About Saint Louis...

Now that I feel like typing again, I'll briefly discuss some of what went on in Saint Louis, as well as some additional information about the village.

A few things I forgot to mention about the village-

First, my host brother Masila, who was able to help because he spoke French, worked as a Wolof literacy teacher for Tostan, an NGO with various branches around Senegal, including one in Thies. I'm pretty sure I ran into five or six other people in the village of five households named Tala Mbaye. Not speaking much Wolof, it was hard for me to understand exactly in what way these people were related to my immediate family.

The compound I was in was surrounded by a reed fence, though the buildings themselves, save for the kitchen, were all cinder block and cement. If I'm not mistaken, these new buildings were constructed within the last two or three years. My room was a separate cinder block building with a corrugated metal roof that easily got 10 to 15 degrees warmer during the day than it was outside. Outside the village was a beautiful field where the villagers grew bisaap and several other vegetables and grains.

The toilet was really not much more than a hole in the ground inside a cement stall, but at least it had a door. A large wasp and a colony of red ants had made their home in it, but after the first day I didn't really care that much. The shower next door was less a shower and more a stall with a hole to the outside for drainage. Shower water had to be taken from the central pump and placed into a bucket.

The village itself was really a welcome respite from the noise and pollution of Dakar. I woke up with a centipede in my bed one morning, but that didn't really bother me as much as I expected it to.

Following our village stay, we spent the night in Thies in a hotel, where we got real showers and some decent food. The next day, we left for the former colonial capital of Saint Louis, which proved to be an incredible contrast of positive and negative experiences.

We holed up in the Hotel Sindone, which was an incredible, high-class little hotel along the waterside. In addition to the fact that all the rooms had air conditioning (which proved to be a life saver when the outside temperature peaked at over 100 degrees) and hot water, there was also a bar and restaurant attached that served some amazing food. We didn't do much the first night other than rest up.

The next day, we had a lecture from Louis Camara, a famous writer from Saint Louis who talked about the history of literature in the city and the important role that Saint Louis had played in the development of Senegalese literature. Following the lecture, we split off into groups to study particular historical locations in the city. Sonya and I chose to study the Khayar Mbengue elementary school, which was originally a French school founded with the purpose of educating the sons of Senegalese chiefs in French in order for them to act as interpreters and bearers of French culture. The architecture of the school was particularly stunning, but it was also interesting to learn about the role that education played as a more subversive method of control. Overall, Sonya and I were surprised by how many people we encountered that held generally positive attitudes toward the French and towards colonialism.

The same day, we visited a museum next to the hotel, which turned out to be less of a museum and more of an incredibly posh guest house. We were all baffled when the owner invited us back to swim in the pools there that night. He even bought us drinks. I can safely say it was the happiest that a lot of us had been in a long time.

Also, there were thousands of bats that lived in and around the governor's palace, and it was pretty crazy to see them take off at night. Some of them would swoop down and pick insects out of the pool.

On Saturday night, a few of us went out to see an afro-jazz concert at a nearby bar/restaurant, which was really great. There was one man in particular who it seemed had had too much to drink and was making liberal use of the dance floor. Following this concert, we were invited by some people we had met the previous day to a club for an international sort of dance party. I left with a few others before things really got underway, but it was interesting seeing how people there approached dancing. Whereas club dancing in the US is taken pretty seriously, there didn't seem to be a lot of people getting too into it. I did, however, get to see the opportunity to see Senegalese men dance for the first time (officially, dancing is forbidden for men by Islam). It was weird.

I can't really talk about Saint Louis without mentioning just how touristy the place was. Street vendors were everywhere selling mass-produced "art"--Masks, elephants, drums, paintings, necklaces, bracelets, etc. To these people, being white meant being rich, and they wouldn't take no for an answer. I eventually ran out of money part way through our stay in Saint Louis due to most of the ATMs being out of commission. When people tried to sell me things and I told them I didn't have money, they universally never believed me. There were some people on the beach who laughed when I initially told them I didn't have money, and then seemed borderline offended when they found out it was true. It got to be very frustrating, and I came close to snapping at people a few times.

One of the worst offenders was a man who called himself Joe the African. He called me into his little shop "just to look," which universally never actually means that. He tried to get me to buy some necklaces, to which I replied I didn't want any. He then suggested I get some for my girlfriend. When I said I didn't have one, he made reference to the large number of girls in the group I was with and then proceeded, in the most vulgar way imaginable, to ask if I was a heterosexual. He then went on to describe his sexual exploits with his four wives. Needless to say, I didn't buy anything from him.

Overall, though, Saint Louis was very pleasant, and I wasn't crazy about coming back to Dakar. Unfortunately, it seems that I didn't take a single picture there. I don't really know what I was thinking. I'll try to get some from other people on the trip.