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.