March 1

I've been here for about a week and a half now and just wanted to let everyone know that I've arrived arrived safely and am having an amazing time ! The flights from JFK and Paris went smoothly, had lots of bonding time with the group in the airports, and I would say that the culture shock/ adjustment period are probably going about as smoothly as possible.

We arrived in Dakar late last Sunday night and had a week of orientation. During this time we got to know the other students in the group, the academic director and other program coordinators, professors etc, became familiar with the city, and learned a ton about Senegalese culture.

Dakar is a big city, on the coast, with a very built up downtown area. My neighborhood and where I take classes is more residential, and the other students are living with families in all different areas.

Classes started on Monday and so far I am really enjoying them. It seems like a completely different approach to an academic semester and is incredibly focused on cultural immersion. I'm taking an introductory Wolof class (their regional language and what most people speak on the streets and at home here) a French class, where we will be correcting grammar and pronunciation, reading newspaper articles and novels, and having discussions, a field studies seminar, to show us different techniques in field and participatory research in preparation for our independent study project, and a seminar on Senegalese arts and culture, which involves a lot of workshops and demonstrations in Senegalese dance, drumming, and other arts. At the end of orientation last week we had a short tour of "le village des arts", which is a small community of artists who have studios funded by the government-later on we'll get to take a few classes in either batik making, glass painting, bronze sculpture, or Senegalese ceramics!

Besides the workshops our classes are held at the SIT (school of international training) villa in point E, an area of Dakar with lots of restaurants, an Olympic training pool, and tons of other students.

I'm living with a local Senegalese family in a neighborhood which is about a 10 minute walk from school! My family is very nice and has had other students stay with them before so they pretty much know the drill. Senegalese families tend to have tons of people living together under the same roof. I live with a young mother and father, (soukaya and papis) who are probably in their 30s, and who have 2 small children, kadija and amadou, both under 3 years old. Soukaya's sister also lives with us and shares a room with their mother, and the brother of Papis, Samba has a room upstairs. Also living in the house is a nanny and maid (which is common for Senegalese families and not anything like the American concept of a maid) who I've become very friendly with and who have been overly welcoming and friendly towards me.

The national dish of Senegal is fish and rice, which I've been eating quite often. The food here overall has been very good, and I am always encouraged to eat more! For dinner every night we in a circle with a big platter in the middle from which everyone eats. Usually at home the family members speak wolof to each other, so its difficult for me to understand and contribute to the conversation, though whenever I ask questions or they address me we speak in French. Though I still have tons to learn, I definitely feel very comfortable with my French when talking with my family or speaking to people in the city. I think the hardest part has been accepting that I'll be making tons of mistakes and getting over the fear of approaching strangers, but everyone is always very impressed when we greet them in wolof.

I'm out of time at the cybercafé, so will have to end here, though there's tons more to tell you!

I miss you all and cant wait to catch up! I'm thinking of you and hope that all is well at home

I can't believe it's almost March ! February seems to be flying by, but I'm really having a great time. It's the end of the school week here -- tomorrow the group is leaving for a week-long trip to Kedougou which is in the south eastern part of senegal, where we will be staying in various rural villages. I'm excited for the trip! It'll be nice to have an opportunity to get out of Dakar and to have a change of pace.

Overall, everything here has been going really well. I'm enjoying my classes, eating well, joking around with my host family, learning how to do laundry, and loving everything that Senegal has to offer. The other day a member of my host family braided my hair, so I'll be rocking "les tresses" for a little bit! I had tried to explain that I really only wanted her to do a few so I could see how it looked, but the next thing I knew my entire head was braided. I guess something was lost in translation. mais c'est pas grave, everyone at school was really jealous the next day.

Last week we had a dance and drumming workshop downtown at the national theater. Each afternoon we spent an hour learning djembe, with one of the most accomplished drummers in Senegal, and traditional Senegalese dance with a hilariously intense Senegalese performer. The dance was tons of fun, though its difficult to find the beat in the music and definitely an hour long workout, and djembe was a lot harder than I had imagined, but also an absolute blast. Everyone was really patient and helpful, and it was definitely a great experience.

Last Saturday the group went on a day trip to Mbour, which is a town about an hour and a half south of the city on the coast. There we went on a mini Safari in wildlife reserve that is home to a variety of herbivores-saw some giraffes, gazelle, rhino, beautiful birds, crocodile etc. and of course tons and tons of beautiful baobab trees. We then spent the afternoon at the beach, swimming, reading, and playing soccer before heading back to Dakar. Saturday night we found ourselves again at the national theater, this time to watch a "ballet", which what was apparently a very important and glamorous event- our djembe teacher invited us during class earlier that week, and helped us get in through the back entrance because we weren't dressed up enough to get in the front door! But the performance was absolutely amazing, and it seemed like a mix of traditional dance and music and more modern, cosmopolitan scenes. Senegalese "ballets" are much more vibrant and energetic than what I'm used to- during the middle of some songs members of the audience (mostly women) would get up and start dancing, eventually finding their way to the stage, where it looked like they were all having a great time.

After school one day this week I went with a few friends to another part of the city where an ndeop ceremony was taking place. An ndeop is a community event that is held to help cure someone of mental illness. I don't think I can appropriately describe all that we saw, but it was basically a gathering of over 100 women at the end of a dirt street, circled around a group of women dancing and drumming, what looked like fighting, seizing, and clapping, etc. I'm not sure if there was any sort of methodological routine, and am unsure of the reason for the majority of what happened, but it was definitely a sight to see. I also felt very welcomed there and part of the community instead of like an outsider, because people went out of their way to make sure that we had a seat and could see what was going on.

Crazy and exciting things happen all the time, it sometime seems like too much to take in. But I also find myself having the most fun when I'm able to just sit at home and have Attaya, Senegalese tea with my uncle and his friends. The Senegalese usually have 3 cups of jasmine tea, a gathering which can last anywhere from about an hour to all afternoon. An extra cup is always prepared for someone who decides to stop by without warning! It's great to be able to relax and chat and joke around with the people around me. I really appreciate how welcoming and patient everyone has been, they have really made me feel so comfortable here.

Thank you to everyone who has been in contact through email/snailmail! I love hearing from you!

Hello again from Senegal, things here are all going well! The trip to Kedougou a few weeks ago went really well and was definitely an interesting and exciting experience. We all piled into the SIT tour bus for a long trip southeast across the country which probably took about 20 hours in total each way. Besides the lack of circulation in the bus, the ride there and back was actually really fun and relaxing. It was good to have time to just chat, read, write, and look out the window. Most of the landscape was pretty dry and dull but the colorful clothing and fabrics of all the men and women we passed more than made up for the lack of color in the natural landscape.

Kedougou is a pretty large town in the far south east but is fairly removed from any sort of big development and is surrounded by various rural villages of ethnic minorities. Our group of 21 kids was split up into 6 groups and sent to spend a few days living with host families in the villages. Along with two other girls on my trip, I ended up living with the Peul Fouta ethnic group, who are farmers and herders and who migrated to Senegal from Guinea in the 1930s. The village had no running water or electricity, but I would say the biggest challenge was the intense heat (around or over 100 degrees F everyday) which made everyone pretty lethargic. We spent the three days doing various activities with the people in the village- taking a tour of the village and all the compounds, traversing the Gambia river, exploring the fields and gardens, helping a bit with the cooking and laundry, playing soccer, teaching card games, entertaining the children, watching my host mother milk a cow, and of course preparing tea and chatting for hours. We also picked up a few phrases in Pulaar, which is the language spoken by all of the Peul and is similar to Wolof in the sense that both languages have Arabic roots.

I really enjoyed my time spent in the village and met a lot of really warm and welcoming people. It was great to see a different way of life and to have a change of scenery from the bustling streets of Dakar. Besides spending time in the village, the group had several days to explore the area around Kedougou together. One day we drove along a dusty dirt road in the back of a pick up truck to a beautiful waterfall two hours away. It felt like paradise swimming in the cold clear water and having a picnic with sandwiches and hibiscus and baobab juice! We went on a few hikes to different villages that were built on the top of nearby mountains and also had some time in the market to look around and buy some of the local indigo dyed fabric.

Though the trip was great, its great being back in Dakar and getting back into a routine. I missed my host family here and gave everyone a big hug when I got home! Last week we had more drumming and dance classes, and this week we had art workshops. Every afternoon I got to experiment with different Batik techniques. Batik is when hot wax is put on fabric in different designs and then dyed different colors—the final product looks a little bit like African tie dye.

This week we also got 4 new students from the SIT Madagascar program who had to be evacuated due to the political unrest. They are all really nice people, though I am sure are feeling overwhelmed about everything that has happened the past week. Overall, we’re really happy to have them, and I think they’re happy to be here finishing their semester abroad.

Not much else is new here, the semester is flying by and it’s already almost time for our independent study project. I’m definitely stressing about that a bit because I’ve changed my mind so many time sand can’t really decide on what I exactly want to study. Next week we leave for another village stay and then head up to St. Louis for some lessons in French colonial history! I’m excited for another trip and to have the opportunity to see a different part of the country.

Please write back and let me know how you all are doing! I love hearing from you and also looove getting letters…thanks for all the mail! I miss and love you and think about you all the time, and can’t wait to show you pictures and share more stories!

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Entry #4

April 10, 2009

Asalaama alekum, yeenangi noos?

Bonjour et how are you?

Hello again from Senegal, I’m constantly amazed at how quickly the semester is going. Thank you to everyone who has sent letters and emails and who I’ve had the chance to talk to on the phone, it’s great to hear from you and I love all the updates from home and elsewhere in the States/world!

Everything is great here in Dakar and we’ve had an exciting couple of weeks! About two weeks ago we left for a 10 day trip to Thies, Touba, and St. Louis. We left Dakar on the SIT tour bus early on Thursday morning heading towards the town of Thies, which is about an hour and a half- two hours east of Dakar. On the way we stopped at the Lac Rose, which is actually a pink lake not far outside the city. The water is colored pink because of all the salt in the area; bags and bags of salt lined the banks of the lake, so it was clear that the locals used it as a source of income. We arrived in Thies for lunch and then had a few hours to shop in the market and pick up gifts (sugar, candles, soap, tea, school supplies) for our homestay families in our second rural village stay.

We spent Thursday afternoon through Sunday in rural villages about 10 Km outside of the city. I lived in the village of Ker Dembe Kebe and was immediately welcomed by a crowd of friendly faces and waving children. My host mother was a generous and good hearted woman maybe in her mid 50s, who had the most beautiful smile in the world. She promptly took me around to all the nearby houses to meet all of my new relatives and neighbors, though it was virtually impossible to remember everyone’s name. It was clear that kinship and family connections are highly valued in the community because I was immediately asked my last name, who my mother was, and who my father was, after all of the formal salutations and handshakes.

Sitting alone in my room that first night, I was sure that the three days we were scheduled to stay there would seem like years. I had forgotten my Wolof notebook, the one possession that was perhaps the most important and would have been the most useful in communicating and forming a relationship with my host family and the other members of the village. Most people there only speak Wolof, with a few exceptions of the young adults and children who go to the local school and learn French. I realized that even the simplest of tasks or needs would be a process to explain or communicate and that up until this point in my life I had taken spoken and written word for granted.

It definitely took time in the village for me to begin to feel comfortable and to start to understand their routines and habits. Being forced to use my limited knowledge of Wolof was both a humbling and motivating experience and I soon realized that my host family looked right past my errors and appreciated the fact that I was trying my hardest to learn their language and understand their way of life. It was of course frustrating not being able to fully express myself or pose questions about what I was most interested in, but the overwhelming amount of patience and encouragement through which I was received proved to be more enlightening an experience than anything I could have learned about these people in a textbook or while doing research on the internet.

I spent the days in the village helping out with daily chores such as doing the laundry and cooking meals. I also got to carry a baby on my back for the first time since being here! Each morning I spent over an hour at the water pump with my sister in law gossiping and joking around with the other women. We also had the opportunity to explore the surrounding areas and see their vegetable gardens and fields. The last night the village held a celebration for all the students; we were dressed up in traditional clothes given to us by our host families, had our hair braided, given henna tattoos, and brought to the village center for a dancing and drumming circle! It was tons of fun and an incredible experience, and great to feel like we were part of their small community.

As always, leaving was hard, but I hope to go back to visit the village for a weekend later this month. On our way to St. Louis we stopped in the town of Touba, which is considered a very pure and religious town and home to the Grand Mosque, one of the largest Islamic monuments in Western Africa. I believe the mosque was opened in the 1960s. The architecture and details are absolutely beautiful, and we had to cover our heads, arms, and legs to enter.

After visiting the mosque we drove the rest of the way to St. Louis, a city in the northern part of the country. St. Louis was the first capital of Senegal and is a cute little city on the coast with tons of shops, galleries, and restaurants. While we were there we attended lectures on the importance of St. Louis in the history of Senegal, French colonial history, and local literature. We were given assignments to research various historical landmarks and presented our findings in French at the end of the week. Although we still had work to do, we had plenty of time to explore the city, do some shopping, and go to the beach. One afternoon we walked along the beach to Mauritania (the country directly to the north of Senegal) and had a picnic of bread cheese and wine. SIT also arranged for us to visit the Langue de Barbarie (a national park) and tour the area in a pirogue, which is an open air brightly painted wooden boat.

The last day we went to the Independence Day parade in the center of town. There were kids from all the local schools marching in the parade as well as religious leaders, members of the red cross, military personnel, etc. It seemed like the entire city was there watching because the streets were packed, with people climbing walls and trees to get a better view.

Although the trip was great, I was excited to get back to Dakar and see my host family again! One of my sisters met me on the street and gave me a big hug, and everyone was interested to hear about the trip. Our period of independent research begins this week and I’m really happy that I’ll be staying with them for the next few weeks. I’ve decided to do research on role of traditional dress in Senegalese culture and hope to work with a local tailor and take a few sewing classes. I’m excited for the research but also a bit nervous about having to schedule my time and plan out exactly what I need and want to do.

Ok all for now, but I’ll be in touch again soon! Please let me know how you’re all doing and what’s new on your end! I loooove hearing from youuuu

Miss and love you tons!

Ba beneen yoon, bisous,

Erin