If you couldn't tell by my blog title, this weekend saw the first of many laundry sessions. We were told that we might be able to hire someone for very little money to do our clothes for us but when it turned out that it would actually cost around $1 per article of clothing we all re-evaluated that decision and just did it ourselves. Oh yes, I filled a bucket full of soapy water and another one full of clean water and washed my clothes in it and then hung them up to dry! I'm not really sure if I did it correctly and I'm not sure if my clothes are actually clean, but I will have mastered how to survive without the spin cycle by the time I get back home!
I do not have more pictures just yet but before I forget things I would like a make a few observations about life in Dakar and what I have seen...
Feet: Everyone's feet are dirty ALL THE TIME! I constantly have dirt and sand on my feet everyday. Because the roads are covered in sand and debris it is impossible to maintain any sort of feet cleanliness. And it is too hot to wear tennis shoes, therefore we walk around and sandals and just hope that sand and a little dirt are the ONLY things we get on our feet!
Organization: There is no real concept of time/order here, let me explain. People kind of run on their own time, especially when it is the weekend. If you accept an invitation to go to someone's house for lunch you can expect to be gone anywhere from 4-8 hours. The pace of my life is totally devoid of any consistency here and you kind of just have to relax and realize that you really don't have anywhere you need to be so just chill. Also, lines of any sort do not exist! That means no lines to get on or off a boat, no lines at the grocery store, nothing! I'm pretty sure the only reason I am able to pay for anything at the store is because people will let girls ahead of them, the fact that I'm white though works against me half the time and gives people the license to "cut".
Animals: Ok, this is less a general observation than a short anecdote. Within two days I saw both a cow and chickens get slaughtered right in front of me. The cow's death was a total coinidence, right place at the wrong time sort of thing. My friend and I were on an adventure, aka lost for an hour, and we had wandered onto a busy street. We happened to see a large canopy over the sidewalk with a couple cows standing and tied up to posts. We then saw about 6-8 people huddled over a cow that was subdued and hog-tied on the ground. At the exact moment we walked by they cut the cow's throat, spilling blood EVERYWHERE (there was no bucket anywhere to catch the blood and it just went into the street/sidewalk). We had to briskly run along because my friend is obsessed with animals and almost threw up/started crying. Let me reiterate that we were on a popular street midday on the weekend! The second incidence came when one of our senegalese conversation partners decided to teach us how to cook senegalese cuisine, which included coming up with a list of ingredients and going to the market to purchase them. And at this market is where I saw the chickens being slaughtered over a whole in the ground which is what held the blood. We, quite literally, picked out three live chickens and witnessed their demise. When we returned after they had been plucked, I was handed the plastic bag holding our chickens which were not warm but steaming hot! Ok I now know where my food comes from, I do not need to see it anymore! Mama, I should just let you know that there was NO concept of food handling safety when we prepared the senegalese meal and, yes, later on it did give me a stomach ache, but no food poisoning yet, yay!
More pictures to come and more stories from Senegal to follow! Since this Friday is the 4th of July we are thinking of inviting our Senegalese counterparts over for BBQ and exposing them to "traditional" American food; I am all for making Sloppy Joe's and watching them attempt to eat them just as they have been doing to us!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Why can't we all just be friends? Black and white cats are friends in Senegal!
This is our house!
A few days have passed since my last post but so much has happened that blogging might have to be a more frequent occurence, otherwise I will forget it all. A few updates...
The lake: It is under control...kind of. By under control I mean that we leave our bathroom door open and the woman who is hired to clean our house, Mami (pronounced mommy), mops it up every morning. There is a concept here called goorgoorlu, which means to make due with inadequate equipment. The Senegalese are used to it, and occasionally take pride in it, and we seem to be embracing the concept, at least mildly.
First Senegalese Meal: Two women prepared this meal for at least 6 hours and it was amazing!!!! The food was called yassa poulet (poulet is french for chicken) and was served communal style. It was mostly chicken and rice with A LOT of spices and some vegetables, but not a lot. The best part of the meal is that you have to eat it with your hands, your right hand to be precise. You 
grab a small handful of rice, chicken, and veggies with your hand and then squish it together to form a little ball and plop it into your mouth! I must say that my food-forming hand abilities were pretty amazing for a toubab (the Senegalese term for white person, kinda of like the word gringo). The trick is to it fast enough that the food does not have time to start running everywhere and getting out of its ball form. Nonetheless the food was amazing and I have decided that Senegalese food should be eaten whenever possible once I return home! To the left is a picture of yassa poulet, it tastes a lot better than the picture gives it credit for!
grab a small handful of rice, chicken, and veggies with your hand and then squish it together to form a little ball and plop it into your mouth! I must say that my food-forming hand abilities were pretty amazing for a toubab (the Senegalese term for white person, kinda of like the word gringo). The trick is to it fast enough that the food does not have time to start running everywhere and getting out of its ball form. Nonetheless the food was amazing and I have decided that Senegalese food should be eaten whenever possible once I return home! To the left is a picture of yassa poulet, it tastes a lot better than the picture gives it credit for!Exploring Senegal and getting aquainted with everything here has been great! The most difficult thing has been overcoming language issues. No one, and I mean no one, speaks English, not even a couple words and especially not if you are at a market and want to buy something. While everyone speaks French, their accent/dialect is extremely different and I can barely understand them and they can barely understand the French language I have been taught. Street language is also not French, but Wolof or a combination of French and Wolof in the same sentence. Which means that when people speak to us they combine two different languages but half the time you think its only one because the French dialect is so weird that in the end they could be speaking arabic because I have no clue what they are saying!
We have been immersed in French/Wolof though in our classes and because we have been given Senegalese conversation partners. These students are suppose to take us around Dakar, bascally wherever we want to go. They speak only in French and half the time get a little frustrated with 
us, but surrounded us with Senegal culture when they took our group to a street market! This market was the most intense/intimidating place I have ever been to! Not because it was scary but becasue there was so much hustle and bustle and EVERYONE wanted our attention because we are seen as walking wallets here! It is expected that you barter with the venders, something that is priced at 5, 00o CFAs can be lowered to 1,500 CFAs if you know what you are doing! Our conversation partner is so good at bargaining and I have been learning a lot from her...I'll have this bartering thing figured out in no time! We will be going out in Dakar again tomorrow I believe and I cannot wait to go explore some more. The city is so big and has so many amazing sites to see that you want to do everything and there just is not time! (The picture is of a housemate talking to my conversation partner, Adama.)
us, but surrounded us with Senegal culture when they took our group to a street market! This market was the most intense/intimidating place I have ever been to! Not because it was scary but becasue there was so much hustle and bustle and EVERYONE wanted our attention because we are seen as walking wallets here! It is expected that you barter with the venders, something that is priced at 5, 00o CFAs can be lowered to 1,500 CFAs if you know what you are doing! Our conversation partner is so good at bargaining and I have been learning a lot from her...I'll have this bartering thing figured out in no time! We will be going out in Dakar again tomorrow I believe and I cannot wait to go explore some more. The city is so big and has so many amazing sites to see that you want to do everything and there just is not time! (The picture is of a housemate talking to my conversation partner, Adama.)Today we went on our first planned trip. We went to the Ile De Goree, which is the exit point from which slaves were shipped to the Americas. It is an extremely pretty, although small, island, so much so that it is difficult to grasp all the history that took place there. For instance, one maison des esclavages "slave houses" is still remaining and I stood in the rooms where they kept the people for up to three months before shipping them out, the cramp spaces where they sent people to be punished, and the "point of no return" where they lined up slaves on two sides of a hallway and shackled them in pairs before loading them onto ships for America. It is very difficult to grasp the concept that over 20 million people passed over the island and around 6 million of them died either there or on the boat ride. A population of around 1.500 people now live on the island permanently and live via tourism and fishing. The best girls boarding school in Senegal is also on the island, each year only 25 girls from throughout the country are selected to attend the school where they will live for 7 years! Everything about the island is beautiful though! With so many adorable African children running around and munching on fruit!
Everything is going great at the house! My roommate, Erika, is funny and we get along amazingly well. Additionally, the boys we share a bathroom with are hilarious and we have 
begun referring to ourselves as the "Executive Suite". The married graduate student, Brian, has been given the nickname Papa Bear because he acts like we are his kids and takes on more responsibility than he should. Erika has been given the responsibility of the group cell phone and I have taken charge of morning tasks, like boiling water for coffee, because I am normally up first! The four of us, Jonathon is amazingly flamboyant and energetic, all have the same interests and travel likes and dislikes. Erika is one of the people who will be staying with me after the program is finished.
begun referring to ourselves as the "Executive Suite". The married graduate student, Brian, has been given the nickname Papa Bear because he acts like we are his kids and takes on more responsibility than he should. Erika has been given the responsibility of the group cell phone and I have taken charge of morning tasks, like boiling water for coffee, because I am normally up first! The four of us, Jonathon is amazingly flamboyant and energetic, all have the same interests and travel likes and dislikes. Erika is one of the people who will be staying with me after the program is finished.
The top picture is of the "Exec Suite", Jonathon, Brian, Me, Erika...we were trying to look tough, I think. And the other picture is of a few of us at a night club listening to music at a benefit concert.
A few shoutouts before I peace out...
Mom/Bill - Shower curtains do not exist in Senegal, just like organized lines and traffic lights!
Daddy/Liz - I found out a way to eat salads...apparently the water here is fine and I can wash of any bleach taste it might have. The only problem is I have yet to see lettuce for sale!
Edith - At 6 pm each night around 1,000 Senegalese men go to the beach and do organized running/weight lifting exercises...they even bench wheels and people. I have found my workout haven!
Debi/Patty - Megan was right about the people here...that is all!
Izzy/Drea - A man walking down the street the other day started singing 50 Cent "In Da Club" to my friend and I!
Jason - You should be extremely jealous of all the amazing fruit I can get on every street corner here for like 60 cents!
I do have cell phone access here and my number is 221771588717
Sunday, June 22, 2008
85 degrees doesn't mean anything when it is 90 percent humidity!!!!
So I have been in Dakar for two nights now and it has been nothing but a whirwind adventure. For the people I did not talk to on my way to Dakar, here is a quick rehash of my adventure to Dakar...
June 19th, 6:30 am - Flight out of Portland is delayed because they have realized that the right engine is leaking fuel and so they are calling a maintenance crew to come fix it. We are delayed for over 1 hour. On the flight the woman sitting one seat away from me got sick and ended up throwing up and fanning herself for the last hour or so of the flight, gross!!!
Arrive in New York over 1 and 1/2 hours late, thereby missing my connecting flight from New York to Dakar. Called my dad and was told that our travel agent had rebooked me on a direct flight to Dakar with South African Airlines. The man I talked with at the Delta desk sent me to the South African desk (in another terminal) without issuing me a new ticket and took up so much of my time that by time I got to South African Airlines they had actually shut down the check-in booths and the woman said I would have to stay in New York overnight. Called Howard, the travel agent, and he saved me a place on a Delta flight from New York to Brussels and then Brussels to Dakar.
June 19th, 7:30 pm - left New York for Brussels, 1 hour late, and had to rush through security to be sure and make the flight to Dakar.
June 20th, 11 am - Leave for Dakar from Brussels and sit in the 46th row (the last one) of the airplane. I am almost 100 percent sure I was sitting next to a criminal who was being extradited from Canada to Dakar. It seemed like the "criminal" was being escorted by a man in a green suit who received a first class meal while in the last row and the flight attendants were not allowed to serve the "criminal" alcohol, tea, or coffee. Later on I saw him being escorted around the airport by a security guard; there were no handcuffs but it was all a little suspicious.
Upon arrival in Dakar I was greeted by a man dressed in an African tunic who walked with a limp and did not speak English. I realized very quickly that my bags were probably not going to show up and therefore had to be escorted to a baggage claim room in the back of the airport, where I tried to communicate in broken French and English what my bags looked like and where they needed to be delivered. The man who was helping me decided that it would beneficial if he gave me his personal phone number, just in case I had any problems getting my luggage, and made sure to tell me that he was giving me, not only, the office phone number but HIS number. Oh boy, I had been in Africa for 30 minutes and already was given a man's phone number! After filling out my forms the man in the tunic,who I had assumed was part of the study program, led me outside and handed me off to Hadi, the real program representative, who did speak english and welcomed me to the program.
Hadi and I then drove to the part of the University where we would all be staying. The Cheik Anta Diop University is a very large complex, however we are living in a small section of the school that is called the Ecole Normale Superieure. They spilt the group up into 8 people living in a house (this is where I am) and 5 people living in an apartment. The house (which I will post a picture of later) is in a gated, however the gate does not lock, complex. There are 4 rooms which hold two people per room and there is one bathroom per two rooms. The bathroom that I share with my roommate, Erika, and the boys' room has a very interesting draining problem. There is no curtain so water gets all over the bathroom floor. This is would not be a problem except there is no way to drain this excess water except through the naturals holes in the ground or cracks in the siding, therefore we have a lake in our bathroom most days! We are still trying to come up with a name for this lake and I think we might settle on something that conveys the fact that small worms creep out of the siding and reside in the lake...we no longer walk in or around the bathroom without footwear!
A quick note about the house and our amenities...the house is really quite large and spacious. We actually have a wi-fi internet connection at the house, the biggest shocker ever! Also we get around 6-7 fresh baguettes delivered to our house every morning to go with the jam, nutella, butter, and cheese we are also provided. We also have a TV room complete with working television that receives about 5 channels; 1 is in French and the others are in Wolof.
I will talk more about life here in a couple days but here is a preview...we have already been to a live music club, seen the Senegalese equivalent of "muscle beach", had housemate drama because strange things happen when you put 8 strangers in a house together, and are about to eat our first traditional senegalese meal in about two hours (there are two women in our house right now cooking for us and it smells so good, by the way earlier this morning they were cooking topless!). More to come about adventures here and description of this place and its people!
June 19th, 6:30 am - Flight out of Portland is delayed because they have realized that the right engine is leaking fuel and so they are calling a maintenance crew to come fix it. We are delayed for over 1 hour. On the flight the woman sitting one seat away from me got sick and ended up throwing up and fanning herself for the last hour or so of the flight, gross!!!
Arrive in New York over 1 and 1/2 hours late, thereby missing my connecting flight from New York to Dakar. Called my dad and was told that our travel agent had rebooked me on a direct flight to Dakar with South African Airlines. The man I talked with at the Delta desk sent me to the South African desk (in another terminal) without issuing me a new ticket and took up so much of my time that by time I got to South African Airlines they had actually shut down the check-in booths and the woman said I would have to stay in New York overnight. Called Howard, the travel agent, and he saved me a place on a Delta flight from New York to Brussels and then Brussels to Dakar.
June 19th, 7:30 pm - left New York for Brussels, 1 hour late, and had to rush through security to be sure and make the flight to Dakar.
June 20th, 11 am - Leave for Dakar from Brussels and sit in the 46th row (the last one) of the airplane. I am almost 100 percent sure I was sitting next to a criminal who was being extradited from Canada to Dakar. It seemed like the "criminal" was being escorted by a man in a green suit who received a first class meal while in the last row and the flight attendants were not allowed to serve the "criminal" alcohol, tea, or coffee. Later on I saw him being escorted around the airport by a security guard; there were no handcuffs but it was all a little suspicious.
Upon arrival in Dakar I was greeted by a man dressed in an African tunic who walked with a limp and did not speak English. I realized very quickly that my bags were probably not going to show up and therefore had to be escorted to a baggage claim room in the back of the airport, where I tried to communicate in broken French and English what my bags looked like and where they needed to be delivered. The man who was helping me decided that it would beneficial if he gave me his personal phone number, just in case I had any problems getting my luggage, and made sure to tell me that he was giving me, not only, the office phone number but HIS number. Oh boy, I had been in Africa for 30 minutes and already was given a man's phone number! After filling out my forms the man in the tunic,who I had assumed was part of the study program, led me outside and handed me off to Hadi, the real program representative, who did speak english and welcomed me to the program.
Hadi and I then drove to the part of the University where we would all be staying. The Cheik Anta Diop University is a very large complex, however we are living in a small section of the school that is called the Ecole Normale Superieure. They spilt the group up into 8 people living in a house (this is where I am) and 5 people living in an apartment. The house (which I will post a picture of later) is in a gated, however the gate does not lock, complex. There are 4 rooms which hold two people per room and there is one bathroom per two rooms. The bathroom that I share with my roommate, Erika, and the boys' room has a very interesting draining problem. There is no curtain so water gets all over the bathroom floor. This is would not be a problem except there is no way to drain this excess water except through the naturals holes in the ground or cracks in the siding, therefore we have a lake in our bathroom most days! We are still trying to come up with a name for this lake and I think we might settle on something that conveys the fact that small worms creep out of the siding and reside in the lake...we no longer walk in or around the bathroom without footwear!
A quick note about the house and our amenities...the house is really quite large and spacious. We actually have a wi-fi internet connection at the house, the biggest shocker ever! Also we get around 6-7 fresh baguettes delivered to our house every morning to go with the jam, nutella, butter, and cheese we are also provided. We also have a TV room complete with working television that receives about 5 channels; 1 is in French and the others are in Wolof.
I will talk more about life here in a couple days but here is a preview...we have already been to a live music club, seen the Senegalese equivalent of "muscle beach", had housemate drama because strange things happen when you put 8 strangers in a house together, and are about to eat our first traditional senegalese meal in about two hours (there are two women in our house right now cooking for us and it smells so good, by the way earlier this morning they were cooking topless!). More to come about adventures here and description of this place and its people!
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