Reverse Culture Shock
My semester in Senegal is coming to an end, and everything just feels surreal. We have work to do for just about the first time in the semester and in a week, I’ll be in a hotel with my mother in New York. I still can’t kind fathom saying goodbye to my family and really meaning it, and when Abdoulaye told me he was leaving tonight, meaning that I may never see him again, it just didn’t seem real. As nothing seems real here, nor does anything from the beginning of the trip seem real. Thinking about my impressions, my relationships, my experiences at the beginning seems like a dream, or maybe a movie. Was I really there? Was that really my experience? Wondering how my experiences fit into my psyche and my experience now makes wondering how my experiences will fit into my life in the future an even bigger, more impossible-seeming task. How will this affect me? How will I be when I get back? Will I really make the changes I want to in my life, or will I be sucked back in to materialism, college life and suburban values? How will all this experience affect my relationships? How many people “just won’t get it”? How will I deal with that?
More...
Michael was right
The village home stays were the best part of the trip! I'm posting some pictures of my Palmarin family. I miss them already!
More...
The last days
Things are wrapping up here. We had a party last night and a closing ceremony this afternoon. The American students are leaving. I'm staying around for a few months to learn about another environmental program here. Now I'm starting to realize how much I'm going to miss having all my friends around and what a shock it will be to move on. I think we all had some gripes with the disorganization of the program, but we can't help but be satisfied with the introduction it gave us to this country. For all you future students and in the spirit of a list that appeared on the blog last semester, I'm going to offer my own suggestions for making the most of your stay here.
More...
Palmarin Round Two-yeyuh
12/2/07
I’m back in Yoff! Palmarin was incredible, I wish I could have stayed there rather than coming back to Dakar. My time in the village was definitely the highlight of my entire stay in Senegal. When people ask me what Senegal was like, the first thing I’m going to tell them about is Palmarin. And when I come back to Senegal some day, to work or study or just live, I’m going straight back to the village because that’s where my real family and friends are here. I’m going to try and give you a gist of what village life was like and then I’ll dive into the details.
Like I said in my last entry, Palmarin is made up of four villages. We stayed in Palmarin Ngallou. Palmarin Ngouth is ten minutes down the road, followed by the two other Palmarins (whose names escape me but also start with “Ng”). My friend Jean-Noel (John Christmas) explained that around the turn of the last century the original Palmarin was swallowed up by the sea. Its inhabitants migrated to villages further inland. I’m a little confused on this point, but apparently the four current Palmarins already existed when the original one was abandoned, they just had different names and were a lot smaller. When I asked why the original Palmarinois (people who live in Palmarin) went to separate villages rather than staying together, he explained that they went to live with their relatives. So if I had an uncle in Palmarin Ngallou, I would take my family there and if Jean Noel had a cousin in Palmarin Ngouth he would take his family there. Today, everyone has relatives in each village.
Family ties in the village are ridiculously complicated and super fun. The Serer (the ethnic group who lives in this area) are very proud of their ancestry, but only on the maternal side. Everyone can recite the names of their mother, grandmother, great grandmother, etc. all the way back to the founding woman of the village, who is the common ancestor of everyone. Nobody cares about the paternal side, although they can recite the maternal lineage on the paternal side. In other words, they can recite the names of their fathers’ mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers, etc. (confused yet? Try having this explained to you in a mix of French and wolof). Kids start learning the names of their female ancestors at an early age with a song. They count off on their fingers and sing: who is Fatou Diouf? Fatou Diouf is the mother of Binta Diouf. Who is Binta Diouf? Binta Diouf is the mother of Aissatou Diouf. Who is Aissatou Diouf? Aissatou Diouf is the mother of so and so, all the way back until they reach the common ancestor of the village (I can’t remember the tune to the song, but it’s definitely catchy). Because of the pride they take in their heritage and family ties, everyone knows exactly how they’re related to everyone else. And everyone is related, if you go back far enough. But trying to explain this to a Toubab who can only go back as far as his great grandmother is another story. And what makes things even more confusing is that in wolof, you don’t differentiate between uncle and father or mother and aunt or cousin and sibling. So when someone introduces their brother to you, you don’t really know if this guy is a bother or a cousin or maybe just a good friend.
Got all that? Now throw in the fact that a lot of the families in the village are polygamous so everybody has multiple mothers anyway, even if you don’t count their aunts. And most polygamous families are huge (my Palmarin family is not polygamous and they have six children) so it gets even more complicated. Trying to remember the names of everyone is hard enough, but when you throw in how they’re all related, you go crazy pretty quickly. Luckily most people are considerate enough to explain to us ignorant toubabs how family ties work here. And if someone is talking about their real brother or sister, they’ll usually add “we have the same mother and same father” just to clarify.
Like I said, trying to remember names here is a constant struggle, especially because I’m constantly meeting new people. Fortunately in the village a lot of people have Christian names which are easier to remember than Muslim names (although I’m getting better with my Muslim names, I’ve got most of the common ones down; all my Babacars, Abdoulayes, and Hasans). But a guy named John Christmas is just easier to remember than a guy named Mamadou. I met one guy in the village who introduced himself this way: “My name is Samuel for all the pretty Christian girls and Abdul Karim for all the pretty Muslim girls.”
So we’ve got how family works, let’s talk about food. First off, if you recall from my last entry, I swore that I was going to get fat in the village. I don’t have a scale to certify this but I’m pretty damn sure my prediction came true. Don’t worry though, gaining weight here is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s super positive, especially if you’re a guest. Getting fat means that you’re eating well which means you like the food and people are taking care of you. Not gaining weight is not cool. And losing weight is tantamount to saying “you’re cooking sucks.” This is true in Yoff too (when I lost weight during Ramadan my Yoff mom freaked out and told me I better get fat by the end of my stay), but it’s much more evident in the village. Now let’s go over some of the problems this poses.
Most of the time, my roommate Babacar and I didn’t eat with our family. At first this struck me as an impediment to integration but Babacar explained that it’s a sign of respect to serve guests their own dinner separate from the family, just to make sure that we’re comfortable and to give us some privacy. So the fact that we had our own plate to ourselves made it glaringly obvious to our mother when we didn’t eat much. And she always gave us too much. Even if we stuffed ourselves to the breaking point, the plate was usually still half full. Our mom was constantly worried that we weren’t eating enough or that we didn’t like the food. We did everything to convince her otherwise. I told her that her cooking (actually it was her daughters who cooked, but she taught them so I was kind of indirectly complimenting her cooking) was the best I’d had in Senegal, which is true. I told her every meal I have in the village is delicious and I’ll miss the food terribly when I’m gone. I told her that I’m stuffed after each meal and that never have I fel the smallest pang of hunger during my time in the village. If all that didn’t calm her down, we turned to arguing about the size of the meal. Babacar and I always insisted that she gave us way more than she realized, which is why the plate looks full to her after we’ve eaten a lot (check out the photos on facebook and you’ll see where I’m coming from). One time we even got down to the physics of the food. That night we had Mehumseh, a rich yogurt bowl with little balls of flour that makes you feel stuffed after two bites. I argued that the consistency of the Mehumseh made it look like we hadn’t eaten anything because every time you take a spoonful, more Mehumseh just fills in the hole. This didn’t convince her and she was about to go buy us some bread but we insisted that we were stuffed.
Another problem about meals is that you have to be at home for them. No matter what you’re doing, come 2:30 or 3:00 you better be at home and ready to eat. This wasn’t always easy to do, especially when I was out wondering around in the brush looking for medicinal plants or in the middle of a divination session or a meeting with an old healer woman. So sometimes I had to eat with whomever I happened to be with when lunch rolled around. But I quickly learned that coming home and telling my mom I had already eaten elsewhere was not cool. So even if I’d already eaten lunch, I came home and stuffed myself again, to make my mom happy.
Wherever I went, I got offered food. And not wanting to be impolite, I always ate. One day I had breakfast at home, mid-morning couscous with my artist friends, lunch at Gorgui Seck’s house (the secretary of the traditional medicine organization), lunch at my house, dinner at my house, and dessert at a friend’s house. I should have leaned how to refuse meals a long time ago but that’s easier said than done here.
More...
Le voyage sur Palmarin
Ben voilà, nous sommes de retour sur EcoYoff le Mercredi 28 Novembre aprés avoir passé 19 jours sur Palmarin Ngallou car il y'a 3 autres Palmarin aussi que j'ai eu l'occasion de visiter personnellement.
Pour ce second "long" séjour, c'était la partie recherche-action et pratique de nos IS (independent study) et nos SL (service learning)...des interviews à faire par ci et par là avec des interlocuteurs qui sont des acteurs locaux aussi tant pour le IS que le SL mais il y'avait des visites découvertes aussi: découverte mangrove en pirogues sans oublier l'expérience des charettes pour certains je dois imaginer car j'ai pas eu à visiter le même site...y'a-t-il une grande différence entre la découverte-mangrove sur Mbaam et celle sur Palmarin??? J'attends une réponse de celles ou ceux qui me liront par la suite ok...! La descente sur Djifer, le 4e Palmarin, c'était de mettre en exergue les transformations des produits halieutiques: une activité qui mérite attention et surtout le nouveau site de transfert de l'actuel Djifer, trés menacé par l'érosion cotière, où il y'a un quai même si les eaux ne sont pas trés profondes...un forage aussi bref le tout est déserté mais bon pourquoi la population de Djifer préfère les menaces de l'érosion côtière que l'actuel site proposé par l'état???
Pour moi, c'était trés difficile le début de rentrer en contact avec mon interlocuteur qui n'est rien d'autre que le responsable de la Réserve naturelle de Palmarin...à chaque je fais du Jogging tous les matins dans la réserve naturelle...fraîcheur matinale...intimité des arbres et des oiseaux aux belles plumages et chansons...pour dire que je me ressourçais vraiment avec la nature et moi-même...oui une belle entame de mes journées et c'est seulement aprés cela que je pars à la rencontre de mon interlocuteur que j'ai dû mal à rencontrer...oui 5 fois de suite...aprés une bonne heure d'attente...je me désole et c'est quelque part frustant quand tout le monde travaille alors que t'as des problémes de ta part pour rencontrer ton principal interlocuteur...mais bon il faut être flexible comme le staff l'aime cantonner tout le temps...là je continue mon Jogging mais cette fois pour aller rencontrer l'océan de l'autre côté de la poussièreuse route de Palmarin que l'Etat doit secourir! Oui l'intimité des vagues, oh! la brise marine sans oublier la brume matinale, eh bien les visages d'autres étudiants comme Andréa, Babacar et Anne aussi que je découvre trés matinalement,,,Anne pour sa séance de méditation matinale qui consiste à se focaliser sur une idée pour faciliter l'activité cérébrale et se décider là-dessus...affaire de concentration n'est-ce pas Anne???
Hey je m'arrête là mais "nak" je reviens demain avec d'autres "historiettes" ok!
Trés bonne lecture!
Palmarin-it's village time baby
THE VILLAGE
Part of the semester here includes a visit to a village where we carry out our independent studies and service learning projects. This semester the program is going to Palmarin, a village (made up of four smaller villages) of about 5,000 in the Sine Saloum region, a couple hours south of Dakar and just north of the Gambia. We spent one week there already doing preliminary research and we’re returing next week (on Wednesday or Thursday) for a three week stay.
More...
Village Stay
On Friday, we depart for the village for the long stay. What was previously just under three weeks will now be just over two, but we hope that what little bit we can do can be of help to the village. We are there as students and researchers, studying our respective topics, ranging from microfinance to traditional medicine, women's role in development to ecotourism. This is the Independent Study portion of our program. Hopefully, we can find some aspect of our studies which lack something, or something in conjunction with our studies which the village needs. For example, one student studying microcredit and another studying textile production are teaming up to help the group that gets microcredit for dying fabric to make contacts with the nearby hotels and campements, so that they may better sell their goods. As far as I can tell, those who can't find a specific project to work with their independent study will have to be content with being helpful just by trying to understand.
More...
end of Ramadan!
10/9/07
With just one week left of Ramadan, I decided to break fast for good on Saturday. That makes twenty days of fasting. I wanted to go until the end but it was just too stressful and draining. What began as a way to assimilate and create solidarity turned into an obstacle against my integration here. It’s true that at first people really appreciated my efforts in fasting.
More...
THIES
THIES
11/1/07
Day One
We left Dakar around 11 AM. Erin and I took a car rappide to Amath’s house. We had breakfast there (second one of the day, awesome) and then left with Amath and his brother. We walked through the neighborhood and along the highway to a sept place junction. Sept places are beat up old station wagons, that act as inter-city taxis. They’re not safe, not expensive, and easy to use.
More...
The Elders of the Village
One of my favorite things, so far, about being in the village, was the chance to talk with village elders. They've lived in Palmarin their whole lives and give a unique perspective of Senegalese culture that can't otherwise be gained being in the village today. My host grandmother, Khady Ndowe Seck Sarr, was so kind to chat with me, using Honorine, one of the Senegalese students as an interpreter, about her life. I started by telling her that I had heard of African wisdom and the wisdom of elders and that I would love to hear what she had to say. My first question was how life was different under colonialism. She said simply, we used to grow our own rice and now we have to buy it. It was better to grow our own. She said that before the French came, they didn't wear shoes, but now even if the ground's hot and someone doesn't have their shoes on, they will put leaves under their feet to protect them. She also said that they didn't have horses before.
More...
NEXT page
Reverse Culture Shock
My semester in Senegal is coming to an end, and everything just feels surreal. We have work to do for just about the first time in the semester and in a week, I’ll be in a hotel with my mother in New York. I still can’t kind fathom saying goodbye to my family and really meaning it, and when Abdoulaye told me he was leaving tonight, meaning that I may never see him again, it just didn’t seem real. As nothing seems real here, nor does anything from the beginning of the trip seem real. Thinking about my impressions, my relationships, my experiences at the beginning seems like a dream, or maybe a movie. Was I really there? Was that really my experience? Wondering how my experiences fit into my psyche and my experience now makes wondering how my experiences will fit into my life in the future an even bigger, more impossible-seeming task. How will this affect me? How will I be when I get back? Will I really make the changes I want to in my life, or will I be sucked back in to materialism, college life and suburban values? How will all this experience affect my relationships? How many people “just won’t get it”? How will I deal with that? More...
Michael was right
The village home stays were the best part of the trip! I'm posting some pictures of my Palmarin family. I miss them already! More...
The last days
Things are wrapping up here. We had a party last night and a closing ceremony this afternoon. The American students are leaving. I'm staying around for a few months to learn about another environmental program here. Now I'm starting to realize how much I'm going to miss having all my friends around and what a shock it will be to move on. I think we all had some gripes with the disorganization of the program, but we can't help but be satisfied with the introduction it gave us to this country. For all you future students and in the spirit of a list that appeared on the blog last semester, I'm going to offer my own suggestions for making the most of your stay here. More...
Palmarin Round Two-yeyuh
12/2/07
I’m back in Yoff! Palmarin was incredible, I wish I could have stayed there rather than coming back to Dakar. My time in the village was definitely the highlight of my entire stay in Senegal. When people ask me what Senegal was like, the first thing I’m going to tell them about is Palmarin. And when I come back to Senegal some day, to work or study or just live, I’m going straight back to the village because that’s where my real family and friends are here. I’m going to try and give you a gist of what village life was like and then I’ll dive into the details.
Like I said in my last entry, Palmarin is made up of four villages. We stayed in Palmarin Ngallou. Palmarin Ngouth is ten minutes down the road, followed by the two other Palmarins (whose names escape me but also start with “Ng”). My friend Jean-Noel (John Christmas) explained that around the turn of the last century the original Palmarin was swallowed up by the sea. Its inhabitants migrated to villages further inland. I’m a little confused on this point, but apparently the four current Palmarins already existed when the original one was abandoned, they just had different names and were a lot smaller. When I asked why the original Palmarinois (people who live in Palmarin) went to separate villages rather than staying together, he explained that they went to live with their relatives. So if I had an uncle in Palmarin Ngallou, I would take my family there and if Jean Noel had a cousin in Palmarin Ngouth he would take his family there. Today, everyone has relatives in each village.
Family ties in the village are ridiculously complicated and super fun. The Serer (the ethnic group who lives in this area) are very proud of their ancestry, but only on the maternal side. Everyone can recite the names of their mother, grandmother, great grandmother, etc. all the way back to the founding woman of the village, who is the common ancestor of everyone. Nobody cares about the paternal side, although they can recite the maternal lineage on the paternal side. In other words, they can recite the names of their fathers’ mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers, etc. (confused yet? Try having this explained to you in a mix of French and wolof). Kids start learning the names of their female ancestors at an early age with a song. They count off on their fingers and sing: who is Fatou Diouf? Fatou Diouf is the mother of Binta Diouf. Who is Binta Diouf? Binta Diouf is the mother of Aissatou Diouf. Who is Aissatou Diouf? Aissatou Diouf is the mother of so and so, all the way back until they reach the common ancestor of the village (I can’t remember the tune to the song, but it’s definitely catchy). Because of the pride they take in their heritage and family ties, everyone knows exactly how they’re related to everyone else. And everyone is related, if you go back far enough. But trying to explain this to a Toubab who can only go back as far as his great grandmother is another story. And what makes things even more confusing is that in wolof, you don’t differentiate between uncle and father or mother and aunt or cousin and sibling. So when someone introduces their brother to you, you don’t really know if this guy is a bother or a cousin or maybe just a good friend.
Got all that? Now throw in the fact that a lot of the families in the village are polygamous so everybody has multiple mothers anyway, even if you don’t count their aunts. And most polygamous families are huge (my Palmarin family is not polygamous and they have six children) so it gets even more complicated. Trying to remember the names of everyone is hard enough, but when you throw in how they’re all related, you go crazy pretty quickly. Luckily most people are considerate enough to explain to us ignorant toubabs how family ties work here. And if someone is talking about their real brother or sister, they’ll usually add “we have the same mother and same father” just to clarify.
Like I said, trying to remember names here is a constant struggle, especially because I’m constantly meeting new people. Fortunately in the village a lot of people have Christian names which are easier to remember than Muslim names (although I’m getting better with my Muslim names, I’ve got most of the common ones down; all my Babacars, Abdoulayes, and Hasans). But a guy named John Christmas is just easier to remember than a guy named Mamadou. I met one guy in the village who introduced himself this way: “My name is Samuel for all the pretty Christian girls and Abdul Karim for all the pretty Muslim girls.”
So we’ve got how family works, let’s talk about food. First off, if you recall from my last entry, I swore that I was going to get fat in the village. I don’t have a scale to certify this but I’m pretty damn sure my prediction came true. Don’t worry though, gaining weight here is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s super positive, especially if you’re a guest. Getting fat means that you’re eating well which means you like the food and people are taking care of you. Not gaining weight is not cool. And losing weight is tantamount to saying “you’re cooking sucks.” This is true in Yoff too (when I lost weight during Ramadan my Yoff mom freaked out and told me I better get fat by the end of my stay), but it’s much more evident in the village. Now let’s go over some of the problems this poses.
Most of the time, my roommate Babacar and I didn’t eat with our family. At first this struck me as an impediment to integration but Babacar explained that it’s a sign of respect to serve guests their own dinner separate from the family, just to make sure that we’re comfortable and to give us some privacy. So the fact that we had our own plate to ourselves made it glaringly obvious to our mother when we didn’t eat much. And she always gave us too much. Even if we stuffed ourselves to the breaking point, the plate was usually still half full. Our mom was constantly worried that we weren’t eating enough or that we didn’t like the food. We did everything to convince her otherwise. I told her that her cooking (actually it was her daughters who cooked, but she taught them so I was kind of indirectly complimenting her cooking) was the best I’d had in Senegal, which is true. I told her every meal I have in the village is delicious and I’ll miss the food terribly when I’m gone. I told her that I’m stuffed after each meal and that never have I fel the smallest pang of hunger during my time in the village. If all that didn’t calm her down, we turned to arguing about the size of the meal. Babacar and I always insisted that she gave us way more than she realized, which is why the plate looks full to her after we’ve eaten a lot (check out the photos on facebook and you’ll see where I’m coming from). One time we even got down to the physics of the food. That night we had Mehumseh, a rich yogurt bowl with little balls of flour that makes you feel stuffed after two bites. I argued that the consistency of the Mehumseh made it look like we hadn’t eaten anything because every time you take a spoonful, more Mehumseh just fills in the hole. This didn’t convince her and she was about to go buy us some bread but we insisted that we were stuffed.
Another problem about meals is that you have to be at home for them. No matter what you’re doing, come 2:30 or 3:00 you better be at home and ready to eat. This wasn’t always easy to do, especially when I was out wondering around in the brush looking for medicinal plants or in the middle of a divination session or a meeting with an old healer woman. So sometimes I had to eat with whomever I happened to be with when lunch rolled around. But I quickly learned that coming home and telling my mom I had already eaten elsewhere was not cool. So even if I’d already eaten lunch, I came home and stuffed myself again, to make my mom happy.
Wherever I went, I got offered food. And not wanting to be impolite, I always ate. One day I had breakfast at home, mid-morning couscous with my artist friends, lunch at Gorgui Seck’s house (the secretary of the traditional medicine organization), lunch at my house, dinner at my house, and dessert at a friend’s house. I should have leaned how to refuse meals a long time ago but that’s easier said than done here.
More...
Le voyage sur Palmarin
Ben voilà, nous sommes de retour sur EcoYoff le Mercredi 28 Novembre aprés avoir passé 19 jours sur Palmarin Ngallou car il y'a 3 autres Palmarin aussi que j'ai eu l'occasion de visiter personnellement.
Pour ce second "long" séjour, c'était la partie recherche-action et pratique de nos IS (independent study) et nos SL (service learning)...des interviews à faire par ci et par là avec des interlocuteurs qui sont des acteurs locaux aussi tant pour le IS que le SL mais il y'avait des visites découvertes aussi: découverte mangrove en pirogues sans oublier l'expérience des charettes pour certains je dois imaginer car j'ai pas eu à visiter le même site...y'a-t-il une grande différence entre la découverte-mangrove sur Mbaam et celle sur Palmarin??? J'attends une réponse de celles ou ceux qui me liront par la suite ok...! La descente sur Djifer, le 4e Palmarin, c'était de mettre en exergue les transformations des produits halieutiques: une activité qui mérite attention et surtout le nouveau site de transfert de l'actuel Djifer, trés menacé par l'érosion cotière, où il y'a un quai même si les eaux ne sont pas trés profondes...un forage aussi bref le tout est déserté mais bon pourquoi la population de Djifer préfère les menaces de l'érosion côtière que l'actuel site proposé par l'état???
Pour moi, c'était trés difficile le début de rentrer en contact avec mon interlocuteur qui n'est rien d'autre que le responsable de la Réserve naturelle de Palmarin...à chaque je fais du Jogging tous les matins dans la réserve naturelle...fraîcheur matinale...intimité des arbres et des oiseaux aux belles plumages et chansons...pour dire que je me ressourçais vraiment avec la nature et moi-même...oui une belle entame de mes journées et c'est seulement aprés cela que je pars à la rencontre de mon interlocuteur que j'ai dû mal à rencontrer...oui 5 fois de suite...aprés une bonne heure d'attente...je me désole et c'est quelque part frustant quand tout le monde travaille alors que t'as des problémes de ta part pour rencontrer ton principal interlocuteur...mais bon il faut être flexible comme le staff l'aime cantonner tout le temps...là je continue mon Jogging mais cette fois pour aller rencontrer l'océan de l'autre côté de la poussièreuse route de Palmarin que l'Etat doit secourir! Oui l'intimité des vagues, oh! la brise marine sans oublier la brume matinale, eh bien les visages d'autres étudiants comme Andréa, Babacar et Anne aussi que je découvre trés matinalement,,,Anne pour sa séance de méditation matinale qui consiste à se focaliser sur une idée pour faciliter l'activité cérébrale et se décider là-dessus...affaire de concentration n'est-ce pas Anne???
Hey je m'arrête là mais "nak" je reviens demain avec d'autres "historiettes" ok!
Trés bonne lecture!
Palmarin-it's village time baby
THE VILLAGE
Part of the semester here includes a visit to a village where we carry out our independent studies and service learning projects. This semester the program is going to Palmarin, a village (made up of four smaller villages) of about 5,000 in the Sine Saloum region, a couple hours south of Dakar and just north of the Gambia. We spent one week there already doing preliminary research and we’re returing next week (on Wednesday or Thursday) for a three week stay.
More...
Village Stay
On Friday, we depart for the village for the long stay. What was previously just under three weeks will now be just over two, but we hope that what little bit we can do can be of help to the village. We are there as students and researchers, studying our respective topics, ranging from microfinance to traditional medicine, women's role in development to ecotourism. This is the Independent Study portion of our program. Hopefully, we can find some aspect of our studies which lack something, or something in conjunction with our studies which the village needs. For example, one student studying microcredit and another studying textile production are teaming up to help the group that gets microcredit for dying fabric to make contacts with the nearby hotels and campements, so that they may better sell their goods. As far as I can tell, those who can't find a specific project to work with their independent study will have to be content with being helpful just by trying to understand. More...
end of Ramadan!
10/9/07
With just one week left of Ramadan, I decided to break fast for good on Saturday. That makes twenty days of fasting. I wanted to go until the end but it was just too stressful and draining. What began as a way to assimilate and create solidarity turned into an obstacle against my integration here. It’s true that at first people really appreciated my efforts in fasting.
More...
THIES
THIES
11/1/07
Day One
We left Dakar around 11 AM. Erin and I took a car rappide to Amath’s house. We had breakfast there (second one of the day, awesome) and then left with Amath and his brother. We walked through the neighborhood and along the highway to a sept place junction. Sept places are beat up old station wagons, that act as inter-city taxis. They’re not safe, not expensive, and easy to use.
More...
The Elders of the Village
One of my favorite things, so far, about being in the village, was the chance to talk with village elders. They've lived in Palmarin their whole lives and give a unique perspective of Senegalese culture that can't otherwise be gained being in the village today. My host grandmother, Khady Ndowe Seck Sarr, was so kind to chat with me, using Honorine, one of the Senegalese students as an interpreter, about her life. I started by telling her that I had heard of African wisdom and the wisdom of elders and that I would love to hear what she had to say. My first question was how life was different under colonialism. She said simply, we used to grow our own rice and now we have to buy it. It was better to grow our own. She said that before the French came, they didn't wear shoes, but now even if the ground's hot and someone doesn't have their shoes on, they will put leaves under their feet to protect them. She also said that they didn't have horses before.
More...
NEXT page |
