Oh, right. I have a blog.

Well, so much for keeping up with this. I guess now that ISP is underway, I've gotten used to having evenings free and I haven't really had a specific desire to sit down and type out what I've been doing, especially since I'll have to do that again in a more formal fashion in about two weeks.

We celebrated Thanksgiving as a group at the girls' apartment in Point E, dining on chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing, apple cake and ice cream. It was quite nice.

As for ISP, I don't feel that I have a lot to talk about. It's been going quite well, and it's looking like this next week is going to be my last official week of training at the foundry. Issa was nice enough to give me the option of coming back if there's anything I need to finish up, but it's looking like I'm more or less on track to get all of my work done by this coming Saturday.

So far, I've produced three sculptures of medium to small size. The first was a Talibe, one of the young religious disciples wandering the streets of Dakar, begging for alms, that I encounter on a daily basis. The next was a more abstract piece intended to represent tradition and modernity in Senegal. It's a baobab with small huts at its roots, and several hands among its branches grasping things such as books, airplanes, cell phones and car rapides. The third sculpture is a lion, which is the national symbol of Senegal. All of these sculptures are in the finishing stages, with just a little bit more grinding and polishing, followed by the patina, to be complete. I'm also working on a fourth as a gift for some friends (which is still in the wax model stage), followed by possibly a sixth for my homestay family as a parting gift if I have time. It's been a lot of fun, but it's been a struggle on a few occasions, particularly given my vocabulary of artistic terms and names for tools is pretty limited.

Originally, I was worried that my project was going to be horrifically expensive (almost $1000, with SIT only providing $600). However, I've found a couple of ways to cut down on expenses. Firstly, lunch is served at the foundry every day, which means that between that and my homestay, I'm not really paying for food anymore except on special occasions. Beyond that, whereas I used to take a taxi to and from the Village Des Arts every day, spending about $3 each way, I was pointed to a car rapide (a beat-up, colorfully painted old mini bus) that stops just a few hundred feet from the back entrance to the foundry. The cost? About 30 cents.

Also, Tabaski was yesterday. Where do I begin?

The festival of Tabaski is the biggest holiday of the year. Following the morning prayer at the mosque, the family gets together to slaughter sheep as a commemoration of God providing a ram to Abraham to sacrifice in place of Ishmael (Muslims believe that it was Ishmael that Abraham was asked to sacrifice rather than Isaac). Each man in the family with a job and the means to acquire a sheep (ranging from $80 to $2000) is expected to do so. These days, some women also buy sheep. For my family, this translated to a slaughtering of seven sheep in total. I was apprehensive, not having seen the killing of an animal before. However, I thought it would be a good experience to have.

Ultimately, it was, though it was easily the most disturbing thing I've ever seen. Each sheep had its throat slit and its blood spilled into a pit that we had dug outside the house. I watched the first slaughtering, though I started to get lightheaded during the second, particularly when the first started frantically kicking its legs as it bled to death on the sidewalk, so I stayed inside for the rest. Afterwards, the sheep were all brought into the garage and butchered, and cooked and eaten as they became available. I forced myself to watch the butchering, and I actually ended up eating lunch right next to the butchers.

I got some pictures. I don't think I'll post them on Facebook, as I'm not sure to what extent that might violate the terms of service.

What else? I had hot wings and a milkshake for lunch today and, my parents will be here in two weeks, which is crazy to think about. That's about it.