Meg is in china!

www.meg-in-china.blogspot.com

the adventure continues...

Home on Christmas Eve.

Dakar airport to JFK to Atlanta to Denver. Before leaving, I was treated to one last marriage proposal, one last jaay fonde joke, one last life-threatening ride in a taxi, one last look at the country I've made the habit of calling home. Then, I was swept away into airports, time zones, suitcases overflowing with fabrics and cure-dents, sunset descents through the clouds, America, airports pumping out Christmas music, my first cup of non-instant coffee in over four months, a midnight arrival, and home. Now, 42 hours later, I reflect.

I am surrounded by odd familiarity. I know all this so well - surprisingly well. How easy it was to fall back into old habits! Crawling into bed with the parents for early morning newspaper reading, fighting with brother, Patrick, about music selection and volume, absent-mindedly going to the pantry for another handful of almonds... I know my life here and it knows me. And Yet. Moments of 'culture shock' begin to emerge...I don't quite know how to define them just yet. I know that our house seems vaguely too big for its 2-4 inhabitants. I appreciate my dad and his role in the family more (untouched blog topic as of yet: the roles of men and women in Senegalese families...polygamy...the absence of many fathers). I find myself looking more sternly at our televisions. (And I am overwhelmed by commercials...oh god...what are we doing to our brains?) I am stunned by the grooming of my city: every sidewalk is even, every lawn has grass (or patches of it, keep trying, Dad), every intersection has a stoplight and every store has enough money to make change for a twenty. I find myself speaking casually about race...and maybe not in a PC way. And then I hear that I've changed.

(ok...now I must interject that, rather than the cacophony of mbalax and American rap that I am so used to hearing in Senegal's cybers, I now write this with the brilliant sound of my mother SCREAMING in the next room as she watches the Green Bay Packers make a comeback...since when do we root for the Packers? Le Vikings Fan?)

Back to changes in myself…harder to see, but also noticeably there. I walk into rooms and have the strong urge to greet every person individually – Asalamalekum. I am relaxed, very relaxed – a product of the Senegalese lifestyle? I am tan, no complaints there. Mom says I’m more confident and that my fingers grew longer (can they do that independently at this stage of life?). A woman at church said my eyes changed. The waistband on my old pants says that the ceebu jen didn’t affect me as much as once thought (alxhamdullila!). My cats say that I smell differently and my skin says that Colorado is much too cold. As it was 60 degrees today, I realize that I have a lot of acclimating to do before re-entering Vermont’s balmy winters… These changes were hard to think of. That list took half an hour and much brain activity. I find myself thinking more easily of new moments of joy, comfort, and familiarity in this old setting:

• A surprise 1:30 in-house ambush from my girls (thank you)
• The incomparable warmth of cuddling on the big red couch with Dad
• Big, happy cats
• FIBER
• Serving communion to familiar faces on Christmas Eve
• Telling Senegal stories to seemingly eager ears (if you're faking it, I appreciate the feigned enthusiasm. Keep it up... I have a lot to talk about.)

Now it’s Christmas evening. Mom has fallen asleep in the next room while Dad watches the Vikings miss an interception opportunity. Senegal has managed to weasel its way into the situation via the unwrapped gifts strewn around the room: home-made batik, wooden platters, and gourd spoons.

Santa has come and gone. My friend saw a ‘Santa’ in down-town Dakar just before we left…a skinny Senegalese man wearing a full mask of a white man’s face. Scary, my friend said. Interesting cultural interpretation, I thought. Two days later I saw a CNN special on a scuba-diving Santa in Hong Kong. He held an electric eel. Asian innovation. I have a British children’s book that depicts Santa as a slightly hostile old man who wants nothing more than to get into bed with a good pot of tea and his cat, “Blooming Christmas here again!...I hate winter! Blooming chimneys!” As a child I didn’t especially like the book. Now I must read it every Christmas. British wit. In his recent book, David Sedaris explored the realm of Santa in Poland. Rumor has it he travels with 8 black men who will either give you presents or beat you and take you in a sack back to Spain. Tell this to Senegalese Meg and she’s apt to question the importance of this posse’s skin color and not blink twice after the beating bit (Kids, wives, animals…all fair targets in Senegal. Hard to be around.) The Santa that I imagine delivered my presents is kind, rosy-cheeked (white-skinned), and jolly; he prefers reindeer to eels, and winter to summer, his posse does not beat or sack, but they can fly.

Why am I thinking so much about Santa? I think he might be my international traveling icon. Santa traverses the world on borrowed time, doing more than is humanly possible. Whether sporting a mask, scuba diving, grumbling, or gifting, Santa manages to approach the world in a generous way. He has seen it all and has cared enough to give back. Santa stretches time and resources, crossing cultural boundaries to gift the people of the world, or so my version goes. He does the impossible. In the spirit of Christmas I honor this man. He is living the international life that my post-Senegal self now dreams of:

Seeing much, doing much, giving back, and ending the day with a good pot of tea.

Merry Christmas to all.

SHE'S ARRIVED!

No, not my mother (but she will be here in 12 hours! I can hardly stand it. More on that later.)

On Friday, December 9th, the Samb family expanded (one member contracted) . Fatou, my aunt, gave birth to a baby girl in a local Dakar hospital. They are both healthy, although they remain under the care of doctors. Her name is Marie. (This is surprising! 1. not a muslim name 2. Naming a child before a baptism? Unheard of. The Sambs are outlandish folk.)

My Mother (Mumsy, momma, Lynn) and I will be attending the baptism ceremony - this will be her introduction to my other family. For me, this is the perfect way to introduce one world of mine to another...to have them crash together in a house-overflowing day of warmth, joy, juice, head-shaving, baby-crying, and bubus. I cannot wait to bring Mom into the insanity that is the Samb household...especially when I stop to remember that she will speak neither of their two languages. While I've played many parts this semester, cultural and linguistic translator is a new one.

I am nearly done here in Senegal. Three days with Momma, then whoosh! Off to a pre-xmas quick cultural skinnydip in Morocco, then snap! Back to Dakar just long enough to Bang! Land in the US for christmas. ("You Americans do too much.")

First xmas tree sighting: It is covered in neon flashing lights (nothing new there) and positioned rakishly below a palm tree.

I've always prided myself on knowing how to destress through celebration; today was a prime example.

I spent the last month swimming (and sinking and floating...) through my first independent in-field research project. (I now have a 35+ page document on my hands to prove it.) In any case, while exciting and exhilarating, informative and horizon-broadening, this experience, like all good ones, was TAXING. Today, I just needed to relax...

Formula:

Grab a djembe and a few friends! Meet up with the neighborhood street-corner musicians. Promanade, ensemble, until you hit the river. Wait for the pirogue to arrive. Hop in. (careful with that djembe). Traverse river. Hop out. Pay 25 CFA (5 cents) to the 12-year-old captain. Say 'Jerejef'.

Walk past some colonial ruins; note that there are baby goats frolicking in the gutted second story of an old general's mansion. Don't be surprised when the streets and houses quite suddenly give way to beach and expansive Atlantic ocean. (yes, now is the time to chide yourself for spending so much time typing that pesky paper and not exploring the island!)

Now...

Listen to the waves. Feel the sun (was going to use the adjective 'African', but no, it's the same sun everywhere. Colorado. Vermont. Chile. Africa.) touching your cheeks and collar bone and the rounds of your exposed knees. Locate a comfy dip in the sand and sit. Tip djembe in front of you.
Tap. Pound. Bang. get it all out. Fall into rythm with the others drumming nearby. Sing. Invite the fishermans' children to dance with you, and they will. They will also offer you presents of live fish. Take photos on a digital camera and watch as the subjects smile, shout, and jump when they see themselves. Repeat. (This game will not tire...note that particularly interesting photos will be pointed at with a fish.) Continue until the fisherman part for the night's catch and the sun falls into the ocean, shy and red.

Then...
Get back to the river before the pirogues go home for dinner. Nap. Wake up in time to enjoy fresh fried fish, yassa onion sauce, and bissap juice with the neighbors: Banda, Issa, and Fecckat ('dancer' in Wolof...the real name of this rythmic man has escaped me). Banter in a foreign language and dance to Madonna's 'Like a Prayer'.

Instant Stress Release.

There's no pausing here, even when I pause...

A single 3-block walk home yielded three dinner invitations, two lessons in Wolof, one tour of a stranger's house, and one glass of ataaya (tea).

After dinner this evening (and what a dinner it was! It seems that term papers inspire the chefs in all of us...tonight: pasta, sautéed eggplant, andpeanut sauce (yes, it lives on in Senegal! Wherever I am, there too shall be peanut sauce)), our house was quite suddenly filled with:

• Banda (neighbor friend, stopping by to take another shot at wooing Alia)
• Aziz (tailor friend, stopping by to take another stab at measuring Whitney for her skirt),
• and Mystery man (a friend of someone? I think he was hoping to pop in at the right time for the third glass of tea.)

Now, as I sit here listening to mbalax remixes of bad american pop, and ponder buying peanuts from the vendor across the street, I am suddenly aware of my dwindling time here... but that's a much bigger emotion for another entry.

Home on December 23rd.

I concluded the in-field section of my research today by attending an actual groupement meeting. This one took place at dusk, in a warehouse, at the ocean's edge. 112 local fishing women attended the meeting, sprawling across chairs, on the floor, on top of tables, standing, sitting, lying down.

One room. Much yelling. Several women turned to face Mecca at different points during the meeting and proceeded to engage in their entire evening prayer process. A woman next to me in green took to banging the table she sat on whenever a statement did not particularly please her. Yaram Fall - my connection to the organization, and the orchestrator of the evening's events - expertly navigated the room, weaving from group to group gathering comments from smaller voices. The majority of women was not listening a majority of the time. This did not seem to bother anyone. Suddenly, a chorus of "waaw!"s errupted ("yes!"s) and a new city-wide committee of transformatrices was ordained. Yaram looked releived and the rest of the women looked towards the door. (Dinner awaits back in each of their houses).


On the way home, Yaram and I stop to talk with a neighbor. We exchange salutations in Wolof: Peace be with you! (And also with you)
How are you? (Wonderful)
And your family? (At home.)
And your day? (Peace only.)
Thanks be to God! And your husband? (I don't have one.)
*GASP*
(not a surprising reaction...but it's funny in this case because: )
YESTERDAY YOU SAID YOU HAD ONE!

Oooh...caught in my own little game by Yaram! My rule recently, for safety's sake, has been to tell all questioning men that I have a husband. I let my guard down with women, however, and tend to vary in my response, depending on the situation. In this case, I had a witness to yesterday's lie (told to a too-friendly man) listening in on today's truth.
Thankfully, Yaram understood and actually thought my responses were both humorous and probably necessary. She explained everything to the Wolof-speaking neighbor and we three giggled. As we left the scene, Yaram leaned over and said
"My friend just said that you seem Senegalese."
I laughed and replied that it probably had to do with my bubu (I wore a bright turquoise bubu today in order to "blend in" at the meeting)
She replied: "Deedeet. Ce n'est pas les vêtements. Senegalaise nga."
(No. It's not your clothing...You're Senegalese.)

That might be the best compliment I've received, to date, in Senegal.

(and I tried to keep it fresh in my mind as I walked 15 blocks home showered by kissing noises and shouts of "Toubab!!!!" Toubab = white person. Usually mockingly screamed by children, at anyone lighter skinned than they.)

Thanksgiving: Senegal style

10:00am Stare dubiously at single gas flame intended to cook all of Thanksgiving feast.
10:30am Pie production begins
11:30am Pie tins do not exist in St.Louis.
1:00pm Our dinner is still alive and well in its coop
2:45pm Dinner takes its last breath.
3:00pm Binta makes miraculous stuffing! Kitchen starts to smell like home.
3:15pm Dinner has cancer. Ben says: "This chicken has a tumor...Do we eat cancerous animals? I mean...if I had a tumor, would you cut it off and eat me?"
3:20 False alarm. Tumor was actually Dinner's stomach.
3:30 Carnage/Biology Lesson
3:35 Lots more respect for 'Butterball'
4:00 Root mash manages to pull through with pumpkin pie-type flavor. Plus three points.
5:30 Construction of make-shift oven, using soup pot and three forks. Dinner re-named 'Tripod Bob' (Stare doubtfully once more at single gas flame.)
5:45 Dance Party (girls only. Ben takes a breather. Too much carnage.)
7:30 Tripod Bob smells goooooood. Looks good too.
7:45 Family Picture!
8:00 Dinner is served.

End product: A beautifully done herb chicken (slightly smokey in flavor), spiced root mash, stuffing, salad (wow, in Senegal?), gravy, green bean casserole, pie, and 4 very full, very pleased Toubabs.


Happy Thanksgiving!

Every night and every morning, children ring my doorbell. They wear tattered clothing and carry their empty tomato cans, asking for money, water, bread...anything. If we don't respond, they push their eyes and fingers up against our first-floor windows. They yell inside at us, talk to us, mock us, or simply repeat soft phrases in Wolof over and over.
My response varies with my mood. As a rule, however, I do not give to these children. They are a part of the Talibé, a small force of young boys who - in theory - are gathering donations for Islamic school. In reality, they are children who are beaten every evening if they do not bring back enough money (usually 200 cfa, or 40 cents) to their Marabout. Most have been sexually abused by men with money. Families see the Talibé as a way to teach their sons the Koran while getting them out of rural villages. Many never hear the ugly side of the story. Others still consider it better than not learning the Koran at all.
Somewhere inside of me, I think: If the system didn't generate money, it wouldn't exist. So I don't give. My brain is fine with the decision.
My heart, on the other hand, feels every knock on our door and every ring of our doorbell. My eyes may seem cold as I walk down the street, avoiding the pleading stares of young boys, but I can't really fool myself. I care. A lot. I can't turn that off...and a part of me wants to give these boys water or bread...another part knows that my roomates would not appreciate the response that would generate (nor would I, really...)
I read a story once about a priest being presented with a young boy who was a runaway and convict. The priest spent all night pouring over his Bible, trying to decide what to do with the boy. In the morning, the authorities came and took the boy away to be executed. The priest then knew somehow that the boy was, in fact, God. He would have known sooner had he put down his book and looked into the boy's eyes.
My head is buried in my studies right now...

The local gossip:

Ladies and Gentlemen, hide your flocks.
This morning, a taxi slowed to a crawl in the middle of a busy St.Louis street. An unidentified passenger exited the vehicle, seized a nearby goat (adult, male, beige and ivory, last seen grazing), thrust it horns-first into the back of the taxi, and sped off. Local authorities have contacted radios with the message, which is now being broadcast across Northern Senegal.

Can you hear me now? Baxhna!
Last Wednesday evening, I found myself in one of those very interesting situations in life... This time? A Mauritanian cell phone smuggling scandle. To my surprise, I was in the very same car as a heap of Motorola cellphones who were trying to make their way from Mauritania into Senegal via a small black suitcase (what a fun place for a very real cliché). The border patrol was thrilled to find the cell phones, and even more thrilled at the monetary prospect they posed. Two and a half hours, one dinner, and lots of money exchanging later, the cell phones got their wish and were set free to roam Senegal (oooh bad pun). The guards got an unexpected bonus, and I learned how 'supple' the senegalese legal system is. My advisor (who happened to be party to this whole ordeal) explained to me that everything in Senegal is quite negotiable. (Oui, comme je vois...)
I wish I could tell you that part of this adventure involved actually going to Mauritania, however all attempts on my part to hop a pirogue across the river into foreign land proved futile.

What was I doing in a car full of smuggled goods?
In fact, I was in the process of interviewing rural Senegalese groupement members who live near the border. That day, I met:

• A Mauritanian refugee, now vice president of her groupement:

"We must reinforce ourselves, we women, integrating ourselves into the development of Senegal, and not behind it."

• Katy Cissé, a girl who started her own groupement at the age of 17 :

"This is why I formed the group: I left school for my parents; I came to work with them in the fields. I was alone, I couldn't work; so I formed a groupement to bring others together with me, to regroup them, to give them a style of life."

• A 56 year old women who firmly stated:

"Men used to be in our groupement, but they never paid their dues on time! They would use their loans to either eat or buy another wife. They are not just. They can never really be part of Senegal's development. Not how they are now."

• ...I also met my advisor's friend who teaches judo and sells cell phones on the side. On this day, he traveled to Mauritania...(see above.)

I have held 31 interviews in the past two weeks in French and Wolof (translation necessary at times...all the more fun!). These interviews have spanned economic specialists, NGO managers, and groupement founders. The majority, however, have been with hard-working rural women with big ideas and incredible ingenuity. I am in awe of the Senegalese farmer right now - she is, very truly, the one that keeps this nation going. My research originally centered around whether or not microfinancing works in rural Senegal: particularly what motivates people to pay back (or not pay back) a loan. That question has become null and void. Groupements will ALWAYS pay back their loans. (As banking goes, these rural villages, even while strapped for resources, have perfect loan histories.)

My research now examines the microfinanced groupement's role in Senegal's development. If my results so far are any indication, it's pretty exciting. These women know how to ORGANIZE! (As a dabbler in mass-organization, I stand stunned by their efficiency and drive.) I now understand why Project Hunger moved all their Senegalese offices into rural areas, working solely with groupements: the groupements get things done in this country. School house needs building? Check. No electricity in the village? They will petition for a loan-matching partner. Bad sanitation? They will hold seminars to educate local families, then will mobilize the community to seek new latrines.

Next up? Spending some evenings with a groupement of fisherwomen down by the wharf. I hope my results will smell as good as my clothes...

Once upon a time...
On the eve of three weeks of self-directed research, I woke up at 8am, knowing only that by 9am I would be at a Shell station, suitcase in hand, and that by that evening, inchalla, I would be in St. Louis with a roof over my head. Little did I know, the trip would go seamlessly (sauf a minor car accident...just a scrape and some exchanged, very pointed alxamdulillas between our chaufeur and the other) and that by that evening I would find myself with a beautiful roof over my head, tile under my feet (white tile!!!) and the regional manager of the Hunger Project, (who works exclusively with rural women's groupements in developing self-sustaining micro-credit systems) as my landlord and project advisor.

(...sometimes things just work in Senegal.)

I spent this morning sitting on a stool across from Khady (a maid at the Samb house). I washed my clothes in two buckets. She cut onions and potatoes into bowls. We exchanged Wolof and French and English. She wanted to know how to say 'partir' in english (leave, to go). With this bit of knowledge, she called each family member in by name, then dismissed them.
Bachir? LEAVE!
Maam? LEAVE!
Lamine? LEAVE!
She laughed and cackled and cried, wiping her smiling tears with diced-onion-covered hands. For a few moments, she overcame her position as Khady, the maid, who responds to every call of every member of the family. She became Khady, the playful, but fed-up woman, finally expressing her wish (albeit in another language) for some peace and quiet.
No one did leave, as no one understood the order, but she winked and I giggled. I went back to scrubbing, and she to cutting. I wonder if that wish will ever make it into Wolof.

Uffda! (No, Mrs.Null, that's not a swear word...but my Grandma does say it all the time.)
I do forget sometimes that this is not only my first living outside the US, but also my first time living in a big city. Since coming here, Senegal has certainly taught me the hard way about citylife.

Groping? Check.
Indecent Exposure? Check
Theft? Nearly Check. (I yanked my belongings back and yelled at him 'til he ran away. Kind of a surprise reaction on my part...but it worked.)

I'm second-guessing including this as an entry right now, but, no, I think it needs to stay. This is just as real, just as relevant as my thousands of other beautiful moments here.

It's true that I am jumpier in Sénégal. I think this new jumpiness is 3-fold:

1. The above-mentioned incidents most certainly factor in
2. Anytime it feels like there is a bug on me...there generally is. And it's usually bigger than anything I've ever seen in the states...
3. Oh yes, and I'm taking a hallucinogenic malaria medication. Generally this has translated into fun, vivid dreams, but sometimes it gets a bit out of control and blurs that middle-of-the-night line between dream and reality. A little scary.

So, I now sit in a cyber, heart still thumping from the near-robbing that took place just twenty minutes and three blocks ago. I'm trying to decide where this blog entry wants to go...

• Another soothing memory of playing with the Samb children? (Bébé Chiekh has taken to falling asleep in my arms every other night while we watch the rest of the family watching a Brazillian soap-opera)
• An anecdote about the man sitting next to me wearing a knit winter hat? (this is funnier when seen from the eyes of a girl who sleeps every night, sans blankets, with a fan pointed directly at her on high)
• The inspiring interview I had this morning with the director of the Centre Africain de L'Entrepreneuriat Feminin?
• or...

...hmmm... maybe I'll just say that if you're reading this blog I probably love you very much and am excited to see you again. Yesterday and Tomorrow I will think about how little time I have in Senegal, how much I have yet to learn/see/do...But Today I'll let myself sit with the thought that I do miss home a bit.

I do look forward to feeling safe walking down a street... and I do look forward to saying goodbye to the bugs.

Today feels very, very familiar, a little like Thanksgiving.
Ramadan is over (the moon told us last night.), and today we celebrate Korité.

Morning. The family communes, sleepy-eyed, on the terrace, where Maam pours each of us heaping portions of chilled lait-caillé and steaming millett.

Women don their pagnes and the men their bubus. Heads were shaved or tressed last night (quick diversion tactics saved my scalp...my fine blond hair tends to react rather wimpily to the braiding process).

I sit with the other teenaged and twenty-something women, peeling and dicing onions, carrots, turnips, and garlic. There are no cutting boards. I dice three onions, a carrot and a turnip in my hand.

I spy a bloodied chunk of paper the size of and shape of several bowling balls wrapped for christmas. Fresh sheep.

Lunch is an overflowing platter of color. Pickles, eggs, bright green spicy peppers, crimson sausages, water chestnuts (to which "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" (my new favorite book) just paid a lovely tribute.), onions and garlic, the afore-mentioned sheep, and as always, a bed of rice.

Youssour Ndou (famous Senegalese singer) and glass bottles of cool Coca Cola accompany the afternoon. Alia and I feel festive and buy the family cookies from a nearby boutique.

and now... a pause. The world catches its breath and examines its too-full stomach. I'm reminded of the post-Thanksgiving feast time when the family disperses...some to wash dishes, some to take walks, some to fall asleep in their mothers laps, some to sit silently and watch.
(...and some to quickly document the experience.)

Happy Halloween! We will celebrate the day with words starting in ‘H’

Hypocrisy.
I am a hypocrite, and I am aware of it.
Example! I think microfinance is an amazing tool that has the capacity to bring aid to impoverished communities. I also think that humans are doing some pretty destructive living here on Earth, and the closer they get to what we call "civilization", the worse it gets. The farther, more remote villages here in Senegal (albeit, those with fewer medical facilities, schools, and western influence) also seem to have the healthiest relationship with the earth. Their populations flux with the natural shifts in the earth's capacity to support them. Yes. That means they die sometimes.

...so should these communities be offered the medical resources and educational tools that might come from a fuelled economy? (resources that I have happily enjoyed the luxury of all my life...)

...should these villages be 'protected' from outside influence...purposefully left alone with their 'harmonious' earthly living (natural...meaning they die early and often but sometimes not til they have seen that fourth generation)

...and who am I to be making these decisions? As of now, it seems NGOs and money-wielding governmental organizations are making these calls... and they are some pretty big ones. I am lost on the issue...decidedly hypocritical. I'm working on it.

I came to Senegal ready to experience poverty. (I think in my head I translated that to sickness, sadness, and broken families). I have yet to see that poverty. Yes, people are sick, but I am too and I've learned that you get pretty accustomed to it. The life expectancy is younger, but then again people seem to spend a lot more time laughing and drinking tea together than sitting in front of glowing computer screen (the author is blushing in acknowledgement of another point of hypocrisy). Families are not broken. No, they are stronger than most American families I have encountered. Life is very, very joyous here...especially in villages.

So how do I feel about foreign aid? What do I think of the Peace Corps? And microfinance?
Well...I still like all of them. I like the heart and soul and purpose of them. I like the people involved in them and the feeling you get from working with them. I like the purpose they offer and the lives they unite. Do I like their outcomes?

What happens when you build a hospital near a village? Health.
What happens when you build electrical lines near a village? TV.





…and now a small Halloween tribute to my favourite girls:

Goblins alleycats witches on brooms!
Wind (men) in the trees singing scary tunes!
These are the things that are heard and seen…
in the dark of night on Halloween!

boo!

I write to you from the very European city of St.Louis. Looking out the shuttered window of this air conditioned cyber cafe, I see dusty red walls and second-story balconies. I'm reminded of Barcelona.

Just returned from my second village stay, this time in the Wolof village Keur Demba Kebe, 9km outside Thiès. Once again, a blur of contradictory experiences...

True Senegalese Teranga. Our oversized white bus (aptly named the 'Toubab'mobile) pulls into the center of the village, where we find every woman and child from the surrounding villages waiting to greet us. As we exit, cheers and laughter errupt; we are quickly led to a circle of benches. The seeming Queen Bee of the village orchestrates the shifting bodies of hundreds of villagers around 14 students. Under her flawless direction, we are soon packed in tight with smaller children filling the 'comort zone' spaces that we white students inadvertantly leave between us.

The village chief arrives. Flanked by two elders in fez and sunglasses, he delivers a hearty welcome while seated in a plastic lawnchair (an oft-coveted item in the villages. As a guest of honor, I was given my own lawnchair for the duration of my stay). "The village sees this as an opportunity to share with you and to learn from you", the chief says, "One day, our children will come to stay with your families." The women begin to cry and clap. "Thank you for coming."

My name is called. A woman across the circle runs to me and embraces me. Her smile is contagious. My little Wolof establishes that this beaming, blue and orange-clad woman with gold earrings and white, white teeth is Umi Ndong - my new mother.

At dinner time I eat not once, but three times, under the light of the stars and moon.

I initially gather with the elders around their bowl. It is too dark to see our dinner, but the taste is familiar: ceebu jen, (rice and fish... the national go-to dinner... the Senegalese equivalent of highly celebrated meatloaf). Just as I have eaten my fill, a woman yells "Ndaye Mbay!" (my new name). I obediently follow the cry, which has come from another dinner gathering. I am told to sit and eat, and I do. "Ndaye Mbay!" Another dinner, with another section of the ever-expanding family. One child stands next to this dinner crying and vomiting on himself. No visible response comes from the family, other than to hit the child when he gets too close to the bowl.

The village holds a dance and dresses the students in traditional Senegalese attire. We look very, very silly. I am wrapped in several miles of lime-green material. Head to toe. Then, along with the beating of drums, the cheers and suggestions of women and children, the laughter of fellowToubabs playing dress-up, and the orchestrations of the Queen Bee, I dance. Lumba lumba lumba la!

A trip to the field reveals a startling fact: my village grows all the produce that they consume and sell (peanuts, bissap, millett, limes...) in sand.

An afternoon is spent shade-hopping; tracking the suns movements by the movements of our woven mat as it follows the dark patch beneath a tree. The women sift through rice, carry buckets of water on their heads, wash laundry, pound millett, cook dinner, and shell peanuts - all with babies strapped to their backs. The young boys play with two marbles. A toddler dances. The men return from the fields with the goats and carts. All wait anxiously for the sun to finish setting so that the regae tape can be played on the portable radio while we break the fast with bread, tea, and bissap. A Ramadan day is coming to a close.

I didn't bring a time keeping device with me, instead I left it up to the family rythms to format my day. Village life is slow in a way that I haven't experienced since the summers of elementary school...On day one, each moment feels eternally long. The following days pass without warning or reason, far too quickly. Nothing ever 'happens' and nothing needs to; outbursts of laughter or the passing of a car punctuate the days.

Umi Ndong is one of the most incredible women I have met in Senegal. Radiant, intelligent, and eternally capable (3 vomiting children and a dinner to cook? No problem.), she spent her days slipping quickly and gently between daily activities...never hurrying, but always productive. She looked up often from her work to make eye contact with each of her children in the surrounding area: a non-verbal check-in. She would smile at me and thank the Lord for the day...for the dinner...for wellness...for my presence. Others couldn't help but gravitate towards her soulful, grounded way of being.

Umi cried as I left and I cried too. I gave her my earrings (which my mumsy in the U.S. gave me...somehow the exchange from mother to daughter to mother felt fitting. She looked beautiful in them.) She gave me a hand-sewn handkerchief and a peanut-corn cake.

Teranga. Alxamdulilla.

When discussing gender roles with with my Peul Bande father, I asked him:
"Are women good with money?"
"No, of course not."
"Who is in charge of the communal village collection system?"
"My wife! She is the president of the women's society"
"And what funded the new machinery in the peanut field?"
"The communal pot. The women decided to buy the machinery."
"And have the machines improved the condition of life here?"
"Yes.They have brought in more money."
"Are women good with money?"
"No. Women are not intelligent."

From November 7th to December 7th, I will be set free to roam Senegal in search of primary-source information on the topic of my choosing. Right now...leaning towards microfinance.
(Woah there! Talk about words that I would not have expected to come flying from my mouth...or out of my fingers, rather)

Before leaving for Senegal, I ran across a few lines of text highlighting Senegalese women's tendencies to set up miniature "insurance" systems within their social groups. Once a week, each woman puts a small percentage of the family's income into a communal pot. The pot is then given monthly to a family who needs it, the money rotating between the involved families over the course of a year. This system creates both a monetary safety blanket for families in crises, as well as a fund for possible familial business ventures.
What's so incredible about this system? From what I've heard from the locals, you can find a version of it in EVERY Senegalese setting - from Thiés to Etchwar, from towering cities to 12-hut villages - almost always run by the women.

In Boundou Kodi, (my Peul Bande village), it was the women's savings pot that had funded the new farm equipment that increased cultivating efficiency, in turn providing the means to send two of the children to school in Kedougou. Back with the Samb family in Dakar, it is the women's communal pot that will fund our upcoming baptism. (...as soon as Aunt Lefatou's baby is born. Can't give an exact date as it is culturaly inappropriate to ask. A roundabout questioning of when we might expect a baptism revealed that the due date may be soon!)
Self-starting microfinance lends power to otherwise dominated women. As in the above conversation, in rural settings, women are not seen as intelligent beings (and are treated as such).

I am not the only one intrigued by this... Le Centre Africain de L'Entrepreneurait Féminin (CAEF) has taken this idea and run with it, pairing these rural women's self-starting money know-how with small loans and Sénégal-specific economic education. The result: blossoming village-based businesses that promote commerce, health education (as demonstrated by a women's group that is using its proceeds to hold malaria-awareness block parties) and community.

Villages are learning self-sufficiency.
Women are taking advantage of their brainpower.
Children are sleeping under mosquito nets.

...and I'm getting excited.

(Have any knowledge on microfinance and impoverished nations? I'd love to talk to you!)

Allez Lions, Allez!!!
Invigorating - but bittersweet - afternoon at the stadium. Senegal vs. Mali.
Moving on to qualify for the World Cup requires both a win on our part and a loss for Togo. Thus, scanning across the half-packed stadium, (which seems to have been sized in a cookie-cutter fashion, more like the size that a national stadium "should be" and less like a relevant size for the smaller crowd of fans blessed with money and transportation to attend the matches), one sees a sea of red, yellow, and green jerseys, peppered with silver rectangle radios transmitting the most recent results of the Togo-Congo match.

The national anthem begins (here I find myself thinking of listening to our national anthem with Dad and the Vikings...lazy Sunday afternoons spent eating red pepper, shouting at the TV, and snoozing). I am struck by how ill-fit the song seems to be for Senegal. Strong, stoic, trumpet-laden, and with a thumping beat, it would have made John Philip Sousa proud. It seemed to only make the Senegalese crowd uneasy; about one in three people knew the words, and even then they only mumbled them half-heartedly. This surprised me. Generally in Senegal, you KNOW when someone likes a song, as she will demonstrate this for you via a loud sing-a-long or by busting out an mbalax dance in rythm to said piece. This fact holds true whether the song is live, on a radio, or on tv as the jingle for a butter commercial. (More on advertisements in another entry...) In conclusion, I feel like the national anthem has less to do with Senegal and more to do with the aftermath of french colonization. I'm waiting for the mbalax national anthem.
The game starts. The crowd is seated and multitasking. Eyes on the field, ears up to portable radio speakers, noses taking in the odors of bodies packed in, (3 bodies to every 2 seats in shady spots), hands clenching another's, mouths of christians, jews, and non-ramada-ing muslims chewing peanuts, oranges, and sweetbread.
Senegal Scores Once! Twice! The crowd leaps wildly to its feet. Drums pound out the mbalax I yearned for earlier. The scorer and his teammates pose flamboyantly for expectant cameras. A group of men circles together, fanning the center of the circle excitedly...my friend Maren looks concerned and wonders aloud whether they are trying to start a celebratory fire right there in the stadium. Further investigation reveals efforts to revive a woman who has fainted from heat, excitement, and - if I may interject a western
Ramadan-inspired opinion - dehydration. (During Ramadan, most Muslims will not eat or drink between sun-up and sun-down)

Excitement grows as radios transmit the news: Togo is behind by 3 points!
Halftime. Loaves of sweetbread distributed. Seats renegotiated. The crowd returns, anxious. Togo begins to regain lost ground. Without a radio of my own, I find my reactions to the game incongruous with those of the rest of the crowd. I cheer for a complicated play towards the end of the game - the rest of the crowd remains seated, mumbling. Togo has pulled ahead. Senegal scores again! No matter. Togo has won. Half the crowd is gone. The game continues.

Apologies for the sudden ending of the last entry - still adjusting to buying set amounts of internet time...

Goodness. I am overwhelmed by how much information flew out of my fingers in the last entry, and still further overwhelmed by how much still needs to be said. (Where were the details of the two village dances i attended? And that moment, floating on my back staring up at the water cascading over a cliff? And why did I bypass the ride ON TOP of a car rapide through the backroads of Africa???) I need to confess to you right now that many things - including important, life-changing, soul-shifting things - will be left out of this document. As much as I want to pull you into this experience ...every part of it ... I know that I can only provide a fleeting taste. Do savor it, as I certainly am.
A longer entry will have to wiat, as Ramadan started today and dinner will therefore be provided right at sundown to the famished masses of the Samb household. If I want a place at the bowl, I best run.

I've just had my happiest week, to date, in Senegal.
(You know you're a Colorado girl when... it takes a mountain top to make you feel like yourself. )

Senegal is much, much more beautiful than I have given it credit for. Both land and people. As our bus rolled away from the exhaust, bustle, and dirt of Dakar, a very different Senegal emerged:

• NATURE. Dr. Seuss-inspired fields of chunky baobabs, thick with bulbous fruit; baboons, pheasants, and warthogs scurry from their road-side basking spots; Colorado-like expanses of blue, blue sky big enough to watch three different storm systems tumble acoss; red rocks and electric green grass; mountain hikes each day leading up to enclosed tumbling cascades, mountain-top animist villages, or the biggest baobab in western Africa; mosquitos and bed bugs. (and itchy arms, legs, ankles, toes...)
• Thatched roof villages of no more than a few dozen huts pepper the valleys
• Women turn to one another, laughing and chatting, while ambling down a major road with 5-gallon bowls of peanuts balanced atop their heads
• Poverty...When it rains, the roof washes away, and there may or may not be money to fix it. When it doesn't, the crops stop growing, and there may or may not be money to buy other sources of nourishment. Not scary, just real.
• Self-Sustained lifestyles. (eat, wear, cook with, and play in what you grow and make.) Inspiring.
• Wandering into small market, I find myself surrounded by crowd pressing in toward the village's holy medicine man. Stocky, shirtless, hair sticking in every direction, covered in intertwining gris-gris (luck charms). He demonstrates his powers by slowly sharpening a sword then pretending to cut his own belly, neck, and eye with it. Suddenly a nail goes up his nose and he pauses to discuss the medicines he is selling.
• When all else fails, sing. Head, shoulders, knees and toes...Hore, ballawa, kopi, tepe (sung with the peul bonde tribe).
• When one is offered a hair braiding at 10:30 am, one might assume this will not interfere with an appointment at 4pm. This is not a safe assumption.
• Accepted into two new families, first a diallonke family in Kedougou: the chef de quartier, three wives, and 25 children. Renamed me Bintou Camara. First night, pouring rain drove a herd of us into the hut that I understood to be my bedroom for the evening. Two hours of laughing, photo-sharing, and exploration of language barriers...suddenly the lights are out and it is time for bed. Confused, I try to count the number of differing breath patterns present in the room in order to discern how many people are staying in the one-room hut. I find out in the morning that there were 7. 2 on my bed, 3 on the other, and my 50 year old mother and a 3 year old child on the floor. This was normal.
• Went with new aunt to baptism. 50 men sitting and praying on one end of a courtyard. 50 women chatting, singing, dancing, and shaving the newborn's head on the other. I am accepted and welcomed. Fed often. Smiled at. Invited to take photos. Suddenly the warm, smiling woman next to me (who had patiently explained all aspects of the baptism to me and often gave me reassuring squeezes of the hand...reminded me a lot of Ruth K!) takes a plate of yellow powder from a passing woman, presses her thumb into it, and smears it across me forehead. I have been blessed. Later, I am led into a back room and suddenly the newly shorn, now sleeping baby is in my arms. The mother smiles.
• Second family: Chef de village for the Peul Bonde tribe with four wives (two inherited after death of older brother) and ten children. Life here is non-stop, from dawn until well after dusk, and yet it moves at the slowest pace...inexplicable. We sit for hours. Every part of every meal can be directly traced back to the land

MORE...

I am sitting at a computer with a stick in my mouth. (No, Dad, not log in foot. ) If you have ever carefully read a health pamphlet about oral hygene, you'll see a funny option listed next to toothbrushing: cure-dent sticks. Apparently they provide better cleaning power than a toothbrush, and come close to the benefits of flossing. On top of that, they give you reason to look dignified while chewing on stick.
I was somewhat baffled by the presence of these sticks when I first arrived. Poking jauntilly out of the mouths of adults and children alike, these sticks bob along in perpetual yes-man agreeance with whatever their chewer is saying. These feisty little sticks can be seen walking down the street or talking to a neighbor, one even made the appearance dangling from the lip of a visiting university faculty lecturer.
Look for them soon in Colorado.

Spending the next week in a mountain village stay. More to come.

102.6 degree fever. Mmmmm boy.
Not to say that I didn't expect something of the sort to occur at some point, but really now. Everyone else just vomited once or twice. Being the overachiever I am, I contracted a bacterial gastronomical infection and landed myself on three medications. Never fear (mom, dad, grandparents, tia ruth, et al.) I went straight away to the doctor and now, 36 hours later, am fully hydrated and eating for the first time. Things happen quickly here in Senegal.

This sickness offered a new perspective on many aspects of life here, in the form of many questions.

• How close am I to my new aunts? Answer: not as close as I had thought. Preferred to give self-care.
• Just how well can I speak french when feverish? Answer: Better than expected. Survival instincts kicking in?
• Can I convert Fahrenheit to Celsius? Answer: Not when feverish. Rough translation of my explanation of my fever: "It's Very very high. Very hot. Dangerous. I need to call a doctor." I realized the point might not have translated completely when my aunt responded: "Well, you have money. Walk down the street to the tellecenter."
• Mange? (Eat?) Yes. Apparently this isn't only a nightly declaration, but a life mantra. Eating, my family seems to think, will cure anything. Including nauseau. I spent my first ill night politely refusing several containers of milk, spicy beef and rice, and an entire bowl of sugary sweet pudding.
• Does Senegalese Tarenga (famed kindness and hospitality) truly exist? Answer: YES. My uncle said to me a few nights ago that he heard once that if you fell over in the street ill in America, you might lie there for hours, or even days, before someone helped you. I had to tell him that yes, perhaps in some places, that was true. Appalled, he explained that in Senegal that would never happen. This very situation was played out almost word for word yesterday. Coming out of the doctors office, I found myself too weak to walk to the street - some ten meters away. I paused in a chair on the doctor's porch, gathering my energy and trying in my feverish state to make a plan as to how I could land myself back at school. After several minutes, I plunged ahead. The world blurred and smeared a little bit. The sun was impossibly bright. As I neared the sidewalk and the edge of the road, I felt my limbs falling limp below me. The sidewalk, cool and stable, was quite unexpectedly supporting my torso, knees, and hips. Suddenly, a mans voice: "Madame, you are sick?" Yes. "There is a doctor not ten meters from here! I will take you." No, merci, I just came from there. I...I need a taxi. "I will help you. Stay here." This mirage of a man walked into the street and within thirty seconds returned with a taxi. He helped me in, then made sure the driver knew where to go and wouldn't charge me too much. As the taxi began to drive away, I heard him saying "You will be well, Inchalla."

So yes. My uncle was right about Senegalese Tarenga. I just had to find out the hard way.

On Saturday, I took tea on the roof under the light of the full moon. (Picturesque, but done out of necessity. Power outage.) Between the three traditional cups taken over the course of 20 to 50 minutes, I relaxed with my uncles and cousins, off-handedly switching between practicing wolof and translating hiphop lyrics for Momo.
Suddenly, a man bursts onto the roof; shouting, grinning, and welcoming the embraces of the other men. My uncles excitedly gather around him, smiles spread wide across their faces, hands swimming through the frenzy... now grasping a shoulder, now clapping a back, now clasping another hand. The man raises his head and shouts thanks towards the sky. The other men do the same. After a few minutes of mixed fran-wolof, I come to realize that this mystery man has just become a father for the first time.
What a welcoming for that child into the world.

My first clash with a basic difference in values.

• Every day between three and fifteen different children will approach me with pails constructed from empty tomato tins and coat hangers. They ask for money. I smile, say "no, but have a nice day", and move on.
• Venders try to sell me things, often physically (I have inadvertently ended up wearing bracelets, necklaces, shawls, shoes...), and I again smile, remove the item for sale from my body, and say - more forcefully here - "Non, merci."
• My aunts push another pile of rice into my portion of the bowl just as they see me beginning to get up from dinner. I smile and say "Jerejef, surna!" (Thank you, I'm full!)
• My brother asks if I'll lend money. Going with SIT's warnings about lending money to femily members (tricky, usually doesn't return), I say "No, sorry. "

According to me, I handled all these situations in a fine manner. According to Senegal, I am rude. Multiple Senegalese have explained to me a concept of "respect" for situations like these that I myself find completely disrespectful: false hope.

One should never say "No", as that is rude and harsh. One should, instead, leave the possibility open...let them believe that someday you have the intention of following through with the thing you don't wish to do at present. This is common courtesy. It also goes against my upbringing and grates on my sense of open honesty. I do not say things that I don't intend to follow through on, and yet this culture demands it.

How does anything get done around here? How do you know when anyone is truly speaking their mind or when they're just trying to appease you? Can you really believe someone when thay make a statement of their intentions and then follow it with "Inchalla"? (if god wills it) Everything is thought to be slightly preordained, or at least in direct connection to the whims of a god whose characteristics and humor I have yet to comprehend.

As I write this, my own words are screaming back at me "American!" ...well...yes. I am. So how do I fit this all together? Honesty without disrespect, adaptation without a loss of my own values...

oy. I'm working on it.

I've become used to my newly multi-colored body. White (not black) skin, Perpetually rosy cheeks; freckly speckled nose; sandy, tanned legs gradually shifting from one shade of brown to the next, cranberry mosquito bites dotting my ankles and heels... A new addition this week: swollen, pulsing, purply-reddish, sometimes blue palms and digits. I've been drumming.

Our class gathers in an old schoolroom: 3 walls covered in blackboard and french cartoons explaining how to brush one's teeth, 1 wall covered in an impossible 15 by 20 foot block of haphazardly stacked (strewn in a vertical fashion) picnic tables, desks, and chairs. We circle in the center, 8 new drummers and 2 griots (those born into the lowest caste of Senegalese society...also the considered the most talented musiciens.)

The elder man starts beating the bass drum. The younger man with dreads smacks out a complicated mbalax rhythm. Or...arythm. My mind can't quite fit around the obvious disregard for 4/4 timing (let alone 2/4, 3/4...) Slowly our hands begin to mimic his. 9 different rhythms collide. Stop. Listen. The beat starts again. The mbalax commences. Our eyes squint at the movements of his calloused fingers, our wrists flick, we try again. No. Stop. Listen.

Stop. Listen. Stop. Listen.

The bass is louder this time. The ryhthm is slower, but still foreign (kind of like the wolof I tend to hear directed towards me these days). I close my eyes and listen. A song emerges. Not just beat, or rythm, but a melody of impacts. Like a heartbeat.

The djembe responds to the impact of one's fingers - receiving, then pressing back, throwing your hand back in the air. Gravity takes over and pulls the palm down for the next beat. Once you start the cycle, let go and the drumming takes care of itself.

We learned 5 traditional Senegalese rhythms and cycled between them. I was surprised how each felt oddly different from any beat i had ever experienced in my western musical training...and yet each was truly simple in nature. Children sing along to this music. Infants learn how to crawl, step, and eventually dance to it. Women hum it, and I've watched the maid fold the laundry to it's beat. There is a rythm to Senegalese life... I'm learning how to play it.

Senegalese Dining 101

1. You did not come to Senegal for the food. (Don't lie.) This guide addresses the basic rules of etiquette when it comes to nourishing oneself in a Senegalese setting. If you wanted gourmet, you'd be in Paris.
2. Utensils: Forks, knives, spoons? Senegalese response: hands. Hand, that is. The right one. Use left and find yourself banished from the bowl. (I've yet to address the bathroom situation in depth...no toilet seat, nor toilet paper. The Senegalese have very strong quads and calves, and very dexterous left hands. In other words, the left hand is considered a tool for the dirtiest of work. It is likewise shunned from more delicate tasks such as eating and hand shaking.)
3. Bowl? Yes. The entire family eats from one bowl (mum - our big red bowl!) centered over a rug in whatever particular floor space has been designated the "dining room" for that night. Most eat from a seated position on the floor, while miniature rectangular stools - which usually give the recipient an advantage of about 4 extra inches - may be provided for a few of the women and smaller children. As a guest, you will be given a stool for the first three days. After that, it's up to you to negotiate stool real estate. Thusfar I have shared spots on these stools with two infants, an aunt, and a maid. Bowl-eating etiquitte requires one to mentally divide the bowl into sections (think of pieces of a pie), and to then eat whatever food happens to land in that section. Do not go scavenging. Pieces of fish and meat will most likely appear magically in your section from time to time. (This fact bewildered and amazed me for the first few days. A careful eye caught the quick hand of a concerned aunt looking out for my well being and waistline.)
4. Rice. Learn to like it. Brown, tan, speckled, off-white...It is the base (literally...underneath) of almost every meal. If not...
5. Bread! Baguette, always. Think of it as that other missing utensil. It is fine to hold your bread in your left hand as you are tearing it with your right. However, do not attempt to pop that last morcel of left-hand bread into your mouth without first switching it to the right hand! (see #2)
6. Fish. No matter how many times Khady unveils our dinner of fish and rice, I still can't quite accustom myself to seeing the dinner literally staring back at me. The fish are always whole...skin, tail, bones (lots), eyes... Don't worry about navigating the bones: as a foreigner, you are treated much like a child in the eating process, and this translates to preferential treatment in the division of meat. (see generous aunt in #3)
7. Beverages - not necessary. There will not be one with dinner.
8. Spice - Last night, the family decided to play a joke on me by purposefully scooting one of the fire-truck red peppers into my section of the bowl. Without a second thought I began to include it in my next bite, when suddenly the whole family burst out laughing and told me to "Laisse-la!" (put it down!) This was apparently one of their hotter peppers, and was not meant to be eaten by an american, "We haven't seen you cry yet, but you would if you ate it!" After watching carefully, I then surprised them by following suit with an aunt who had squished the pepper oils into a bite of couscous. I took the plunge. The Sambs watched in bemused horror - one nearly went for water. I, meanwhile, finished my bite and went for the next - surprised and underwhelmed by the medium level of heat I felt in my mouth. Thanks to spice-abusers for parents, it was nothing. I think I gained some respect in the family.

September 11th in a Muslim country.

My thoughts turn to the multiple conversations with various aunts, uncles, and professors concerning the American definitions of 'terrorist', 'taliban', and 'muslim'. (No I don't equate them... yes, there are probably some Americans who do.) As the sole US citizen in the household, and for that matter the neighborhood, I find myself often in a position of speaking for the US as a whole. I'm not yet comfortable in this role ... not in English, and certainly not in French. How does one explain in simple terms (I'm guessing I speak at about a 5th grade level right now) that citezens of the US do not ascribe to a single path of thought? How does one express love and pride for one's homeland while simultaneously expressing a distaste for certain dogma, ideology, and practices? How can I possibly say to a family of devout Muslims that: yes, there are a good number of people in middle america who would just as soon believe that anyone reading a koran might as well be an enemy of state? (A sweeping generalization? Hopefully. Grounded in some semblance of truth? ...Probably.)
Yes, I'm a christian.
No, I'm not afraid of Muslims.
Yes, September 11th bewildered and angered me.
No, I don't believe you are to blame.
As a child I often listed 'ambassador' as a possible career choice; I believe I'm getting a taste of that right now.

Life at home changes, expands, and improves daily. Visitors come and go constantly, as family members mill between the three floors. I may experience many things in this household, but boredom will never be one of them.

• I did finally meet my mother, who is indeed the minister of industry for the country of Senegal. Elegant, intelligent, funny. I am a very lucky girl. She has decided that I am only to speak Wolof in her presence. I have decided that I shall sound like an idiot around her for the next month and a half. In time I'll improve, Inchalla! (God willing)
• I really do love this family. Yesterday I was party to the Great Baby Powder War of 05. 1st floor terrace. The Samb children and one friend (2 years old) + sugar high, compliments of jus de bisap (afore-mentioned hibiscus juice) + one bottle baby powder (used to ward of heat blisters on the childrens' backs) = closest thing to a snow shower that these children have ever seen. Laughter. Faces and arms smeared white. An amused mother. A foreign exchange student in hysterics (these kids were FUNNY).
• I tend to spend days with the children and aunts, and evenings with the uncles: studying and taking part in Senegalese tea ceremonies. Lamine is my favorite "uncle" thusfar (quotations because, in theory, he is not actually an uncle. But with the Senegalese's loose definitions of family and my odd situation, I have decided to take this whole family tree business into my own hands. He is therefore my uncle, because I say so). Lamine is fantastic. New expressions tumble across his face constantly as he takes in every detail of conversation in the room. He'll ask all the tough questions and then help me find my way to the answers. He excitedly talks to me about his job at the printing press (a REAL printing press. Thank god I watched Newsies as a child, as that allows me to actually picture the machines he describes), and every night he makes sure to invite me up to the uncles' quarters for tea. Last night we watched reruns of "Dallas" and I learned how much sugar to use per pot of tradtional tea (answer: a lot.) Tala, another uncle, is an up and coming business man of the family, having studied in both Dakar and France. He now finds himself overqualified for the majority of job openings in Senegal, and therefore unemployed. He hopes to move to the US by the end of the year to start a company selling African art. Bocar is a neighbor and friend of the family who I think may of notions of courting me. I've explained that I'm very studious and have no interest whatsoever in men right now, Senegalese or otherwise. Also, my Dad is very strong and protective. ;)

Spoke to Dad today for the first time - so good to hear his voice! Loving it here, but absolutely missing the comfort of home. Love to you and peace to you all.

Jamm ak jamm...

(from peace to peace)

What I've learned this week:

1. Family. On Thursday, I moved in with the Samb family. When I first arrived, I was taken on a whirlwind tour of the family, through 9 rooms and 16 family members. It took all of twenty seconds before I found myself accompanied by three loyal henchmen, aged 2 through 6: Bachir, Ahmed, and Bébé Fa. Two speak some french, the other sits on my lap. There are more uncles than I can count, yet somehow only 2 actually live with us... and one isn't a real uncle. Three aunts with lots of babies and opinions. (Mange! = Eat! ... a common command directed in my direction. Another not so subtle hint: "Do women wear makeup in Colorado?" My bare-faced response: "Yes, many do, but the ones who go to Senegal don't tend to wear as much." ). Grandmère is all I had expected and more. Though I've spent no more than 15 minutes with her since my arrival, I have gathered that she is indeed the African Queen of this household. Truly a sight to behold... a large woman with kind, piercing eyes, lounging on her bed, and more often than not wrapped in beautiful green cloth. Seemingly very popular in the neighborhood, Grandmère generally has visitors fluttering around her as she remains calm, good-humored, and always stationary.
   
2. My new name. Senegalese family name: Nafy Samb. (Na-fee Sahm)It's a hard day when one is not only becoming acquainted with 16 others in another language, but when one must respond to a different name as well.
   
3. Senegal = Paradox. Every morning, after taking a very cold shower (to be read: turn water on, wet self, turn water off, shiver, shampoo, inch away from giant cockroach, wash, turn water on, rinse, turn water off, realize bathroom may in fact belong more to cockroaches than to me, tip toe back to room, make mental note to buy shower shoes.), I then wait in my room for Khady (pronounced "rhahdee") to bring me my warm breakfast. I would expect neither of these experiences at home.
   
4. Mom was right. Recently, (could Colorado really have been that recent?) a wise mother said: "What is life, but a chance to break our hearts open and cry?" If a swollen heart is life, then I am most surely living it. I have never felt more displaced, aimless, uncomfortable and scared than I did on Thursday when I was finally shown to my room. Mind reeling, I shut the door and fell onto my bed, eyes already welling with tears. As my tears fell, I watched the rain fall inside of my room (leaking roofs are just another part of rainy season). What the hell am I doing here? A good question. I grasped desperately for shreds of normalcy in my current situation. I dug through my bag for familiar things. Who would have thought that my alarm clock, a bookmark, a plato quote, my parents' handwriting... could bring me so much comfort? I think I forgot my own humanity as I packed in Colorado... might I otherwise have included a Teddy Bear? So yes. I'm trying hard (and not quite succeeding, as my internet time is running out) to describe to you my biggest moment in Senegal thusfar. Scary. Eye-opening. Soul-searching. Made me finally come down to earth and ask a lot of WHY's. I'm still asking them... answers don't come easily... but I can now confidently say that I am LIVING this life. The good. The bad. The Cockroaches. The priveledge. The self doubt. The inspiration. I'm learning again to put my faith in the divine... and I'm atuning myself to those moments of learning. My first was right there on the bed, when I heard a tap on the window followed by the tiny voice of 6 year old Bachir: "Nafy, tu es ici?"

Oui, Bachir. I am here.

Yesterday:

Village des Arts
About 40 years ago, the Senegalese government decided to not only provide funding for talented regional artists, but to create an entire community for them. From that idea sprang "La Village Des Arts", an enclosed community made of selected rising artists. The government provides room, board, silence (a true commodity here in Senegal), and studios in which the artists can display their work. Artists stay until they can make a living for themselves...or indefinitely. (Some of the older artists tend to get comfy in the situation and take their time exiting the premises) What a way to truly embrace and support the arts.
...I find myself comparing it to the benefits of community that rise from a military academy in the US. The Senegalese prefer to create that community for their artists too.

Sea Urchin.
We adventurous SITers have - despite a few half-hearted warnings about urchins and rocks - been swimming on the local beach every afternoon. I finally decided to join in yesterday, having watched all the others go in and out of the ocean with ease. It was a lovely swim - temperate blue water, no rocks to be seen, no seaweed or under-water creatures... save one. Unlucky Lilly and I both drifted into a rockier patch of sea urchins. Very painful.

Stats:

• Lilly: 3 small needles in toe
• Meg: 11 larger needles in heel.

Tools:

• 1 swiss army knife
• 3 pairs of tweezers
• 1 needle
• 3 amateur surgeons
• 1 game of "find your pain threshold"

Now I find myself with only five needles left in my foot - all too small to operate on by my local surgical staff (Myself, Jesse, and Keates...we may not be professionals, but we're persistent.) A fun addition to the adventure arose when a few local guys tried to distract me from my foot surgery by singing me "american" songs: "I LAAAHV YOOOOOU...I MIIIIISSSS YOOOUUUU"... not exactly the Mischords, but it did dull the pain in my foot a bit. Young girl said in sweet, soft french: "Wipe your cheek - I can see where your tears were."

Jamm nga yendoo? Nunga fa!
This morning the gardener stopped, mid-wheel barrowing to make sure I was practicing my Wolof. Using my one day of Wolof class experience, I was able to discover that his name is Ibba Fahj...(something something...), that he is well, his day has been peaceful, and, thanks be to god, his family is also well.


A bit of housekeeping:
Due to spotty internet, it's easiest for me to receive notes from you via comments on this blog. I'll write comments back in the comment section whenever the chance arises- make sure to check for them! Emails are much harder to open and reply to. BUT...I love (love love love!) any and all communication!

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes - the day was indeed BIG, exciting, challenging (see last entry...), etc. Wonderful, all in all. Your well wishes only made it better. Last night (birthday night), the group went out to dinner at Chez Mimi's. Along the way, we were able to add to our gaggle of SITers:

1 Middlebury friend (MAREN!!! A student with CIEE)

1 Nigerian (Mary - feisty girl who we became acquainted with during a violent estrogen-filled game of spoon the night before. Laughter, claw marks, and several wrestling matches.)

1 Guinean (Yves - my neighbor, and a student here at Suffolk completing his BS in the Boston-Suffolk exchange program. He speaks VERY Limited English (about comparable to my Wolof) and fluent French. We speak French.)

2 friends from Burkina Faso (friends of Yves - a lively, fun addition to the party)

Chez Mimi, the hostess was not at all surprised to be pounced upon by a group of 18 with mangled French. Within seconds, tables were happily pushed together and chairs were scooted around to allow our herd to move in. I don't know that I've ever seen a more agreeable restaurant staff. (Laura, I can only imagine how the Red Robin staff might act in the same situation...visions of post-choir-concert burger gatherings and bitter waiters are flying through my head...) The other students made me a card and secretly bought me a green tie-dye sarong. Ah wonderful SIT friends... (I discovered later that my wardrobe had quite clearly displayed my fondness for the color green) All in all, a wonderful birthday, alxamdulilla! (thanks be to God!)
We were placed in our French groups today...Grace a l'ecole francais de Middlebury, je suis dans le niveau le plus avance! Thanks to Middlebury Language School, I'm in the highest level! I am truly thankful for this past summer of French...only just now am I realizing how much it has helped me in both my listening abilities and my comfort level with speaking to students, profs, my Senegalese brother, the gardener, Amadou the guard, Monsieur Mane...etc. Merci Middlebury!

Best quote so far (rough translation):
“You seem to really love living every moment. You’re in the right country for that.”

Salaamalekum! (malekusalaam!)
A new, improved, sun burnt, fishy-smelling, sandy, exhausted, and awed Meg writes to you today. While my last blog was only 3 days ago...(3? 4? 2? Senegalese time confounds me), looking back at it I realize in a quiet moment of despair that there is no possible way to even skim the surface of what has come to pass so far. Overwhelmed is not the proper world...I' m not sure I have one yet. Big. Intimate. Messy. Beautiful colors everywhere. Goats everywhere. I should be married. Why am I not? My knees are shameful. Americans don't smile enough. I am nice because I said hi when no one else did. Will I give money? An apple? I am so pretty. I want to pet a cat and can't. I'm holding hands with a child even though the health book told me not to. Bread and chocolate is an excellent breakfast.
- First off: Given an urn and told to use my people-skills and French to discover its significance, use, and occasions when one would use it. An older man says: "It is an incense pot used by women to embalm a room with scent after the rain, or to seduce her husband. You are married?"
- Discover that fortunes can be told with seashells. Gather ten in your hand. Open hand in sweeping motion to spread them across floor. Interpret.
- Find myself in the unexpected role of comforting a child who speaks only Wolof. Handholding commences. -One of my favorite Senegalese bands (L'orchestre Baobab) plays at a local club! SIT students and CIEE students band together to form mass of 25 white students. We take up half of the miniature nightclub, noting that the other half is frequented by very well dressed Senegalese officials. Wonderful music...band spilling off the tiny stage into the dark red and glowing yellow room. We danced conservatively but vibrantly...still noting that the Senegalese always managed to look more elegant. They danced in pairs - beautiful, old, subtle ballroom dances adapted to the pulsing jazz
- French interview and placement exam went well. I think I'm finally becoming comfortable truly speaking my mind in another language. The women interviewing me were charming and lively. Stunning moment: 2 Senegalese women complimenting me on my clothes! These means quite a lot coming from a culture that says: "Eat what you like, but dress according to us". Quite the confidence boost.
-Before meeting a member of my host family for an initial introduction, I felt more nervous than I even felt stepping onto the Africa-bound plane earlier this week. Interesting internal response to an event that I hadn't mentally considered to be much of a big deal.
- Met my host brother! (moving in with family on thurs). His name is Momo (spelling subject to change), he is 22, and he is extraordinarily gracious. I am somehow now directly related to the Minister of Industry and Arts of Senegal (my mother? aunt?...family trees here are like baobabs...big, windy, and impossible to fit your arms around! (let alone your head...)) I will live under the care of Grand mere...who speaks only Wolof. Salaamalekum. Malekusalaam (peace be with you. and also with you.)
- Wolof classes began yesterday. I sound a little like Fozy from the Muppets: "Naka wa ker ga?" I also realized that not only do I need to know French, I need to learn another language in it! Oy gevalt. -Today I turned 20! In celebration, I was dropped in the middle of Central Dakar with a buddy and 5000 CFA ($10) and told to complete a scavenger hunt, eat lunch, find out how much a banana costs, etc...then make my way home via bartering with a taxi driver. (ok, so this wasn't a birthday celebration per se, more like the class assignment for the day.) In the center of the city the roads are covered in taxis, mopeds, men selling newspapers and rags, children begging for donations for Arabic school (a daily ritual teaching humility), goats, cows, trash... and 2 Americans. We met a man named Monsieur Mane (mahnay) who told us about his hometown of Casamance, relations between Muslims and Catholics, the solidarity of Senegal, and his love for watching French horse races on TV. He ended up being a wonderful guide, who took us to his favorite restaurant, introduced us to the owner, and then accompanied us to the bank for security. Truly a wonderful man, with an altruistic heart! When we said thank you, he responded with (loosely translated) :"why are you thanking me? I am to thank you. Welcome to Senegal."

Africa!
After about two days of travel and six hours of sleep I've arrived, with my new group of equally jetlagged friends, in Senegal. It has been raining nonstop for the last 10 days - all the streets are flooded with about 10 inches of water, and many of the school roofs are leaking. Thankfully, until we move in with our host families next week, we'll live in wonderful, leak-free (for now...) dorm rooms, complete with AC. (much needed...HUMID). My hair is already a tiny bit curly. (amazing.)
We arrived at about 7:30am Senegal time (midnight thirty for those in Colorado...I'm 7 hours ahead of you, 6 hours ahead on MN, 5 hours ahead of Middlebury). I've already met my academic director and housing coordinator - both are welcoming and warm, with great senses of humor ;) I also met Anna, the student coordinator for this university, who immediately took us on an impromptu, very wet (this rain won't quit. It's a little like constantly taking a warm shower), tour of the school, complete with a random visit to the head dean, who did not seem at all shocked at the arrival of several dripping Americans in his office. I've been told that here in Senegal one must always be willing to stop and chat - thus far that seems to hold true even for those in the highest of positions! Continental breakfast: half a baguette, instant coffee, and hibiscus juice. (Surprising. Fruity, minty, spicy...).
Discoveries today:
I did not know that a van could function after driving for 20 miles through 10 inches of water. It can.
Hibiscus juice is wonderful.
Excitement can override jetlag.

...and that's just the beginning.

Welcome!
For the next four months, while I study, drum, converse, dance, and explore with the School for International Training in Senegal, I will be using this blog as my primary form of contact. Feel free to respond to any entry...I have a feeling that in the near future, all communication from your side of the ocean will be appreciated on a much deeper level. Love, *Meg


I leave in 11 hours. I'm ruffled.
Excitement? Yes. Nerves? Certainly. Anxiety? A bit. Sadness? Not that I'll admit to. (so yes, a little.) As I ponder each item going into my "25 lb" bag (quotations mark an improbable figure), I begin to feel like a fraud - I'm making this up as I go along and now it's getting a little too real.
The list says "poncho". I pack a poncho. My fingers move to the next item on the list, while my mind imagines me in said poncho, weathering varying degrees of precipitation. Monsoon-like winds and a lion are added for an "African" touch. How interesting: I am utterly naive and, to some degree, completely aware of it. Here's to willingly hurling oneself in the path of life.