Attaya...how I spend many an afternoon

So there are only 21 days for me left here in Senegal!  Yikes!  I am nowhere near ready to go home.  I just spent the day with my neighbor and good friend Mamadou's family.  He invited me to come and make lunch with his sisters.  We went to the market together and ended up cooking yassa poisson, which is one of the national dishes here.  Afterward, we made our attaya.  Attaya is a wonderful thing.  It is essentially green tea with massive amounts of sugar and nanna (a mint herb).  You generally make it over charcoal and make three or four rounds of tea.  You then serve the tea in shot glasses after spending hours turning the tea to get the correct amount of foam.  These days, after so much practice with Mamadou, I hardly end up spilling any tea during the lengthy process.  I don't think the foam is actually necessary, but the whole point of making the attaya is really just about finding a way to pass the time in good company.

The photo above is a picture of myself and my friend Mattan going to by charcoal (charbon en francais, kireen ci wolof) to make attaya at the house of one of our program directors.  As you can see it was a bit of a strange setup...we weren't exactly sure what we would find behind the walls.  Luckily, after a nice conversation in wolof with the man selling the charcoal, we made it out alive, bought a large bag of charcoal for 100cfa (25 cents) and proceeded to cook dinner at Korka's house.

Spring Break in Casamance

Before the second round of elections we had our spring break.  After many deliberations I decided I was going to go to Casamance, the southern region of Senegal just south of the Gambia.  It is technically still considered a conflict zone because of a separatist-esque movement there so I had to sign a waiver with our research center.  There was nothing to be worried about, however, since we were just going to be staying in Ziguinchor and Cap Skiring.  I invited my brother to come along with us since my family comes from Casamance and he had been wanting to visit some friends and family there.  We took the boat to get there since it was safer and more comfortable than taking a sept-place.  This is the boat:

Tickets for the boat were ridiculously cheap ($20 for a 12 hour boat ride).  I have been working on a blog post on relative prices and other econ things that I will post later.

But, all in all, Casamance was really cool and we got to experience a less touristy version of the region thanks to Joe.  Many men in Casamance drink a lot of palm wine...which, strangely enough, tastes exactly like you're drinking a peanut butter sandwich.  It was nice to see more animals around than one sees in Dakar.  At one point there was a friendly sheep that wouldn't leave our hostel, and there were more cows than people on the beach in Cap Skiring.

                

Also, being in Zuiginchor reminded me yet again of how cool certain customs are here.  For instance, as we (myself, Joe, and the two other abroad students) were leaving our hostel one day we came across a girl who mentioned that she was looking for some people to chat with.  After grabbing lunch we walked back to her neighborhood and asked around until we found her house.  She then invited us in and we sat around and drank bissap (a hibiscus juice) and talked with her family.  I was trying to explain to Joe how things like that don't really ever happen in the US and how if somebody you just met on the street asked you to come over you might think that was weird and would quite probably decline.  In many ways, it was a week well spent away from Dakar.  Here's a picture of Joe and Ernest (a good friend of Joe's) hanging out outside of Ernest's house.

Weekend in Mbour!

Fode (standing) and Alla (the grand DJ)

Me and one of Alla's nieces

 This post is rather late but four weekends ago my host brother Joe, cousin Fode, and friend Sophie spent the weekend in Mbour.  Sophie is living with my cousin Fode, so the four of us end up spending a lot of time together.  We decided to leave Dakar for a bit to visit Joe's friend Alla who works as a DJ in Mbour, about a two hour drive from Dakar.  In order to get there we took a sept-place, which is basically like a super old station wagon that fits seven passengers.  Finding transportation out of Dakar was easier than I thought.  The way it works is you show up at this place called "the garage."  There is no actual building there but rather just an open spot in the city where tons of busses and cars meet up.  You walk around and ask for a sept place going to the city that you want, and when you find one, you just wait for it to fill up and then you head out.  Pretty simple.  And the ride there only cost three dollars!  If only transportation in the US were like that.

We stayed at Alla's house in Mbour which was far calmer than living here in Dakar.  Alla is a DJ and for one of the evenings he took us to the club that he works at.  I was talking to my wolof professor who happens to have some land in Mbour.  He said that things have become a bit tricky there because of the tourist industry and mentioned that a lot of the young people living there find that they can make some pretty good money on tourism and then don't end up going to/continuing school.  Even the club that Alla worked had many more foreigners than I was used to seeing in Dakar.

On our way home we were stopped three times by the gendarmerie...which was pretty fun.  The police and gendarmerie are not paid super well here and so it makes sense that they stop people in order to get some extra money.  According to my brother, they tend to stop any cars that have passengers or are transporting lots of goods since the chances are good that the drivers of such vehicles will have cash on hand.  They then inspect your vehicle until they can find some reason to say that the driver needs a ticket.  Instead of getting a ticket, the driver slides them some money in a subtle handshake, and you move on.  Luckily for our driver, one of our passengers was a member of the gendarmerie and she stepped out a couple of times when it looked like the officers were demanding too much money.  She would let the driver give them a little bit, but if they asked again she would casually step out and then suddenly things were fine and we were allowed to continue again.

Na Dem! Na Dem!

There is (unofficially) a new President of Senegal!  They haven't released the official numbers yet but if you calculated the votes reported by all of the individual bureaus it is easy to see the landslide victory that Macky Sall won over our dear President Wade.  Even though the Constitutional Council hasn't officially released the restults yet, Wade has admitted his loss and the transition of power has begun.  Last night as the votes were rolling in, my excited host brother and sister and I ran out into the streets and bought sandwiches to celebrate!  My cartier was not super lively due to the number of Wade supporters living there but once we got on to the main roads we could see plenty of celebrations.  A good amout of noise, singing, and car horns continued long into the night.  There was also a big party outside Macky Sall's house which I unfortunately did not get the chance to partake in due to an Islam exam this morning.

Things are looking good for Senegal today!

Lutte! Traditional Wrestling in Senegal

As part of our trip to Toubacouta we also got to see a traditional lutte (wrestling) match!  Lutte may be my new favorite sport.  There are two main types of lutte-lutte with hitting and lutte without hitting.  There are a lot of preparations that the men go through before the matches in order to protect themselves during the fight.  As you can see from the photo, the clothing worn in a lutte match is quite minimal.  My host brother in Toubacouta explained to me that a lot of the preparations are done to make you less vulnerable both to your opponent and to the audience members.  My over-simplified explanation of it is that when you are so exposed it's easier for people's intentions to have an adverse effect on you. There is also always a drumming ensemble at the matches and the lutters awaiting their turn do a number of different dances around the sidelines in anticipation.  We got up to join in some of these dances.  To our surprise, our African Literature professor suddenly appeared during one of these dances as well.  He turns up in some of the strangest places!

My toubacouta host brother won the regional lutte match that was held the previous year so he was a pretty big deal for the family and the village.  On our last night there some of the other students and I walked to our second lute match to see him fight.  We didn't stay to see the end, but he was doing well in the rounds that we saw!

The photo below is from the first match that we saw (clearly a lightweight division).

Toubacouta Recap

A few weekends back we had the wonderful opportunity to visit the village of Toubacouta.  During that time we spent a day with hostfamilies, cooking and learning a bit about rural life in Senegal.  I stayed with the Diattas and was welcomed wonderfully.  Myself, my host mother, and host sister cooked the two family meals (yassa and ceeb u jen) in an enclosed hut behind the family houses.  My job mostly involved cutting onions (soble in Wolof).  The onions coupled with the smoke in the enclosed space meant that I was essentially crying for two hours, to the amusement of my family and especially the children.  But, all went well in the end.  The Diattas have a large family and all live together with a cluster of small houses around an open area.  There were also a lot more rules around eating and interacting that I don't normally encounter with my family in Dakar.  For instance, the men and women ate separately as you can see in the photo below:

In order to be polite I had to finish this bowl of ceeb u jen, which was quite the task!  When you are a guest like I was that weekend, it is a matter of pride to send you home feeling quite full.  If you went home hungry, it would mean that the family did not do a good job of taking care of you.

trip to Toubacouta!

This weekend we went on a trip to Toubacouta, a small village just north of the Gambia.  It was a nice change from the bustling city of Dakar...A longer post on this to come later...

elections update...looks like Macky vs Wade

Official elections results will be announced this evening but all sources point to Makcy Sall and President Wade going head to head in the second round of elections to be held in March.  Despite his confident predictions, Wade did not end up getting the 50 percent of the votes that he needed in order to win outright without a run-off. In the newspaper I was reading this morning, it was reported that Wade accidentally left his voter card and ID at his local voting location, which seems rather embarrasing...luckily people know how to get it back to him.

 It will be interesting to see which of the other candidates will pledge their support for Sall or Wade.  Either way, the fact that Wade has not claimed a victory for this first round looks like it is going to make this week a lot more calm than it could have been!

votons dans la paix...

Today is the big day!  Polls close tonight and the results get released early tomorrow morning!  My host brother was kind enough to give me his unused candidate cards from his vote today.  The way it works is you grab one card from each stack and then you put the one you want in an endvelope and that becomes your vote!  As you can see, Joe clearly did not vote for our dear President Wade (pictured in yellow in the bottom left).

cross-dressing in Dakar...such a surprise!

This Tuesday was Mardi Gras and Joe and I went to a party/community event organized by the church and our cousin Edward to celebrate the last day of festivities before lent.  It was a costume party and the entry fee was slightly cheaper if you dressed up.  Since Joe had decided not to dress up, I decided to do the same.  My host mom had mentioned an event where Joe and his buddies had cross-dressed when they were younger but I didn't make the connection between that event being part of Mardi Gras celebrations. Upon arriving at the event, however, I was quite blown away.  My cousin Edward was in a rare form Tuesday night, dressed in leggings, a miniskirt, and a stylish white coat complete with full makeup and a wig.  His friend Jacques, who normally is quite shy when he is over at our house, was wearing one of the tightest and shortest dresses I have seen in quite some time.  There was another man who came dressed in a full wedding gown, complete with a veil and incredibly high heels.  Not all of the costumes were of the cross-dressing variety, but they were certainly the majority.

I must say that Mardi Gras was one of my stranger experiences here in Dakar simply because of how unacceptable things like homosexuality and non-traditional gender expression/identity are here in Senegal.  That is not to say that cross-dressing necessarily has to be associated with such things, but it was just quite surprising to see an event like this in Dakar.  There was even a panel of judges at the end of the party (one of whom was the mayor of the cartier) to decide on the best outfit for the evening!

Y en a Marre

It looks like last night some people decided that President Wade is no longer "lui qui rassure" (he who reassures) as many of his posters and signs suggest.  Many of the young people responsible for the roadblocks and other actions against Wade's candidacy are part of the group called "y en a marre," which is short for "il y en a marre," meaning loosely, "we have had enough."  They're pretty creative in using all of the materials at their disposal to make it known that they are fed up with the present situation.  Since there are plenty of partially constructed and sometimes abandoned concrete buildings around, one can find all sorts of objects to use for road blockages.  Flooding sewers to block the autoroute (main highway into Dakar) is another strategy.  Large Wade signs like the one pictured above are also pretty effecive as barriers across busy streets.

Today is the 23rd of Febuary, which means that it is the anniversary of the M 23 movement last year that threatened to storm the National Assembly if they voted in favor of changing the constitution to allow for a vice president.  They celebrate their anniversary each month which fits quite well with the timing of the elections on the 26th.  Members of the M 23 and y en a marre in general have asked everyone to head to the place de l'independence today for a similar demonstration.

Surprise! I am now an official member of the choir at l'Eglise des Martyrs de L'Ouganda

After a rather interesting sequence of events I have now officially become a member of the choir at my host family's church, l'Eglise des Martyrs de L'Ouganda.  My host brother, Joe, is an active member of one of the eight choral groups that perform at the Catholic church's various services.  In fact, my first visit to the church was during a marriage where I ended up sitting in the tenor section of the choir with Joe.  That was rather bizarre, since I wasn't singing with them and clearly am not a tenor.  Anyways, many of Joe's good friends are fellow chorus members and so I have been getting to know a lot of them during these past weeks.  They make up the young adult choir, which includes men and women who are all in their 20s to early 30s. They found out I could read music and had some minimal piano skills and had been telling me I should come to their practices and play for them.  Then, last Sunday, there was a huge gathering/outdoor dance party/viewing of the final match for the Africa soccer cup that brought all 40ish members of the chorus to our house for the day.  (The photos below are from Sunday, and the one on the left includes my host brother, Joe). After getting to know some of them even better this Sunday, I made a promise to come to Tuesday's repetition. 

                          

As I was leaving the house I grabbed a book to bring with me so that I could read during their actual practice (assuming that I was just going to play something before it all started and then watch/listen for the remainder of the session).  My host mom, however, stopped me before I could leave and told me to leave the book at home because I wouldn't need it.  I tend to just do what she says so I agreed and left with Joe, albeit a bit confused.

When we got to the church (a tad bit late as per usual) they already had a keyboard set up and Joe quickly ushered me over to the piano where my brother's friend Stan was already playing some of the partitions.  The director handed me the music and then told me to start giving the notes to the sopranos.  I then began to realize that my agreeing to come to their repetitions actually meant that I was joining the choir...as the piano player.

It has actually been pretty neat so far.  Most of the singers don't read music, so it does really help to have someone playing the notes along with them as they are committing the songs to memory. At the same time, they are all incredibly talented. The director has an especially phenomenal voice. The songs are also a lot more lively than the ones at Catholic mass back home.

At the end of the first practice the director had me talk about where I'm from/why I'm here in Senegal so those people who hadn't been hanging out with me and Joe were not confused as to why there was suddenly a random toubab showing up to their rehearsals.  In that mini-speech I mentioned that I was really a much better saxophone player than a piano player and that I hoped my limited skills in piano wouldn't be a problem.    They then immediately got into a discussion about how they might go about finding a saxophone for me to play.  I tried to tell them that that certainly wasn't necessary, and that I didn't think that many of their songs would really fit well with a saxophone.  I really hope that there will not be a saxophone waiting for me at mass this Saturday.

Our third practice is this evening and I am really glad to have the chance to be a part of the chorus.  It's a pretty neat experience that was certainly not what I expected to encounter during my time in Dakar.  

Waly's wedding in Bambey

This weekend, one of our program directors here at the West African Research Center graciously invited the study abroad students to his wedding in Bambey, a village about three hours to the east of Dakar.  His name is Waly, and his wife, pictured above in white, is named Fatime.

                         

Weddings traditionally take place at the home/church/mosque of the woman who is to be married, so we spent the day at Fatime's family home.  The actual ceremony and familial negotiations happened at the mosque while the majority of the wedding guests socialized at the house.  Then some of the men came back and spoke in wolof on behalf of the bride and the groom in front of the guests.  Two of my professors gave speeches for Waly, which was pretty neat to see.  The photo on the right is of Ousmane Sene, my African Lit professor.  The one on the left is a photo of the national dish, ceeb u jen, which was served for lunch!

unexpected lessons in wolof class

Wolof class is always interesting with our hilarious professor, Sidy. Today, we learned that repeating certain words in a phrase can mean that you are pretending to do something.  For example, the word “goór” means “man” in wolof.  If I said, “goórgoór lu nga” that would literally translate to me telling you that you are pretending to be a man.  I could similarly take the verb fàtte (to forget) and do the same thing—fàttefàtte lu means “pretending to forget.”   Considering how many people can sometimes get crammed into different forms of public transportation here in Dakar, it might be easy to pretend to forget to pay your bus fare.

However, the “goórgoór lu nga” expression (pretending to be a man) also has a non-literal translation, and is used to tell somebody that they are doing a very good job.  It serves as a compliment for a person of any gender. Consequently, “jigéenjigéen lu” (repetition of the word for woman) is not a nice thing to say to somebody.  It might translate to meaning that you are doing something particularly slowly, which is not very fair.

We have also run into other interesting uses of the words “goór” and “jigéen” in wolof class.  When we were first learning some of the basic vocabulary, our professor (shown above) wrote the following on the board,

goór = ?

jigéen = ?

goórjigéen = ?

We still haven’t quite figured out what the word goórjigéen really means.  When our professor gave us some examples of famous people that we could lable as goórjigéens he included people who identify as gay and others who identify as transsexual.  When we tried to explain to him that those weren’t the same, he was a little bit confused and we figured it was probably best to just forget the debate and continue with the lesson.

Each week, our professor gives us a password that we have to memorize.  If, at any point, we run into him at the research center, we have to give him the password in order to get around him.  We are allowed to give him an english mot de passe as well.  Our most recent choice was "my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard."  The password that he gave us this week was particularly difficult.  Our phrase is “lekkal lu la neex waaye sol al lu neex nit ñi,” which means, «eat what you want, but wear what pleases people. »  I think we can expect to apply the same principle to seuxality and many other topics here...

Bus burning in Dakar

University students' response to the death of Mamadou Diop, reported to have been run over by a police car during the Tuesday evening riots.  Nobody seemed to have been hurt...protesters just had everyone get off the bus and then strategically burned it in the center of a really busy intersection.  By the time I saw it on my walk home it was no longer on fire, but traffic was backed up in multiple directions.

We have a mandatory meeting with the embassy today to talk about the security situation here in Dakar.  I'm a bit worried because I don't want them to say anything about cancelling the program.  The elections violence is certainly a concern but the type of protests and the way that the uprisings have manifested themselves don't make me overly concerned for my security here.

Protest Time...

These are some members of the gendarmerie that were getting ready this morning outside the grocery store.  I apologize for the poor quality of the image...I was trying to be discreet!  There is a big march that's supposed to happen today at 3!

Unrest in Dakar...and a splendid weekend avec ma petite niece, Marie Jeanne

The situation regarding the elections got a bit tricky this weekend.  On Friday evening, the constitutional council announced that President Wade does indeed have the right to run for a third term.  It also stated that Youssou N’Dour, a famous popular singer here in Senegal, cannot run. This was not received particularly well by many people here in Dakar, and particularly not received well by the younger generation.  Hundreds of people were stationed at the obelisk in the center of the city awaiting the release of the decision.  There were a few demonstrations after the release of the decision, one of which resulted in the death of a policeman. 

President Wade is already 85ish years old, which makes his bid for another 5 year term slightly problematic.  Previously, he tried to pass legislation that would allow him to have a vice president (almost definitely with the intent of awarding this position to his son), but a large protest that threatened to storm the legislature building put a stop to that.  Wade’s son did not even win the mayoral elections in Dakar. He spent a considerable amount of time in France and supposedly does not even speak Wolof, which makes it a bit strange to think of him as mayor of Dakar.  Some people here in Dakar assume that a third term for President Wade would actually look more like a non-official term for his son.  The same group of protesters (named M 23 in honor of the date of the previous demonstration against the establishment of a VP) have gathered forces against his more recent bids for power.

Our study abroad program, as well as the US embassy, cautioned us to remain at home during the weekend.  As much as I would have liked to have witnessed some of the things that were going on, it was probably best that I remained at home.  My host brother’s daughter Marie-Jeanne was over for the weekend which made things all the more enjoyable!  She is five and just started learning French at primary school.  Her limited knowledge of French coupled with my struggles with Wolof made for some funny moments.  However, we quickly realized that dancing knows no language barriers, so we spent quite a bit of time perfecting our moves.  So, despite the situation in the city, my weekend proved to be quite peaceful!

Here’s a link to the bbc article on the situation…though I feel like it makes it seem more extreme than the sentiment that I am getting here in Dakar.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16770305

What should be really interesting is what happens if Wade wins the elections come February.

Elections and Soccer...who knew how closely linked they were!?

Last night Senegal lost its second match in the African soccer cup to Equatorial Guinea, which means that we are now eliminated from the competition.  I'm pretty sure that everyone with a television was watching the game last night because every time something exciting happened you could hear cheering or yells quite clearly throughout the neghborhood.

As soon as Equatorial Guinea scored the final goal, my host mom remarked, (and I'm paraphrasing a bit) "Now there will be more trouble with the elections.  If the team had won, maybe people would have been happy long enough to last until February, but now, mon dieu!"  I have heard similar remarks from other people as well.  People are making comments like, "Nothing is working in this country!  The President, the strikes! Not even our soccer team is any good!"

Perhaps Senegal should have offered to pay its players to win like the son of the President of Equatorial Guinea supposedly did.  It may have been a good investment!  My host mother is also convinced that President Wade is going to commit election fraud again come February.  There is a committee that is supposed to decide within the next few days if he actually has the right to run for a subsequent term since the new version of the constitution was instituted after he was elected the first time.  It looks as if the committee is rather linked to the present administration so he probably won't run into any problems getting himself on the ballot.  I believe the government just stated that it is forbidden to protest or to make big demonstrations about the elections until the decision is released.  I'm not sure how official the prohibition is though.  Either way, there have been quite a few more armed policemen standing around the busy streets in case something develops.

Grèves and grèves

We have now entered into the second day of a transport strike here in Dakar, which means that the streets are quite empty again.  Sophie (a student who is staying with my host aunt) and I took advantage of the peaceful streets to go for a run last night, which was great!  We got a lot of strange looks though because it is quite unheard of for women to go running here in the city.  My host brother remarked that “Senegalese women don’t run because they are all overweight and when they finally decide to exercise they are already 200 kilos and it is too late.”  I don’t really know what he was talking about.  They certainly don’t run but are also not all overweight.  Perhaps I will ask him to elaborate on his statement later.

 On the other hand, the strike also means that it is increasingly difficult for our professors to get to class (slightly problematic).  After chatting with my host mom about the transport strike I learned a bit more about the motivations behind the strike.  Apparently gas here in Senegal is far more expensive than it is in neighboring countries and the government takes a big chunk of what you end up paying for a litre of gas.  Being a taxi driver is also a tricky job to have.  Most taxi drivers do not own their own taxis.  The way it works is that there is a person who owns the taxi and contracts another person to drive it.  Each day the driver has to pay the owner something like 10,000 CFA (the equivalent of 20 USD).  Sometimes, the driver might not even make that in a day considering he (and I use he because they are essentially all men) has to pay for his own gas (1000 CFA/litre) and is responsible for all of the repairs that are needed for the taxi.  Profits are hard to come by for taxi drivers, and so that is one of the many reasons that there is a transport strike at the moment.

Anyways, the title of this post reflects the fact that there are many grèves in abundance here in Dakar.  The word grève actually has two meanings in French.  One of them is strike.  The other, as we learned in African lit after reading one of Senghor’s poems, is a word for shoreline.  Dakar, being a peninsula, has incredible amounts of shoreline.  So, I can categorize my stay here thus far as being full of both gèves—strikes and shoreline!

Xaar al ba mu am rakk

Our Wolof classes have been super cool so far!  The other day, we learned a few different ways to say “no.”  The example that our professor gave us in class was how to decline if somebody asked you if they could have your cell phone or some other object that you might not really want to part with.  Instead of just saying no (déedeet) which might be seen as a pretty rude response, you could instead say “xaar al ba mu am rakk” which means “wait until it has a little brother.”  Then you have essentially said that you would consider giving them your cell phone once you have purchased a new one, and the one they asked for would be something that you no longer need.  I just thought it was a pretty neat way to phrase things.

Wolof is still pretty tricky for me but when you use it to greet people on the street and whatnot they always seem really appreciative that you are at least trying!  I have also been really relieved that I have been able to get along fine with my French since my conversations in Wolof can only last for a few sentences.  Caitlin Callahan—you were right!  It’s easy to get confident with a string of greetings until somebody asks you a new one or phrases something slightly differently than the sentence structure that you are used to. 

Despite the Wolof challenges, I am getting more and more comfortable with my French each day!  I can already understand the news stations far better than I could when I arrived (assuming it’s not in Wolof).  The accents here are also much nicer than European accents.  You also get quite a bit of practice in French when random boys approach you on the street and want to talk about the United States!

Exploring Marché aux Poissons

Last weekend Maija (another girl on the Wells program) and I went on an adventure to the fish market just south of the university.  While we were walking around we met a really nice guy named Waly who hooked us up with a fisherman who then gave us a tour in his boat around the local coastline.  It was super cool and we ended up going for a dip in the sea!  Once we got back to the market we stayed and chatted with Waly for a while and he cooked us some flying fish for lunch!  All in all it was a great weekend!  There were a few interesting situations that I may not have entered into had I been in the US but we ended up just going with the flow and things worked out great!  I ended up learning a lot about the type of work that goes on around the fishing industry and got to see a bunch of cool species of fish!

Airport mystery solved...

I finally figured out why there were so many festivities going on at the airport when we arrived.  It turns out that there is a really big Mouride festival held in Touba each year.  The people on our plane were some sort of famous group on their way to Touba.  The majority of Senegalese are followers of Islam, and nearly the entire city of Dakar was empty on the day of the festival.  Classes in public schools were cancelled, and my walk to the research center, which is normally a tricky frogger-like situation along some busy streets, was quite calm with just the occasional passing car or taxi!

One of the really cool things about living in a country as small as Senegal is that the news station covers pretty comprehensively a lot of the events that happen on a daily basis.  There was quite a bit of coverage on the festivals at Touba.  Even yesterday, there was a substantial amount of time spent reporting on the party that the Ministry of Health had thrown for all the workers at the pharmacies in Dakar.  It’s a bit like Maine news sometimes, where some of the things you see happening on the way to school end up being headline news stories later in the evening!

Buying bread...

My latest achievement in Dakar has been purchasing bread each morning for breakfast.  Breakfast here in Senegal has a lot of French elements.  To drink I usually have tea (attaya in Wolof) or instant coffee (kafe) with powdered milk.  Most people then have a large baguette type of bread with butter, jam, or chocolate spreads.  My family buys bread from the local boutique which is about 50 feet from our house.  The boutiques are located in pretty much every street corner and can sell you just about anything.  In order to practice my Wolof, I now go and purchase the bread in the morning.  In order to say “sell me bread” in Wolof, you say, “jaay ma mburu.”  The double consonant for bread (mburu) is a tricky one, but I think I have it down!  This, of course, comes after a long string of questions and greetings in Wolof.  Without these introductions, it would be quite impolite to even go up to somebody and ask for directions.

Host Family!

It has now been over a week since I have been living with my host family! I live in a neighborhood called Liberté 1 and it is about a 40 minute walk from the research center where we take some of our classes, and from there it is only about a ten minute walk to the university. It was just me and my host mother Therèse for quite some time.  We spent a lot of time chatting about politics here in Senegal.  She also likes to watch a lot of Brazilian soap operas dubbed in French which are always amusing.  Now Joseph is home from Touba so that's been pretty cool.  He is 25 and works as an electrician in the city.  The neighborhood that we live in is pretty cool.  Right outside my house is a miniature sand soccer field so there are always a bunch of kids running around.  Above is a picture of our backyard that should have a bunch of delicious mangos in a few months!

Arrival in Senegal!

We made it safely to Senegal!  There was some sort of group of important people on our plane from Brussels to Dakar, and there was some great singing and some media groups there when we got into the airport.

After a slightly nerve-wrecking taxi drive through a bit of the city we made it to our hotel.  Orientation and other exciting things to come tomorrow!