This Is It?
We have recently returned from an out-of-program trip to St. Louis for an international jazz festival. We had a wonderful time (those of us who hadn't left yet, we all wish Valerie could have gone) staying with Birane's family. We saw great jazz had lots of fun at night and during the day we recuperated and ate great food.
I am currently at Piya's house hanging out and using internet as she packs for her flight out tonight. I leave tomorrow night, and that's it. I do wish that I had left more time to stay in Senegal after the program, when you don't have to worry about schoolwork, everything seems a lot easier. I'll miss everyone very much, and it'll be strange leaving this reality with it's social structure, manners, language and especially food. While in St. Louis I was finally able to eat at this type of restaurant/ eatery here in Senegal. There's a room with benchs around a large table and a couple of guys behind it with eggs and meat and potatoes and onions and varous other foods. You tell them what amounts of everything you want them to cook up in either a sandwich or omlette and you eat around the table with whoever else is eating there. As we sat and ate and spoke in Wolof/ French with the cooks I felt that I was really in Senegal. There was the smell of the food, talibées by the door asking for money, the TV blaring Senegalese music while women in traditional dress and heavy makeup danced Mbalax. I will miss moments like that.
For the next group that comes, I hope they fare as well as we did and have as much fun as we did. I really hope that others get to experience the Senegal, with its generous teranga, we have come to know and love.
The Ending
I leave Sénégal in one week. In one week I'll leave the family who took care of me and fed me for four months. I'm leaving the sun, the beaches, the terriffic food, and the relaxed lifestyle. Most of the time after our return from the village was spent scrambling to do everything left to do in Dakar and by gifts for people back home, and then writing our final reports and reflections about our time spent in Sénégal. Personally I feel strange and have felt strange since Mbam. I left a lot of people and things behind in the United States and have exciting plans upon my return and I feel as if I am just waiting to go back home. Not only has this made it hard to finish the last bit of work for my classes but my relationships with people here have suffered. None-the-less I plan to enjoy my last week here, as does the rest of the group.
A few of us decided to walk "La Corniche" on Sunday which emans that we walked the entire peninsula of Cape Verte from Yoff to Dakar, we guess that it was 12 miles, but we could be way off. It made us remember just how beautiful Dakar can be when there is low amounts of haze and a nice breeze. In just a few days most o us will be leaving for St. Louis to take part in the Jazz Festival. It will be our last voyage in Sénégal, I hope we all have a great last few days together.
Soon we will be posting ideas and advice for the next group to come, but at the moment we are all busy finishing our reports, as they are due today (I'm finished!!)
Final Return
Sorry it took so long to update but something was wrong with this server or.. something like that... any how:
We’re back. Three weeks in Mbam was an experience we will never have again unless we go back. Even another village of 4000 in Senegal would be different, different people, different food, the Bissap wouldn’t compare. This trip let us really develop the relationships we started in the previous two visits. We were also able to bring our Service Learning projects to life with varying degrees of success and satisfaction. I will try to express the feelings and actions of these past three weeks, but words and pictures can’t come close to reality.
The first week was like all the others. We got back into our routine: get up, wash up and have breakfast of bread, coffee, milk, and sometimes fondaye until 9:30-10. Afterwards people break up to do either group work or personal research until noon or 1 when it gets too hot to do anything outside (dafa tang!= it’s hot!). Work is followed by napping/ reading/ MarioKart/ watching soccer on TV until lunch around 1:30-2. Napping/ reading/ MarioKart/ soccer is resumed until the sun starts falling which permits us to venture outside again. After lunch is also a good time for a quick trip to the store to buy some delicious and cold, for me either a couple bags of frozen bissap juice or a bottle of pineapple soda. We start work again around 5-6 PM after a shower. We work and and then relax until dinner, usually around 9, which is always delicious. I personally started helping to prepare dinner in the second week which I found wonderfully relaxing and interesting. After dinner, we spent time with friends and with the children, mostly the ones living in and around our concession; Binta, Kewbe, Mustapha, El Hadji, and Alsan. Bedtime was when we were tired. This trip we also grew a lot closer to the girls who did a lot of the housework and taking care of the kids; Sadjo, Raki, and Adem. They were all around 13-15 and very excited to have some friends to talk to while doing their work. Thus was our routine, which we kept to with only a few exceptions for the full three weeks.
There were a few breaks in the routine, most of which included trips to Foundiougne, a nearby town with internet, lots of fruit, and a weekly market. Normally we took a chariot, which was a breezy 20 minute ride through the savannah, but this trip we started to walk in, like most villagers do. As long as one evades the hot times, I found it to be a relaxing 45 minutes walk, which provided some good exercise as well. One day we also took a pirogue ride to a developed Mangrove forest. I don’t believe I’ve frolicked quite like that in a while. Elonnai and I explored through the forest in calf to knee-deep mud which was beautiful apart from the cuts on our feet from the millions of shells hidden in the brown-black depths. It was fully worth it, especially the wonderful noises the mud made when stepped in just right. In the last week the entire group was able to participate in a couple projects all together. Emily’s reforestation of the mangrove project kept us busy for a few hours one morning. We worked alongside the villagers preparing the mangrove saplings, digging holes, and then filling them with saplings. I felt a true sense of community, not only amongst the group, but with the villagers as well. Molly organized a garbage pick-up to start up the use of the garbage cans she placed in one of the quarters on the village. The children enjoyed helping us with this project that gave us hope that the garbage cans might continue to be used.
One of the biggest issues for this trip was the heat, specifically during the last three days. We had no thermometer, but I would guess somewhere around 105-110 in the middle of the day. The first day of those temperatures we did absolutely nothing. Doing anything, including eating and sleeping meant sweating, moving was out of the questions, moving outside seemed impossible. Our frozen bissap and cold sodas helped us through, but it gave new meaning to the phrase “oppressive heat.” Tensions within the group also contributed to many arguments, many of which stemmed from purified water use, noise levels at various times of the day or night, and personal space issues. What I took away from these experiences was that you can’t be friends with everybody, be polite to everyone, and spend time with those who you enjoy spending time with. Also, cool, free hats and shirts help any situation!
Mbam 2 (Emboutéillage rurale!!)
On Saturday we returned from our second visit to Mbam. We were all happy to see our old friends again, Binta Basse, whose cooking is heavenly and who’s house we use as our home base, the kids, especially Binta and Mustapha who are sure to be married in a couple of decades, Emanuel, one of the few village 20-somethings who has stayed to try and develop his home instead of moving to Dakar to try and find a wage job, and the experts who help us with our development projects, without whom we would be lost. Luckily this sojourn wasn’t quite as hot as the last but the group still bore its discomforts. Upon arrival many of the Americans were just getting over a cold that had been going around the week before. A few people caught some sort of virus or sickness which disabled them for a day or two. All this was made a bit better of course by our discovery that Ken has, on his computer, MarioKart. The Americans had a great time introducing the Senegalese to this time-honored Neintendo 64 game, luckily only a few of us became addicted. Our stay was also brightened by the first ripe mangos of the season. We are all very excited to come back in April when the mango season will be in full swing.
the whole group and some villagers
This trip was also highlighted by various voyages out of the village, besides the requisite mangrove swimming sessions of course. One day we all boarded chariots, many of us Americans for the first time ever, to see the weekly market in Fougndiougne. The chariot ride to the market was fun and we got to experience a rural traffic jam as our 4 chariots met two cars and another chariot coming down the path the opposite direction. The market was colourful and fun. Most of the items being sold were bags of shrimp, fish and other seafoods, spices, soap, cloth, and kitchen equipments. People were friendly and curious as to why we were there. At one point I was pointed towards the corner of the market where the Fall family traditionally has their stands. (Here in Yoff I am part of the Fall family as Samba Fall). I find it so warming to know that you can go anywhere in Senegal, find your family name and you will be welcome there.
My group was able to return to Fougndiougne a second time to visit the meteorological station to find out information about rain quantities during the rainy season. We found that the greatest problem was that the rain comes all at once, mostly during two months. The quantity of rain isn’t the biggest problem but the timing. At present we are brainstorming as to exactly how we can help them. Personally, I am on a quest to find a topographical map of the village so that I can map out where sources of water are and how we can make more dense the spread of water sources, which was the biggest issue for most women with whom we talked.
It was a good trip, but we now all realise that we have no more than 4 weeks left in Dakar, and three in the village. We are scrambling to see and do what we want to by the time we leave. This becomes harder and harder as we continue to have stronger and stronger relationships with more responsibility to spend time with people here in Dakar. Of course, that being said, I really can’t wait to go home and taste sushi and see the friends and family that I miss SO much. Also, if you haven’t received a postcard form me, it might be because Im sending out the first batch today… I may have been a bit lazy about that…
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You Know That Riddle About Walking Into a Forest...
... well, we're half way finished with the program, and there are varying reactions from everybody. We are all happy with our integration into the community here in Yoff, some more than others. We all miss Mexican food and sushi, but we're being strong, we'll make it through. This week was spent putting together our plans for our next visit to Mbam, which starts tomorrow (at 7 AM!!!). Today Piya, Rachael, and I made a trip into Cente-Ville to do some shopping for friends and fmaily back home. It was a success but the busride home took over an hour and a half because of the traffic caused by the International Conference of Muslim Countries that is taking place in Dakar. Well, I need to head off to do my laundry before going to the village (I do all my own laundry now). I'm sure we'll have a lot to report on when we return!
Ken's B-Day and "La Lutte"
This weekend was terrific. Saturday was Ken’s birthday. Molly, Rachel, and I went into Centre-Ville (downtown) to La Marché Kermel to buy supplies for chips and salsa. We found good, fresh vegetables and I finally found a shirt made form a certain Malian material called Bogolan, which normally I can’t afford, but I talk down the price as much as I could. We got back just in time to make the salsa and rush it over to school, which was kept open for us to have the party, and surprise Ken. We also got him 6 bottles of Sprite and a pineapple. We partied at school until we wanted food. We went to get pizza and plan fro the rest of the night. Some wanted to go to Casino, a huge nightclub/casino/hotel to go dancing. When I went back to my house to get my passport copy and put away my backpack I found that my brother was having a party with his friends and he invited us to stay. A few of us went to my house while others went home or went to Casino. Those of us who stayed at my brother’s party mostly watched the Senegalese dance, occasionally trying to dance ourselves only to find the Senegalese smirking at the un-graceful Americans, it was a fun night.
On Sunday we went to “La Lutte.” There was an important match, Balla Bèye vs. Gris Bourdeaux, in the Stadium Leaopold Sedar Senghor, which seats 60,000. Almost all of the seats were filled. It had the ambiance of an American baseball game. There were vendors of peanuts and cold drinks and everyone was happy and excited. For the first hour or so the fans screamed and cheered as the wrestlers strutted around the stadium with their entourages of trainers and TV reporters. There were a couple of smaller matches before the main event but they seemed unimportant. Finally the main event started with a flurry of confetti and balloons being loosed into the air. The two gigantic men flailed and grappled for about one minute until Balla Bèye finally threw Gris Bourdeaux to the ground. The entire stadium erupted into cheers and thousands of fans rushed the field as the loudspeakers started blaring music. Everyone was in a festive mood until Piya’s phone was stolen. It was sudden and unexpected and the involvement of the Gendarmes put a damper on the mood until we got back to Yoff to have a beer to lighten the mood.
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Ndaye-Ndaye
We recently returned from a small village called Ndaye-Ndaye in the area of Ngoy. The village had no electricity or running water. Their daily activities surrounded the production and processing of millet, and pulling water from wells. The lack of water left us with no way to escape the 100-degree heat other than to find a shady spot in which to nap. There were a few gas refrigerators but their owners had no money to buy the gas for them. The people of the village were, as always, welcoming and very generous. Though they eat nothing but various forms of millet for meals (couscous for breakfast, “lack” (millet porridge) for lunch, and couscous again for dinner) they have the ability to buy rice with their excess millet, and we were fed often and well. They also cultivate vegetables and black-eyed peas in the village which keeps their diets healthy and more varied than some other villages. There was some light in the village from battery powered flashlights and solar panel lamps (funded by a Spanish solar power company).
Unfortunately along with friendly people come bold scorpions and braying donkeys. We were relaxing one night when a group of children started yelling and running around pointing. In no time one of the braver kids had a sandal in hand to beat the invading translucent scorpion into the ground. It wasn’t very big, the size of the palm of my hand, but they villagers made sure that we knew that they were dangerous and should be killed on sight. We saw another a couple of days later, but none of us had the heart to kill it. We let it scuttle away.
Besides a tour of the village, which included visits to the private Catholic school, the public school, a sacred tree, and the medical clinic, we preoccupied ourselves learning about the process wherein a village becomes part of the eco-village network in Senegal. We worked with and discussed a diagram and grid that are used to grade a village on its level of sustainability. We found it an interesting process, but one that needed much work. Specifically, we found that the same sustainability criteria shouldn’t be the same even for two neighbouring villages. Different aspects of sustainability are more important in one area than another, but on the grading scale they are given the same values. Overall it was a wonderful three days. Ken and I learned how to make Senegalese tea, I started to learn how to do Senegalese wrestling (in preparation for an inevitable wrestling match during our last Mbam visit) and we had a fun night on the roof of one of the houses making tea and taking about our time so far.
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Feminism and Algae Bread
Feminism is a word I hadn’t heard in Senegal up last week. On Thursday we had a woman give us the rundown on the brief history of women’s rights in Senegal. Legal action only started taking form in the 90s and the only long stride taken has been a more widespread knowledge of the issue amongst both men and women. The lecture was interesting, but the best part was the discussion afterwards. There was yelling and there was glaring. It was one of the more frustrating conversations I’ve had but it was also useful for me. As I was confronted by a wide range of viewpoints I was able to better evaluate where I stand on a variety of issues involving women’s rights, equality, and women’s development as an indicator of a countries development. I believe the most intersting part of the conversation to me was on the subject of cultural relativism. That exact phrase was never said, but some in the group cited total equality of women as a part of occidental (Western) culture, and that a partition of work duties and social duties was efficient and worth the inequality. Others (myself included) noted the fact that the role of women in Europe was the same just 100 years ago, and that women's equality is a subculture that should be made a part of general culture everywhere. The debate continued through Friday and ended up with very little consensus. Oh well, interesting none-the-less.
On Saturday we visited the village of Ngaparo. Located in the village is a very impressive research/ development centre that has discovered that the algae which floats down Senegal’s southern coastline can be used to make bread, soap and natural fertilizer! The center has formed a partenership with a local women’s group and these women profit from the bread and soap “a base d’algue” (made with algae). The cultivation of this algae has been made totally sustainable with a aquaculture operation which replenishes the algae at the same rate as it naturally reproduces. We also got to relax on the beautiful beaches of La Petite Côte (the southern coast just south of La Cape Verte). All in all, it was worth the 3 hour bus ride there and back.
I Regret the Delay
As the title suggests, I regret the delay in updating the blog. I always feel like it's OK to wait one more day but here it is... who knows how long it's been since we got back (I've really lost all sense of long-term time.) and we've learned and done SO much. We've attended a variety of amazing lectures by teachers from U. Cheik Anta Dioup and others including classes on water issues in Senegal, Femenism, Sustainable Development in Senegal, Sustianable Development theory, and others. We had the chance to visit some very impressive people here in Dakar as well. Just this week we met a marine biologist who is using his largess for sustainable agriculture research. Listening to him, one can feel that oe is in the presence of a very intelligent man who, if given the power could really change the face of Senegal's development. He spoke for a long time on his philosophy that it is from dust we came and to dust we will return and we should try and leave no mark on the earth in the process. Some of his more interesting projects included a totally natural water filtration process which takes toilet water and purifies it so that one can use it for anything but drinking. He also uses an interesting mix of pants and microorganisms to fertalize "soil" which here in Yoff is relly just sand. None-the-less he whas beenas able to coax avocado trees out of small rectangles of soil with nothing man made, nothing found outside of Senegal, it was truely impressive. One of the other interesting lectures/ classes was about solar ovens...
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We're Back!
Get ready for a rather long entry. We got back from the village of Mbam on Saturday afternoon after a week long stay. We were there to learn about the village, meet the villagers and learn about the development projects that the villagers wanted to start/ continue. The road to Mbam was long and bumpy and very hot. Mbam is located to the south of Fougndiougne in the Fatick region (south of Dakar, not very far north of The Gambia). There's 4000-5000 people in the village (and about 1000 cattle). The entire group stayed in a large house (our hostess was named Bintou) and shared rooms with 4-8 others. Each day we would wake up, have a breakfast of bread, butter and coffee (or just hot water for me because I don't drink coffee) and head out for whatever we were doing. On various days we took a tour of the village and some sacred sites around the village, some of the key elders at the eco-village talked to us about the various development projects, we interviewed key elders about our specific projects, and talked about our projects with the various interest groups we formed. At present there are groups studying Education, Health, Artifical Insemination of cows (my group), Eco-tourism, and reforestation of mangroves.
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This Is It?
We have recently returned from an out-of-program trip to St. Louis for an international jazz festival. We had a wonderful time (those of us who hadn't left yet, we all wish Valerie could have gone) staying with Birane's family. We saw great jazz had lots of fun at night and during the day we recuperated and ate great food.
I am currently at Piya's house hanging out and using internet as she packs for her flight out tonight. I leave tomorrow night, and that's it. I do wish that I had left more time to stay in Senegal after the program, when you don't have to worry about schoolwork, everything seems a lot easier. I'll miss everyone very much, and it'll be strange leaving this reality with it's social structure, manners, language and especially food. While in St. Louis I was finally able to eat at this type of restaurant/ eatery here in Senegal. There's a room with benchs around a large table and a couple of guys behind it with eggs and meat and potatoes and onions and varous other foods. You tell them what amounts of everything you want them to cook up in either a sandwich or omlette and you eat around the table with whoever else is eating there. As we sat and ate and spoke in Wolof/ French with the cooks I felt that I was really in Senegal. There was the smell of the food, talibées by the door asking for money, the TV blaring Senegalese music while women in traditional dress and heavy makeup danced Mbalax. I will miss moments like that.
For the next group that comes, I hope they fare as well as we did and have as much fun as we did. I really hope that others get to experience the Senegal, with its generous teranga, we have come to know and love.
The Ending
I leave Sénégal in one week. In one week I'll leave the family who took care of me and fed me for four months. I'm leaving the sun, the beaches, the terriffic food, and the relaxed lifestyle. Most of the time after our return from the village was spent scrambling to do everything left to do in Dakar and by gifts for people back home, and then writing our final reports and reflections about our time spent in Sénégal. Personally I feel strange and have felt strange since Mbam. I left a lot of people and things behind in the United States and have exciting plans upon my return and I feel as if I am just waiting to go back home. Not only has this made it hard to finish the last bit of work for my classes but my relationships with people here have suffered. None-the-less I plan to enjoy my last week here, as does the rest of the group.
A few of us decided to walk "La Corniche" on Sunday which emans that we walked the entire peninsula of Cape Verte from Yoff to Dakar, we guess that it was 12 miles, but we could be way off. It made us remember just how beautiful Dakar can be when there is low amounts of haze and a nice breeze. In just a few days most o us will be leaving for St. Louis to take part in the Jazz Festival. It will be our last voyage in Sénégal, I hope we all have a great last few days together.
Soon we will be posting ideas and advice for the next group to come, but at the moment we are all busy finishing our reports, as they are due today (I'm finished!!)
Final Return
Sorry it took so long to update but something was wrong with this server or.. something like that... any how:
We’re back. Three weeks in Mbam was an experience we will never have again unless we go back. Even another village of 4000 in Senegal would be different, different people, different food, the Bissap wouldn’t compare. This trip let us really develop the relationships we started in the previous two visits. We were also able to bring our Service Learning projects to life with varying degrees of success and satisfaction. I will try to express the feelings and actions of these past three weeks, but words and pictures can’t come close to reality.
The first week was like all the others. We got back into our routine: get up, wash up and have breakfast of bread, coffee, milk, and sometimes fondaye until 9:30-10. Afterwards people break up to do either group work or personal research until noon or 1 when it gets too hot to do anything outside (dafa tang!= it’s hot!). Work is followed by napping/ reading/ MarioKart/ watching soccer on TV until lunch around 1:30-2. Napping/ reading/ MarioKart/ soccer is resumed until the sun starts falling which permits us to venture outside again. After lunch is also a good time for a quick trip to the store to buy some delicious and cold, for me either a couple bags of frozen bissap juice or a bottle of pineapple soda. We start work again around 5-6 PM after a shower. We work and and then relax until dinner, usually around 9, which is always delicious. I personally started helping to prepare dinner in the second week which I found wonderfully relaxing and interesting. After dinner, we spent time with friends and with the children, mostly the ones living in and around our concession; Binta, Kewbe, Mustapha, El Hadji, and Alsan. Bedtime was when we were tired. This trip we also grew a lot closer to the girls who did a lot of the housework and taking care of the kids; Sadjo, Raki, and Adem. They were all around 13-15 and very excited to have some friends to talk to while doing their work. Thus was our routine, which we kept to with only a few exceptions for the full three weeks.
There were a few breaks in the routine, most of which included trips to Foundiougne, a nearby town with internet, lots of fruit, and a weekly market. Normally we took a chariot, which was a breezy 20 minute ride through the savannah, but this trip we started to walk in, like most villagers do. As long as one evades the hot times, I found it to be a relaxing 45 minutes walk, which provided some good exercise as well. One day we also took a pirogue ride to a developed Mangrove forest. I don’t believe I’ve frolicked quite like that in a while. Elonnai and I explored through the forest in calf to knee-deep mud which was beautiful apart from the cuts on our feet from the millions of shells hidden in the brown-black depths. It was fully worth it, especially the wonderful noises the mud made when stepped in just right. In the last week the entire group was able to participate in a couple projects all together. Emily’s reforestation of the mangrove project kept us busy for a few hours one morning. We worked alongside the villagers preparing the mangrove saplings, digging holes, and then filling them with saplings. I felt a true sense of community, not only amongst the group, but with the villagers as well. Molly organized a garbage pick-up to start up the use of the garbage cans she placed in one of the quarters on the village. The children enjoyed helping us with this project that gave us hope that the garbage cans might continue to be used.
One of the biggest issues for this trip was the heat, specifically during the last three days. We had no thermometer, but I would guess somewhere around 105-110 in the middle of the day. The first day of those temperatures we did absolutely nothing. Doing anything, including eating and sleeping meant sweating, moving was out of the questions, moving outside seemed impossible. Our frozen bissap and cold sodas helped us through, but it gave new meaning to the phrase “oppressive heat.” Tensions within the group also contributed to many arguments, many of which stemmed from purified water use, noise levels at various times of the day or night, and personal space issues. What I took away from these experiences was that you can’t be friends with everybody, be polite to everyone, and spend time with those who you enjoy spending time with. Also, cool, free hats and shirts help any situation!
Mbam 2 (Emboutéillage rurale!!)
On Saturday we returned from our second visit to Mbam. We were all happy to see our old friends again, Binta Basse, whose cooking is heavenly and who’s house we use as our home base, the kids, especially Binta and Mustapha who are sure to be married in a couple of decades, Emanuel, one of the few village 20-somethings who has stayed to try and develop his home instead of moving to Dakar to try and find a wage job, and the experts who help us with our development projects, without whom we would be lost. Luckily this sojourn wasn’t quite as hot as the last but the group still bore its discomforts. Upon arrival many of the Americans were just getting over a cold that had been going around the week before. A few people caught some sort of virus or sickness which disabled them for a day or two. All this was made a bit better of course by our discovery that Ken has, on his computer, MarioKart. The Americans had a great time introducing the Senegalese to this time-honored Neintendo 64 game, luckily only a few of us became addicted. Our stay was also brightened by the first ripe mangos of the season. We are all very excited to come back in April when the mango season will be in full swing.
the whole group and some villagers
This trip was also highlighted by various voyages out of the village, besides the requisite mangrove swimming sessions of course. One day we all boarded chariots, many of us Americans for the first time ever, to see the weekly market in Fougndiougne. The chariot ride to the market was fun and we got to experience a rural traffic jam as our 4 chariots met two cars and another chariot coming down the path the opposite direction. The market was colourful and fun. Most of the items being sold were bags of shrimp, fish and other seafoods, spices, soap, cloth, and kitchen equipments. People were friendly and curious as to why we were there. At one point I was pointed towards the corner of the market where the Fall family traditionally has their stands. (Here in Yoff I am part of the Fall family as Samba Fall). I find it so warming to know that you can go anywhere in Senegal, find your family name and you will be welcome there.
My group was able to return to Fougndiougne a second time to visit the meteorological station to find out information about rain quantities during the rainy season. We found that the greatest problem was that the rain comes all at once, mostly during two months. The quantity of rain isn’t the biggest problem but the timing. At present we are brainstorming as to exactly how we can help them. Personally, I am on a quest to find a topographical map of the village so that I can map out where sources of water are and how we can make more dense the spread of water sources, which was the biggest issue for most women with whom we talked.
It was a good trip, but we now all realise that we have no more than 4 weeks left in Dakar, and three in the village. We are scrambling to see and do what we want to by the time we leave. This becomes harder and harder as we continue to have stronger and stronger relationships with more responsibility to spend time with people here in Dakar. Of course, that being said, I really can’t wait to go home and taste sushi and see the friends and family that I miss SO much. Also, if you haven’t received a postcard form me, it might be because Im sending out the first batch today… I may have been a bit lazy about that…
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You Know That Riddle About Walking Into a Forest...
... well, we're half way finished with the program, and there are varying reactions from everybody. We are all happy with our integration into the community here in Yoff, some more than others. We all miss Mexican food and sushi, but we're being strong, we'll make it through. This week was spent putting together our plans for our next visit to Mbam, which starts tomorrow (at 7 AM!!!). Today Piya, Rachael, and I made a trip into Cente-Ville to do some shopping for friends and fmaily back home. It was a success but the busride home took over an hour and a half because of the traffic caused by the International Conference of Muslim Countries that is taking place in Dakar. Well, I need to head off to do my laundry before going to the village (I do all my own laundry now). I'm sure we'll have a lot to report on when we return!
Ken's B-Day and "La Lutte"
This weekend was terrific. Saturday was Ken’s birthday. Molly, Rachel, and I went into Centre-Ville (downtown) to La Marché Kermel to buy supplies for chips and salsa. We found good, fresh vegetables and I finally found a shirt made form a certain Malian material called Bogolan, which normally I can’t afford, but I talk down the price as much as I could. We got back just in time to make the salsa and rush it over to school, which was kept open for us to have the party, and surprise Ken. We also got him 6 bottles of Sprite and a pineapple. We partied at school until we wanted food. We went to get pizza and plan fro the rest of the night. Some wanted to go to Casino, a huge nightclub/casino/hotel to go dancing. When I went back to my house to get my passport copy and put away my backpack I found that my brother was having a party with his friends and he invited us to stay. A few of us went to my house while others went home or went to Casino. Those of us who stayed at my brother’s party mostly watched the Senegalese dance, occasionally trying to dance ourselves only to find the Senegalese smirking at the un-graceful Americans, it was a fun night.
On Sunday we went to “La Lutte.” There was an important match, Balla Bèye vs. Gris Bourdeaux, in the Stadium Leaopold Sedar Senghor, which seats 60,000. Almost all of the seats were filled. It had the ambiance of an American baseball game. There were vendors of peanuts and cold drinks and everyone was happy and excited. For the first hour or so the fans screamed and cheered as the wrestlers strutted around the stadium with their entourages of trainers and TV reporters. There were a couple of smaller matches before the main event but they seemed unimportant. Finally the main event started with a flurry of confetti and balloons being loosed into the air. The two gigantic men flailed and grappled for about one minute until Balla Bèye finally threw Gris Bourdeaux to the ground. The entire stadium erupted into cheers and thousands of fans rushed the field as the loudspeakers started blaring music. Everyone was in a festive mood until Piya’s phone was stolen. It was sudden and unexpected and the involvement of the Gendarmes put a damper on the mood until we got back to Yoff to have a beer to lighten the mood.
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Ndaye-Ndaye
We recently returned from a small village called Ndaye-Ndaye in the area of Ngoy. The village had no electricity or running water. Their daily activities surrounded the production and processing of millet, and pulling water from wells. The lack of water left us with no way to escape the 100-degree heat other than to find a shady spot in which to nap. There were a few gas refrigerators but their owners had no money to buy the gas for them. The people of the village were, as always, welcoming and very generous. Though they eat nothing but various forms of millet for meals (couscous for breakfast, “lack” (millet porridge) for lunch, and couscous again for dinner) they have the ability to buy rice with their excess millet, and we were fed often and well. They also cultivate vegetables and black-eyed peas in the village which keeps their diets healthy and more varied than some other villages. There was some light in the village from battery powered flashlights and solar panel lamps (funded by a Spanish solar power company).
Unfortunately along with friendly people come bold scorpions and braying donkeys. We were relaxing one night when a group of children started yelling and running around pointing. In no time one of the braver kids had a sandal in hand to beat the invading translucent scorpion into the ground. It wasn’t very big, the size of the palm of my hand, but they villagers made sure that we knew that they were dangerous and should be killed on sight. We saw another a couple of days later, but none of us had the heart to kill it. We let it scuttle away.
Besides a tour of the village, which included visits to the private Catholic school, the public school, a sacred tree, and the medical clinic, we preoccupied ourselves learning about the process wherein a village becomes part of the eco-village network in Senegal. We worked with and discussed a diagram and grid that are used to grade a village on its level of sustainability. We found it an interesting process, but one that needed much work. Specifically, we found that the same sustainability criteria shouldn’t be the same even for two neighbouring villages. Different aspects of sustainability are more important in one area than another, but on the grading scale they are given the same values. Overall it was a wonderful three days. Ken and I learned how to make Senegalese tea, I started to learn how to do Senegalese wrestling (in preparation for an inevitable wrestling match during our last Mbam visit) and we had a fun night on the roof of one of the houses making tea and taking about our time so far.
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Feminism and Algae Bread
Feminism is a word I hadn’t heard in Senegal up last week. On Thursday we had a woman give us the rundown on the brief history of women’s rights in Senegal. Legal action only started taking form in the 90s and the only long stride taken has been a more widespread knowledge of the issue amongst both men and women. The lecture was interesting, but the best part was the discussion afterwards. There was yelling and there was glaring. It was one of the more frustrating conversations I’ve had but it was also useful for me. As I was confronted by a wide range of viewpoints I was able to better evaluate where I stand on a variety of issues involving women’s rights, equality, and women’s development as an indicator of a countries development. I believe the most intersting part of the conversation to me was on the subject of cultural relativism. That exact phrase was never said, but some in the group cited total equality of women as a part of occidental (Western) culture, and that a partition of work duties and social duties was efficient and worth the inequality. Others (myself included) noted the fact that the role of women in Europe was the same just 100 years ago, and that women's equality is a subculture that should be made a part of general culture everywhere. The debate continued through Friday and ended up with very little consensus. Oh well, interesting none-the-less.
On Saturday we visited the village of Ngaparo. Located in the village is a very impressive research/ development centre that has discovered that the algae which floats down Senegal’s southern coastline can be used to make bread, soap and natural fertilizer! The center has formed a partenership with a local women’s group and these women profit from the bread and soap “a base d’algue” (made with algae). The cultivation of this algae has been made totally sustainable with a aquaculture operation which replenishes the algae at the same rate as it naturally reproduces. We also got to relax on the beautiful beaches of La Petite Côte (the southern coast just south of La Cape Verte). All in all, it was worth the 3 hour bus ride there and back.
I Regret the Delay
As the title suggests, I regret the delay in updating the blog. I always feel like it's OK to wait one more day but here it is... who knows how long it's been since we got back (I've really lost all sense of long-term time.) and we've learned and done SO much. We've attended a variety of amazing lectures by teachers from U. Cheik Anta Dioup and others including classes on water issues in Senegal, Femenism, Sustainable Development in Senegal, Sustianable Development theory, and others. We had the chance to visit some very impressive people here in Dakar as well. Just this week we met a marine biologist who is using his largess for sustainable agriculture research. Listening to him, one can feel that oe is in the presence of a very intelligent man who, if given the power could really change the face of Senegal's development. He spoke for a long time on his philosophy that it is from dust we came and to dust we will return and we should try and leave no mark on the earth in the process. Some of his more interesting projects included a totally natural water filtration process which takes toilet water and purifies it so that one can use it for anything but drinking. He also uses an interesting mix of pants and microorganisms to fertalize "soil" which here in Yoff is relly just sand. None-the-less he whas beenas able to coax avocado trees out of small rectangles of soil with nothing man made, nothing found outside of Senegal, it was truely impressive. One of the other interesting lectures/ classes was about solar ovens... More...
We're Back!
Get ready for a rather long entry. We got back from the village of Mbam on Saturday afternoon after a week long stay. We were there to learn about the village, meet the villagers and learn about the development projects that the villagers wanted to start/ continue. The road to Mbam was long and bumpy and very hot. Mbam is located to the south of Fougndiougne in the Fatick region (south of Dakar, not very far north of The Gambia). There's 4000-5000 people in the village (and about 1000 cattle). The entire group stayed in a large house (our hostess was named Bintou) and shared rooms with 4-8 others. Each day we would wake up, have a breakfast of bread, butter and coffee (or just hot water for me because I don't drink coffee) and head out for whatever we were doing. On various days we took a tour of the village and some sacred sites around the village, some of the key elders at the eco-village talked to us about the various development projects, we interviewed key elders about our specific projects, and talked about our projects with the various interest groups we formed. At present there are groups studying Education, Health, Artifical Insemination of cows (my group), Eco-tourism, and reforestation of mangroves. More...
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