10.12.07

well there is still a strike going on...only the students in political science have class. no one studying french/other languages, literature, geography, sociology etc has class. or at least goes to class. but we still have wolof and there is an exam on thursday! our winter break is starting this week but i wonder if it hasn't started already since everyone is on strike. my roommate is SO impatient to go home. she's funny too. this morning she claimed the room smelled like dust and sand (definately believable since it is pretty much the edge wisps of the sahara desert here) so she woke me up around 9 to apologize for waking me up from the sweeping noises she was going to make. ugh that is the second time she's done that! and she is crazy. the other day i put on a t-shirt after being rather constipated (still trying to work out rice with my intestines...) and she said "oh tu as un gros ventre maintenant" (oh you have a fat stomach now) ...thanks alot voiz. instead of saying colocataire like they do in french for roommate, we say voiz as in voisine (roommate). i think my french is getting worse. especially when you have to talk to senegalese in fr-olof and everything you say is SO simplified. oh well. i will find some french books though right now i am reading fear and loathing in las vegas. sometimes it makes me laugh out loud. hunter s. thompson is funny and a very clever writer. i should read something more senegalese. maybe some senghor. he was the first president of senegal and he was also a poet. my african theater teacher (monsieur mar) is very...anti-european. he was ranting about how senghor was a great writer and blah blah blah but then said that he failed as a senegalese because he wrote in french which isn't his language. but no one knows how to read wolof so... anyways, one time he said that the difference between senegal and the western world was that in senegal if you don't work, you eat because everyone you know is willing to share with you. but elsewhere, if you don't work you don't eat. that is why i love senegal. not sharing is about the most asshole thing you can do here. people don't just think you're a bad person but besides that, they just can't understand why you wouldn't share. i feel like most money i spend is offering to get someone a coka cola or something. but at the same time, it is nice to share. i feel like it was something that was missing in my life in the US and when i come back i hope i never stop sharing. i saw a really pretty goat this morning and i decided i need to take more pictures of these goats. i forget that the things i am getting so used to seeing are the things i need to take pictures of. tabaski is coming up soon, there are sheep everywhere for that too! well i feel like this blog is going downhill. ba beneen yoon! (until next time)

30.11.07

end of novemeber...
it is getting "cold" here. not really COLD as i'm used to but cold enough that the bucket baths are getting painful in the morning. also they've been cutting off the water lately too...i don't mind it until i am thirsty. we didn't have water for 48 hours around thanksgiving...and talk about dishes! besides that, i am meeting prostitutes. they even know my name and stop me in the street to chat! this research project is on its way! there is supposedly a soirée here on campus tonight (a dance in the cafeteria) but it doesn't start until midnight i know it would be lame to show up before 1:30am anyways. maybe i will go into town for a glass of wine. everyone was on strike yesterday so i didn't have class which was sad because thursdays are arabic days. there is this student that sends me love texts. i think i met him once and he started leaving letters in my room. which is CREEPY because i don't like it that he knows where i live. and he's even kind of creepy looking. his name is maurice. the most recent text said, "you are the most beautiful of the flowers, the 1 that embellishes my life, that fills my head with thousand of colors, even if in my heart everything is grey..."!!!!!!! i don't like that this happens. but there is no escaping it. even my roommate told him to back off! i shook his hand once! what crazies...i don't know what to say. i am going to scoot off now...feccleen! (dance!)

thanksgiving

everyone is writing "i am thankful for..." blogs today but i think i am going to skip doing that. i am kind of tired and unmotivated to think of things i am thankful for besides people and i don't want to forget anything/one. last night was a strange experience. i joined this club called cinéclub (you can guess what it is about) and every week we watch documentaries and comment about them afterwards. there is always a lively little discussion afterwards and it inspires some really nice brain activity (which i feel lacks in my daily life). well yesterday we watched a documentary about soldiers in mauritania who were put in prison for planning to overthrow the government. they were treated horribly in prison and it was unjust etc. the movie was called "Le Cercle des Noyés" (the circle of drowned ones) and was made in 2006 and was in black and white. part of the conflict was about ethnicities, one black and one of arab descent (aka white). this was supposed to represented by the use of black and white. there was no music in the whole movie and the only sound was the narrator speaking some language that i don't think was arabic in monotone about his experience in the fort where they kept these people and the only images were of sand blowing in the desert and the fort in all different kinds of light. when the movie was over the whole room went crazy. there were some "white" mauritanians there that were arguing with black mauritanians and a girl who's uncle had fallen victim to this almost completely unpublicized genocide who was freaking out and sobbing. people kept getting up and giving testimonies...it was so intense and so upsetting i felt like everything was spinning out of control. the scariest part is that the people that tortured these black elites that were in prison haven't been punished, this story isn't over yet and people don't really know about this happening. sometimes i wonder how this is still happening here. i can't believe in race anymore. skin color really REALLY doesn't change anything. everyone eats, poops (or in my case, hopes to poop), breathes, needs water, etc. the fact that there are STILL black slaves in mauritania, only about 5 miles north of saint-louis, is incredible to me. i can't see how anyone can treat anyone else like they're a different value. and maybe i feel this so strongly because i am a minority for once but i think it is strange that skin color matters. so what if people that look alike have different traditions? they're still people and they still need to do the same basic things as everyone else. so i guess today i am thankful for all good people and for this experience and understanding that i am gaining through being here. i hate sounding sappy but being the only toubab from the western world in a room of intellectual africans screaming and crying about reality really makes you spin off to another world. thanks for reading. JAMM REKK.

06.11.07

well so here is the attitude today...
maren (aka. mariam ci wolof) and i have spent the morning being...well, what we thought was going to be...productive. we had our usual breakfast of powdered milk and coffee...though i just stuck to powdered milk, ew, and then proceeded to class. maren was on the second floor already and called up to me so i attempted the stairs...and when i say attempted, i really mean it. i tripped up the stairs twice, these weren't just little trips either, i thought i was going to go right back down again. there was a senegalese student behind me who tried to catch me i guess...well you know it wasn't really a catch just a desperate push back into stair-climbing position...TWICE. once up the stairs the two of us had a little giggle and i tactfully said "c'est le matin..." (it's the morning) and he continued on his way. then suddenly, and i honestly don't know how it happened, i took flight and landed horizontally in the hallway i was turning into to meet up with maren. the poor kid who had previously been there to give me a helpful hand apparently looked at maren in utter disbelief and pity. the best part was that here i am, in a muslim country where everyone dresses beautifully and conservatively for class (not that beautiful and conservative go hand in hand), and i somehow manage to fall 3 times with a grand finale of some butt cheek en air. my skirt totally flew up and the whole rule about no skirts above the knee thing was totally blown into outer space. good morning annie! besides that little drama, maren and i tried to go to two orale litterature classes neither of which had teachers in them. we went back and forth between the two classrooms hoping to snag someone to tell us what the hell was going on but no one seemed to know. so we went to the library instead and decided to try again next week. once in the library, i studied arabic grammer and verbs while maren taught herself the arabic alphabet. i felt pretty accomplished. the problem with classes this week is that baydallaye kane, the professor that was SUPPOSED to help us pick them out and organize everything had schedulled a meeting for last thursday but then got the flu and changed it to friday which ended up not really accomplishing what needed to be accomplished and rescheduled for saturday but then happened to be in a meeting all afternoon and now is gone until NEXT TUESDAY. so we've been wandering into classes to see what's up but that's about it. i'm going out tonight to get some observations on my research project tomorrow there are no classes in the afternoon and there are very few french department classes in the morning. ugh. needless to say we're all a little bored. i have a feeling that things will get moving soon though. we do have two hours of wolof a day from 1 to 3pm which is HORRIBLE because it is hot and yesterday there were at least four of us that thought we were going to hurl. oh well. i guess i should think about lunch soon, at least my arabic and wolof are advancing. ma'a asalaama (go in peace, arabic).

03.11.07

well now i'm in saint-louis working on getting all this school stuff and figuring out classes. we were all supposed to meet with the head of the wisconsin-senegal program named baydalaye kane but as usual he wasn't there when we were all supposed to meet...i guess i shouldn't say as usual but man everything in senegal is slow and usually inaccessible. oh well, i think i am just going to take african literature this semester...a few classes, and then spice things up next semester with oh i don't know a women's study class or something. in anycase the first few weeks of class seem very laid back and unplanned. other than that we've had some islam classes and wolof for sure and i'm working on some way to take arabic...wolof is advancing but i had an oral exam in dakar with my teacher ismailah who is great but i started saying mi piace instead of begg naa for i like. haha i laughed and had to explain that i can't keep all my 5 languages straight in my head. let's just hope my grade didn't suffer too much because of that. at least i wasn't speaking english. besides that it is quite an experience of it's own that we are a group of 10 white girls and organization is ALWAYS an issue. people feel left out alot and my new philosophy is do what you want to do and don't wait for other people to do it for you. so since i have this research project to do and i think the sexploitation here is disgusting and i wanted to do a case study on three or four prostitutes/hired boyfriends or girlfriends (those are the worst, at least the guys that make it out to the clubs to pick up prostitutes are young and spunky enough to try to dance with them). the hired boyfriends/girlfriends are like escorts but their toubab counterparts are NASTY!!! oh well. i got a prostitute's phone number, she said we could meet for tea and talk but i haven't called her yet...i should do it. other than that we've made some friends in town which is fun. the people on campus are elite and almost stuck up...but that opinion might change, it's just what i think so far. i changed rooms already because my roommate apparently didn't want another american roommate and i could tell, she was NOT friendly and didn't want me there so i changed. well it is an egg sandwich for me tonight. i'm off.

23.10.07

ok so there are alot of things to update about...i will try to do this chronologically for my mental state. last week we had an AIDS session called "an AIDS reminder: come home healthy" which included a simulation of writing down specific things/beings in your life that are really important and then crossing them off with the simulation leader going into detail about losing that thing or ability or person or whatever. needless to say it ended in a few of us crying. hysterically. including me. but not because i was sad about losing things, well i was, but also because i was thinking about people with AIDS that lose things that are as important to them as my list was and i felt sad. hands down BEST way to learn about AIDS. then we watched a movie about 5 peace corps volunteers that got AIDS while they were abroad and that was nauseatingly sad too. the next day we visited the "ecopole" which is the poorest area in dakar (it is a pocket of extremely impoverished families living right in the bustle of downtown dakar which keeps them plenty aware that they're poor and isolated) where they are trying to teach the people living there how to make things with trash to sell each year at their exposé. they make everything from rugs out of woven plastic bags to lamps out of wire and bottle caps. their stuff is pretty clever. the area is also known as "le quartier raille" (rail quarter) because the train tracks used to go through there. then saturday we went to ile de goré which is where they have "la porte sans retourne" (the door of no return) in a house where they brought and processed africans that they were shipping overseas with the slave trade. being in that house made me want to scream and cry or throw up. i'm not sure which one. so i had to step out. besides that they island was bea-u-ti-ful. i took bad pictures though. luckily the other ladies took many pictures and we're sharing them. ok now that i've updated the sad parts...let's talk reggae. so saturday night there were some sortie (going out) options and i decided to attend the outdoor reggae concert that was going to be near my house. it cost 1500 CFA ($3) to get in and that included a Flag beer. so three of us ladies attended the concert with one of the other ladies' host brothers and friends and as usual, on senegalese time, we got there after 1 as the music was just starting. and all i did all night was dance, dance, dance. for a little while, i danced two wonderful arm's lengths away from a senegalese man with 1 inch think lenses on his glasses and vaguely reminded me of steve urkel. we danced until after 4am and i still regretted going home because i was having so much fun dancing without being accosted by young men. then sunday i slept until 1am which i felt horrible about but i somehow dealt with my alarm in my sleep and didn't get up until 1. at which point i realized my feet were dusty-filthy. then i went to a soccer game Karack vs. Grand Dakar (kind of like neighborhood vs. other neighborhood) and ooooooh boy was it intense! Grand Dakar is kind of like the ghetto near Karack (i live in SICAP Karack) and i guess their fans are pretty intense and tend to get in fights over the soccer matches but it was calm when i left even though we won 3-1. i heard there was a fight later though. it was really fun. there are some intense djembé drummers there that do. not. stop. they don't use electronic anything either. you just keep track of the score and the time yourself...if you can. the power was out most of sunday so i went to bed at 9pm when it was dark and there wasn't anything important to do. the power goes out all the time here. it even went out today. i am hoping really hard right now that it won't go out before i post this blog too..............................



jamm rekk (peace only) - a positive response to how's your day/night.

17.10.07

well so today was a good day. good and hot...to say the least. 32 degrees celcius. i went into town with 5 of the other gals to get fabric. we went to the marché sandaga right downtown and i bargained down from 14,000 CFA/6 yards ($28/6 yards) to 9,000 CFA/6 yards. i thought i did a really great job bargaining but i guess i wasn't really supposed to pay more than 6,000 CFA/6 yards. but i figure the price i got came out to $18 total and that is only $3 a yard. is that good in the US? in any case, i got two kinds of beautiful REAL african fabric and tomorrow i am off to the tailleuse (taylor) to get some nice outfits made. i will hopefully feel less like a toubab (white person) when i have some senegalese clothes. i guess toubabs in senegalese garb are more respected. other than that i forgot to tell about my first experience out dancing. we went to a club called "Melissa" around 1am...i guess clubs and concerts etc. don't even get going until around 2. only toubabs show up earlier. i swear i have NEVER sweat so much in my life. my entire head was sweaty and i was sporting the signature jenny-vulpas-red-face...thanks mom. my glasses wouldn't even stay on my face, they kept slipping off! the men are naughty dancers, a little too close for comfort, thank you...but honestly, it is true, white people cannot, CANNOT dance...or at least xonq ñopps can't (xonq ñopp=toubab but literally, "red ear" and that is what they call you in wolof when they don't want you to know they're talking about you). i didn't dance much with the fellas seeing as i was disgusting and they were too but it was fun and the tunes were easy to sway to. the best part was the strobe light and mirrored wall because the strobe light makes EVERYONE look like they're a star dancer...but then it stops. no good. and the mirror, i felt like a total flailing toubab! that was all saturday, it was the party at the end of ramadan so everyone was out. the holiday in french/wolof (not sure which) is called korite. everyone gets REALLY tack-tastic (as in tacky) with really glittery tafetta outfits and then they walk around giving people millet and lait caillé, "sour milk," which might just mean yogurt and they appologize for anything they may have ever done to bother that person. it's a nice thing to do. and at night the ladies go out to show off their fancy toubab fake hair-dos and their fancy make-up (which they don't wear during ramadan) and...the absolute BEST PART...they shave their eyebrows only to draw them on again long and skinny! hahahahaha...i'm sorry i am not as into it or as admiring as they are, but WOAH they kind of look like the 3am prostiutes you find lolly-gagging in paris when everyone is partied out and heading home with tipsy legs. naka nga def? = how's it going...mangi fii rekk= i'm here only (question and response, must know it if you ever plan on walking down a street in senegal because you'll hear it alot.) PS. g's in wolof are pronounced like the g's in "game" or "guy."

16.10.07

ok yesterday i got a bite on my elbow and then an ugly rash that streched up to my armpit happened over night but then it got better and i dont have to go to the doctor and get my right arm amputated after all. thank goodness. other than that there was a goat, well apparently they're actually hairless sheep that look like goats, that was making some weirdo noises in the street for a very long time last night. in french we call them moutons. the power KEPT going out last night...well, all day yesterday for that matter but you really only notice at night when everything goes dark and dreary. my host dad, papito, was finally in a good mood yesterday though he warned me if i let someone convert me to islam, they will marry me only to come back to the US and start a new sect there and divorce me and it will all be in hopes of a visa. EVERYONE wants a visa here...oh well, i am not interested in bringing back any new friends. mosquitoes bite alot here, and they're fast little buggers too. not joking, considering the number of bites i have already i am doomed to catch le palu (malaria). not coolio at all. my new religion is called doxycycline. the daily antibiotic that should ward off the malaria parasites sitting in my liver. i hope. every morning i have to take one of those big bad boys with my hot powdered milk and bread and butter. oh yeah, the food, shoot. i luckily still don't have much of an appetite but oh man, the day it happens, let's hope i can practice some restraint like the muslims practice because it is SO fatty!!! oh boy oh boy, and papito YELLS if his food is too fatty for his achy heart. he says noises make his heart palpitate more and every morning he goes for a walk and every time he finishes his walk he thinks he is sick and has to go to the doctor but only ACTUALLY makes it there about twice a month. my little 7 year old host brother told me my host mom, mamichou, gives papito money for medicine but he doesn't buy medicine. that is all for now folks. jamm ak jamm (peace and peace). i will give you a wolof word/ phrase on occasion.

14.10.07

for future references: uppercase means emphasis.