WUMM: the origins

This is the first in a series of my village stories, to be written over the next couple of hours, days, weeks, months, whenever I feel like it actually. I realize that I am now almost exactly one month out from my departure from Senegal, but it still beats through my veins. My life in America is constantly interrupted by thoughts of my life in Senegal, wondering what I would be doing if I were still there, what my friends are doing, or what my families are doing. And so I'm going to keep the stories alive, mostly for my own sake, but you are more than welcome to enjoy them as well.

This is my way of not forgetting.

The title of this series is "What's up? many much..."? and it in itself is quite the story. Before I can tell you that, I have to tell you some things about my village host family. So far you know that I lived with a lot of people, and at the time of that post, that's all I knew as well. Throughout the following days and weeks, I learned a bit more about my family.

I can safely say that my host family in Mbam is not your traditional family, not even in a Western sense. For one thing, my mom was never married and never had kids. This is like UNHEARD of in Senegalese society (there it's the traditional grow-up-get-married-pop-out-kids-raise-them-to-take-care-of-you-in-your-old-age life cycle). So someone, especially a woman, who doesn't get married is for sure working against the grain. I never found out exactly why she never got married, but my theory is that she's just way too free-spirited and independent for ANY man to marry. Bineta Basse would not fit well into the Senegalese wife box. That's not to say that she doesn't do all the things married women do...Bineta was, as I mentioned before, the matriarch of my compound. Anything to be done as far as taking care of the household had to be approved by her first. Now, Bineta has like 20+ siblings (her dad had 3 wives, go figure) that are scattered all over the world. One of her brothers (who lives in Dakar) has a wife who lives in Mbam, in my house. Her name is Mamy Sarr, and is 6 months pregnant with her first child, who will be named after me should it be a girl. Yeah. I was a little overwhelmed with that announcement. Mamy is not much older than me, and takes care of most of the cooking for the family, as well as a lot of the household chores. Her husband has a 4-year old son, who's mother lives somewhere else, but he lives in my family. The raising of this child, Staffa (one of my many husbands), is headed by Bineta and Mamy Sarr, but supplemented by everyone else in the compound. Another nephew that lives in my family is Cheikh, whom I mentioned before. He is 22ish and goes to school in Foundiougne, so he lives with his aunt. He also is somewhat in charge of the manly chores, like getting firewood and harvesting the family's peanut fields. Those are all the people that I know for sure how they are related to my host mom.

Other than that, there is Fatmag, an old man who eats and sleeps in my compound, but I otherwise have NO idea how he's related. He's just sort of there. He doesn't really talk much either. But you know, whatever. Then there's Pape, Marie-Noelle, Badara, Jean, Joe, Pauline, Racki, and Assan, who range in age from 12 to 20ish. They are generally from neighboring villages, but go to school in Mbam, so they live with my host mom during the school year. I don't know if they're actually blood related, but what does that really matter in the end. They get a roof over their heads and food to eat, and in exchange, they help with the daily chores. So really, my family is just like a bunch of people that live together, but aren't necessarily related by blood. But that didn't matter. They acted more like a family than lots of real families. They acted more like a family than my Dakar family, who are all blood related. These people live life together, they work together, study together, eat together, celebrate together, suffer through life together. The sense of community is one of the strongest I've seen in my life, and I really miss it.

Anyway, so it was inevitable for me to spend a lot of time with everyone, considering the all-the-time togetherness. During afternoons of hanging out or whatever, we would joke around in all the different languages we know. Now, all these kids in school, are learning English. So this of course meant that I was a good practice subject for them. At some point, I started greeting them in English by saying "What's up?". That of course got many confused facial expressions, until I explained what it meant and that the proper response is "not much". Now I am well aware that this is not the ONLY response, but it is the most common and easiest to explain. From then on we got into the habit of greeting each other with this exchange, although their responses ended up being pronounced "no much" more than anything else. One day, my boys and I were riding the horse and cart to a neighboring village and they wanted me to quiz everyone. So going around the circle, we practiced "what's up, not much" several times. When I got to Cheikh (who knows more English than the others), he responded "many much". To me, the "what's up, not much" exchange is as normal and concrete as "nanga def, mangii fi" to a Senegalese. It had never really occurred to me to respond with anything that would imply things were actually going on in my life, so when Cheikh answered "many much" I was caught off my guard. My initial and uncontrollable response was to laugh and laugh I did. This was met with several inquisitive expressions, because the others didn't know what he had said, and Cheikh didn't understand why I was laughing. All grammar rules aside, to him it was a very logical answer. If you could respond that there wasn't much going on, why couldn't you say lots of much?

After realizing that it did indeed make logical sense, once again all grammar aside, we explained to the others what it meant, and enjoyed the rest of the ride. From there on out, all of my boys would greet me by saying "what's up Amy?" instead of the normal sereer "nafiyo?". It became our little tradition. With Cheikh, it opened the door to practice english on a daily basis. While sitting around waiting for dinner, we would go through the following script: "What's up?" "Many much." "Like what?" and then tell each other about our days in english. It ended up being a really good bonding experience, being able to share language and get to know each other at the same time. I think that a lot of times, we have a tendency to just go through the motions of greeting each other without actually intending to find out how someone's day actually was. Why else do we always answer "fine" to "how are you?" and "not much" to "what's up? and "maangi fi" to "nanga def?". In America and Senegal alike, we have a tendency to just ask out of a need to be polite or keep up a tradition, not out of a sheer care for the person to whom we are speaking. Why should we always say "not much", when there really is "many much"?

I miss my boys terribly, and can't wait for the day when I can go back to see them, ask "what's up" and find out the "many much" that's been going on in their lives.

hello america

So it's been a couple of crazy days.

Three days ago, I was in Africa, in short sleeves, enjoying the sunshine. Now, I'm in Wisconsin, wearing long underwear, two pairs of socks (one pair that goes up to my knees), jeans, a t shirt, a thick longsleeved shirt, and a humongous sweatshirt, hibernating under a down comforter and quilt. Why does America have to be soooooo cold?!

Anyway, I am home safe and sound. The trip went smoothly, despite the fever that decided to plague my body starting 12 hours before departure. Also despite the fact I kept on trying to speak french to the stewardesses/stewards and airport employees. I would automatically start a sentence in french and the cut myself off to switch to english. It was heartbreaking to say goodbye to all of my fellow MSIDers, but we all left each other on good terms, excited to see our families again. I arrived at Chicago O'hare, precisely 22 hours after leaving my house in Dakar, and was welcomed by my parents. After driving back to Madison, I had been traveling for over 24 hours. The days since then have been spent thinking about unpacking, sort of unpacking, hibernating, eating well missed food, more hibernating, talking to many friends and family members, more hibernating, and lots of movie watching. I did go outside today, for the first time since arriving at my house, and the good news is I survived! It was some where in the negative degrees, and I had so many layers of clothes on, I could hardly move my arms.

And, my parents have been quite entertained by my presence as well. This is due to the fact that their days are now filled with exclamations from me like the following:

"Lane lines?! What are those? And there are so many traffic lights!"
"Hey dad, smell this Raisin Bran Crunch, doesn't it smell absolutely delicious?"
"It's sooooooooo cold here!"
"Have you seen the size of this spoon? Spoons in Senegal are like three times as big as this, this is so SMALL."

culture shock...what can i say?

Oh yes, the purpose of this post, besides to tell of my somewhat safe arrival, is to announce the presence of my pictures on Picasa. It might not be ALL of them yet. Picasa uploads minorly slower than I would like. But if you've waited this long, you can wait a little longer.

Since I have neither the time nor energy nor the brain power to describe every single picture, here are some general guiding tips:

-If there's a white person (that's not me), it is most likely another MSIDer
-If it is a Senegalese person, it is most likely my family member or the family member of another MSIDer
-There may be disturbing images (garbage, dead animals, you know, that sort of stuff)
-They are divided into albums, based on location.
-I think that's all, but pictures that require explanation will indeed have a caption

Alright, now that you know everything that you need to know, find the link to the left of where you are looking right now that says "my pictures". BEN NIAR NIET ACHAA! (translation: one two three go!)

national kill a sheep or two day

Before launching into fantastic Mbam stories, there is one minor detail of my trip from Mbam that I left out. And that would be the word sheep. For those of you who are saavy of Islamic holidays, you are well aware of Eid, or as we call it in Senegal, Tabaski. This holiday comes around annually, exactly two months after the end of Ramadan. It's a day of pardoning and forgiveness and so on, and is based on a story of Abraham. Back in the day, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, like Old Testament sacrifice animal fashion (the son was either Isaac or Ishmael, it's up for debate depending on if you believe the Bible or the Koran). Abraham was like "Um...ok..." and promptly took his child up a mountain and prepared to do the unfortunate deed. Waiting for the opportune moment, of Abraham raising his knife to strike, God spoke up and said "Hold on, wait a minute, just kidding, take this ram and sacrifice it instead." And so was the happy ending, the son got to live, Abraham got blessed, and God had a faithful servant. To this day, Muslims sacrifice animals in honor of that event and to show their devotion to Allah. As it was explained to me by a Muslim friend, if Abraham had actually sacrificed his eldest son, then all Muslims would have to sacrifice their eldest sons on that day. That not being the case, here in Senegal, they sacrifice sheep. Rams, to be exact. According to Islamic tradition, if you can afford it, each father or head of household must kill a ram on Tabaski.

That means there are A LOT of sheep around this time of year.

Tabaski fell on a Tuesday this year, right after my return to Dakar. In fact, my bus ride from Mbam to Dakar was not just enjoyed by me and the other Senegalese people, but by about ten sheep that rode on the top. Yep, I spent the day seeing sheep being shoved up and dropped off of the bus. I also had to wait until the sheep were taken care of before acquiring my suitcase at the end of the trip. Not only this, but along the road, I saw many sheep being transported on top of taxis, in the back seats of taxis, in the trunks of taxis, in the backs of pick up trucks, on top of Car Rapides, and so on. Like I said. A LOT of sheep. Sheep could be spotted in front of houses and on balconies up and down my street. Medians of large roads became homes of hundreds upon hundreds of sheep, stretching for blocks and blocks. It was like the city had turned into a sheep farm.

Now, my family is catholic, right? So I was spared the honor of seeing a sheep get it's throat slit (after seeing two cows, four ducks, and several chickens get slaughtered, I wasn't extremely inclined to jump on the opportunity to see a sheep as well). But that didn't mean I was spared seeing a lot of sheep body parts that day. I guess, as tradition would have it, Tabaski is all about sharing too. All day, there was a steady stream of raw meat through my front door. As sheep got cut up around the neighborhood, bags of their flesh were being passed around and shared from neighbor to neighbor. So much so, that our chest freezer started out essentially empty and by the evening hours, was filled to the brim with bags of sheep meat. My fourteen year old host brother got his hands on a sheep leg and spent the afternoon running around pestering me and my sisters with it. (the leg then spent the next day or so on the dining room table)

In the end, Tabaski sheep is quite delicious. I should know, because we spent the rest of the week eating it daily.

ba beneen yoon, inchallah

Dearest readers, I must make a confession.

I have been back in Dakar, with daily internet access for about 6 days now, and yet, there have been no posts from me. For that I am most deeply sorry. My week has been a whirlwind of activity, most prominently including a 20 page internship report that had to be written and turned in before my departure. The good news is that I have finished, and it's not too shabby if I do say so myself. So let me bring you up to speed on what's been going on in my life for the last six days or so.

Last Saturday (december 6), I left my village life in Mbam. It may possibly have been one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I can tell you right now, sparing the details for future posts, that those six weeks were by far my favorite part of the semester. It was with much heartache that I left my family and friends there, to head back to Dakar. They put me on a bus, heading straight for Dakar, at 6 a.m. I was, of course, the only Toubab, in this 1980s Greyhound quality bus. Having not slept a wink the previous night, and my heart overflowing with emotions, I fought back the tears so as not to draw even more attention to myself besides my white skin. The bus promptly headed for Foundiougne, where we waited for the next hour and a half for the ferry to depart and drop us off on the other side. The trip that ensued was long and arduous. Here in Senegal, cross country buses function very similarly to city buses. By the time we left Foundiougne, it was so packed that there were a significant number of people left standing. The next 7 hours were punctured with stops in every single village along the way, to drop people off or pick people up. I tried to stay inconspicuously in my corner, hood of my sweatshirt pulled over my head, and headphones in my ears. I was in no mood to see the looks of curiosity and amusement of seeing a Toubab on the bus, let alone be drawn into conversation with anyone. We finally pulled into the final stop in Dakar, the place where I would be descending. In the end, it took me maybe fifteen minutes to actually get out of my seat. This was because of all of the eager return passengers trying to obtain the best seats. Gridlock ensued, and I had to fight my way over seats and Senegalese until I finally breathed fresh air. Well, maybe not fresh air, I was in Dakar, not the country, but fresher air than I had been breathing for the previous 8 hours. My host mom in Mbam had clued me in to how much I should be paying for a taxi to get back to my house (taxi drivers are notorious for trying to rip off Toubabs), and after several failed attempts, I was more than frustrated. Here I was stranded in Dakar with a huge suitcase, trying and failing to find a way home. What a welcome back party, "Welcome back to Dakar, here's a huge crowd of screaming Senegalese people numbering the population of your village and we'll even throw in some crabby taxi drivers for your entertainmentThis was because of all of the eager return passengers trying to obtain the best seats. Gridlock ensued, and I had to fight my way over seats and Senegalese until I finally breathed fresh air. Well, maybe not fresh air, I was in Dakar, not the country, but fresher air than I had been breathing for the previous 8 hours. My host mom in Mbam had clued me in to how much I should be paying for a taxi to get back to my house (taxi drivers are notorious for trying to rip off Toubabs), and after several failed attempts, I was more than frustrated. Here I was stranded in Dakar with a huge suitcase, trying and failing to find a way home. What a welcome back party, "Welcome back to Dakar, here's a huge crowd of screaming Senegalese people numbering the population of your village for you to get lost in and we'll even throw in some crabby taxi drivers for your entertainment!" Goodness gracious me, after no sleep, no breakfast, a long bus ride, and no way home, I was not a very good person to be around. Finally, this random guy came up to me and asked if I needed a taxi. I must have looked pretty helpless, because the next thing I know, he's telling me that he's going to find me a taxi. Now, after living in Dakar for any amount of time, one learns to be extremely cautious of random men you meet on the street. At this point, he was trying to do something nice for me, not just creep me out, so I let him do his thing to find me a taxi. While he was flagging down taxis and explaining to me that it was hard to find one for a decent price because I was white, these thoughts were going through my head: "Is this guy a creeper? Or is he, like, genuinely nice? Is he going to try to kidnap me? I am soooo tired...Why didn't I eat breakfast? Man, I really have to pee, I hope he finds one soon. And I really hope he's not a creeper. What am I doing? Why didn't I say no? Aye aye aye, I might die today. But that means I won't be tired anymore...." Those of you who know me well, know that I don't function very well on little to no sleep, and I have the unfortunate tendency of doing things without thinking. So here I was, sitting in the back of the taxi this random Senegalese man found for me, him sitting in the front seat chattering away with the taxi driver in Wolof. I hadn't exactly realized that he would be riding along, but then he explained that he lived in a neighborhood right next to mine, so it just made sense to share the taxi. At this point I was hoping and praying that they didn't drop me off first. Thank the Lord, we pulled up in front of his house, he hopped out, and asked if I knew how to direct the taxi to my own house. Sighing with immense relief, I said yes, and we were off. This nameless good samaritan, who ended up not being a creeper, just a guy helping a girl out, paid for the ride. I couldn't have been more shocked or thankful.

And then came the reunion with my Dakar family. Upon walking into the house, luggage in tow, I was met by a joyful mother who hugged and kissed me and welcomed me home. One thing you have to understand about the Senegalese people, is that they love to state the obvious. I don't know if it's because I'm a Toubab, or what, but everyone loves to make assertions about things that I am doing when I am doing them. For example, the string of reunions that followed my mother's were filled with the following statements: "So you just got back?" or "Oh, you're back now." (other examples include the daily "you're going to school", "you're coming home from school", "you're reading", and so on. My automatic response is the generic affirmation "yep, I am going to school", "yep, I'm coming home from school", "yep, I am indeed reading"...) Besides being slightly dampered by my *ahem* slightly under the weather mood, the homecoming was pretty ordinary. I ate lunch with my parents, telling them all about what I did in Mbam (though they only really asked what I ate there and not what I did...), and promptly went to bed. The rest of the day was an emotional roller coaster for me (not to mention the entire week...).
I had never imagined that I would become so attached to my village or my family there. I was coming to the realization that I was leaving these people for an indefinite amount of time. The entire day Saturday was spent fighting back the tears, and feeling homesick for Mbam. In being reunited with my Dakar family, I realized that I had been more of a part of my family in Mbam, whereas here, though loved to an extent, I am more like a tenant. I sleep there, I eat there, but the attachment isn't as deep. All I wanted was to be in Mbam, helping my host aunt cook, or waving to people from my horse and cart, or watching "Au coeur du pêché" with my family. After my very much needed siesta, I couldn't stand being in the house anymore. I didn't want to be around my family and show them that I liked my village better. So I went out with a friend to get ice cream (quite the treat), and we spent hours catching up and telling each other stories from each of our villages. She was going through the same emotional stress as I was, and so we were well equiped to comfort each other. It's hard to describe, but I was definitely going through reverse culture shock, village to city style. Paved roads, cars, crowds of people, stalkers, showers, talibés, all of it was so unknown to me, after not having it all for 6 weeks. It was an overwhelming experience. At that point, I was just ready to be home in America, in my own bed, with my own dog.

All week, I've honestly had the feelings that I either want to be in Mbam or in America. Dakar is not a very nice place, all the time. I enjoyed it at the beginning, but now I realize that it's a really hard place to live as a Toubab. People harrass you, the streets are nasty dirty, there's lots of noise, and I don't know, it's just not that great anymore. But I will be home soon enough. In 36 hours time, I will be sitting in the Dakar International Airport, waiting for the departure of my flight. In 48 hours time, I will be on American soil once more. It's a surreal feeling right now, almost as surreal as when I first left for Africa. It's hard to believe that my three and a half months are up and that I'll be coming home again.

Don't worry, that doesn't mean the end of the blog...I have a lot of catching up to do. Some of my best stories and experiences happened in my village, but unfortunately you did not get to hear of them because of my lack of internet access. And so, I would like to announce a series of blogs that will be released over the next couple of weeks. The tite of the series is "What's up? Many much...", and will include many of the stories from Mbam (possibly some from Dakar) that you have missed over the last 6 or so weeks. And upon my arrival to the States, you can keep your eyes open for my pictures to be posted as well...

good morning class?

Once again I have to make this quick because time is surely ticking away on my internet time.

This week I jumped into the deep end. For real. Being an Environmental Education major, I really wanted to do something relevant to education for my internship. And this was my chance. Two days ago, you would have found me standing in front of a class of 60 + students teaching about mangroves. That's right, I can now say that I have taught a science class in french in a school in the boonies of Senegal. What an experience!

I had met with the school director a couple weeks before, who is not a very talkative nor expressive man, and he had basically told me that if I wanted to do something in the school I should go for it. No guidelines, no suggestions, no nothing. So I decided to write a lesson plan on mangroves (a very very important ecosystem here). And then I found myself in front of a class of students, probably equivalent to 5th and 6th graders. I was ridiculously nervous, but had the assistance of the teacher and my ecoguide buddy Djien. It was so much fun! We facilitated for about an hour and a half, and it went really really great. After the initial uneasiness of me being a toubab and stranger, the kids got really involved and I could see the wheels turning in their heads when we asked a difficult question. Oh man it was awesome.

Well the count down is down to three weeks before my return to the States! I am just about ready to come home, though I know it's going to be a bittersweet departure from here. My family is already talking about how much I'm going to be missed here...

Well I send all my love to all you readers! Know that you are missed and appreciated for reading this!

super duper duper duper quick update

I really don't have time at all to be writing this....It's Sunday and I went to Mass at the church in Foundiougne with one of my friends, and begged to goodness to stop at the cyber cafe. But she has to get back to cook lunch so yeah. I'm doing fine, and thank you for all your comments, emails, and facebook messages! I am dreadfully sorry that I can't reply individually at this time, but some day, some day I will. Here's the latest update:

Nothing makes the boobs bounce more, the buns bruise more, or the bladder burst more than a ride on a horse and cart. I love it! (oh and I learned how to drive it!)


Thank you and good night.

Miss everyone tons and tons and love you all lots!

holy bucket showers batman

"What the heck am I doing!?"

This is often the question I wake up with in my head these days. The reason being that I am currently residing in an Senegalese village in the boondocks of Africa. But the question is generally asked out of sheer joy and excitement, because I am having the time of my life. I am going to give a very short and sweet synopsis here, lest the internet crap out or my time in the cyber cafe run short. So here we go...

As I said before, I have left my abode in Dakar and taken up residence in Mbam, a village in the middle of the Saloum Delta just north of the Gambia. Don't bother looking on a map, because as far as I can tell, my village is uncharted. You can, however, look for Foudiougne and I am 3 km south. I don't know how many inhabitants there are, and though sizeable, I have to go to Foudiougne for things like internet and big bottles of water. And that is where I am typing right now.

To tell you a little about my new family would take pages and pages, but I'll do my best to give a little census, though don't expect much detail...

My host mom is named Binta and she is also my supervisor for my internship. She isn't married and has no children, but is the matriarch of the little compound in which I live. My room is in a house, and out the back door is an open area with four little huts. In these huts live several other people, though I'm not sure exactly how they're all related to me yet. Here is the rundown: Cheikh, Momo, Mami, Jean, Joe, Marie, Pinda, Stafa, Mbagnick, Assan, Pape, Baffa, Mama, Alioune, Awa, Sadio, and Racki. Woah that was a mouthful, and I sure do hope I'm not forgetting anyone (Cheikh is sitting next to me helping me out with all the names...he and Momo are Binta's nephews and age somewhere in the mid twenties). Oh yeah, and then there's the donkey, the horse, the three dogs, the cat, and the goats and chickens that come to visit every now and then. When I first arrived, I was bombarded with all the names and it took me until yesterday to figure out and finally remember who everyone is, they have it easy; there's only one of me...

I may as well announce it now; I have recently gotten married. Twice. Within the first hour of being in Mbam, I was introduced to Stafa (full name Moustapha) and informed that he would soon become my husband. Don't worry Dad, he's only four years old, so you're not really in danger of losing me yet. Stafa only speaks Wolof and Sereer (one of which I have limited comprehesion of and the other none whatsoever), so communication is our own little language and lots of laughing. My other husband is little Mbagnick. He was born in July, and is absolutely adorable! Seeing as he doesn't speak at all, it's pretty easy to communicate.

In general, life here is peaceful and slow, but I'm starting to really enjoy the chill atmosphere. It is an interesting atmosphere in which to work, because things aren't done fast at all. By my second day of interning at the Zoo, I was already involved with classes and running back and forth doing lots of things. By my second day of interning here, I had had a discussion sort of about what I maybe want to do here. I still don't know exactly what I'm going to be doing, but since I'm interested in education, I'll probably be doing something in the schools here and other villages. I guess we'll have to see. I haven't been completely idle, though, which is good, because I would probably go insane if I were. I have been touring the village with Diene, an ecoguide who works with my organization. He's been showing me around, telling me about how things work around here, and introducing me to lots of people. In general my days look like this: I get up, bucket shower it up, eat, head out with Diene to go somewhere in the village, go back for lunch, take a power nap, have ataaya, hang out with the fam until dinner time, hang out some more, and then go to bed. And then repeat.

Yesterday was really interesting because I got to go around meeting different villagers and asking questions about life here in the village. This was a part of my tour; to learn more about social life here. It was so cool, and has actually turned into something of an informal research project for me. If any of you know me, you know that I am somewhat of a socialite :) and so this was my chance to be social with the Senegalese of my village. I asked a lot of questions, the answers of which I would like to be able to compare to American answers... So if you don't mind, I would like to ask you to participate in a little survey. I'll post the questions on the next post, and if you want to email your answers, that would be utterly fantastic. Someday, I will write up all of my findings, so that you can all know how your answers compare to those given here.

This is all I have time to write for now...But hopefully I will have more time to write next week to give more details.

Just know that I am healthy and enjoying myself tremendously. Alhamdoullilah.

watch out village, here comes amy (part 4)

That night, I hardly slept at all. By the time we got back, it was pushing midnight, and we all looked like zombies after the long day. To bed! Yeah, well, I ended up just lying on my bed trying to sleep with no success whatsoever. It was so hot and sticky there that me and Christine and Catherine definitely slept in our underwear, and whether it was the heat or not, come morning I had slept maybe 3 or 4 broken hours. Not cool. I do not function well without my doctor recommended 7-8 hours of shut-eye. Breakfast was the same deliciousness again, and after being appropriately nourished, we were off. That day started with a visit to the local government officials (the traditional thing to do when visiting a Senegalese village is to present oneself to the local authority, seeing as we had arrived on a Saturday, we couldn't do this until Monday). Then the bus again. We were split up into four different groups, and dropped off in four different villages to talk to the locals about stuff.



Each group of toubabs had a group of Senegalese translators, and we were to be meeting groups of women who have started different kinds of work groups. I was in the first group to be dropped off, and we had quite the warm welcome. Honestly, we really had no idea what to expect or what exactly we were doing. We had had a little bit of instruction from Waly, but other than that we were in the deep end. Our task was to find out more about these working groups of women, and it actually turned out to be really interesting. Our village had three groups of women, who all worked together to harvest and sell agricultural products. It was a little bit of a language fiasco, because our translators would speak to them in Wolof, then to us in french with a little Wolof/English mixed in, and then we would talk to each other in English. A couple of times I had minor exchanges in Wolof with the women, but it never went beyond "how are you? good..." To make matters worse, I was in a ridiculously goofy mood because of my lack of sleep, so there was lots of random comments and giggles on my part, all of which were probably lost in translation. It was very successful though, and when the bus came to pick us up we were still deep in discussion. It was way intense to hear about all the problems they have even though they work super hard. Problems with irrigation, transportation, money, etc. It was a little disheartening, because with the right amount of help they could be fine, but where's the help going to come from? And this village is the same as thousands more across the country and continent, hard working people that are struggling to survive because they simply don't have the means to be efficient. For example, even if they do have a really good harvest of onions, they might not be able to sell them right away because no one can come to buy them and so the onions go bad because they don't have a good means of keeping them and then they can't sell them at all. These are the issues that we are being faced with in this program, and it is so extremely though provoking.

We take so many things for granted in "developped" countries, that being here in Senegal, where simple things like electricity and safe drinking water aren't guaranteed, is just mind blowing. It's been pretty rough on my intellect because I want to be able to solve all the problems here, I just don't know how to do it. Especially since as a toubab, I'm an outsider. I have no right in the world to come here and say "this is your problem, and this is how you need to fix it". Ugh, these are things that clog my brain pipes on a daily basis.

The rest of the day didn't really hold much of consequence, and that night we had a soirée with all of our Toubacouta buddies. The next day we gave presentations about our visit to the local mayor type guy, and then got on the bus to head home. It was a sad departure, because we had to leave our friends that we had gotten to know during the previous four days, and it was such a good vacation from life in Dakar. But life must continue, and so it has. The ride home was just as long and bumpy, though filled with games of Mafia and stories of life in America.

Since then, we have finished up the class portion of the semester, and will soon be moving on to the internship phase. That means that in three days I will be moving away from Dakar, away from my family, and away from all my toubab friends. It will be very sad, but I am excited to experience village life. By the way, this blog might be experiencing desertification much like Senegal is, a vast sprawl void of posts. I highly doubt that I will have internet access in my village, though I will be close to a larger village that might. So if there are going to be any posts they will be very few and even farther between.

So long, for now.

Ba benoon yoon.

watch out village, here comes amy (part 3)

Our senegalese friends returned to eat with us, and then we were herded onto the bus (again). But this bus trip had a little bit of a twist. Our group had been sufficiently doubled by this point, but that was no deterrent for travelling arrangements. Next thing we knew we were crammed onto the bus with 15 toubabs and 20 some senegalese. *note* I counted the seats, and there should have only been 25 people on that bus...At least this time we had some idea where we were going and what we would be doing, thanks to a pre-departure schedule. This day was Mangrove Day! Now, for those of you who are not mangrove-saavy, let me enlighten: Mangroves are the only kind of tree in the whole entire world that survives on salt water. Their roots stand half in water, half out, and weave in and out of each other like a bunch of very tangled up octopi (octopuses?). If you look at a mangrove forest from a distance, you can see two distinct bands of color; the lighter grayish brown of the roots and a vibrant green of the leaves. Their forests must be traversed by boat because they live in water, and these mangrove forests along the coast are a popular tourist destination. It's also pretty amazing because the roots are home to entire ecosystems--tons of marine animals make their homes in the shelter of the mangrove roots. In other words, some important ecosystems would be pretty screwed if mangroves didn't exist.





Now, this was the first time in my life that I had ever ever ever seen a mangrove in real life. Oh man. It was a fantastic first meeting. They are so cool! Ok, enough with me rambling about mangroves, goodness knows everyone here is sick of hearing me go on and on. Our task today was to help a mangrove reforestation project. This is my kind of field trip. After arriving at this dock in this other village, we were given less than adequate life jackets (even though mine had a broken zipper and was too big, the safety whistle gave me some semblance of comfort), and prodded onto two boats. And then we were off, cruising around the mangrove forest. It took no time at all for there to be an explosion of dance and song. Apparently it's the way the Senegalese roll: to spend an afternoon speeding around the mangroves, with a bunch of toubabs, singing at the top of one's lungs and dance in the precariously balanced boats. It was amazingly fun, and much to our own disappointment, the Americans had less success in thinking up songs to sing. But most of us were happy to join in and try to pick up the words and melodies. Empty bottles were turned into drums and competition started to see which boat could sing the loudest and dance the most.



As entertaining as this was, we were on a mission, and we arrived safely (no one fell overboard thank goodness, although with the heat that day, it might not have been to bad to fall in...) on a mangrove island thing. Our first task was to collect propagules, translation: baby mangrove pods. The propagules grow off the end of the branches of the adults and then fall, grow roots, and plant themselves to grow up to be a big mangrove some day. We were collecting them to take to another area of the forest to replant. This part of the process took less than an hour or so, and was pretty easy after learning what makes a good quality propagule (no roots, green leaf, no black, got it). Then we returned with our rice bag full of propagules (yes, singing and dancing all the way), and took a bit of a break to talk to a guy who works for the local fisheries and wildlife department (ok, it's not really the fisheries and wildlife department, but that's the easiest and most efficient way to describe it). Then it was lunch and hearing from a National Park Ranger. And what do you know, time to get on the bus again. This time off to plant the propagules! The bus dropped us off in the middle of a field somewhere outside of town, and we were to walk a ways to our final destination. About five minutes into the walk, Josephine got a call from the bus driver, informing us that the bus had gotten stuck on the way less than adequate road. It had been trying to return the cook back to base camp, and had failed miserably. So they sent most of the boys (and the few girls who wanted to) to go push the bus out. The rest of us continued on our trek, and after waiting and waiting and waiting for the others to come back to us, decided to just go ahead and start planting. Once the bus was free, the others could come and join in. Yeah, well they never showed up.



The planting process to follow, I will never ever forget. We climbed through tall grass and some trees, down a little hill, across a stream, and found ourselves in an open area of sand. The fields from whence we came behind us, and rows and rows of mangroves ahead. It did look very much like your average beach, but the sand was basically saturated. My feet were crying to be freed from the constraint of my shoes, so shoes in hand, I walked across the sand barefoot. It was necessary to keep an eye out for where you stepped, because this beach is home to thousands of crabs who spend their days scuttling about and burrowing in little holes. They ranged in size from those that could suffice as a good dinner to ones smaller than a dime. *side note* by this point in the day, we were running dangerously low on bottled water, and were starting to get really really thirsty *end side note*. Dodging crabs would be the least of our problems though. This guy who runs the reforestation program gave us a little tutorial of what our task would be: he would put out a rope with marks every meter for us to know where to stick the propagules into the mud. And that's it. Easy enough, right? Hahahaha right...We were going to be venturing into the area where the water was actually water and not just wet sand, but this is also where the wet sand changes to mud. Slippery mud. Squishy mud. Mud like I had never seen the likes of before. Even with the first few baby steps, we were sliding around. Here we were, mostly girls, in bare feet, about to walk out into a mangrove forest, propagules in hand. The next few moments were pierced with squeals and screams, as one by one we sank into the mud. Each step was a step into the unknown. Would my foot be supported? Or would I be in the mud knee deep? This type of terrain is not condusive to keeping good balance. Oh my goodness, the next hour or so was spent sticking baby mangroves in the mud and trying for the life of me to not fall completely in. At one point, I did find myself thigh deep in mud. That put me about eye level with my friend Dorothy, who I promptly told that I now knew how it felt to be short like her. (She didn't appreciate the comment very much, but hey, I'm the tallest girl in the group, I can't help it...) This activity was SO fun, we all had a blast. By the end we were all covered in mud, and utterly exhausted because it was definitely a workout (of the extreme elliptical kind).



We still hadn't heard much from the others, except that they had yet to succeed in rescuing the bus. But by the time we got back to them, they had just freed it. All it took was our group of fifteen+ tall and strong boys, half the local village, and some guys from the local gas station. Yep.



The bus drove down the "road", while we walked to meet it on the pavement on the other side of the village. There we were met by Maman Honorine, Professor Sene, and a cooler full of COLD bottles of water. I don't know that I have ever been thirstier in my life or more excited to see water. Between me and Paulina, we downed a 1.5 liter bottle in less than five minutes. Exhausted, muddy, and minorly sunburned, we piled back on the bus to be returned back to the auberge. Now it was our turn to sing. However it started, I have no idea, but soon a whole lot of toubabs were singing disney songs at the top of their lungs. I'm pretty sure the Senegalese had no idea what to do with us.



Back at the auberge, we showered and changed and rested up as well as we could before the events of the night. After dinner, we were taken away to enjoy some more local entertainment. No dancing tonight, no, instead we were given the honor of attending a traditional bout of African wrestling. Apparently we were the guests of honor because when we arrived at the makeshift wrestling ring in a village a couple of miles away, we were pointed to chairs that lined the front row. Oh man. We sat down and waited for it to start. Even though I had liberally applied my precious DEET to protect me from menacing mosquitos, I still spent the entire time fighting off the dreaded black beetles and earwigs. I have never had so many bugs down my shirt or up my pants. How they managed to get up my jeans, I will never know, but it was definitely NOT comfortable. After a while the festivities began, and we had the unique opportunity of seeing men, wearing the Senegalese version of booty shorts, trying to grab each other and pin their opponent to the ground. Having nothing better to do, me and Dorothy would make our picks and root for which ever color we had preference for. While this was all happening, the crowds were growing around us, and I soon found myself with a bunch of kids sitting around my feet screaming for the fighter they wanted to win. Much like the dancing spectacular, african wrestling is hard to imagine if you have never seen it yourself. And all I could think to myself at that point was "what a bizzarre day..."



Just at the point that I thought I couldn't take anymore bugs or half naked men, we were told it was time to go back for the night. That night, I hardly slept at all.



Stay tuned for the next episode, when you find out how crazy Amy really is when she doesn't sleep.

watch out village, here comes amy (part two)...

Dazed and slightly confused about the presence of these 15 odd Senegalese, we piled off the bus and stood awkwardly awaiting further instruction. Without further ado, there appeared a line of these men passing all of our luggage and other miscellaneous objects off of the roof of the bus. Okay, sweet. Then like the herd of toubab sheep that we are, and always will be, we were told to pick up our bags and as many bottles of water as we could carry, and follow them down this muddy, overgrown road path thing. Desperately hoping that we wouldn't have to go far, we walked past some little houses with little kids running out to see what was happening. In five minutes or so we were in the compound of our home for the next four days. Our auberge (a motel type thing), had a total of five bedrooms, a nice little patio and courtyard, a kitchen, and a real toilet and shower :). Our group completely overtook the place and had total privacy there. I took the opportunity, upon arrival to take a nap under a mosquito net in the ridiculous heat. Having to be shaken awake by one of my roomies Catherine, I groggily came to and stumbled out into the sunlight welcomed by many platters of amazing looking food. And it was even more amazing to eat...Maman Honorine's cooks came along for the ride/to cook for us and let me just say that I never felt hungry at all that entire trip. The only damper on the meal was that we were eating with these people that we didn't know yet, and were kind of forced into awkward small talk conversations. But hey, I am all about awkward small talk. After eating, we hung out for a while until Ataaya was served. Ataaya is the definition of the word marvelousness (thank you Jessica). To describe it simply: Tea. But not just your average tea. It is traditionally served in three rounds: Bitter like death, Sweet like life, and Sugary like love (this is roughly translated of course, and the Amy translation is this: strong and sweet, strong and sweeter, strong and sweetest). It is served in shot glasses, half tea half foam. It is so absolutely amazing, and I have enjoyed it many a time here. But this was my first time helping make it. Oh boy. So the actual like boiling of the water/adding tea/adding sugar is really easy, right? It's the foam-making part that's the issue. The technique is basically to pour tea from teapot to glass, then glass to glass, until you have foam. Seeing a Senegalese do this at full speed is awe inspiring. Seeing an American attempt to do it at a decent speed is comedy. I'm still at the point in my Ataaya skills that I end up with a tray full of spilled tea and very sticky hands. But it's worth the mess and grief to drink it.

After Ataaya, we walked to town to visit La Poste de Santé (the local health center). (This is where my friend Eva is going to be doing her internship for the rest of the semester and I am super jealous that she got to see it and her village already) We heard the director guy talk about what they do there and what it's like to take care of public health in a Senegalese village. As you can probably imagine, Malaria is a huge issue (don't worry Mom, I'm still taking my pills). But he told us about how a campaign for the usage of mosquito nets reduced the number of malaria cases tremendously. It was pretty cool. After this little visit, we walked through more of the village before returning to our Auberge.

And then came the bugs.

Our Senegalese friends left for a while to return to their appropriate abodes to shower and change, and we were left alone to do the same thing (two showers for 20 people, you bet we needed a while...). By that time it was getting dark, and most of us were just lounging around outside, playing cards and what not. I don't think I can even find the words to describe what happened next. All of a sudden these little black beetles started appearing around the courtyard. First it was just a few here and there, and then there were enough to be annoying, and then....then there were GAZILLIONS. I'm not even exaggerating. Now, these bugs can fly, so not only were they all over the ground but they were in the air too flying around the lights. It didn't take us very long to realize that they were attracted to light, so we of course turned out all of the lights. This was not before we got to witness a black beetle tornado of them all flying in circles under the light. And the ground was so covered by them in some areas that you couldn't walk with out hearing them crunch beneath your feet. Now would be the time for a gag reflex from those of you who are not so fond of these invertebrate counterparts. Luckily, for some of us, we had kept our bedroom doors shut and mosquito nets in place, so at least my room was essentially bug free. Others were not as lucky....and I remember my friend Mairéad describing it as having to "scoop thousands of bugs from our bed". Oh another characteristic of these bugs is their stench, which smelled something like weird cilantro according to my friend Jessica (be glad you weren't there, Katrina). For the rest of the stay there, we spent the evenings in the dark, no lights except when absolutely absolutely necessary so as not to attract the little stinkers.

Now for a little disclaimer, I have been in the routine of going to bed by 10 and getting up around 6. Decent schedule, right? Well apparently, that's not how things roll on MSID field trips. That night we were scheduled to enjoy a traditional dancing and drumming spectacle, which didn't get going until well after 9. It was fantastically indescribable, even pictures of the event do not do it justice. There were maybe 8 or 9 guys on drums (tamtams and djembes), along with 9 or 10 dancers (of the male and female variety). All of the performers looked like they were doing it with every fiber of their beings. Lots of arm flailing and drum hitting and body movements that I would never be able to recreate in a million years. And to top it all off a guy who eats fire...wowee acha. At the end they had all of us toubabs get up and dance the awkward dances that we dance. It ended sometime after 11, and we still hadn't eaten dinner yet because the general consensus had been that we were way too full from lunch so we wanted to save it until after the performance. So we ate (there were tomatos and cucumbers!!! p.s. I might become vegetarian when I come home just because all I'm going to want to eat are fruits and vegetables, they are so not a regular part of the diet here), and the clock struck midnight, end of the first day.

My other fieldtrip roomie, Christine, and I had cooked up a fantastic plan to beat the shower lines in the morning which we immediately put into action. It was to get up at 5, shower, and go back to sleep until breakfast. It worked amazingly, and so come 8 we were already fresh and showered and ready to start the day. Breakfast consisted of baguettes with jam/chocolate/butter/cheese (of the spreadable sort of course) and tea/hot chocolate/coffee!!! (for those of you who know me in my american life, you know how much I adore coffee...yeah well coming here to Senegal, I subjected myself to going cold turkey and now the only coffee I find is instant Nescafé. So not cool, but the price I am willing to pay for cultural experience) Considering that at my house here I only get bread with butter and tea (not coffee), this made the trip that much better. Our senegalese friends returned to eat with us, and then we were herded onto the bus...

stay tuned for part three to find out where the bus took us...

watch out village, here comes amy (part one)...

Don't worry, folks, I am still alive and well. Though lacking pretty seriously in the areas of time, internet, and electricity. But I am back and want to crank out some blog entries for you, because in a week and a half's time I will be on my way to another part of the country. As far as I know I will be entering a vast void of grass huts, sheep neighbors, and no internet. Who knows really...

To bring you up to speed a little bit, we've been taking classes all this time, and are rapidly approaching the end of the classroom phase. My weeks are spent at WARC, and weekends spent doing things like visiting markets, friends' houses, and the other normal galavanting of an American student in Africa. Two weekends ago, was the grand field trip for MSID Senegal. The whole lot of us, 17 MSIDers, one independent student researcher (yay Paulina! *side note* Paulina is a Mexican student studying at Colorado College, who has come to Senegal for a month to work on research. She stumbled upon our group on day at WARC, and has since spent almost every waking moment with us, eating, field tripping, walking, etc. I have to mention her because she has been my walking buddy every day since we discovered our close living proximity to each other... *end side note*), 4 program staff, two cooks, and one driver set off to go to Toubacouta, a village located south and minorly east of Dakar.

This story must be told in multiple parts, for the sole reason that I do not have the time nor the stamina to type it all out right now...

We were scheduled to leave at 7:00 Saturday morning, and so Friday night was spent getting ready and packing. The next morning I woke up somewhere around 6:00, to a sunless world (not even the crows were up yet! I swear everyone sleeps late here...). This was a little inconvenient, considering the electricity was out (again), and I had to finish packing and get dressed. Trying to be as quiet as possible, so as not to wake the fam, I lugged my duffle down the stairs and through the narrow hallway to the door. Now, I have learned the hard way, many times over, that the front door of my house is very finicky and won't just let anyone out when it's locked. My plan to be as quiet as I could was soon thwarted by the door, and the next thing I hear is my mom grunting sleepily through the window to see who it was. I whispered that it was Amy and that I was just leaving. Sounding a little confused, she let me off with out any of the regular "be safe and don't get mugged" lectures. As I walked down the dark street, it was a scene very reminiscent of the fleeing one in Sound of Music. You know, the one where the family is fleeing the Nazis in the dead of night, and they try to push the car down the driveway...Yeah well, it may not have been the middle of the night, and I don't think I was fleeing the Nazis, but it was a little weird to be walking down an empty street with a duffle bag and no lights. I met Paulina on our regular corner and we started walking in the right direction before finding a taxi to hail and take us the rest of the way.

Once assembled at WARC, we all piled onto one of our favorite buses as our luggage was being piled on top of the bus. The voyage that followed was one filled with lots of bumpiness, very little sleep, and lots of bizzare random occurences. We were stopped on an occasion or two to tell a police officer where the bus of toubabs (toubab=white person) was going. We passed through Kaolack, a city that looks like a garbage dump and had a man standing on the side of the road butt naked. We actually spent more time than expected in Kaolack because the road we were supposed to be going on was blocked or something, I don't really know. Actually, rarely did we know what was going on that whole weekend. We were a herd of toubab sheep being led around to do different things in different places with out being the wiser. C'est pas grave, we've sort of gotten used to it. Our bus was stopped at different points in Kaolack, and we were constantly being bombarded with kids begging for money or people wanting to sell us things. ayeayeaye. But then we were on our way again, and unfortunately, we hadn't yet learned the definition of bumpy roads. The road from Kaolack to Toubacouta was utterly indescribably. We're talking potholes the size of a Honda Civic, scattered over what used to be a paved road, so that the bus had to slow down to a turtle's pace and weave all over the place. And those of us in the back definitely got some air at some points.

The last rest stop before our final destination consisted of a rundown gas station in a village with a market that we were going to be visiting. The toilet was one of the squat pot variety, with a door that barely closed at all. For me, it was just like home sweet home, but for others in the group it was a first time experience. And after being offered a ditch as the other option, everyone turned out to be good sports, and there was a communal bottle of Purell being passed around after. We walked around the market for a couple of minutes to see all of the local products being sold. But after being harrassed by kids and women selling peanuts and men driving by on mopeds offering us rides, we were ready to get back on the bus. Finally, we were arrived in Toubacouta approximately seven hours after departure. We were met by a group of Senegalese guys, all standing along the side of the road where we pulled over just outside the village. Dazed and slightly confused about the presence of these 15 odd Senegalese, we piled off the bus and stood awkwardly awaiting further instruction....

Stay tuned for Part Two to find out who the strangers were and how we survived the Plague of Bugs.

Drum roll please...

For those of you who had conversations with me before I set off on my grand adventure, the conversations went something like this:

Me: "Hey, I'm going to Senegal"
You: "Wow! When are you going?"
Me: "I'll be gone for all of Fall Semester"
You: "Cool, what are you going to be doing there?"
Me: "Um...well, it's a study abroad program, so I'll be taking classes and at some point doing an internship."
You: "What will you be doing for your internship?"
Me: "Uhhhh....."

Okay, so now after many awkward conversations, and me not having answers to questions, I finally have the answers!

I already related some of the info about the classes we're taking and stuff, there are language classes (french and wolof), International Development, Environment, Research Methodology, etc. Okay, so now about the internship:

The last week of October, I will be moving to a village that is southeast of Dakar, just north of The Gambia. It is an "ecovillage" called Mbam, population somewhere around 1000 or so I hear. I have yet to discover what exactly and "ecovillage" is, although I have found out that it means that the village is involved in a lot of conservation programs to take care of the environment. I will be working with a grassroots organization called ASPOVERCE, which stands for *deep breath* : l’Association Populaire des Volontaires pour la Réhabilitation et la Conservation de l’Environnement. Translation: Grassroots Association of Volunteers for the Rehabilitation and Conservation of the Environment. What I will be doing for said organization has not been revealed yet, but I hear they have projects having to do with reforestion, biofuels, and other conservation topics.

So there's the answer to all of those predeparture questions that I was unable to answer. :)

Laundry adventures

Laundry detergent: 100 CFA
Bar of soap: 250 CFA
Dirty clothes: 0 CFA
Tap water: 0 CFA

Having the experience of washing clothes by hand and failing miserably: Priceless.

I have recently joined the "we do our laundry by hand" club.

And in this new club membership, I have found a deep respect and admiration for all the women and men around the world and throughout history who have every washed their clothes by hand. The following is an account of my first lesson in the ways of Senegalese laundry doing....

Seeing as I am in class every morning, I am restricted to doing my laundry at night, after I get home from school. So one evening, some ten days after I had arrived in Senegal, when most of my clothes were in desperate need of washing, I came home ready to attempt my laundry.

Having no idea what to do first, I approached my sister, Margo, saying "I'm ready, what's first?". She looked at me with a little amusment in her eyes, and got up. She left the room, and when she returned she had a bucket thing. "Clothes, first" she said. "Well duh," I thought, and took the bucket to my room and gathered all of my clothes. (Unmentionables are literally unmentionable here, so none of them were included in this washing extravaganza. If you would like to know how I wash my unmentionables, that's another story for another day) Okay, what's next? Margo asked me for 100 CFA (~$0.43 USD), and upon giving it to her, she gave it to Christoff who promptly ran across the street to a boutique to get me laundry soap. He returned with two packets of Madar, powdered detergant that is all-purpose and can be used for laundry, dish washing, or general cleaning. We lugged my clothes down the stairs to a faucet outside the bathroom, and started filling another bucket with water. "First, you seperate the lighter clothes from the darker ones," Margo said to me. Sweet, I thought, this is just like doing laundry at home!

Two buckets of water and packets of soap later, we each had a bucket of clothes and water in front of us. Oh and while all this is happening other members of the family are watching that day's entertainment of the toubab (white person) doing her laundry. Ignoring the audience, I tried to focus on the technique Margo was showing me. She had a bar of soap, and showed me how to lather the piece of clothing with it and then rub the fabric against itself to get it clean. Woah buddy, slow down a little. She did this with one of my shirts, then rung it out and put it in an empty bucket. "okay?" she asks. Ummmmm sure. As she rapidly started washing the clothes in her bucket, I clumsily tried to imitate the exact movements her hands were making. Let's just say that she finished her bucket before I finished mine, and mine had far less suds than hers. Whew, after that, we rinsed them all of their sudsiness, and squeezed out as much water as possible. Hint: the more water you squeeze out, the less there is to evaporate during the drying process.

Now with a bucket of wet and clean clothes, it was time to climb up to the third story to hang them. Trying not to think of how much my back was hurting from the washing activity, I reluctantly climbed two flights of stairs to the level where my brothers live. I had actually yet to visit this part of the house, because it's like my brothers' bachelor pad, and I just feel weird and imposing if I go up there. But the view is amazing from that high up, you can see downtown Dakar and practically the entire neighborhood. Back to laundry, Margo showed me how to shake eack piece out before putting it on the line. Thankfully she stayed to help, and in no time all of my clothes were blowing in the wind. Yay for a job well done! I immediately escaped to my room where I collapsed on my bed, thinking in disbelief about how people do this regularly.

Since that initial experience, I have washed my clothes ALL BY MYSELF! I'm pretty sure they aren't as clean as they would be if Margo helped me, and it definitely took a lot longer to do, but in the end they have been rid of their sweaty stench. I used to think that laundry day was rough because I had to lug my clothes down four flights of stairs (in the dorms) and fight for the usage of the laundry machines. But now I realize that I was a naive and ignorant soul. Never again will I complain about having to do laundry in America, not when there's a washing machine involved...

Cutting mangos in the dark

Oh my goodness, the internet and electricity are still working, so I'm taking the opportunity to post as much to this blog as I physically can before my fingers fall off...

Last week, I decided to by mangos for my family. Mangos are so delectably delicious that I eat one almost everyday and that day, I decided to share the love with my family. For those of you who weren't aware, mango is my absolutely favorite fruit in the whole entire world, and I am definitely thriving here in mango country. Anyway, there are three or fruit stands on the way to school everyday, so buying them is never a difficult task(unless the ones being offered aren't ripe). This day, I had to decide how many to buy: there are 13 other people at my house, plus whoever may be visiting...and if we say a two thirds of a mango for every person...mmm we'll go with 6. Luckily all the options were sufficiently squishy. Now, mangos are not expensive, so 1500 CFA later (~$3.40), I was on my way with a bag full of mangos. It's times like these that I wish I knew how to cart things around on my head like a true Senegalese. When I arrived home, I told my sisters that I had bought mangos for dessert, and smiled as their faces lit up.

After dinner, I went to my room and retrieved my precious mangos and brought them to the little area outside the kitchen. Not being familiar with the kitchen, seeing as I'm hardly ever allowed in there, I fumbled around to find an appropriate holding receptacle and cutting utensils. And after employing the help of my ten year old cousin Christoff, I did find them. So there we were sitting on the steps, holding mangos and knives, when what should happen? The electricity goes off. Again. Alrighty then. Well, why should a little darkness stop us? I put my mango down and went to find my cellphone and flashlight in my room. I now keep them both in convenient places because of this. (P.S. whoever designed my cellphone was a genius, because it has a built in flashlight that is ridiculously convenient in cities that don't have reliable electricity) Portable lights in hand, I returned to the steps where our mangos sat waiting to be cut. So in the meager lighting, Christoff and I started the long journey of cutting those mangos.

The mango is a unique fruit: skin thicker than an apple but thinner than an orange, a long flat and wide pit, and pulpy squishy juicy yet solid fruit. Even with the help of a knife, the task of eating a mango is never neat and clean. The first cut oozes with the sweet and sticky nectar, and proceeds to drip all over. The more involved you get the more nectar and pulp you are likely to get on your hands and under your fingernails. Each chunk cut from the skin or pit is slimey and slick, and if you aren't careful will slip right between your fingers. The lack of seeing ability was just an added challenge to make the whole game more fun. So there I was, plopped down on some stairs, next to a ten year old senegalese boy, cutting mangos in the dark, trying desperately not to drop any pieces or get mango juice on my skirt. Conversation was slim, as we were both concentrating, but everytime something got dropped or juice spilled, snickers could be heard from both of our mouths.

In the end, the fruit is the reward for all the hard work. And believe me, the sweet and tangy treat couldn't be a better reward. All of that painstaking cutting is worth it when you get to sink your teeth into the juicy morsels, overwhelming your taste buds with tangy goodness. What's more is that evening, I got the added reward of sharing the experience with my family. I'm pretty sure there is no one in this world that doesn't enjoy a good mango.

As I was sitting there in the dark, covered in sticky mangoness, I started to think about how me moving to Senegal is a lot like that experience. (Forgive me and my analogies, but that's just how I roll) I was thinking about how I had eaten countless mangos over the last couple of weeks, and yet every one was as challenging as the previous one. Each mango is just as sticky and messy and hard to eat. Moving to another country and immersing myself in a completely new culture is hard. I've been to other places before, and am far from being ignorant about world travel. I think that I underestimated the effect of culture shock because I figured I had done it before, so I could do it again no problem. But it was just as sticky and messy as the last mango. When I first got here, it was like trying to figure out how to do something familiar in the dark. But the longer I sat in the dark with those mangos, the easier it got to cut them and not worry about getting messy. The longer I've been here in Senegal, the easier it's gotten to figure out my way around and not worry about making mistakes or having awkward moments (goodness knows I've had plenty of those).

And that's about all I have to say about that.

P.S. It was so hot yesterday, I could see my fingers sweat.

Trauma and drama

Yesterday, my friend Eva and I were walking home together when we had a rather unfortunate incident. We don't normally walk together, but she wanted to see vaguely where I live in comparison to her house. It was a fairly pleasant day (hot hot hot as usual), and we were just strolling along talking about whatever. Next thing I know, Eva's being pulled away from me by her bag, which had been grabbed by this guy on a moped. It happened so stinking fast that I honestly didn't have time to process what was going on. But instinctively I threw out my arm to grab her so that she wouldn't get pulled away. Oh man. Luckily she kept a good grip on the bag, and I kept a good grip on her, so neither the bag nor Eva went anywhere. This was the first time we had been that close to being stolen from. What happened was these two guys on a moped zipped past us as we were crossing through an intersection, and the guy on the back grabbed at Eva's bag. Though both traumatized and shaken up, we were both safe and fairly sound. When I got home, I told the tale to my family with a combination of French and gestures. They watched and listened as I replayed the whole thing (it was difficult to find the words in french to accurately describe the actions and emotions, thus the use of waving arms and overexaggerated facial expressions was necessary), with wide eyes and gasps of disbelief. My family has been very protective of me, warning me everytime I leave the house to be wary of thieves and aware of my bag and pockets at all times. It's starting to be a little frustrating and tiring to have to protect my belongings all the time. Especially since I'm trying to call this place home, it's hard to always have to keep it in the front of my mind that there are tons of people out there who could/will try to steal from me.

whew what a day.

So there's tons of stories and experiences that I need to share, and I'm going to try to get them all posted this week. You can either expect lots of posts in the next week or so, or absolutely none, depending on whether the electricity and internet cooperate.....................................

and now for the local news...

Good evening and welcome to tonight's edition of your local Senegalese news. Let's jump right in to today's headlines:



"Fierce battle against mosquitos and flies rages on." --It seems as though there will never be an end to the war against flying insects here in Dakar. Fighting persists on two main battle fronts, and it is not looking good for the humans. The two main offenders are the flies and mosquitos, and though they have different offensive strategies they are each a force to be reckoned with. While the flies are relatively powerless as individuals, they seemed to have taken up a strategy of strength in numbers, and attacking during the day. The mosquitos on the other hand have been implementing their war strategy in the usage of stealth technology. It seems as though they have developped the capability approach their victims without being seen or heard. We'll keep you posted on this breaking news as the story develops.



"Classes have commenced at West African Research Center" --Classes at WARC have started for the 17 students in the Minnesota Studies in International Development Program. These Americans are into their second week of intense classwork before being set loose into the rest of Senegal. Classes include International Development (accompanied by tracks in Environmental Studies, Health, Education, Microbusiness, and Literature), Country Analysis of Senegal, Language courses in Wolof and French, and Research Methodology. These courses will be given for the duration of 7 weeks, and include field trips of all sorts. The students are already being challenged, and are intrigued to see where the classes will take them.



"Blackouts and failure of internet frequent and unwanted" --Dakar has been struck by a series of blackouts much to its inhabitants' dismay. At least once a day, different regions are left without electricity for extended amounts of time. One resident tells us that often times it will go off at night and still won't be on come morning. She also told us that they just have to cope with not having lights or internet access, which can be frustrating to say the least. There is still hope though that once it comes back, maybe it will stay...



"Cockroaches throw surprise party in shower" --Last week, the cockroaches who inhabit the shower of the Gomis Residence in Dakar threw a surprise party for one of the showerers in the house. Amy Brown, the american student living with the Gomis family, said that she is used to taking showers with Abbot and Costello, the two cockroaches normally found in the shower. "One night last week" Amy tells us,"I turned on the light and there were five or six of them hanging out on the wall..." When asked about her reaction, she says that she just shrugged and turned on the water.



And now for the Weather:

As Senegal is now reaching the end of the rainy season, there have been fewer and fewer storms. Whether or not this is a good thing is debatable, because the sun has been shining its scorching rays without break for several days now. Temperatures hover somewhere in the high eighties to low nineties and the humidity is fairly consistent in the very high percentages. Keep those cold showers coming...



Health and Wellness:

This week we talked to Amy Brown about what it's like to live in Dakar from a health standpoint. Here is a segment of her interview:

"Well, so far I have stayed completely healthy...I take my vitamins and malaria pill everyday, and they both seem to be working fine. It was an adjustment to get used to the diet here, because it's very high in carbs with a little protein and a tiny bit of fruits and vegetables. But I make an effort to have fresh fruit everyday for lunch, and that seems to be going just great, the fruit is just so good here! Besides that I walk for an hour everyday to and from school, so I'm getting exercise and a WONDERFUL tan at that..."



Well folks, that's all we have time for this evening. Thanks for tuning in, and if you have any questions or comments about any of the stories seen on our broadcast, feel free to email us at artmus987@gmail.com



We hope you are enjoying your day and ask that you join us next time to hear about these stories:

Cars Rapides: Killing machines or efficient transport?

American students wandering aimlessly in Dakar and how they found their way out.

Where the house cats run wild and the cactus grows free

Hey everyone! Thanks for all the comments and encouragement, it is helping me so much!

Anyway...It is kind of hard to keep up the blog, just becaus there is sooooooo much to write about, so some of this stuff you'll be getting in time lag....other stuff you'll just have to wait til I get home to hear about, but I'm doing my very very best.

The other day we went to Goree, an island off the tip of the Dakar peninsula. It is this cute little island with just over a thousand inhabitants. It is a huge tourist destination and I heard some people describe it as having a very caribbean feel. I wouldn't know, but it does have a fun atmosphere with amazing buildings (white with red tile roofs) and lots of bright colors. Upon arriving on the ferry, we began a tour of the island with a local guy wearing aviators and a Che Guevara tshirt. First stop was La Maison d'Esclaves (House of Slaves). Back in the day, this island was a major part of the slave trade, seeing as it is on the very very western coast of Africa. It was used as kind of the send-off island for the Africans who were being shipped to the Americas. This "house" was used as a holding building before the people were literally packed onto a boat and shipped off. We saw the little rooms where they kept the men, women, and children (all seperated), and heard about how they went through this weighing process and stuff to make sure they were good enough. It honestly sounded like a factory farm or something where they would pick out the best cows to be sent to the meat packing plant. The rooms where the men were kept could not have been bigger than your average dorm room, and they said they would keep 15-20 men in there. It was definitely way intense to see part of the Slavery story from the other perspective...

Next stop was the only church on the island. It is, in fact, the oldest Catholic Church in Senegal: This cute little one room building with wooden pews that you couldn't sit more that 50 people in at one time. The colors inside reflected everything else on the island: bright and beautiful. It is still used for services to this day, but don't worry they have updated the building since the 1700s with electricity and things like that.

Next we walked up to the highest point of the island where you can see Dakar and in the other direction the endless infinity of the ocean. (America lies somewhere out there...actually, on another excursion we were at the point farthest west on the African continent, and were told that if we wanted to swim home, that would be the place to jump in. Though tempting, I decided to stick out the rest of the three months instead of drowning somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic) On the trek up the hill, the paths were lined with brightly colored paintings and other art work that Senegalese make their livings off of. And by this point, we were being followed by a couple of guys trying to sell us these musical instruments. It was like our trip was being turned into a musical...At the top of the hill, there is this corner where an artist works and creates these beautiful sand art things. We got to peek in and see a demonstration: He explained that all the sand they use is naturally colored, and each color comes from a different beach somewhere. They were all these beautiful reds and browns, blacks and greys, and the pictures were gorgeous in the end.

Then it was time to trek back down the hill and head to the history museum, which in all honesty was not your typical museum. It was this circular building, with a courtyard in the center, and all these rooms connected to each other with random artifacts and info about Senegal's history. It was pretty cool, and somewhat informative, but at this point we were all sweaty, hot, and famished. Time for lunch! We ate at this little restaurant, where the food was good and plenty, the water cold, and the cats numerous. No joke, this island has seriously been invaded by a troop of wild house cats. We didn't really notice until we were sitting down and all of a sudden they were surrounding our feet. Short ones, skinny ones, tall ones, fat ones, and every color too. It took them til the end of the meal to realize that they were indeed not going to get any food from us. When we finished we went and hung out at the beach, most of us were too tired to really do anything, but some went swimming and others went shopping. As the rest of us sat there, vendors and merchants would park themselves next to us trying to sell us everything from earrings and necklaces to baseball caps and tribal masks. I was actually really tempted to buy this one tribal mask, because the vendor was super persuasive and offering a really really good price. But common sense got the better of me after I realized that it would take up a quarter of my suitcase and add 10 lbs of unnecessary weight. So sorry Tim, no tribal mask for you...

That's all I have time for right now, I do realize that this is a lot, but you wouldn't believe how much more I could talk about.

But just so you all know, I am still alive and kicking!

more later, much love

amb

Ma famille accueillante

On my family...

Tuesday was the highly anticipated day of meeting our host families. We got picked up at our hotel in our original airconditioned bus (yes!), and went immediately to the bank. Seeing as all of us only had American dollars on us, this was very very helpful. Currency here is in CFA, and the exchange rate on Tuesday was 437 Franc CFA=$1 American. Let's just say it's been an adjustment to hear that a 1.5 litre bottle of water is 400 CFA...it sounds like a lot, but is really less than a dollar. That was actually the next stop: Mineral Water. One thing that has been stressed here is don't drink the tap water! I hear that you can try to slowly break yourself into it, and then be able to drink it all the time. But one of the other students tried taking just a sip, and in her words, "it was NOT a good experience". I think I'll stick to my bottles.

After getting water, we were dropped off one by one. One by one left in a stranger's home. One by one abandoned by the only familiar faces in the country. Waly and Josephine refused to tell us who was next until we arrived at each house, to prevent us from getting too nervous. It actually worked, because when my name was called, after 9 before me had been dropped off, I was not mentally prepared. As I stumbled off the bus, my luggage was tossed down off the roof and carried inside. I timidly walked inside, to meet my Senegalese mother two steps inside. Maman Jacqueline is her name, and at this point I only really see her when I come and go out of the house. She is the one to make sure I eat before I go every morning and that I locked my bedroom door before leaving. Next I met Marguerite (Margo), one of my sisters, who is probably in her early twenties. I found out on the first day that she's the one who does most of the housework and cooking for the entire family along with my other sister Marie-Therese. Marie-Therese is the oldest of all my siblings and she's in her early thirties (31 or 32?). Next in line is Leon, Bart, Benjamin, and Alexandre in some age order, Margo, and Eduoard is the youngest at around 13 or 14. The boys all live on the third floor, and I hardly ever see them at all. The girls live on the second floor with me (though I do have my own room). Beyond that, Grandma lives downstairs, but she's been sick and I've seen her maybe twice so far. There are also three others right now, who I hear are only here for vacation, but I don't know how they are exactly related to the family and I don't know when they're leaving... Ironically the two teenage girls and ten year old boy are the ones I see the most besides Margo.

My family is Catholic, which is really cool, especially since this week marked the beginning of Ramadan, so the Muslim families all fast during the day.

That's all I have time for right now, but I surely do miss everyone and appreciate all the emails and notes of encouragement!

Love always,
amb

nanga def?

On language...

The most common African tribe here is the Wolof, so most people, even in Dakar are Wolof. There is a lot of cultural and linguistic significance in this. Living in a city dominated by Wolof means that EVERYONE speaks Wolof as their first and primary language. My family speaks Wolof to each other, the people on the street speak Wolof, my professors speak Wolof when they talk to each other, etc. This is a little overwhelming when I only speak English and French. But most (and by most I mean everyone except maybe super duper poor people), speak French as well. And then a select few speak English as well. So the order of language from most common to least is Wolof, French, English...As one of my classes, I am learning to speak Wolof. It's kind of difficult because it's way different from English and French and Spanish, in that there's no real grammatical structure. And there is no set spelling. It's all oral. Which, for some one who learns visually, like me, is difficult to catch on to. So far we've gotten through basic greetings and such. So seeing someone on the street, your conversation might go something like this...

-Salaam aleikum (this is just your basic muslim greeting...)
--Malekum salaam (...and response)
-Nanga def? (~How are you?)
--Mangi fi rekk (~I am well)

and so on and so on. Who knows, maybe when I get back home I'll be trilingual! (this is merely my optimism shining through the extreme difficulty of learning the language)

It is like being tossed into the deep end when I have a hard enough time trying to get by with my french and then being immersed in a completely different language as well...woah baby, talk about linguistic overload.

Bonjour mes amis

Hello everyone,

This would be my first entry from Senegal. *sigh*

After a long day of travel on Sunday, I met up with the other MSIDers at JFK before boarding the plane that would take us away from everything we have ever known. The flights were all fine, no one was sitting next to me for the long one, so I had a little space to stretch my legs. A couple of movies and naps later, we arrived in Dakar around 6 in the morning local time. Stepping of the plane was like walking into a sauna, before the sun was even up it felt like one of the hottest days we experience in Minnesota. Right now is the end of the rainy season, which means that not only is it hot, but it's HUMID. I honestly have sweat more so far than I ever have in my entire life. We piled onto a bus, took a short ride to the airport (we had gotten off planeside), and then found ourselves crowded into a little customs area. It took a while to get through, just for the shear number of people that had gotten off the plane with us. But we were all allowed to enter the country, and walked through a set of doors to get to the baggage claim. Yay! both my bags were there. In fact out of 15 of us, only one suitcase got lost, and Robbie finally got it yesterday.

Leaving the baggage claim, we found Josephine, one of the MSID assistants. She is a cute little Senegalese, who has been doing everything for us. The walk out to the bus was constantly being interrupted by men who wanted to help us with our luggage. After fighting the crowds, we met Waly, one of the MSID coordinators who was waiting with our bus. Much to some of the others' dismay, our luggage was all of a sudden being tossed on top of the bus. We piled on the bus, after being assured that the bags would be okay, and were promptly given bottles of water, bags of food, and our itinerary for the week. Thankfully, our first stop was the hotel where we were able to rest and shower until noon.

That afternoon we went over to the house of Maman Onorine, one of the other MSID staff. She's like our Program mother who feeds us, lectures us, and make us dance. We met three other students there who had come at the beginning of August for a Presession. Sitting under a tent on the roof, we listened as Waly and Josephine talked about MSID and so on. Then we took a break to drink a juice made from Hibiscus nectar, and dance african style with Maman Onorine. Then it was time for lunch. Meals here are traditionally served in one big bowl, and everyone eats around it. Each person has their own little section of which they are responsible to eat out of. The meal is typically rice or couscous with some sort of meat (generally fish), sauce, and maybe vegetables. You eat with your fingers and form the rice into a ball before tossing it into your mouth. This was the first lunch we had in Senegal. After lunch we listened as Mamah Onorine offered some advice of living with host families. Then we took a break to go to the beach before dinner.

By the end of the day, we were all pooped to say the least, and were happy to be returned to our hotel. The next day, Tuesday, would be the day we moved in with our host families.........

That's all I have time to write for now, but I will write more as soon as I can.

Miss you all tons!!

Day 1

To my faithful blog readers,

I don't know how many of you there are, regardless, I appreciate the attention that you are giving to reading about my life. For those of you who missed my previous blog, the title of this blog does not imply my attempt for a coup over the government of Senegal. It is merely the logging of my experiences as I move to that country (Reference: www.ifamyranthezoo.blogspot.com). For those of you who have kept up on the first volume of my blogging career, welcome to the next chapter of my life. No doubt this next one will for sure be a very exciting one, filled with action and drama and comedy and heart-warming and heart-wrenching moments.

Because guess what...

I'M MOVING TO AFRICA!

I am officially taking my place in the Brown family legacy (and Rasmussen family for that matter...) and moving out of the country on my own. Wow. I am living up to the Brown name.

Yet, as I sit here on a hotel bed, precisely 12 hours from departure, it still hasn't quite hit me that I am moving out of the country for three and a half months. I'm sure that in about 24 hours I will be warming up to the idea...

I'm glad that you want to embark on this journey with me (thank goodness for the internet!), so buckle up because it's going to be a ride!

Love always,
AMB