped into a car rapide vehicle = really uncomfortable for a three hour drive down a bumpy, dusty road to see a waterfall. We stopped at a small village for lunch and then continued on foot through the woods until we got to the awesome waterfall. I'd estimate that the fall was 5 stories tall slipping down beautiful rock and filling into a small little pool. Definitely the highlight of the trip was climbing around the rock ledge and jumping into the pool from under the falls. Plus the water was ridiculously cold, so refreshing! After some photos and swimming and hanging out with some goofball kids swimming there as well we hiked back the car and drove 3 hours home. I think all of the traveling was well worth it because of the awesome sights and just the really fun group of people we were with.
Wednesday was a crazy foray into the nearby hills to a village who was celebrating the election of a new governmental official. During the clebration we saw several local village dance groups perfom, including the Basaryi tribe who are one of the only tribes in Senegal who have remain untouched from Islam and Christianity and still follow their animist beliefs. After the ceremony we had a fun traditional Senegalese lunch and then we visited the market to buy some fabric died with Indigo that comes from Guinea. After the markets we walked home and got ready to return to Saint-Louis at 5 the next morning.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Mardi Gras!
First of all, I'm sitting here in my lovely echoey hallways sharing my life story of the last week, and I've just noticed that the sun has set but there are no lights. Hence, I have a very cozy setting that makes for an interesting blogging mood. The last week has been kind of the same old same old (In an it was totally bizarre but the same as each week really) with regard to classes. Most of my classes were met and there were apparently strikes because students wanted a "study week" lol, but it didn't affect me because poli sci is a little behind the times and our exams aren't until later. I recently acquired a library card and have now checked out two books, one of them being a collection of tragic plays by a famous French author, haha, I panicked in the moment and grabbed it. We'll see if I read it but I have high hopes of reading more books in French.
Besides classes I have not yet returned to volleyball practice. I'm not sure if I will but I've been running quite a bit lately. While running I've had some lovely experiences involving security guards inviting themselves to my room and a semi-truck blowing out it's tire just as it came alongside me, i fell off the road because of that one. Friday night my roommate Juliette's mother came into town for a conference for the Catholic women of Senegal. She enlisted me to help retrieve her mother from the bus, and when we arrived at the school where many of the women were staying, I found probably 1000 Senegalese wandering around in the dark. It's hard to explain but it was a pretty hilarious sight, especially because Juliette's mom managed to be as far away from us as possible. When we got back to campus Juliette had choir rehearsal so I awkwardly helped her mom settle in/brought her food/ and then tried not to seem too awkward while I got ready for bed. She is a very nice woman and hopefully doesn't think I'm overly crazy.
Saturday I had a "youth group" meeting with the pastor of our church who came from Dakar to visit with us. Considering that the youth of our church is 4 people including two Americans, I wasn't sure that the visit was entirely necessary, but I enjoyed meeting the pastor. After the meeting I got to have hang out with my friend and choir director Noah. At one point he informed me that he likes me because I'm a little crazy...in a good way i hope. Sunday was as usual a nice Church service where I forgot most of the songs. After church Noah forced me to eat lunch with his family because he has realized that i'm not the busiest person in Senegal, and I enjoyed a nice fish sandwich, with the bones still in the fish. Eating here never really gets boring because you never know what you'll find in each bight.
The highlight of this week was Tuesday night, otherwise known as Mardi Gras. I'm not sure if I've talked too much about Catholics here in Senegal, but to me they seem a little more on the religious side than they do in the U.S. For example, for lent my roommate is fasting everyday until the evening. So far it seems to be taking a bit of a toll on her because she sleeps most of the day. But back to Mardi Gras, as the last hoorah before the fasting begins, the Catholic students on campus have a big costume party, and by costume I mean you dress as a member of the opposite sex. It was hilarious seeing how detailed people were in their costumes. Most of the men were wearing dresses, heals, make-up, and wigs, and the girls often times wore seats and stuffed their bellies with blankets. I didn't really dress up because I wasn't sure what was going on, but it was still great just to watch them all dancing and trying to impersonate the opposite gender.
Besides that not too much else is new, I went to my Bible study on Wednesday and had tea with our friend Ousmane. At the moment I'm thinking I might have a parasite. Don't worry though, i'm just experiencing a little bodily discomfort. Hope you all have a great weekend!
Besides classes I have not yet returned to volleyball practice. I'm not sure if I will but I've been running quite a bit lately. While running I've had some lovely experiences involving security guards inviting themselves to my room and a semi-truck blowing out it's tire just as it came alongside me, i fell off the road because of that one. Friday night my roommate Juliette's mother came into town for a conference for the Catholic women of Senegal. She enlisted me to help retrieve her mother from the bus, and when we arrived at the school where many of the women were staying, I found probably 1000 Senegalese wandering around in the dark. It's hard to explain but it was a pretty hilarious sight, especially because Juliette's mom managed to be as far away from us as possible. When we got back to campus Juliette had choir rehearsal so I awkwardly helped her mom settle in/brought her food/ and then tried not to seem too awkward while I got ready for bed. She is a very nice woman and hopefully doesn't think I'm overly crazy.
Saturday I had a "youth group" meeting with the pastor of our church who came from Dakar to visit with us. Considering that the youth of our church is 4 people including two Americans, I wasn't sure that the visit was entirely necessary, but I enjoyed meeting the pastor. After the meeting I got to have hang out with my friend and choir director Noah. At one point he informed me that he likes me because I'm a little crazy...in a good way i hope. Sunday was as usual a nice Church service where I forgot most of the songs. After church Noah forced me to eat lunch with his family because he has realized that i'm not the busiest person in Senegal, and I enjoyed a nice fish sandwich, with the bones still in the fish. Eating here never really gets boring because you never know what you'll find in each bight.
The highlight of this week was Tuesday night, otherwise known as Mardi Gras. I'm not sure if I've talked too much about Catholics here in Senegal, but to me they seem a little more on the religious side than they do in the U.S. For example, for lent my roommate is fasting everyday until the evening. So far it seems to be taking a bit of a toll on her because she sleeps most of the day. But back to Mardi Gras, as the last hoorah before the fasting begins, the Catholic students on campus have a big costume party, and by costume I mean you dress as a member of the opposite sex. It was hilarious seeing how detailed people were in their costumes. Most of the men were wearing dresses, heals, make-up, and wigs, and the girls often times wore seats and stuffed their bellies with blankets. I didn't really dress up because I wasn't sure what was going on, but it was still great just to watch them all dancing and trying to impersonate the opposite gender.
Besides that not too much else is new, I went to my Bible study on Wednesday and had tea with our friend Ousmane. At the moment I'm thinking I might have a parasite. Don't worry though, i'm just experiencing a little bodily discomfort. Hope you all have a great weekend!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Beaten and bruised
I thought that was a nice overly dramatic title of my post continuing from yesterdays post. To clarify, beaten and bruised refers to my arms, which took a bit of a hit the other day at volleyball practice. Last week I decided to check out the volleyball team, which we were told included both guys and girls. Unfortunately, the girls on the team seem to be invisible, so it was a few Americans and several very tall Senegalese men trying to hurt me with volleyballs for two hours. I went to torture, sorry I mean practice, two days in a row last week and decided I would take a few days off and give my bruises time to turn fun colors. Although it sounds like I didn't enjoy the practice, it was actually pretty fun and nice to be active and meeting some new people. I was originally hoping for some kind of team where I could meet some nice girls and keep active, but the teams with girls don't seem to really exist so I think I'll stick with volleyball. Practice itself is held either on an outdoor court next to my village, or in the gym, which is a fairly nice building with lots of space for karate/basketball/volleyball and free weights. The outdoor venue turned out to be a little trickier because of a nearby sewage leak that seemed to be a magnet for runaway volleyballs. Yeah, it's about as gross as it sounds...
Besides volleyball i've been having fun with my choir of two people, although last sunday was a little rough when I forgot how most of the songs went. Plus, I went to Bible study again this week where the boys decided we would follow a pre-planned study about relationships and sexuality, as if my life didn't already encompass enough awkward, but I'm sure it will be very interesting. One of the guys there decided that I'm going to be his new guitar teacher, not really sure how that will work out since I have no idea how to play guitar, but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to make a friend so I volunteered Elise to teach him (she doesn't know yet, but when the Malaria's gone...) Life with my roommate Juliette is always interesting, she usually has lots to say about really random things. Last night she informed me that she has watched the movies, "I know what you did last summer (1 and 2), "scream" (1-3), and about 50 other horror films i've never heard of. She's definitely a unique character. Recently, she joined the Catholic students choir, which I think she loves because she sings even more than before, which was all the time.
That's a little bit of what I've been up to. Alot of the time I don't discuss is filled with stuff like reading, sitting on benches and people/donkey watching, going to town and mulling around, and just having random experiences. Talk to ya'll soon!
Besides volleyball i've been having fun with my choir of two people, although last sunday was a little rough when I forgot how most of the songs went. Plus, I went to Bible study again this week where the boys decided we would follow a pre-planned study about relationships and sexuality, as if my life didn't already encompass enough awkward, but I'm sure it will be very interesting. One of the guys there decided that I'm going to be his new guitar teacher, not really sure how that will work out since I have no idea how to play guitar, but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to make a friend so I volunteered Elise to teach him (she doesn't know yet, but when the Malaria's gone...) Life with my roommate Juliette is always interesting, she usually has lots to say about really random things. Last night she informed me that she has watched the movies, "I know what you did last summer (1 and 2), "scream" (1-3), and about 50 other horror films i've never heard of. She's definitely a unique character. Recently, she joined the Catholic students choir, which I think she loves because she sings even more than before, which was all the time.
That's a little bit of what I've been up to. Alot of the time I don't discuss is filled with stuff like reading, sitting on benches and people/donkey watching, going to town and mulling around, and just having random experiences. Talk to ya'll soon!
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Keepin busy
Salut mes amis!
Sorry it's been a while, i've been trying to keep busy, although that is sometimes more of a psychological state of busy than a physical busy. Classes have been rolling along the last few weeks, with a minor hiccup on monday and tuesday of this week when students went on strike over scholarships. Fortunately, the scholarship problems were quickly resolved and I didn't really miss any classes besides Wolof because my professor planned to be absent on Tuesday anyways. Most of my classes are pretty laid back, where I can write a paper for most of my grade, but one of my classes is turning out to be a real thorn in my side. The class is socio-anthropology of the economy, which is a long title for a class that is basically about the fact that people aren't total selfish participants in the economy but a product of society. I know that doesn't sound too complicated but we turned in paper friday morning that alerted me to the fact that I had no clue as to what is going on in the class. Ok, I might be exaggerating a little because the paper itself was a bit of a fiasco. This is the same class in which I recently gave a presentation on the economic crisis, and we thought the paper wouldn't be too bad since our presentation went well. Unfortunately, one of the Americans with me got malaria about a week ago and on top of that, as we recently realized, some parasitic infection. Consequently, she was really down for the count and couldn't help too much with the paper. Plus, thursday night when were supposed to putting together the various sections of our paper, one of the other Americans a horrible nose bleed and had to go back to her room because she felt faint. Obviously, health wise were kinda in rough shape, but that left one other girl and I to put the entire 10 page paper together, and I enjoyed my first late night/early morning study party in Africa. To top it off, the printer decided to not work and place a strip of white in the middle of our paper on each side. Hence, I'm a little nervous about this class in which I have the exam next week...Oh, and the girl with malaria is doing much better now, practically good as new.
One more point of interest about my classes, in our Wolof class the teacher told us Friday that we were the farthest behind than any of his previous classes = we're the worst at Wolof. I have had several responses to that statement because from an academic standpoint, my grade in the class is fine so it's hard to judge by that. But I do understand what he means because my speaking ability is pretty weak. It's just kind of frustrating because he was voicing one of the thoughts constantly going through my head, "why am I so bad at Wolof/why don't i practice speaking it more often." He is also hitting on deeper issues like how we're finding it challenging to make friends, and my friendships are really coming slowly but surely but comments like that make it hard to keep morale up sometimes.
Enough about that kind of stuff because I've been up to alot of positive things lately. First of all, last weekend we visited a nature reserve about an hour and a half from campus which is home to hundreds of birds. If you know me well, you know that I was lacking enthusiasm for this specific trip because of my irrational fear of birds, but the trip turned out to be great. To be honest, the highlight of the trip for me was the vehicle we took out to the bird park, which was a car rapide that Ousmane hired for us. On the back of the car (more like van) there was a ladder and a ledge where someone usually stands calling out the route of the car and helping passengers on and off the car. Furthermore, because the road to the park was not paved and full of potholes the driver moved at a pace of about 5 miles an hour most of the time, which left me free to climb out on the back and enjoy the ride from a different perspective. I had a bunch of fun hanging off the back of the car, especially when I noticed Ousmane, his wife Aminata, and the driver pointing at me and shaking their heads like I was crazy. The only downside of the outdoor seating was that my entire body was coated with a thick layer of dust, including my contacts. I'll move onto the bird park itself because that's probably more interesting to you guys. The park is a small little river/marsh area with nicely constructed motor boats that take you out on about at 2 hour long tour of the body of water smack dab in the middle of nowhere. As far as the birds are concerned, I only saw about four different species, the majority of them being massive pelicans. I think there were probably a few thousand pelicans in all, which were pretty cool to watch scooping fish out of the water.
The trip to the bird park was pretty fun, and on the way home I was on the lookout for groups of monkeys because of a ridiculous story I heard about when Ariel and Elise previously visited the park. More specifically, during their journey to the park, their taxi driver made a wrong turn and started heading through the desert to Mauritania. Apparently, at one point they saw a group of monkeys running alongside their taxi, which I think is one of the most hilarious images I can think of and I was hoping to see some monkeys myself. As a side note, it's probably good that I didn't see any monkeys because that would have indicated that we were traveling the wrong direction, and because Ariel and Elise's previous trip included them screaming for the driver to stop because they were heading towards men with large guns guarding the border to Mauritania.
Sorry, I'm gonna run off to dinner now but I'll finish tomorrow.
Sorry it's been a while, i've been trying to keep busy, although that is sometimes more of a psychological state of busy than a physical busy. Classes have been rolling along the last few weeks, with a minor hiccup on monday and tuesday of this week when students went on strike over scholarships. Fortunately, the scholarship problems were quickly resolved and I didn't really miss any classes besides Wolof because my professor planned to be absent on Tuesday anyways. Most of my classes are pretty laid back, where I can write a paper for most of my grade, but one of my classes is turning out to be a real thorn in my side. The class is socio-anthropology of the economy, which is a long title for a class that is basically about the fact that people aren't total selfish participants in the economy but a product of society. I know that doesn't sound too complicated but we turned in paper friday morning that alerted me to the fact that I had no clue as to what is going on in the class. Ok, I might be exaggerating a little because the paper itself was a bit of a fiasco. This is the same class in which I recently gave a presentation on the economic crisis, and we thought the paper wouldn't be too bad since our presentation went well. Unfortunately, one of the Americans with me got malaria about a week ago and on top of that, as we recently realized, some parasitic infection. Consequently, she was really down for the count and couldn't help too much with the paper. Plus, thursday night when were supposed to putting together the various sections of our paper, one of the other Americans a horrible nose bleed and had to go back to her room because she felt faint. Obviously, health wise were kinda in rough shape, but that left one other girl and I to put the entire 10 page paper together, and I enjoyed my first late night/early morning study party in Africa. To top it off, the printer decided to not work and place a strip of white in the middle of our paper on each side. Hence, I'm a little nervous about this class in which I have the exam next week...Oh, and the girl with malaria is doing much better now, practically good as new.
One more point of interest about my classes, in our Wolof class the teacher told us Friday that we were the farthest behind than any of his previous classes = we're the worst at Wolof. I have had several responses to that statement because from an academic standpoint, my grade in the class is fine so it's hard to judge by that. But I do understand what he means because my speaking ability is pretty weak. It's just kind of frustrating because he was voicing one of the thoughts constantly going through my head, "why am I so bad at Wolof/why don't i practice speaking it more often." He is also hitting on deeper issues like how we're finding it challenging to make friends, and my friendships are really coming slowly but surely but comments like that make it hard to keep morale up sometimes.
Enough about that kind of stuff because I've been up to alot of positive things lately. First of all, last weekend we visited a nature reserve about an hour and a half from campus which is home to hundreds of birds. If you know me well, you know that I was lacking enthusiasm for this specific trip because of my irrational fear of birds, but the trip turned out to be great. To be honest, the highlight of the trip for me was the vehicle we took out to the bird park, which was a car rapide that Ousmane hired for us. On the back of the car (more like van) there was a ladder and a ledge where someone usually stands calling out the route of the car and helping passengers on and off the car. Furthermore, because the road to the park was not paved and full of potholes the driver moved at a pace of about 5 miles an hour most of the time, which left me free to climb out on the back and enjoy the ride from a different perspective. I had a bunch of fun hanging off the back of the car, especially when I noticed Ousmane, his wife Aminata, and the driver pointing at me and shaking their heads like I was crazy. The only downside of the outdoor seating was that my entire body was coated with a thick layer of dust, including my contacts. I'll move onto the bird park itself because that's probably more interesting to you guys. The park is a small little river/marsh area with nicely constructed motor boats that take you out on about at 2 hour long tour of the body of water smack dab in the middle of nowhere. As far as the birds are concerned, I only saw about four different species, the majority of them being massive pelicans. I think there were probably a few thousand pelicans in all, which were pretty cool to watch scooping fish out of the water.
The trip to the bird park was pretty fun, and on the way home I was on the lookout for groups of monkeys because of a ridiculous story I heard about when Ariel and Elise previously visited the park. More specifically, during their journey to the park, their taxi driver made a wrong turn and started heading through the desert to Mauritania. Apparently, at one point they saw a group of monkeys running alongside their taxi, which I think is one of the most hilarious images I can think of and I was hoping to see some monkeys myself. As a side note, it's probably good that I didn't see any monkeys because that would have indicated that we were traveling the wrong direction, and because Ariel and Elise's previous trip included them screaming for the driver to stop because they were heading towards men with large guns guarding the border to Mauritania.
Sorry, I'm gonna run off to dinner now but I'll finish tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Lekk nga sa xaalis? = are you eating your money
That's another one of those fun little greeting phrases that I don't know how to respond to. First of all, am I eating my money??? Second of all, I think it means are you doing well enough that you can eat well and be happy. Thirdly, I always feel weird when people ask me that, because when I say, "Yep, it's going good," I feel like people are thinking oh we know you rich American. But on the other hand, if I say, "I have no money," which is fairly truthful considering I have no job and am supported by my parents, people are thinking that I'm a liar. I guess it's a lose lose situation, but a good example of my social interaction here on campus where I spend a lot of my time just smiling and pretending I didn't understand the question.
Wow, ok, so that last paragraph just sounded a little emo/like I don't have any friends so let me fill you in on what i've been up to the last few days. At the moment, I'm trying to write a new blog entry, but there's a horde of what appears to be 5-10 year old children running around the room playing drums. They're pretty cute, but a little distracting. Last week I attended a few classes, which is always interesting here because you have to sometimes hover in the vicinity of the professor's office and follow him to the classroom because they often change the location of the class. This really isn't a problem for most of my classes, except for my French class, which really consists of me and two other American girls attending, mostly at random, as many of the classes taught by one professor as possible. A few weeks ago, he gave us a general test to see our level, and now we're attending almost all of his classes to get our credit hours, and then at the end he'll make another test for us. All in all, it's one of the more unorthodox classes I've ever had, and is sometimes more difficult than just taking a specific class. More specifically, last week this professor was gone, and he had another prof filling in for him. Unfortunately, we don't know what this new professor looks like, and he changed the classroom so we spent several hours wandering around campus trying to find our class and later his office.
In my socio-anthropology of the economy class, we gave a presentation on the economic crisis on Thursday during class. I thought the presentation went well, and our professor seemed to think we did well enough, but one of the students asked to borrow our paper and said we should have him edit it next time... I honestly don't think the professor expects us to be perfect, but we'll see. Besides the presentation, my other classes were fairly uneventful. I thought I made an appointment to see one of my professors in his office, but when I went there on Tuesday neither he nor his secretary were there. Fortunately, when I returned on Thursday, the man I made an appointment with was there, and I realized that he was not my professor, which was slightly awkward.
Outside of classes I've been rehearsing with the Church choir = my friend Noah and I. We have rehearsal every Saturday at 4pm. It's really fun rehearsing and getting to know Noah. He's a pretty good singer, and I...am not. At one point he told me he wished he could brush my throat with oil; I'm not really sure what that meant, but he told me it had something to do with the fact that I can't hold a pitch. Sunday during church our choir debuted, but Noah's dad didn't realize that the point of the choir was to lead the hymns and such so he did it himself. That wasn't really a problem last week though because I forgot most of the songs anyways. Besides choir I found a small little Bible study group on campus that meets once a week. We've had two meetings so far, in which we covered the same material because most people didn't show up last week. They seem like a nice group, but a little light on the number of girls. When they asked me if I had any questions the only thing I could think of was, "are there other girls?" and they all laughed and then were kinda like, sometimes.
Saturday morning my roommate Juliette and I watched the movie fight club. For those of you who've seen it, it's kind of an intense/strange movie, but Juliette told me she likes complex and horror films, so I figured she's like it. I'm not really sure what she thought of the movie, but she's been a little strange since...not sure there's a correlation but if I see her beating up people more often than before I'll look into it.
Friday I went to a tailor to get some fun Senegalese clothes made, and a pair of linen pants, so when I go back this week we'll see how I look. Depending on the result I'll post pictures. I was inspired to get the clothes made because some of Juliette's friends kept asking me why I wasn't wearing a booboo on Friday, apparently everyone does. Not sure how I missed that memo. This week has just been kinda rollin by with classes and filling out forms about our classes for Madison. So far the hardest part about being here in Senegal besides missing family and friends has been trying to fit the University in Saint-Louis into an American credit system. I know it'll work out, but it's always a little crazy! Ba benen leen (next time guys)!
Wow, ok, so that last paragraph just sounded a little emo/like I don't have any friends so let me fill you in on what i've been up to the last few days. At the moment, I'm trying to write a new blog entry, but there's a horde of what appears to be 5-10 year old children running around the room playing drums. They're pretty cute, but a little distracting. Last week I attended a few classes, which is always interesting here because you have to sometimes hover in the vicinity of the professor's office and follow him to the classroom because they often change the location of the class. This really isn't a problem for most of my classes, except for my French class, which really consists of me and two other American girls attending, mostly at random, as many of the classes taught by one professor as possible. A few weeks ago, he gave us a general test to see our level, and now we're attending almost all of his classes to get our credit hours, and then at the end he'll make another test for us. All in all, it's one of the more unorthodox classes I've ever had, and is sometimes more difficult than just taking a specific class. More specifically, last week this professor was gone, and he had another prof filling in for him. Unfortunately, we don't know what this new professor looks like, and he changed the classroom so we spent several hours wandering around campus trying to find our class and later his office.
In my socio-anthropology of the economy class, we gave a presentation on the economic crisis on Thursday during class. I thought the presentation went well, and our professor seemed to think we did well enough, but one of the students asked to borrow our paper and said we should have him edit it next time... I honestly don't think the professor expects us to be perfect, but we'll see. Besides the presentation, my other classes were fairly uneventful. I thought I made an appointment to see one of my professors in his office, but when I went there on Tuesday neither he nor his secretary were there. Fortunately, when I returned on Thursday, the man I made an appointment with was there, and I realized that he was not my professor, which was slightly awkward.
Outside of classes I've been rehearsing with the Church choir = my friend Noah and I. We have rehearsal every Saturday at 4pm. It's really fun rehearsing and getting to know Noah. He's a pretty good singer, and I...am not. At one point he told me he wished he could brush my throat with oil; I'm not really sure what that meant, but he told me it had something to do with the fact that I can't hold a pitch. Sunday during church our choir debuted, but Noah's dad didn't realize that the point of the choir was to lead the hymns and such so he did it himself. That wasn't really a problem last week though because I forgot most of the songs anyways. Besides choir I found a small little Bible study group on campus that meets once a week. We've had two meetings so far, in which we covered the same material because most people didn't show up last week. They seem like a nice group, but a little light on the number of girls. When they asked me if I had any questions the only thing I could think of was, "are there other girls?" and they all laughed and then were kinda like, sometimes.
Saturday morning my roommate Juliette and I watched the movie fight club. For those of you who've seen it, it's kind of an intense/strange movie, but Juliette told me she likes complex and horror films, so I figured she's like it. I'm not really sure what she thought of the movie, but she's been a little strange since...not sure there's a correlation but if I see her beating up people more often than before I'll look into it.
Friday I went to a tailor to get some fun Senegalese clothes made, and a pair of linen pants, so when I go back this week we'll see how I look. Depending on the result I'll post pictures. I was inspired to get the clothes made because some of Juliette's friends kept asking me why I wasn't wearing a booboo on Friday, apparently everyone does. Not sure how I missed that memo. This week has just been kinda rollin by with classes and filling out forms about our classes for Madison. So far the hardest part about being here in Senegal besides missing family and friends has been trying to fit the University in Saint-Louis into an American credit system. I know it'll work out, but it's always a little crazy! Ba benen leen (next time guys)!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Yangiy nos = are you partying?
The last week has been a party, mainly because it was my second semi-consistent week of classes this semester. Although, I did have two classes where my professor didn't show, one of them being a class that we wrote a paper for and prepared a presentation. After that class the other Americans and I had a bit of a freak out because the Semester ends mid-February, so we stormed director of our program's office. Hopefully, our semester will be slightly sorted out and include us learning a little bit as well.
Besides classes, the week wasn't exceedingly eventful. All six of us Americans are going to be helping a local middle school with their English classes We met with a few teachers last week to decide when we'll come, so Carlie and I will be helping a class Wednesday mornings. I think we were all just looking for a way to get involved in the community and do something potentially fruitful.
Friday night we took two our friends Aminata and Ousmane out for dinner to celebrate their recent marriage. I really enjoyed being able to take them out and show them how much we appreciate their friendship and their efforts to make us feel welcome. Plus, it was really entertaining because we forgot how to get to the restaurant, and we walked about two blocks extra (which was not very far in the first place) and Aminata was going on about how we should have taken the taxi. When we found the restaurant, they both said "we are here at last" about 15 times. I'm not sure how they'd fare on a college campus in the states where you have more than a five minute walk to class, but I kind of want to see...
Saturday night was the new student integration for my dorm building, and to celebrate we had a costume party. I went, as my roommate put it, as an American, although I was hoping for more a basketball player image since I was wearing a basketball uniform. In general, it was hilarious to see all the girls dressed ridiculously, mostly as men, and then dancing while staying in character. Earlier in the day, when we were all standing outside, a building of guys ran up with buckets fool of water and started dousing the girls of my building. I'm pretty sure I got hit the hardest because I was a little slow to react. Unfortunately, one of the girls in my dorm took a video on her phone and it shows everyone running away except me...she then proceeded to ask me what I would have done if it was a monster coming towards us. That question is pretty legitimate I guess, you should always know what to do in case of a monster, especially in Senegal!
Sunday I went over to a family's house after church where they fed me a lovely meal of brushpig, otherwise known as warthog. It was pretty tasty, a little tough, but what can you expect? During the meal I was forced to relive my choir concert because they filmed it, and I noticed how few of the song lyrics I actually knew. Fortunately, I can still practice, because the small church of 8 people is starting a choir, and I will be one of two current members. Haha, poor people, they don't know what they'll be enduring.
This week has been off to a relatively good start, my professor came to class this morning and gave me a bibliography so I can go read some books on my own, sad. Have a good week!
Besides classes, the week wasn't exceedingly eventful. All six of us Americans are going to be helping a local middle school with their English classes We met with a few teachers last week to decide when we'll come, so Carlie and I will be helping a class Wednesday mornings. I think we were all just looking for a way to get involved in the community and do something potentially fruitful.
Friday night we took two our friends Aminata and Ousmane out for dinner to celebrate their recent marriage. I really enjoyed being able to take them out and show them how much we appreciate their friendship and their efforts to make us feel welcome. Plus, it was really entertaining because we forgot how to get to the restaurant, and we walked about two blocks extra (which was not very far in the first place) and Aminata was going on about how we should have taken the taxi. When we found the restaurant, they both said "we are here at last" about 15 times. I'm not sure how they'd fare on a college campus in the states where you have more than a five minute walk to class, but I kind of want to see...
Saturday night was the new student integration for my dorm building, and to celebrate we had a costume party. I went, as my roommate put it, as an American, although I was hoping for more a basketball player image since I was wearing a basketball uniform. In general, it was hilarious to see all the girls dressed ridiculously, mostly as men, and then dancing while staying in character. Earlier in the day, when we were all standing outside, a building of guys ran up with buckets fool of water and started dousing the girls of my building. I'm pretty sure I got hit the hardest because I was a little slow to react. Unfortunately, one of the girls in my dorm took a video on her phone and it shows everyone running away except me...she then proceeded to ask me what I would have done if it was a monster coming towards us. That question is pretty legitimate I guess, you should always know what to do in case of a monster, especially in Senegal!
Sunday I went over to a family's house after church where they fed me a lovely meal of brushpig, otherwise known as warthog. It was pretty tasty, a little tough, but what can you expect? During the meal I was forced to relive my choir concert because they filmed it, and I noticed how few of the song lyrics I actually knew. Fortunately, I can still practice, because the small church of 8 people is starting a choir, and I will be one of two current members. Haha, poor people, they don't know what they'll be enduring.
This week has been off to a relatively good start, my professor came to class this morning and gave me a bibliography so I can go read some books on my own, sad. Have a good week!
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