Endings, Beginnings, and Milestones

It's December 13, which means I've been in Senegal for over a hundred days. Wow. I'm back in Dakar right now, after a wrap-up week of fall semester classes. Most of the other MSID students were only staying the semester, and left or are leaving this weekend. I know the pictures are a big part of this blog, but sadly there are none this week, as (and I know it sounds like a ridiculous excuse) I in fact accidentally deleted the pictures that I had taken these past few weeks from my computer after having already taken them off my phone. Technology 1, Jane 0. >_<

I had a nice week of activities - classes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with Tuesday and Thursday completely free. Tuesday Casi, Delaney, and I went to the world's smallest national park - the
Parc national des îles de la Madeleine, or Madeleine Islands. There's one big island, the Island of Sarpan (pronounced like serpent, the French word for snake, which is a bit confusing as it is snake-free), as well as a few smaller volcanic islands. The geology of the island is amazing to look at, and it's also home to some tortoises, nesting cormorants, and, according to our guide, a patron spirit who looks after it. There's some ruins from a few European attempts to farm or settle the island, but it's a rather exposed rock, and gets too much wind to grow anything beyond grass and a few hardy baobabs. It made for a gorgeous day trip!

Wednesday I had class in the morning and afternoon, but took a trip to the Artisanal Market between class and lunch with my classmates - I didn't have any money with me, so didn't buy anything, but other people stocked up on souvenirs, and I'll definitely be back. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were split between a lot of writing and saying goodbyes. We had a wonderful farewell banquet Friday night.

My parents and Will get here on Saturday, and I'm very excited! In the meantime, I'll be heading back down to Joal for a few days, working on some scholarship applications, and just kind of taking things slow. I've got a post on public transport that just needs some photos as well, so that should be up this week.

Slice of Life post: City Creatures

My time in Thies is drawing to a close, and while I'll be very glad to get back to Dakar this weekend (I can't wait to catch up with my MSID friends, see my host family in Dakar, and get the end of the semester squared away), there are definitely some things I'll miss about living in Thies - among them, the sheer number of animals I see walking around the city.

In Dakar, there are a few horse-drawn carts to be seen here and there, though they're much more common in the outlying suburbs than the downtown area. There are also a fair amount of other animals people keep, like the sheep my host family keeps on the roof. But Thies is a whole other story...

First off, you have the donkeys and horses, which are used as pack animals - cars and trucks are much more common, but the cart hasn't bought the farm by a long shot. You can catch a ride to the market on one of the carriages as well - some of them like, the one in the background below, are outfitted with benches for passengers.

City traffic moves a bit fast for my camera - even the non-motorized kind!

A donkey on his lunch break

The house I live in here is in a relatively new neighborhood on the outskirts of town, right next to the village of Thionah. It's a common sight to see goats wandering at all hours, and I can hear them along with donkeys and roosters throughout the day.

There's something a little threatening about the way goats look at you

Goats and a stray calf outside of a neighboring house

"Well," you might say, "that's all very well and good, but that's just in the outskirts of town, right?" These, however, are from a herd of cattle that passed through town not too far from the offices of Agrecol earlier this week. I  complimented the cowherd in Wolof for having pretty cows (or at least I'm pretty sure that's what I said).

Yes, that is a refrigerator store behind them.

Some of you are probably familiar with my mom's adventures in urban chicken-keeping, which was the great family story of 2013-2014. Thies wouldn't dream of any such ordinance against livestock as is common in the States. The chickens here (roosters and hens alike, and I can usually hear a rooster or two in the mornings) roam a bit freer that our girls at home do.

He didn't like me much

"I said, 'cluck cluck'" said the hen

Mammals generally aren't allowed to walk around the markets except on a leash, but chickens can't do as much damage to a market stall as a goat might. I found these guys scratching in between a general store and a hardware store.

Granted, there are some downsides to this as well, chief among which is that the streets smell like a barnyard in places. But for all of the talk I hear (and contribute to) about ending factory farms and instituting better livestock-raising programs - maybe part of our problem has been isolating ourselves too much from the animals that we eat. I'm not giving my full endorsement to re-instituting such laissez-faire attitudes towards free-range livestock in the US, but I can say for sure that they certainly add a bit of excitement to the streets here!

Weekend Getaway

My last few weeks in Thiès have been fantastic. I've gotten started on research for my senior capstone project, and I'm devoting this week to finishing up my end-of-semester projects, which are due next week - time's really flown by. I had a couple outfits made, which look fantastic, if I do say so myself.

Here's one new outfit - and some cows! Claire and I saw these in the street, and wanted a picture. PC: Claire Dineen

This weekend I left the city for a bit to go to Joal-Fadiouth with Casi and Delaney, some of my MSID friends. We caught sept-places (pronounced "set-palaass;" run-down stations wagons which you can take between cities for about $2-$4, depending on how far you're traveling. The price you pay for it being so cheap is being crowded in with at least six other passengers) to M'bour, which was pretty central for all of us, then got a taxi to Joal. We arrived very late Friday night at the Hotel Finio, a charming little inn right on the bay.

Joal sits on the Atlantic coast, joined to the village-island of Fadiouth by a pedestrian bridge. No motor vehicles are allowed on Fadiouth, due to the island's unusual covering of shells. "Guards" try to get tourists to pay a fee of about $10 USD to cross the bridge, but in reality there is no fee. Mason, another American student who lives in Joal, showed us around and helped us negotiate fees and taxis like that. Noah, another MSID student, was visiting a relative of his host family in Joal and joined us on Saturday as well.

There were many pigs around, a rare sight here despite the other animals commonly wandering the streets - most Senegalese are Muslim, and thus do not eat pork. Fadiouth, however, is mostly Christian, due to an old Catholic mission which still has a thriving cathedral on the island. I took a lot of pig pictures.

We had a nice lunch out and met Mason's host family, before walking around Joal a bit. We saw the outside of the house of Léopold Sédar Senghor (the first president of Senegal), which is now a museum, but decided to go to the beach instead.

There were lots of crabs around, and some little boys were all too happy to help us catch a few. 

In the evening, we went to Mason's house for dinner, and hung around playing Uno with his host brother (aged six) while waiting for the food to be ready. We didn't let him win, but we did let him say that he won.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel, where this pelican hangs out - we saw him getting his breakfast as well, a bucket of fish. We think the hotel must feed him so he stays around, and I can't blame them, he does add a good ambiance to the place.

We took a walk around the beach, then went out for lunch at the Taverne des Pecheurs (Fishermen's Tavern). The food was fantastic, though a Senegalese quartet came and played music right next to our table. Their style seemed to be "annoying enough that tourists will pay us to go away." We didn't give them anything, being rather sick of playing these kinds of games. I was reminded of Sir Robin's minstrels from Monty Python and the Holy Grail - luckily, we did not have to eat them to get them to stop.

We took the same chain of taxis and sept-places back to our respective cities, for one last week of work and wrapping up. Should have at least one other post up this week, and plenty more photographs on the facebook!

Thoughts in the wake of this weekend

This post also represents a departure from my usual style of posting, but as a student of global studies, I wanted to weigh in on the events of this weekend and the fallout. It’s no more than my two cents on the matter.

I was very shocked and horrified when I saw the news of what happened in Paris on Friday night. In my way of thinking over the past few years, France was very “safe.” I struggled a lot my freshman year with the choice of where I wanted to focus my area studies and spend my year abroad. I really wanted to apply to study at the Political Science Academy in Paris, and experience the movable feast. But I also wanted (and felt I needed) to spend this year growing in a way I knew would be difficult in Paris. I chose Senegal to get a better sense of the larger world, because I want to work in development, and to experience a rather different way of life.

Though Senegal is a stable, relatively healthy republic, West Africa is more or less synonymous in the news for Ebola outbreaks and armed conflict. Even though I felt comfortable in my decision, I know a lot of people felt I had chosen the less “safe” option for my year abroad, and at times before coming here I struggled with that myself.

Do I feel less safe here after what happened in Paris? No less than I did before, which is no less than I feel at home in the US. It would be very, very wrong to lump the actions of the Islamic State with the piety and peace practiced by the other Muslims around the world, which include 12.5 million Senegalese, who look down on militant Islam the same way any sane person would. I have nothing but utmost respect for Muslims and Christians alike who continue to find a path to a better world using some of the same holy texts that others have used to declare justification for atrocities.

But really, I’m not safe. None of us are. The reason all of the US and Europe is in an uproar over Paris is because it was, like 9/11, another glaring reminder that it can happen here, in “civilized places.” It doesn’t just happen in countries that still haven’t recovered from years of colonial rule, in places we have already written off as zones of violence and irresolvable conflict. Terrorism is not just their problem, and we are foolish to assume violence is ever so far from our door as to not merit our attention.

I do not wish to offend anyone with my stumbling around these matters. Death and human suffering in any respect are not to be taken lightly or compared against each other. What happened in Paris was an atrocity, and my heart goes out in mourning to the victims and their families. But I must also mourn for Beirut, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Mexico, and so many other places. I mourn for the hundreds of Americans killed by police violence every year. I mourn for all the unnecessary deaths due to violence and all other preventable causes. I take a moment to remember all the suffering that happens every day, and then I move on and live the rest of it to the best of my ability. We must mourn, but we must also go on living with peace and without fear. Wherever we are.

Slice of life post: Fun with Currency!

So, up until now most of my posts have just been news about what I'm doing. I'm going to try starting something new, however, and making occasional posts that are just my experiences with day-to-day life in Senegal - things like public transportation, food, and culture shocks. Some of this is for my parents and brother, who will be joining me here for a few weeks' vacation during Will's winter break in December, and some of this is just to share all the little curiosities I come across here. 

One of the things that has been very interesting for me to figure out during these last few months in Senegal has been the different currency. Along with several other former French colonies, Senegal uses the West African CFA (CFA stands for "Communauté Financière d'Afrique" or Financial Community of Africa). The exchange rate is about 500 CFA (more commonly known as "francs") to the dollar, though it fluctuates regularly to be about 50 CFA above or below that. 

Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_African_CFA_franc#/media/File:BCEAOFranc.png

Image from: http://africanbanknotes.blogspot.sn/2013/12/west-african-cfa-francs-banknotes-set.html

Technically, there are eight coins and five bills, though only the five largest coins are in wide use - I've only run across a few 5 and 10 CFA coins, and never seen a 1 CFA. There is no sales tax, so prices are always exact, usually in increments of 50 CFA.

Prices are seldom marked on items here, and this combined with the ingrained culture of haggling means that the Senegalese are very good at remembering what they pay for things. I still get some funny looks for asking what things cost in stores, because they're used to people my age just knowing how much things are. I've started to memorize a fair amount of prices myself - 1.5L water bottles, for instance, are 400 CFA, whereas the same sized bottle of soda is 700 CFA. Here is a sample of what you can buy with each amount of money in Senegal:

1 CFA - Like I said, I am still not sure if these coins are worth the metal they're made of. I haven't run across anything so far that only costs so little. 

5 CFA - one of the sticks people use to clean their teeth. Yes, you read that right, you can buy whittled, cleaned sticks from food stands and shops to keep in your pocket or the side of your mouth and scrub your teeth with throughout the day. Toothpicks and toothbrushes are also used, of course, but the traditional method of chewing and scraping with sticks after meals persists, even in the cities. I haven't tried it yet, but apparently it's a rather effective supplement to regular brushing. 

10 CFA - a piece of hard candy from a corner shop. The corner shops themselves are a whole other fascinating post, but no matter how small the shop they always keep a few jars of different candies on the counter for children (and exchange students with a sweet tooth) to buy with their allowance. I'm rather fond of gingembre, a very strong hard ginger candy. 

25 CFA - still haven't found anything that costs exactly 25 CFA, but useful as halves of a fifty.

50 CFA -  A little bag of beignets (a kind of doughnut hole) or a small cup of Cafe Touba from one of the street snack carts, a short ride on a car rapide (price varies by distance traveled, but 50 is the base price), or a sandwich-sized, vacuum-sealed plastic bag of purified water (an alternative to water bottles; you bite a hole in a corner and drink from that). 

100 CFA - A small orange, a small baguette, a regular cup of instant coffee, a single-serving packet of cookies, about a cup of freshly-cooked peanuts, a short ride on one of the nicer city buses, a banana, or a 10-pack of tissues. 

200 CFA - a ride on a "moto," the taxi's two-wheeled cousin in Thiès. Young men drive them around the city and shout "moto" at pedestrians who look in need of transportation. Motos are two-seater mopeds or motorcycles (though I've seen ones with three or four children on the backseat instead), which provide a cheaper alternative to taxis, for the single passenger without a lot of baggage. 

500 CFA - a taxi ride in Thiès, a very basic lunch of ceebu-jën from a food stand, a family-sized package of cooked peanuts, or a breakfast sandwich with meat, potatoes, and vegetables. 

1000 CFA - lunch from a slightly more upscale food stand (that serves sandwiches or Senegalese food that is not ceebu-jën), a cross-city taxi ride in Dakar, a toothbrush, or a 10L bottle of purified water.

2000 CFA - a taxi ride if you're really bad at haggling or it's raining (price goes up because demand goes up), or a SIM card for a cellphone. 

5000 CFA - a portable 3G internet connection, 2GB worth of data for your phone or 3G internet, or two meters of good cloth, which is about enough for making a dress. 

10000 CFA - usual cost for having an outfit made by a tailor, though often negotiable if you are able to buy the cloth from the same shop. 

As you can see, a few dollars can go a very long way here. The more upscale or western-style restaurants that I've been to in Dakar are only expensive in that they charge more what I'm used to paying for a lunch in the US. I haven't done any independent travel yet, but apparently the same is true for hotels as well - even the fanciest hotels listed in the guide don't generally go above 60000 CFA a night. Cost of living is balanced out by the high-cost of utilities, which are all privatized, but for travel it's very easy to do on a student's budget. 

Toubab Dialao and a village visit

My first few weeks with Agrecol Afrique have been a lot of fun so far, and I'm learning so much here. Agrecol is a non-profit NGO, and so while there are mostly regular paid employees, there are also a few interns from Senegalese universities, as well three volunteers/interns from SUCO, a Canadian volunteer organization that is a little similar to the Peace Corps. They're Quebecois and speak mostly French, but enough English that our conversations frequently slip into a mix of the two. It's still difficult for me to properly express myself in French when I get excited or angry about a topic, and agriculture has its own vocabulary which I am doing my best to learn.


Monday and Tuesday the whole organization, about thirty people total, had a conference and retreat at Toubab Dialao, a tourist town on the Petit Cote which is about an hour and a half's drive from Thiès. We stayed at the Sobo Badé, a lovely sprawling collection of bungalows built out of stone and decorated with seashells. It sits right on the edge of the sea-cliffs, and there was a lovely breeze around. We went swimming in the ocean - the first time I've been swimming in the ocean here, as I never found the time to go in Dakar. It was a lot of fun, though the waves were much stronger than I'm used to, my other major experiences with the ocean being on the Florida side of the Gulf of Mexico and in South Carolina. At night, me and a few of the Canadian volunteers went out in search of a drink (the hotel bar was ruinously expensive) and when we were walking along the beach, we saw hordes of little crabs scuttling about, which made me rather nostalgic for family ghost-crabbing adventures. I didn't get any photos, as I forgot my smartphone and my camera is being a little difficult right now, but there are some of the hotel on that link, and here's a few my coworker Abdoulaye took:

Crocheting by the seaside

The view from the cliffside - those are fishermen on the left

We also got some real work and conversation done - I got to see presentations on all the major projects of Agrecol Afrique, including a food security program in the Casamance (I wish I were able to do work there, but security concerns mean that MSID does not usually allow students to work there), a shiny new version of the website to be revealed soon, and a presentation on the Naturel-Biologique labeling program, or Nat-Bi (biologique means organic in French). I may be able to do some work with the Nat-Bi program in the next few weeks, if my schedule permits.

Wednesday I got back to find that my library project has been a little derailed - what little progress I had made had been undone by a well-meaning janitor stacking the books back in the closet, rather than leaving them in the organized piles I'd had them in on the floor. To them, I'm sure it looked like I had just thrown them willy-nilly around on the floor, but there was the beginning of a system there! I never thought I'd daydream about steel bookcases with movable shelving, but when all you have to organize with is a dirty closet,with three tall, deep shelves, what were once the most mundane solutions seem very appealing. I think I'm going to put the project on hold until (unless) we can get a hold of some milk crates or other boxes for organizing the books - otherwise I'll just be putting them in slightly more organized stacks, which, much as I hate to say it, is not a very good use of my time.


Thursday I went with the technicians to see some of the field sites where Agrecol does work - three villages, two with women's collectives and one with a general farming collective. At the first village, Koulouck, we brought seeds and helped plant a few beds of onions. In the second, Mboulouckhtène, the program focuses on okra production and chickens - meat, not eggs. Ngemme, the third village, hosts the largest collective - 17 men and 10 women each work large plots of organic tomatoes, peppers, hibiscus, and other vegetables which they then sell to Agrecol. We had ataaya, freshly roasted peanuts, and vegetable stew with rice with the farmers in the shade of a baobab and weighed and recorded the harvests of the week. It's very odd for me to see a land in full bloom in November, after growing up in a place where there's only one growing season, which has already passed by this time of year. 



My second week in Thiès was very well-spent, and I look forward to the adventures that this week will bring! 

New town, new job!

So classes wrapped up without incident last week, and this week we MSID students start our internships. Two students stayed behind in Dakar for internships there, but the rest of us boarded the bus (the same one we took to Toubacouta) Monday morning to travel to our new towns, scattered over the southwestern region of Senegal.

Thiès is on the left, close to the ocean

I was the second one we dropped off, as I'm only an hour outside of Dakar. I'm in Thiès, the second largest city in Senegal and the capital of the region of the same name. With about 274,000 residents, it's still a bustling metropolis compared to a lot of the country, but after Dakar it's like a slow, small town - definitely more my speed.

A view of the main road I take to work every day

Its market, open every day of the week, is a wonderful place which one could almost get lost in. I pass through it every day on my way from my house on the edge of the city, where I live with the Seke family, to my internship, which is closer to the town center. I plan to explore it a little more fully this weekend, and write a bit here about it.

I'm working with Agrecol Afrique (their website is unfortunately only in French right now), an organization which promotes sustainable and organic agriculture in the Thiès region. I'm spending this week learning about all of their projects, and choosing which I will work with for the next few weeks. I'm here for six weeks total, and then after my winter break I'll be in Séssène, doing more direct work and research with the farmers who partner with Agrecol. 

Madame Sira manages the store for organic products from growers partnered with Agrecol

It's all rather new and exciting, and I feel as though I really have the chance to accomplish something here. At the very least, I'm planning to organize Agrecol's library a bit - it has serious need of some alphabetization, and luckily organizing books is one of my favorite hobbies. 

Ba beneen yoon! I'm glad so many of you seem to enjoy my haphazard notes about my journey, and promise to try being a little more regular with my posting!

Toubacouta!

Note: I planned to get this post up as soon as we got back (3 weeks ago, darnit), but once again, things happened. I'll post this today, then a little more about the events of the last few weeks tonight or tomorrow.

Wow! Toubacouta sure was something!
We left Dakar bright and early Thursday morning via tour bus,

The total drive took a little over five hours, with some stops in between to take the ferry to the other side of the Saloum (we got there just as it was leaving, so had to wait about a half hour for it to come back), and to have a delicious lunch of ceebu-jen and ataaya in Sokone with the family of the WARC director.

Ceebu-jen - the national dish of fish, rice, and vegetables!

It's not even lunch here if you don't have ataaya after!

We arrived at our hotel around mid-afternoon. We stayed at the lovely Club de Vacances Kairaba, a very cute hotel just outside of Soucouta, the twin town of Toubacouta. It had a pool, great food, and these terribly cute little cabins which we stayed in:

Our activities over the course of our four-day stay included:

• A visit to a local health center
• A boat tour of the mangroves

• Class in the forest on the agricultural economy of Senegal, followed by a visit to the village of Keur Aliou Gueye to talk to the villagers about farming
• A lively evening performance by a local dance troupe
• A visit to the community radio station

• A visit to a women's microfinance and farming collective

A plant from their peanut fields

• A visit to a daara, a traditional Qu'ranic school

• A lutte match, the traditional wrestling of Senegal. Lutte competitors are sports heroes here.

We also walked around Toubacouta a fair amount, and saw some beautiful sunsets.

I plan to go back during my break this December, when my parents and brother come to visit me. It'll probably be more crowded then, as December and January are the peak of tourist season here.

You can see the full photo album of my pictures from our trip here.

What I've been up to

One thing and another happens and then what do you know, I've gone three weeks without posting a thing! I've been here a little over a month now, and I'm doing really well! I love my routine, my classes, and goodness me, I really do love the food! Tabaski last Friday was a true feast - my host family celebrated by inviting a dozen or so of our neighbors over for a meal of freshly killed mutton and homemade potato chips, along with fresh salad and several kinds of juice. Then, we all went to two of the neighbor's houses to eat there as well! I felt a bit like Six Dinner Sid when we were finished!

I know in an earlier entry I mentioned the animals my host family kept were goats. I have since been informed that the sheep here have hair like goats rather than wool, and it is fairly common for Americans to mistake them for goats. I would now like to post a correction: my host family keeps sheep. I've learned now to recognize the differences in body type and horn so I can tell the difference between the two types of animals (sheep have curly horns and are bigger, goats have straight horns and are smaller). Not the first silly mistake I've made, and I'm sure it won't be the last either.

In the evening on Tabaski, everyone gets dressed up in their new clothes and goes visiting (or out on the town). Here's a picture of me in my lovely taibasse (two-piece, skirt and top outfit).

Last Saturday some friends and I went up to Les Almandies to stand on the Westernmost point of Africa, which was rather exciting. We got some gelato and walked along the shoreline road for a couple hours. We got to see the American embassy from the outside - I've seen a lot of embassies in the city, but none quite so grandiose as ours! Photos of its immenseness are forbidden, sadly.

This past week my classes took a few field trips around the city. On Monday, my sustainability class went to the suburb of Medina, to get a sense of how waste management and infrastructure work in less affluent areas. We also visited the offices of the company Maison de l'Artemisia, which manufactures an herbal preventative for malaria (their website doesn't seem to be working at the moment, but I linked it anyways).

Tuesday my French class went to the University of Cheikh Anta Diop, where our French instructor is an English professor. It's a sprawling campus filled with sand, palm trees, and the beige stucco buildings so common here. I have to say they make a nice break from all the brick I'm used to on American campuses!

All photo credits to Noah Nieting, who remembered his camera the day I forgot mine.

Dorms on the left, restaurants and shops on the right.

The whole class in front of the library - Professor Pame in the back, Casi, Claire, me and Noah in the middle, and Rika taking the photo!

Wednesday we piled into taxis to Yoff, to meet a Lebou priestess, as we've been learning about traditional religious practices. She talked to us about the work she does, which includes advising people about spiritual and physical ailments, as well as sacrifices of chickens and, once a year, a bull.

It's been a really great first month, and I can't wait to see what else Senegal has in store for me. I'll post some more pictures next week following our class trip to Toubacouta this weekend!

Classes, Shopping, and Geckos: My second week in Senegal

I feel as though I'm getting into the swing of things here - the heat bothers me less and less every day, and I'm certainly getting better at responding in French and Wolof.

As our classroom phase in the program only last 7 weeks total, our professors wasted no time in starting on the course material. I've had a fair amount of reading and writing assigned already, and all in French, which takes some getting used to. I'm learning a lot already though, and I look forward to everything that the next few weeks will bring.

School!

View of the library from the outside patio, where we eat...

Lunch! - on this particular day, fish and vegetables with sauce, rice, and Ananaas (pineapple soda)

This weekend, I went with some of the other MSID students to a market to buy fabric and a tailor to order our clothes for Tabaski. We were going to go to HLM, one of the largest markets here, but it's very busy right now with the rest of the city buying clothes there, so we decided to go to a slightly quieter market in the Fass district. Store-bought clothes are the norm for most people here, but clothes for special occasions are specially made by tailors. I chose a blue wax-cloth fabric with a lovely dot pattern. We'll go to pick our finished garments up next Tuesday.

One of the brothers in another MSID student's host family got married this weekend, and so all of us stopped by the wedding reception. Weddings here are large affairs with celebrations lasting a whole weekend, and there was lots of singing and dancing. It was uncomfortable for me to be at a wedding to which I had not been explicitly invited, even though the custom here is much less formal. I mostly stood off to the side and talked to my friends, as I felt very out of place. I hope I have the chance to go to another wedding when I've gotten a little more adjusted being here.

Rue de la Pyrotechnie, around the corner from my house

I've been interested in all the little kinds of wildlife I see in the city - there's a tree full of weaverbird nests on my way to school, and there are all manner of crows, doves, and sparrows around as well. I haven't gotten my hands on a bird or wildlife book here yet, but I do take joy in just observing them. There are also several species of small lizards fond of sunning themselves in the trees and rooftops here. I find them rather charming, and when one got into the house the other night I pointed it out offhandedly, assuming that they just passed through buildings on occasion.

The weaverbird tree - look at all the nests! 

As it turns out, lizards that get into the house are here dealt with in the same manner as any other household pests - with the broom and a large can of bug spray. My host family was surprised that I was so calm (and indeed, cheerful) about a lizard. Evidently, there is still a lot which I need to learn.

One of the strays who's often around WARC. 

Quick Monday update!

I spent Saturday just lounging around the house, reading and writing and catching up with a few friends online. Saturday was also laundry day, which means something a little different in a country where washing machines are neither affordable nor sensible for the average resident, due to utilities being expensive and fallible (I've been taking showers using a bucket and cup). For the Kobar family, two maids come in once or twice a week to hand-wash the family's clothes (and mine) and hang them out to dry and iron them. My poor t-shirts (used to years of my careless machine-washing and haphazard folding) never knew what hit them.

Sunday morning I took the Dakar Dem Dikk bus to the Marche Sandarga with some other girls from MSID. The DDD are the largest vehicles on the road, and the most recognizable as city buses to Americans. We visited a large store packed with cloth and clothing, and each bought a dress. Mine is purple tie-dye. I probably will also go shopping this coming weekend for a nice dress for Tabaski, which is September 23.

Today we started our classes for real. We met all of our professors and had Wolof and our specialized track class in Environment and Sustainability. Tomorrow is an easy day for me - just French, which I'm auditing, and Wolof, and all done by afternoon. WARC is a really nice place to study, though, so I can see myself spending even my afternoons without classes there.

It has been very hot, though today it cooled down a little, and is thundering like it is about to rain now. I will have to adjust to these kinds of temperatures until things begin to cool off - I'm told after the rainy season is over things are a little easier.

I've been using my laptop sparingly - I can charge it at the WARC or at an internet cafe (there's a rather nice one about a block from where I live), but we're discouraged from charging it at our residences because electricity is rather expensive here.

Tomorrow I'm taking my camera with me, so I'll at least have some pictures of the WARC and surrounding neighborhood. I feel a little awkward taking pictures here, partly because I don't take a lot of pictures in general, and partly because it's not my country. It feels disrespectful, somehow.

First post from Dakar!

I've had an interesting few days getting settled in here. I was feeling poorly Tuesday and Wednesday, but I seem to be much better today. My host family, the Kobars, are wonderfully kind, and I have felt very welcomed by them. They live on the first floor of a building on a quiet street in the Mermoz district, a middle-class residential neighborhood. From my room, I can hear the bleating of the family's four goats, who live on the roof. One of them was born just three days ago! The buck is destined for Tabaski, which falls at the end of September. So it goes.

The MSID program staff are very patient with us, and our classes all look to be very interesting. There are eleven other students in the program besides me, hailing from all corners of the US. Today we watched the film "Bamako" as a starting point for a discussion about privatization and international development. To those who have access to it, I quite recommend watching it - I know the University of Illinois has a copy in their library. We also had our first Wolof class. Only one other student, Claire, and I have any prior knowledge of Wolof - we may have shown off a little.

Our classes are held at the West African Research Center (WARC) in Dakar (the classrooms are, blessedly, air-conditioned). It hosts several other education programs as well, and the library is simply lovely, though we don't get our cards until tomorrow. It's about a thirty-minute walk from the apartment I share with the Kobar family - shorter if you take the cars rapides, one of the many kinds of public transportation here, or shortcuts (which I do not yet dare to explore).

There is also a restaurant in the courtyard, where we had a wonderful lunch of yaasa ginaar (chicken stew with onions), served over rice. Afterwards, there was ataaya, a tea served in small glasses with lots of sugar throughout the afternoon. I've already become very fond of it. My host mother still laughs when I ask if I can help in the kitchen, but I do want to learn a few dishes while I'm here.

Haven't had the chance to take any photos yet, as I want to get a better sense of the city before I observe in from behind a camera. Rest assured, pictures will come!

Bonjour from Paris!

Yesterday afternoon I bid my hometown and family goodbye, and left for the first leg of my journey. 

I am writing this post from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, and I've met up with the other MSID students. I can already tell it's going to be a good group!

I had to reset the time on my laptop – jumped forward a couple hours. I haven’t slept (sorry Mom, I still don’t sleep very well on planes) but the coffee should help. I know jet-lag can’t be completely beaten with a mind-over-matter attitude and caffeine, but I’m doing my best. I've spent the day kicking around the airport.

Overall, CDG is definitely a little more upscale that O’Hare – the seating & architecture are much more open and friendly. It may be a question of mood, as well – right now I’m relaxed and had to go through only a very short line through security, whereas in Chicago I spent a horrendously long time waiting to go through the body-scanner. But additionally, the kiosks here serve macarons (even more flavors than they sell at Pekara, the bakery I worked at this summer) and the vending machines have orangina – both of which I bought and enjoyed.

I found the newsstand and stood for several minutes looking at all of the books, because it had been a very long time since I saw so many French novels in one place. I’m sure I will be rejoicing for English bookshelves in no time, but the novelty hasn’t worn off yet! I had to convince myself that really, I already had enough books and should save my money for other things, but they are rather tempting – particularly the first up-to-date travel guide on Senegal I’ve found yet! I should never be left unaccompanied in bookstores.

T-Minus 26 Days

Asalaamaalekeum! (Peace be upon you, Wolof greeting borrowed from Arabic)

I set up this blog to keep my family and friends updated on the months I'll be spending in Senegal over the coming academic year. I leave August 30, which means I have less than four weeks left in my hometown.

I've been preparing for this for a long time - I've taken two semesters of Wolof (the language spoken by 80% of the population of Senegal), read what I can find of Senegalese literature (which, though I love the Champaign library, is not much), and spoken to other students about their experiences with the MSID Program. MSID (Minnesota Studies In Development) is one of the most well-ranked study abroad programs in the Big 10, and I am honored to be participating.

I received my first-semester host family assignment this week, and I'll be living in the Mermoz-Sacre-Coeur arrondissement (district) of Dakar.

I still don't know much about my internship(s), but I'll find out more once I arrive and classes start. I'll be taking classes in Wolof, development studies, community engagement, and cultures of Senegal.
I've begun hitting the books for French and Wolof again - I worry already that I've been a little too lazy with my languages this summer. While Wolof is the day-to-day language of Dakar, most of my classes will be in French.

If you're curious about the Wolof language, sadly there aren't many internet resources (it's not even included on Google Translate). Boston University's 200 Words Project does have some helpful vocabulary and phrases, however.

Currently, I'm reading Aimee Molloy's However Long the Night, about Molly Melching, the founder of the Senegalese education program Tostan. Melching, who also hails from Champaign County and graduated from the University of Illinois, has worked in several areas including women's empowerment and education. I had the privilege of meeting her this May, and she is an amazing woman. I may have the opportunity to do work with her organization in the coming year (fingers crossed!). I've also been dipping into the Lonely Planet Guide to the Gambia and Senegal, by Katharina Kane. I may have to buy my own copy soon.

Ba beneen (Until next time)!