Settling into the culture

Now we have been here for three weeks, it is almost unreal that it hasn't been that long. In that time we landed, orientated to Dakar, started living with a host family and began taking classes, all while learning about the culture around us. My family that I am living with in Dakar, needs some explanation, as they are important, fun, and confusing to explain! First off there is the mother, father and aunt (no, I don't know names, I am terrible with names here because they are all so round sounding they roll off my tongue and out of my head), all of whom are at least in their 80s.

After the older generation there is my sister, who seems to be in her mid 20s, and my brother, Alioune and his wife who live upstairs next to me. They have four children, Moussa is 11, Sheriff is 8, Hjadi (I believe that is her name) is 4 and the baby Daba is just over 1 month. My brother and mother are the ones I have the most communication with, as they both speak French fluently and are interested in my life. There are also four female maids that live with the family, all of whom are in the their mid teens, and one adult male driver who drives the family car. I try to make connections with the maids, as they are closer in age to me, however they are always busy when I am home and so it is hard to make connections. To Americans, having maids is an odd concept, but here it is very natural. In the Islamic religion, giving back to people, and so if you are wealthy it is expected that you help others by giving them jobs, rather then spending the money on yourself.They are very generous with me, and it's been nice that they allow me to come and go as I please, but I wish that there was more that I could do with them. My mother owns a boutique where she and the man that works there make hand made traditional clothes (the equivalent would be a tailor). I have been talking to the man who works there, and when I get back from the village stay I will be able to help him with some of the clothes. I also hope that he will be able to make me a traditional outfit for Tabaski, which is a big celebration here on November 7th.
We had two weeks of classes and getting used to life in Dakar, which was great because I ended up getting sick. Everyone gets sick here at least once, but it was nevertheless a very tough situation to be in. My family especially had a hard time understanding that I was really sick, and that I needed to eat plain simple foods. Here, rice is eaten with every meal, but it is smothered in sauce and a little bit of meat. Generally, I love this food, but when I was sick, I did not want to eat it. I will spare you the gross details, but I basically didn't eat much at home, had bread from street vendors, and slowly gained strength back. By the time we were ready to leave for our week long excursion, I felt much better! The next update will be from my village stay, but it will just be photos, as it is very difficult to explain everything that happened there. In essence, we stayed in a village for 3 days/nights, in a family that hardly spoke french, just Wolof. I am having a blast, and enjoying every minute so much! Here is a picture on our afternoon off from classes, and we decided to go to the beach, what a life we have!

Finally, some music!

I want to share an amazing musical experience (one of very few so far) that I participated in on friday. At school (aka the SIT building where we take classes. Please note that we are on the fifth floor of a building being built as we study, oh Senegal!) we had a group of musicians come and speak to us about traditional Senegalese instruments, as well as perform. These musicians are some of the top in Senegal, and many if not all of them have traveled to the US on tours and such.  The man on the left is playing the Kora, an instrument very similar to the harp in that you need to change the levers to change keys. He is a professor of the Kora, and also performs with rap and other musical groups. The woman sitting behind him is the dancer. Dancing is integral to traditional Senegalese music, even the musicians dance as they play! Next to her is one of the Djembe performers. Next is the added drum player for effect (I believe he is also playing a Djembe, but I'm not positive). Finally there is the main Djembe performer, who gives world tours and is considered a grand master of the Djembe. These performers played each of their instruments individually, and then did a jam session together, it was so wonderful to hear traditional music, especially by such talented performers. There was one more performer who played the Tamma (Talking Drum), but he is not in the first picture because he was late (Not uncommon, time is not at the fore-front of anyone's mind here), but here is a close up of how you play the instrument. It's very loud, and when he does a solo, it almost looks like he is a male bird, trying to engage the females in his loud song and dance. While they were performing, I took a couple videos, so here is one with the dancer in the front doing a traditional dance of sorts. Really, I hope that this is NOT the dance we will be learning, because it is a little bit challenging. Although we did try some moves ourselves during this session, it was a great way to relieve some excess energy!

Saalamalekum Dakar!

I have made it safely to Dakar, and although I have only been here for five days, I feel so much more comfortable then I did before. The first 24 hours were pretty shocking, and I don't think any of us were quite prepared for it. We leave the plane, breeze through customs, get our bags from the only working carousel in the place and immediately are hassled by people taking our bags and asking us to take taxis. We saw our program director (Souleye), but he was very vague about where we were to go to find our bus, and we almost were dragged away by men telling us "come with us, we have taxi", but finally we met Bouna (the assistant director) and he got us safely on the bus. That was our "Bienvenue à Dakar!" Here is a photo from the bus at 6 am of the airport at Dakar. Even at that hour, it was crowded!

We have been staying at the hotel "Good Rade", from which the name "Île de Gorée" is derived (I believe "Rade" was the last name of the Purtuguese man who settled it), which is a very nice, air conditioned hotel on the outskirts of Dakar, between the airport and the city center. On our first day, three of us went on a walk around the hotel, this here is the view from an overpass of the VDN, which is the major highway connecting the airport to the rest of the city. The yellow bus in the lower corner is called a car "rapide", and is a cheap way to travel around (although none of us have tried it yet, we are all dying to jump on!)

Most of our days have been spent at the SIT headquarters, in the Sacre Coeur area. We are learning about the culture of Senegal (which we did by getting an object, and going in the streets to ask locals what it was we had!), as well as all the safety and health precautions we have to take (don't worry for those of you concerned, I know how to protect myself, and I am being safe!). This is a picture of Erica and I on the roof of the SIT building (which is still under construction, we are on the fourth floor of an empty building that has no plumbing, and VERY spotty electricity, but we have internet! Sometimes). In the background you can see a hill (here it's called a mountain, go figure) that has the statue of Ouakam. This was given to Senegal about a year ago by the North Koreans, and it is a man, woman and child pointing to Mecca. Not sure why North Korea was feeling the need to give Senegal this gift, but it's there!

Another huge aspect of the culture that I was perhaps not expecting was how much our french will not help us out. Although most people here speak french, everyone speaks Wolof, and many do not speak french. Therefore it's very important for us to learn Wolof. However, its very nice that we can speak french (at least conversational, I can hold my own) because they assume we are European, as apparently most americans don't even bother to speak french). The people here is so friendly, I don't think I have ever felt so welcomed into a culture. They willingly come up to you, even if they don't want to sell you something, sometimes they just want to give you a high five or chat. Today we went out into Downtown Dakar, on our own (in groups of three) and had to navigate different areas of Dakar. Our groups chosen area was a traditional African Market. It was very crowded, smelly, dirty and sweaty, but what an experience! There was a lot of stalls along the street, but there was a huge covered market, that used every possible available space to sell goods. There were vegetable stands, fish, chickens (cooked, uncooked, alive, you name it), spices, beans, peanuts, dried flowers for juices, and anything you can imagine! The strangest part was seeing all the cut open fish heads, with blood everywhere and flies on everything. I would post a picture from this area, but we were not allowed to photograph, and I don't think I could've gotten to my camera even if I had wanted to!

Finally, you knew it wouldn't be a blog by me if I didn't address the food! The traditional Senegalese dishes are eaten when seated on a mat (pictured here), where you take your shoes off to sit, and everyone eats with their right hand only. It is quite a fun experience to put your hand right in the food, but it takes some skill to roll it into a ball and pop it into your mouth without all of it collapsing and falling on you or the mat. Traditionally, the mom will "feed" her children by breaking up the pieces of meat, and placing it front of the children, so they have their portion. We felt like children because our professors would "feed' us in this manner, all while laughing while we struggled to eat properly! This dish here is called Cebujem ( I spelled that wrong, sorry!) and is a very spicey rice, and fish dish. We have also tried several other traditional meals this way, including Yassa poulet and a peanut sauce dish (the name escapes me). Everything is very delicious but incredibly meat dependent, which is hard to adjust to. The drinks are also great, there is gingebre (ginger juice, practically solid ginger), bissap (a hibiscus drink, very sweet) and a juice made from the fruit of the baobab tree.
So there you have it, my first week so far of life à la Sénégalese! Tomorow I go to live with my homestay family, who seem very sweet, and I will have very limited internet access from then on. I hope everyone is doing well, and I will post when I am able!

Pre-Departure....Jitters?

Well, I guess it is about time I get this going! I now have a little less then 12 hours before the first plane takes off and all I can feel is excitement. My bags are almost packed to the best of my ability (minus those little odds and ends that I suddenly remember and have to do a run around the house for) and my mind is focused on the trip ahead. For those of you who are not completely clear as to what I am up to for the next year, this is the scoop! I am flying to Dakar, Senegal (if you don't know where Senegal is, check out a map, as my description of where it is involves hand signals, which cannot be conveyed on a blog very well) where I will be staying until December 21st. First I will have orientation with my program and then I will be plunged into living Senegalese style with a host family (who I know nothing about as of right now). The first two thirds of the program will consist of taking classes in French, Wolof (the dominant African ethnicity of the area) and various cultural workshops. After that period we will each be conducting a research project, on a subject of our choosing (although it must somehow relate to "national identity and the arts", which is the program title) and present it at the end of the program. Then I will say au revoir to Senegal, and Bonjour Europe!! I will be off on the second part of my adventure to Europe, more specifically to Vienna to study music (I couldn't think of a better place to study music, so I guess this will do).
For now, my jitters consist of so much excitement that I forgot one of my shoes in the glove box of my car, and eating my final meal in the U.S (Thai food, oh how I will miss you). Once I am settled in Dakar, I will be sure to post again, but for now, I'm off for lands yet charted by this lone ballardite!