That's all folks

What an anti-climatic end to a blog. My program is over and I am already out of the country, in fact in a completely different environment, sitting around Copenhagen for a while. I am tempted to try to go back, to log all of those missed logs, to write about all of the experiences, but I also feel like I should try to move ahead. Its so strange to be done already, but I am glad the wait is over. The last two weeks were nothing but waiting. Senegalese people don't make farewells easy. They remind you every half hour that you will be gone soon. Plus they stop talking to you, really, as if you are already gone. They say things like "Don't go stay and live here", or "You'll be back right?" Nevertheless, its just this quite sadness, they won't ever admit that they are sad, they just won't talk, which is a sign that there is a problem in Senegalese culture.

Silence characterized two of my departures. First from Joal, I remember the taxi ride to the garage, the area where all of the buses and cars going to other towns wait, with one of my neighbors. He just stared out the window, didn't say a word. A few times I tried to talk but got only one word responses. "Waaw", "Daydet", "Inch'allah". He did stick his head into the cab once I got in, the cab going to Dakar. He just held my hand and thanked me. Then he left.

Dakar was similar. The night I left (my flight left at 2 in the morning so I left the house around midnight) barely a person said a word. Most of them just continued to watch T.V. Finally around midnight I decided to leave by saying "Well, I guess I'll go". They followed me to the door, first splashing water in front of me (a good luck gesture in Senegalese custom) and then everyone shook my left hand (a gesture that signifies the hope that you will meet again soon in the future). No one made miraculous speeches, no one even said much. I just kind of disappeared into the darkness, shifting through the somber streets until I came upon the main road, hailing a taxi.

I guess I was sad as well, I mean I didn't necessarily try to initiate any conversation. It was interesting, watching Dakar one last time, going over the newly paved roads, seeing Dakar in this mess it is. I don't know if the taxi man sensed the finality of it but he seemed to drive much longer than necessary, taking turns down side streets, going in front of buildings that weren't necessarily on the way. He seemed to loop around the city, creating a web back and forth across a city that I would soon leave.

What does it mean to live somewhere? I know, it means to be there, to hear the sound, but I want to know is there a difference between just being there and being a part of 'there'. I remember how comfortable I had grown, being able to understand the conversations on the bus, being able to watch TV and know what they were saying. The way that responses just rolled off my tongue.

I barely looked out of the window when we left. The lights were the same, that strange contrast of brilliance and darkness, the shadow of a world ending. Taking off from Dakar you shoot directly over the Atlantic, the divide between two worlds, the end of a continent. I remember seeing those lights for the first time, like some signal on the horizon. Coming into Dakar for the first time, these lights seemed like a beacon, life exists here, there is something pouring out of this darkness. Leaving, I have trouble thinking of what the lights could mean, of what they are illuminating?

I don't talk to the person in the seat next to me. I put my head against the back of the headrest and close my eyes, just so I can pretend to be asleep.

The sun bleaches out this darkness as we reach Portugal. The Portuguese were the first to reach Senegal, brushing against its what must have been frightening shores, a world so foreign, so bizarre. I feel like I am discovering this process in reverse, the red roofed villas catching my eye with a twinge. What happened to the decaying cement, the typical black birds? We get off the plain and it smells like spring. You can still see the ocean, the great ocean that never changes, only just reflects through people's minds differently. Another continent. Another world.

What else can I say?

I seem to have held my breath since we took off and when I release a whole world floods out and mixes with this one. How long will it take for my expressions to not be laced with Senegal, how long will it take before I can't think of it so easily. I shouldn't ask these questions. I should step into the bus, wait in line, almost miss my plane and think about Denmark. I should.

P.S. I have uploaded a whole ton of new pictures, pass your eyes over their content immediately!:

http://community.webshots.com/album/563209529YdnmhW?vhost=community

Research

Means no time. Means no creativity. Means no blog posts right now.

I have way way way to much to do so I can't blog.

Imagine what I am doing.

That's an order.

Pictures of my work

I teach computer classes
I teach English classes

I helped establish an in-school library

Pictures

Yeah boy!

That is the name of a fish, or at least its pronounced that way. It is also an insult, meaning a skinny, good for nothing loser who has neither a job, nor any sort of future. Weird.

Fish. These things remind me of Joal. We only eat fish at my house in Joal, only. The only expectation is when relatives come over and then we get meat. To think that I was a vegetarian before I came here.

This has nothing to do with anything, so I will start talking about Easter, because its so much more interesting.

So people talk Easter up, they talk about it months in advance. The old people talk about the Galax, this peanut butter like yogurt that all the christians make in mass quantities to give to their muslim neighbours. They make tons of this stuff! I came home one night to find two tubs filled with the sauce, the peanut sauce with sugar, Bwee (or monkey bread, a fruit from the boabab tree) and water. Two tubs, I mean I could have sat in these tubs and had it come up to my waste. Along with that they had two tubs of millet, these small balls of millet that would be added to the Galax later. My host mother said she bought 15 kilograms of sugar, 20 kilograms of Bwee, and a ridiculous amount of other ingredients. They used a hose to fill up the basins, like a garden hose because the basins couldn't fit under the faucet.

They spent three days making the Galax, spending the first day buying all the ingredients and then putting them all in a bowl together. The second day they started making the sauce and the millet seperately. The third day they mixed them together and dished some into little bowls to give to all of the neighbors. This whole holiday is about solidarity, showing the muslims that even though it is a christian holiday that they are involved too. It is also an expectation, since during Ramadan, the holiday that ends Korite (the month long fast for muslims), all of the muslim families give out Soow (pronounced "so"), a yogurt like milk drink, to Christian families. Its weird too, how all of the christians fast during Lent, like actually fast. Some don't even drink water during the day. Its nothing like in the States, we choose one thing to give up. They say that they fast during the day, give gifts to the poor and pray. The idea behind the fasting is to give the food you normally would have eaten to someone with less than you. Despite their insistence on fasting, I know no one that actually did this, that gave anyone anything out of the ordinary.

This could be the reason that people got excited about the Galax, because they made so much of it that you could pig out on it for hours and never eat it all. Its funny though, because sometimes people actually do this, just eat cup after cup continuously and then end up very sick the next day. The peanut sauce isn't the easiest thing on the stomach.

Galax. That was it. For talking the holiday up so much, and mostly the young people who talk about how drunk they get each Easter (a common way to celebrate holidays among the catholics here), nothing much happened. I went out but no one else in my family did, they just watched T.V. and acted like normal. Everyone just seemed bored. We went to church, then came home and lazed around.

People talk. There is a word for it in Wolof: Waxtu. It means talk for the sake of talking. Talk in circles.

The sixty cent shave, part 3

Coming over the hill, getting the first glimpse of Toubab Diallo caught me off guard. Maybe it's the nostalgia more than what I actually felt, or it could have been the fatigue, but I remember just being struck by the sight of all these hills, the cliffs, the ocean and the houses that were perched on the edge of this, the city rolling over the landscape like some giant wave. It felt like I'd crossed some border, like I'd found a part of Senegal that was unknown, hidden. I guess Toubab Diallo is kind of like this, it's no Sally (the real tourist area, with giant five star hotels and all). I think the LonelyPlanet guidebook describes Toubab Diallo as a quaint place, like Sally but still unnoticed by the majority of tourists. That would make sense, despite all the white people, all the Europeans that did live there, they weren't ridiculous, at least not on the outside, they were all holed up in their houses, behind their high courtyard walls.

There were hotels, lots of hotels, in fact beautiful ridiculous hotels with a Senegalese staff that didn't expect you to say hello to them, they didn't expect you to acknowledge their existence, they just sat and figured you were European, that you didn't care about them or their experience. They didn't automatically say hello. I shouldn't complain, after all, this is what we were looking for, a little escape from this ever present conversation, a little silence as oppossed to being expected to carry on a conversation well past your interest.

The hotels. My god the hotel we stayed in was beautiful, this sea shell ridden, Disney Land like structure. Grass roofs. Wild flowers planted everywhere. Everything looked rustic, like it had been there forever, as if the rocks just formed in these ways. When we got here we thought this must have been a mistake. The guide book said we could find rooms for 4,000 CFA a night (8 dollars), but this place is exotic, wild, closed and cloistered. We thought for sure something had happened, the hotel had upgraded, they were now hosting only the elite Europeans, the business men that come to Senegal for a little relaxing, sit on the terrace and read a book, drink a cup of coffee and watch the tide role in and out. Despite this, we got a room, a beautiful masoleum like room, that you had to step down into, and it only cost us 5,000 a night (10 dollars). It was the dorm room, they would rent out beds as opposed to the room.

This room was like a tomb, like some exoctic burial site, especially my bed which looked just like a rocky ledge with a matress on it. You can see the ocean from the window. These things seem to good, their must be some catch, maybe we have to buy dinner, or maybe they'll come in a steal everything we own during the night.

Yet, they didn't, nothing happened, the only thing we would have had to deal with was the minor inconvience of having a fourth person stay in the extra bed that was in the room, but when we asked if the lady at the front desk wanted the key, she told us she wouldn't book anyone in the extra bed.

So we had a room. The beach was right outside our window. That is how the story starts.

We hit the beach soon enough. First to get something to eat and then later to swim. The ocean water was like any ocean water but to the backdrop of these cliffs, to all the ritzy European summer homes it didn't feel like Senegal. I guess the inebriation of it all stopped us from criticing it. It had a way of not upsetting us, despite all the weird things about it, the gitchy hotels, the Senegalese people that told us outright that they depended on tourists for EVERYTHING. This culture of expectations. Europeans need to come. Europeans need to spend their money, buy a house here, employ people, buy food at the super market, give to beggars, build hotels, create revenue, consume, eat, feed. These things only appear in retrospect, all these criticisms that live just next to the memories.

We didn't do much but relax, take in the sun, walk down the beach and sit on the terrace at night at feel the strong ocean wind blow over us. Every so often people would pop into this imaginative little world, like the Senegalese man who popped his head over the veranda and asked us if we wanted fish, a fire, anything? The senegalese women who sold jewerly just outside the front gate of the hotel, always asking us to just look, and then asking us what we will buy. These things litter the memories of the scenery, the beaches, the clear nights, and the quite days sitting on a hammock doing nothing but thinking. This was what we needed, time to think, time to do nothing, be expected to do nothing, and just think. Not think about something specific, not brood about our jobs, not plan out our next step in our research, just time to let our mind wander, contemplate nothing and come back to the world through this.

We ended up meeting some other students there, just by chance, they were out for a weekend, just visiting a beach town. We hung out, hit the beach together, took naps. Did things unextraordinary, even if it was in an extraordinary place, at least on the outside, at least the first time you come over the hill and the city seems like some Greek scenery, like some Mediterranian village, with the red clay bricks on every roof and the roads that never run straight. We climbed hills to go to stores (we asked for directions to a supermarket, well any place we could buy beer, and the man on the street told us to "climb the mountain", which when we did climb the hill, which he refered to as the mountain, magically we found a suprette, a toubab market that sold beer). The hardest part was leaving, not because I didn't want to leave, I mean I didn't want to leave, I didn't want to have to start doing work, to think about my research, but it was because we were caught in the two faces of this place. We couldn't find a cab that wouldn't charge us 5 times the normal price. We ended up paying, I guess overall it works out, the cab only cost 30 dollars and there were seven of us and it was an hour and a half car ride.

That is the end of the story that was inspired by the sixty cent shave. My beard and mustache are coming in again, a fact that the small bearded Senegalese man that shaved my beard, commented on when I walked by his booth the other day. "You beard is coming back, are you sure you don't want another shave?" I feel like ending this post with something sentimental and sappy like, "Not until I have some more memories to sift through."

Instead I will end it with a word, some random phrase, like Pickle.

Just like Richard Brautigan, ending his book with Mayonaise, just because he had never read a book ending in that way. Except I don't want to forget, and let myself end talking about something else, finding something more important to say, and let everyone down when I don't say the word pickle.

The sixty cent shave pt. 2

Mmamb (pronounced bomb), I am tempting so say something like "Man, that place was the BOMB!" Get it? Even if it wasn't the best place, didn't draw more tourists than anywhere else, didn't have the most exciting beaches, or any that I saw, it was the bomb. Not in some crazy-wild-party-beach-madness-running-adjective sort of way, it was chill, cool, relax, in a way only a small Serer village could be. Our descent into mbamb was the end of this choatic trip, this trip that took a whole day to travel the distance between Milwaukee and Madison (usually a two hour trip). It took us one day, and I had to hold a rag against the roof of one of the buses we took in order to avoid getting soaked from some brown colored water that poured in from who knows what on the roof. When we finally got to Mbamb, it was dark and we were tired and hungry and I didn't know what to expect.

Walking through Foundioune, the bigger tourist village just on the outskirts of Mbamb, reminded me so much of Joal. Things were lively, and people spoke more Wolof than Serer. We headed through this choas, these mad streets, walked through the darkness down a long road that led nowhere, and at some point in this nowhere we arrived at point.

We, but for the others this was a return, a sort of homecoming, both Ellen and Madelyn had been here, had lived here, so for them the giant trees, the fields, all of this was a memory. We marched through this darkness and they pointed to a tree: I sat under that tree and read. They pointed to a fence: In that fence I helped herd the cows. I don't know these things, these things are like the shadows all around us, these indistinct blurs that you can never fully see, that always exist because of the abscence of clarity.

We wake up and the village is exploding, at least that is what it sounds like, this machine gun fire like procession choking the air. We head off into the midst of it, walking closer and closer to this commotion. We stumble upon a herd of humanity, the whole village is assembled in a circle under a giant mangoe tree, all staring at the old women dancing. The same bullhorn loudspeaker is set up and high pitched singing along with metal toned guitar music drowns out any thoughts, its surprising how people still are talking through all this sound. The drums. The guitars. The singing. The excited cries of the old women as they dance in a circle. We get special seats.

Its a celebrationg, and its Serer style. A French foreign aide organization just finished constructing additional classes at the local middle school. The military is there. The village chief is there (who Madelyn makes the impossibly hillarious comment that his voice sounds exactly like the puppet, the old female one, from Mister Roggers). We are led to seats among the old men with their boubous, dark glasses and scarves despite the warm weather. We just laugh and watch the music, and watch everyone come and go, people pushing their way closer, pushing their way through this circle. We leave once the speeches start.

We head off into the sun, out of the giant shade of the mangoe tree. We leave this vibrant circle of pulsing humanity and head into town. Mbamb is Serer and you can just feel it by being there. Things take on a more basic form. Most of the houses are fenced off with the branches that have fallen from palm trees. Most of the compounds don't hold one giant house but a series of smaller huts, with grass roofs and twisted branches holding them up. Just like Marlodge, this place has a feel that is Serer, a sight that just inspires a lifestyle. We spend the day touring the town, Madelyn and Ellen catching up with all their old friends in town. When I say old I mean old,most of them are old women, joyously crying about how great toubabs are. We walk around this place, sputtering Serer and just living in it, speaking with Djin Thiarry, a Senegales man that never stops smiling and refers to me constantly as his big brother. There are more mango trees than I have seen anywhere else, and you can see all of the small mangoes ripening on the branches. The second mango season is coming, or at least they tell me.

Describing places like this is so hard, I tend to leave out so much detail. People come from thousands of miles away to see places like this, to live exoctically, but after seeing it so much it doesn't shock you. Seeing donkeys, horses, chickens roaming around the courtyards, often into the houses, have ceased to surprise me. The houses, which are often put together with any used material they can find, all of this seems so hard to describe. Once you have seen a small Serer village you have seen them all. That doesn't mean that you know them, that you can write all of the other ones off, its just seeing grass huts looses its appeal after you see them weekly, if not daily.

Even though most of the time in Mbamb is spent catching up, or is spent on Ellen and Madelyn catching up, we enjoy ourselves. Mbamb is an eco-village, a village that is dedicated to using agriculturally sustainable techiniques to develop. They reuse everything, have a string of meetings about new initiatives, about new ideas, about their future. Its all about organizing, organizing and trying to change their state. They have a biomass project, solar ovens, solar panels, and a whole new string of ideas. This is Mbamb, and the funny thing about it is things like this are typical of many villages, even if they don't call themselves eco-villages. The reuse, the fact that everything short of plastic bags, and even those most of the times, can be reused is a reality of most small villages here.

More to come on Toubab Diallo.

The Sixty Cent Shave

What is this, I come back from a week long trip traveling through places that most people only see in those exoctic magazines. Places that remind you bitterly of that friend, you know the one whose parents are doctors, businesmen, anything that lets them travel, that went to some exoctic far away location, some place that's more of a story than a place. So then why do I choose to write about something as typical, boring, unattractive and, if I may, personal (people don't usually talk opening about their shaving habits, and if they do it is never in a wanted conversation) topic.

The sixty cent shave, it took just enough time for the short, white bearded Senegalese man less than one minute to use his electric clippers to cut off my beard, my mustache. What does the sixty cent shave mean? Is it a social commentary? I mean those booths were old men sit you down and give you a haircut and a shave still exist, think about all of those movies with old men sitting around barber shops, with the straight razor and the strop were they wet the razor before they shave you. These things exist here, in fact many people set up little informal shops on the street, things like a chair, a mirror and a small sign showing the same typical haircuts. On top of all of this the fact that it costs only sixty cents, (300 F CFA). Or is it just a rhetorical devise, a literary form, kind of like Proust's cookie (how is that for a literary reference), that allows me to talk about other things, a way to look through a situation without really touching it, using it like a window, like a ledge to dive into other areas, areas much more exotic, dark and as of yet unexplored.

Palmeran, even the name of this place gives you this thought about it. I mean "palm" is in the name, it seems almost gawdy it works out so well. Palmeran, where in fact there are lots of palm trees, sand, small African children wrestling ("la lutte" in French, "beri" in wolof, a typical type of wrestling that involves usually more dancing than actual wrestling), fish, fishing boats and the enourmous sun that just seems to tan these memories with brightness. This place is the palm wine capital of Senegal, although we never actually saw any palm wine here, it makes sense. Its exotic, typically exotic, with the large beaches, wavy ocean, the sun, oh god the sun is always out, always hot. This was the first stop on our trip, the first step in a large stride across islands, much of the middle part of the country, until we ended up sitting on a beach with the wind clifss and a hotel that seemed much to expensive to cost only 8 dollars a night (but we will come back to this later).

Palmeran, getting there was an adventure in itself. Sitting in the minicar, basically a smaller version of a Jegan-Jay. The minicar to Samba Dia, a garage town, like so many of the slightly larger towns in this area, built up around a garage, around an area where cars stop and let people off, people get on, but its rare to see people stay, and the people you see sitting, the residence seem more like characters than people, they are the typical mother selling peanuts and home made baked goods, the small girl asking for money, the old men sitting with their aviator sunglasses and large boubous, sitting staring at the world thinking whatever old thoughts happend to compel them to stare at the world from behind those dark frames. Samba Dia to Palmeran in the same Minibus and then we get off as a random Palmeran. There are four! Four cities with the same name, and they aren't necessarily within walking distance of each other. The only difference is the nicknames that are attached to each of them. Palmeran geej, Palmeran ngaleen.

We don't know these things, we get off at the first one, squinting into the sun that seems so much brighter than Joal. Is this exotic, there is a road, the typical red dust that characterizes all of the roads in Senegal, this rust color that stains your clothes, covers your face, and clogs your nose so that every time you sneeze this red blood color covers your kleenex. We can hear the beach though, and we feel the wind from the ocean. Its shooting through narrow alleys of the city, seeming to whisper to us from behind this wall of a city that is hiding something much bigger than itself, hiding this ocean that is so impossibly big, something that can't stay hidden. So we need a room, a place, some sort of base camp.

The campement has been shut down. The government shut it down due to its old age, the lack of running water (at least not in the majority of the buildings). It does look old, the painted animals on the side of the little huts are faded, polkadotted with decay. We bribed some local children (using the cookies I bought in Joal) to show us here. "The next campement is a half hour walk down the road". Luckily one of the men there shows us to a Frenchman's house that operates as an auberge when his family isn't vacationing there. "Robert Toubab", the eccentric French man, grandpa age, who mumbles but laughs, talks constantly, mostly about nothing. I feel like I am staying at a grandparents house. He rents us all rooms, the same price as would be the cost of the campement. Seperate rooms with sinks in the rooms, and RUNNING WATER. I forget the comfort of things like this, the creature comforts of getting your water from a faucet instead of taking a cup full our of a basin or bucket. We sink right into these things, we are thirsty with change, thirsty with acting as toubab as possible. This trip is a new one, a trip to forget, to act ridiculously American, be selfish, intentionally not talk to Senegalese people, not have to tell someone to come eat with us if they pass. We are tired, I am tired, but right now we are sitting and relaxing letting the salt air push all of these worries out of our air, letting the breeze help us laugh this fatigue out burst by burst.

We head into village for provisions: cookies, wine, soda. We horde these things, speak quietly to everyone we see, we don't want them to catch on, don't want them to know too much, then they'll be interested. They'll invite us over for dinner, we'll stay for hours, have to spend the night, wake up shower with a bucket, drink tea, eat lunch, watch T.V. Instead we go back eat our cookies, drink the soda, save the wine for later and head to the beach. The sun shoots into us, it shoots through our skin and warms our blood. We mostly sit on the beach, venture into the water occassionally, but sit and stare at the ocean. We have no obligations, we have nothing to do but breathe in a scene, to wait for nothing elese to happen.

Palmeran. Two days with "Robert Toubab" and his house, where wasps build nests on the bathrooms, where the Senegalese people pass just to ask us if we want to buy ANYTHING, they will go and search for it for us. The first two days of speaking English, speaking Serer, which although it is Senegalese it is better than Wolof, it is new, exciting. We stumble over these things, they bring back memories of Marlodge, the small Serer village I visited a long time ago, of Simal, another small serer village. For the others they think of Mbamb, a small village where we will end up watching some festival appear out of nowhere, but for now we are in Palmeran, where we do nothing particularly extraordinary, we do typical things, lay on the beach, don't necessarily act like tourists or like Senegalese. We are lying on this beach between two bodies, between the ocean that brought us here (well not actually the ocean, more of an airplane, but hell it sounds so poetic), and the land that we've come to know. Like usual we are lying right in the middle of these two extremes.

It is out of this that shoots us to Marlodge, well first to Samba Dia again and then to Dangan, and then a three hour wait for the boat leaving to Marlodge. We wait, like usual, sitting on a bench in front of a store, on a bench with some Senegalese women selling cashews and cashew fruits (I never knew there were fruits that came from the same tree as cashews), these Doctor Seuss like creations, these bizarres pepper like monstrousities that cost less than 10 cents each (although I never got the courage to try one). We have to deter the local canoe men, they try to get us to take their boats which are easily three times as expensive, because "time is money". They assume we are impatient tourists, that we will wait but eventually come around, after the first hour huff and walk back and forth scanning the horizon for the next boat. Instead we sit and wait, talking amongst ourselves and letting the delta breeze blow on.

Marlodge is an island, there is no way there except for boat. There is no bridge. There is no spot where one can walk because of a sand bar. We have to wait, we have to wait to take a boat through the delta, which seems more like a string of rivers than a delta, than the ocean pushing into the continent. These long windind arms that are lined with mangroves. The birds. The small men (small because they are so distant) paddling around their hand carved canoes, pulling their fishing nets from the water. This is just getting to Marlodge. This is just crossing the delta. Once we are in Marlodge, things stay surprisingly the same, you see all the pirogues literring the shores, the horse carts (because there are no cars on Marlodge). Marlodge is cut off, no cars, no roads (at least not in the normal sense, more liek paths), no noise after dark. All the electricity comes from solar panels, and at night you can see all the stars.

Here we stay with a friend of the family, a Senegalese man that was dating a 60 year old French women, a women easily twice his age. He brings us to "his" house, which is the house that the French women constructed here, so that when she was done working she could retire to Senegal. The friend, Ferdinand, tells us that he broke off his relationship with the French women, the "Française" as I call her, because of problems, namely that he couldn't have a real family with her. He still watches over her house though, still lives like he used to, as if he had half a share in this house.

We do pretty much the same things here, just sit around and try not to do much. We go swimming, this time not in the ocean with its giant waves and hot sand, but on a small river, where we pluck mussels from the river bottom to cook later (which we do!). The current pushes us down the river, its surprisingly strong. We swim and then wait, wait through the night, stare at the stars and get ready to continue, to take the next step in our journey towards Mbamb, a trip that will take more time than it should have.

Mbamb and Toubab Diallo, the next step in our week long journey, but not now, a little later, I have run out of time at the cyber.

Let's hope that it is sooner than later.

Sorry

I am currently traveling.

All of the towns I am traveling in don't have electricity, let alone internet.

I'll update this thing later.

Stay tuned.

Loud Voices

Do I repeat myself? I am not sure, I would like to believe that each of these blog entries is a new and completely independent topic, idea, etc. but I am tempted to think this is not the case. I guess I should not be concerned, my life does not occur like this, even my thoughts. Things are intermingled, interdependent, and thus so are these blog entries. So, sorry if I repeat myself but...

People here talk very loudly. Not in the American sort of way, no, in fact people are very quite if we were to compare them to Americans. People talk loudly when they want to be heard, not just when they are excited. The men will outright scream, or appear to do so, in order to get their point across, which is more often than not. In the U.S. we talk loudly in public places, make loud gestures, and keep doing so. I think the key thing here is longevity. An American will talk for 45 minutes on a cell phone in a public place, often exposing very intimate details, in a loud and flambuoyant manner. A senegalese person will argue loudly until they feel the argument is over, and then remain silent. Argument don't last long here.

Even if they do, they are usually organized arguments, like the sort of village meeting kind. You know, lets talk about if we should send out children to French school kind of thing. People speak very loudly in these cases. Not only will they speak loudly they will gesture, flail their arms around, point at the person they are responding too, and distort their face as if the person that just made the comment was actually causing them physical pain.

This is all very dramatic.

Yet true. They do these things. Its a daily reality, even the taxi men do these things when you argue over 100 CFA, the equivqlent of 20 cents in the US. Its almost like a game, to try to see who can act more hurt, who can seem more pitiable. When a taxi man tells you his first price it is completely normal to act shocked, if not downright amazed. "WHAT!". I often pretend to lose the ability to speak I am so shocked. This works, at least it starts the game, each of us trying to pretend like we are getting the absolute worse end of this deal. Ultimately we both end up relatively well off, I will pay this taxi driver three times as much as I would pay a taxi driver in the country side, but I still get a taxi between two destinations for less than three U.S. dollars.

Theatrics its such an important part of daily life here, making things appear worse or better than they are. This is why on religious holidays every seems rich, because even the poorest people have on the nicest clothing (and honestly it is hard to tell the difference, the clothign is so similar). This is like Magal, the yearly pilgramage to Touba, where people will spend as much money as they can so that they can cook enough food to feed anybody they meet. A friend that went to Magal actually told me they beg, they beg you to eat their food. This makes them look good towards others, and since giving alms is part of Islam, one of the five pillars, they take this as an alm, although most of the people that made it to Touba have a relatively large amount of money.

We won't talk about this though.

Even at our school, or the Catholic school I work at, the Principal, the teachers, everyone with authority, or the semblence of authority, speaks loudly. Just now the Principal is scolding a child outside of the computer lab and I can hear him clearly, almost uncomfortably so, he is that loud. His voice isn't soft or unsure, it is loud and clear and angry. People have mastered these sort of things here. The teachers too, they have mastered this Teacher's are the masters and students the lesser mentality. It seems to work though, because for the most part the problems that exist in the U.S. don't seem to exist here. Or at least appear hidden. I recently found out their is a school for all the kids that were kicked out of all the other public and private schools in the area. I think a lot of the times the directors of schools will expell children if they cause problems, whereas in the U.S. expelling a child is the last and final step. We tolerate more misbehavoir, which actually might reinforce it, but we also give them more chances. Children don't need to be kicked out of school in places like this. School is often the only chance that children here have of getting out of their social environment. School is such an opportunity, even if many college students can't find jobs, yet its the possiblity. Without this first possiblity they have even less chances. Without a college degree, even if it does mean you have to become a teacher because that is the only job that is hiring, you can't do much other than farm, fish or sell things (either in a store or as a street vendor). All of these choices don't bring in much money. I recently spoke with an ederly women who makes treats to sell at our school and she said she makes less than 500 CFA each time she sells a batch of here donuts. This is less than 1 dollar in profit every time she sells almost 35 bags of donuts. She can't raise the price either because all of the other women sell their donuts at the same price, so if she raised the price the children simply would wait till after school to buy them from another women.

Oh, and stay out of Dakar. The OCI is going on, an islamic conference, and Dakar is like a military camp right now. I have never seen so many police officers and soldiers in my life, one would think Dakar was being occupied by a foreign army.

Pan-Africanism

I don't really have anything inspirational to say, I just have the opportunity to use the internet and honestly I am slightly bored. Also, I drank a glass of Café Touba, coffee that is made by street vendors with normal Nescafé and various spices, which is three or four times as strong as normal coffee. This has nothing to do with this blog, and very little to do with much besides the fact that in writing this opening stating I am trying to find the inspiration for this blog entry.

I think we, as Americans, tend to simplify everything too much. One example is the idea that everything in Africa is similar, and although things in African by and large are similar relating to themselves, this is not to mean they are the same. Similarities do not entail homogeny. This idea is similar with European societies, that by and large general trends do exist, but overall there are distinct differences that seperate persons, even if on a microscopically small sociological level. Yes, African cultures did at one time use spears to hunt in the bush, and yes, many of them did shun the large cumbersone clothing in favor or loin clothes and beads. Yet, to expect all of Africa to be like this, and ultimately to remain like this would be the same as expecting to travel to the U.S. today and find Cowboys fighting with Indians.

I would take this opportunity to put a little blame on the media.

Yet, there are these similarities, but I am unsure whether they are things that are necessarily tied to Africa that make these similarities. This struck me as I watched news reports about the conflicts in Chad. Despite the fact that the people looked similar, at least to me, as much as all white people look similar to most foreigners, there were bizarre trends that I didn't expect to notice. As stupid as it may sound, and as trivial as it may seem, the people I saw fleeing their houses in Chad all wore the same foam and plastic flip flops that are sold on a mass scale here in Senegal. Also the buckets they used to carry their belongings, these small cheap plastic buckets that appear tye-dyed, were exactly the same. Chad is not relatively close to Senegal, not in the least bit, but these things were exactly the same. One has to wonder if the same consumer products get pushed on all of Africa, even in the relatively stable and "developing" nations such as Senegal. Senegal, like it has been for centuries before and for countless other explorers, has become a window out of which I can see the other African countries.

The United States of Africa, this is actually a real concept, and was for a while a relatively popular concept. It was largely developed by Senghor and his allies before the independence of Senegal in the 1950's. This is what gave birth to the Mali federation, a federation of associated French colonies that was formed before the federation was disbanded in favor of national independence. Senghor originally fought against this decision, stating that creating a strong pan-african state was more important that creating a series of independent nations. The remnants of this idea have been transfered largely through economic pratices, such at the use of French CFA's as the currency in the former French colonies. Also, the use of the West African bank, as the basis for this currency, ties most of the members of this former alliance, together based on their common currency. Even the democratic leader Abdoulaye Wade, expounds the need to create a strong African state, like the European Union, in order to be more effective in brokering deals with other powerful nations. Ultimately this would cause better trade agreements, because in working together the countries could boycott unwanted political affiliations and also unwanted trade agreements. This recently has been happening with the APE, the "Accords partenariet economique", the economic accords between Europe and the African countries. Abdoulaye Wade called for many other African countries to boycott this accord, and for the most part I believe many of the members of the old Mali Federation have boycotted the trade agreements. Unfortunately, many African leaders have embraced the trade agreements, which utimately give the goods of Europe free reign in African markets, but restrict the amount of goods and persons that can pass from Africa to Europe. Pan-Africanism doesn't work when countries don't agree, and thus, ultimately, it doesn't work. Yet.

At least that is the hope. People still debate the validity and the longevity of the European Union. With the members growing each year, many of the wealthy countries are fearing that the newer countries are going to drain their strong national economies of their resources. Also, the open border policy allows for the free travel of all Europeans between member countries. This has already had its side effects, with many Western European countries, such as France, complaining that Eastern Europeans are coming into their country and will work for less money, and thus steal the Frenchmen's job. Sound familiar America. Yet, how can you expound open borders and free trade of goods and then be upset when it actually works like this. Ultimately, I think these people want to export whatever they want, they want to spread whatever they can spread all over the world but want their country to stay the same. This is why they get upset when African's come to France: "Why couldn't they just stay in their country!". I mean after they exported their language, their culture, their televisions shows, their school system, etc. to Africa they get upset when the Africans, who in times past they expected to act like "proper frenchmen", act in just that manner and try to travel to France. Its this xenophobia.

Its colonisation in reverse.

If this Pan-Africanism works, and an African Union does exist, who will be left to make our dollar shoes? Who will be left to sell all of our recycled clothes? Who will be left to dump all of these late model computers, televisions, etc when we can't sell them in the U.S. anymore?

The 5 lunch adventure

Before we talk about the 5 lunch adventure I should mention that my host brother and I took a kyake and actually kyakked around Fadiouth, literally around Fadiouth, we started by pushing off of the shore of Joal and kyaking around the island. It was amazing, almost picturesque with the waves, the salt air, the low tide, where you can see the immense "sable mouvable" or moving sand that gets left behind as the water packs up and heads out, leaving these designs in the sand, almost like millions of snakes basking in the sun. On top of it all we subverted all those tourist canoes, we just pushed off and went, and although I mean no ill to all those people working as tour guides at Fadiouth, its just I don't want to pay everytime I want to go swimming. And now, without further aideu, the five lunch adventure:

It all started out with a failed attempt to go to the national reserve at Bandia. My host family and I had been planning on going to Bandia for about three weeks and I kept pushing it off. Unfortunately there were several factors that seemed to stop us from going really anywhere, as if the stars willed it. First of all, we are in the middle of the travel for Magal Touba, the yearly pilgramige by all the Mourhide's to Touba, the capital of Mourhadism (a regilious brotherhood based on Islam that is unique to Senegal). The majority of Muslim's in Senegal are Mourhide, and thus, whoever is willing and can afford to (or can't but go anyways) rent cars, trucks, anything that rolls, drives or flies and goes to Touba. This mean that the week before and the week after Touba, the entire country of Senegal is a traffic jam. Seeing that there is only one highway going in and out of Dakar, and one highway going anywhere else for the most part, all the taxis and buses are on these sole highways all headed to the same direction. This also means a general lack of taxis, which are usually uncomfortably and annoyingly ever present. I went to the garage which is normally filled with its share of cars waiting to go anywhere you will pay them to go, only to find two cars that were going two preset destinations. The second thing that held up back from going to Bandia was an issue that is common here in Senegal: money. Since I was the only toubab in the group I was expected to pay for all the transportation costs, plus the entrance fees for the park. At first I was ok with this, I would end up usually paying a total of 30 U.S. dollars, which wasn't ridiculous. Unfortunately with the lack of transportation options and other things (such as the entrance to the park being 14 U.S. dollars a person) I would have had to pay over 100 dollars round trip. We decided not to go.

Yet, we did decide to go somewhere, after all, as the Senegalese women reminded me, we didn't get all dressed up for nothing (or at least they didn't). So we hoped in a clando (the bush taxis) and went to the village of Simaal, a small Serer village with nothing except for the beach, the sun and 5 lunches. Its common to hear getting places is half the fun but when getting somewhere involves waiting two hours in a car under the hot sun, when there are four people to a seat (a seat normally designed for 2 people), in these cases getting there is not half the fun. Add to this as soon as we actually leave the exhaust from the muffler pours in from under the car, and the dust from the roads fly in the window. In these cases when you blow your nowe it is actually black, nothing but straight dust. I am imagining people's responses to this, but this is an everyday sort of thing here, its a reality and I've become surprisingly used to it. Simaal is a tourist destination, its an exotic little backwater town located in the Sine_Saloum delta, rich in both salt water beaches and wild exocitc birds. These things seem impressive, but I see palm trees and the ocean every morning when I go to school.

For the Senegalese people this entire trip is one extended greeting. People that you have met quite literally mintues before will greet you once morein the street and run throguh the same saluations. These salutations aren't short either, they go a little bit like:

1- Hello, good afternoon
2- Hello Good afternoon
1-How are you
2-I am fine. How are you?
1-I am fine. How is your family?
2-They are fine. Thanks be to god.
1- Thanks be to god
2-Thanks be to god
1-thanks be to god

This will continue almost indefinately if you let it, people go so far as to repeat the same questions and responses over and over again. I was talking to a young Senegalese man and he said one time he counted the "Jam rekk kay"'ùs, a common response in Serer, in one salutation and he counted over 50. Greeting people is so important, its almost tiring, in fact it is exhausting. Even the Senegalese people weren't used to this barage of questions,this marathon of constantly talking about how the family is, how the heat is. This is what led to the 5 lunch adventure. Since we were guests and we were representing the family (I guess all the people we visisted were family) we were expected to visit so many of the relatives. This included eating lunch at each of their houses. Although the hospitality can work in your favor from time to time, knowing that you can go in just about any house and get a meal, in this case it was the opposite. To be polite in return we were expected to at least try all of these peopl's meals, plus drink at least one glass of cold water. "This is the Teranga", they said. It works both ways, people actually want you to eat their food so that you can say you ate at their house. They want you to talk about them with the family and say that they were nice and accomidating, which they are. It is nice, and tiring to travel, surprisingly tiring. Even after five lunches you are amazed how little energy you have after a half hour car ride. Maybe its the heat, the dust, or the five lunches themselves that steal your energy but peopel here are right when they ask you "Aren't you tired after all that travel".

Kamm sonn. Jam rekk kay.
(I am tired. Peace only is good)

To St. Louis and back

The world flashes by in an effervescent melange when your hanging off the back of a Car Rapide, the world takes on a whole new look, and a slightly disturbingly close aspect, especially when you see the street sweeping by just inches away from your feet. I never thought I would be haning off the back of the Car Rapide's like I've seen so many young Senegalese people doing, but we got of our Jagen Jay and just ran to the nearest bus we saw and hopped on.

Take the ticket, Take the ride.

"Transport en commun", that is the logo printed on the side of all the Car Rapides in Senegal, yet its so much different that the public transportation anywhere else. In the U.S. and (I am assuming) other European countries, the public transportation sector started out as a state funded entity. In Senegal it is anything but that. The Car Rapides, half the time even the Taxis are just anyone who could find a car, paint it with the appropriate colors, and learn how to drive well enought to get around the city. Many lack real liscences (a fact I personally know since one time I had to bribe a police officer to let our taxi keep driving). Even though there are police checks up and dow the Route National (the most heavily used highway in Senegal) and even all over in Dakar, there aren't enough police checkpoints to discourage a lot of people. Its amazing how things still work, in the U.S. we always feel that without at least some measure of government presence or assurance that all infrastructure would fall apart, but people here have it together, they know how to organize and keep a system going, despite the lack. The Car Rapides are typically Senegalese, they are old European made vans that are converted into small buses. First they start by stripping the car of anything they deem unnecessary. Usually this includes all inside decorations, even the spedometer (I have never once known the speed we were going while in a car in Senegal, all the spedometers are in the cars but they never work), I believe they do this because they think it'll bring them good luck. Once they strip the car of everything they saulder seats in place, leaving just enough room so that your knees dig into the back of the seat of the person in front of you. Even the hallways have seats that fold up and fall back into place, so you can pass through but then sit down when the Car is full. They then hang up curtains (which at first just seems ridiculous, but now I realize does help when the sun is glaring through the window for a 4 hour ride) and put various stickers everywhere. The amazing thing is that they are always the same stickers, these cheap detail stickers. The most common ones I have notices are City Boy, A madonna picture, and roses. The Car Rapides are perfectly Senegalese in this way, they take these images, which they probably have no idea whay they really mean, and they use them to their own use. When you first come to Dakar you notice that people paint the Nike symbol everywhere, it has taken on a new meaning in this context.

I guess you could call it reculturification, but its amazing how it works here. The way people take images and just repeat them because they seem important, even though they don't know why they are important. All tire shops here have hand painted replicas of the michelin tire men (some hillarious renditions too). These shops may not sell Michelin tires, and they may have never seen a Michelin tire in their lifetime, but for them this little man made out of tires is some universal symbol stating that tires are sold at this location. This is the same with many images. Everything from Vitalait (milk) advertisements, to Djibiteries (Djibiteries are the restaurants that sell tradtionally cooked goat meat). I guess in a country where a large percentage of the population is illiterate that they symboles serve their purpose, even if someone can't read they can see this man and know that they can buy tires at this location.

Everything in Senegal seems to work as if by magic, it seems to make absolutely no sense, yet keeps moving little by little. Along with all these symbols the fact that other systems exist, such as the various Unions that dictate the rules in terms of transportation and tourism. Its amazing how quickly people form unions once they start an enterprise. One stunning example occured while I was trying to take a Sept-Place, a station wagon that rents seven seats, to go back to Joal. There hadn't been any Sept Place's at the garage for several hours, and this meant there were a lot of hot, dehydrated and hassled (because a taxi man will seriously talk to you the entire time you are there telling you how stupid you are for trying to wait for another Sept-Place, when he could take you right now to Joal, just for 3 times the cost). Finally a taxi pulled up and said he would bring four people to Joal for the same price. I ran and got in (you actually have to run and push your way through others to get a seat) and waited. What he was doing was technically illegal, he did not have a liscence to bring passengers between neighboring cities, his liscence only allowed him to bring passengers between desitinations within the city. This prompted an explosion of arguments between the driver and the other taxi men, who immediately got out their cell phones and threatened to call the police if he took us. We ended up having to get out and wait for another, liscenced cab. I was amazed how well the system was worked out and how faithful people were to the system. The other taxi men refused to take a bribe (which our driver offered).

Sitting in a Jaygen Jay is a great experience, it lets you see a part of Senegal, both in terms of traveling and in terms of seeing what most senegalese people actually do, the transportation they really use to get from place to place. Sitting cramped between so many people, makes you feel trapped, almost like you are going to drown, but once you learn to live with it, to make the most of it you seem to float on it all, almost enjoy these kind of situations. Like what a Senegalese man said to me the other day, "Now you are inside, in the middle of it all". He was talking about my cultural adjustement, but it pertains to this and so much more.

Society and Influence

Irregularity, although it exists here, it is seen as some terrible thing. This is mostly true when I do things out of the ordinary, like get tired one day and decide to rest instead of aimlessly talk with people. For some odd reason, people take this as some personal attack, as some sign from above that I am not interested in their lives, that I no longer appreciate them as persons. So when I decide to sleep instead of being in a room with a bunch of people as they talk and pray in French and Wolof, most of which I don’t understand, they get angry. This was the case last night. I usually ignore these things, I need to guard a little bit of my own free time,not due to some cultural baggage, but mostly for my personal sanity. A lot of the times this is the same thing with Television,or my attempt to have absolutely nothing to do with watching television here. I usually end up watching T.V. the half hour before dinner, because its not enough time to do much else and the whole family is usually in the family room watching T.V., except for the mom who is usually cooking. If the fact that people here watch an ungodly large amount of T.V. wasn’t frightening enough, what they actually watch pushes it over the edge. There is a whole set of cultural influences that pour from Europe and South America, that seem so different from the U.S. I think in the U.S. we think that our media influence is absolute, that Holywood has a monopoly on the movie market around the world. Although every night there is some American movie on television, and often even the worst American movies on television, its largerly an European influence that comes through. One striking example is the fact that as soon as Senegalese people gain wealth they immediately buy French satelite T.V. and even stop watching the Senegalese news. It’s a habit leftover from colonialism, but I think its a thorn in the side of all those American unilateralists. America, although it is influential (and you find out just how much American influences things once you are outside of it, how montstrously huge it is both in thought and action) but its not omnipotent. This is not to say that European foreign influences are any better than American ones. There is still a culturally dependency, the idea that due to history Europeans and Ameicans have some culturally beneificial lifestyle and thus many Senegalese people aspire to these ideals. Local stations often imitate, if not almost exactly duplicate, foreign series, and often foreign series are translated into local languages. There is something strangely bizarre about watching Brazilian soap operas (which were actually filmed in Spain) translated into Wolof, it just seems unnatural. I love the way people change things here, how they use symbols and change them to mean new things (like all the symbols on the Car Rapids) but the rote repitition of certain things is just funny/sad. The most powerful influence Europe has here revolves around news. News concerning the United States is sparse and usually concerns three topics: The War in Iraq, USAID, or the Presidential Elections. Europe seems to be closer both in terms of relevance (mostly because many Africans have relatives in Europe) and also in financial pariticpation. News conferences are constantly shown between heads of different European states and different African countries and organizations. Even with all this influence Europe is still a sore spot on a lot of people’s sides here, people in Senegal still have a large dislike for French people, they will blatantly say they can tolerate anyone but a Frenchman. Also, with all the aid coming from Europe one has to wonder if these loans are actually helping anyone but the ministers (who thanks to the loans take half and buy new houses, cars, etc.) Its interesting watching Europe through and African point of view, seeing the French news in Senegal is something else. Not even France anymore, but Europe, all the nexs channels talk about the E.U. Europe has started to retake the reigns of power that the U.S. took from it, not that this is a good thing, because its just another power struggle, but it makes Americans think twice.

Fruit Trees

Its kind of surprising and somewhat unsettling how much I feel like I've gotten used to living here. I distinctly remember asking one of the other full year students "Do you smell that?", she responded "smell what?". "EXACTLY!", this all ties to the fact that I remember a distinct smell that was pervasive, that was everything, the same smell that seemed to attack everything here, and now I don't smell it, or at least notice the smell. Its like this with a lot of things. The five o'clock call-to-prayer that the mosque sends out every morning around 7 o'clock a.m. The sheep that just wander in your house if you leave your front door open (I do notice this, but I react like Senegalese people, I just hiss and flail my arm at them and they scatter). The rice and couscous, something I thought I would never get used to, especially I remember how bland the couscous tasted, almost like eating wet cardboard, but now I actually look forward to eating it. I think there is a quote that goes a little like: "Overall, we end up doing most things out of habit". This is true here, I've gotten into the habit (even when I type this sentence I think in French J'ai l'habitude, or, je me suis habitué). This does not mean I don't still need change, which I do. I often wander around my courtyard trying to think of things to do because I don't want to watch four hours of T.V. again. There are some habits I can't get used to. Yet, there are things that I even downright miss, or don't appreciate the habit of not having them. Point and case, fruit. First of all, before I talk about fruit I should talk about seasons, a little thing which causes the maturation of fruits in most places (except in laboratories). Here, in Senegal, one notices the seasons very easily. First of all, it neither rains nor snows (or precipitates in any way) during the dry season. Yet, there are still seasons for various fruits. One example is mangoes. When I first got here in September it was Mango season, but within one month I did not see one single mango sold at a fruit stand. Now, in mid-february, it is clemantine orange season. You see tons of people walking around with little oranges. The most important thing to notice though is the complete, and I mean COMPLETE, lack of fruits other than those in season. You can go to the super market, which usually exists only in Dakar, and maybe, a big maybe, find these fruits, but even the rich people often find this unnecessary and expensive. I once bought avacados out of season and one pound cost me as much as 10 pounds of other fruits and vegetables (I spent as much buying two things at the super market than I did buying 20 things at the open air Senegalese market). In the U.S. we don't really understand seasons except for the increase in the price of a product. For example, during the off season, avacados may jump 20 cents in price but they are still at the super market, heck they are still even there in large quantities. This doesn't exist in most of the third world. Even if these crops are imported, which a lot of them are, they are imported from neighboring African countries. This means that although the climate may be different, it is not shipped half way around the world so that they can have oranges all year round. A lot of the fruit comes from equitorial Africa, countries like Guinee, Cote d'ivoire, etc. These countries aren't terribly far away from Senegal. In the U.S. we have pineapples all year round because we ship them from Asiatique countries, because we ship them from half way around the world just to have the possibilty to have them all year round. Although this is great, and I am no one to say that I don't like a good pineapple, even in the dead of winter, but its an expensive habite, if not for you but at least for the environment. Shipping alone constitutes one of the largest environmentally taxing industries, especially if they are flown places.

So, due to the lack of large shipping capabilities (in general) Senegalese people enjoy fruits IN SEASON, except for when (like in my case) you find some catholic monks who grow oranges, grapefruits and jub-jub's (kind of like crab apples) in the neighboring village. I don't know but I think catholic monks have a thing for growing fruit here. I am tempted to make some Freudian psychological comparison between their frustration due to the inability to watch their child blossom (good huh?) in their wives, so they turn to the next best thing: Fruit. Of course, this is all thought, they probably just like eating fruit and know they can make a decent amount of money growing fruit (because no one else here does, especially out of season).

I ended up walking to thie village, Ngazobill, and buying two kilograms of grapfruits and one kilogram of oranges. I gave the grapefruit to my family and hoarded the oranges in my room, a very un-Senegalese thing to do but desperate times call for desperate measures and I am vitamin C deficient! Not really. hah. The thing I was ultimately surprised about was how, like at Keur Moussa, these catholic monks had a huge field of fruit trees, with modern irrigation systems and all that jazz, yet no one else in Senegal seems to have this. It seems like the catholic monks either have the know-how, or the money to finance these things, it can't be something like laziness because Senegalese people are really resourceful. I've seen people make brooms out of things that come entirely from the branch of a tree. I am tempted to think it is the catholic church that has the money to finance the irrigation systems to start these kind of things, but then again, there are all these NGO's, all this financial help that ideally could let other Senegalese people do this exact kind of thing. I don't know, its confusingly delicious. I eat the oranges and they aren't bitter, but I get a sour taste when I think about how things still aren't how they should be in this country with all the millions of dollars of help and aide that gets poured in each year.

Wives

In Senegalese standards I have been very active, and regardless of whether this matches up with the American standards I feel like I am doing a lot. I had some students come visit me for the weekend, which ended up with a lot of activity and a lot of fatigue, but it was generally the same thing. We visited Fadiouth, we visited the Sacred Boabab tree, mostly the same things we did last time. The major problem that happens when I have visitors is the idea that everyone feels they should have their share of time, financial help, etc., from me and my visitors. This is more noticeable when these visitors are women. When I first came here I was tempted to think that the whole bride price way of getting a wife, plus the whole idea that you could ask your friend to bring you a wife and it would actually happen, was just an old reality that wasn't really applicable today. I am still tempted to think that its more a joke than it is a reality, but the overwhelming pressure that is constantly pushed on you to "give" a white women as a gift to a Senegalese man, or the fact that men say they will "give" me a Senegalese wife before I go back to the states, makes me think otherwise. I was reading a article by the newly named cardinal in Senegal, Théodore Adrien Sarr, and he talked about his youth in Fadiouth, the island that is matched together with Joal to make up the "commune" of Joal-Fadiouth. He talked about, despite the history of christianity in the area (the Serer are the people that have been impacted the most by colonial religion. The majority, and often and overwhelming majority at that, had historically been converted to christianity from Animism and Islam.) The cardinal mentioned the importance of Serer lifestyles, more so than the importance of Christianity. Although he later connected the two moral systems, saying that they often complemented each other, the christian one and the animist one, he said there was an importance in his youth placed on the Serer lifestyle more so than the Christian lifestyle. I think this makes sense, that despite the rapid modernization of Joal, and the growth even in terms of population of the city itself, there exists this presence of tradition. I guess this can be seen in most of Senegal. Even Islam itself has its nuances particular to Senegal. Sufism, I believe is the word, is the mixture of traditional African belief systems with the Islamic belief systems. This gives you things like the Mourhids, who believe that Serigne Touba was another prophet (which fundamental Muslims deny). This also explains the importance of Marabouts, the religious leaders in Mouradism. The Marabouts are the religious leaders that read the Coran, and often they have a connection with spirits and thus god. It is kind of like the old catholic church, they don't want people to interpret the Coran for themselves, they tell them what they should think.

But overall, what I am getting at is that I do think that if I was serious, and insistent that I could probably get most women in Joal to marry me depending on how much money I provide their family. Its a custom that is left over from antiquity, and although I am tempted to think it doesn't exist, that its just a joke, the reaccurance of these questions (even if they are jokes) makes me think this. An example: my host father asked if I thought a particular girl was beautiful. I replied that I indeed think she was beautiful. He then told his wife "Good, we will talk to her parents before you leave so you can bring her back to America with you".

This wasn't really made in a joking manner, like a lot of the other things are. I was surprised by the boldness of it all, by the reality, I guess. I guess this one experience has pushed me to think this, but it constantly slaps me in the face. Senegalese people often scold me for not "loving" Senegalese women, but I can't help but think even if I were to take them up on these opportunities that it would be some sort of exploitation, some sort of cultural invasion, or some bride price that I've been trained to think is terrible since my birth. I just feel like a dollar sign, I feel like it would just be some girl trying to make things better for her family. Isn't this just a continuation of colonialism? Ha, I am tempted to think things like this. I found that joking is often a great way around these sorts of issues.

Its fun and interesting to come to understand traditions, to understand cultural beliefs, but ultimately there are things which are cultural differences and that even if one understands them it does not mean that one has to participate in them. In the eyes of Senegalese people I may be rude by not taking many wives (especially to the muslims) or even one wife, but I am fine with this. I have made my choice. Its largely a wealth thing I think, I mean the father of Leopold Sedar Senghor (the first Senegalese president) had a father who had 5 wives and 41 kids, only because he was a wealthy merchant. I know this was a hundred years ago, and people say globalism changes beliefs faster today than at any other time in history, but the pace is slower here. Often people assume a sense of modernization (in terms of socialized modernization) when they think of globalisation. However there is a difference between technology and modernity, although third world countries may be advancing by having newer technology, having infrastructural advances, the social pratices that we associate with development, such as equal rights, democracy, etc. often are far behind these advances. Just because people in a certain country can now talk on cell phones doesn't always mean they can say whatever they want into these cell phones. This a good example of the internet, all those bloggers across various third world countries that are jailed because they criticize the government. There is a stark difference between development and technology, although the industrialized nations often forget this. Its something as simple as going to a village where there is no electricity, running water or sewage systems and seeing three cell phone towers in the backround. Is this development? I think you know the answer.

P.S. And don't worry, I won't be coming back to the U.S. with any bride(s).

Discotheques and being politically correct

Writing a blog is sort of a blessing and a curse, its nice (I would imagine) for others to read, but at the same time, as my life gets filled with work, fieldtrips, adventures, etc. I find it difficult to update my blog. Anyways, I digress...

Back in Dakar again, this time for a soirée, an all night party at the discotheques in Dakar. Soirées are pretty big here, its basically just the same thing as clubbing the U.S., except people don't start until much later, usually around 1-2 in the morning and end sometime around 5-6 a.m. I've been to my fair share of discotheques in Dakar, for better or worse, but I had never had one thrown in my honor. I had this exact chance this past weekend when my Senegalese friends surprised me and told me they were going to throw a soiree with me and another American, a guy named Tinaree. They originally told me I was going to co-dj and all, that I needed to bring a lot of friends and what not. Despite the slightly unpleasant, if not uncomfortable times I've had while going to other discotheques, I was excited. Leaving Joal and going back to Dakar is always nice, even if the travel isn't that interesting. Being cramped in a sept-place, a station wagon where seven seats are available, isn't the funnest way to travel, plus the constant traffic jam around Rufisque, basically just the urban spillover of Dakar, isn't the most appealing way to travel. The sept-place's are fine, they are better than the Jeggan-Jey's, which are basically the minibuses that run between villages in the country side. The Jeggan-Jey's are first of all more crowded (they quite literally push more people into the bus when it is already full, I mean push them in like you would try to fit more clothes in your suitcase even though its way past its limit), a lot slower, and they stop frequently to pick up anyone along the side of the road. I hate to be the rich American snob but paying the extra fifty cents to be that much more comfortable is not that much to me. The second hard thing about traveling to Dakar is Rufisque. Rufisque is the urban sprawl of Dakar, a continuation of the banlieu (suburbs) that extends for miles and miles outside of Dakar. Dakar is a mega-trapolis (or something like that), nearly half of the population of Senegal lives in Dakar, meaning that it is huge. Although it may not be as large as some U.S. cities, in terms of relativity, the numbers of citizens in the country side and those in Dakar, it is gigantic. If this happened in the U.S. it would be the equivalent of New York possessing half the U.S. population. Imagine that. Rufisque is a traffic jam, that is what it is to me, one giant traffic jam. Every time, no matter what time of the day, I pass through Rufisque it is always stop and go traffic for at least an hour. This is largely due to the fact that there is one highway, one single highway in and out of Dakar.
Once I actually get into Dakar its usually fine. I am usually dehydrated, semi sick because I have been sitting in a traffic jam breathing in dust and car exhaust (vehicle emmision checks do not exist here), and usually with only enough money to get me halfway home. This is a weird happening but it seems to happen everytime, I would like to blame something else besides my bad planning decisions. Anyways, there was a new American staying at my host family in Dakar. It was interesting to speak with him about his experience (he is african-american) and how different it is. Its interesting to talk about things like racial differences here because the whole politically correct, lets not insult anyone by saying they are different thing doesn't exist here. Here is an example of how people identify other people:

My host brother: "There is a black guy here"
Me: "alright"
My host brother: "NO a black American"
Me: "Ohhhhh, the other American student, the African American guy"
My host brother: "Yeah, the black one"

Of course this is in French and Wolof, but to some people it may seem crude. It isn't here, the whole racial thing is all out in the open. Yes, we do have different colored skin and I will classify you based on this appearence. This is how they think. It is the same thing with anything else. When I first came back to Joal my host sister here greeted me by saying "You cut your hair, you look so ugly". In any other society this might be an insult, here it is nothing.

Now the soirée: I actually managed to assemble a fair amount of Americans to come to my soiree. This has two advantages, first of all you are not the only white person in the club, which often attracts much attention, and also then my friends won't tell me I refuse to share my American women with them. It is common for Senegalese men to ask for American women, like asking to borrow a pencil. I know this may be unkind to the American girls here, but regardless whenever American girls enter any situation where dancing, drinking or partying is involved here they attract much attention, and as they will probably go to these sorts of things with or without my prompting I didn't feel so bad asking them to come to my soiree. I never ended up DJing, which was good, because although I know how to run a board I am not a real DJ. It was funny to see my Senegalese friends act like they were DJ's. They weren't very good, and there were many times when two people would be trying to play a song at the same time so all we heard was noise. Overall, it was fun. I am glad to be back in Joal. I love Dakar but hate it at the same time. Its generic nature, its massive ambiguitiy. At times when I am in Dakar I feel like I could be in any large city in the world. Its just a mass of any influence combining in some frankestein creature of a city. It seems to have its own movements, its own directions that seem to be outside of the control of humans. I prefer the countryside, even if it is less modern, even if I am bored a lot of the times. I'd rather be bored than stressed and confused. Dakar is just this, a city that you get used to because it is so familiar, so generic, so just like New York, with different languages and all Senegalese people. Its hard to feel like you are in Senegal there. I feel better in Joal, more like this is what Senegal was about, even if it isn't what Senegal will be. Modernity usurps Antiquity, its not a bad thing, in a lot of cases, its a process. People desire change, so its hard to complain about these changing morals, but I like the experience of Joal. There is peace. Am na jom.