I find it a little bit humorous that I updated so much more when I had MUCH less reliable/accessible internet…
That said, yes, I did make it back to the states; yes, I’ve been home for 3 whole weeks; yes, I am happy to be home but also have mixed feelings about not being in Senegal anymore… let me just tell you what I’ve been up to.
I got home on May 17th, after a surprisingly smooth voyage through 3 different airports and successful transport of my kora as well (what are the chances of that!?) and walked out of the terminal right as my family was arriving! Starting in Paris, I was surrounded by herds of white people—and thought I recognized each and every one of them. It’s psychologically proven that a person of one race can see more nuances in the facial features of others of that same race; I think that, because it had been so long since I’d seen so many people of my own race, I recognized all these features and kept thinking everyone was someone I knew. It was bizarre. So arriving in Burlington as these 3 strangely-familiar but probably-not-people walked towards me with surprised looks on their faces and open arms was quite confusing to me. My brother’s about a foot taller than when I left, but other than that it felt oddly…normal.
I visited my grandparents and the Pearls, and then went back to my real home—not some Senegalese family’s house that even taxi drivers can’t find with the street address, not a house-turned-study-abroad-program-schoolroom, not a round cement hut covered with a straw roof containing one mattress that I have all to myself the family sleeps outside, not a tent placed under a mango tree and carefully lined with blankets in the 100 degree weather, not a huge empty room with a tin roof and me in the middle surrounded by all the children of the village, not a little room on the roof of a boarding house next door to goats and one of the only hot-water showers in Dakar—this was my real home, with MY family and kittycats and a dwarf hamster and chickens and a kitchen and electricity and hot running water an a kitchen table and silverware and furniture and wall decorations and my bed!!!! Whew! But, even with all that change…nothing seemed new. Except the color of the kitchen, and the fact that I knew what we were having for dinner before it was even being prepared.
Nothing seemed new to me but I ate with my hands. All I talked about was Senegal, because that’s all that was on my mind. I expected to be paying so much attention to the simple pleasures I’d been missing for the past 4 months and hearing about everything that went on at home while I was gone, but it was like I was still in Senegal! Nothing was new because I hadn’t changed my mindset.
I spent two weeks at home: cooking, visiting with family, seeing friends and people I know from town—basically consuming 14 days that seemed like 2. Obviously it was wonderful to see everyone and finally spend time with these people I missed so much for the last 4 months…it just surprised me how normal it felt.
On May 31 I left again, this time to Hanover, NH to start my internship at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical center, in the Arts program. I moved into the house where I’ll be living for the summer, which is very quiet and quite lonely at this point because it’s finals week and everyone is either studying or out in the wilderness trying to get away from studying. I started my job that Monday, June 1st, and so far I LOVE it!!! I’ve been mostly doing odd jobs for now until I start shadowing the artist in residence, which should be sometime soon…next week or the week after maybe? I’ve been filing/organizing, doing lots of typing (labels for artwork, artists’ biographies, price lists, etc.), helping artists transport/hang/take down their work, photographing/documenting all the artwork in the hospital, copying lots of papers and distributing them all around to the information desks…basically office-type jobs for now. But that’s what I’m good at, and I love organizing things, and my advisor is great, so I’m very happy with my job!!! I ride the free bus there and back, I work 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, and am cooking lots of meals in a…well, I won’t say a nice kitchen, but it has a counter, a stove and running water so I can’t complain. And no cockroaches! That’s one Senegalese thing I don’t miss.
Anyway, as of now, even after looking through all my pictures and reading through my journals, I still have a really hard time comprehending that I ever actually went anywhere. There are some points I’ve thought about a bit, so I’ll try to explain those:
-Walking through the hospital the other day, I realized that I’ve gone through a huge and kind of disturbing change of environment: from a poverty-stricken country obviously in need of medical care to a sterile, what now seems like over-privileged, hospital. This point has many sub-points, most having to do with money, different views of the word “necessity,” etc...but what I notice most is the disposition of the ill people (or, I guess, how I perceive their disposition). In the hospital, although the staff and atmosphere are inviting and friendly, there is an eerie ambiance…people waiting for their ill loved ones are worried and fidgety, the ill are unhappy to be in this hospital setting and seem to just want to get on with their lives minus these tests and sterile white hallways…I’m really not sure how to go about explaining this but I think anyone who has spent time in a hospital would understand. In the villages probably a larger percent of the population (village vs. hospital) was sick…but that didn’t stop them from living their lives, from carrying water from the well, from visiting and kissing and hugging loved ones, from eating out of the communal bowl, or from raising a family, even if that meant that their children would carry on this sickness... I know that this wasn’t quite a case of “ignorance is bliss,” because my families made it very clear to me that they knew that medicine was out there and they knew people had access to it; I just wonder if it was the hopelessness of ever receiving care for their sicknesses that made them appreciate life and continue to live it, if it was a different cultural outlook on life…? The difference in atmosphere between these two communities is just baffling to me. It’s hard to think about because of the infinite number of possible explanations for all the differences…but yes I guess my point is that it’s been difficult adjusting to life at the hospital.
-My next point I’ve thought about a lot but was never really able to put into words. Then I got an email from my much more eloquent friend Avery who apparently was feeling exactly the same way, so I’m going to steal his explanation for this one (excerpt):
“…and here I was back in my own home, and for different reasons I felt like a celebrity all over again. Only this time, I didn't like the attention at all. I guess I was hoping my experience would just become a part of me right away and it would be invisible to others unless I decided to share it (I've noticed I'm hella selfish about Senegal because no one is as fun to talk to about Senegal as the people I was in Senegal with and thus I don't even want to bother with most). Luckily I've found the more people I run into the fewer seem to know where I've been and I love the power of throwing it in as a fun fact at random points in discussion just to see the reaction I get!”
And the next part is a story by Avery; I’ve had many situations like this but not quite so funny, so I’m being lazy and using his:
“My favorite so far has to be that of my Dental Hygienist!! You know how they always talk to you when clearly you are incapable of responding with more than a handful of words before they jab you with metal tools and spray water off your front teeth all over your face and then blow air in your mouth as if its going to help the situation. Then they suck out your drool excessively until you feel like your choking on your tongue because it’s dried up only to ask you another question you can't answer. Well this time was different! She asked all the same questions, but as soon as I mentioned Senegal, she couldn't stop asking questions. She was so interested in my experience and project and excursions...etc that she kept stopping to let me respond and tell her more…”
With this thought in mind, it’s really neat being at Dartmouth where the majority of people study abroad; it’s not that amazing to them that I went to Africa or that I studied abroad at all, so I feel much less of that uncomfortable celebrity-esque sentiment. People don’t give me that vague, unanswerable question: “How was Senegal?” What can I say to that?? My most concise and accurate answer I’ve come up with so far is: “It was any adjective that you can possibly think of.”
Ahhhh anyway there are SO many other things I’ve been thinking about (materialism is a biggie) but I have trouble putting things into words, if you haven’t noticed.
Oh but before I put an end to this I would like to share a little story. The other day I was on Facebook and noticed one of my friends’ statuses was in Wolof, and it said something like “I miss Senegal.” I didn’t find this weird at all until I noticed it wasn’t a friend from my trip; it turned out to be a girl who was apparently there the whole time I was but with a different study abroad program, in the same city, who lived in the same town as me in a different homestay, and who I probably saw walking down the street and didn’t recognize because it just would have been too bizarre to see someone I knew from VERMONT, USA in SENEGAL. Right?! It was her first night home and it was so interesting to talk to her about her experience, to see what she noticed, what she hated and loved and missed…maybe that’s why I’m not that willing to go into ALL my thoughts here, because I just finished going through all of them with her!
Anyway.
Overall:
I am not sad to have left Senegal.
My time in Senegal now seems like a dream, and though I read at points in my journal how slow time seemed to be going or how difficult it was, it now seems like a whir of happiness that passed by, a little tributary off of my real life.
I feel uncomfortable judging the Senegalese culture after living there for only 3.5 months and not even fluently speaking ANY language there. But I can’t help but compare our cultures and tend to prefer most aspects of my own.
I miss a lot of things about Senegal. A LOT of things.
But I’m glad to be home.
I don’t want to overload the contemplative tone of this blog, so I think I’ll stop here. But this means maybe I will update again someday with new thoughts!
Until then…
Ba Beneen. Inchallah.
-Emily
Monday, June 8, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Last post from Abroad...
Welcome, friends, to my last update from Senegal! This is unreal for me, that I feel like I’ve been here forever and that I really have a life here, but I also feel like it just started and like I haven’t even left my homes in Vermont and Alfred…I’m having many mixed feelings about this, but have really been enjoying this last week!
Friday, May 8
I handed in my ISP around noon, and it was like dropping a large dumbbell that I’d been carrying on my shoulders for the past month. I left the school through a crowd of students hunched over their computers typing frantically, sat on my roof in the beautiful sun and did my laundry.
I then met Bethany and Kenna for the second attempt at visiting my homestay family (we were going to go the day before but Bethany ended up having to have a meeting and hamburgers and…it just never worked out). We walked along the ocean all the way to Ouakam, and finally got to my old house. It was very…unreal to be back there and I had mixed feelings about this meeting. I got to the door and strangely, it was locked. The family knew I was coming, I had called twice to tell them and they were looking forward to the package I was delivering them (sent to me by one of their past homestay students), so it seemed weird that they wouldn’t be there. I called my sister Aminta and she said something to the effect of, “there’s a problem with the house, we moved to my sister’s house.” I’m not sure if she meant for the night, for a little while, or permanently, but I was a little frustrated that they hadn’t let me know before I made the trip. She said though that she’d be at the Final Party the following day so I could bring her the package then…so I went home.
That night I met Alex at the Thai restaurant and we had a delicious dinner and multiple desserts, and stayed there talking until the restaurant closed. I got home around 1AM and played some kora, starting to prepare for my upcoming performance at the resort.
Saturday, May 9
I met Megan for lunch at Les Ambassades, a glorious little French restaurant packed with cakes and pastries of all shapes and sizes. Afterwards we went on a very short souvenir-shopping trip at Marché Tilène, the market I fell in love with the first time I went downtown so many months ago. We then headed to the Final Party at SIT, where we’d all get to say our final goodbyes to our homestay families and see the art everyone had created during the Art workshops earlier in the semester. There was a band playing (consisting of my 2 griot kora teachers, my djembe teacher, my dance teacher, a balafon player and a singer), and tons and tons of food. I expected my family to show up because a) they really wanted that package and b) they told me they’d be there to say goodbye…but they never did. A man I’d never seen before came to pick up the package to bring to them, saying the mother was in the hospital so they couldn’t make it (I never found out whether she really WAS in the hospital or not); as this was my 3rd try to say goodbye to a family with whom I never really connected, I just told him to say goodbye for me.
Later that night, after another lovely family dinner, Abby and I put on Madagascar II for Aida, the 3-year-old in our house, and her cousins who were visiting (half-Italian, half-Senegalese, beautiful children), in French. Sally came over later (since she had lived in this house for the first 2 months) and we had a little sleepover and packed for the trip to Mbour!
Sunday, May 10
We all gathered at SIT in the morning to see the first of the presentations: a kora presentation, some dancing and some visual arts. It was really great to see what everyone has accomplished in the past month! The presentations are almost like a little talent show.
After visiting the Village Des Arts for the visual arts presentations, we hopped on a bus to Mbour. We got keys to our bungalows (I was with Erin and Elena) and entered the beautiful 2-level hut we’d be lounging in for the next week. I worked on my presentation that evening while my friends went to the market, played some kora, and relaxed. What a lovely escape from Dakar!
Monday, May 11
In the morning we had more presentations, took a break for lunch, and then mine was the first one in the afternoon. I got to experience my wonderful nerves! The presentation didn’t go AWFULLY, it was just extremely choppy, sweaty, and many wrong notes were played among the right ones. I was just SO relieved when it was over! For the rest of the week I’d be able to relax, lounge on the beach, and just enjoy others’ presentations without the pressure of thinking about my own. Afterwards I went with Megan and Erin to get thiakry (which I will miss immensely in the US) and we walked around and explored the town a little. We went to a supermarket, which was a little bit of a culture shock.
Tuesday, May 12
In the morning we had more presentations, and then in the afternoon we had an optional excursion to L’Île de Coquillage (shell island) which is famous for the mix of Muslims and Catholics living together and sharing a cemetery (90% Catholic and 10% Muslim, so pretty much the opposite of the rest of Senegal). We explored the touristy island and walked around the beautiful cemetery, and then on the way home were planning on stopping at President Senghor’s birth house (which is now a museum). Before the museum, however, we stopped at a place called Warang, where many liquers are made from exotic fruits. Sarah, one of the program directors, wanted to buy some for her family, but the students wanted to check it out too. So we all went in and were offered a “tasting,” which consisted of I think 7 consecutive shots of their various liquors: pineapple-grapefruit, tamarin, ginger, hibiscus, passionfruit, mango, and chocolate-banana-coffee. I must say, it was one of the most surprising and wonderful group excursions we’ve had so far! Needless to say, the bus ride back to the hotel was a little crazy.
After dinner there was a party going on for Lucy’s birthday in the big bungalow so we went there and danced for a while, and then sat in a circle and played “Most Likely To…” where we went around the circle and chose what we thought everyone would be most likely to do in their lives. I was “most likely to have dreads down to my feet” and “most likely to start my own line of organic macaroni and cheese.” I think the second one is fitting. Around 11 we heard a very loud round of what sounded like gunshots right outside the hut, but it turned out to be fireworks on the beach! Apparently there was a party going on at the resort next door for some Belgian chefs…and there was a neighbor who showed up very angry that the unexpected fireworks had woken up his 2-year-old son, and was threatening to “kill someone”….so we left pretty quickly after watching the beautiful show. At midnight everyone sang me “Happy Birthday!” And soon I went to bed, because I am an old woman.
Wednesday, May 13
My 21st birthday!!! We had presentations in the morning, then spent some relaxing time on the beach, and in the late afternoon I went to the Mbour market with Erin. The first 20 minutes were about the most hellish 20 minutes I could imagine; a strange man trying to convince us that it’s obligatory for a Senegalese person to “guide and protect” every white person who comes to the market, and therefore following us around constantly while we tried to tell him to leave us alone and that we could “protect” ourselves, we had lived in Senegal for over 3 months and weren’t stupid; then his friend joining in and telling us there was no way they could leave us alone; us standing still and staring at the ground, trying to make them give up on us; us speedwalking through a maze of small market paths trying to lose them; them finding us and me being extremely angry and yelling at them; them continuing to follow us and us finally having a shopowner tell the men to leave us alone. Whew. I was fuming. “Steaming mad.” After they finally left the market was lovely! On the way back to the resort in a taxi we made some friends, the taxi driver and another man in the taxi, but then the car stopped working so we switched to a different one. That night we had a lovely dinner and watched “Juno” afterwards on the projector, while Erin, Alex and I shared the homemade mango-passionfruit wine and the hibiscus wine I had purchased at the monastery, and it was delectable. A very relaxing, happy birthday ☺
Thursday, May 14
We finished presentations in the morning (meaning ISP is officially OVER!) and had a little re-entry/goodbye session, which I think is just an incomprehensible idea for everyone here. The rest of the day was spent lounging on the beach, swimming, filling out evaluation forms, and eating wonderful huge amounts of curry and vegetables. In the evening SIT provided us with 3 “surprises”: Been (1): luscious creamy ice cream; Naar (2): crab races and prizes; Neent (3): drumming and dancing. It was cute. Afterwards it was only about 11, and Erin, Elena, Megan and I went back to my bed to lounge and talk and all passed out within 10 minutes.
Friday, May 15
This morning we had to say goodbye to four members of our group who are taking flights out of Dakar tonight. It’s so unreal to think that tomorrow I’ll be getting on a plane and coming home. I’m not going to reflect much now, I still have tomorrow in Dakar and I’ll do a final update once I get home…basically the last couple days of things are anxious for me; I hate goodbyes!
So, I guess…I’ll see you soon! Really soon!
Love☺
Friday, May 8
I handed in my ISP around noon, and it was like dropping a large dumbbell that I’d been carrying on my shoulders for the past month. I left the school through a crowd of students hunched over their computers typing frantically, sat on my roof in the beautiful sun and did my laundry.
I then met Bethany and Kenna for the second attempt at visiting my homestay family (we were going to go the day before but Bethany ended up having to have a meeting and hamburgers and…it just never worked out). We walked along the ocean all the way to Ouakam, and finally got to my old house. It was very…unreal to be back there and I had mixed feelings about this meeting. I got to the door and strangely, it was locked. The family knew I was coming, I had called twice to tell them and they were looking forward to the package I was delivering them (sent to me by one of their past homestay students), so it seemed weird that they wouldn’t be there. I called my sister Aminta and she said something to the effect of, “there’s a problem with the house, we moved to my sister’s house.” I’m not sure if she meant for the night, for a little while, or permanently, but I was a little frustrated that they hadn’t let me know before I made the trip. She said though that she’d be at the Final Party the following day so I could bring her the package then…so I went home.
That night I met Alex at the Thai restaurant and we had a delicious dinner and multiple desserts, and stayed there talking until the restaurant closed. I got home around 1AM and played some kora, starting to prepare for my upcoming performance at the resort.
Saturday, May 9
I met Megan for lunch at Les Ambassades, a glorious little French restaurant packed with cakes and pastries of all shapes and sizes. Afterwards we went on a very short souvenir-shopping trip at Marché Tilène, the market I fell in love with the first time I went downtown so many months ago. We then headed to the Final Party at SIT, where we’d all get to say our final goodbyes to our homestay families and see the art everyone had created during the Art workshops earlier in the semester. There was a band playing (consisting of my 2 griot kora teachers, my djembe teacher, my dance teacher, a balafon player and a singer), and tons and tons of food. I expected my family to show up because a) they really wanted that package and b) they told me they’d be there to say goodbye…but they never did. A man I’d never seen before came to pick up the package to bring to them, saying the mother was in the hospital so they couldn’t make it (I never found out whether she really WAS in the hospital or not); as this was my 3rd try to say goodbye to a family with whom I never really connected, I just told him to say goodbye for me.
Later that night, after another lovely family dinner, Abby and I put on Madagascar II for Aida, the 3-year-old in our house, and her cousins who were visiting (half-Italian, half-Senegalese, beautiful children), in French. Sally came over later (since she had lived in this house for the first 2 months) and we had a little sleepover and packed for the trip to Mbour!
Sunday, May 10
We all gathered at SIT in the morning to see the first of the presentations: a kora presentation, some dancing and some visual arts. It was really great to see what everyone has accomplished in the past month! The presentations are almost like a little talent show.
After visiting the Village Des Arts for the visual arts presentations, we hopped on a bus to Mbour. We got keys to our bungalows (I was with Erin and Elena) and entered the beautiful 2-level hut we’d be lounging in for the next week. I worked on my presentation that evening while my friends went to the market, played some kora, and relaxed. What a lovely escape from Dakar!
Monday, May 11
In the morning we had more presentations, took a break for lunch, and then mine was the first one in the afternoon. I got to experience my wonderful nerves! The presentation didn’t go AWFULLY, it was just extremely choppy, sweaty, and many wrong notes were played among the right ones. I was just SO relieved when it was over! For the rest of the week I’d be able to relax, lounge on the beach, and just enjoy others’ presentations without the pressure of thinking about my own. Afterwards I went with Megan and Erin to get thiakry (which I will miss immensely in the US) and we walked around and explored the town a little. We went to a supermarket, which was a little bit of a culture shock.
Tuesday, May 12
In the morning we had more presentations, and then in the afternoon we had an optional excursion to L’Île de Coquillage (shell island) which is famous for the mix of Muslims and Catholics living together and sharing a cemetery (90% Catholic and 10% Muslim, so pretty much the opposite of the rest of Senegal). We explored the touristy island and walked around the beautiful cemetery, and then on the way home were planning on stopping at President Senghor’s birth house (which is now a museum). Before the museum, however, we stopped at a place called Warang, where many liquers are made from exotic fruits. Sarah, one of the program directors, wanted to buy some for her family, but the students wanted to check it out too. So we all went in and were offered a “tasting,” which consisted of I think 7 consecutive shots of their various liquors: pineapple-grapefruit, tamarin, ginger, hibiscus, passionfruit, mango, and chocolate-banana-coffee. I must say, it was one of the most surprising and wonderful group excursions we’ve had so far! Needless to say, the bus ride back to the hotel was a little crazy.
After dinner there was a party going on for Lucy’s birthday in the big bungalow so we went there and danced for a while, and then sat in a circle and played “Most Likely To…” where we went around the circle and chose what we thought everyone would be most likely to do in their lives. I was “most likely to have dreads down to my feet” and “most likely to start my own line of organic macaroni and cheese.” I think the second one is fitting. Around 11 we heard a very loud round of what sounded like gunshots right outside the hut, but it turned out to be fireworks on the beach! Apparently there was a party going on at the resort next door for some Belgian chefs…and there was a neighbor who showed up very angry that the unexpected fireworks had woken up his 2-year-old son, and was threatening to “kill someone”….so we left pretty quickly after watching the beautiful show. At midnight everyone sang me “Happy Birthday!” And soon I went to bed, because I am an old woman.
Wednesday, May 13
My 21st birthday!!! We had presentations in the morning, then spent some relaxing time on the beach, and in the late afternoon I went to the Mbour market with Erin. The first 20 minutes were about the most hellish 20 minutes I could imagine; a strange man trying to convince us that it’s obligatory for a Senegalese person to “guide and protect” every white person who comes to the market, and therefore following us around constantly while we tried to tell him to leave us alone and that we could “protect” ourselves, we had lived in Senegal for over 3 months and weren’t stupid; then his friend joining in and telling us there was no way they could leave us alone; us standing still and staring at the ground, trying to make them give up on us; us speedwalking through a maze of small market paths trying to lose them; them finding us and me being extremely angry and yelling at them; them continuing to follow us and us finally having a shopowner tell the men to leave us alone. Whew. I was fuming. “Steaming mad.” After they finally left the market was lovely! On the way back to the resort in a taxi we made some friends, the taxi driver and another man in the taxi, but then the car stopped working so we switched to a different one. That night we had a lovely dinner and watched “Juno” afterwards on the projector, while Erin, Alex and I shared the homemade mango-passionfruit wine and the hibiscus wine I had purchased at the monastery, and it was delectable. A very relaxing, happy birthday ☺
Thursday, May 14
We finished presentations in the morning (meaning ISP is officially OVER!) and had a little re-entry/goodbye session, which I think is just an incomprehensible idea for everyone here. The rest of the day was spent lounging on the beach, swimming, filling out evaluation forms, and eating wonderful huge amounts of curry and vegetables. In the evening SIT provided us with 3 “surprises”: Been (1): luscious creamy ice cream; Naar (2): crab races and prizes; Neent (3): drumming and dancing. It was cute. Afterwards it was only about 11, and Erin, Elena, Megan and I went back to my bed to lounge and talk and all passed out within 10 minutes.
Friday, May 15
This morning we had to say goodbye to four members of our group who are taking flights out of Dakar tonight. It’s so unreal to think that tomorrow I’ll be getting on a plane and coming home. I’m not going to reflect much now, I still have tomorrow in Dakar and I’ll do a final update once I get home…basically the last couple days of things are anxious for me; I hate goodbyes!
So, I guess…I’ll see you soon! Really soon!
Love☺
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Maangi Bind... Bouba! (I write...a lot!)
Hey there,
Just a little update because I’m at SIT where the internet actually works!
Sunday, May 3
I got up nice and early and took the longest, most needed, and most effective shower of my life! I’m really appreciating the hot water in this house, and the wireless internet…it’s kind of spoiling me but getting me back into “U.S. mode!” I then spent the morning starting my ISP paper, and got quite a bit done on an outline. Abby and I took a walk to buy water so I got to see more of the neighborhood, and then later in the afternoon Erin and I took her two homestay “sisters” (they’re actually the two maids who live/work in her homestay house but she calls them her sisters) to Ngor Island, an island just off the tip of Dakar. We rode a Pirogue (a big wooden fishing boat) to get over there and landed on a disgustingly touristy section of the island where they were trying to charge us $4 apiece to rent beach chairs. We decided to walk to the back of the island and explore a bit; we saw some beautiful rocky cliffs and it was so calm and empty. We then found a little quiet private beach and the three of them swam there while I waded and watched our bags, and then the woman who owned the beach came to swim and made friends with us so she gave us a blanket to sit on and a man brought us coffee! It was SO relaxing, a real escape from Dakar. I walked home and hung out with Abby in our rooms, ate dinner with the family, and hung out in the living room while they watched soccer.
Monday, May 4
I worked on my ISP in the morning and then went to the shack for lunch, where Megan was cooking Ceebu Jen for lunch! (She’s doing her project on Ceebu Jen, the national dish of Senegal (fish and rice) and along with her research on its place in culture and other subjects related to her area of anthropology, she’s cooking it in I think 11 different places!) Neexoon na (It was delicious) but I was in a hurry to meet with my advisor: he was bringing me my kora!!!! And we were going to go to the fabric market together to pick out the fabric for the case. After waiting for him for 45 minutes I finally called to ask if he was still coming (he’s not the most punctual of people, but then again no one in Senegal is ever on time), but he told me I must have misheard him, he wasn’t coming until 3:30. I have trouble seeing how I could have misheard “treize heures” as “quinze heures et demie,” especially when I repeated “treize heures” back to him and he agreed…but I didn’t get too upset since, magically, this is the first time during my ISP that time has really caused an issue. So I met him around 4:15 when he finally showed up, and he had my kora! He tuned it and showed me how to tune it, and he kept asking me how much I’d sell it back to him for, because he loved it too much. We didn’t end up going to the fabric market together because he had to get back home for some reason, but I went anyway with Lucy who wanted to pick out some fabric. Afterwards I came home to work on my ISP but the power went out, so I played my new kora in the dark and it was delightful. It’s very different from the koras I’m used to at the monastery, but hopefully I’ll be able to get used to it before my presentation next week…
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
I woke up early to work on my ISP paper and to prepare for my morning meeting: a discussion with Ethnomusicologist Gaby Ba, who came to SIT early in the semester to do a presentation of traditional African instruments. I had called him the previous day to see if I could meet with him to get some help analyzing my findings from my kora field research and he seemed happy to help! So at around 9AM I left the house to get a taxi to his town, and because I arrived about 40 minutes early, I decided to explore his town a bit and sit and watch the waves crash on the beach. Of course this couldn’t happen in solitude, because when a white girl sits down alone on a hill overlooking a beach that’s a sure sign that she wants to talk to a Senegalese man, right? Let me give you a brief overview of almost every conversation I’ve had with a Senegalese man. (In French, of course)
Me: [tries to avoid eye contact or any sign of interest]
Him: [quickly approaching, sometimes grabbing my arm so I’ll stop walking away from him] Hello my beautiful woman. How are you?
Me: [obviously uninterested] I’m fine, thanks.
Him: Fine? You are from what country?
Me: The United States.
Him: Are you married?
Me: Yes.
Him: With an American, or a Senegalese?
Me: An American.
Him: Oh, then it’s no problem!
Obviously there are variations sometimes, like the “are you married” comes before “you are from what country,” or occasionally he’ll ask some filler questions before the “are you married” like “how do you like Senegal?” or “How long have you been here?” or “Where do you live?” etc. I am just getting absolutely fed up with knowing the intentions of the majority of Senegalese men and knowing that makes it impossible to establish any sort of friendship or even just have a normal conversation with men on the streets. Of course I’m not trying to stereotype these people and I know there exist many, many men who do NOT have this intention…it’s just the men who approach white women, who happen to be the only men I end up talking to. It’s a vicious cycle.
Anyway, after escaping from my new friend “Roby,” I went to my meeting with Gaby and he showed me around his house. He introduced me to his family and then brought me into a room and said, “and this is another student,” and to my surprise Isa, another girl on my trip, was sitting on his patio! I guess he’s her advisor and they were in the middle of a meeting when I arrived, but it was quite the surprise to find someone I knew in a stranger’s house!
We had the interview in a little room he was turning into a studio, filled with traditional African instruments and an exercise ball. He sat on the exercise ball, bouncing and rolling during the meeting, and it was a little hard to take him seriously. But the meeting went really well, we had some really interesting conversations and it definitely added to the analysis of my project.
Later I went back to the shack for lunch because Megan was cooking again, this time Ceebu Jen Rouge (red rice with fish), and afterwards walked to a tailor with Erin. I came home to work on my ISP, showered (again?!) and ate a mango as a reward for my hard work (the shower or the ISP?). Just in case you were wondering, this trip has taught me a lot, and among other important skills (such as extreme rudeness to Senegalese men and vendors, ability to survive on mainly rice, and tendency to get infected wounds) I have become an expert at cutting mangos. I only hope that the Pearls have forgotten the one time in my life before coming to Senegal that I tried to cut a mango. How embarrassing.
Wednesday, May 6
I worked on my ISP for most of the morning and in the afternoon met for my final Advisor meeting. I went through my whole paper with Edouard, explaining what every paragraph said (it’s in English and he speaks French). It went really well, he gave me a good evaluation, and it’s just really nice to have that last meeting done so I don’t have to worry about planning things AND trying to finish my paper.
That night I went out to eat Ethiopian food with Abby, Nicola and Michael’s mom (Michael didn’t end up going because he went to the doctor instead). It was a really cute restaurant on the roof, with pretty couches around tiny tables. The food was delicious, we each ordered a plate and just shared them all so we could try a bunch of different things. Yum yum.
The rest of the night just basically involved more writing, nothing too exciting.
Thursday, May 7
I think I pretty much finished my ISP! I just need to keep reading it and keep editing it…and what I REALLY need to do is practice the kora. I haven’t done that at all this week because I’ve been writing so much, and when I take breaks I don’t feel like doing something ELSE that has to do with my project. I found out I’m presenting on Monday afternoon, and I still have no idea what I’ll be doing for this presentation.
I went to SIT expecting to meet Bethany to go and visit my homestay family, but she ended up having other things to do…so hopefully we’ll go tomorrow. Tonight I hope to practice the kora…other than that, I don’t have much new to say! It’s amazing how little there is to say about the intense-writing week. It makes me realize how little I’ve actually done.
Anyway, after tomorrow our ISPs will be officially DONE and all that leaves is the presentations!
Lots of love!
Just a little update because I’m at SIT where the internet actually works!
Sunday, May 3
I got up nice and early and took the longest, most needed, and most effective shower of my life! I’m really appreciating the hot water in this house, and the wireless internet…it’s kind of spoiling me but getting me back into “U.S. mode!” I then spent the morning starting my ISP paper, and got quite a bit done on an outline. Abby and I took a walk to buy water so I got to see more of the neighborhood, and then later in the afternoon Erin and I took her two homestay “sisters” (they’re actually the two maids who live/work in her homestay house but she calls them her sisters) to Ngor Island, an island just off the tip of Dakar. We rode a Pirogue (a big wooden fishing boat) to get over there and landed on a disgustingly touristy section of the island where they were trying to charge us $4 apiece to rent beach chairs. We decided to walk to the back of the island and explore a bit; we saw some beautiful rocky cliffs and it was so calm and empty. We then found a little quiet private beach and the three of them swam there while I waded and watched our bags, and then the woman who owned the beach came to swim and made friends with us so she gave us a blanket to sit on and a man brought us coffee! It was SO relaxing, a real escape from Dakar. I walked home and hung out with Abby in our rooms, ate dinner with the family, and hung out in the living room while they watched soccer.
Monday, May 4
I worked on my ISP in the morning and then went to the shack for lunch, where Megan was cooking Ceebu Jen for lunch! (She’s doing her project on Ceebu Jen, the national dish of Senegal (fish and rice) and along with her research on its place in culture and other subjects related to her area of anthropology, she’s cooking it in I think 11 different places!) Neexoon na (It was delicious) but I was in a hurry to meet with my advisor: he was bringing me my kora!!!! And we were going to go to the fabric market together to pick out the fabric for the case. After waiting for him for 45 minutes I finally called to ask if he was still coming (he’s not the most punctual of people, but then again no one in Senegal is ever on time), but he told me I must have misheard him, he wasn’t coming until 3:30. I have trouble seeing how I could have misheard “treize heures” as “quinze heures et demie,” especially when I repeated “treize heures” back to him and he agreed…but I didn’t get too upset since, magically, this is the first time during my ISP that time has really caused an issue. So I met him around 4:15 when he finally showed up, and he had my kora! He tuned it and showed me how to tune it, and he kept asking me how much I’d sell it back to him for, because he loved it too much. We didn’t end up going to the fabric market together because he had to get back home for some reason, but I went anyway with Lucy who wanted to pick out some fabric. Afterwards I came home to work on my ISP but the power went out, so I played my new kora in the dark and it was delightful. It’s very different from the koras I’m used to at the monastery, but hopefully I’ll be able to get used to it before my presentation next week…
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
I woke up early to work on my ISP paper and to prepare for my morning meeting: a discussion with Ethnomusicologist Gaby Ba, who came to SIT early in the semester to do a presentation of traditional African instruments. I had called him the previous day to see if I could meet with him to get some help analyzing my findings from my kora field research and he seemed happy to help! So at around 9AM I left the house to get a taxi to his town, and because I arrived about 40 minutes early, I decided to explore his town a bit and sit and watch the waves crash on the beach. Of course this couldn’t happen in solitude, because when a white girl sits down alone on a hill overlooking a beach that’s a sure sign that she wants to talk to a Senegalese man, right? Let me give you a brief overview of almost every conversation I’ve had with a Senegalese man. (In French, of course)
Me: [tries to avoid eye contact or any sign of interest]
Him: [quickly approaching, sometimes grabbing my arm so I’ll stop walking away from him] Hello my beautiful woman. How are you?
Me: [obviously uninterested] I’m fine, thanks.
Him: Fine? You are from what country?
Me: The United States.
Him: Are you married?
Me: Yes.
Him: With an American, or a Senegalese?
Me: An American.
Him: Oh, then it’s no problem!
Obviously there are variations sometimes, like the “are you married” comes before “you are from what country,” or occasionally he’ll ask some filler questions before the “are you married” like “how do you like Senegal?” or “How long have you been here?” or “Where do you live?” etc. I am just getting absolutely fed up with knowing the intentions of the majority of Senegalese men and knowing that makes it impossible to establish any sort of friendship or even just have a normal conversation with men on the streets. Of course I’m not trying to stereotype these people and I know there exist many, many men who do NOT have this intention…it’s just the men who approach white women, who happen to be the only men I end up talking to. It’s a vicious cycle.
Anyway, after escaping from my new friend “Roby,” I went to my meeting with Gaby and he showed me around his house. He introduced me to his family and then brought me into a room and said, “and this is another student,” and to my surprise Isa, another girl on my trip, was sitting on his patio! I guess he’s her advisor and they were in the middle of a meeting when I arrived, but it was quite the surprise to find someone I knew in a stranger’s house!
We had the interview in a little room he was turning into a studio, filled with traditional African instruments and an exercise ball. He sat on the exercise ball, bouncing and rolling during the meeting, and it was a little hard to take him seriously. But the meeting went really well, we had some really interesting conversations and it definitely added to the analysis of my project.
Later I went back to the shack for lunch because Megan was cooking again, this time Ceebu Jen Rouge (red rice with fish), and afterwards walked to a tailor with Erin. I came home to work on my ISP, showered (again?!) and ate a mango as a reward for my hard work (the shower or the ISP?). Just in case you were wondering, this trip has taught me a lot, and among other important skills (such as extreme rudeness to Senegalese men and vendors, ability to survive on mainly rice, and tendency to get infected wounds) I have become an expert at cutting mangos. I only hope that the Pearls have forgotten the one time in my life before coming to Senegal that I tried to cut a mango. How embarrassing.
Wednesday, May 6
I worked on my ISP for most of the morning and in the afternoon met for my final Advisor meeting. I went through my whole paper with Edouard, explaining what every paragraph said (it’s in English and he speaks French). It went really well, he gave me a good evaluation, and it’s just really nice to have that last meeting done so I don’t have to worry about planning things AND trying to finish my paper.
That night I went out to eat Ethiopian food with Abby, Nicola and Michael’s mom (Michael didn’t end up going because he went to the doctor instead). It was a really cute restaurant on the roof, with pretty couches around tiny tables. The food was delicious, we each ordered a plate and just shared them all so we could try a bunch of different things. Yum yum.
The rest of the night just basically involved more writing, nothing too exciting.
Thursday, May 7
I think I pretty much finished my ISP! I just need to keep reading it and keep editing it…and what I REALLY need to do is practice the kora. I haven’t done that at all this week because I’ve been writing so much, and when I take breaks I don’t feel like doing something ELSE that has to do with my project. I found out I’m presenting on Monday afternoon, and I still have no idea what I’ll be doing for this presentation.
I went to SIT expecting to meet Bethany to go and visit my homestay family, but she ended up having other things to do…so hopefully we’ll go tomorrow. Tonight I hope to practice the kora…other than that, I don’t have much new to say! It’s amazing how little there is to say about the intense-writing week. It makes me realize how little I’ve actually done.
Anyway, after tomorrow our ISPs will be officially DONE and all that leaves is the presentations!
Lots of love!
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Kora Galora and the beginning of Crunch Time
Hello All, I'm back in the world of technology after what seemed like a very quick week (that ended my kora lessons!)...here's what I've been up to!
Friday, April 24
As I mentioned in the end of my last post: after my lesson I left for Dakar; I had a lovely, stress-free trip and saw some new places, so I didn’t mind paying the extra…lot…to take a taxi as opposed to a car rapide (which would have been nearly impossible with my kora). Later that evening I went back to the boarding house, where I was sharing a room with Abby for a couple nights, and took a warm, much-needed shower (luxury!).
I ate dinner with the family, which was a wonderful mutton-pea stew that I’ve only eaten in that house but which might be my favorite Senegalese meal. It rivals maffé and yassa and feels healthier (by healthier I mean it contains lots of peas)…so it’s a tough decision. That night Erin and I went to listen to some music at a little club called Pen Art. Her uncle Samba met us there so that was fun; the music was amazing, but what was the most interesting for me was observing the bizarre mix of people who came to listen. Let’s just say there were some people getting REALLY into the dancing: Senegalese dancing, some type of bellydancing, and…we’ll call it “freestyle” (aka really drunk white guy who joins the Senegalese dancers). We stayed until about 2AM and then took a taxi home.
Saturday, April 25
In the morning I walked around Dakar a little bit to check out the “shoe market” and randomly ran into one of the guys who lives in the boarding house. He wears an outfit made out of the same material of the kora case I was borrowing from SIT with little red, yellow and green Africa designs—otherwise I doubt I would have recognized him and would have ignored him like I do the rest of the men who try to say hello on the street. After walking a bit I headed to SIT to meet Edouard, the kora player I originally took lessons from/my ISP advisor, who was going to show me and Sara (the other girl doing Kora for her ISP) where the “Day of the Kora” festivities would be held. He was going to introduce us to Lamine Conté, a very famous griot, and we would be able to ask him questions for our projects. It turned out that he wasn’t at the place, though, so I just talked to Edouard about the logistics of traveling to the U.S. with my kora (which should be ready for me when I get back to Dakar!). I ate lunch at the shack and met a nice man who plays music for a living and who’s been to NYC quite a bit.
Later in the afternoon, after some research for my project, Erin and I went downtown to do some souvenir shopping. I find whenever I get into a market I immediately go into “by ma” mode: “by ma” (not sure of the spelling since it’s an oral language) is the Wolof phrase for “leave me alone,” and I use it frequently to the vicious vendors who grab and follow me while shoving their merchandise in my face. I am a very angry market shopper here, but it seems to work.
That night I went back downtown with Kenna and Bethany to go back to our burger place (where they’ve been almost daily while I’ve been at the monastery), and I got the “hamburger complet” which is a luscious juicy burger complete with a fried egg and French fries, mayonnaise, sugary ketchup and hot sauce (all together)—basically a heart attack on a bun but oh, so wonderful. Afterwards we hopped on a car rapide and I headed to the “Maison de la Culture,” where the kora day festivities were happening. To my surprise there were a bunch of other SIT students there and, even though I was an hour late, I hadn’t missed anything!
The first concert was Lamine Conté (the griot I mentioned earlier) playing with around 8 other kora players, all with their traditional koras, switching off who sang/soloed, and it was mesmerizing to hear all those koras playing at once, and very Senegalese in the performance (people would walk up to Lamine while he was playing to talk to him or to hand him something, others would come up to dance once in a while or sing a portion of the song, etc.). There were photographers everywhere and I got to take some movie clips. (One man did come up to me to make sure I knew I wasn’t allowed to film the WHOLE performance, only small parts, even though there were other cameras filming the whole thing for news stations.)
The next performance was a guitar player and a drummer; the guitar player seemed like anyone in the U.S. would expect (except he sang in Wolof) but the drummer was absolutely hilarious to me. He sat on the ground pretty far away/behind the guitarist with his half-calabash on a mat, spread his legs wide around it and drummed on the calabash while always looking up at the guitarist. He reminded me of a little kid banging on pots and pans looking up at his parents, waiting to be scolded.
The last performance was Lamine Conté again with his band, which consisted of one of the strangest mix of instruments I can imagine: the traditional kora, an electric bass, a full drumset, a large finger piano, a trombone, and a traditional African instrument called the “balafon” which resembles a xylophone made of wood with gourds hanging underneath it. The sound was, obviously, quite unique. It was really a great show; I was just disappointed the festivities only went on for two hours while Edouard had made it sound like it was a daylong festival. I’m glad I came back to Dakar because it gave me a) a break from monastic life/practicing kora, b) access to communication, c) a chance to see my friends…but I’m not sure I would have done all that traveling just to see this one concert.
Sunday, April 26
I awoke very early to meet Erin and head back to the monastery; she wanted to see the mass and visit for the afternoon so I had a travel buddy! On our way to the monastery in the taxi we picked up a woman with her daughter that the taxi driver knew. I thought, “Well that girl looks strangely familiar, and the way she’s staring at me reminds me of something…” I thought maybe she looked like a bunch of other little Senegalese girls I’d seen and I’m used to kids staring at me…but then I realized that I had met her while buying phone credit at a little store in the town and she had literally stared at me for 7 minutes straight. It was interesting, though, to see the same person twice and recognize her—maybe I’m becoming a local!
After the mass (which was disappointing compared to the other 2 or 3 I’ve been to: there was only one kora and it was rarely used, other instruments weren’t used at all, and it was a lot less music/singing in general than I’ve seen previously), Erin and I walked around Keur Moussa (the town) for a while looking for a restaurant for lunch. We found that, just because someone has a sign out that says “Restaurant” or “Lunch” or “Sandwiches” or anything to that effect, does NOT mean they will have any food. A lot of the places we went in seemed very confused as to why we were asking if they were serving lunch that day and replied, “Well, we haven’t prepared anything, but we can…” I tried to picture the same thing happening in the U.S. and I couldn’t imagine what kinds of complaints restaurants would get if they didn’t have any food—here, though, it’s completely normal.
Then Elena arrived! She’s doing her ISP in a town about 15 minutes away from mine and we still hadn’t seen each other, so she came to visit and have lunch with Erin and me. We had a great time talking and hearing what she’s been up to and it made me realize how excited I am to see everyone else’s presentations of their ISPs!
Later I got back into practicing the kora—it came back surprisingly easy for not having played in over 48 hours! In the evening I went for a nice jog on a new road and found an abandoned well and watched the sun set, but left when two birds started chasing me. Before going to bed I did more kora practicing and some background research for my project; it’s surprising to me how enjoyable doing background research seems to me, but I think it’s not only because I get a break from practicing, but also because I’m really interested in the subject! And that’s a good sign!
Oh, and I also found out I have more housemates: it’s not just my friend lizard living in the bathroom with some scary spiders, but at least 3 friend lizards and at least 4 different species of scary spiders! So we all played together a little bit before I went to bed. They don’t speak French or English so I’m not sure how well we’ll end up getting along, but for now we’re living together in peace.
Monday, April 27
In the morning I practiced some before my lesson, which apparently my teacher forgot about, so about 45 minutes into the “lesson” he showed up. I had him play a song I’ve been having trouble with so I could record it and listen to it while I’m practicing, and that turned out to be VERY helpful. The French people who were living with me left in the afternoon so I now have the house all to myself (for now)! (They ate my tomato and eggplant and drank my grapefruit juice while I was gone, but I’m not sure they knew they were mine. But I stole some of their M&M’s, so they’re forgiven. And I think I got the better deal.)
My lesson in the afternoon was much more enjoyable than the one in the morning; I’m beginning to realize that Jean Baptiste always seems to be in a much better mood in the afternoon and that there’s a pattern of me getting extremely frustrated in the morning lesson and the afternoon lesson going really well. I know in the afternoon he’s just come from his nap, so maybe I should ask him to take a nap in the morning before our lessons too?
I walked to town to grab some soap and then came back to do my laundry on the peaceful porch. Afterwards I made dinner and sat outside to watch the sun set, and then concocted some “hot chocolate” and practiced some kora. This is the first day that I wasn’t assigned anything new; I just had to work on a bunch of things that weren’t quite finished, and this was extremely comforting for me.
Tuesday, April 28
Well so much for not being assigned anything new; on this lovely day I was assigned two new pieces! Not that that’s a bad thing, I’m definitely learning a lot of music—it’s just difficult to learn everything in 2 weeks!
Along with my two lessons of the day, I went through the process of buying strings for a kora (for Edouard); I didn’t realize that every single string is a little bit different, so they’re packaged one cord to a bag and Jean Baptiste had to go through a big box of them finding the ones Edouard needed (he needed 40). It was quite the process!
I took another nice jog. There’s something so serene about running here—in the wide-open African savannah towards the giant setting sun. The horizon where I watch the sun set is lined with Acacia trees with one big palm tree stretching up like a giraffe’s neck, and a lonely baobab right beneath the sun. I can see waves around the sun’s perimeter from its heat, and when the sun is resting in the branches of the baobab I turn and run home.
Some new people moved in to my house, one a friend of a French guy I met at the convent (I think she’s Senegalese?) and a young couple who’s biking from Dakar to the capital of Mauritania. They’re from Sweden and very nice and speak English, it’s a shame they’re only here for one night!
Wednesday, April 29
In the morning something sort of strange happened. I was picking out my clothes for the day, enjoying the sunlight coming in through my window when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a hand, inches outside my window, holding what looked like a partially decomposed fruit of some sort. (Yes, just a hand, no body—though looking back, I’m sure there WAS a body, probably blocked by the curtain.) I quickly shut the curtain and was a little frightened. Soon I heard a knock at the front door. It was one of the nuns from next door.
“Good morning,” She said. “How are you? Was it you who put the onions outside your window?”
“Excuse me?” I said. “Onions? Outside?”
“Do you only speak English? [slower] Was it you who put the onions on the ground outside your window? Because that’s not good, they’re not good anymore.”
“No, it wasn’t me. I was looking for onions yesterday to cook with—“
“Well they’re not good anymore, you can’t leave them outside—“
“I didn’t put them outside! I never found onions! I don’t know who it was but it wasn’t me!”
“Are you sure it wasn’t you?”
“Yes! It wasn’t me!”
“Okay. How are you?”
Anyway yes so that’s how my morning began. We really need to get a lock for that back gate.
After leaving my morning lesson early I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon lying in my bed sick. Just a cold, but it all decided to come in one day.
I went to my afternoon lesson feeling quite unmotivated and not in the best of spirits, but I was willing to try to make it through a lesson. The afternoon lessons are usually pretty enjoyable; I usually play the songs I’ve been working for and get tips on how to improve them/which passages I need to work on, and then a lot of times we just have a conversation about either the kora or the monastery or something like that. But on this special day, when my teacher arrived he brought with him two other men. They all sat down around me and said, “Okay, performance time!” I laughed and said oh no, it’s not a good day for that. Turns out they weren’t joking at all, and they left me alone for 10 minutes to practice the song they wanted me to play! They kept saying don’t be nervous, this guy hasn’t ever even touched a kora, he won’t know if you mess up…they didn’t understand that it wasn’t the nervousness that was keeping me from playing but the fact that I could hardly concentrate on anything other than trying to remain breathing for the duration of a whole song (okay I’m exaggerating)…but anyway I ended up playing the song, doing horribly, and then finding out that “this guy” was actually a very famous griot korist from Dakar. Great. So he played for us for a while and that was enjoyable, and then he and I walked together afterwards when I was on my way home and we had a nice conversation.
My friends Lucy and Caitlin were supposedly going to visit that evening but never showed up. I took a walk as I was feeling quite unmotivated to play anything even resembling a kora. I got offered a ride on a cart pulled by a donkey, and would have loved to take the offer but that might have defeated the purpose of a “walk.” I went to bed extra early and the mosquitoes found the tiny hole in my mosquito net. Basically it just wasn’t my day.
Thursday, April 30
In the morning I got up early to walk to town and buy some vegetables. It took me that long to figure out the “Mystery of the Vegetables”: one day, long ago, I walked to town and there were women selling vegetables on the sides of the roads, but every other time I’d been there, there were no veggie women! Where had they all gone? The secret, you ask? I pondered this for many a day, and there was one thought that crossed my mind each time this pondering occurred but I never got up the real ambition to test it…But yes. It turns out that the vegetable sellers are only there in the morning. I solved a big mystery, and finally got my veggies.
Anyway, I then had my morning lesson, where I officially agreed to perform at this Saturday’s Mass. This was a decision that took a lot of thought for me, because as most of you who know me know, I am not really one to choose to perform, especially on an instrument; there was also, though, the question of religion: would a foreign, non-religious person playing in a Mass really make sense? Would it offend anyone? We’ll see, come Saturday! I’ll be playing one song while the monks enter and one while they’re leaving (with one other monk, my teacher). By the time you read this, though, that will be old news!
After my lesson I made a weird concoction with my veggies and some whole wheat couscous I found in the cupboard (which surprisingly tasted really good by the end) and then Lucy and Caitlin called to say they were at the monastery! So I showed them around a little bit and got my monk friend Justin to take us back into the area where we’re not allowed (unless accompanied by a monk) and they just loved it here. It was so nice to have visitors and we spent a lot of the afternoon out in the sun but it was stifling! Summer really has begun!
Later I practiced some kora and went to my lesson, where Jean Baptiste and I played together outside in the beautiful garden to practice for Mass. The first song actually went really well (it’s one I played in a piano recital many years ago (Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, but here it’s called “Jésus, que ma joie demeure”) so it’s bringing back memories!) but the second one, which I’m usually better at, went pretty awfully. So, we’ll see how this goes.
Two nuns moved into my house today, one from Mauritania and one from Dakar. It’s so interesting to see who happens to pass through this monastery and stay for a couple days. It also never ceases to amaze me how different the pace of life is here in Senegal. I mention this because I felt like I didn’t do much today because Lucy and Caitlin came to visit, and when I came back from my afternoon lessons these two nuns were just coming out of their rooms. They looked at me with shock on their faces and said, “You didn’t take the rest?” I think from 1 to 3 or 4 PM here most people take a couple hours just to rest, nap, relax…I’m really not sure what goes on in that time but everyone’s always so surprised to see me doing things during those hours.
After my lesson I met with Brother Justin to watch an animated slide show he made of his mother’s burial ceremony. I was apprehensive going into it and I’m still not sure how I feel about it…though it was interesting to see pictures of how death is celebrated in Nigeria.
Friday, May 1
My last day of lessons! I think it’s time; I’m not sick of the kora and I thoroughly enjoyed every part of the lessons (even the challenges), but I think this was the perfect amount of time for an intensive study and I’m not sad to be done. I counted up my hours: the ISP asks for 120 hours total (from April 11-May 8) and this includes writing the paper; On May 1, before even starting the paper, I only have 19 hours left to meet the requirement (split between the 8 days that are left, that’s about 2:20 per day). All that practicing not only helped my kora playing but also made it so I don’t have to stress about getting hours in over this last week!
My morning lesson was cut very short because it’s a holiday (labor day) so there’s a special mass going on. It was extremely hot again so I spent a lot of the day in the shade of my room/the kitchen/dining room, practicing kora, packing and getting some ISP things organized. During my afternoon lesson I played with the kora I’ll be using tomorrow; it has a beautiful sound but it’s just so different to play on because the strings are spaced differently and my hands can barely reach the cords on the end…so hopefully I’ll be able to adjust in the few hours I’ll have to practice before mass!
In the evening Megan came to visit!!! She was on her way back to Dakar from Saint Louis and she decided to spend a night with me and go to Mass/my performance the next morning. So we cooked a lovely dinner and talked for a long time before going to bed, and it was so nice to have a visitor.
Saturday, May 2
I got up early to practice some kora before my performance. Megan and I had a nice breakfast outside before it got too hot (which, in this season, is around 8:30 AM), and then I headed to my rehearsal with Jean Baptiste. We played in the church and it went almost perfectly! I then read some before the Mass started, helped Megan set up the video camera to tape the performance, gave out “goodbye” gifts to some of the monks, and then the Mass started. I was playing with Jean Baptiste; we played while the monks entered and that song went pretty well (though I played much quieter than him, just in case!). The mass was nice, a lot of music and singing and prayer, and then I got to perform again for the exit of the monks. For some reason I just COULDN’T hit a right note!!! If I had been playing alone I’m not sure how I would have dealt with it…but Jean Baptiste just covered me and I wasn’t that worried about it because he knew I tried and just for some reason (this reminds me of my last piano recital), I knew the song by heart, but it just all disappeared. Anyway, I’m glad that’s over, it was painless and actually enjoyable and I’m glad I got the experience of playing the kora in a Senegalese mass!
I packed up and said goodbye for the last time to my monk-ey friends, and Megan and I headed back to Dakar. The traffic was awful for a lot of the time but it was a nice ride and we chatted a lot, experienced some Senegalese road rage, and ate a very weird new fruit.
And now I am back in Dakar; Megan, Erin and I went downtown to a market and caught up, it’s so amazing how much there is to tell after only a week of not seeing each other! I ate a wonderfully delicious dinner with the family at the boarding house (oh I got a different room this time, with a hot shower and it’s right next door to Abby, so that’ll be fun!) and I might go out to hear some music tonight with Erin and friends.
So that’s what I’ve been up to! Whew! And now it’s crunch time; my ISP paper is due in less than a week, next Saturday starts the presentations of people’s ISPs, and then there’s only a week until we hop onto the plane to return to good ol’ America, “greatest country in dee world!” (Speaking of Borat, I heard he’s coming out with a new movie?) So anyway I’m going to have a lot of trouble trying to do everything I want to do in Dakar before leaving AND writing my paper at the same time, but I hope to find a balance sooner rather than later.
I’ll be in touch soon!
Friday, April 24
As I mentioned in the end of my last post: after my lesson I left for Dakar; I had a lovely, stress-free trip and saw some new places, so I didn’t mind paying the extra…lot…to take a taxi as opposed to a car rapide (which would have been nearly impossible with my kora). Later that evening I went back to the boarding house, where I was sharing a room with Abby for a couple nights, and took a warm, much-needed shower (luxury!).
I ate dinner with the family, which was a wonderful mutton-pea stew that I’ve only eaten in that house but which might be my favorite Senegalese meal. It rivals maffé and yassa and feels healthier (by healthier I mean it contains lots of peas)…so it’s a tough decision. That night Erin and I went to listen to some music at a little club called Pen Art. Her uncle Samba met us there so that was fun; the music was amazing, but what was the most interesting for me was observing the bizarre mix of people who came to listen. Let’s just say there were some people getting REALLY into the dancing: Senegalese dancing, some type of bellydancing, and…we’ll call it “freestyle” (aka really drunk white guy who joins the Senegalese dancers). We stayed until about 2AM and then took a taxi home.
Saturday, April 25
In the morning I walked around Dakar a little bit to check out the “shoe market” and randomly ran into one of the guys who lives in the boarding house. He wears an outfit made out of the same material of the kora case I was borrowing from SIT with little red, yellow and green Africa designs—otherwise I doubt I would have recognized him and would have ignored him like I do the rest of the men who try to say hello on the street. After walking a bit I headed to SIT to meet Edouard, the kora player I originally took lessons from/my ISP advisor, who was going to show me and Sara (the other girl doing Kora for her ISP) where the “Day of the Kora” festivities would be held. He was going to introduce us to Lamine Conté, a very famous griot, and we would be able to ask him questions for our projects. It turned out that he wasn’t at the place, though, so I just talked to Edouard about the logistics of traveling to the U.S. with my kora (which should be ready for me when I get back to Dakar!). I ate lunch at the shack and met a nice man who plays music for a living and who’s been to NYC quite a bit.
Later in the afternoon, after some research for my project, Erin and I went downtown to do some souvenir shopping. I find whenever I get into a market I immediately go into “by ma” mode: “by ma” (not sure of the spelling since it’s an oral language) is the Wolof phrase for “leave me alone,” and I use it frequently to the vicious vendors who grab and follow me while shoving their merchandise in my face. I am a very angry market shopper here, but it seems to work.
That night I went back downtown with Kenna and Bethany to go back to our burger place (where they’ve been almost daily while I’ve been at the monastery), and I got the “hamburger complet” which is a luscious juicy burger complete with a fried egg and French fries, mayonnaise, sugary ketchup and hot sauce (all together)—basically a heart attack on a bun but oh, so wonderful. Afterwards we hopped on a car rapide and I headed to the “Maison de la Culture,” where the kora day festivities were happening. To my surprise there were a bunch of other SIT students there and, even though I was an hour late, I hadn’t missed anything!
The first concert was Lamine Conté (the griot I mentioned earlier) playing with around 8 other kora players, all with their traditional koras, switching off who sang/soloed, and it was mesmerizing to hear all those koras playing at once, and very Senegalese in the performance (people would walk up to Lamine while he was playing to talk to him or to hand him something, others would come up to dance once in a while or sing a portion of the song, etc.). There were photographers everywhere and I got to take some movie clips. (One man did come up to me to make sure I knew I wasn’t allowed to film the WHOLE performance, only small parts, even though there were other cameras filming the whole thing for news stations.)
The next performance was a guitar player and a drummer; the guitar player seemed like anyone in the U.S. would expect (except he sang in Wolof) but the drummer was absolutely hilarious to me. He sat on the ground pretty far away/behind the guitarist with his half-calabash on a mat, spread his legs wide around it and drummed on the calabash while always looking up at the guitarist. He reminded me of a little kid banging on pots and pans looking up at his parents, waiting to be scolded.
The last performance was Lamine Conté again with his band, which consisted of one of the strangest mix of instruments I can imagine: the traditional kora, an electric bass, a full drumset, a large finger piano, a trombone, and a traditional African instrument called the “balafon” which resembles a xylophone made of wood with gourds hanging underneath it. The sound was, obviously, quite unique. It was really a great show; I was just disappointed the festivities only went on for two hours while Edouard had made it sound like it was a daylong festival. I’m glad I came back to Dakar because it gave me a) a break from monastic life/practicing kora, b) access to communication, c) a chance to see my friends…but I’m not sure I would have done all that traveling just to see this one concert.
Sunday, April 26
I awoke very early to meet Erin and head back to the monastery; she wanted to see the mass and visit for the afternoon so I had a travel buddy! On our way to the monastery in the taxi we picked up a woman with her daughter that the taxi driver knew. I thought, “Well that girl looks strangely familiar, and the way she’s staring at me reminds me of something…” I thought maybe she looked like a bunch of other little Senegalese girls I’d seen and I’m used to kids staring at me…but then I realized that I had met her while buying phone credit at a little store in the town and she had literally stared at me for 7 minutes straight. It was interesting, though, to see the same person twice and recognize her—maybe I’m becoming a local!
After the mass (which was disappointing compared to the other 2 or 3 I’ve been to: there was only one kora and it was rarely used, other instruments weren’t used at all, and it was a lot less music/singing in general than I’ve seen previously), Erin and I walked around Keur Moussa (the town) for a while looking for a restaurant for lunch. We found that, just because someone has a sign out that says “Restaurant” or “Lunch” or “Sandwiches” or anything to that effect, does NOT mean they will have any food. A lot of the places we went in seemed very confused as to why we were asking if they were serving lunch that day and replied, “Well, we haven’t prepared anything, but we can…” I tried to picture the same thing happening in the U.S. and I couldn’t imagine what kinds of complaints restaurants would get if they didn’t have any food—here, though, it’s completely normal.
Then Elena arrived! She’s doing her ISP in a town about 15 minutes away from mine and we still hadn’t seen each other, so she came to visit and have lunch with Erin and me. We had a great time talking and hearing what she’s been up to and it made me realize how excited I am to see everyone else’s presentations of their ISPs!
Later I got back into practicing the kora—it came back surprisingly easy for not having played in over 48 hours! In the evening I went for a nice jog on a new road and found an abandoned well and watched the sun set, but left when two birds started chasing me. Before going to bed I did more kora practicing and some background research for my project; it’s surprising to me how enjoyable doing background research seems to me, but I think it’s not only because I get a break from practicing, but also because I’m really interested in the subject! And that’s a good sign!
Oh, and I also found out I have more housemates: it’s not just my friend lizard living in the bathroom with some scary spiders, but at least 3 friend lizards and at least 4 different species of scary spiders! So we all played together a little bit before I went to bed. They don’t speak French or English so I’m not sure how well we’ll end up getting along, but for now we’re living together in peace.
Monday, April 27
In the morning I practiced some before my lesson, which apparently my teacher forgot about, so about 45 minutes into the “lesson” he showed up. I had him play a song I’ve been having trouble with so I could record it and listen to it while I’m practicing, and that turned out to be VERY helpful. The French people who were living with me left in the afternoon so I now have the house all to myself (for now)! (They ate my tomato and eggplant and drank my grapefruit juice while I was gone, but I’m not sure they knew they were mine. But I stole some of their M&M’s, so they’re forgiven. And I think I got the better deal.)
My lesson in the afternoon was much more enjoyable than the one in the morning; I’m beginning to realize that Jean Baptiste always seems to be in a much better mood in the afternoon and that there’s a pattern of me getting extremely frustrated in the morning lesson and the afternoon lesson going really well. I know in the afternoon he’s just come from his nap, so maybe I should ask him to take a nap in the morning before our lessons too?
I walked to town to grab some soap and then came back to do my laundry on the peaceful porch. Afterwards I made dinner and sat outside to watch the sun set, and then concocted some “hot chocolate” and practiced some kora. This is the first day that I wasn’t assigned anything new; I just had to work on a bunch of things that weren’t quite finished, and this was extremely comforting for me.
Tuesday, April 28
Well so much for not being assigned anything new; on this lovely day I was assigned two new pieces! Not that that’s a bad thing, I’m definitely learning a lot of music—it’s just difficult to learn everything in 2 weeks!
Along with my two lessons of the day, I went through the process of buying strings for a kora (for Edouard); I didn’t realize that every single string is a little bit different, so they’re packaged one cord to a bag and Jean Baptiste had to go through a big box of them finding the ones Edouard needed (he needed 40). It was quite the process!
I took another nice jog. There’s something so serene about running here—in the wide-open African savannah towards the giant setting sun. The horizon where I watch the sun set is lined with Acacia trees with one big palm tree stretching up like a giraffe’s neck, and a lonely baobab right beneath the sun. I can see waves around the sun’s perimeter from its heat, and when the sun is resting in the branches of the baobab I turn and run home.
Some new people moved in to my house, one a friend of a French guy I met at the convent (I think she’s Senegalese?) and a young couple who’s biking from Dakar to the capital of Mauritania. They’re from Sweden and very nice and speak English, it’s a shame they’re only here for one night!
Wednesday, April 29
In the morning something sort of strange happened. I was picking out my clothes for the day, enjoying the sunlight coming in through my window when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a hand, inches outside my window, holding what looked like a partially decomposed fruit of some sort. (Yes, just a hand, no body—though looking back, I’m sure there WAS a body, probably blocked by the curtain.) I quickly shut the curtain and was a little frightened. Soon I heard a knock at the front door. It was one of the nuns from next door.
“Good morning,” She said. “How are you? Was it you who put the onions outside your window?”
“Excuse me?” I said. “Onions? Outside?”
“Do you only speak English? [slower] Was it you who put the onions on the ground outside your window? Because that’s not good, they’re not good anymore.”
“No, it wasn’t me. I was looking for onions yesterday to cook with—“
“Well they’re not good anymore, you can’t leave them outside—“
“I didn’t put them outside! I never found onions! I don’t know who it was but it wasn’t me!”
“Are you sure it wasn’t you?”
“Yes! It wasn’t me!”
“Okay. How are you?”
Anyway yes so that’s how my morning began. We really need to get a lock for that back gate.
After leaving my morning lesson early I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon lying in my bed sick. Just a cold, but it all decided to come in one day.
I went to my afternoon lesson feeling quite unmotivated and not in the best of spirits, but I was willing to try to make it through a lesson. The afternoon lessons are usually pretty enjoyable; I usually play the songs I’ve been working for and get tips on how to improve them/which passages I need to work on, and then a lot of times we just have a conversation about either the kora or the monastery or something like that. But on this special day, when my teacher arrived he brought with him two other men. They all sat down around me and said, “Okay, performance time!” I laughed and said oh no, it’s not a good day for that. Turns out they weren’t joking at all, and they left me alone for 10 minutes to practice the song they wanted me to play! They kept saying don’t be nervous, this guy hasn’t ever even touched a kora, he won’t know if you mess up…they didn’t understand that it wasn’t the nervousness that was keeping me from playing but the fact that I could hardly concentrate on anything other than trying to remain breathing for the duration of a whole song (okay I’m exaggerating)…but anyway I ended up playing the song, doing horribly, and then finding out that “this guy” was actually a very famous griot korist from Dakar. Great. So he played for us for a while and that was enjoyable, and then he and I walked together afterwards when I was on my way home and we had a nice conversation.
My friends Lucy and Caitlin were supposedly going to visit that evening but never showed up. I took a walk as I was feeling quite unmotivated to play anything even resembling a kora. I got offered a ride on a cart pulled by a donkey, and would have loved to take the offer but that might have defeated the purpose of a “walk.” I went to bed extra early and the mosquitoes found the tiny hole in my mosquito net. Basically it just wasn’t my day.
Thursday, April 30
In the morning I got up early to walk to town and buy some vegetables. It took me that long to figure out the “Mystery of the Vegetables”: one day, long ago, I walked to town and there were women selling vegetables on the sides of the roads, but every other time I’d been there, there were no veggie women! Where had they all gone? The secret, you ask? I pondered this for many a day, and there was one thought that crossed my mind each time this pondering occurred but I never got up the real ambition to test it…But yes. It turns out that the vegetable sellers are only there in the morning. I solved a big mystery, and finally got my veggies.
Anyway, I then had my morning lesson, where I officially agreed to perform at this Saturday’s Mass. This was a decision that took a lot of thought for me, because as most of you who know me know, I am not really one to choose to perform, especially on an instrument; there was also, though, the question of religion: would a foreign, non-religious person playing in a Mass really make sense? Would it offend anyone? We’ll see, come Saturday! I’ll be playing one song while the monks enter and one while they’re leaving (with one other monk, my teacher). By the time you read this, though, that will be old news!
After my lesson I made a weird concoction with my veggies and some whole wheat couscous I found in the cupboard (which surprisingly tasted really good by the end) and then Lucy and Caitlin called to say they were at the monastery! So I showed them around a little bit and got my monk friend Justin to take us back into the area where we’re not allowed (unless accompanied by a monk) and they just loved it here. It was so nice to have visitors and we spent a lot of the afternoon out in the sun but it was stifling! Summer really has begun!
Later I practiced some kora and went to my lesson, where Jean Baptiste and I played together outside in the beautiful garden to practice for Mass. The first song actually went really well (it’s one I played in a piano recital many years ago (Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, but here it’s called “Jésus, que ma joie demeure”) so it’s bringing back memories!) but the second one, which I’m usually better at, went pretty awfully. So, we’ll see how this goes.
Two nuns moved into my house today, one from Mauritania and one from Dakar. It’s so interesting to see who happens to pass through this monastery and stay for a couple days. It also never ceases to amaze me how different the pace of life is here in Senegal. I mention this because I felt like I didn’t do much today because Lucy and Caitlin came to visit, and when I came back from my afternoon lessons these two nuns were just coming out of their rooms. They looked at me with shock on their faces and said, “You didn’t take the rest?” I think from 1 to 3 or 4 PM here most people take a couple hours just to rest, nap, relax…I’m really not sure what goes on in that time but everyone’s always so surprised to see me doing things during those hours.
After my lesson I met with Brother Justin to watch an animated slide show he made of his mother’s burial ceremony. I was apprehensive going into it and I’m still not sure how I feel about it…though it was interesting to see pictures of how death is celebrated in Nigeria.
Friday, May 1
My last day of lessons! I think it’s time; I’m not sick of the kora and I thoroughly enjoyed every part of the lessons (even the challenges), but I think this was the perfect amount of time for an intensive study and I’m not sad to be done. I counted up my hours: the ISP asks for 120 hours total (from April 11-May 8) and this includes writing the paper; On May 1, before even starting the paper, I only have 19 hours left to meet the requirement (split between the 8 days that are left, that’s about 2:20 per day). All that practicing not only helped my kora playing but also made it so I don’t have to stress about getting hours in over this last week!
My morning lesson was cut very short because it’s a holiday (labor day) so there’s a special mass going on. It was extremely hot again so I spent a lot of the day in the shade of my room/the kitchen/dining room, practicing kora, packing and getting some ISP things organized. During my afternoon lesson I played with the kora I’ll be using tomorrow; it has a beautiful sound but it’s just so different to play on because the strings are spaced differently and my hands can barely reach the cords on the end…so hopefully I’ll be able to adjust in the few hours I’ll have to practice before mass!
In the evening Megan came to visit!!! She was on her way back to Dakar from Saint Louis and she decided to spend a night with me and go to Mass/my performance the next morning. So we cooked a lovely dinner and talked for a long time before going to bed, and it was so nice to have a visitor.
Saturday, May 2
I got up early to practice some kora before my performance. Megan and I had a nice breakfast outside before it got too hot (which, in this season, is around 8:30 AM), and then I headed to my rehearsal with Jean Baptiste. We played in the church and it went almost perfectly! I then read some before the Mass started, helped Megan set up the video camera to tape the performance, gave out “goodbye” gifts to some of the monks, and then the Mass started. I was playing with Jean Baptiste; we played while the monks entered and that song went pretty well (though I played much quieter than him, just in case!). The mass was nice, a lot of music and singing and prayer, and then I got to perform again for the exit of the monks. For some reason I just COULDN’T hit a right note!!! If I had been playing alone I’m not sure how I would have dealt with it…but Jean Baptiste just covered me and I wasn’t that worried about it because he knew I tried and just for some reason (this reminds me of my last piano recital), I knew the song by heart, but it just all disappeared. Anyway, I’m glad that’s over, it was painless and actually enjoyable and I’m glad I got the experience of playing the kora in a Senegalese mass!
I packed up and said goodbye for the last time to my monk-ey friends, and Megan and I headed back to Dakar. The traffic was awful for a lot of the time but it was a nice ride and we chatted a lot, experienced some Senegalese road rage, and ate a very weird new fruit.
And now I am back in Dakar; Megan, Erin and I went downtown to a market and caught up, it’s so amazing how much there is to tell after only a week of not seeing each other! I ate a wonderfully delicious dinner with the family at the boarding house (oh I got a different room this time, with a hot shower and it’s right next door to Abby, so that’ll be fun!) and I might go out to hear some music tonight with Erin and friends.
So that’s what I’ve been up to! Whew! And now it’s crunch time; my ISP paper is due in less than a week, next Saturday starts the presentations of people’s ISPs, and then there’s only a week until we hop onto the plane to return to good ol’ America, “greatest country in dee world!” (Speaking of Borat, I heard he’s coming out with a new movie?) So anyway I’m going to have a lot of trouble trying to do everything I want to do in Dakar before leaving AND writing my paper at the same time, but I hope to find a balance sooner rather than later.
I’ll be in touch soon!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
The monastery is monk-ey!
Family! Friends! Hello! It's so bizarre to have internet again; I've been out of the world of technology for a little over a week now, and despite the fact that it doesn't feel like I ever left, it's been hard not communicating with anybody. So anyway this is what I've been up to!
Wednesday, April 15:
In the morning I went with Courtney and Abby to Marché HLM (the cloth market), but on the way we walked through what Abby calls “the shoe market,” for one obvious reason: there are more shoes there than I can even imagine. Oh, and other than shoes, there are shoelaces. Millions. But the best part was, among all these shoes and shoelaces, I spotted a table filled with Barack Obama underpants.
We were successful at HLM and then that afternoon I planned to take the bus to my third kora lesson with the griots. I was waiting for the bus when a man came up to me and asked which bus I was waiting for, and when I replied P8, he told me to come with him. I first acted uninterested because people ask me to go with them all the time to go look at their goods and buy something, and I was just trying to wait for the bus and didn’t want to go look at some “hand-made” jewelry. But then I realized he was trying to help me; apparently there was a detour and the bus wouldn’t be coming by that stop. So we walked to another bus stop, but then he noticed the buses weren’t coming by that one either, so we walked to a third and waited 45 minutes until the P8 finally came—FULLY packed with people. I could see no way one more person could fit on that bus. But, being the adventurous person I am (ha), I decided to go for it. I followed the one other guy who dared to push his way into this sea of people and was smushed into a little crevice where I had no idea my body could fit, my head pressed between a metal bar and a man’s body and the front of my body trying to find a position that would avoid the mechanized door when it swung open. All was going well, I had an eye on my purse and could at least breathe, until I switched my hand position from trying to hold myself in place by pressing against the window, to holding on to a metal bar. Turns out the mechanized door passes about ½ an inch from that bar when it swings open, so when we stopped it swung and caught on my hand, and my hand was squeezed between this metal bar and the door that was still trying to open. I found it a little funny (afterwards) that my first thought was not “OW THAT HURTS!” But rather, “OH NO, what am I going to do if I break my hand and can’t play the kora?!?!”
Anyway after that fun little escapade (my hand is now fine, by the way, just in a bit of pain) I arrived at my kora lesson to find Fa and his two cute little kids lying on the bed watching a soap opera and the uncle ready to teach me. I picked up my kora and absolutely nothing went through my head. They had told me to leave the kora there over night even though I was pretty sure I should practice, and, lo and behold, I had forgotten everything from the day before. Mamadou was very surprised and asked why I didn’t practice in my head! (I’m glad this happened, though, because they ended up starting to let me take the kora home over night to practice.) After re-learning the first song, a conversation with Fa turned into a little interview for my project. We talked about why griots play and teach the kora, the differences between the griots and the monks, how griots learn the kora in the first place, the values griots place on music, etc. So that was good and very handy for my project.
After my lesson I took a taxi home and later I went with Kenna and Bethany downtown to go out to dinner for what we thought might be Mexican food. The taxi driver had no idea how to get to the street we were saying but told us he did; that’s one huge difference between the taxis here and the ones in the U.S.: rarely does a taxi driver actually know the place you’re going to. Anyway the place we were going to go (le Mex) was closed, so we ended up in a cute little hole-in-the-wall place with hamburgers and pizza. We had a nice dinner and then they had to get home (because they’re still in a homestay) so we headed home and I started packing for my upcoming trip to the monastery.
Thursday, April 16: My last day in Dakar for a couple weeks! I packed some more in the morning and did some last-minute organizational things for my trip, went to lunch at the shack for the last time, and then went to my last kora lesson with the griots. It was filming day (the whole process of getting consent to film was pretty complicated, but we had agreed that on the last day I could film if I gave some compensation) so I brought my video camera and tripod (I guess I should explain why I wanted to film the lessons. As part of my ISP I’m looking at the differences between teaching styles of griots and monks, and thought filming the lessons would make it easier for me to concentrate on learning the kora during the lessons and not trying to remember all the details of the teaching style, and then be able to look at them later.) and set them up. Fa seemed to kind of have a plan for what my movie should be like; he told me when to turn on the camera and even what questions to ask. After a while though it became more natural and I did get some good footage of their natural teaching style.
After my last lesson Megan, Erin and I met up to go out for a “goodbye” dinner. We went downtown to investigate the restaurant situation and ended up at a beautiful Vietnamese place. It was excellent and really nice to spend some relaxing time with two good friends ☺
Afterwards, as it was Whitney’s 21st birthday, the group went to a karaoke restaurant. I didn’t stay for long but it was pretty hilarious (and some of the people we saw there I think might go there every night to sing), and I’m disappointed I didn’t get to see anyone from our group sing. But I had to finish packing.
Friday, April 17: I left around 9am to test my hypothesis that getting to Keur Moussa with a suitcase and a kora would actually be possible. It actually went much better than I expected; I was immediately led to a seven-seat taxi upon arriving at the Garage Pompiers, the kora and my suitcase fit nicely in the back (and my kora didn’t break!!!), and I was given a seat squished very tightly between two men in the back of the car. One man was named Abraham and he was very nice and spoke English, and had the funniest cutest little high-pitched laugh for a middle-aged man with a deep voice. I got dropped at Kilometre Cinquante to catch a taxi to the monastery, and when I arrived at the monastery the monk I was looking for magically appeared. He said that after the prayer service was lunch, and after that they’d take me to my room. I went to the prayer service and then was led to a room for lunch with a dining table and waited there for about half an hour (to my surprise nobody else ever showed up) before I was brought an unbelievable amount of food. I asked, am I eating alone?! And the man said yes, you have to finish all this. It was: a large platter of rice, a large platter of fish and many eggplants and carrots, three huge slices of papaya/melon, half a baguette, and 5 oranges. I REALLY hope the man was joking that I was supposed to finish all of that; it was excellent but enough for 4 or 5 people to eat a very substantial lunch.
After I finished I was taken to my room. It’s about a 5-minute walk from the monastery. It had a nice kitchen/dining room, a real toilet, and my room has a shower and a sink inside! It’s really great and seems like a nice relaxing place with not much distraction, so an intensive study of an instrument seems like a good pastime! There are 5 bedrooms and I wasn’t sure if anyone else was staying there.
In the afternoon I had my first kora lesson with Frère Jean Baptiste. It was, as expected, VERY different from those with the griots, much more like music lessons I’ve taken in the U.S. I learned scales and finger exercises and we talked about what I’d like to learn and what I’ve already learned. I found out that, after all my nervousness about bringing the kora from SIT, I didn’t actually have to bring it; I’m using one of the koras made by the monastery.
After about 2 hours of lessons I returned home to practice, cook dinner (I can cook as much as I want here!!! Hallelujah!) and try to tune the SIT kora. I went to bed nice and early after Erin called to check up on me, and at around 2 in the morning I heard some people arrive, so I think there are some other people staying here after all.
Saturday, April 18: In the morning I took a little jog to the town to buy some eggs, cheese, bread and veggies for my cooking pleasure. I wore shorts for the first time since getting to Senegal, it was really weird to see my legs.
At 10 I left with the monks to go to the Convent a few miles away. They were invited to join in the mass and party that was going on afterwards; they were celebrating one of the sister’s 50th anniversary of being a nun, her “Golden Jubilee,” as my new friend Brother Justin called it. Brother Justin is Nigerian and therefore doesn’t speak French, so when he found out I spoke English we immediately became friends! This is his first time out of his country (he got here in September) and he speaks very little French or Wolof so he’s having a tough time, but we had a wonderful few hours together at lunch and he’s hilarious. All the monks are very young and laid-back and funny, to my pleasant surprise! It’s amazing to see the change in their mood from when they’re in a prayer service to when they exit the church; it’s just hard to believe they’re the same people. It’s also a HUGE change hanging out with them after being in Dakar for so long; I was astonished they served me a beer at lunch (Muslims don’t drink beer, and I guess I just kind of assumed that monks wouldn’t either) and when I finished they made me have another one. I sat with Brother Justin at lunch; it felt great to be able to relate so much to someone here! We’re both in a strange country, neither of us are confident in our language skills, we’re both very close with our families, and neither of us know all the monks! I also met the four people who moved into my house last night; they’re from France and they went to school with one of the monks, Brother François, who I met the first time I visited Keur Moussa oh so long ago.
I was at first a little disappointed not to be having any kora lessons on my first full day at Keur Moussa, but soon after waking up realized how eternally GLAD I was because I had developed a large painful blister on one of my thumbs, a key finger for playing the kora.
I took a very nice nap and in the evening I walked to town (it takes about 20 minutes) to buy some water. I got very mixed reactions at being white in this town; some people were very friendly but some, when I walked by, just said “toubab,” and others just stared at me in disbelief. I think these people are used to seeing toubabs drive by (to go to the famous monastery) but don’t often see one who walked all the way from the monastery to purchase something from them…
Sunday, April 19
I went for a little exploration-jog and came upon the beginning of a nearby village. It’s so nice to have so much peace and nature here; it’s pretty much the opposite of Dakar.
Later I went to Sunday Mass, it was pretty different than last time I went (in March); there was a group of musicians in the balcony above me who sang a few of the songs and they were phenomenal. That did mean though that the koras were used less, but I guess I’ll have my fill of kora in these upcoming weeks!
Oh, speaking of the kora, I think it’s about time I explained my project a little. April 11th started our ISP Period, that is, our month to study some aspect of Senegalese arts or culture independently. I chose to study the kora. Here is my “project summary” I put in my ISP Proposal:
“For my ISP I plan to take three weeks of kora lessons: one week with a traditional griot and two weeks with the monks of the monastery of Keur Moussa. Through this study I will use a combination of participation, observation, informal interview and literature research to examine the kora in depth through intensively learning to play the instrument, and aim to distinguish the differences between the two styles of teaching, find out possible reasons for these variations, and to experience and take note of how the two teaching styles affect my learning of the instrument.”
So that’s what I’m doing. As you know I finished the week with the griots, and I’m now at the monastery. Sorry I didn’t explain that earlier!
On the way to Mass I had seen an old woman selling corn on the cob, which I haven’t seen since I’ve been here, so when I came out of Mass two hours later and she was still there I decided to buy some. I asked for one ear and she started collecting a handful of them and speaking in Wolof. I even knew how to say “just one!” in Wolof, but she definitely didn’t understand…she also couldn’t see the money so she just kept taking coins until I ran out. Luckily a woman came by to help and sorted out the money situation, and I ended up getting 5 ears of corn. The one I had for lunch might have been the best corn I’ve ever had. Just in case you were wondering.
In the afternoon I met Brother Justin to hang out, and it turns out we both brought our koras! So we played a little together, he played me some Nigerian songs and then started teaching me some little things (which I ended up learning later in my lesson) and we talked about how he decided to become a monk. It was a really interesting story and very inspiring; once he knew what he wanted he REALLY persisted, for years, until he finally was able to enter a monastery and is now still happy with that decision.
I then had my lesson with Brother Jean Baptiste; it was hard for me to remember what I had to study for homework because it wasn’t written, but I played what I had remembered to practice and he made me learn on the spot the things he had shown me and I had apparently forgotten. (This reminded me of (and made me miss) piano lessons with Grammy; she always wrote exactly what I had to practice for next week, I think I took that organization for granted! I would have written what to practice for the kora but I wasn’t sure how to express what the exercises were without ever seeing written kora music.) He then started teaching me the “accords,” I’m not sure how that translates to English, but basically there are little note phrases for each of “do,” “re,” “mi,” “fa,” etc. in 2/4 time and I have to learn them all and be able to switch back and forth between them without stopping. He’s pretty intense but that’s what I wanted!
Afterwards I practiced the “accords” for a while outside in the shade, surrounded by birds (some of which make really weird too-close-to-human-like noises). The realization of how much alone-time I have here started to hit me as I thought of possible pastimes: play the kora, go for a walk, or do schoolwork. This is exactly what I wanted in coming to a monastery to intensively study an instrument, but it does get lonely, no matter how solitary of a person I am.
Brother Justin called in the afternoon to ask if I wanted to see the workshop where they make koras. He set up a time for me to go see it: Tuesday morning! So that should be interesting. Originally when thinking about a possible project I wanted to learn to make a kora also; I now see that that’d be almost impossible because of time constraints, but I’m still interested in seeing the place.
Monday, April 20
I got up early to play some kora (I always feel like I haven’t practiced enough, these lessons make me nervous!) and then had my lesson at 9. I met some women from a nearby village on the way who asked what my kora was, where I was from, why I would ever come to Senegal if I live in the U.S. because Senegal is poor…etc. People seem to really have the view that everyone in the U.S. is rich and it’s easy to find jobs; I guess compared to a lot of Senegal that’s true but it’s hard know how to respond when people are telling me how much they want to go to my country and asking why the hell I would ever come here!
I practiced things from my first lesson of the day for my second lesson of the day (which apparently was at 4, not at 3 like the day before, so I ended up waiting in the classroom and practicing for an hour) where I suddenly was faced with written kora music! Jean Baptiste set it in front of me and told me to play it. Ok, not only do I not know how the written notes correspond to the strings (do the C’s correspond with the “Do’s”?), I’m a little confused as to why, on some notes, there is a “3” or a “II” or a “1-II” on the stem instead of a note. So that was a fun lesson, very intense, and I have a long night of practicing ahead of me!
And after a long day, I just counted up my hours: 10 hours of playing the kora today! I’m not sure if that seems like a lot or a little to me… it should seem like a lot, but I don’t feel like I really got anywhere today. We’ll see how my lesson goes tomorrow…
Tuesday, April 21
I met Brother Justin to go and see the workshop where they make the koras. It was really interesting; I got to see the traditional koras, the step-up from that (with wooden keys for tuning instead of leather bands), the step-up from that (with metal guitar keys) and the modern chromatic kora that only Keur Moussa makes. I also saw all the parts of the kora separately and they showed me basically how it gets put together. We then took a walk around the monastery’s land to see everything they have: orchards galore (tangerines, mangos, grapefruit), a cheese-making shop, a carpentry/welding shop, a place where they make juices, huge pigs, cows, lots of farmland where they grow cassava, onions, corn, etc., a cemetery, a guest area, chickens, a soccer field, a basketball court…basically it’s HUGE and I had no idea any of it was there!
It turned out my morning lesson was cancelled and I was SO happy because I knew I’d just have to practice the same thing over and over for the afternoon, so I didn’t really see a point in having a lesson to be told that. But my teacher had gone away without telling me…so it was cancelled without me even having to say anything! I still had my lesson at 4 but I felt much more prepared (though once I get in the classroom I always play everything about 3x worse than I did at home, alone). My afternoon lesson was much less stressful than I imagined! I played the songs and he told me which passages I needed to keep working on, and then for about the next hour we basically had a little interview/story time about the history of the kora within the monastery.
That night I practiced the kora (as usual), went for a nice run, saw the monks playing soccer (it was SO weird to see them in sports clothes instead of their white hooded gowns), played some more kora, and decided to take a break from playing kora by reading a little. That was a wonderful idea, I think; I’m afraid I’m going to really get sick of playing the kora if I keep doing it so often, and if I’m usually frustrated with my inability to play certain parts, that will give me kind of a stressed-frustrated feeling anytime I play it. And we don’t want that!
Wednesday, April 22
I slept in!!! Until almost 8:00! I played some kora before going to my lesson, which was my most intense lesson yet. Instead of Jean Baptiste putting some music in front of me and then leaving for an hour while I tried to learn it, he drilled my skills by having me accompany him while he sang prayers. To make a long story short, it was hard and frustrating, but it’s what I need in a lesson (I can learn music on my own in my own time; lesson time should be for teaching, in my opinion). I then took a couple hours to myself, with no kora practice—I think this renewed my motivation for playing! I walked into town and bought some water (there is no longer any water in this house, even tap water, I think they used it all yesterday to plant some things and water them) and made some mashed potatoes for lunch.
My afternoon lesson consisted of me playing two songs over and over while Jean Baptiste prepared a music theory course he was going to give to the monks right afterwards; I find I can play much better when I don’t think he’s paying attention. Sorry if these monastery entries are getting repetitive (I played the kora, and I had a tough lesson, and I played the kora again, and had another tough lesson, and then practiced the kora for a couple more hours) but hey, if you’re reading this blog, you want to know what I’m up to, right? Basically I’m averaging about 8 hours a day of kora-playing and trying to keep up my motivation by taking little breaks and finding little hobbies to get away from the kora for a couple minutes at a time.
Thursday, April 23
I had my lesson in the morning, that is, I played for 2 and a half hours in a classroom while Jean Baptiste checked on me every hour or so. In the afternoon I had another lesson which turned into a conversation instead of a real lesson (to my relief, in a way, because playing still makes me nervous), and then afterwards I met up with Brother Justin to share photos of our families and friends from home. We ended up trading some pictures and it was really fun to see what his life is like at home and in his other monastery.
The French people who live in my house left for the weekend and the water came back, so I was feeling quite relaxed and free! I soaked my feet in warm water and listened to music for a while, played the kora for only half an hour before bed.
Today is Friday, and this morning after my lesson I went through the adventure of getting a taxi (which involved meeting a man named Benoit who makes shoes for the monks who has a friend who's a driver) and coming back to Dakar--Saturday is the Day of the Kora and I’m not sure what that is but hopefully I’ll find out! They weren't going to celebrate it at all at the monastery so this trip back to Dakar is not only serving as a way to get back in touch with people, but also a great opportunity to get information for my project.
So next week I'll be internet-less again but I'll be in Dakar until Sunday morning, so I should be able to be in touch until then, just in case you were wondering :)
I only have about 3 weeks left here....I'm beginning to feel like I haven't been here very long at ALL but I'm also looking forward to this summer, so I think I'll be alright leaving. We'll see--I'm sure my feelings will change as the time dwindles...
Lots of love, keep in touch!
Wednesday, April 15:
In the morning I went with Courtney and Abby to Marché HLM (the cloth market), but on the way we walked through what Abby calls “the shoe market,” for one obvious reason: there are more shoes there than I can even imagine. Oh, and other than shoes, there are shoelaces. Millions. But the best part was, among all these shoes and shoelaces, I spotted a table filled with Barack Obama underpants.
We were successful at HLM and then that afternoon I planned to take the bus to my third kora lesson with the griots. I was waiting for the bus when a man came up to me and asked which bus I was waiting for, and when I replied P8, he told me to come with him. I first acted uninterested because people ask me to go with them all the time to go look at their goods and buy something, and I was just trying to wait for the bus and didn’t want to go look at some “hand-made” jewelry. But then I realized he was trying to help me; apparently there was a detour and the bus wouldn’t be coming by that stop. So we walked to another bus stop, but then he noticed the buses weren’t coming by that one either, so we walked to a third and waited 45 minutes until the P8 finally came—FULLY packed with people. I could see no way one more person could fit on that bus. But, being the adventurous person I am (ha), I decided to go for it. I followed the one other guy who dared to push his way into this sea of people and was smushed into a little crevice where I had no idea my body could fit, my head pressed between a metal bar and a man’s body and the front of my body trying to find a position that would avoid the mechanized door when it swung open. All was going well, I had an eye on my purse and could at least breathe, until I switched my hand position from trying to hold myself in place by pressing against the window, to holding on to a metal bar. Turns out the mechanized door passes about ½ an inch from that bar when it swings open, so when we stopped it swung and caught on my hand, and my hand was squeezed between this metal bar and the door that was still trying to open. I found it a little funny (afterwards) that my first thought was not “OW THAT HURTS!” But rather, “OH NO, what am I going to do if I break my hand and can’t play the kora?!?!”
Anyway after that fun little escapade (my hand is now fine, by the way, just in a bit of pain) I arrived at my kora lesson to find Fa and his two cute little kids lying on the bed watching a soap opera and the uncle ready to teach me. I picked up my kora and absolutely nothing went through my head. They had told me to leave the kora there over night even though I was pretty sure I should practice, and, lo and behold, I had forgotten everything from the day before. Mamadou was very surprised and asked why I didn’t practice in my head! (I’m glad this happened, though, because they ended up starting to let me take the kora home over night to practice.) After re-learning the first song, a conversation with Fa turned into a little interview for my project. We talked about why griots play and teach the kora, the differences between the griots and the monks, how griots learn the kora in the first place, the values griots place on music, etc. So that was good and very handy for my project.
After my lesson I took a taxi home and later I went with Kenna and Bethany downtown to go out to dinner for what we thought might be Mexican food. The taxi driver had no idea how to get to the street we were saying but told us he did; that’s one huge difference between the taxis here and the ones in the U.S.: rarely does a taxi driver actually know the place you’re going to. Anyway the place we were going to go (le Mex) was closed, so we ended up in a cute little hole-in-the-wall place with hamburgers and pizza. We had a nice dinner and then they had to get home (because they’re still in a homestay) so we headed home and I started packing for my upcoming trip to the monastery.
Thursday, April 16: My last day in Dakar for a couple weeks! I packed some more in the morning and did some last-minute organizational things for my trip, went to lunch at the shack for the last time, and then went to my last kora lesson with the griots. It was filming day (the whole process of getting consent to film was pretty complicated, but we had agreed that on the last day I could film if I gave some compensation) so I brought my video camera and tripod (I guess I should explain why I wanted to film the lessons. As part of my ISP I’m looking at the differences between teaching styles of griots and monks, and thought filming the lessons would make it easier for me to concentrate on learning the kora during the lessons and not trying to remember all the details of the teaching style, and then be able to look at them later.) and set them up. Fa seemed to kind of have a plan for what my movie should be like; he told me when to turn on the camera and even what questions to ask. After a while though it became more natural and I did get some good footage of their natural teaching style.
After my last lesson Megan, Erin and I met up to go out for a “goodbye” dinner. We went downtown to investigate the restaurant situation and ended up at a beautiful Vietnamese place. It was excellent and really nice to spend some relaxing time with two good friends ☺
Afterwards, as it was Whitney’s 21st birthday, the group went to a karaoke restaurant. I didn’t stay for long but it was pretty hilarious (and some of the people we saw there I think might go there every night to sing), and I’m disappointed I didn’t get to see anyone from our group sing. But I had to finish packing.
Friday, April 17: I left around 9am to test my hypothesis that getting to Keur Moussa with a suitcase and a kora would actually be possible. It actually went much better than I expected; I was immediately led to a seven-seat taxi upon arriving at the Garage Pompiers, the kora and my suitcase fit nicely in the back (and my kora didn’t break!!!), and I was given a seat squished very tightly between two men in the back of the car. One man was named Abraham and he was very nice and spoke English, and had the funniest cutest little high-pitched laugh for a middle-aged man with a deep voice. I got dropped at Kilometre Cinquante to catch a taxi to the monastery, and when I arrived at the monastery the monk I was looking for magically appeared. He said that after the prayer service was lunch, and after that they’d take me to my room. I went to the prayer service and then was led to a room for lunch with a dining table and waited there for about half an hour (to my surprise nobody else ever showed up) before I was brought an unbelievable amount of food. I asked, am I eating alone?! And the man said yes, you have to finish all this. It was: a large platter of rice, a large platter of fish and many eggplants and carrots, three huge slices of papaya/melon, half a baguette, and 5 oranges. I REALLY hope the man was joking that I was supposed to finish all of that; it was excellent but enough for 4 or 5 people to eat a very substantial lunch.
After I finished I was taken to my room. It’s about a 5-minute walk from the monastery. It had a nice kitchen/dining room, a real toilet, and my room has a shower and a sink inside! It’s really great and seems like a nice relaxing place with not much distraction, so an intensive study of an instrument seems like a good pastime! There are 5 bedrooms and I wasn’t sure if anyone else was staying there.
In the afternoon I had my first kora lesson with Frère Jean Baptiste. It was, as expected, VERY different from those with the griots, much more like music lessons I’ve taken in the U.S. I learned scales and finger exercises and we talked about what I’d like to learn and what I’ve already learned. I found out that, after all my nervousness about bringing the kora from SIT, I didn’t actually have to bring it; I’m using one of the koras made by the monastery.
After about 2 hours of lessons I returned home to practice, cook dinner (I can cook as much as I want here!!! Hallelujah!) and try to tune the SIT kora. I went to bed nice and early after Erin called to check up on me, and at around 2 in the morning I heard some people arrive, so I think there are some other people staying here after all.
Saturday, April 18: In the morning I took a little jog to the town to buy some eggs, cheese, bread and veggies for my cooking pleasure. I wore shorts for the first time since getting to Senegal, it was really weird to see my legs.
At 10 I left with the monks to go to the Convent a few miles away. They were invited to join in the mass and party that was going on afterwards; they were celebrating one of the sister’s 50th anniversary of being a nun, her “Golden Jubilee,” as my new friend Brother Justin called it. Brother Justin is Nigerian and therefore doesn’t speak French, so when he found out I spoke English we immediately became friends! This is his first time out of his country (he got here in September) and he speaks very little French or Wolof so he’s having a tough time, but we had a wonderful few hours together at lunch and he’s hilarious. All the monks are very young and laid-back and funny, to my pleasant surprise! It’s amazing to see the change in their mood from when they’re in a prayer service to when they exit the church; it’s just hard to believe they’re the same people. It’s also a HUGE change hanging out with them after being in Dakar for so long; I was astonished they served me a beer at lunch (Muslims don’t drink beer, and I guess I just kind of assumed that monks wouldn’t either) and when I finished they made me have another one. I sat with Brother Justin at lunch; it felt great to be able to relate so much to someone here! We’re both in a strange country, neither of us are confident in our language skills, we’re both very close with our families, and neither of us know all the monks! I also met the four people who moved into my house last night; they’re from France and they went to school with one of the monks, Brother François, who I met the first time I visited Keur Moussa oh so long ago.
I was at first a little disappointed not to be having any kora lessons on my first full day at Keur Moussa, but soon after waking up realized how eternally GLAD I was because I had developed a large painful blister on one of my thumbs, a key finger for playing the kora.
I took a very nice nap and in the evening I walked to town (it takes about 20 minutes) to buy some water. I got very mixed reactions at being white in this town; some people were very friendly but some, when I walked by, just said “toubab,” and others just stared at me in disbelief. I think these people are used to seeing toubabs drive by (to go to the famous monastery) but don’t often see one who walked all the way from the monastery to purchase something from them…
Sunday, April 19
I went for a little exploration-jog and came upon the beginning of a nearby village. It’s so nice to have so much peace and nature here; it’s pretty much the opposite of Dakar.
Later I went to Sunday Mass, it was pretty different than last time I went (in March); there was a group of musicians in the balcony above me who sang a few of the songs and they were phenomenal. That did mean though that the koras were used less, but I guess I’ll have my fill of kora in these upcoming weeks!
Oh, speaking of the kora, I think it’s about time I explained my project a little. April 11th started our ISP Period, that is, our month to study some aspect of Senegalese arts or culture independently. I chose to study the kora. Here is my “project summary” I put in my ISP Proposal:
“For my ISP I plan to take three weeks of kora lessons: one week with a traditional griot and two weeks with the monks of the monastery of Keur Moussa. Through this study I will use a combination of participation, observation, informal interview and literature research to examine the kora in depth through intensively learning to play the instrument, and aim to distinguish the differences between the two styles of teaching, find out possible reasons for these variations, and to experience and take note of how the two teaching styles affect my learning of the instrument.”
So that’s what I’m doing. As you know I finished the week with the griots, and I’m now at the monastery. Sorry I didn’t explain that earlier!
On the way to Mass I had seen an old woman selling corn on the cob, which I haven’t seen since I’ve been here, so when I came out of Mass two hours later and she was still there I decided to buy some. I asked for one ear and she started collecting a handful of them and speaking in Wolof. I even knew how to say “just one!” in Wolof, but she definitely didn’t understand…she also couldn’t see the money so she just kept taking coins until I ran out. Luckily a woman came by to help and sorted out the money situation, and I ended up getting 5 ears of corn. The one I had for lunch might have been the best corn I’ve ever had. Just in case you were wondering.
In the afternoon I met Brother Justin to hang out, and it turns out we both brought our koras! So we played a little together, he played me some Nigerian songs and then started teaching me some little things (which I ended up learning later in my lesson) and we talked about how he decided to become a monk. It was a really interesting story and very inspiring; once he knew what he wanted he REALLY persisted, for years, until he finally was able to enter a monastery and is now still happy with that decision.
I then had my lesson with Brother Jean Baptiste; it was hard for me to remember what I had to study for homework because it wasn’t written, but I played what I had remembered to practice and he made me learn on the spot the things he had shown me and I had apparently forgotten. (This reminded me of (and made me miss) piano lessons with Grammy; she always wrote exactly what I had to practice for next week, I think I took that organization for granted! I would have written what to practice for the kora but I wasn’t sure how to express what the exercises were without ever seeing written kora music.) He then started teaching me the “accords,” I’m not sure how that translates to English, but basically there are little note phrases for each of “do,” “re,” “mi,” “fa,” etc. in 2/4 time and I have to learn them all and be able to switch back and forth between them without stopping. He’s pretty intense but that’s what I wanted!
Afterwards I practiced the “accords” for a while outside in the shade, surrounded by birds (some of which make really weird too-close-to-human-like noises). The realization of how much alone-time I have here started to hit me as I thought of possible pastimes: play the kora, go for a walk, or do schoolwork. This is exactly what I wanted in coming to a monastery to intensively study an instrument, but it does get lonely, no matter how solitary of a person I am.
Brother Justin called in the afternoon to ask if I wanted to see the workshop where they make koras. He set up a time for me to go see it: Tuesday morning! So that should be interesting. Originally when thinking about a possible project I wanted to learn to make a kora also; I now see that that’d be almost impossible because of time constraints, but I’m still interested in seeing the place.
Monday, April 20
I got up early to play some kora (I always feel like I haven’t practiced enough, these lessons make me nervous!) and then had my lesson at 9. I met some women from a nearby village on the way who asked what my kora was, where I was from, why I would ever come to Senegal if I live in the U.S. because Senegal is poor…etc. People seem to really have the view that everyone in the U.S. is rich and it’s easy to find jobs; I guess compared to a lot of Senegal that’s true but it’s hard know how to respond when people are telling me how much they want to go to my country and asking why the hell I would ever come here!
I practiced things from my first lesson of the day for my second lesson of the day (which apparently was at 4, not at 3 like the day before, so I ended up waiting in the classroom and practicing for an hour) where I suddenly was faced with written kora music! Jean Baptiste set it in front of me and told me to play it. Ok, not only do I not know how the written notes correspond to the strings (do the C’s correspond with the “Do’s”?), I’m a little confused as to why, on some notes, there is a “3” or a “II” or a “1-II” on the stem instead of a note. So that was a fun lesson, very intense, and I have a long night of practicing ahead of me!
And after a long day, I just counted up my hours: 10 hours of playing the kora today! I’m not sure if that seems like a lot or a little to me… it should seem like a lot, but I don’t feel like I really got anywhere today. We’ll see how my lesson goes tomorrow…
Tuesday, April 21
I met Brother Justin to go and see the workshop where they make the koras. It was really interesting; I got to see the traditional koras, the step-up from that (with wooden keys for tuning instead of leather bands), the step-up from that (with metal guitar keys) and the modern chromatic kora that only Keur Moussa makes. I also saw all the parts of the kora separately and they showed me basically how it gets put together. We then took a walk around the monastery’s land to see everything they have: orchards galore (tangerines, mangos, grapefruit), a cheese-making shop, a carpentry/welding shop, a place where they make juices, huge pigs, cows, lots of farmland where they grow cassava, onions, corn, etc., a cemetery, a guest area, chickens, a soccer field, a basketball court…basically it’s HUGE and I had no idea any of it was there!
It turned out my morning lesson was cancelled and I was SO happy because I knew I’d just have to practice the same thing over and over for the afternoon, so I didn’t really see a point in having a lesson to be told that. But my teacher had gone away without telling me…so it was cancelled without me even having to say anything! I still had my lesson at 4 but I felt much more prepared (though once I get in the classroom I always play everything about 3x worse than I did at home, alone). My afternoon lesson was much less stressful than I imagined! I played the songs and he told me which passages I needed to keep working on, and then for about the next hour we basically had a little interview/story time about the history of the kora within the monastery.
That night I practiced the kora (as usual), went for a nice run, saw the monks playing soccer (it was SO weird to see them in sports clothes instead of their white hooded gowns), played some more kora, and decided to take a break from playing kora by reading a little. That was a wonderful idea, I think; I’m afraid I’m going to really get sick of playing the kora if I keep doing it so often, and if I’m usually frustrated with my inability to play certain parts, that will give me kind of a stressed-frustrated feeling anytime I play it. And we don’t want that!
Wednesday, April 22
I slept in!!! Until almost 8:00! I played some kora before going to my lesson, which was my most intense lesson yet. Instead of Jean Baptiste putting some music in front of me and then leaving for an hour while I tried to learn it, he drilled my skills by having me accompany him while he sang prayers. To make a long story short, it was hard and frustrating, but it’s what I need in a lesson (I can learn music on my own in my own time; lesson time should be for teaching, in my opinion). I then took a couple hours to myself, with no kora practice—I think this renewed my motivation for playing! I walked into town and bought some water (there is no longer any water in this house, even tap water, I think they used it all yesterday to plant some things and water them) and made some mashed potatoes for lunch.
My afternoon lesson consisted of me playing two songs over and over while Jean Baptiste prepared a music theory course he was going to give to the monks right afterwards; I find I can play much better when I don’t think he’s paying attention. Sorry if these monastery entries are getting repetitive (I played the kora, and I had a tough lesson, and I played the kora again, and had another tough lesson, and then practiced the kora for a couple more hours) but hey, if you’re reading this blog, you want to know what I’m up to, right? Basically I’m averaging about 8 hours a day of kora-playing and trying to keep up my motivation by taking little breaks and finding little hobbies to get away from the kora for a couple minutes at a time.
Thursday, April 23
I had my lesson in the morning, that is, I played for 2 and a half hours in a classroom while Jean Baptiste checked on me every hour or so. In the afternoon I had another lesson which turned into a conversation instead of a real lesson (to my relief, in a way, because playing still makes me nervous), and then afterwards I met up with Brother Justin to share photos of our families and friends from home. We ended up trading some pictures and it was really fun to see what his life is like at home and in his other monastery.
The French people who live in my house left for the weekend and the water came back, so I was feeling quite relaxed and free! I soaked my feet in warm water and listened to music for a while, played the kora for only half an hour before bed.
Today is Friday, and this morning after my lesson I went through the adventure of getting a taxi (which involved meeting a man named Benoit who makes shoes for the monks who has a friend who's a driver) and coming back to Dakar--Saturday is the Day of the Kora and I’m not sure what that is but hopefully I’ll find out! They weren't going to celebrate it at all at the monastery so this trip back to Dakar is not only serving as a way to get back in touch with people, but also a great opportunity to get information for my project.
So next week I'll be internet-less again but I'll be in Dakar until Sunday morning, so I should be able to be in touch until then, just in case you were wondering :)
I only have about 3 weeks left here....I'm beginning to feel like I haven't been here very long at ALL but I'm also looking forward to this summer, so I think I'll be alright leaving. We'll see--I'm sure my feelings will change as the time dwindles...
Lots of love, keep in touch!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Hello all! I know I wrote pretty recently, but with wireless internet in my house it’s pretty easy to update again…so here you are!
Sunday, April 12:
After I wrote my last blog entry, at around 11:30 Courtney and I left to go to Edouard’s band’s concert in a place neither of us had ever been, and neither of us had any idea where it was. We were out for an adventure!! We flagged a taxi near our house (should have checked beforehand to see if it had headlights) and I gave the directions Edouard had given me (near a night club called “Casino”) and hoped for the best. The ride there was one of the most frightening rides I’ve ever taken but we arrived in one piece (well, technically two pieces, since there were two of us) at the night club called Casino. Edouard was playing in a tiny night club next door called the Via Roma. We approached the man selling tickets and I asked, “Is Edouard Manga playing tonight?” And he said, “No. It’s Cheikh-D.” And I said, “Well is Edouard part of that group?” And he said, “No.” So I said, hoping with all my heart we hadn’t just come all that way in the middle of the night for nothing, “He plays the kora?” And the man said, “OH, Edou! Yes he’s in the group.” So we each paid $6 to get in but just before entering the man asked, “Did Edou invite you?” When we told him yes he gave us back our money and Edouard came out to greet us. We got hugs and he led us to a table in the front, and the three of us sat and chatted for a while. The night club was pretty fancy and pretty empty as well; apparently the show started at 1am, not midnight like normal, because it was Easter Sunday! Everything is closed and nobody works on the Monday after Easter…I still don’t understand why everyone here celebrates that day, even though 95% of the population is Muslim. Anyway the show didn’t start until 1:45 but the music was marvelous, as expected. It was a really interesting mix of styles—I heard reggae, rap, rock, plus the addition of the distinctive sound of the kora—it was just really unique and intriguing. There was a drummer, a guitarist, a bassist, a singer, a backup singer, Edouard on the kora…and I’m sure there were some other instruments being played but there were no lights on the band so I couldn’t see at all. We ended up staying only until 2:30 even though we were really enjoying the music, because we were exhausted and we had oral French and Wolof exams the next morning, for which neither of us had studied because we both forgot our notebooks at school. Our ride home was not nearly as frightening, by the way, because our taxi had headlights.
Monday, April 13: I went to SIT early to study for my exams. I was very nervous and mixing languages all around in my head, but both ended up going better than I expected. I got my results: since I got here, I’ve gone from novice-mid to intermediate-high in French, and from novice-low to intermediate-mid in Wolof. I’m happy with both scores, though I’m not sure how accurate they are (especially the Wolof one!!).
Later I left for my first kora lesson, extremely excited for the lesson but apprehensive about my ability to get to the place. I got in a taxi with the directions to say the name of a neighborhood and, when I got close, to call my kora teacher and he’d talk to the taxi driver. All was going well until the kora teacher didn’t pick up his phone—this had been my fear all along. I was sure I’d end up stranded in the middle of a strange neighborhood (which wouldn’t be a huge deal, I could ask pretty much anyone in the neighborhood where to find the griots and they’d know), but I called Souleye and he talked to the driver, and then my kora teacher ended up calling back afterwards and talking to the driver as well. After asking many pedestrians and talking with Souleye and Fa the taxi driver actually ended up dropping me in the correct neighborhood and pointing me to the correct house!
I entered the house, chez Cissokho, to find a whole different universe—people EVERYWHERE, kids running around, people watching television, people just sitting in random corners—I guess not so much a different universe but like, a neighborhood all in one small house. I was led inside and given a chair, and asked why I was there. That I did not expect. I said I was looking for Fa, to give me kora lessons. They told me Fa wasn’t home. After a couple phone calls it was determined that Fa was coming home in a few minutes and I was led to a room where one woman was laying on a bed watching a soap opera and smoking, so I sat there for a while with her and her daughter and watched with them (the daughter just stared at me the whole time). I asked how many people lived in the house and the woman said, a lot, she didn’t know. Over 40, though. She said it’s like that in Africa in the griot household. I can’t even imagine.
Fa, to my great surprise, did actually return within a few minutes! He took me over to his house (the other house was the “family house”) where we walked up a very narrow stairway to a tiny porch area where he cleaned off two plastic chairs and told me to sit down. I took my kora out of its case but didn’t end up using it because it wasn’t tuned and he didn’t know how to do it, but would leave it for his Uncle to do that night. The lesson went well; it was a bit different from the ones I had had with Edouard in various ways, and EXTREMELY different from music lessons I’ve taken in the U.S. He would play a song, and then slowly take out notes until he was playing just the very basic roots of the song, and then he would take portions of that basis and play them over and over, and then hand me the kora. He said I was a good student because I have a good ear for music, that music is in my blood, and that I have a good memory. He seemed very surprised that I learned so quickly; the second song, however, for some reason, was so much more difficult for me!
During the lesson he’d get up and walk away frequently, one time turning on the TV, another time to go talk to a friend outside, others just to go sit in his room for a minute. I found that funny because I don’t think that’d ever happen in a music lesson in the U.S. Another big difference is that most of the lesson is spent practicing, repeating one phrase of notes over and over and over and over again; in the U.S., from my experience, the practicing is mostly done outside of class and the class time is used for learning new things, getting assignments, etc. I guess it’s much more necessary to use class time for practice with the kora, though, because there’s no written music, it’s all memorization.
After the lesson Fa walked me to the bus stop and explained how the buses work (I had never taken a bus before in Senegal, I was too scared.). We talked a little bit about my music background and about his family—he has 46 siblings, and this is normal in a griot family.
I waited for about 45 minutes for the right bus to come by and took it back to school. It was much easier and less stressful than I had imagined, which was great. When I got back Kenna and Bethany had picked up my clothes from the tailor! I tried them on and both fit very well so I was happy ☺
I went home to grab Courtney and we went to the supermarket so I could get some more band-aids. No way when I packed did I anticipate running out of band-aids, but I’m a special case here in Senegal. I found out the supermarket is much closer to my house than I thought, though, after taking a silly 1-minute ride on a car-rapide, so that’s handy! We walked around one of my favorite markets too, and then went home for dinner. Lamb and pea stew! What a great day.
Tuesday: In the morning I went to school even though I wasn’t going to have classes, just to organize things and get things printed and to get my exam levels (which I mentioned before). I also went back to the tailor with some new fabric and a new dress design, so I have another piece of clothing to look forward to! I made lunch and was off to attempt to take the bus to my next kora lesson! I left about an hour and a half of time before the lesson was to start because I knew at least one of many things would happen (the bus would be late, or never come and I’d have to take a taxi, or I wouldn’t find the bus stop, or the bus would come but then get a flat tire, or the traffic would be awful, or I would make it there but not recognize my stop and then have to take a taxi and backtrack, etc.). This worked out perfectly: the bus arrived 45 minutes after I did at the bus stop, I did end up recognizing my stop, and I remembered the route to walk back to Fa’s house and arrived just as he was walking out the door. Perfect! (Things RARELY work that easily here, I’ve found.) Fa told his uncle to come along to tune my kora, but his uncle also ended up giving me my lesson. I’m not sure why, as it seemed like his uncle was not as good at playing OR teaching the kora, but the lesson went well anyway. I used the uncle’s kora as mine was still not tuned, but at one point during the lesson they detached all the strings from my kora and fixed it and tuned it. So then I got to use my own! (Well, not my own, the one I’m borrowing from SIT.) So the lesson went well, his teaching style was a bit different (he’d play a very long phrase a few times and then hand me the kora and expect me to play it) but it was neat to see another teaching style of someone who probably learned the same way Fa did.
Afterwards I took the bus home and have been doing some work since then, and looking forward to dinner.
I have only 2 days left in Dakar (yikes!) before I leave for the monastery…I have no clue if I’ll have internet access there, so treasure these words as you may not be getting many updates for the next couple weeks! But I’ll try ☺
I hope all is wonderful where you are and I miss you all!!
Ba ci kanam!
Sunday, April 12:
After I wrote my last blog entry, at around 11:30 Courtney and I left to go to Edouard’s band’s concert in a place neither of us had ever been, and neither of us had any idea where it was. We were out for an adventure!! We flagged a taxi near our house (should have checked beforehand to see if it had headlights) and I gave the directions Edouard had given me (near a night club called “Casino”) and hoped for the best. The ride there was one of the most frightening rides I’ve ever taken but we arrived in one piece (well, technically two pieces, since there were two of us) at the night club called Casino. Edouard was playing in a tiny night club next door called the Via Roma. We approached the man selling tickets and I asked, “Is Edouard Manga playing tonight?” And he said, “No. It’s Cheikh-D.” And I said, “Well is Edouard part of that group?” And he said, “No.” So I said, hoping with all my heart we hadn’t just come all that way in the middle of the night for nothing, “He plays the kora?” And the man said, “OH, Edou! Yes he’s in the group.” So we each paid $6 to get in but just before entering the man asked, “Did Edou invite you?” When we told him yes he gave us back our money and Edouard came out to greet us. We got hugs and he led us to a table in the front, and the three of us sat and chatted for a while. The night club was pretty fancy and pretty empty as well; apparently the show started at 1am, not midnight like normal, because it was Easter Sunday! Everything is closed and nobody works on the Monday after Easter…I still don’t understand why everyone here celebrates that day, even though 95% of the population is Muslim. Anyway the show didn’t start until 1:45 but the music was marvelous, as expected. It was a really interesting mix of styles—I heard reggae, rap, rock, plus the addition of the distinctive sound of the kora—it was just really unique and intriguing. There was a drummer, a guitarist, a bassist, a singer, a backup singer, Edouard on the kora…and I’m sure there were some other instruments being played but there were no lights on the band so I couldn’t see at all. We ended up staying only until 2:30 even though we were really enjoying the music, because we were exhausted and we had oral French and Wolof exams the next morning, for which neither of us had studied because we both forgot our notebooks at school. Our ride home was not nearly as frightening, by the way, because our taxi had headlights.
Monday, April 13: I went to SIT early to study for my exams. I was very nervous and mixing languages all around in my head, but both ended up going better than I expected. I got my results: since I got here, I’ve gone from novice-mid to intermediate-high in French, and from novice-low to intermediate-mid in Wolof. I’m happy with both scores, though I’m not sure how accurate they are (especially the Wolof one!!).
Later I left for my first kora lesson, extremely excited for the lesson but apprehensive about my ability to get to the place. I got in a taxi with the directions to say the name of a neighborhood and, when I got close, to call my kora teacher and he’d talk to the taxi driver. All was going well until the kora teacher didn’t pick up his phone—this had been my fear all along. I was sure I’d end up stranded in the middle of a strange neighborhood (which wouldn’t be a huge deal, I could ask pretty much anyone in the neighborhood where to find the griots and they’d know), but I called Souleye and he talked to the driver, and then my kora teacher ended up calling back afterwards and talking to the driver as well. After asking many pedestrians and talking with Souleye and Fa the taxi driver actually ended up dropping me in the correct neighborhood and pointing me to the correct house!
I entered the house, chez Cissokho, to find a whole different universe—people EVERYWHERE, kids running around, people watching television, people just sitting in random corners—I guess not so much a different universe but like, a neighborhood all in one small house. I was led inside and given a chair, and asked why I was there. That I did not expect. I said I was looking for Fa, to give me kora lessons. They told me Fa wasn’t home. After a couple phone calls it was determined that Fa was coming home in a few minutes and I was led to a room where one woman was laying on a bed watching a soap opera and smoking, so I sat there for a while with her and her daughter and watched with them (the daughter just stared at me the whole time). I asked how many people lived in the house and the woman said, a lot, she didn’t know. Over 40, though. She said it’s like that in Africa in the griot household. I can’t even imagine.
Fa, to my great surprise, did actually return within a few minutes! He took me over to his house (the other house was the “family house”) where we walked up a very narrow stairway to a tiny porch area where he cleaned off two plastic chairs and told me to sit down. I took my kora out of its case but didn’t end up using it because it wasn’t tuned and he didn’t know how to do it, but would leave it for his Uncle to do that night. The lesson went well; it was a bit different from the ones I had had with Edouard in various ways, and EXTREMELY different from music lessons I’ve taken in the U.S. He would play a song, and then slowly take out notes until he was playing just the very basic roots of the song, and then he would take portions of that basis and play them over and over, and then hand me the kora. He said I was a good student because I have a good ear for music, that music is in my blood, and that I have a good memory. He seemed very surprised that I learned so quickly; the second song, however, for some reason, was so much more difficult for me!
During the lesson he’d get up and walk away frequently, one time turning on the TV, another time to go talk to a friend outside, others just to go sit in his room for a minute. I found that funny because I don’t think that’d ever happen in a music lesson in the U.S. Another big difference is that most of the lesson is spent practicing, repeating one phrase of notes over and over and over and over again; in the U.S., from my experience, the practicing is mostly done outside of class and the class time is used for learning new things, getting assignments, etc. I guess it’s much more necessary to use class time for practice with the kora, though, because there’s no written music, it’s all memorization.
After the lesson Fa walked me to the bus stop and explained how the buses work (I had never taken a bus before in Senegal, I was too scared.). We talked a little bit about my music background and about his family—he has 46 siblings, and this is normal in a griot family.
I waited for about 45 minutes for the right bus to come by and took it back to school. It was much easier and less stressful than I had imagined, which was great. When I got back Kenna and Bethany had picked up my clothes from the tailor! I tried them on and both fit very well so I was happy ☺
I went home to grab Courtney and we went to the supermarket so I could get some more band-aids. No way when I packed did I anticipate running out of band-aids, but I’m a special case here in Senegal. I found out the supermarket is much closer to my house than I thought, though, after taking a silly 1-minute ride on a car-rapide, so that’s handy! We walked around one of my favorite markets too, and then went home for dinner. Lamb and pea stew! What a great day.
Tuesday: In the morning I went to school even though I wasn’t going to have classes, just to organize things and get things printed and to get my exam levels (which I mentioned before). I also went back to the tailor with some new fabric and a new dress design, so I have another piece of clothing to look forward to! I made lunch and was off to attempt to take the bus to my next kora lesson! I left about an hour and a half of time before the lesson was to start because I knew at least one of many things would happen (the bus would be late, or never come and I’d have to take a taxi, or I wouldn’t find the bus stop, or the bus would come but then get a flat tire, or the traffic would be awful, or I would make it there but not recognize my stop and then have to take a taxi and backtrack, etc.). This worked out perfectly: the bus arrived 45 minutes after I did at the bus stop, I did end up recognizing my stop, and I remembered the route to walk back to Fa’s house and arrived just as he was walking out the door. Perfect! (Things RARELY work that easily here, I’ve found.) Fa told his uncle to come along to tune my kora, but his uncle also ended up giving me my lesson. I’m not sure why, as it seemed like his uncle was not as good at playing OR teaching the kora, but the lesson went well anyway. I used the uncle’s kora as mine was still not tuned, but at one point during the lesson they detached all the strings from my kora and fixed it and tuned it. So then I got to use my own! (Well, not my own, the one I’m borrowing from SIT.) So the lesson went well, his teaching style was a bit different (he’d play a very long phrase a few times and then hand me the kora and expect me to play it) but it was neat to see another teaching style of someone who probably learned the same way Fa did.
Afterwards I took the bus home and have been doing some work since then, and looking forward to dinner.
I have only 2 days left in Dakar (yikes!) before I leave for the monastery…I have no clue if I’ll have internet access there, so treasure these words as you may not be getting many updates for the next couple weeks! But I’ll try ☺
I hope all is wonderful where you are and I miss you all!!
Ba ci kanam!
Monday, April 13, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
The End of Homestay, Beginning of ISP
Hello, friends! Much has happened since my last update so I’d better get a-writin’!
Saturday, April 4th (this seems SO long ago!): Saturday was a great last day in Saint Louis: I did some walking around and a lot of lounging in friends’ rooms or outside on the deck and getting some work done and being lazy in general, very relaxing. I feel like there haven’t been enough lazy days here, the cities are just so busy; I’m hoping maybe living at a monastery for two weeks will calm my senses a little bit, but I guess we’ll see.
Sunday, April 5th: I sat on the deck over the water for my last morning in Saint Louis, dreading the return to Dakar and honking taxis, sidewalks covered in sand and trash, aggressive men, and classes. It was a good bus ride home—I’m starting to really love bus rides, where I can look out the window and see the ever-changing African landscapes and watch the action in passing markets, I can wave to the kids who flock the streets to see the bus full of toubabs, I can easily ignore the women who come knocking on our windows anytime we’re stuck in traffic, trying to sell us their fruits or beignets or crafts—it’s very relaxing to me to be able to experience all this without actually having to be a part of it. Bus rides have become my time and place for introspection.
We stopped on the way home at a baobab cemetery, in Bouna’s hometown to say hello to his family (he looks so much like his mom, by the way), and for lunch again in Thies, where, while we were inside eating lunch, apparently the bus got a flat tire. And we all thought this would be the one trip without one.
I got back and did some computer stuff for my Women’s Leadership Academy before going back to my homestay. I took a cab home with Bethany and, on the way home, realized I only had 5 days left in my home! I had mixed feelings about this, as anyone probably would making such a change in living situation in a foreign country, but most of all I was VERY excited that I’d be able to be on my own, come and go from my room as I pleased, decide for myself whether or not I wanted to eat out or at the house, whether or NOT I wanted to shower (haha), but most of all to not have to rely on others to do the simplest of tasks for me: heat water, put butter on a baguette, etc. Living in a Senegalese family is basically like jumping back 18 years of my life and becoming a small child again, as is going to a foreign country in general—a very humbling experience.
Anyway it seems I’ve gone off on a tangent. I greeted my family, which was surprisingly a little more “involved” than I expected—they showed some sort of emotion at seeing me! Granted, I’m not sure WHICH emotion it was (I’m guessing surprise at seeing me because they forgot the date I was coming home) but it was good to see SOMETHING, at least.
Monday, April 6th: I walked to school with Kenna, Bethany and Whitney, it was nice to have someone to walk with! Monday was the day for signing up for my fall classes at AU, it seems so weird that that’s happening already. I thought I was all set and prepared for signing up until I arrived at school and realized I had forgotten two of my favorite organizational acts having to do with classes: I forgot to see if the classes I wanted were even being offered that semester, and also to see if the classes I wanted fit together in any kind of feasible schedule (or if they were all at the same hour of the day). So it was a very stressful morning trying to do that in half an hour…but I eventually got it figured out and am now signed up for classes, I just missed an interesting lecture on the conflict in the Casamance (southern Senegal) because my mind was elsewhere.
After school I went with Abby to see the house I would move into on Saturday. It was beautiful!!! It’s a boarding house so there are three floors: the first for the family and the kitchen, the second with, I think, 7 or 8 individual rooms, and then the roof for 3 rooms and 10 goats and a laundry area. There is hot water in the bathroom on the roof, there are real toilets that flush, there is wireless internet, the woman who owns it is about 80 years old and one of the sweetest ladies I’ve ever met—it’s kind of like a little patch of heaven hidden in the depths of Dakar. I was excited to see the place and to talk a bit with Baye (the woman who owns the place), and on our way out we saw Amy, the Senegalese woman who organizes homestays for SIT, who apparently is a neighbor of this house and related to the people who own it. We got a little tour of her house and met her family, and then returned to SIT. I went with Bethany to a bookstore on the way home, another little patch of America hidden in Dakar, where I bought a sketchbook (I really should have brought my own from home, but at least I now have one and hopefully will start sketching a little bit during ISP). I feel like I have been journaling a lot and taking a lot of pictures but haven’t been doing a lot of art like I anticipated…and I’m not sure how I feel about that, I think mostly positively because that means I’m spending more time enjoying the moment rather than sketching a moment in which I could be participating.
Tuesday, April 7th: Honestly I don’t remember. Bad journal-keeping skills, Emily, BAD! This might have been the day that, after school, I went with Kenna and Bethany to the beach at the Mosqué de la Divinité, where a bunch of pirogues are kept and the fishers come and drop their fish off during the day. We sat and watched a bunch of men play soccer for a while, and then I hobbled home (I’m not sure if I mentioned my infected foot injury before…).
Wednesday, April 8th: No classes!!! I went with Kenna and Bethany to Marché HLM, the fabric market! We decided to walk there, and I had only been there once and it was in a taxi (they had never been there) so it was kind of a miracle but we made it easily. We walked around there for a while, I bought more than I meant to but am very happy with my purchases, and after lunch we took our fabric to a tailor (I’ve started spelling this “taylor” because in Wolof we spell it “tayër”) with little drawings we had done to get clothes made. We pick them up on Monday, I’m excited to see how they come out!
That night at around 11:30 Moussa decided he wanted to continue on my dreads, so I was up until around 2:30 doing that.
Thursday, April 9th: On Friday I pretty much finished preparations for my ISP!!! I talked to a griot, Fa Cissokho, who will give me Kora lessons starting Monday, and heard back from the last of the monks I was waiting to hear from at Keur Moussa! Yay! I still don’t have all the details worked out but it was great to know everyone knows my plans and is alright with them. I also got my dreads finished that night; it was certainly the most intense of the dreading periods and the least enjoyable, which is too bad since it was the last. Moussa had invited his cousin from Mbour (about 2 hours away) to come and help him finish my hair, but Moussa was in a really bad mood…and it just was not an enjoyable dreading session, to say the least. My hair got done, but I wasn’t happy to be leaving the family in 2 days if it was on such a bad note; I don’t like goodbyes in general but knowing that there are no emotions, or worse negative emotions, involved in the goodbye is a little unsettling to me.
Friday, April 10th: We had the afternoon free after our LAST MORNING OF CLASSES!!!! Kenna, Bethany and I planned on going to a market, but ended up just walking around for a very long time trying to find a bookstore downtown. It was a nice walk but was a little frustrating in that we never found the bookstore…oh but I bought running shoes so I was ecstatic.
I went back to school afterwards to make some CDs of my music that I’d been planning on making for Moussa for quite a while, but I figured maybe they could help to solve the dilemma we had the night before, and maybe he’d “forgive” me…so I made him 10 CDs and gave them to him with a note saying how much I appreciated spending time with him and how valuable that time spent together was to me…but nothing changed, and I ended up leaving on a bad note. I guess I can’t be too upset about it because of my limited emotional connections to this family, but at the same time, I spent the last 2 months of my life trying my darndest to get close to this family and to connect with them—it was just tough to see all that go down the drain and know that my efforts weren’t reciprocated, possibly not even appreciated. C’est la vie quoi.
Saturday, April 11th: I moved out of my homestay!!!! I said my goodbyes and breathed my last breath there with a smile on my face as I closed the door. It was so refreshing to know I wouldn’t have to come back there every night; it really wasn’t as hard of a situation as it probably sounds, but just knowing this experience of “the homestay,” this large section of the SIT program was over—just kind of a moment of realization, I guess. I’m more than 2/3 of the way done with my time in Senegal!
I spent some time at school getting my life together before taking a taxi with Courtney, the other student who’s renting a room in the same boarding house as me, and we headed off to our new home.
I did my laundry on the roof in the beautiful sunshine and met Becky, an SIT student from Spring 2007 who’s back in Senegal now after 5 months of studying in India and is renting one of the rooms on the roof.
Later I picked up a kora from SIT, the true beginning of my ISP! And that evening, after playing a bit and remembering the 3 songs I had learned, I went with Erin to the lighthouse in Mamelles (near Ouakam, where I lived as of that morning). It was beautiful and relaxing and just so nice to spend a little time talking with a friend. I love really being a part of the Senegalese culture and am getting such a rich experience by doing so, but once in a while it’s just SO nice to take a little time to get out of it, reflect on it, talk about it with someone who’s having a similar experience, and then come back in.
Sunday, April 12th: Happy Easter!!! Joyeux Pacques! This morning I decided to go to a church service with some other students to see how the Senegalese celebrate Easter. We were going to a church Alex had been to before, but somehow got very lost in a neighborhood called Yoff. Personally I prefer exploring a new neighborhood to going to church, so it was fine with me! We (me, Alex, Ali and Erin) wandered for over an hour and were directed to many other churches before finally finding the church we were looking for. The service lasted from 10AM until 2PM, it involved a lot of singing, a very long sermon in French and Wolof, more singing, us new people having to introduce ourselves and then everyone singing a song to us while waving their arms towards us…it was very interesting! Afterwards I stayed with Erin, who was there to ask about sewing classes for her ISP on traditional Senegalese clothing. That went really well for her and we returned to SIT both feeling very excited about our ISP planning working out! We made lunch and then I went with other students to their new house about a 5 minute walk from SIT—there are 6 students renting this really cute house with an outdoor living area where we had a little Easter party with French Toast, eggs, carrot cake, jelly beans…it was cute ☺ Their house was nice but I really can’t imagine living with a group of Americans when I’m here in Senegal for this short of a time; it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I feel like living with Americans would just make it SO different and would take away from that experience. I can live with a group of Americans in America, but could I live in a Senegalese Benedictine monastery and take kora lessons with these people who make the most complicated/expensive kora in the whole country? Um, I think not.
Anyway now it is Sunday night and Courtney and I are planning on going to see Edouard Manga, my old kora teacher, play with his band around midnight. I’ll be very very tired tomorrow for my French and Wolof oral exams (eek!) but I really feel like I should see a kora performance while I’m here.
So, until next time, thanks for reading! If you have any comments about my writing, by the way (e.g., I want to hear more reflection and less of a list of everything you’re doing; I want to hear more about _______; You should be careful about writing about ________; etc.) let me know, I’d be glad to hear how you feel about this blog. I’ve never kept a blog before so I’m not really sure how it’s supposed to work…but I hope you’re enjoying!
Ba Beneen Yoon, Inchalla!
Saturday, April 4th (this seems SO long ago!): Saturday was a great last day in Saint Louis: I did some walking around and a lot of lounging in friends’ rooms or outside on the deck and getting some work done and being lazy in general, very relaxing. I feel like there haven’t been enough lazy days here, the cities are just so busy; I’m hoping maybe living at a monastery for two weeks will calm my senses a little bit, but I guess we’ll see.
Sunday, April 5th: I sat on the deck over the water for my last morning in Saint Louis, dreading the return to Dakar and honking taxis, sidewalks covered in sand and trash, aggressive men, and classes. It was a good bus ride home—I’m starting to really love bus rides, where I can look out the window and see the ever-changing African landscapes and watch the action in passing markets, I can wave to the kids who flock the streets to see the bus full of toubabs, I can easily ignore the women who come knocking on our windows anytime we’re stuck in traffic, trying to sell us their fruits or beignets or crafts—it’s very relaxing to me to be able to experience all this without actually having to be a part of it. Bus rides have become my time and place for introspection.
We stopped on the way home at a baobab cemetery, in Bouna’s hometown to say hello to his family (he looks so much like his mom, by the way), and for lunch again in Thies, where, while we were inside eating lunch, apparently the bus got a flat tire. And we all thought this would be the one trip without one.
I got back and did some computer stuff for my Women’s Leadership Academy before going back to my homestay. I took a cab home with Bethany and, on the way home, realized I only had 5 days left in my home! I had mixed feelings about this, as anyone probably would making such a change in living situation in a foreign country, but most of all I was VERY excited that I’d be able to be on my own, come and go from my room as I pleased, decide for myself whether or not I wanted to eat out or at the house, whether or NOT I wanted to shower (haha), but most of all to not have to rely on others to do the simplest of tasks for me: heat water, put butter on a baguette, etc. Living in a Senegalese family is basically like jumping back 18 years of my life and becoming a small child again, as is going to a foreign country in general—a very humbling experience.
Anyway it seems I’ve gone off on a tangent. I greeted my family, which was surprisingly a little more “involved” than I expected—they showed some sort of emotion at seeing me! Granted, I’m not sure WHICH emotion it was (I’m guessing surprise at seeing me because they forgot the date I was coming home) but it was good to see SOMETHING, at least.
Monday, April 6th: I walked to school with Kenna, Bethany and Whitney, it was nice to have someone to walk with! Monday was the day for signing up for my fall classes at AU, it seems so weird that that’s happening already. I thought I was all set and prepared for signing up until I arrived at school and realized I had forgotten two of my favorite organizational acts having to do with classes: I forgot to see if the classes I wanted were even being offered that semester, and also to see if the classes I wanted fit together in any kind of feasible schedule (or if they were all at the same hour of the day). So it was a very stressful morning trying to do that in half an hour…but I eventually got it figured out and am now signed up for classes, I just missed an interesting lecture on the conflict in the Casamance (southern Senegal) because my mind was elsewhere.
After school I went with Abby to see the house I would move into on Saturday. It was beautiful!!! It’s a boarding house so there are three floors: the first for the family and the kitchen, the second with, I think, 7 or 8 individual rooms, and then the roof for 3 rooms and 10 goats and a laundry area. There is hot water in the bathroom on the roof, there are real toilets that flush, there is wireless internet, the woman who owns it is about 80 years old and one of the sweetest ladies I’ve ever met—it’s kind of like a little patch of heaven hidden in the depths of Dakar. I was excited to see the place and to talk a bit with Baye (the woman who owns the place), and on our way out we saw Amy, the Senegalese woman who organizes homestays for SIT, who apparently is a neighbor of this house and related to the people who own it. We got a little tour of her house and met her family, and then returned to SIT. I went with Bethany to a bookstore on the way home, another little patch of America hidden in Dakar, where I bought a sketchbook (I really should have brought my own from home, but at least I now have one and hopefully will start sketching a little bit during ISP). I feel like I have been journaling a lot and taking a lot of pictures but haven’t been doing a lot of art like I anticipated…and I’m not sure how I feel about that, I think mostly positively because that means I’m spending more time enjoying the moment rather than sketching a moment in which I could be participating.
Tuesday, April 7th: Honestly I don’t remember. Bad journal-keeping skills, Emily, BAD! This might have been the day that, after school, I went with Kenna and Bethany to the beach at the Mosqué de la Divinité, where a bunch of pirogues are kept and the fishers come and drop their fish off during the day. We sat and watched a bunch of men play soccer for a while, and then I hobbled home (I’m not sure if I mentioned my infected foot injury before…).
Wednesday, April 8th: No classes!!! I went with Kenna and Bethany to Marché HLM, the fabric market! We decided to walk there, and I had only been there once and it was in a taxi (they had never been there) so it was kind of a miracle but we made it easily. We walked around there for a while, I bought more than I meant to but am very happy with my purchases, and after lunch we took our fabric to a tailor (I’ve started spelling this “taylor” because in Wolof we spell it “tayër”) with little drawings we had done to get clothes made. We pick them up on Monday, I’m excited to see how they come out!
That night at around 11:30 Moussa decided he wanted to continue on my dreads, so I was up until around 2:30 doing that.
Thursday, April 9th: On Friday I pretty much finished preparations for my ISP!!! I talked to a griot, Fa Cissokho, who will give me Kora lessons starting Monday, and heard back from the last of the monks I was waiting to hear from at Keur Moussa! Yay! I still don’t have all the details worked out but it was great to know everyone knows my plans and is alright with them. I also got my dreads finished that night; it was certainly the most intense of the dreading periods and the least enjoyable, which is too bad since it was the last. Moussa had invited his cousin from Mbour (about 2 hours away) to come and help him finish my hair, but Moussa was in a really bad mood…and it just was not an enjoyable dreading session, to say the least. My hair got done, but I wasn’t happy to be leaving the family in 2 days if it was on such a bad note; I don’t like goodbyes in general but knowing that there are no emotions, or worse negative emotions, involved in the goodbye is a little unsettling to me.
Friday, April 10th: We had the afternoon free after our LAST MORNING OF CLASSES!!!! Kenna, Bethany and I planned on going to a market, but ended up just walking around for a very long time trying to find a bookstore downtown. It was a nice walk but was a little frustrating in that we never found the bookstore…oh but I bought running shoes so I was ecstatic.
I went back to school afterwards to make some CDs of my music that I’d been planning on making for Moussa for quite a while, but I figured maybe they could help to solve the dilemma we had the night before, and maybe he’d “forgive” me…so I made him 10 CDs and gave them to him with a note saying how much I appreciated spending time with him and how valuable that time spent together was to me…but nothing changed, and I ended up leaving on a bad note. I guess I can’t be too upset about it because of my limited emotional connections to this family, but at the same time, I spent the last 2 months of my life trying my darndest to get close to this family and to connect with them—it was just tough to see all that go down the drain and know that my efforts weren’t reciprocated, possibly not even appreciated. C’est la vie quoi.
Saturday, April 11th: I moved out of my homestay!!!! I said my goodbyes and breathed my last breath there with a smile on my face as I closed the door. It was so refreshing to know I wouldn’t have to come back there every night; it really wasn’t as hard of a situation as it probably sounds, but just knowing this experience of “the homestay,” this large section of the SIT program was over—just kind of a moment of realization, I guess. I’m more than 2/3 of the way done with my time in Senegal!
I spent some time at school getting my life together before taking a taxi with Courtney, the other student who’s renting a room in the same boarding house as me, and we headed off to our new home.
I did my laundry on the roof in the beautiful sunshine and met Becky, an SIT student from Spring 2007 who’s back in Senegal now after 5 months of studying in India and is renting one of the rooms on the roof.
Later I picked up a kora from SIT, the true beginning of my ISP! And that evening, after playing a bit and remembering the 3 songs I had learned, I went with Erin to the lighthouse in Mamelles (near Ouakam, where I lived as of that morning). It was beautiful and relaxing and just so nice to spend a little time talking with a friend. I love really being a part of the Senegalese culture and am getting such a rich experience by doing so, but once in a while it’s just SO nice to take a little time to get out of it, reflect on it, talk about it with someone who’s having a similar experience, and then come back in.
Sunday, April 12th: Happy Easter!!! Joyeux Pacques! This morning I decided to go to a church service with some other students to see how the Senegalese celebrate Easter. We were going to a church Alex had been to before, but somehow got very lost in a neighborhood called Yoff. Personally I prefer exploring a new neighborhood to going to church, so it was fine with me! We (me, Alex, Ali and Erin) wandered for over an hour and were directed to many other churches before finally finding the church we were looking for. The service lasted from 10AM until 2PM, it involved a lot of singing, a very long sermon in French and Wolof, more singing, us new people having to introduce ourselves and then everyone singing a song to us while waving their arms towards us…it was very interesting! Afterwards I stayed with Erin, who was there to ask about sewing classes for her ISP on traditional Senegalese clothing. That went really well for her and we returned to SIT both feeling very excited about our ISP planning working out! We made lunch and then I went with other students to their new house about a 5 minute walk from SIT—there are 6 students renting this really cute house with an outdoor living area where we had a little Easter party with French Toast, eggs, carrot cake, jelly beans…it was cute ☺ Their house was nice but I really can’t imagine living with a group of Americans when I’m here in Senegal for this short of a time; it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I feel like living with Americans would just make it SO different and would take away from that experience. I can live with a group of Americans in America, but could I live in a Senegalese Benedictine monastery and take kora lessons with these people who make the most complicated/expensive kora in the whole country? Um, I think not.
Anyway now it is Sunday night and Courtney and I are planning on going to see Edouard Manga, my old kora teacher, play with his band around midnight. I’ll be very very tired tomorrow for my French and Wolof oral exams (eek!) but I really feel like I should see a kora performance while I’m here.
So, until next time, thanks for reading! If you have any comments about my writing, by the way (e.g., I want to hear more reflection and less of a list of everything you’re doing; I want to hear more about _______; You should be careful about writing about ________; etc.) let me know, I’d be glad to hear how you feel about this blog. I’ve never kept a blog before so I’m not really sure how it’s supposed to work…but I hope you’re enjoying!
Ba Beneen Yoon, Inchalla!
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