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.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Many many updates
It's been a good long while since my last post, as I thought it might be. I'll try to keep this as organized and brief as possible while I hit all the major points.
We finished batik up, and I'm fairly pleased with how one of my pieces turned out. It's a beach scene with a kora and tama player. I also made a shirt with a djembe player on it, and a blue cloth with red cracks, but I'm less pleased with how those turned out.
On Friday, we went to the island of Gorée, a tiny island which was a major hub in the Atlantic slave trade. Upon arriving, I was immediately struck by what I felt to be the strong contrast between the island's gorgeous architecture and its horrific history. Our first stop on the island was a boarding house where slaves were kept in pretty abysmal conditions before being shipped out to the US or Europe. There were some other tourists there, and it was weird to see them taking photos smiling in front of the slave quarters. We then visited a museum dedicated to women in Senegal, which was apparently the first of its kind in West Africa. There was a lot of interesting stuff there, but the heat made it a little hard to concentrate at times. After lunch, we wandered around the island for a while, and Jeannie and I got the opportunity to visit the old French fort on the top of the island, which has been converted into an artists' studio. After visiting another former fort that now functions as a sort of museum of anthropology, we headed back to the mainland. Overall, I was surprised by how tourist-y the island was. The locals seemed really eager to capitalize on the presence of visitors, and nobody seemed particularly eager to acknowledge the island's history.
The next day, we left for our village stay. I was put in Keur Demba Kebe with Allie and Sonya, and I got to stay with the very wonderful Mbaye family, who named me Tala for the duration of my stay there. While most everyone in the village spoke only Wolof, I managed to survive by recognizing key words and getting help from my host brother, Masila, who spoke French. Additionally, there was a Peace Corps volunteer who had been living there for the past couple of years, so she was able to do some very helpful translating when she was around.
The village itself was comprised of four adjacent compounds along the road from Thies, with a fifth across the street. None of the compounds on our side of the road had electricity, and water came from a tap in the center of the village. In the three days that I was there, it's safe to say that I did very little compared to an average day in Dakar. Men would generally work in the field in the mornings while women would do housework, and much of the rest of the day was spent lying around in the heat. It was nice not having a TV running 24/7, the food was pretty good, and the night sky was absolutely beautiful without the lights of the city nearby.
On our last night, we had a sort of dance party in the larger central village of Keur Sadaro. I'm certain I made a complete fool of myself, but such is the life of a Toubab. It was especially odd considering Muslim men don't dance at all, so I initially wasn't sure if I risked offending anyone by dancing. However, it became clear that the opposite was true--I risked offending people by not dancing. On the plus side, I did get to wear some of the ridiculous clothes I bought in the market a while back.
Also, we went to the former colonial capital of Saint Louis. Because I'm getting sick of typing, I'm going to save that for a separate post.
We finished batik up, and I'm fairly pleased with how one of my pieces turned out. It's a beach scene with a kora and tama player. I also made a shirt with a djembe player on it, and a blue cloth with red cracks, but I'm less pleased with how those turned out.
On Friday, we went to the island of Gorée, a tiny island which was a major hub in the Atlantic slave trade. Upon arriving, I was immediately struck by what I felt to be the strong contrast between the island's gorgeous architecture and its horrific history. Our first stop on the island was a boarding house where slaves were kept in pretty abysmal conditions before being shipped out to the US or Europe. There were some other tourists there, and it was weird to see them taking photos smiling in front of the slave quarters. We then visited a museum dedicated to women in Senegal, which was apparently the first of its kind in West Africa. There was a lot of interesting stuff there, but the heat made it a little hard to concentrate at times. After lunch, we wandered around the island for a while, and Jeannie and I got the opportunity to visit the old French fort on the top of the island, which has been converted into an artists' studio. After visiting another former fort that now functions as a sort of museum of anthropology, we headed back to the mainland. Overall, I was surprised by how tourist-y the island was. The locals seemed really eager to capitalize on the presence of visitors, and nobody seemed particularly eager to acknowledge the island's history.
The next day, we left for our village stay. I was put in Keur Demba Kebe with Allie and Sonya, and I got to stay with the very wonderful Mbaye family, who named me Tala for the duration of my stay there. While most everyone in the village spoke only Wolof, I managed to survive by recognizing key words and getting help from my host brother, Masila, who spoke French. Additionally, there was a Peace Corps volunteer who had been living there for the past couple of years, so she was able to do some very helpful translating when she was around.
The village itself was comprised of four adjacent compounds along the road from Thies, with a fifth across the street. None of the compounds on our side of the road had electricity, and water came from a tap in the center of the village. In the three days that I was there, it's safe to say that I did very little compared to an average day in Dakar. Men would generally work in the field in the mornings while women would do housework, and much of the rest of the day was spent lying around in the heat. It was nice not having a TV running 24/7, the food was pretty good, and the night sky was absolutely beautiful without the lights of the city nearby.
On our last night, we had a sort of dance party in the larger central village of Keur Sadaro. I'm certain I made a complete fool of myself, but such is the life of a Toubab. It was especially odd considering Muslim men don't dance at all, so I initially wasn't sure if I risked offending anyone by dancing. However, it became clear that the opposite was true--I risked offending people by not dancing. On the plus side, I did get to wear some of the ridiculous clothes I bought in the market a while back.
Also, we went to the former colonial capital of Saint Louis. Because I'm getting sick of typing, I'm going to save that for a separate post.
Monday, September 28, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, September 18, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
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.
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.
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