Man Seynabou Ndiaye laa tudd

Check it out, its my Senegalese name. This is what everyone in my neighborhood knows me by and calls me, Nabou for short :)

Whoo so many things have been going on here and I have been a delinquent blogger! I apologize! One, I am so happy right now bcause I just bought 5 new cds and am listening to some mbalax right now at the cybercafe and I never get to listen to music at home. That was the biggest mistake that I made; not bringing a cd player or my ipod. boo! oh well. Gosh so where to begin...

One we have been without electricity for almost two straight days now and its damn hot here with no fans!

On the research front everything is going rather well. My house mother commissioned a guy who lives next to us to help me out with finding people for my surveys. He has been very very helpful for me! He is also coming to Linguere with me to work with my rural population because we will be giong to a Wolof village where no one speaks French. Im pretty excited about this because it will make my life 100 percent easier because he essentially alwyas knows whats going on and can handle everything. I am still in turmoil as to how much to pay him because it is not at all analagous to the US. A maid for example can make 20000 cfa (40 dollars) per MONTH and the guy I know who works at the telecentre makes only 60000 (120 dollars) per Month! But lets be honest, Abdoulaye will be essentially doing most of the work for me and Ill be taking notes! I was advised by my host brother who is a journalist that hwhen he is on location he makes 7000 cfa (14 dollars) per day. We will see. Also the fact that Abdoulaye is available to me at essentially any time to help me with my research and to leave for the bush for an indeterminate amount of time (up to 3 weeks) is astounding to me. This seems to be pretty common amongst many people because they dont work. But it is very convenient for me. I would say that 50 percent of the people that I have suveyed thus far dont work and there are countless people (mostley women) in my neighborhood who seem to do nothing but sit around and shoot the shit and eat fruit all day long. Its very curious to me. Of course there is the problem of a sever lack of jobs here but there has to be more to it.

So long story short; Im going to a village near Linguere next week at some point and will most likely not even have phone connection and of course no internet and I hope to be there for as little time as possible which could end up being up to 3 weeks but its hard to say.

Also have had some interesting experiences during interviews. I went into a house with 4 womena nd interviewed just one but the rest were listening. One woman wanted to know what I was doing my research for and I told her and she said that she hoped they would see the outcome of the work and I said I would try to transmit it somehow and another woman said something to the extent of "promises, always promises." I was really put off and saddened by this comment because what she said was true I think and I didnt want to be one of those people because I want rally badly for what I do here to not be in vain. So I told her thatI couldnt promise anything of course but I would try. So initially I guess I took this a bit personally buecause I have been struggling myself with this issue of how it can be useful to the people that I interview. But in the end I have realized that it was probably her just expressing frustration about how things generally go in Africa in general because a couple of days later they invitd me over for lunch.

Also I had a few interviews with women that we met on the street essentially who were laundry washers and vendors and it really reaffirmed the reason that I am doing this research. When you are in Dakar and seeing poverty and despair all around you can sometimes over look it (and sometimes you have to overlook it because if you dwell on it you would go crazy with sadness). But talking to these women realy forced me to look at the reality of real people. There was one woman who was missing 8 teeth and oculdnt gt anything done because she needed a complete prosthesis but of course couldnt afford it because it cost 130 dollars and she probably makes just enough money to feed herself. And I though to myself that I have that 130 dollars in my room for me to go out and buy uselesss things that I dont need. It reaffirmed my desire to try to help in any way possibe. I was happy to atleast be able to give away the toothpaste that I had brough with me. I would say that 80 percent of the people that I talk to have untreated oral problems.

So some other fun non research stuff, I went to a baptism. Essentially it was organized chaos but it was pretty cool. I wore a booboo (the womans traditional outfit) complete with fulaar (the headscarf) I dont have any digital pics but needless to say it was hilarious! At the baptism they had a big tent and chairs with a dj playing mbalax and sabar music. When we arrived they were in the process of feeding everyone. We went up to the 3rd floor of this house and on each floor it was packed with people. There were probably 8 people gathered around each bowl eating lunch. I estimate that there were 100 people there and I was told that this was asmall gathering because it was only the 3rd baby and the first baby there would be 10 times as many people! I couldnt imagine having more people there. For baptisms of Muslims they wait until the 7th day and that is the day that the baby is named and his head is shaved (Im not sure why actually, should have asked)

My next fabulous cultural experience was when we had tamtams (drums) in the street in front of our house. Apparently this doesnt happen very often so I was very lucky to have been here for it! Essentially all of the women in the neighborhood get dressed up as if they are going to prom and sit in chairs in a circle with something like 10 drums at one end and then dance. It was quite a spectacle. Yes and yours truly did her Americanized version of the sabar complete with bubu and fulaar. I was literally the talk of the neighborhood. Apparently they dont see white folks shakin their tail feather/ass too often. Note pictures of the street in front of my home complete with sheep and drums (I liveon the left) people actually dancing the sabar and me attempting. Ive got some pretty sweet dancing videos and videos of Dakar but I cant figure out a way to upload them unfortunately. Ciao ciao!

"Every day in Dakar is like a punch in the face" the remix

(I was seconds away from finishing and saving my huge blog when the power went out (thus this is the new and improved and slightly pissed off version). That will teach me!)

While I am generally loving my time here in Dakar and am learning so much each and every day, it is very difficult. Yesterday for example, I was suppposed to meetw ith a guy at 9 and he didnt end up showing up until 10:30 which wasnt a very big deal and he was very very generous with my time. But I had told him that I wanted to meet with a traditional healer (someone who uses plants, prayers, etc for healing). Thus I thought thta that is who I would be going to meet. Turns out he took me to a rahter shady neighborhood in Dakar to meet with a man who made fake silver teeth for people... not exactly a traditional healer. While this experience ended up being very useful because it showed me an aspect of Senegalese "dentistry" that I had not been familiar with, I hadnt exactly prepared for that and essentially had no idea what to ask him... uh can you chew with them, how much do they cost? naw I came up with some better questions but I dont like to be unprepared like that. Its always intersting what one asks for and what one actually recieves here. So this same day it was approaching 12:30 and I was starving, thirsty, tired of walking in the midday sun, pissed off about the huge blister from my crappy sandal and sand combination, and tired of trying to understand French (because you see its not yet second nature) and I had just had enough yesterday. Dakar gave me a good swift kick in the butt.

"Every day in Dakar is like a punch in the face" - Stephanie, TX

This was the quote of the week from my friend Stephanie who accompanied me to the most beautiful place on earth this weekend, Saly-Portugal. I could go on and on about the best aspects of this place. It was a 5 star hotel 1 1/2 hours south of Dakar and had the second best beaches in all of Senegal and only cost 72 dollars which included a 3 room suite and 3 3 course meals. This is the place where European toursist come for vacation. They fly into Dakar and go straight to Saly. Ill keep my list of faboulosu things about this place brief (oddly enough many of them wouldnt seem that great back home): a toilet that i wasnt afraid to sit on, bath tub, hot shower, blow dryer, beautfiul huge bed, private beach and pool where we didnt have to worry about theft, pool boys who brought us fruity girly drinks, nutella crepes next to the pool, AIR CONDITIONING, no vendors hasseling me, etc etc etc. It was the most romantic weekend I have every had with another woman and I have never pampered myself so much. It was a beautiful thing and I did not want to leave at all! (check out the website for more beauty)

The only things that I had to worry about this weekend was getting rid of my tan lines (which I accomplished thank you very much) and what dessert I wanted to eat with lunch and dinner. If I would have taken the patissier's (the guy who makes all of the hotels pasteries) offer to return and stay in a room for free I could probably have had many more of these delish desserts. Unfortunately I worry about the strings attached to a request like that so I turned him down.

Stephanie and I met the beach boy when we arrived and he offered to take us to a great place for dancing that night and we accepted. But first we had to go to his home where he proceeded to show us pictures of his brother and sister who had married Tubabs (white people). Im not sure why he did this, maybe to demonstrate that he was down with that sort of thing. I wonder what he told his family before I came over. Something along the lines of "be extra nice to this one. Shes the next white person in the family and my ticket out of the country" essentially.
After meeting the fam (which was enormous by the way, there were atleast 20 people there and they werent having a family reuninon) we went dancing at this really fantastic place. Essentially it was a courtyard with a stage and a platform for the dj with lots of tables around the stage. It was outside and the weather was beautiful with a full moon. I learned a couple of new dances and generally had a lovely time (aside from trying to fight off the advances of my new beach boy friend who claimed he would die for me). Highlight of the evening was speaking French, Spanish, English, and Wolof within 5 minutes.

The best part of the night though was when we were taking a cab home. I felt as though I were in Minnesota in the middle of winter even though I couldnt have been further from it. You see, on many roads in smaller senegalese towns there is very deep sand. THe cab driver made the mistake of turning onto one of these roads which turned out to be impassable for a cab. It took 6 men 20 minutes to dig the car out of the sand because the driver had gotten himself so stuck. while I probably shouldnt have been lauging as they were working to get the car unstuck I couldnt help myself.

And then we returned to this in Dakar... I tried to get a picture of the neon green stream but I missed it.

Random thoughts: I was just at the "cobbler" ie a stand on the street which repairs shoes and just got a leather shoe repaired to the tune of 150 cfa which equals about 30 cents... At Bear Shoe Works in Souptown that wouldhave no doubt cost me 5 to 10 dollars. I should have brought all of my broken stuff here.




Im going to a conference for Senegalese women dentists this weekend and am pretty terrified actually. I think thta it will be a rather intimidating experience. The biggest thing that I regret about which I can do abslutely nothing is the fact that I havent had any dental training yet. It is very hard to work in such a specific field when i dont have a very solid base of dental knowledge. I wonder what people think when I tell them Im studying dentistry but have yet to even begin any training? OH well. Another intersting note, and something which actually kind of pissed me off. There were two prices for the conference tickets: one was 40 dollars for dentists and the other was 30 dollars for students (ie me), assistants, and other (ie me). I asked the woman whom I purchased the ticket from if I was considerred a student and she gave me this questioning look and said oh no I think its better if you pay the 40... okay, I didnt really appreciate that. I feel selfish saying this but granted while in comparison to the majority of people here I am very very wealthy, I am really not. I hate how everyone assumes thta I just have money to throw around because Im American. Yes clearly i have to have the means to actually be here but that doesnt mean that I didnt work my butt off to earn money to be here and can pay whatever sum of money necessary. Sorry I needed to vent.

My Love Hate Relationship

I dont know if Ive said this before or not but my opinion of Senegal changes on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. Last Friday for example, I had a meeting at 7:30 in the morning and after it I essentially was feeling pretty negative about Senegal and wanted to leave. But then I had another interview at 11:00 where the guy I met with was so so kind and helpful and even taught me about the very confusing Car Rapide routes. Then something very amusing happened on the Car Rapide (see icture of it at the left). It stalled in the middle of traffic. I was sitting there and wondering what would happen next. I was certain that everyone on the packed bus would have to get off and findanother one. And I also wondered if theyd refund our money and assumed that they wouldnt. But then they took two men from the bus and the apprenti (the guy who hangs off the back of the bus and yells the stops and collects riders money) pushed the bus. The thought that they might do this had crossed my mind but then I assumed it wasnt possible. But thank God for manual transmission because she started right up and we were off again. I loved Senegal again after that. Its amazing how these sort of things dont really phase me anymore. At home, cars rarely seem to stall, much less the public transportation.

And then I got home and discovered that there were ants in the peanuts that I keep in a sealed container in my room. I discovered this after i had taken a couple of handfuls... unfortunately.

Its Wade Berkseth

Its always interesting (ie annoying) when the first thingk that the cab driver asks you is "am nga jekker?) Do you have a husband? That gets real old real fast but Im getting creative with my husband stories.

I also get very tired of people commenting on how fat I am. Obvisouly I know they are joking and most of the time I play along with it bus ome days its just too much. It was especially mean when the neighbor boy aked me if I weighed 400 kilos and what did I eat to get legs that size. Gratned he's 10 years old and all little kids (regardless of nationality apparently) are mean. Apparently that means IM integrating into the community if they are comfortable enough to make fun of me. Thats good I guess. But really I personally dont thik Im that fat. Im actually losing weight here. But i mean look at the pot calling the kettle black. People here seeem to be either emaciated (sadly many due to malnutrition but not all) or really fat with especially large asses. Mine is by far NOT the biggest that Ive seen. I get tired of my mother commenting on me getting fatter when I bring bread home. I may just turn anorixic or bulemic here wiht all the ridicule (ha justkidding mom). But really Im just whining. Im not reallly taking it to heart. It just gets tiring sometimes and am just noting interesting cultural differences. heaven forbid we ever criticize someones weight to their face, its exceedingly better to do it behind their back. I also found out the real meaning behind the term "jaay fondee" what all the women say about my butt. there are women who sell something called fondee and jaay means to sell. apparently this is stuff which women eat when they want a larger but (go figure) and there is a popular song about it. I would love to see this music video! (music videos here are another story all together)

Also got a new American housemate, also named Kristi and who just happens to be the former "Miss Virginia" and a copule of other pageant titles. She is very sweet and down to earth and its lovely having another anglophone next to me!

Research = blah. A guey that I met with today told me that I didnt have authoriwationto be researching in Senegal... and then I thought to myself hes right I dont have authorization (only from my university but nothing from the government which none ofus were aware we needed). But that got me thinking about what the f@@@ am I doing. Its just sometimes I feel so incompetent etc etc and incapbale of doing what I want to do here. My friend David and I were commiserating about the fact that generally wehave absolutely no idea what we are doing. But I guess in the end we manage, and we have tos tart somewhere :) What a lovely learning experience. they dont get much better!

But also on a positive note: was feeling confident in my transportation abilities after successfully navigating myself through 3 car rapide rides (which have terribly complicated routes) and negotiating a taxi in Wolof :)

In other happenings, went tot he beach yesterday with Miss Virginia

It rained today (2nd time this year woo hoo). Its the start of the rainy season and there was a veritable flood in front of my house. Will take a pic next time.

And I got my hair braided. All I can think of sometimes is its wade berkseth with long hair. Love you Wadie!

Joyeux Fete de 4 de Juillet

Oh hello all, I wish I was home to enjoy all of the 4th of july patriotism. Naw actually the patriotism makes me nautious but I really do get a kick out the fireworks and the warm fuzzy feeling that I get from the holiday and being with friends and family :) Im sure Ill find some lovely way to celebrate here. Call me and tell me how much fun youre having!

Anywho here is a continuation of my trip to Linguere. I will keep it rather brief because it was rather uneventfuly. Esssentially I met with two dentists from the area and interviewed them and arranged to tour their dental clinics. I also determined that I want to spend as little time in linguere as possible because it is desolate and hottt. There are two paved roads in a town of 15000 if that gives you any idea of the situation. actually the heat didnt bother me that much because I was in the house all day every day. But it is so hot there that you dont even get refreshment from a shower because the "cold water" is hot when it comes out of the tap. I dont think that there is one place in the whole town that has ac so one has to be content with fans. LUckily it gets cool at night. But I also figured out where I will sample my population and where i will live while Im there so thats wonderful. For food and lodging with a family it costs 25000 cfa (50 dollars) per month as compared to here in Dakar where it costs 25000 cfa for a week! nuts huh! They are both ridiculously cheap though!

One of the highlights of the trip was going to the Lutheran/Catholic church (im not quite clear on what it actually was). It was interesting because the space in which it was held was essentially the front corridor of this tiny building. There were about 6 two person benches on each side of an aisle and a few chairs. The space was about 8 feet by 30 feet. All together there were about 25 people there and they didnt even have a pastor. But they were still there worshipping God (and doing it very well i must say). Their choir which consisted of about 10 teenagers was really excellent and they sang some really amazing African praise songs in Wolof. Cool stuff.

Thats all I really want to say about Linguere. I have a couple comments about people here. It is very very very hard to read people here and I find myself often getting frustrated. It is hard to know peoples intentions. I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are tlaking to me for the pleasure of talking to me but unfortunately i have found out that (in my experience) 75 percent of the people always want something from you and I find that to be very disheartening. I have had and heard of many experiences already of developing different sorts of relationships with people only for them to eventually bring up the topic of what the American can do for them. For example, the all wolof speaking ladies that I attempt to converse with. After a few days of chatting with them, a few of them have started asking me for money and unfortunately this completely disappoints me adn almost makes me not want to interact with them anymore because it puts me in an uncomfortable situation. I dont know if this is selfish of me to say or what because clearly I am far better off than so many people here but I just wish i wasnt a dollar sign to so many people.

Another example is my friend here from Texas who went out with a guy last night. He is a friend of her host familys so she assumed it would be ok. Her number one mistake, in my opinion, is the fact that she drank a lot of alcohol when she was out wiht him. At one point, she was going tot he bathroom and was going to take her purse, and he said oh dont worry you can leave it with me, itll be fine. and of course she had no reason to believe anything bad would come of it (once again trying to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that not everyone is out there to screw you or rip you off or steal from you). In the end he ended up taking money from her purse and then when she couldnt pay for the alcohol he told her it cost like 100 dollars but paid for it. He then proceeded to ask if they could use her credit card for the cover into some sort of music event which ended up costing 100! How was she to know? She assumed that because he was a friend of the familys and that he was an educated/intellectual person that he could be trusted.

I find this to be really scary. At home, we have agood feeling usually about who strikes us as creepy because of our ability to read body language, what people say, how theyd ress, etc. But here because everything is so foreign it is almost impossible at points to read people.

Thus I have found my attitude changing (not necessarily to the negative side) about people. I am just becoming more and more wary of everyone (not that i wasnt before) and I dont like having to feel that way but I think it is necessary to protecting yourself. Its a crappy way to have to live but, constantly being on your guard, but it is necessary to look out for #1.

But this isnt everyone by any means. There are many redeeming relationships. I am starting to like my family more and more and have a really good time with my neighbors. And Im getting a new housemate tomorrow. Another American willl be moving into the room next to me! Its rather exciting!