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Published: February 15th 2006
I was making this list of all the things I wanted to remember to write in my next journal entry but it seems to have disappeared... Anyway, things are good and I am content! I am learning a TON. For example, I learned that all of the pharmacies here are green-tiled or painted green or have a green sign - thus "the green pharmacy" is not a particularly useful navigational landmark, and I learned how to get all the meat out of a fish head, and that there are THOUSANDS of high-heeled pointy shoes only a 150 francsCFA (about 30 cents) bus ride away, and that nearly one in every three Senegalese children between the age of 5 and 9 has to work, and so on. I mean, ALL the time there's something new to take in.
This past Saturday I went to the Sandaga Market and it was dirty and crowded and my favorite kind of shopping - in the street, in your face, in circles completely lost! I love the all the colors and the hustlers and the over stimulus of it all. (that's where I saw all those shoes, too) I'm pretty sure that if you can't find it there, you don't need it.
Professor Ousmane Sene, who is the head of the program here, teaches our country analysis course, and is a positively delightful man. He laughs loud and long at his own ridiculous jokes - for example, the other day we were learning some Senegalese proverbs, and the first one was "Ndank ndank moy jap golo ci nay" which translates to "slowly slowly to catch the monkey in the bush," meaning you have to be patient and take things a little at a time to get them done. Anyway, Prof Sene gets up out of his chair to illustrate, and he's making these stealthy, exaggerated movements across the front of the room and all of a sudden GRABS Matt (another MSID student who was sitting up front) and bursts into laughter exclaiming "he didn't even know I was trying to catch him Hahahaha!" He is also a big fan of these Senegalese "joking kinships." These are different families that traditionally share strong bonds of frienship, and thus can say things to each other that would normally be considering unacceptably insulting. He says Prof Kane "has a fat belly" and "is his slave." I do believe he has also used this system to get out of a speeding ticket, but clarified he didn't bribe anyone.
This past Saturday I sang in a concert with the choir I joined. Ha! The thing with the choir is, it's this group of quite a few young, loud, boisterous people, so whenever there are announcements at the end of practice, there's all these people talking at the same time in French-Wolof and the benches are scooting on the tile floor and everything echoes in that room, so basically I never really hear a thing that's said. So I have to get somebody to repeat all the important bits as we're leaving, and I usually only have a vague idea of what's going on, so it's just a go with the flow type of thing (kind of like my life in general here). Well, so Saturday evening I know we have a choir concert, but what I don't know is that, unlike choir concerts in the US, it's going to start around 10:30 pm, involve spontaneous dancing and several fantastic gospel choirs, and finish around 2:30 in the morning. I love the people in the choir - there's Nancy, who I sit next to (and without whose help I would still be lipsinging) who is funny and rolls her eyes a lot, and Jean, who somehow found a cowboy hat and trench coat to wear for the concert and calls me his visa and rides his bike into the middle of crowds and is really involved in the parish, and Brother Jules who plays the tamtams and is the only religious I have ever seen out past 4 in the morning (working the door at the soiree a couple weekends ago), and lots more and they're all beautiful and have amazing smiles.
Okay I am late and we are headed out to the American Embassy for some meeting or another so I have to go- bye!
peace and love!
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Jen McClaflin
non-member comment
AWESOME
Christina---Life sounds like it's pretty darn amazing for u right now! WAY TO GO! I'm so glad things are going so well and you are just having so many once in a lifetime experiences!! Please keep in touch! We miss you @ Lectio--but we're keeping you close in thought. I love to hear your adventures--so keep in touch! I'm living an adventerous life thru your right now---so live it up for us!! (smile) MUCH LOVE!