Bandia, recycled art and the end of dance

It’s been a while since my last post, so I’ll have to keep the updates brief.

We’ve finished up our workshops on dance and djembe, and I certainly would have liked another week of djembe. Near the end of the workshop, something “clicked” and I felt very comfortable with all of the different rhythms we had learned, and I was able to really play and get into the music without having to think about it. It was probably as much fun as I’ve had since coming here.

As for dance, I’m somewhat glad that it‘s over. It’s not that I ultimately didn’t end up enjoying myself, but the heat made for a miserable hour and a half of intense physical activity each day. Nevertheless, I after some initial struggles, I feel that I made more progress than I had thought I would at the outset for someone who had, for all intents and purposes, never danced before. I doubt that I’ll be able to take any the specific dances that I learned and bring them back to the US (the motions would be laughable in a modern American club), but I at least have a greater degree of confidence in my ability to dance than I did before.

On Saturday, we went as a group to the Bandia wildlife preserve, where a number of species of wild animals, including giraffes, rhinos and antelope are kept in a vast expanse of savannah. We drove through the preserve in 4X4 trucks along dirt paths, getting up close and personal with a variety of species. While we stayed in the trucks for most of the time, we ended up getting out and wandering into the bush to see the rhinos that were sleeping nearby. We got within about 10 feet of them, and got some great photos, which was quite exciting.

On Sunday, I went to the HLM market with Alicia and Lisa, where I bought a couple of Senegalese outfits that I might or might not ever wear. Following that, Milo and I went to the artisan market along the west coast to try to do some research on recycled art for an assignment for our Arts and Culture Seminar. Ultimately, we probably got a lot of false information, and ended up getting fleeced pretty badly and pushed into buying a bunch of really expensive recycled art that we didn’t really want. Fortunately, we went to the Institute Française today and got some much better information from an artist who creates bird sculptures from materials he finds in the street. Best of all, it didn’t cost us anything.

Tomorrow, we start our three day batik workshop, followed by a Friday trip to the island of Goree (a hub of the West African slave trade). On Saturday, we leave for Ker Sedaro for our first village stay. I don’t know if I’ll post anything before then, but we’ll be in Saint Louis (the former colonial capital) afterwards, at which point I’ll probably have internet access.

Dance, Djembe and MacGyver

Today was our first day of dance and Djembe at SIT, and it certainly was an interesting one. As someone who doesn't normally dance at all, getting into the rhythm of Senegalese dance proved particularly difficult. With the variety of arm and leg movements used, some of the dances feel a lot like trying to rub your stomach at the same time. Eventually, I started to get the hang of it, though this next week of classes is going to be tricky. Physically, the dancing was an incredible workout, and I was quite literally sweating more than I ever have in my life. I'm well on my way to drinking 5 liters of water today.

Djembe was definitely easier, and I'm looking forward to playing it more, along with the Tama later on in the program.

Something else that bears mentioning is an incident that occurred with my fan last night. Upon deciding to turn in for the night, I went to plug in my fan only to discover that one of the prongs had broken off of the electrical plug. I decided to try to tape the prong back on and try to plug it back in. This worked only momentarily; the prong broke off again, this time in the outlet.

Upon realizing my failure, I decided I would try to sleep without a fan. I slept in fits and starts for about a half hour, finally waking up drenched in sweat, vowing to fix the fan situation if it took all night.

First, deciding that I would rather risk electrocution than spend a night sleepless and sweating, I used my pocket knife to disassemble the electrical outlet and tried to remove the piece of the plug that was stuck in it. While I don't think I got the piece out, I at least moved it around enough that it was out of the way. I then reassembled the outlet and tested it out to make sure it was working properly.

In so doing, I realized that the power adapter that I've been using for my computer works as a sort of miniature extender, and in order to get the fan working again all I would have to do would be to find some conductive material to shove into the socket of the adapter to take the place of the missing prong. After experimenting with pieces of pens and the like for a half hour or so, I noticed that the screw that I had removed to disassemble the wall socket was about the right size. Feeling I had nothing to lose, I put the screw in the hole, jammed the plug into the adapter, stuck the adapter into the wall and...

Alxahmdulilaay!

It's hard to describe just how elated I was when the fan started working again. I can honestly say it's the happiest I can remember being in a long time. For the first time in my life, I felt what it must be like to be MacGyver. And it was awesome.

I'm going to head to the hardware store tomorrow for a more permanent solution, and I'm planning on getting a haircut as well. We'll see how that goes.

Festival of Korité and the end of Ramadan

Today was the festival of Korité, the celebration that marks the end of Ramadan. Fortunately, it fell on the earlier of the two possible days on which it could have fallen--my host family was very excited upon having heard the news last night that the crescent moon has been spotted over Touba.

I woke up around 9:00, and got dressed in my traditional clothing in time for my family to return home from their morning of prayers at the mosque. The day was spent playing Scrabble (I haven't got up the courage to even try yet, I just watched) and greeting visitors.

Essentially, Korité is a day of feasting as well as a day of forgiveness. People go around their neighborhoods asking their neighbors to forgive them (baal ma aq) for any transgressions that they might have unwittingly committed. I found out from Blondin, my tech-savvy law-student host cousin, that it's become common practice among the youth to send text messages to this effect (yet another example of the interplay between tradition and modernity).

The meal we had today was probably the best one I've had since coming here: Delicious meat cooked over an open flame accompanied by fresh vegetables, and french fries hot off the deep-fryer. To top it all off, I had a can of orange Fanta. Now, that may not sound all that great, but let me qualify that statement by saying this: Sweet mercy, the orange Fanta here is so much better than in the US! Dié, my host brother, was quick to point this out as well.

Also, my host mom is back from Paris, so I'll get the opportunity tonight to show her the photos I brought from home, and we'll also get to open the Colorado 1870-2000 book that I brought.

That's all for now. I need to get out of this traditional get-up, because as comfy and pajama-like as it is, it's still really dang hot here.

On the upswing

I still haven’t figured out to string together all the random stuff that’s been happening here, so here follows a bunch of random paragraphs about what’s been going on here.

Things have gotten significantly better in the last couple of days. I’m trying to open up more to my host family, with some degree of success. It takes a lot of effort to follow all of the conversations that are going on at once, but I feel like I’m making progress. I’ve decided to read the newspapers here as often as possible, so that I can have more in-depth and relevant discussions. My host mother returns from Paris tomorrow, so it’ll be interesting to see how that changes the family dynamics in the house. Up until now, things have been fairly modern and informal.

My change in mood has also been aided by the fact that the weather has been a bit cooler and less rainy since the deluge of earlier this week, which has been pleasant. If this is any indication of things to come, it seems that the weather here in the dry season might be rather pleasant. Alternately, it’s possible that I’m just getting used to the heat and humidity, and in reality the change hasn’t been that drastic.

We had a half day of school today, and we had originally planned to use the afternoon to go to the beach. However, after lunch, the skies seemed a little ominous. While a few people still ended up going, I joined a group in going to the Institute Francaise, which is essentially a French cultural compound in the middle of downtown Dakar. Inside, there’s a little French café, a small cinema and a museum. We went there to see a documentary called “Home,” an examination of the current environmental perils that our planet is facing. Afterwards, I decided it was time to buy some Senegalese clothes, both due to not having brought very many clothes, and due to the fact that Sunday (or possibly Monday, depending on whether or not the crescent moon is spotted tomorrow night) is the festival of Korite, the end of Ramadan, and we’re expected to dress up a little bit. I feel like I got a decent bargain (about $12) on an outfit, but I’m probably wrong.

That’s about it for now. I’ll get on uploading photos and whatnot once I take some more and get to a place where the connection is fast enough.

Arrival in the homestay

Orientation has ended, and we’re getting settled (relatively speaking) into our homestay families here. Moving from the air-conditioned luxury of the Auberge Good Rade to a home with just fans, if anything, has been a bit tough. Even at night, it’s still at least 80 degrees here, and humid. The first night was fairly difficult, especially due to being woken up before sunrise by the prayers of my family, but last night was a bit more comfortable (physically, anyway).

Thus far, my experience with my homestay family (the Thiam family) has been full of surprises, not all of them pleasant. By Senegalese standards, my family is very modern. They have a computer and wi-fi, which has been great. However, they all speak French very quickly, and it’s incredibly difficult to keep up with their conversations, particularly when there‘s so much background noise from the TV, a stereo, and the prayers coming from the mosque all at once. Furthermore, despite having been told that I would have to expect not to have any privacy, my family in general has been almost too respectful of my privacy. They don’t talk to me very much, so I’m working on putting forth more effort to engage myself in their existing conversations. This is proving difficult so far, as they often talk about both soccer and politics, two things for which I don’t yet have enough vocabulary to make meaningful conversation. In general, I feel very awkward, as if nobody can understand what I’m saying. I almost feel like I'm losing my ability to speak French, because it seems like every time I open my mouth, I have to try incredibly hard to help people understand what I'm trying to say. It's a real confidence killer.

Anyway, Ramadan ends this weekend, and we’ve been told to expect things to change drastically in the city. From what we’ve been told, Dakar has been fairly calm by comparison, so it’ll be interesting to see things really pick up in the city. Additionally, the rainy season is supposed to end soon, and I’m certain everyone in the group is excited for that. Today, it rained as hard as it ever has since we arrived here, which quite literally turned the streets into rivers. We were at lunch at the time, which made getting back to school a bit of an adventure.

Later, if I can get the image uploader to work, I'll put up some pictures from our visit to the artists’ village, which is where we’ll be doing either bronze sculpture, batik, ceramics or glass painting come October. Additionally, we had one of the top kora players in Senegal give us a demo at SIT, and I’ll post an mp3 of that once I get it converted from the useless audio format it’s in now.

The Beach and Homestay Preparations

Since this is my last chance to take advantage of the hotel wi-fi before I move into my homestay here, I figured I'd post one more time.

Yesterday, we took a tour of Dakar, seeing everything from downtown again, to the east coast, to the west coast (which is where all of the rich people live). Much like I saw in Maputo, there's very much a vast range of socioeconomic backgrounds here.

We went to the beach at the end of the tour, which was very lovely. I originally hadn't planned to swim for fear of hookworms, but upon recognizing that I don't often get the opportunity to swim in the ocean, I changed my mind. Ultimately, I was glad I did, and I could easily see myself going to the beach once a week for the remainder of this program.

Anyhow, I need to pack up and eat breakfast, so that's all I have time for. I'll post again once I'm settled in my homestay and I've found a decent cyber cafe nearby.

Wolcats

Milo (my roommate) and I came up with wolcats last night. They're pretty much lolcats, but in Wolof. It's something that's probably only funny to about 8 people in the entire world.

Orientation and Drop-Off

We’ve spent the last couple of days in orientation here, and so far everything has been going wonderfully. The SIT staff is phenomenal, the rest of the students are great, and the Senegalese population in general is very friendly and open.

We’ve launched right into learning Wolof, and SIT certainly doesn’t pull any punches in making sure we’re immersed immediately. Wolof is a very complex language, and it’s going to take a great deal of practice to get the hang of. For example, this is the traditional set of greetings that people exchange (with translation in parentheses).

-Salaamalekum! (Hello/peace be with you)
-Malekumsalaam! (Hello/peace be with you)
-Naka nga def? (How do you do?)
-Mangi fi rekk. (I’m fine)
-Naka waa ker ga? (How is your family?)
-Nunga fa. (They’re fine)
-Nanga fananne/Nanga yendoo? (How did you spend the night/day?)
-Jamm rekk, alxamdulilay. (In peace only, thanks be to God)
-Sa yaram jamm? (How is your body/health?)
-Jamm rekk, alxamdulilay.

Then, if we don’t know one another, we go on to exchange names at which point each person repeats the other’s last name continuously as a sign of respect. Then, we may ask one another where we come from, etc. It’s going to take a lot of practice getting used to.

Speaking of names, it’s happened several times now that when I tell people my name is Kevin, people will respond with, “Ah, Kevin Costner!” Similarly, Alicia, another SIT student, is often greeted with “Alicia Keys!”

On Friday, representatives from our homestay families came to meet us at SIT. I met my homestay “brother,” who was very nice, and whose name I unfortunately forgot (I’m bad enough at remembering names in English, but without a knowledge of how to spell a name, it’s even harder to remember). We spoke in French, and we didn’t have any difficulty understanding one another, which was encouraging (though I did apologize for my lack of Wolof knowledge). The Diagne family, with whom I’ll be staying, is comprised of two parents, one of their sons (my brother) and his wife, that couple’s child, two cousins, and the maid (which is standard in Senegal for middle-class families). The house itself is very close to SIT, so I’ll only have a ten minute walk to school. I’m looking forward to moving in there.

The climate here is certainly radically different from that of Denver. It’s hot and humid here, with frequent torrential rainstorms. The streets are often flooded, and cars sometimes have to drive on the sidewalk to avoid getting stuck in puddles. I don’t mind the rain, though, because on days that it doesn’t rain the heat is worse.

The SIT building itself is interesting. It’s a single-floor former home with classrooms both inside and outside, and large snails crawling around outside on wet days. As it turns out, when the building was still a house, Stevie Wonder stayed there for a while in the 80s, along with Peter Gabriel.

Anyhow. Saturday was our “drop-off” day, which in short meant that the SIT staff put us into cabs in groups of three and sent us out into downtown Dakar to fend for ourselves. We were given a list of questions to find answers to, such as “did the Senegalese soccer team qualify for the Cup of African Nations this year?” and “are there any interesting events happening this week in the city?” Overall, the experience was positive, and it’s allowed me to feel a bit more comfortable with my surroundings.

In spite of the fact that it’s still Ramadan and fewer people are out and about and many restaurants and schools are closed, downtown Dakar is crowded, noisy, vibrant and surprisingly cosmopolitan. One incident in particular bears mentioning. One of the questions we were supposed to find an answer to was “what is the rate of exchange for currency today?” In finding the answer to the question, we were supposed to exchange some dollars for CFA. In searching for a bank, we were first directed to a Western Union, which only did credit transfers. The workers there directed us to a bank where we might exchange some money. Along the way, we were intercepted by a man named Amadou, who said he would direct us there. We were told in advance to be wary of scams, so we knew in advance that there was likely some sort of catch to all of this. Initially, not understanding that I needed to change cash, Amadou took us to an ATM, at which point I had to explain that I didn’t have my debit card with me. He then took me to the market, to a random stand of a friend of his, who claimed that he could change money for me. I insisted that I needed something official, with a receipt. Amadou then took us to another location, which was essentially a storefront leading to a small empty stall with bare walls and nothing but a chair inside. There, an older, well-dressed man with a calculator said that he could change money for me at a rate of about 400 CFA/dollar (the actual exchange rate is about 500 CFA/dollar). While it was clear that this sort of transaction was taking place, I insisted that I needed to go to a bank and get a receipt for the transaction. The men at this stall claimed that the bank would only change amounts larger than $100, which I knew not to be true. I explained that I wouldn‘t change any money there, and the girls in my group insisted that we take a taxi back to Point E (the neighborhood where our school is located) to eat rather than go to the restaurant that Amadou was recommending. We quickly bought some small gifts (another requirement of our assignment), and Amadou helped us find a cab. He never asked for money, though I can assume he got a cut of the profits from the gifts that we bought.

Upon returning to SIT, I learned that men with calculators like the one I encountered in the street are common, and they’re called “cambistes,” which essentially means they operate on the black market.

That’s about it for now. I must apologize for the lack of pictures, as Dakar itself is not an environment conducive to photo-taking. It's somewhat hard to understand why without experiencing it.

Arrival

I'll keep things brief, as I'm mere seconds away from falling asleep on the closest flat surface.

I've arrived in Dakar, and was pleasantly surprised that my academic director was waiting at the airport when I got off the plane at 1:30 this morning. I had fully anticipated having to wait until everyone else arrived at 6.

I got to use French with some random people, and almost got ripped off at the airport due to trying to function on three or four hours of sleep. It was raining when I arrived, which was a pleasant relief from the 28 degree (Celsius) heat and humidity.

I'm in the hotel right now, using the Wi-Fi and anticipating a nap and a shower before everyone else arrives.

Preparations, expectations, anticipation

The first leg of my flight leaves Denver at 6:00 tonight (first to Frankfurt, then to Lisbon, and finally to Dakar), so I thought I'd take some time to jot a few things down before I leave.

For those of you who might not know, the focus of this field-based study abroad program is arts and culture. I'll be learning various forms of visual art, music and dance as well as language, history and politics. The final month of the program is formatted as an independent study, which I plan to use to study something in the field of human rights (though that may change).

I feel fairly well prepared for this trip, given the amount of time I've spent reading and watching films from Senegal. I'm fairly confident in my ability to speak French, but I've come to learn that Wolof will likely be more useful. I've familiarized myself with the basics of this language, but resources for learning it have been hard to come by.

I'm looking forward to meeting my host family and other students in the program, and I'm certain the experiences that I'll have in Senegal will be life-changing. (The one thing I'm dreading is getting sick--I haven't thrown up since eighth grade, and I have no desire to break my vomit-streak just yet.)

As for what you can expect from this blog, I'm hoping to post not only photos but audio as well (My experiences in Mozambique taught me the importance of having an audio recorder on hand). I'm not much of a photographer, but I'll do my best to get at least a few shots each place I visit. While I can't make any promises in regards to how often I'll be able to provide updates, I'll make every effort to post as soon as I can with interesting news. While I will have consistent internet access in Dakar, we'll be making numerous excursions to other outlying areas that likely won't be as well-connected.

As I'll be waiting for a good six hours or more for the rest of my group in the airport in Dakar, I'll likely post from there once I've arrived (assuming internet access is available).

Here's to hoping that Lufthansa is better at not losing my luggage than South African Airlines was. (Here's to parenthetical statements as well, since every paragraph has one.)