Hey Howdy Hey! - Katie
Right now I am living in the middle of nowhere...Antonito, Colorado. I've been working on a Ranch the past three months in order to pay for this study abroad opportunity in Senegal. More...
Beginnings
It's almost exactly a week before we head out to Senegal. I am incredibly excited for this adventure, though I must admit I am also a bit intimidated - it's hard to try and visualize something so far beyond my usual realm of experience! Still, as the time to leave approaches, I am finding that my nervousness is negligible compared with the enthusiasm I feel about this opportunity to learn about a new culture and expand my worldview. More...
My first day - Katie
What’s more than the mental culture shock that can hit you when you are suddenly plunged headfirst into another culture is the physical shock of the air when you step off of the plane. I decided this today when I moved off of the South African Air Boeing I had been on for the previous 8 hours, a carefully tempered environment that was as cool and dry as the Colorado mountains I lived in for the three preceding months, and found myself suffocating within seconds in the one-hundred degree heat and one-hundred percent humidity that engulfed me. More...
Arrival & An Animal sacrifice
I arrived in Senegal yesterday morning, a bit jet-lagged but excited for the beginning of this experience. I am staying very close to CRESP (the center of the Living Routes program) with Ndege Saml and Macoumba Ndoye, and their three children. I was initially a little nervous having never done a homestay before, but they have been very welcoming and I am already feeling more comfortable. The have even given me a Senegalese name - Daba, after my host mother's sister (although sometimes they call me Fatu as well, not sure why.) More...
Ile de Goree
It is my fifth day in Senegal, and I am settling in more day by day: slowly getting used to the HOT WEATHER, different (but yummy) food, cultural greetings etc. So - Na guen def, everyone? (That's how you say "how are you?" to a group of people in Wolof) The other students on the program and I have been spending a lot of time together, and I feel I am beginning to make some friends. More...
L'appelle de Layenne
Today (Sept 5) is L'appelle de Layenne, a festival of the local Islamic brotherhood. It marks the 125th anniversary of the first sermon given by the Mahdi, a man from Yoff who is believed by the Layenne brotherhod to have been the reincarnation of Mohammad. Mohammad apparently said before his death that he would return as a member of another race, and all the pictures of this man depict his wearing both a white and black cloth to illustrate that Mohammad came once as a "white" (Arab) and once as a "black" (Senegalese). More...
The Vegetarian meets a Sacrifice - Katie
*Sorry for the delayed blog. I've been having trouble with the internet. I will continure where I left off*
*** SEE MY PICS AT http://community.webshots.com/user/katiepaulsenegal ***
O9/02
Today I watched the sacrifice of two goats, rode a rickety, jam packed autobus, and sweat like I had never sweat before. Just another day in Yoff.
Starting with the sacrifice, our group was invited to a spirit ceremony where we were to honor the garden god who had been seen in three dreams of different individuals, and therefore trying to contact the human world. A sacrifice of two goats had been decided (since the ghost asked for two) and their blood was spilt in the family shrine, located in the backyard (if you will) of the family. The shrine consists of an area roughly the size of a small apartment bedroom, laid with a dirt floor, covered with a thatch covering, and filled nearly from front to back with large clay pots filled with sticks and water. Each pot represents a previous appeasement to the spirits who “drink” the water each week so that it must be refilled.
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A Weekend in Senegal - Katie
09/04
I’m not sure how it didn’t occurred to me sooner that as of now I am living in a completely different universe than most everyone else I know. Perhaps it was after I bathed in a bucket and then dressed in my room without with a mirror for miles, or maybe it was after I bought a Popsicle and as I stepped out of the store watched it steam in the evening heat. Possibly it was when I returned home as the call to prayer rang throughout the streets and walked inside to see my father performing his prayer in the living room, or when I went to my classmate Kristin’s house to see that her family owns a goat that lives in a sandbox in the living room. You see, there are so many things here that appear to be the antithesis of Western comfort that I feel I should be homesick or unhappy or at least a little scared. However, I think that there is so much to see and smell and experience here that I have no time to feel any of these.
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L'appelle and the Islam of Yoff - Katie
9/06
Yesterday was the “L’appelle”, a day in the Layenne sect of Islam (based here in Yoff) when the 2nd profit and reincarnation of Muhammad gave his first speech, 150 years ago yesterday. There are different sects of Islam all over the world, with the most traditional based out of the Middle East for the most part, and others that divide and create a more personal religion. That is was happened here, when Seydina Limamou, a black fisherman, was born in the late 1800’s and became known as the reincarnation of the profit (the Mahdi), and a man that the people could worship and believe in here on their own land rather than a years walk away. The Mahdi told the villagers to end the social stratification that was plaguing Yoff at the time, preached for equality and care for the poor, and basically behaved like a modern day Jesus… minus the walking on water stuff. However, because the profit has now been reincarnated, the Layenne sect believes that the end of days is coming soon, basically judgment day will arrive shortly. Although I am not too fond of this particular view of the religion, the social services and aide it offers to its members are amazing, along with the fact that it is one of the only branches of Islam that allow women inside the Mosque to pray and also preaches the benefits of education and literacy for all.
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A little wet - Katie
09/08
I’m writing this at 7 am because as I woke to go for an early morning jog, the weather decided to attack. Even though it did seem a too little dark for 7 as I opened my shudders, I assumed it was a combination of my drowsiness and morning clouds. No. About three seconds after turning away from the window, in the amount of time it took for me to walk across my room, I begin to hear a loud thundering coming through the streets. This wasn’t like lightening and thunder thunder, no, it was like a train had suddenly emerged from the ocean and was making its way through the fragile town of Yoff. Immediately I went back to the window, but it was too late and my shudders begin to frantically bang back and forth. I heard pots and pans falling in the other rooms, market stalls being blown over on the next block, and actually felt like I was in the movie Hook and about to be abducted by pirates.
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