I ate Vegetables!

Hello friends!
I’ve been noticing a steady decline in my journal entries over the past few weeks, which is really disappointing for me because I know how much I’ve already forgotten about my trip and I’m still here; however, I know the reason for the decline is that I’m spending more time being in the moment and working hard to be a part of my family and see more of Senegal while I’m here. Basically I know I should be writing more but it’s hard to convince myself of that when I can see myself becoming more comfortable with everything here and involving myself more…I just have to find a balance, a problem I think every student here has mentioned having.
That little intro was essentially another apology, like last week, for possibly forgetting many of the details of my days, but I’ll attempt to recount my week:

Tuesday, March 17: Saint Patrick’s Day! They don’t celebrate that here, but Alex gave us each a little shamrock sticker to wear. Tuesday was a pretty great day for me, starting out with two wonderful emails from family members. I think that, for a few different reasons, this trip has made me feel the concept of family in a very different way. I’m really a home-oriented person in the first place, so being far away from family has its natural effects for me and I think draws me towards increased need for communication and longing for what is comfortable (home). But in addition to that the importance put on family here is very strong; that is shown by the decorations in houses (which consist of pictures of religious pictures and pictures of family), the emphasis put on family names as opposed to first names, the amount of time one spends simply discussing/spending time with his/her family vs. how much time they spend doing things Americans would consider “constructive,” and so many other little ways…I think the combination of not having my family with me and seeing how important family really is to me make a really strong impression on my perception of family relationships.
Anyway yes so it was a great morning, I was able to decide on my ISP topic: I’m going to study the kora! The plan as of now is this: I’ll stay with my family in Dakar for the first few days (April 11-17) and do background research on the kora and its players, while taking lessons/interviewing traditional griots, then depart (April 18) for the monastery of Keur Moussa and take intensive kora sessions there for 2 weeks, and finally for the last week (May 2-9) return to a simple apartment in Dakar to write my ISP and prepare my presentation. This choice is very comforting to me because I’m a person who likes to be able to plan things out very well before I do them, and the village option just didn’t leave much room for planning.
For lunch I finally got to COOK for myself!!! I don’t think I realized how much I would miss cooking, even if it’s just boiling water and making pasta…but it felt amazing to do that, and to heat some frozen vegetables and eggplant in simmering water, and most of all to eat VEGETABLES! Don’t get me wrong, oil and French fries and fish are nice, but at home my diet consists mostly of pasta and vegetables so it was magnificent to be able to have that luxury.
After lunch we had our second day of batik; this session was a little frustrating because I had my t-shirt all planned out and had done the first step the day before, and wanted to go on to the second step but the instructors, for some reason, really wanted me to do what THEY wanted with the t-shirt, not what I wanted! Eventually I got my way (and the shirt turned out almost exactly as I originally wanted) and the instructors began to understand that I like to plan things out at the beginning and continue with that plan until the end. I did the second step of my t-shirt and started on my other three pieces of fabric: a soft, light blue fabric that I bought in Kedougou (I bought 5m of fabric, ½ of which had a pretty design on it and ½ of which was very plain; I used the pretty half for a wrap skirt and batiked the plain half); an off-white strip of muslin; and a large, stiff white cloth called “basin.” By Tuesday I was starting to get the hang of being able to tell when the wax was too hot or too cold, how to properly heat the stamps (tampons, in French…this was much talked about in our group of 10 girls), and how to make sure the wax was soaking into the fabric correctly. It was really difficult to keep the wax at the right temperature!
After batik I went with Erin to a bookstore, and stepping through the door was like stepping back into the U.S. It’s surprising how comforting something like a bookstore can be! It was just astonishing that almost everything a “normal” bookstore would have was available—except, of course, pretty stationery, what I was looking for, and journals, what Erin was looking for—but it was just so different to have so many things available to us in the same place. I didn’t realize how used to I’d gotten to the stores here…
We then went back to the school around 6PM to, drumroll please, BAKE A CAKE!!! Two cooking sessions in one day, what a treat! The mix we had bought at the supermarket (did I write about the supermarket? I don’t remember what day that was…) took 3 eggs and about a quarter cup of melted butter, and made two tiny little cakes. Our stove is kind of scary: you have to turn the gas on and then throw lit matches into this little hole until it lights. But we got it to work and baked our two little cakes, and used chocolate spread for frosting because frosting doesn’t exist here. There was then the problem of storing them because there are no Tupperwares in our kitchen and the fridge was very smelly…we ended up just putting them in the fridge without covering them, which made them taste a little like smelly fridge, but nobody minded.
Upon arriving back home I heard guitar music for the first time since I’ve been here (very out-of-tune music, on a very old decrepit guitar, but guitar music just the same)! Moussa’s cousin was visiting for the night from Mbour. I sat down with them and listened to the music for a while Moussa sang and sometimes danced. It’s so interesting to see how emotional and involved people get with little music sessions like this here; he would just close his eyes and sing the words, getting louder and louder until he jumped from his seat to dance in the middle of the kitchen as the cousin played, eyes also closed, and I watched. This continued, along with conversations between the 3 of us about Senegalese culture and why I shouldn’t ever leave, until dark and still nobody else was home. Eventually my mom got home and we ate a quick dinner, just the 4 of us, and soon after Moussa’s friends started showing up. The cousin, Moussa and I continued our conversation as the guitar played and others talked, for at least another hour, and things evolved into more improv-based group song about mothers. The cousin asked me to sing and I tried to argue that I didn’t know the words, but eventually he talked me into saying something about my mother. “It’s what makes me happy. Please, Emily, say something to your mother. What do you want to give to your mother? It’s what makes me happy.” etc. So I said tonight, my mother is cooking dinner for my grandparents and they’re going to have a dinner together, and I wish I could be there to help my mother cook and to be with my family. And everyone applauded and finally let me go to bed, as my eyes were closing and I could no longer think in French.

Wednesday: Wednesday was Elena’s birthday (hence baking the cake Tuesday) and we got 4 new students! They came from the SIT program in Madagascar, where, if you’ve been keeping up with world news (I haven’t) it’s been pretty unstable and dangerous. Their home universities had them evacuated but luckily for them instead of having to go home they just joined our program! There are 3 girls and 1 boy, (and I found out another girl is coming next week, which means we’ll have 26 in our program when 25 is the absolute limit) and we’re trying to help them quickly adjust to life in Senegal so they can kind of pick up where they left off in their program. At lunch time a bunch of people went to the pool for Elena’s birthday but some of us stayed at the school, and then went to buy ice cream to go with the cake. The cake was alright (except for the smelly fridge taste) and the ice cream was phenomenal, and everyone was very happy and surprised that we were able to bake a cake in Senegal.
We had more batik that afternoon and afterwards I went to buy some CDs (I got 10 for less than $2!) and took a little walk, and as soon as I got home started my 9 Wolof exercises, which I then continued up until dinner and afterwards as well.

Thursday: It was our last day of batik, which was very sad, but I was very satisfied with two of the pieces I made (and mostly satisfied with the other two, just the colors weren’t what I intended). I talked with one of the instructors about doing some batik this summer and he told me where I could buy stamps and dyes and everything I’d need! I don’t think I’ll buy them here just because trying to pack them to bring home with all the rest of my stuff would be a bit difficult, especially with the weight, but I’m hoping to check it out sometime.

Friday: In the morning we had a session about relationships in Senegal—how people here perceive them, how to avoid them, how to get out of them, etc. It was interesting to hear people talk about the relationships their Senegalese siblings have or the ones their parents have, and to hear some stories about attempted relationships (by men on the street). Afterwards we played a big game of jeopardy in French.
I felt very accomplished on Friday, I called Keur Moussa to try to get in touch with the kora teachers (who said they’ll email me next week) and I called Edouard Manga, my kora teacher from a couple weeks ago, to ask him to be my advisor. Two steps closer to my ISP becoming reality!
That afternoon I had to do some research with my little group on how to do archival research, so I went with Aurora to the Center of Statistics, where a few nerdy Senegalese men sit in a room full of books and help whoever comes in to find the information they’re looking for. That night, instead of going out with the other students, I went to bed nice and early for once (around 9:30) and slept for 11 HOURS. This, for me, is amazing. I guess I just really needed to catch up, it felt so good to sleep!!!

Saturday: I wrote some postcards and did some homework in the morning, anticipating the large amount of time this weekend that would be spent reading, doing my ISP proposal and catching up on other work. Starting at 11:30 I began the long process of making “rastas” with Moussa—he began separating my hair and soaking the locks in a mixture of melted shea butter and something that smelled pine-y—to start my dreadlocks! I’ve been debating for years whether or not to get them and have always wanted to but never was able to convince myself to do it. I guess being here makes me think a lot about how people judge others so superficially, and instead of making me want to always dress in my best clothes and make myself over for the benefit of others, it more makes me realize that, no matter how a person looks, one will still judge them from the outside and that if they decide to go ANY deeper in getting to know that person, they’ll almost always find the person is different than their original judgment. Why should I change how I look just so other people have different original perceptions of me, when they’ll find the same person on the inside no matter how I look? If I want to style my hair a certain way I should be less worried about the fact that one person may think I’m dirty, another may think I do drugs, another may think I listen to reggae, etc.—and more worried about what makes me feel good about myself. People might think those things anyway, with my hair combed and styled normally, so why try to anticipate the judgments of others and dress for them instead of for myself?
Sorry if that was very redundant, I have difficulty explaining all my thoughts about that subject in any simple way. But after contemplating that for a long time, years in fact, finally, after experiencing so much judgment because of my appearance here, decided to try dreadlocks. So right now my hair is in pieces wrapped in thread and soaked in this buttery mixture I mentioned before, and on Wednesday we’ll be doing the locking. This process took about 6 hours, but it wasn’t 6 hours of just doing hair; Moussa’s friend came over so we hung out and talked all day, listened to music, drank coffee, ate lunch with the family, and did hair at the same time. It was very relaxing and comfortable for me. Different friends of my mom would come in during the day and say oh my gosh, you’re getting rastas? You’re going to cut them off when you go back to the U.S., right? Have you told your mom? etc. I’m already being judged for the dreads I don’t have yet!

Sunday: This morning I met Erin and Elena in Ouakam to walk to the Phare de Mamelles—the same lighthouse I visited last weekend with Alex, Avery and Whitney. We had a nice walk over and hung out there for a while just talking about our experiences, our families, our ideas for ISPs, we went up in the lighthouse (the guard this time wouldn’t let us go inside where the bulb was, it was disappointing) and just had a nice, relaxing morning. When I got back home I did my laundry ALL BY MYSELF for the first time!! I know it was only because there was nobody else in the house* and I think the maid didn’t want to embarrass me by helping/showing me how to do it right, but it felt so good for me to be able to accomplish something without someone trying to show me how THEY do it and ending up just doing it for me. I feel very helpless here most of the time, when people think I can’t boil water or wash my own clothes.
And since then I’ve just been doing homework and writing this blog.
*Oh, and today is Election Day here in Senegal, so everyone is out voting and in the evening they’ll be out watching the results. (I’ve been home alone for a while now, for the first time ever since I got here!!) I learned a bit about the elections, it was a bit confusing but from what I gathered:
Everyone votes for the local council (in rural areas), the regional council (government for the regional level), and municipal mayors (in city areas). These are some of the biggest coalitions:
-And Sopi 2009 (PDS)—24 Parties—(This coalition is controversial because the current president’s son is part of this one and a lot of people don’t want him to have a chance to be president because he was raised in France and doesn’t speak Wolof)
-Benno Siggil Senegal (PS)—17 Parties
-Dekkal Ngor—5-7 Parties
-And Liggeey Senegal—4-5 Parties
And defa Senegal—3 Parties
If, after voting, no majority is reached, they will resort to negotiation. For the past week or so the groups have been parading the streets in huge trucks BLASTING music and having big gatherings in the streets at night and on weekends; there has been a lot of violence during the nights and in the morning when I walked to school I’d see broken furniture everywhere, so we were told not to go out at night. But basically that’s all I know, and now elections are over so things in the streets should be back to normal.

On Thursday our whole, newly bigger group leaves for our second rural village stay, in Ker Sedaro, and then we’re going to Saint Louis, the 2nd biggest city in Senegal, for a week. Throughout this excursion we’ll also be visiting Lac Rose (a lake where salt mining takes place and the sun reflecting off the water looks bright pink, for some reason), Thiès, the Grande Mosque of Touba, and celebrating Independence Day in Saint Louis (April 4th). So I’ve got a lot to look forward to, but I’ll be really busy as well, so I’ll update again when I can.

Until then,
Emily