Blogs from Dakar, Cape Verde Peninsula, Senegal, Africa - page 15

That is the refrain of Goree Island, which is very much one big market. I dont have time right now to do justice to the very moving part of it and my general perceptions of Senegalese perceptions of the slave trade, so I have to stick to the fairly innocuous shopping. For those of you who followed my Russian blog, I have learned to haggle! I went really hard line on it and made some great deals. As it were, I spent most of my money, but also took care of gifts for all female friends and family members in the biggest shopping coup in history, in which I pressed a saleswoman into TWELVE good quality, non-plastic bracelets, some coral, some glass beads, one huge one that was probably worth 5 or 10 thousand CFA on ... read more

To my last reviewer-- I checked out your blog but I don't understand French-- is there any English page I could read? or Russian? or even maybe Spanish? To anyone who doesn't know-- apparently you can subscribe to this to get emails when I update. Also, hi to Mom and Poppy-- love you! Today I had my first lessons in Wolof. I can now have the most basic of conversations in Wolof. I shall share this knowledge at the end of the post. We also had our homestay orientation today. Tomorrow I will be moving in with the family. Senegalese family relationships are really the most important part of Senegalese life. If this is what 'tribalism' constitutes, we in the west may wish to regress. Basically, in the words of a Wolof proverb: 'Nit, nitay garabam'-- ... read more

Geo: 14.6953, -17.4439Bolstered by time with family and the luxury accommodations, where "roach & mouse turd" checks were not necessary, we plunged back into the developing world by flying from Casablanca, Morocco to Dakar, Senegal. We arrived at 3am and approached the airport exit with our "scam/crime" antenna fully extended. Amongst travelers, Dakar has some reputation - a Westernized, cosmopolitan city that lures both honest folks and criminal types from all over sub-Saharan Africa. Outside, we were quickly surrounded by the latter element of hustlers/scam artists. Offers of "ATM" and "change money" rang out in French and we were quickly led to an ATM. We adroitly reversed course and found our way to the taxi stand (we weren't going to take money out with 20 guys looking over our shoulders). After the usual haggling over the ... read more

hi! I'm back from spring break, and it was amazing! I went with four other MSID students, (Shanta, Emily, Matt and Courtney) and on Saturday we arrived in Ziguinchor, where the manager of the hotel had a miserable little monkey chained up in a little concrete cell out back. We named it Vanessa and made plans for her emancipation but didn't follow through. Next we took a pirogue ride to Ile des Oiseaux which was really neat, and spent the day bird watching and bumming around on the Casamance River. On Sunday we took a car rapide (a converted van is which they manage to fit over 20 people - a favorite mode of transportation here in Senegal) from Ziguinchor to Cap Skirring, which has what are probably the best beaches in the country. It was ... read more

Hello! I seem to have accidently fallen out of my life and stepped into someone else's - I keep doing all these incredible things! For example, Saturday afternoon found me floating around in a sea kayak - since when does this Kansas girl do things like paddle around off the coast of Africa!?! It was really fun. I had never really been on the ocean before except the ferry to Goree Island which doesn't really count. So on Saturday morning I met up with my friend Shanta (another MSID student) and we went to this place on the southern coast of Dakar and rented kayaks (3000 Fcfa for an hour - about 6 dollars). I'd never been in a kayak before but maybe we acted like we knew what we were doing because the boats sure ... read more