Well, here I am in the Delhi Airport, paying a small fortune for some wireless access. I’m stuck in the airport for thirteen hours, though, so I consider this 500 well-spent rupees. Trouble is, I don’t really know how much a rupee is worth. A very nice Indian man next to me thinks it’s about 40 rupees to the dollar, so these four hours are going to cost me quite a bit. Anyway, let me start at the beginning. I left Cleveland Friday afternoon. My flight was delayed three hours due to terrible weather in Chicago. Nearly every flight was pushed back because the planes just weren’t arriving from their original airports. As luck would have it, there was a Buddhist spirituality seminar that had just let out and my gate was flooded with French people ... read more

Our last excursion as a full group was the long-awaited trip to Saint-Louis. The city is about five or six hours north of Dakar, right near the border with Mauritania. It was the first capital of Senegal, but also the capital of French West Africa. The city is essentially an island, though things have spread out since back in the day. The architecture in Saint-Louis is very typically "colonial"...it's a lot of pastel colors, European-style buildings, and palm-tree lined streets. It's all quite shabby, though, and paint everywhere is peeling, buildings are starting to crumble, and it's just not as pretty as I'm sure it was in its former glory. We spent Saturday morning and early afternoon at the Djoudj Bird Reserve, about an hour and a half east of Saint-Louis. We all climbed into pirogues ... read more

I wouldn't list turkey as my favorite meat, I don't like stuffing, and I much prefer chocolate silk pie to apple pie, but I must admit that I was a bit anxious about missing Thanksgiving. How can one celebrate this incredibly American holiday without insane amounts of food, the Macy's parade, and the crazy extended family? I doubted that our faux-Thanksgiving celebration would be anywhere close to what we were hoping for...we weren't even going to have turkey (chicken would have to suffice for this year). Steven and I decided to make pudding as our contribution to the potluck portion of the dinner. Unfortunately, you can't find Jell-O instant pudding here, so we had to buy the milk and sugar and cook the pudding. We chose Steven's house as our headquarters because he has a stove ... read more

Finally, after three months of looking forward to it, we made it to Touba. Touba is not a tourist destination, nor is there anything to do there. It just so happens that I think it's one of the most fascinating cities in Senegal. It was founded by Cheikh Amadou Bamba in the early 1900s as the center of his brotherhood, the Mourides. After being exiled to both Gabon and Mauritania, the French finally let him be the head of his brotherhood in relative peace (though he was still essentially under house arrest), and they started building the Grand Mosque in Touba in 1926, just before Cheikh Amadou Bamba died. Touba today is a huge pilgrimage site for the Mourides in Senegal. They're still expected to travel to Mecca if they can afford it, but their membership ... read more

It's been a couple weeks since I've updated, but life isn't all fun and games here in Dakar. We do actually go to classes occasionally, and we sometimes have homework, too! Last weekend (Saturday, to be exact), the majority of Senegal celebrated Korité. In most part of the world, this holiday is called "Eid el-Fitr" but here, the end of Ramadan is known by the Wolof word instead. Everyone kept telling us that it was going to be a huge party, a great time, etc. etc. I suppose we shouldn't have gotten our hopes up after having lived through the "great cultural experience" that is Ramadan (it was so boring!). Korité is a "huge party" in the sense that New Year's Day is a rocking holiday. You wake up early because there is quite a bit ... read more