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Published: February 25th 2006
Hi! I realize it's been awhile since I've written, but I have several good excuses. First of all, we've been keeping pretty busy visiting places and writing papers (we have ridiculous amounts of papers due, actually) and also a power plant somewhere isn't functioning or something, so there have been extended power outages every day this week (thus no computer) But to pick up where I left off last time...
The American Embassy (well, actually we were at the ambassador's estate) was everything I imagined - green grass and lawn chairs, jazz music, coca cola with ice, and gentle spatterings of applause. We haven't actually had an ambassador to Senegal for some time but now they're in the process of instating someone. The point of the meeting was to give us advice such as: don't walk around by yourself after dark with large bills and your passport hanging out your back pocket.
This past weekend we went on a field trip to St. Louis, a city in N. Senegal (check out the map on the right). It was really fun. We took a bus (16 students plus 2 of our professors and 2 program coordinators) and it took about 4 hours. Group field trips are especially fun because all the meals and transportation and such are paid for out of the program fee we paid at the beginning, so everything seems like it's free! St. Louis was pretty laid back after Dakar. We visited lots of places to observe different things relating to environment and development, like some large scale agricultural projects in the region, and the Maka Diama Dam constructed on the Senegal River (while there we got to take a little stroll across the border into Mauritania, so now I've visited two African countries!) We also stopped en route at this HUGE baobab tree that's over 100 years old. Baobabs are incredible trees. You can use every part of it for something, and I learned that the juice (bouhy) from the fruit (monkey bread) is a good source of calcium. They have big fat trunks and knobby, gnarly branches. I read somewhere that it is said the devil was mad about something, tore the tree out of the ground, and stuck it back in upside down, because it almost looks like it's roots are sticking up in the air. I promise soon I'll figure out how to put pictures on here so you can see one. In St. Louis we stayed at a pretty nice hotel with balconies overlooking the Senegal River and ate breakfast watching the 3500 brightly painted canoes heading out for a day of fishing.
There were a remarkable number of goats wandering around town eating trash - hundreds of them! I don't know if they belonged to no one or everyone. They were outnumbered, however, by the amount of children running around - thousands of them! Our guide said that the average woman in St. Louis has 10 children. Quite a few! But even more numerous than the kids were the flies. I have never seen such swarms of flies in my life. Prob'ly on account of all the fish. We visited the shore where they dry the fish. There were these huge piles of sliced-open shark and the like, piled under these big tarps in the sun, and hundreds of containers full of dried fish fragments, and, of course, inordinate amounts of flies. Also there were a bunch of refrigerated semis waiting to transport fish out of St. Louis, and people hurrying along to set down the big heavy containers of iced fish or wet sloshy fish they were carrying on their heads.
The city of St. Louis is quite old - if I remember right it was established in 1659 by an African tribe that are traditionally fishers, and was one of France's first important colonial posts in West Africa. (The architecture was very colonial). They get a pretty good tourist business. The kids would all point at us and yell "toubab!" (white person), or come up and grab your hand and ask for a gift. We were driving around the island on our bus, and saw this big group of other toubabs riding in horse-drawn carts (how touristy!) and we laughed and thought, at least we're not them! but then the next thing I knew we were unloaded off the bus and proceded to take a tour by horse-drawn cart. ha!
I wanted to bring little something back for my host mother from the weekend so I asked Marianne and Honorine (the two Senegalese women who work with MSID and came with us) for a suggestion of what to get, and ended up going with them to the market, which was really fun. It was SO full of flies and people in bright colors selling big baskets of fish and onions and limes and potatoes and such - the dried fish section was definitely the best. Honorine haggled for these chunks of dried fish that were far beyond recognition (I would have had NO idea how to tell what was good or not!) and I came away with a sack of "kecc," which is supposedly a Serrer favorite (my family is of the Serrer ethnicity). Of course it was stinking to high heaven so Marianne (with whom I was sharing a hotel room) warned me that if I didn't leave it in its sack out on the balcony I'd be sleeping out there myself. It was a fun weekend.
And that kecc I brought back was sitting out in the sun in our courtyard recently so I'll prob'ly get to try it sometime this week. Unless of course they ate it for dinner Wednesday night. Wedesday afternoon I was working on another paper for Prof. Sène (analyzing 5 Wolof proverbs and how they reflect the Senegalese people's approach to life), when the body I thought was made of steel began to show its first signs of weakness. I put myself to bed for a few hours, and got up at 7:30 to go to choir practice, but then decided I wasn't quite up to it, so a little later I went back to bed. Rosa asked if I wasn't going to have dinner - how to express in French "the thought of food makes me want to retch?" Then at about 9:45 I was frantically scrambling through my duffel bag trying to find a ziploc (I didn't want to run to the bathroom and not make it! what if they were still out there eating?) Unfortunately I wasn't fast enough. I wonder what they thought when I opened the door, standing there with what I can only imagine to have been an extremely haggard look on my face which was probably grossly caked with sloppily applied face cream and surrounded by wildly askew hair. Luckily I had looked up the word for vomit earlier that evening and had no problems coming up with the past participle. I didn't, however, find myself able to muster up the effort to comprehend anything they said and probably responded in grunts. Valerie brought in a rag and bucket and I cleaned up, thinking how annoying it was that of only 2 Senegalese meals I'd eaten and not liked, I had to taste this one twice, and how of course I had gotten my blanket dirty on the day the washer woman had already come and wouldn't be back for a week ( I remained annoyed while washing it in the sink). However Thursday was much less miserable and by dinnertime I could eat again.
In other news, before I stop making this too long entry even longer, I have noticed an improvement in my french! yeah! About time. And last night I went dancing with a few other MSID students at Club Thiossane, which is Youssou Ndour's club here in Dakar (very famous Senegalese musician - try and listen to some online) and he was THERE (he's often touring or not there) and and it rocked!!! and that might have been the coolest thing I've ever done.
ok
I hope this finds you well!
peace, love and dried fish bits
Christina
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Uncle Joe
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Angel
You live and write like an angel. You probably don't know how much we home folks enjoy these reports. I don't know what you will do with your life, but I know it will be valuable and interesting.