Warning!!

I am going to get a cell phone tomorrow (Monday). Thus if you are wanting to talk to me Id love to hear from you. The biggest plus about the cell phones here is that you don’t have to pay for incoming calls = saves me money! I won’t have it until the afternoon probably so if you are dying to call me wait until Tuesday and keep in mind that I am 5 hours ahead. You dial 011 221 673 3933 . While I don’t expect many to take me up on my offer (but there are some who I would anticipate/expect to do so) you can get really cheap phone cards for calling Africa. For those who live with me or near me you can you to a business across Como from Muddsuckers. I cant remember the name of the joint but it is in the same block as the Como Grill and the convenience store/drug dealing joint (I’m sure they deal drugs from there) and it isn’t the hardware store but I believe it is under the big sign that says something about nursing services. There should be a Western Union sign in the window. You can get African calling cards for 5 dollars for like 60 minutes and this is infinitely cheaper than it would be for me to call home!

Clearly the first picture is of me leaving from the Mpls airport. It doesnt exactly fit in the whole timeline of things but I like it and wanted to post it! the next is a picture of me and some of my group members having lunch at their apartment. The next one is entitled "wah happen??" and it is hannah and me in the cab attempting to find their house. We had to stop 3 times and ask people before we found it. Typical cab experience. The next is a picture of the baby that I live with who htey call Bebe Dabah but Im not quite clear on what her real name is...

Warning! It’s a long one I got carried away! I think I have really started to discover the essence of what Senegal is all about: that is the beautiful interaction between people. I know that one could say that you could have these same interactions in the US or that it is just my immersion where I am always taking advantage of opportunities to practice French or Wolof, but I don’t really think so. For example, to walk home from the Baobab Centre (the place where I take my Wolof class) it takes me 10 minutes with no stops. Today it took me about 30 minutes because I had 3 conversations with different people along the way. Yes, one could argue that this could happen but we are just so wrapped up in our own cramped schedules to stop and make connections with people. This is how I was even here and it was an important realization for me to make as people aren’t received as well when they don’t take time for proper greetings and conversation, especially in my neighborhood and places that I frequent often. Voila, the reason (at least one of them) for African time I believe (at least in Senegal).

Another example is my almost daily conversation with this group of women that sit on the corner near the cybercafé. I’m not certain what the deal is with these women because it is usually the same group of 5-15 women who sit under a tree and cook, braid hair, and do other various things. I think that they are vendors of some sort but I have yet to see them sell anything! But what is interesting about these women is that they don’t speak any French at all. Thus we are limited to my EXTREMELY basic Wolof and pantomime… it’s difficult to say the least but an enjoyable thing because they continue to be interested in talking to me even though we never get any real information across to each other. I believe that they have invited me to eat with them and have complemented my skirt and are very concerned about me learning Wolof and are very intent on trying to teach me! Every time Im done talking with them Im inspired to go home and practice! Maybe I will ask if I can take a picture of them for you to have a better idea.

And then I was just leaving the house for a little snack from the corner boutique and I began talking with my neighbor who was sitting on the stoop outside of my house. At night there are always tons of people just sitting outside of their house chatting with one another and passersby (I should take a picture of this too) This neighbor and I ended up talking for about an hour about everything and anything but mostly Africa and the problem of its waste disposal and how the lack thereof perpetuates the spread of disease. I must say that it was probably one of the most meaningful conversations that I have had since I’ve been here. It was lovely!

Oh lots more events to speak of… last night I almost salsa’d! I was oh so close to it! I told my host brother that I love latin music and dance and he said that his friend Macodou (who is also a friend of mine) knew some singers and a good place to go. So Macodou called me up last night and invited me out. I am not yet accustomed to the nightlife around here and assumed that I would be meeting him at the salsa club. However the cab took me to a bar where he was with a few friends at about 10 and turns out the salsa music didn’t even start until 1:00! While I knew that clubs didn’t start to get hoppin until 1 or 2 I didn’t really expect this to be the same for some reason. Thus by the time we got to the club at 12:30 I was too tired to really even carry on a decent conversation much less really enjoy myself for another few hours. To prepare for a night of salsa beginning at 1 I definitely need a nap beforehand! So we got a cab back to my house. Que lastima!

Also yesterday I had an interesting experience with Moustapha, one of the children in the house (age 10 or so). The American neighbor exchange student who has been here for 9 months, Rianna, told me that she had gone running before with him and just that he is really fast. Rianna is a very interesting person in that she knows my family rather well and has known the students living here before me but she never quite tells me the whole story but lets me experience for myself. Anyway Tapha (short for Moustapha) and I had scheduled a running date for 6 pm. And I was all dressed and ready to go and was told that he was out alongside the house playing soccer with the other boys. I finally found him and he was with this whole posse of other little boys. So we start running, not just him and me of course, but him and me, and the rest of the little boys. So funny enough for people to observe the Tubaab (Wolof name for white person) running around with the little boys. But its funnier when the little boys are attempting to outrun the Tubaab. I am used to running routes, running straight down streets or paths. Oh no this was not that sort of run. He was definitely all over the place; we ran between the goats, down alleys, dodged cars etc. We eventually lost all but one other little boy. And all to the great amusement of the people lounging in the streets outside of their homes. It turns out that he is very fast but doesn’t have a great amount of endurance and in the end I was not left behind. It was funny because it struck me as something that my own brother would do to me. I don’t know why I thought he would be any different.

And today we went to the beach again! It was fantastic!! We went to a different beach this time and it was much further away. To begin we had a decision to make about transportation as we had about 20 people who needed to get to the beach which was a 15 minute drive (and when I say we I mean everyone else who talked about the options in Wolof while I attempted to pick up words here and there). In the end we did, what seemed to me to be, a curious thing. One main form of transport is the Car Rapide which is a dilapidated mini bus which has established routes but essentially stops anywhere, which is clear from this example. We were standing on the street when a Car Rapide came by, going in the opposite direction that we needed, and everyone signaled to him what appeared to be turn around. I thought, oh no this cant be, buses on a route don’t just stop and turn around especially when they already have passengers on them. Turns out they do. I don’t know how the preexisting passengers felt about us commandeering their bus but they obediently got off and Im sure took the next Car which came 30 seconds later (PS I think this system would be useful in Mpls then I wouldn’t have to wait 30 minutes for a bus that is supposed to come every 5-10 minutes).

So we arrived at the beach which was a very bustling place. Essentially it was tons and tons of young people going to a beach which was actually on an island very close to the mainland. The only way to reach this island was by pirogue (a long, deep boat surprisingly only powered by a 40 hp motor which in the end seated about 60 people maybe (you can sort of see the pirogues in the background of this picture). This was another very interesting form of transportation. The scene looked to me to be very very chaotic with hundreds of people needing to be transported to the island. In the end it turned out to be very organized actually. Not gonna lie, I was slightly worried about the boats carrying capacity but was reassured that they never sink. But we had our life jackets on just for good measure.

We arrived safely at L’Isle de Ngor which turned out to be really a great time. This beach, compared to the one we visited last Sunday, had pretty tame waves and people were able to pretty much float or stand in one place rather close to shore. There were also umbrellas and mats and food for sale there. It was a really interesting dynamic (think bar/nightclub atmosphere but in the water, and with some children here and there). Men would offer rides on their little floating boards or would attempt to lure you out to deeper water where they could engage in deeper conversation without all the interruption of the rest of the crowd… right… I don’t know what their real intentions were because I always resisted their attempts to take me away.

After a couple of lovely hours at the beach we started the trip back. Another pirogue ride and then attempting to get a bus or something like that for 20 people. This was about 7:30 and the majority of people were leaving at this time. Thus there were a lot of transportation options yet there was a lot of jostling for each bus. This is where I had my first theft scare. I was carrying one of the little kids piggy back and also had the little coin purse of one of my companions in my hand (which actually didn’t have much money in it) and there was a lot of jostling to get onto this one bus that we didn’t want but had to pass the crowd. As I was passing through I was just intent on not losing the rest of our group and not being caught up in the crowd when I felt a really strong rip on the coin purse I was carrying. I kind of yelled out and instinctively pulled harder and the thief didn’t get it but it was a good wakeup call for me because Im not used to being in situations like that where things can easily get stolen.

PROJECT UPDATE: Look at me being studious! I talked with my house mom today and is she ever a wealth of information. 1) she said it wont be a problem at all for me to go around our neighborhood to interview people and use my neighborhood as my urban population. She also said that people are used to students coming around to interview so it wont be a bit weird. 2) she knows the wife of a dental school professor at the main university here in Dakar (a place where I don’t yet have solid contacts) and will put me in touch with him 3) she is going to look into putting me in touch with a marabout (one who deals in traditional healing, among other things). Yay!!