Placements!

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Monday was the day that we needed to get back on track with finding a volunteer placement. I had an idea for John and Alex after talking to our landlady. She was telling us that her son goes to the American school around here. It’s a bilingual school where they teach the kids French and English at the same time. In most schools here, French is taught to the elementary school kids and English isn’t taught until high school. All the volunteers we know here speak French, and a bunch are volunteering at the schools where the kids are supposed to be learning French, but currently only speak Wolof. The volunteers are taken anyway, to speak in French all time and get the kids used to hearing it. Based on this information, I figured the guys could volunteer at the bilingual school, despite the fact that their French isn’t great. So, Monday morning, John headed over to the school, with the landlady, to see if they would take him. The English teacher he met at first was really excited about having him come in, apparently she had a ton of students and no help at all. She said that she would love to have him whenever he could help, and that if Alex could come in any time also, that would be great. They went to meet the headmistress, and she was less excited about them. She told John to bring his resume and a reference the next day, and when he brought it back the next morning, she told him to call back on Friday to find out if he could volunteer.

Tuesday, Marian and I headed over to Africare, an American organization that has been working on projects in Africa for thirty years. They are really well known at home, and are funded by USAID (the American equivalent of CIDA), and since they deal with all of Africa, a lot of research and communication is done in English. (Sidenote: we originally came to really work on our French, but have since realized it takes a long time to get really good, and if we want to work somewhere NOW, we really need someone to take us who doesn’t really care that our French isn’t perfect). We went into the building and waited to speak to the director, whose name is James Dean (?!). He was busy all day, so we left our resumes with his secretary and were told to call back the next morning. We have looked around for other places to volunteer, and have a pretty good back-up for Africare. The largest Social Science Research centre in Africa is right down the street from us, and they have a section that is titled: Institute for Research for Population and Development and Reproductive Health. It seems like a really good option, but at the same time, neither of us is really excited about doing research for the rest of our lives, so it’s still the back-up.

While we were at Africare, John and Alex had gone down to the school to drop off their resumes. We only have one set of keys, so they took them because we thought that they’d be faster than us. Marian and I got back to the apartment and the guys were nowhere in site. We headed to the little restaurant across the street from us to have a drink while we waited for them. We decided on beers, since it was so hot. It was only after these enormous beers were delivered and we had started drinking them that we realized that it was probably seen as a little inappropriate for two women to sit and have a beer in the middle of the day. There were only men around, but apparently being white made it okay, because they soon invited us to sit with them. They were all older men, mostly from Benin. We chatted with them, happy to practice our French. The guys eventually came over to join us, and we sat for a little longer. One of the men was a doctor and he asked us what we were taking for anti-malarial medication. After we told him, he told us that it was pointless to be taking our medication and we should just drink water and beer to avoid it. Makes you not want to see a doctor here…although, we have to keep in mind this was a doctor that was drinking at lunch…

Wednesday morning we headed out to call the director of Africare. Of course, in true Senegalese style, we had to call back three different times and didn’t get an answer until four o’clock. Life moves VERY slowly here. Anyway, when we finally got a hold of him, he had good news and bad news. The good news is, he really wants the two of us for a project that’s starting in two weeks. It’s a project to train birth attendants, which is one of the things that we really studied in our Reproductive Health class at LSE. The entire project is only a month long, so we’d be able to work on the whole project, which is great. The only bad news is that it’s 7 hours away. It’s in a small town almost near Mali. So, we’d be leaving Dakar, our cute little house and potentially all the good food. The good side of this is that they have a three bedroom apartment that we could move into, free of charge, so we’d be off the hook for paying rent for a whole month, which would be great, since we never planned on paying rent while we were here. We’re really excited about this opportunity, and kind of looking forward to heading out to the country for awhile. We have to call back on Monday for all the details…we’ll let you know!

November 12, 2005

Our landlady is completely crazy. She’s so bizarre it’s almost inexplicable. She has no respect for privacy, and is constantly using her keys to come into the apartment without even knocking. A few nights ago she showed up at midnight with cake for us. She just waltzed in, Marian and I both had our toothbrushes hanging out of our mouths, and the guys were already asleep. She comes in, goes through to the kitchen and plops some cake (not even good cake) on a plate and sits down to have a conversation. We took the opportunity to ask for more than one set of keys, since it’s a huge pain to organize all four of us around one set of keys. She told us she’d be back at 8am to give them to us. Marian and I woke up at 8 to get them off of her and she of course, didn’t show up till 11. This would have been fine except she just waltzed in again and had the nerve to say that she’d been knocking since 8. She also sends other, random, people over whenever she feels like it. She sent a man to look at the apartment to rent for December (as of right now, we’re still going to be in it then), who Marian and I interrogated for ten minutes through the window before finally letting him in. She also sent her son over, who said that he was here to pick up whoever needed to return to the university of St Louis. No idea what that was about. She also seems to have taken to coming in here while we’re not here, and not locking the door properly when she leaves…we’re going to be having a talk about that.

Yesterday we headed out to the northwestern most point of Dakar. It’s called the Almadies and is a really nice area. The Club Med is there, and another hotel that’s called The Meridien President. We headed over to check out the beaches, but soon found out that all the public ones are garbage, and the nice ones are private. We did find a really cool Artists Market, and all purchased our first souvenirs. We found a cool mask and a really neat basket to bring back. John is extremely worried about it fitting in the suitcase, but I know that I can make them fit. We’re thinking about saving most of our souvenir-buying until Nairobi, cause then it won’t be a pain in the ass to carry it around on the whole safari. I think that’s a good idea, but at the same time I want some souvenirs from Senegal, since this is where we spent the most of our time.

Today we headed out to Goree Island again. We had a really relaxing time there, just enjoying the views, the markets and the beer. It’s really gorgeous there, and we were a little sad since we knew it would probably be the last time we went out there. It’s pretty expensive for the ferry, especially for tourists who are charged four times as much as locals. It’s definitely worth it though! While we were waiting for the ferry we ran into a really obnoxious group of Americans who were in Senegal doing mission work. One lady was really excited to hear us speaking English and we talked to her for awhile. They’re only here for a week, and they were incredible. Not a one spoke French, and they kept bargaining in “American dollars.” They were really unimpressed whenever they encountered anyone who didn’t speak English and they really couldn’t have bought anymore stupid souvenirs if they tried. It’s too bad that people like that give all North American tourists a bad name. Anyway, tomorrow we’re planning on taking it easy and getting ready for the big phone call on Monday. We’re really excited to hear about the details of the program that Africare is running. Hopefully we’ll be planning a move soon! The town that we’d be moving to is only three hours from Mali and is really close to one of the National Parks in Senegal. It’s the most famous one, with the most big animals, and we had been hoping we could visit it before we left. We’ll see what happens…

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Photos

Goree Island
View from the ferry on the way into the Island

Comments

[Barbara]

Don't pick up any stompies
I hope you guys are taking lots of photos!! I can't wait to see them. Writing these travel blogs was such a good idea, I feel like I'm right there in Africa with you. Well, it's snowing here so I definitly don't have a sunburn.. but I'm there in spirit!