Advertisement
Published: February 7th 2006
hello! hope this finds you well, my life here just seems to be getting better all the time. Except for sometimes I do things and immediately afterward wonder why (for example volunteering to give a presentation in my theory of development class.) I don't know what came over me.
The power goes out fairly often here, and it happened again Saturday night. Well, it was too dark to do homework so that left nothing to do but dance in the courtyard to the music on the little battery-powered radio with Anima and Valerie and the baby. And it was a good thing I got that practice in, because later I went to a soiree at this place called Restaurant Petit Dakar in my neighborhood. It started at 11 pm and I danced danced danced! non-stop all night long and oh my goodness it was SO fun! Then of course I was wired and couldn't sleep so I was a little tired the next day. Coach Lane, if you're reading this, I suggest dumping the Sunday morning 10-miler in favor of dancing until daybreak Saturday night. It was a soiree with the choir at St. Pierre's (a fundraiser), and so I'd just met a few of the people who were going to be there but I was really glad I went. Anthone walked me there (he was the president of the choir at St. Pierre for several years, so he knew a bunch of the people there) and then made sure I had some people to talk to (what a nice host dad! so I wasn't completely launched out of my comfort zone) I got some compliments on my dancing (tu danses bien! comme une senegalaise!) HA! Sometimes it's hard to tell when people here are just being nice, or if it's really true. But since some of the same people said I spoke French well, I have to assume they were just trying to make me feel better about how I dance, too.
It got really crowded around 1 a.m. (because it's just not cool to be the first one to show up). It was in open courtyard area, so you could see the stars if you looked up, and there was a grill in the corner, under a tree, from which came these DELICIOUS kebabs. They played a bunch of different music, mostly some of the popular dance music from different African countries, a little MC Hammer, and some traditional Senegalese dance stuff at the end of the night. Man, it was fun!
Oh by the way I also joined the choir. When we went to mass last weekend the music was glorious. Also it was a big group of friendly people around my age, and I was invited, so I joined! I don't think they've ever had a toubab (white person) in the choir before. Practice is Wednesday and Friday evenings, so at least I got a couple practices in before we sang for mass on Sunday. Ha! but the music is in mostly Serrer and Wolof and some French so I might've had to lip sing on a verse here or there.
Tomorrow is the Moslem New Year (it's called Tamxarit here) and so there will be a lot of celebrating tomorrow! Since my host family is Catholic I might go to one of the other students homes to see what it's like. Traditionally everyone in the family comes home and has a big, rich meal with couscous, and then they turn the bowl over and say prayers, because it is the day when Allah ordains who will die, get married, give birth, etc. during the next year. Then they fashion tamtams (senegalese drums) out of animal skins, and the men dress up as women and the women as men, and they go from house to house and collect gifts like millet and fruit (kind of like Halloween!) and then there are more prayers, and singing and dancing and nobody goes to work of course. During class today our Wolof teacher taught us a traditional song they sing. We got to clap a lot, too, which made our teacher start to dance! It was fun.
Earlier this week, I was walking from WARC (the West African Research Center, where I have most of my classes) to the Baobab Center (where I have Wolof), when Senegal won a match, and all these Senegalese came running out of their stores and cheering, and people were honking, and it was crazy and fun and joyous, and I love this country! but Senegal lost to Egypt tonight so now they're out of the African Cup. Too bad.
It was hot today, so I ate my lunch on the beach in the sun with my feet in the surf - hard to believe it's February! This is the life.
Love!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.109s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0746s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Emily
non-member comment
beach
grrr youre so lucky, bonnie and I spent all day wishing we were at the beach and then you write about your lunch at the beach! by the way you had better be getting me a souvenir every day.