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!

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!

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!

Saint Louis: Turning students into tourists since...well, for me, Monday.

Okay, continuing. Thanks for letting me sleep a little.

Monday: We departed in the morning towards Saint Louis, a touristy island in the North of Senegal. On the way though we stopped in Touba to visit the Grande Mosque, where the Mourides visit every year for their pilgrimage (in early March I probably mentioned the Magal de Touba, where most of Dakar left—this is where they were going). All the women had to cover their whole bodies: we wore headscarves, pagnes to our ankles, and long sleeves. It was warm but I felt very appropriate for this culture. (Oh, one student didn’t go in the mosque: Avery’s foot had swelled to a surprising size and was bright red and shiny, so he stayed on the bus; he later found out it was a staph (thanks for the spelling correction, Mama) infection and got treatment.) The mosque was gorgeous, I was surprised by the many colors since in Dakar and in other places I’ve been the mosques are always teal and white—this one had purple and a lot of yellow/orange inside. I absolutely loved the walls inside—they were cement that had been carved and painted, look at my pictures to see what I mean. So we walked around there for a while and had a nice tour guide, and then we continued our journey to Saint Louis. We stopped for a picnic in a field and had wonderful sandwiches made by a Belgian woman, and then I read a lot on the bus and talked to Abby a bit (one of the new students) so it was a very pleasant bus ride.
Upon arrival in Saint Louis we crossed the Pont Faidherbe to the island (Bouna of course had to make the joke that the bridge was made of grass: pont (bridge) fait (made) d’herbe (of grass)…but now, let me tell you, I know way too much about that bridge and it is NOT made of grass. (Yesterday were our group projects, I was with Erin, Elena and Kenna and we studied the bridge.)) and saw our hotel, a beautiful red building on the water with a gorgeous dock and fancy dinner tables. It was shocking! We have hot water and wireless internet and toilets with toilet paper and vegetables…it’s a luxurious place and it seems like SIT spring break.
We went straight to the beach to watch the sun set, and I walked around and looked at shells, my new favorite calming pastime. We missed the gorgeous African sun by about a minute, so we looked at it from the bus…and then we returned to the hotel to eat the most I’ve eaten in one sitting in a VERY long time. And, as a wonderful surprise, there was ICE CREAM for dessert!!!

Tuesday: In the morning we had a lecture on how Saint Louis fits into Senegal’s history and then were assigned our projects and set free to explore the town. I walked around with Erin, Elena, Kenna and Megan, and we saw almost the whole island—we walked and explored little touristy shops, went to a couple art galleries and a museum of the air post service (which was surprisingly very interesting), ate some yummy cheap Senegalese food, and just enjoyed the feeling of a touristy cute town vs. Dakar. After hanging out with other students for a while in the evening I went to dinner with Kenna and got a really disappointing dinner (we ordered the same meal at the same restaurant as lunch because it was so good, but apparently the meal changes drastically for dinner) and came back to the hotel. We talked to Bouna for a long time about April Fools Day and made some plans on that subject…then went to bed.

Wednesday: We started the day with Bouna’s April Fools joke: he told the group that we would be getting 3 more students from Madagascar and because of it would have to go back to Dakar early…nobody fell for it because everyone had April Fools on their mind, but I thought it was very convincing (even though he, Kenna and I had made it up). We then had a lecture by a Senegalese author (Louis Camara) about literature in Saint Louis/Senegal followed by 2 museum visits and then research for our projects. The second museum was really huge and had a whole floor dedicated to Louis Armstrong, which I found a little strange.
I then had lunch and walked around with Kenna and Bethany. We bought picnic food and then returned to the hotel, where I was planning on staying in and writing my blog and taking a nap while some others went to the beach, but was talked into going to the beach. I was very happy about this because I got to take a beautiful, long walk all alone and it was just what I needed.
We came back to the hotel to hop on the bus and go to Mauritania, the country bordering Senegal to the North. Bethany, Kenna and I packed up our picnic food and set out on the beach—it was just a beautiful Senegalese beach where, off in the distance, Bouna pointed out a row of trees that marked the natural border of Mauritania. We walked along the shore and arrived at the trees to eat our baguettes, cheese, fruit and wine, and then spent a very long time with Kenna, Bethany and Erin taking beach silhouette sunset photos. I had a wonderful time in Mauritania, I highly recommend it! Later we got sandwiches and brought Avery a pastry.

Thursday: Bouna’s birthday: Happy Birthday Bouna!!!!! I went touristy shopping in the morning with friends because Saint Louis turns students into tourists. Later we all went on a pirogue ride (those pretty painted fishing boats you’ve been seeing in my pictures) at la Langue de Barbarie, a national park, and saw hundreds of pelicans and hung out at a beach. It was a nice relaxing excursion, just reinforcing my idea that this is NOT school, it is a vacation. After dinner some of my friends and I brought Bouna a little cake and the hotel people helped us find a candle, so we brought that to him and he was very appreciative. We then worked a lot on our group project (everyone else in my group loves to procrastinate so we waited until the night before).

Friday: I spent most of the morning with my group finishing our project on the Pont Faidherbe. For lunch we finally got maffé!!! I had been searching for this one meal in all the restaurants I’ve eaten in all week, but of the whole menu each restaurant makes only a couple of the meals each day (and it’s usually the same meals in all the restaurant, which is not handy if I want something else!) so Thursday, after asking this one restaurant for the 4th day in a row if they had maffé, they said, no, not today, but we’ll make it especially for you tomorrow! So they did and on Friday a huge group of us showed up to eat maffé, and it was delicious. So that was a relief.
We then presented our projects in French, I actually had a weird moment in the middle of my part where I started feeling lightheaded and legitimately could NOT remember ANY words, in French OR English! So that was interesting, it almost felt like my whole brain was blank…but other than that it went alright. And it was nice to have that over with!
Afterwards the plan was to go to the beach (but I was going to take a nap and write my blog) but that didn’t end up happening…so I hung out with Kenna for a while and then we walked with Bethany to try to find an early dinner. We found this gorgeous little Moroccan place that we’d heard was excellent but after we sat down they told us there was a party of 30 coming later so they couldn’t serve us ☹ so maybe we’ll try again for lunch today. After spending the whole evening looking for a new place to eat on the North end of the island (we’re staying in the South) we went back to the maffé place we ate at for lunch and got EXCELLENT meals (I got three side dishes: a plate of white rice, eggplant, and a green salad). It was very different from what I’m used to, which is ordering a Senegalese prepared meal that’s very oily and filling, and I’m surprised I haven’t gotten creative with my orders before this! The three of us then hung out and listened to music and showed each other our friends back home through pictures online, and then, instead of going out (which I have almost no desire to do anyway) I wrote you that lovely blog entry last night.

And now it is Saturday, April 4, Independence Day in Senegal! There’s a big party thing going on in the downtown of Saint Louis, when Bethany and I were on our walk around the island this morning we saw it but had little desire to join. Now I’m hoping for a nap, a good lunch, and a relaxing afternoon, possibly involving renting a bike, but we’ll see.
I hope all is well in the U.S. and hope to hear from you soon!!!

<3 Emily

My Keur Massyla Village Stay

Okay, an update, for real this time! I’m so sorry it took so long but I have a long list of what I consider good excuses, the main one being I’m having a great time. I’ve done SO much since we last spoke (or, rather, since you last read my ramblings)!

Thursday: We departed on our bus and arrived at Lac Rose, a lake where the reflected light makes the water look pink and where people mine salt, in the late morning. We had 20 minutes there just to look around and take pictures, but then continued on our way to Thiès. Immediately upon arrival in Thiès everyone noticed a HUGE transformation from Dakar—this was a beautiful city! I’m not sure how to describe the differences, they just almost didn’t compare; the architecture/layout was very different, there wasn’t sand lining every street and sidewalk, there was much less trash and even some trees/grass…it was just gorgeous and made me really realize how different Dakar is from the cities I’m used to in the US. We ate a delicious lunch Chez Joe: Pamanda (Joe is the owner, Pamela and Amanda are, I think, his two daughters?) and then were set loose in the Thiès market. It was much smaller than those in Dakar and I wasn’t being constantly grabbed and yelled at to come look/buy things…so it was wonderful. I walked around with some friends for a while, we bought homestay gifts for our village-families-to-be, and after talking to a couple Peace Corps volunteers about their experiences in Senegal, we left for our village stays.
Upon arrival in Keur Sedaro (the name of the larger village, made up of many compounds (mine was Keur Massyla)) we saw hundreds of villagers gathered in this building in a circle, with a circle of empty chairs. We got off the bus to find that the chairs were for us. It was kind of like a little ceremony or ritual or something—Souleye stood in the middle of the circle and would name off one student along with one village family name, and the mother of the family would come into the circle and hug her student, grab their hand, and everyone would cheer as they walked away towards their home.
The walk to my home was a little awkward: my brother wouldn’t let me carry my own bags (my brother Moudou, 18, carried my giant backpack while my little sister, Fanta, carried my 6-pack of water), and my mom, Aida Gaye, held my hand the whole time, but we didn’t really talk because, as I mentioned in a previous post, people here (for the most part) only spoke Wolof.
When I got to my house, after introductions and things like that (and a TON of repeating introductions/names), I was left in my room with a bunch of young teens, unable to really communicate but using the little Wolof I have to find out a little about them. After quite a while of kind of awkward small talk/silence, they eventually said, “Where’s the gift?” Apparently that’s what they had been waiting for, and once I got out the bags of gifts a bunch of people who had been waiting outside rushed in to check them out. My mother kept saying, “My child, she is good! She is good!” So I guess the gifts I chose, while definitely were not enough in my opinion in the end, were very much appreciated.
Here is a semi-accurate breakdown of my family (those I met, anyway):
Aida Gaye: mother
Ibrahima Thiaw: father
Abdoulaye Thiaw: brother: 23
Moudou Thiaw: brother: 18
Ibrahima Thiaw: brother
Fanta Thiaw: sister: 8
Ndoiye Thiaw: sister: 2

and I know the mother has 2 more kids that I may or may not have met, but there were also many people who seemed to live there (or just hang out there a lot) that I’m pretty sure weren’t related. I was also Ndoiye Thiaw, named after the 2-year-old, and I had a lot of trouble remembering my name whenever anyone asked (it was said something like n-doya, which is hard for me to remember in the first place). Anyway it was very confusing for many reasons when I first arrived, but everyone was very sweet and welcoming and excited to show me things. I was treated with the most hospitality I can imagine, to the point of discomfort to me: everywhere I went, Fanta or another young child would be following me with a chair. This could be when I exited my room to go hang out outside with the family; when I went to the kitchen to watch/help with cooking; when I joined my brothers in their room to look at pictures or drink tea; when I crossed the village to visit Megan and her family; when I went to brush my teeth…and if I said oh, no, I don’t need that, they would stand there and say “Toggal!” (sit down!) until I gave in…just really unnecessary but very sweet.
My first meal was a huge surprise to me: the normal fish, the normal rice, but with that a HUGE pile of BEAUTIFUL, drumroll please, VEGETABLES!! There were carrots and eggplants and potatoes and turnips and tomatoes, ah just a heaven of veggies! I ate with my brother Moudou, who I think noticed that I chose the veggies over the fish when eating out of the communal bowl, so for the rest of the stay he would put more veggies in my portion of the plate ☺
Oh, and you know how in my last village stay, to my great surprise, people had televisions and watched soap operas? I’m sure you guessed it: they did here, too. It was a big thing at night to go over to Megan’s family’s house where they’d bring out the TV and everyone would watch this one soap opera they call Barbara, which I think is Spanish but dubbed in French, interesting since almost nobody there spoke French…

Friday: (Side note: at 5:30 AM I heard this weird noise on my roof (after hearing a lot of weird noises throughout the night, this did not surprise me) that sounded like rocks hitting the tin. I listened for a while and realized it sounded strangely like rain, and, very skeptical of this idea since I have seen no precipitation since I got here, I opened my door and stepped outside: IT WAS RAIN!!! It lasted for about 5 minutes and then ended, but it was so amazing to feel rain!)
I got a lot of really interesting village experiences on Friday, and overall had a great day; at the same time I experienced the frustrations of a completely different culture where privacy doesn’t exist. In the morning I got to help cook: Fanta taught me how to scale/gut/de-bone a fish, so I helped with that. I also used the mortar/pestle to smash things, which is one of my new favorite hobbies. I was a little bit grossed out by some of the sanitary issues of cooking, I shall list some examples: the little boy Babacar who hangs out around the house constantly had a lot of fun trying to communicate with me and just watch me try to cook, and would play with the raw, bloody fish soaking in bloody water and then take his hands out and rub them on my arms; The veggies were soaked in this raw bloody fish water before being put in the pot, which was fine since they were being cooked, but sometimes people would take one out of the bloody water to take a bite and put it back; it was just a very different experience of cooking for me than at home, obviously, so it took some getting used to (or rather some looking away) but was a really interesting experience.
In the mid-day I was feeling the need to write or take a little rest from the constant noise and grabbing of little kids, so I got out my journal to write a little. I sat down in my chair and immediately was surrounded by kids! They just wanted to watch me write (almost nobody was literate, especially not in English so I’m sure watching me write was pretty interesting), and they wanted me to read what I was writing aloud sometimes, or write random words in Wolof (even though Wolof is not a written language, so I just had to sound everything out). But after an unsuccessful journaling I wanted to take a nap, and they could tell I was tired so they told me to go take a rest. I was relieved and entered my room to lay down on my bed, and as soon as I did everyone filed in around my room and stood there to watch me take a rest. This, I must say, was one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life. Needless to say my nap did not last long.
Later I visited Megan at her house where we got a tiny bit of privacy to talk about our experiences/frustrations, and then joined a huge group of mostly boys to drink some tea. We played some clapping games and they sang us some songs, they asked us questions in Wolof about our lives/ages/relationship status/etc. During one of the clapping games the kid playing in front of me, facing me, fell backwards and hit his arm on the hot stove used for heating the water for tea—immediately people started yelling at me in Wolof, saying it had been my fault and that I needed to apologize! I was shocked; not only had I not done it, I was being screamed at in a language I didn’t understand well and certainly could not respond in—I just got really overwhelmed really quickly and wasn’t sure how to handle the situation!
Later my brother Moudou told me we were going to do some exercise, so we went and got Megan and Avery (who both lived in my area) and went on the weirdest jog of my life. There were 3 or 4 senegalese kids, the oldest was Moudou (18), and us 3 toubabs. We jogged down a path in a wide open field for about 4 minutes before stopping and eating some maniocs. We sat and stretched, kicked around the soccer ball we brought for a couple minutes, and instead of continuing like we imagined, we just stayed there. Megan’s mom came out to get her for her 3rd cup of tea, so Avery and I were left talking with the kids about our lives. One of them actually spoke some French so it was a little easier to communicate. Eventually we returned and started up a game of soccer which quickly grew to have about 10 people on each team; I scored a couple goals, but it was really difficult because it was on a sand field, which makes it IMPOSSIBLE to run and a lot of sand was going in my eyes. But it felt great to play soccer and it was a really fun way to get to experience village life.
When I went home my family made me take a shower, which was a bucket of cold water that I scooped onto myself out in the outhouse.
Oh, another thing I experienced: the photo culture in the village. This was, to me, insane. Bizarre. Really unexpected and really overwhelming. The older kids (mid-teens) had kept doing this one motion to me the night before, putting their hands up to their eyes and kind of making a telescope shape with their hands…eventually I figured out that meant, do you have a camera? And I wanted to have pictures so of course I said yes--- it turned out to be a) a little controversial as to when/when not to take photos and b) very scary. I think the timing of photos basically had to do with how many kids were there (if there were too many it wasn’t good because EVERYONE wanted to be in EVERY photo and it got kind of violent) and how riled up people were. The second I got out my camera every kid in sight (and then some) would appear and RUSH towards the camera, yelling, “PHOTO MA! PHOTO MA!” So I would then take one picture of this crowd of screaming kids and immediately after they heard the click every single one would leap towards the camera, grabbing at it and grabbing at me and pressing buttons to try to see the picture I had just taken. This, for me, made me really uncomfortable in 2 ½ ways: 1) I felt like a rich white tourist, 2) I felt very afraid my camera would be ruined, and 2 ½) I felt very snobby and selfish for even THINKING of the state of my technology while these people could barely afford clothes to wear. This thought crossed my mind a lot and developed throughout my whole stay, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

Saturday: I did some more cooking, and got another intense photo-session because Megan’s camera died and I offered to take pictures of her and her family. (The villagers here absolutely LOVE looking at photos of themselves; the student who stayed with my family in Spring 2008 sent a whole book of photos she had taken and my family took this book out multiple times per day just to look through them, not always to show me. So I didn’t want Megan’s family to miss out on getting photos, nor did I want Megan not to have photos of her family!)
Oh, each morning my mom or my brother would take me all around the village to visit every family member and a bunch of friends. I couldn’t figure out if this was something they did every morning or if it was just for me to meet people, but a lot of times we’d stop in someone’s room for a long time while they talked and I just sat there, it was interesting to see so many different houses and family structures.
I also had a lot of reflection going on on Saturday, since it was my last day there. I won’t go into it all but the basic theme was generosity vs. materialism and wealth.
Before my shower on Saturday I gathered water 4 or 5 times, carrying a little bucket on my head, and got a lot of comments from the village men.
Saturday night was the “Tam-tam,” or dance party, hosted in the toubabs’ favor. I was a little scared of this idea but it turned out to be very fun. Beforehand, though, I was brought into my room by my mom and another woman her age and stripped (had I not been wearing a tanktop and spandex pants underneath my clothes I would have been EXTREMELY uncomfortable and not sure I would have dealt with it--there was a crowd gathered outside my door (or curtain, rather), watching me get changed) and dressed in Senegalese clothing: a traditional undergarment, which was basically just a wrap skirt made out of big netting, and a lime-green boubou, which included a shirt and wrap skirt. I was feeling a little ridiculous and like my privacy had been invaded but then Megan arrived wearing a white boubou with hot pink polka dots and a matching headband, so that made me feel much better. We walked and gathered the other toubabs in our area and walked to the tam-tam.
The tam-tam was basically a ton of Senegalese dancing, usually each toubab with one member of his/her family. I usually am not one to dance but I much prefer Senegalese dance to the kind of dancing I’ve been forced into in the U.S.; everyone just really gets into it and looks kind of ridiculous (maybe not to people who know how to do it, but to us toubabs) and everyone has a good time without judging others. So that was fun and didn’t last nearly as long as I expected.
That night, since it was my last night there, a bunch of people gathered in my room after dinner for tea and discussion. The limited conversation consisted of members of my family saying they would cry when I left, asking if I liked Senegal, asking where I was going when I left, etc. It was nice to just hang out with my family and eventually, after I got too tired to think in Wolof, I went to bed.

Sunday: This was a sad day; I had grown very attached to my family, they were all SO generous and sweet and just genuinely wonderful people, and after only this short a time (that seemed oh-so-long at some points) I was leaving them. To make a long story short, I cried, my mom cried, all the goodbyes were dragged out for far too long which never helps, Moudou gave me his bracelet through the window of the bus…I don’t really want to re-live it but it was a sad goodbye. I hate goodbyes in general, but especially in languages I don’t speak, where I can’t fully voice my appreciation to these people.
We went to our hostel after leaving the village, where I found out we had wireless internet! What a change from the village, within 15 minutes of leaving! We spent the day near Thiès, going to a glass-painting workshop and meeting the artist/seeing a demonstration, going to a basket market, and then to the same market we had gone to a few days before, in Thiès. We then met up at Chez Joe for dinner and had PIZZA!! I actually mostly ate a giant plate of vegetables, I can’t seem to get enough when they’re finally offered.

So this takes me to the end of the village stay, and unfortunately I’m too tired to write the rest of this blog entry tonight. I promise I’ll finish soon though! I know you’re probably sick of my promises for more, but really, I’ll try to write about Saint Louis soon. I miss you all ☺

New photos!

Just to tide you over...

So for many reasons I have not updated as much as I could have, and for that I apologize. But as I have a whole assignment to do with my group tonight, I can't write everything I've been up to, so I'm adding photos with very limited titles just to tide you over! I promise, soon, you'll find out what's going on...
Thanks for being patient with me :)
<3