February, in brief

I've never been as good about keeping diaries, blogs, or journals as I would like to be, and so the month of February has almost passed me by without a single post. Rest assured, I'm doing very well.

I'm back staying with the Kobars, and the house has been rather lively of late - some family friends are staying at the house right now, and two former MSID students stopped by this week as well. One works at an organization that does work here in Dakar, so comes through infrequently, and the other is on vacation from her job in France and chose to come back for a bit of sight-seeing. The spring MSID students are on their Toubacouta trip right now - I can't wait to hear about how it went.

I've started up a new internship with a group called APECSY(L'Association pour la Promotion Economique, Culturelle, et Sociale de Yoff), a community development organization in Yoff. Yoff is a neighborhood in the northern part of Dakar. It's about a twenty-minute bus ride from my host family's house, and I have to say I've come to enjoy the commute. Usually, I snag a seat and pull out my knitting - I've finished a kerchief and I just started a new knitting project which I'd like to keep a secret for the time being.

Yoff and Mermoz are both circled in blue. I take the yellow-green route between them.

I'm mostly observing at the organization right now, though I also did a bit of translating for an informational brochure and went around with my supervisor, Oumar Diene, for a look at some of the problems and successes of the neighborhood. I like Yoff a lot - like any city, all the neighborhoods of Dakar have their own character, and Yoff is a bit slower than downtown or Fann. In some ways, it's a bit more like Thiès - more horsecarts and a thriving street market, though it also sits directly on the beach, and still derives a lot of its industry from fishing.  It also boasts a high concentration of Lébou people, the original inhabitants of the peninsula on which Dakar sits.

Me (center) with the members of the women's group AFADY and fellow APECSY employee Mame Diene (holding baby).

Outside work, I've been doing a bit of sightseeing and generally enjoying Dakar life. I've got a good group of friends here and we've been exploring some of the cuisine and nightlife Dakar has to offer - most notably, a Nigerian restaurant (which I wasn't terribly fond of), and an Ivorian restaurant (which I was), as well as frequenting Lalibela, a wonderful Ethiopian restaurant. I've had a few market & sightseeing expeditions with the new MSID students, including a wonderful cookout on the Mamelles beach with some CIEE students (another undergraduate study abroad program). I'm still not much of a dancer or a partier - even living in a city halfway around the world can't change this couch potato that much - but I have fun.

I went to a wedding with the Kobars this week - I'd not gotten the chance before, but Senegalese weddings can be legendary events. This one was pretty chill by comparison to some, but it still lasted the whole day and long into the night, and the house was absolutely packed. Like in any social situation here, I felt severely underdressed - the Senegalese women are very glamorous dressers, and even the little girls were much more put-together than me. I'm having some new clothes made soon, though, including a dress in a rich purple bazin, the shiny, embroidered fabric favored for fancy clothes here.

I've been reading a lot (as always), but I'd like to promote one of the books I read lately - Tom Burgis's The Looting Machine, a look at some of the worst of the corruption and resource theft which continues to keep many African economies in the red. If you have an interest in international economics and/or politics, I highly recommend it.

I'm hoping I've broken my lazy writing streak with this post, and I'll try to get something else posted later this week. Thank you all for being so patient with my sporadic correspondence!