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!