korite (le deuxieme)

The evening of Korite was wild. Julie's 18 year old host sister, Montou, invited us to a Korite party, and we eagerly accepted since we had nothing else to do. It didn't begin until midnight, though, so we wasted the remaining time getting dolled up in our traditional Senegalese digs, right down to the head wraps and then going to Baobab 3000 for liquid refreshments. In a happy coincidence, we ran into Alisa on our walk and recruited her for the evening party as well.

At 12:30 or so, we showed up at the specified street. It was freaking amazing. There was an enormous circle of people, with a large space in the center. At one end of the circle was a group of 10 or 15 drummers frantically playing their drums. One of them was a complete badass and had a cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth while his hands moved like something out of "The Matrix."

As if the drumming itself weren't impressive enough, there was dancing as well. Oh man, was there dancing. Women would jump out from the crowd and run up the circle until they were practically in with the drummers and then they'd go crazy. They kicked up to their chins, swung their arms like windmills, jumped and stomped - all the while holding their tops up and their hair somehow unmussed. It was insane. We were some of the only toubabs there, and I had the irrational fear that some mean kid would shove me into the circle, where I would lift my foot to kick and then die of embarrassment. Luckily, nothing of the sort happened and we watched the drumming and dancing for at least an hour.

But apparently the kick-ass dance fest. in the street wasn't the party, and bossy Montou decided she wanted to go into the party itself. We followed, figuring she hadn't led us astray yet. So we paid the 1000 CFA and walked into what should have been the party. It wasn't. There was a grand dance floor and the music was thumping, and there wasn't a soul dancing. Everyone was lined up in chairs along the walls. We grabbed chairs for ourselves, and then just sat for at least 45 minutes, waiting for the place to fill up. It slowly did, and people reluctantly began to dance, but neither Julie, Alisa or I had the guts to try to replicate the intricate foot work and arm movements the women were doing. Instead, we continued to sit and just watch. That was perfectly acceptable to me, except that I began to get really, really tired. Without much convincing, the others agreed to go.

Before going home, though, we stopped at a patisserie and each of us got a donut. They were way too sweet and heavy, especially at 4 am, but we ate them anyway and laughed about feeling sick. By the time I got home I was positive I would simply collapse outside of my doorway, but luckily I made it into my room before passing out.

The final verdict? Korite is awesome as long as you find a street dance party to attend.

Korite

The final day of Ramadan was on Sunday, and Monday was Korite. Everyone I asked about it spoke as if it were an enormous all day party filled with socializing, food and dancing. In effect, the best Muslim party ever.

I woke up, showered, and was handed a white boubou (traditional Senegalese dress) by my host mother as soon as I emerged from the bathroom. I donned the skirt, the top and did my best to cover my hair with the white strip of cloth meant to be a veil, though it was made of cotton and so wasn't very pliable. Marie (my host sister), Emily (the other American student I've been living with in Yoff) and I then set out for the mosque. I'm pretty positive that every single person living in Yoff was walking in the street with us, and nearly everyone was dressed in white. Those who weren't wearing white were at least dressed up in light blue tunics or something of the sort.

We made our way against the tide of people going to the University of Ramadan, and ended up at the mosque on the beach. Outside of the entrance, where we kicked off our sandals, were stationed several crippled men and children begging for money. I had nothing to give, though, and walked by muttering "babanen" apologetically (babanen = next time, in Wolof). We stepped onto the sand in the mosque's lot and I was utterly overwhelmed. Lines of men and women, all facing Mecca, were formed, and again, nearly everyone was wearing white except for a few rebels. We took our places in a line of women and sat down in the sand. And waited. And waited. And then waited some more. My head veil refused to remain on my head and slipped down my neck infuriatingly often. Sweat trickled down my back, legs and chest. The sun was blinding, especially coupled with the mass of white cloth and the sand. I was miserable and simultaneously in awe of the beauty of the scene.

Some signal was given and the entire congregation of people stood at once. Emily and I quickly followed in suit, and then mimicked all of the prayer motions of the hundreds of people. As I knelt with my forhead against the sand, I half wished I belonged to a religion that could move so many people. The other half of me was still too hot to care. The prayer took no more than 5 minutes, and soon we were back on the street.

The rest of the day I spent alone. There was no party and no socializing. I listened to music, and played exactly one trillion games of solitaire before I decided I was going to have to kill myself from boredom. Luckily Julie came along and saved me and we retreated to her house ...

I'll write about our evening excitement later.

lamba

I (along with 4 other American students and 1 ex-pat) decided to take African dance lessons at the Cultural Center of Yoff. So, 2 days ago, Friday, we had our first lesson and learned how to dance la lamba. Our teacher is a tall man with a fluid, balletic (is that even a word?) body, awful teeth, and a wardrobe of traditional African clothes plus t-shirts that say things like "I love NY" (he's a bit of an enigma). The dance itself is counted out in beats of 4, and our teacher sang the drum instead of playing it - he makes a very convincing drum beat. The dance is simple and has four variations, each variant marked by the change of the drum beat. There's a lot of arm swinging, flat-footed stomping, clapping and head tossing and it's all very satisfying after sitting in lecture all day. After our lesson, we formed a circle, held hands and hummed traditional chants with our teacher. Even though I felt a little self-conscious and ridiculous at first, I'm definately glad I decided to go. I have since decided that being self-conscious here really isn't worth the effort since I'm a spectacle no matter what, so from now on I'm going to dance la lamba and sing all I want.

burn baby burn

I am currently taking doxycycline to ward off the dreaded malaria. Unforunately for me, one of the side effects is severe sun sensitivity -- not a good thing when you're in West Africa. Today we went on an unexpected walk and my nose now feels as though it is on fire (and it looks like it too). I fear for my skin in 10 years when all of this awful sun damage catches up with me.

My cockroach problems are coming to an end, one way or another. Either my house will be fumigated and the roaches will die, or I'm moving out. I reached a breaking point last night when 7 of the enormous roaches (the palm-sized ones, not the pinkie finger sized ones) were standing guard in front of the bathroom when I was trying to get ready for bed. I know I'm in Africa, but I also know my limits.

Today we took a walk along the beach as a class, to see first-hand the awful state the ocean is in. Because Yoff is a fishing village, people have long believed that the ocean is the solution to all of their problems. Consequently, they dump all of their garbage in the ocean: plastic, food waste, tin cans, old clothes, waste water. They've also built up mounds of garbage to act as dams. Clearly the ocean is not faring well, but people don't know what else to do with their garbage and so continue to throw it in the water. It's really awful and depressing to see just how dirty the beach is. I don't know that I've ever seen that much garbage before in my life.

This is a kind of negative posting, but today has been a kind of negative day.

Yoff

So I have left Dakar and moved in with a family in Yoff. I'm living with another student from my program, Emily, and it's certainly nice to have another English speaker in the house (even if it allows me to slack a little bit on my atte,pts at French conversation). When we first moved into our house, we both were desconsolate. The entire house is cinderblock, and somewhat resembles a mixture between a funeral parlor and a brothel. Each of us have a large room to ourselves (although Emily lucked out - she got an enormous velour blanket with a tiger on it on her bed), that are extremely sparesly furnished. I don't even have a dresser in which to put lmy clothes. Within the first two minutes of our arrival we saw a cockroach the size of my palm, a mouse, and had realized the kitchen smelled uncomfortably like rotten fruit. We spent the first hour or so in our house laughing hysterically at our sad new housing situation. To make matters worse, we initially thought we were living with the smallest family in Senegal, comprised only of a mother and daughter.

Things have, of course, gotten better- they always do. We actually have a mother, father, 2 brothers and 2 sisters, and all are very kind and welcoming. I really like our mother, who is sassy and smart as far as I can tell. Also, I've miraculously made piece with the enormous cockroach that haunts out house. I've come to think of it merely as a pet- if the family has tolerated it this long, so can I. And I haven't even seen the mouse since the intial sighting. Thus, our housing is nothing if not pleasant these days.

Yoff itself doesn't seem that different from Dakar except that we aren't heckled as much. Still, it's got the same fruit stands, boutiques, and garbage and sand-lined streets. Our classes are much different, however. Gone are the cushy classes in English that are focused on integrating us as much as possible into Senegalese society. Instead we have 2 hour lectures on sustainabilty, and wealth inequity...all in French. The lectures are completely intelligable to me. I'm not sure why but my brain has ceased to process French and the slight comprehension I felt I had gained for a while has entirely disappeared. Even worse are the discussions we are forced to have with the Senegalese students we have our classes with. They all seem to be very intelligent and well spoken people, at least from the few sentences I understand. It's extremely disappointing for me to be unable to discuss the topics at hand, though, since I've always been very interested in things like wealth distribution among societies. I feel so stupid because I am utterly incapable of expressing myself in French, much less sounding eloquant. I've been assured by Julie, a member of my group, that eventually I'll understand French and even be able to say what I want to say, but until then I guess I'll continue to feel hopelessly out of my depth.

It's good for me to remember that I enjoy myself here more often than not. Sometimes I become quite pessimistic and can't imagine living here until March. I guess I just have to force myself to recall that I have good days and bad days even in the U.S., they just don't switch as frequently as they do here. I've discovered it really helps me to calm down when I read or listen to music, so I've been reading up a storm. Thus far I've read "Flu," ( a book on the 1918 flu that swept the US) "Memoirs of a Geisha," and "Stiff" (a book on cadavors and their medical and societal use and history), and I'm working on "The Dante Club" right now. At this rate I'll return to the U.S. a very well read person.

That's all the news fit to print.