mia in the motherland

a myriad of photos

2007-01-12T10:10:00.000-08:00

The University of Cheikh Anta Diop is worthless

2006-12-07T04:48:00.000-08:00

Upon attemping to attend 2 weeks worth of classes at UCAD and failing each time because the professors refuse to show up, I have decided that UCAD is completely and utterly worthless. The campus is littered 3 inches deep in litter, because the concept of putting garbage in garbage cans is utterly foreign to the country of Senegal. Professors don't show up to their classes, even when the students do. The library has about 12 books, none of the remotely modern. The dormatories look like hell from the outside - I've as of yet been too afraid to try to enter. The English, Literature, and Religion departments still haven't posted finalized schedules. For these reasons, and the fact that I am very very frustrated, I have decided that UCAD is for losers.

In other news, I have reached the half-way mark of my study abroad experience, and feel I ought comemorate it with a mention. It's strange that I could have lived in this country for 3 months, and still feel so utterly conspicuous all of the time. Being here makes me utterly conscious of both my gender and my race almost all of the time. It is rare that I am able to walk anywhere without being accosted by a male in some form or other, and I attribute that to the prevailing belief that American woman are sexually promiscuous and monetarily gifted. Ultimately, while I do enjoy myself here for the most part, I continue to feel very much a "toubab."

Amelia vs. the Atlantic Ocean

2006-11-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

Today I went to the beach with Julie and Kat, because we didnt have class until 5. It was lovely and cool and the waves were enormous and grey. We sat leisurely, relaxing in the African sun (of course my nose burned despite my generous lathering of SPF 50 sunblock). I listened to the new TV on the Radio cd (thank you Ms Evans) and lounged. And suddenly, I was completely awash in a wave that had broken free from the ocean and pounded down onto us - we who sat far up on the beach. Everything with me was soaked except for my cd player, that I held high over my head as I ran further inland. Several kind Senegalese men hurried over and helped us gather our belongings ... my towel that was making its way into the ocean with the awful wave, a flip flop broke free and went too. A not so kind man yelled at us for being stupid. We laughed for a long time until I realized my cell phone had been ruined. That was a little less funny. So now I will carry a life-long vendetta against the cruel and untamable Atlantic Ocean.

return to dakar

2006-11-07T04:05:00.001-08:00

We left Yoff last weekend and returned to Dakar; I quickly fell back into my old routine without much thought. A minor change: there's another study-abroad student living in my house, though she leaves next week. Her name is Rachel, she's from Minnesota and she and I are on quietly friendly terms - not the best of friends but certainly not unfriendly by any means.

It's strange to be back at the Baobab Center, taking Wolof classes daily with History of Islam and culture classes thrown in. I once again have a plethora of free time, and spend most of it reading. I finished "Lolita" in a matter of two days, and am now working on "The Color Purple." Apparently I'm intent on becoming excruciatingly depressed via literature.

The weather still hasn't cooled down, although today at least there's a breeze. I suppose I ought to be thankful to be sweating rather than freezing, but being able to make it through a day without sweating through my shirt would be a dream come true.

Last night, at dinner, I was informed by Victoria (the head of the CIE program here in Dakar) that the reason I've been craving sweet food is because I'm protein deprived. I've also realized I'm dehydrated, but I'm at the point where I'm not even thirsty anymore. I may have to start paying closer attention to my liquid and food intake.

My French continues to improve, though my Wolof is god-awful. Our Wolof teacher's name is "Zator," and he's absolutely charming and hilarious. The only teeth in his mouth are one the bottom, and so he is an exaggerated speaker. He constantly says, "Class, class, ca va class? Ca va?" Once I counted, and he said "Class" over 45 times in half an hour - that's impressive. Unfortunately I don't learn much in his class because he is repetative. Today I colored in the figures to my Wolof book and drew some lovely designs around a pronoun chart.

In other news: the oranges are in season and delicious.

korite (le deuxieme)

2006-10-29T04:18:00.000-08:00

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

2006-10-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-09T06:36:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

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.

100° in the shade

2006-09-24T06:37:00.000-07:00

Even though the days are still roasting hot, I'm slowly but surely getting acclimated to the heat. Thankfully, it'll only get cooler from now on, and sometimes at night I can even comfortably wear pants.

Ramadan began today, which means that people are supposed to fast all day long. In family of 9 people (not including me), only 2 are fasting - everyone else is either too young, too old, or in the case of my sister, pregnant. Soon, come October, we leave for Yoff for 4 weeks, so we'll be spending most of Ramadan in a traditional fishing village - it'll certainly be interesting.

Yesterday I went with a small group of friends to the beach. It was amazingly beautiful: there is a steep, green bluff that crashes into the water, and the waves are more than enormous. I only went into the water up to mu knees and retreated when a particularly large wave left me staggering with salt water in my eyes and sand covering my body. Some of the more brave women in my group went all the way into the water, and bobbed about above the waves. I must admit, I half expected someone to drown. There was also a very intense game of soccer being played down the beach from us by men with heavily muscled upper bodies and the skinniest stick legs I've ever seen. That seems to be the prevailing body type here, though: very very slim legs with a more developed upper body. About 45 minutes before we left, as the sun began its descent, a drum circle started, so we watched the blazing sun reflecting in the giant waves and shook our burned shoulders to the music. The day was largely idyllic.

And two nights ago I got my first taste of the African nightlife. We began by going to a bar and sitting in the corner. The customers largely ignored us, except for an excruciatingly persistent Nigerian man who slobbered over each and every one of us. Then, several of us headed over to Cafè Madeline, a dance club. I'm not sure what I expected the dancing to be like, but it certainly wasn't what people were doing. Everyone did a simple step to the side and then a toe tap, with their arms generally hanging by their sides. There was no energetic hip thrusting, or high jumping like traditional West African dance. I would go so far as to say the dancing was demure. We danced a bit - I even danced with some Senegalese man for a song before leaving. I was glad I went out and felt comfortable in the city.

I think I'm really starting to enjoy myself here. My French comprehension is getting better in leaps and bounds, though I still have trouble forming even the simplest of sentences. My Wolof is coming along too, though it's the epitomy of the common saying here that it takes a long time to catch the monkey in the bush.

I also finally know everyone's names in my family. There's Mama Fatou, Papa, Cher, Dior (Cher's wife), Gatoo, Bijou, Samba, Talistou, and Amadou, plus the maid and the family who rents above us. It's a lot of people living in one house, but it really exemplifies the Senegalese ideas about family and sharing.

That's all for now.

sick and tired

2006-09-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

ive been here for a week and have kind of fallen into the swing of things. i can address people in wolof and understand basic greetings, but my comprehension ends there. unfortunately, my entire family speaks only in wolof unless they are directly addressing me, in which case i still cant understand them because they have thick, thick accents and my comprehension sucks to begin with.
i live only a five minute walk from the baobab center, which is nice and easy in the mornings. we usually have wolof class and then some sort of lecture or field trip.
i really like the group of women im with, although i feel kind of stupid since everyone else has been speaking french for years and i only have 1 year of experience.
to make things more difficult, ive contracted an awful cold and feel like my head might explode at any minute. hopefully i will get better soon, since its already difficult enough for me to understand things and i dont want a cold to make things even harder.
i have to go back to my house now, though, since i only have 8 minutes left in this little internet center.

2006-08-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

Senegal is still almost three weeks away... I might explode if I don't get out of here soon.