I should be writing an ISP proposal right now...

Happy Easter Monday everyone! Apparently it's a big enough deal that even in a country where 95% of the population is Muslim nobody works or goes to school...except us. Weird. Mostly the Senegalese look for excuses to celebrate I think, because even my totally Muslim family ate ngalaax--a traditional dish served just before Easter that is like yogurty peanut buttery goop with millet couscous in it (sounds gross but is sweet and tasty!).

FYI: Today is the official half-way point. 7.5 weeks until I come home! In that time I have to do another village stay, do some small group projects and random homework assignments, say goodbye to my host family; and propose, research, and write a huge paper. No problem...or something.

This last week involved mostly homework and stressing about my indecision regarding my ISP topic.

Saturday those of us that sculpted at Columbin the previous weekend went back to paint our work. We also ate lunch there, which was pleasant. I now have a horse and a purple elephant that I'm pretty proud of, and will carry on my lap on the plane home if I have to. I love Columbin too much not to go back a lot between now and May even just to say hi and buy some more fragile art to try to get back across the ocean.

Easter Sunday most of us went to Keur Moussa (about an hour from Dakar), which is a village with a Benedictine monastery where we attended mass. It's a beautiful place, but what was most striking was the music. They use traditional African instruments (kora, djembe, calabasses, and balaphone) for all the music and it was beautiful. They also make goat cheese and jam and cakes that they sell. Maybe, just maybe, I bought some jam to smuggle back to the U.S. ... don't tell customs.

We leave on Thursday for our second village stay and then we go on to St. Louis, the old capital, which should be a really chill and educational but fun trip. We're going to be speaking mostly Wolof in this village (Ker Sadaro), so our teachers have significantly picked up the pace in class. It's kind of intense, but now I can make people laugh by saying more than just greetings.

PS--Part 4 Photos now up.

Not a lot of talking, but a whole lot of fun!

This weekend was pretty fantastic. Friday night a bunch of us chased down a Chinese restaurant (right across from the Chinese embassy) and gorged ourselves. Yum. We also went to Just 4 U and laugh at the other toubabs dance.

Saturday morning some other girls and I made a trek to the ritzy part of town where all the rich businesspeople and ambassadors live to a patisserie we'd seen. Pain au chocolat has never tasted so good. And it was guilt-free since there was lots of walking involved!

Saturday afternoon was pretty special. We returned to a pottery shop/workshop where the artists are all handicapped that we had visited earlier in the week. They make beautiful pots, sculptures, and jewelry instead of being on the street begging and everyone is like one big welcoming family. They invited us to come and make art with them. Those with ceramics experience used the pottery wheel, and the unartistic ones like me sculpted little animals and ashtrays. Assane, a deaf-mute boy probably about 12 years old helped me make a horse and an elephant. It was an unbelievable experience. He was an exceptional communicator, an expert sculptor, and a totally joyful human being. I was amazed at how much we could communicate nonverbally, even without official sign language. I had a really great time and can't wait to go back next week when our stuff will be fired and we can paint it.

Sunday was pretty lazy. I did homework and watched TV with the fam, made ataya, and read a book. It was just what I wanted. I've become friends with my host cousin/maid. I go with her to go buy bread and stuff for dinner sometimes. She doesn't speak a whole lot of French, but I think she likes having someone who isn't barking orders at her (like the rest of the family) to hang out with. My goal is to go with her on errands a lot and make her life a little less miserable. I want to find a small gift to give her before I leave too.

This week is going to focus on getting my ISP topic nailed down and start working on my proposal. There are some other small projects to work on, which is lame since the big ISP is lurking and needing attention right now. This week we also have our visual art classes. I'm doing batik. Since I've kind of become a fabric junky while I'm here, it should be just about perfect.

PS--I finally got ALL of the Kedougou photos up (My Photos Part 2) with some captions. Enjoy.

Rawr!

Don't have a seizure because of all the posts, okay?

This is a video of my 12-year-old host-brother Omar imitating an American pro-wrestler. He's pretty much my favorite. The Senegalese have a special type of wrestling, by the way, called 'la lutte'. It's a pretty big deal here (there was a big match on Sunday). It's kind of reminiscent of Sumo wrestling, but they're not hugely fat and they're African I guess. Google it.

Islands in the Sun

It's been difficult to post the past couple days because the power keeps going out. But here it is--a jam-packed blog post.

Would it be confusing if I went out of chronological order? Because I really want to talk about Saturday. You're not writing this so I'm going do that. Hold on to your hats.

SATURDAY WAS ONE OF THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE. Serious. My friends Calla and Paige and I went to Ile de la Madeleine (Trans: Madeleine Island), which is protected by the national park system and ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. You take a boat from an off the beaten trail national park office on the beach in Dakar and get dropped off with a guide. The island is made up of volcanic rock and has wicked cool rock formations. There's lots of birds and fishies in the water because no one's allowed to kill them (even though people still do...arg). There are baobab trees all over the place. The best part was the natural little pool where we could swim without being sucked into the washing machine ocean on the other side of the rocks. That was my first time swimming in the ocean. I felt like I was being baptised. We also climbed up rocks and the view was awesome. AND...I saw a PUFFER FISH! So cool. Our guide showed us around the island when we first got there and then gave us the rest of the day to swim and do whatever. We were there for about five hours. I'm in the process of posting photos from that day (My Photos Part III: The Islands) and from Friday when we went to Goree Island, which I will talk about now....

Goree Island--take off point for the slave trade and super tourist trap. Gorgeous but also super depressing and frustrating. There's a slave house where they kept all the slaves before sending them through the "Door of No Return" onto ships. I felt nauseous the whole time we were there. It's really a beautiful place, but it's also hard to enjoy when there's vendors approaching you constantly trying to get you to buy things because you're white and look like a tourist.

Schoolwork is definitely picking up. I handed in a paper about the village stay yesterday (big pain in the rear), I have a project due next week, and a proposal for my giant project due the week after that. Mix in some some French and Wolof homework and bake at 100 degrees and out pops stress-o-rific me. Luckily I've almost nailed down a topic for my big ISP (Independent Study Project) that we spend the last month working on. I think I will research and writing about ethics in business education. Are business students being taught ethics in business schools? Do they need to be? It'll be great. I hope. We'll see how it goes. There are other topic possibilities in the wings if need be.

I've now graduated from taking the big bus to school to taking the car rapides, which are junky mini-buses that cost even less and are brightly painted and kinda insane. I think the Senegalese are impressed when us toubab girls are brave enough to take them.

This week we're taking more music classes and since the kora class were filled up I'm taking more djembe class. Fine with me. Maybe I'll get good at it and be a djembe-playing fool when I get home!

Toubab! Donne-moi un cadeau!

I'm back in Dakar after an eight day trip to Kedougou! I've added a link over on the right that says My Photos Part 2 which has pictures from the trip. Overall it was a really positive experience. We started off at an auberge where we stayed in huts with electricity, air-conditioning (which came in handy because it's way hotter there than in Dakar--in the hundreds I'm sure), and running water. Then we moved to our home stays where we lived in huts with none of those things. With the group we did some pretty amazing hikes and visited some villages of the Bedik ethnic group. We got to play in a spectacular water fall and climb big rocks. I've decided that when I get home I want to be a camping person because running around in the wilderness and being without electricity and peeing in holes is definitely okay by me and pretty fantastic.

Groups of us were placed in homestays in the villages of various ethnic groups. I was in a Bassari family--a 55 year-old woman named Justine and her mother. Those staying in Bassari families weren't in a village exactly, instead we learned about the Bassari from members of the group that live close to Kedougou (the nearest village would have been 90 km away). In general, and especially in the home stay, communication was a challenge since French was often limited and Wolof hardly spoken at all. Justine spoke some French, but she's very shy and quiet and what French she does speak was often hard to understand. Her mother spoke no French at all except Bonjour. We managed to chase up some people of our generation who are the ones who speak the most French. A guy that lived near my friend Hannah and I was a good source for our research about the Bassaris and also taught us how to make Ataya (green tea Senegalese style with lost of sugar and poured over and over to build up foam--See photos). I had the most fun with my friend Joel and his host family where his brothers spoke a lot of French. They took us to check out the Gambia river, we ate warthog and wild honey from the comb (honey, shea butter, and indigo are big things in the area), drank Ataya, and chatted about Bassari culture.

The Bedik village was having a circumcision ceremony and celebration and we were able to join our friends staying there to see what the celebration was like. Lots of singing and dancing and bright colors. It was a great opportunity and a break from the pretty boring situation at my homestay. There wasn't a lot going on with my family (probably because I was living with just the two women and wasn't in a village setting), so opportunities to go places were great. I was actually very ready to go back to the hotel when the time came, but am glad to have had the experience of living with Justine.

I had a good time in Kedougou, but it's nice to be back in the city too even if it smells and there's way more people and noise. There are also less children yelling "Toubab! Donne-moi un cadeau!" (White person! Give me a present!). I have my own room now in my homestay here since my older host sister went back to Paris where she goes to school. I didn't really mind sharing, but it's nice to have a little more privacy.

I'm looking forward to a couple weeks of routine and then another awesome excursion to another part of Senegal. Friday we're taking a small field trip to Goree island off the coast of Dakar, which was a big deal pre-colonialism and during the slave trade. Should be intensely interesting.