Reaching Out..

We are trying to get more involved with the campus community here. An American professor shares our apartment with us and she said her students think we're stuck up because we don't talk to anyone. The truth is that we are shy, and though this culture is based around being extremely hospitable and welcoming.. they are not overt about it when on campus. Not that we're surprised, we're surrounded by busy college students! So thus far we have been adapting to the new culture and trying to sense when it's appropriate to greet someone and when it's not.

But we're getting better! We went to the beach a couple days ago, because that's where all the locals (and I say locals, but it's mostly men, and the only women there were fruit vendors) go to exercise. So we, the new toubabs (pronouced too-bob) in town, set up shop on the beach while trying not to get dragged into the soccer games and lutte matches. There was a rock formation about 200 meters off the shore and a few of us had the bright idea to swim out to it. We were nearly there when a Senegalese guy managed to stop us, telling us that it was covered in sea urchins. Right. No, thank you! So then there we were, treading water about 200 meters out to sea, striking up on conversation with a local. Turns out his name is Moustafa, he's from the Casamance (the area of Senegal just south of the Gambia), he served two years in the Senegalese marines, hates the French, loves Americans, and was totally prepared to tread water with us the next 1.5 hours and talk about Senegalese culture. SO COOL RIGHT? Anyway. We ended up drifting a bit father than we anticipated and had to swim really far back but it was worth it. Other Senegalese guys would periodically swim up to our group and drop into the conversation. It was from them I finally got my Senegalese name! They named me Fatou, which is the same name as one of the Senegalese students who is with our program. When I told her how I got my name she was so excited, but mostly really pleased that I chose to share her name. People call us the Fatou Twins, she's Fatou Un (1), and I'm Fatou Doux (2). It's awesome.

Our friend Awa, who is with the program, introduced us to some of her friends. They are in the English club with her here on campus. It was so much fun talking with them. Especially because their English is just a little bit worse than our French, so we had a nice conversation using English, French, and Wolof. We think we've invented a new language: Frenglof. It was really fun. Today I'm going to go to the American professor's class on civil disobedience. She was the one who said her students want to talk to us, but think we are stuck up because we won't initiate conversation. So I'm going to drop in and hang out with them, hopefully I will clear the air.

We've been able to make random acquaintances here though, and me especially. I like being able to walk around campus and be able to greet about 4 different people. None of the others are as willing to strike of a conversation when they are walking alone, so I've been able to get more names. The only problem with that is I am obligated to stop and say hi. So my walks across campus take a long time now because I know more people. But it's fun, our conversations are a struggle because they talk so fast and use a lot of slang, so we always have to go between the three languages to make ourselves understood. Again, Frenglof. It's a thing.

The Happenings: a Political Update

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Sometimes I think that so much happens in one day that I cannot fit everything in my memory. Then I realize that I’ll be here for a year so I can calm the hell down. So forgive me if this post seems rushed.

The political demonstrations are interesting to watch and hear about. They started the day before my arrival and have been continuing for the past couple days. The people are at the end of their rope. They desire change, and are passionate about their rights and nurturing a democracy. They put up with things Americans would be having a second revolution over. In Senegal, electricity and politics are linked. A few years ago, power was steady and it wasn’t a problem. But the impetus of the last bout of riots was the power outage, which lasted over 12 hours yesterday. Before you think it’s not really something to get too worried over, reflect on how much electricity is used every minute or a variety of essential tasks. Many people have businesses dependent on power, and when it’s out for an entire day, a day’s loss of income is not taking lightly. In Senegal, people are resourceful and find creative ways to make money in an economy with an unemployment rate of 50%. Makes you really question how much a days wage means to you. But you lose money again, and again, and again, your patience vanishes. The power goes out at least once a day anyway, but usually for a couple hours.

The official explanation is an old power plant at the northern dam of the Senegalese River, but it’s pretty common knowledge that the government does it as a means of ‘saving power.’ They will strategically shut down entire neighborhoods at a time. With the power out for so long, people were demonstrating in the streets, building bonfires in the middle of the street with tires and broken furniture. The fires were a message: basically saying that they can provide a very different kind of light if they government pushes too far.

Our group (10 students) were having dinner last night when demonstrations took place on the street outside our restaurant. The TV was tuned to a loud soccer game, so we didn’t really hear anything besides a vague chanting. However, when we went outside the street had transformed. This was about 11:30, we’d been eating for a couple hours and by the time we came out there were two bonfires in the street and lots of people still milling around them. While the main demonstration was over, the sidewalks teemed with people. Some people were still shouting, the street had been blockaded to stop traffic, and we heard sirens in the distance. We stood on the corner to check out the scene for a few minutes and we heard on a nearby radio that riot polite were outside l’Université Cheikh Anta Diop, fac de FASTEF. To orient you, dear reader, the FASTEF campus of l'Université Cheikh Anta Diop was exactly where we were headed, as it's where we're living. Learning there's riot police at your front door isn't good news. So we took the back door and didn’t have any problems. On the way home, though, we were approached by a Senegalese woman who had lived in the US for many years. She said this is the first time in history anything like this has happened. She was pretty shocked and walked us part of the way home. On the street, complete strangers would approach us and reassure us saying, "don’t be scared, it is just for the electricity, don’t be scared." They even pointed us down some safe side streets so we wouldn’t have to see the actual demonstrations. Our program staff had expressly forbade us to take part, linger at, or attempt to watch any of the riots that rocked our portion of the city. Needless to say, it was a thrilling walk home. 

When we got home, all of us went to the balcony (we're on the 3rd floor and have a decent view) to see if anything was visible. Nothing happened. Haha. But we turned on a radio (hand-crank powered no less) and tried to find a station that would tell us something about the current events. We didn't get much information but we had a good time talking about politics and trying to predict what might happen. That's also when we discovered that a bird comes out at night and has a call that sounds like a possessed clown cackle. It was a sound of nightmares. 

So, the parting message here is: Rachel is staying for a year in the most exciting period for politics! It will interesting to see what will happen in the months surrounding the election.

Le Monument de la Renaissance Africaine

Le Monument

We visited le Monument de la Renaissance Africaine a couple days ago, I think the day before yesterday anyway. It is a HUGE monument built by the current president, and is basically him, his wife, and his son overlooking Dakar. The people here are pretty mad at it, because it's this huge expensive monument with state of the art display systems and conference rooms inside (yes inside) the monument. All this in the face of poverty, it's such a stupid waste of money. And not only that but it's a representation of Wade with this chiseled body and beautiful wife (his is real life is white, by the way.. they kind of made a mistake there). But for us it's pretty cool to explore, and we went to the top, in Wade's hat. From there we could see all of Dakar, his "wife," and "son."

View from the top of the stairs-toward le Plateau 

View of woman from the hat

Model of Lutteurs, or wrestlers. Senegalese national sport. 

As a side note: today I learned an interesting cultural nuance. (And this probably why tourists are accepted only for their money. ha) Some Senegalese have a belief which stems from their ancestral pagan religion that when you take a picture of someone, you capture a piece of their soul. There is some connection between death and an image, that the soul will have a hard time moving on if it is caught in too many places. That's not an exact explanation, but it's the best I can do. This is not universal, but it is a general belief. So when you go into tourist mode, clicking away at pictures, you need to be careful who is in it. Always ask permission before taking a picture of someone, and be careful if you are taking pictures of groups in case someone gets offended... or before you get yourself into trouble. Just another fascinating cultural nuance. 

(However, I learned that many people are more than willing to be in a photo if you ask them politely. Just give them time to adjust their hair. For example, this guard shouldered his way into our photo, then promptly proposed to me.)

Roomies

First Beach Sightings and some Random Wanderings

Irresistible is right!!! We thought this was hilarious.

We spent half the afternoon trying our best to get to this rocky point into the ocean. We wandered along the beach, then got shooed off someone's private property. We went through this huge, glamorous shopping mall but were cut off from the beach. Finally we trespassed on a private plaza party to skip around the side and to the beach, where we scrambled along the point. HUGE waves kept coming up on the rocks and hit the three others from behind. Hilarious.

Tyler had the bright idea to sit on this rock and wait for the next wave..

Then he got scared and abandoned ship..

This is the face of a wave attack... Jessica and Aloura..

African tidepools???!!!??

Everyone comes to the beach to exercise and have fun. In this case, play soccer (almost got hit in the head), practice the national sport (la lutte) where Tyler was invited for a match. ahhaha. google that shit, by the way. SO INTENSE.

Mysterious fruit on the side of the sidewalk.. eat or not to eat? we were about it try it when a stranger stopped us. ahah

Villa for sale..

Bissap juice!!!!

Food for Thought

Yesterday, we were on our way back from the market and we were stopped by a man on campus. He got our attention by him saying, in English, "are you people from the bible? Are you people from the bible?" After much hemmm-ing and haawww-ing we figured out that he was asking us if we were missionaries, since apparently there was a missionary group here recently. He wanted to discuss religion with us. Being a muslim, he was curious about Christianity and how it told us to live our lives. I explained that not all of us are Christian, some of have no religion, and even within Christianity there is a diverse number of groups which differ from each other. "How can you all live like that? How can you all believe different things and yet be friends?" We tried to explain that we sort of agree to disagree, and respect each person's beliefs, even if they contradict our own. "How can your country survive if nobody believes the same thing?" Trying to explain that sometimes the believe in freedom of expression can override personal opinion. I said, "As a community, we don't live our lives how the bible would like us to. It is each individual's decision to live how they want to, and if someone else doesn't agree, then they just don't talk about it. Live and let live I guess." This discussion was challenging, since the United States separates church from state. Officially, the Senegalese values this separation as well, but it's a little less contentious when 99% of the population is Muslim. It's also hard to explain that American society is incredibly complex. It's not always live and let live. There are still pervasive inequalities around race, gender, and religion. Not everyone agrees all the time. It's a mix if beliefs and norms. And after a 20 minute discussion, I really don't think he understood the idea of it. (Though it's more than possible that our French-English-Wolof discussion was being translated quite as we hoped.)

So we moved on to the other topic: politics. A couple days before I arrived, the current president of Senegal, Wade, proposed a law that would change how the Senegalese government was structured. He wanted to remove the position of prime minister and create a vice presidential position. This would inspirations was based on the American executive branch. He also proposed that in order to win the next election, the presidential candidate would only have to get 25% of the votes. This would take away the double voting system. Right now there are preliminary rounds, followed by a second wave of voting that is usually between 2-3 candidates.

When he proposed this bill, the Senegalese people were furious. To them, he has betrayed them, attempting to change the government system to resemble the US' just so he can get their support/money. There is also the belief that he is simply maneuvering power so his son can succeed him as president. This is a democracy! the people yell, not a monarchy! The day before I arrived, there were riots at the parliament building, and at the president's house. People said they would fight until they died, that death didn't matter to them, because they we're not going to see their beloved Senegal fall to even more corruption and be run by power-grabbing men. (Of course, that is already basically true, and the people seem to have a lot of cynicism for their government.) They said they would fight until Wade was dead. Now. Back to the student we were talking to. His name is Alaj, by the way, he's 6'4" and rather imposing. He was at the demonstrations, participating in the rock throwing, tire burning, etc.

"Those were university students," he said. "It is the intellectuals who know what is happening to this country and it is wrong. We did what we did to send [Wade] a message-that he is a corrupt old man, and we will fight to show him that what he wants is wrong."

Storm!

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I woke up this morning thinking the wind was strong enough to blow our apartment down. My curiosity popped me out of bed and sent me toward the window. Trash whipped in the street and people’s clothes tangled around their bodies. The cloud cover was a strange brown. “I forgot how close we are to the Sahara,” Comments my roommate when I pointed this out. “Maybe it’s sand?” Then it started to rain. In about 5 minutes the gutters on all the buildings were like waterfalls, and not ground-level gutters, but the roof ones. And not just one! There are probably 3 along the roof of the dorms across the way, and all three are going nuts!

When we left the apartment about an hour later, the rain was gone and everyone started to come outside. Apparently when the first few rains of the season come, the wind whips up all the dust on the ground and everyone shuts their windows and stays inside because it gets absolutely everywhere. The streets were covered in trash. That is one thing I have not mentioned about Dakar, there is no recycling and the trash service is pretty sketchy. Everyone just throws their trash on the ground, and coming from someone who is used to religiously recycling, who was willing to bring plastic bags from Atlanta back to Eugene to be recycled, it has been rather shocking. I have a hard time throwing away my toothpick.. it is still in my purse.. let along a piece of trash. Anyway. All the trash is swept against the walls of compounds and ignored. After the storm ALL of this was in the street. It covers the pavement completely. By the time we were out, some of it was starting to be swept up but it was still pretty bad. 

Our Apartment

Arrival

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Getting to Africa was a lovely combination of most travelers’ hated moments: lost luggage, complete ignorance of flight times/location of gates, being trapped in a cabin surrounded by screaming children, and plane companions who slept on/in one’s space with horrible breath, bad snoring, or belligerent laughter when awake. Yes, that continuous sentence was on purpose. I was on the plane, crossing the Atlantic Ocean, alternating between hyperventilating panic and gut-wrenching waves of anticipation. This is the first time I've left the States all alone. Travelled, sure, but not chosen to live on a whole different continent for an entire year. The last good-byes with my family at the airport rushed through my head alongside predictions of what my Senegalese host family would be like. At least until one of the 4 screaming children sitting directly behind me, practicing drum rolls on the back of my chair with his feet, reached forward to grab a lock of my hair. When his hand got a little too violent, as if the back massage wasn’t enough, I reached behind my head to take his tiny hand out of my hair. He let go immediately and instead latched onto my finger, letting out a rather sloppy giggle. And the little guy didn’t let go. Now I’m not one for signs, or omens or whatever, but when his little fingers locked around mine and he started his garbled Wolof lullaby to himself, I felt like I belonged. I felt like this country had accepted me before I even got there, and this little boy was the messenger. All my dire predictions evaporated, my depression over leaving my family vanished, and I was nothing short of antsy to get off the plane and discover my new life. And then, of course, his mother tugged his hand from my finger and he fell apart in an explosion of kicking and screaming. I’m going to ignore that sign and stick with first one.

Nothing eventful happened at customs, but one of the girl’s luggage was misplaced. While waiting for her, one of the airport attendants was shamelessly flirting with the three of us. We needed a local to show us around, especially at the beach, in downtown, and in markets. We needed to be shown to all the good clubs and eating places. It was destiny that we had met, and things shouldn’t be left to chance. Of course!  All these offers were in rapid accented French, and I admit I only caught the overall idea of what he was saying. But I knew enough to respond with, "if it’s really destiny, then we will meet again, but it’s not going to happen today." Sassy American!!!  Rachel: 1.. pushy Senegalese guy: 0.

However, within 5 hours of being in Dakar, I think I could fill a novel with all my observations, questions, and musings about this city. The city is a mesmerizing combination of ancient clay buildings with colorful mosaic sidewalks and completely modern glass buildings. A shiny Mercedes can be seen right next to a drab French car that probably has 0.2 miles left on it. Horse-drawn carriages dodge mopeds, and herds of cattle sometimes block intersections. Public transportation buses are packed full of people, some hanging off the back and bouncing on a plank that extends past the bumper as the bus weaves through traffic at 40 miles per hour. The humidity hangs on your skin, in your clothes, and most especially, your lungs. The smell of the city always has the faint undercurrent of sewage, which occasionally gets stronger with a breeze. But it is laced with car exhaust, bodies, the ocean, and fruit. But it is the breeze that saves me. As hot as it is in the sun, you can always expect a cool breeze to come in from the sea. I'm here, and I couldn't be more excited to get started. 

More to come later... with pictures and awkward stories I didn't have time to write...