I've been without internet access for a few days now, so I apologize for the delay. The days here are so long and yet they fly by... It's such a strange and wonderful feeling. So since I definitely don't have time to summarize it all, I'm just going to pull a few extracts from my personal ramblings and post them. I'll add some embelishments when I feel like it, too. Hopefully now that I have a more regular schedule I'll be able to post every few days again.
Thursday, Feb. 5:
The Drop Off. Exhausting. Have never spoken so much French before... After admitting to some idiot mistakes, like thinking Souleye said "money mint" instead of "monument" when describing where we were headed, and after a long debriefing with the full group, I feel much less overwhelmed by what happened. Literally emerged from taxi at a train station and was left to find answers to a full page of questions, with only two other SIT students. Besides being flogged by people wanting to sell us everything from t-shirts to guided tours (we accidentally fell into a guided tour, though... it's so hard to tell when the Senegalese are being friendly and when they are selling you something!) I learned quickly that downtown Dakar is unlike anything I have ever experienced. In some ways New York prepared me well, but everything is more intense. There is no such thing as solace. As a white person you are immediately and obviously labeled as a foreigner, and "non, merci" just wasn't enough to get vendors to stop following us--honestly for hundreds of feet. I'm also out of practice at bargaining (how long ago was my trip to Thailand? I was so much more precocious then!) By the time we finally got back to school after 7 hours out and about, I collapsed into a friend's lap. Thank goodness SIT has beautiful grounds--a garden with a palm tree looking bush in the center, mats to lie on, cool water... It's an oasis, to be sure...
Friday, Feb. 6:
Famous musicians came today from le Theatre National, sat in our meeting room and played a private concert for us. With dancing, no less! World renowned, absolutely incredible musicians. Am seriously considering forsaking my microcredit and economics related ideas for the independent study portion of the program in favor of an indepth study of the kora, a local instrument that is half way between a guitar and a harp. I was elated watching them play. Seriously, my face hurt so much from smiling. The djembe (drum) was pounding in my cheeks and in my chest and in my toes... World class musicians, three feet away from me. The woman who danced for us--Touti--looked so beautiful, it made me feel like my dance classes at Barnard were worlds away from reality. [Side note: we're visiting the Theatre National tomorrow for rhythm and drumming! You can imagine how excited I am... :o)]
Sunday, Feb. 8:
Past two days are blurring together in a bizarre blend of sensations. This has been my first weekend with my homestay family. Bashir is out of town on business, and la bonne (the live-in help) was out of town for a wedding, so it was just me and Abby and the girls (ages 5 and 2) for much of the weekend. Except today--Abby was at work and the girls were at their cousins. Which is conveniently when I managed to lock myself in the courtyard of our house (which is simultaneously inside and outside) for over an hour before a neighbor broke the bolt on the front door to help me out. I kept my cool for about 45 minutes, even with the sun and the flies, before realizing that both of the neighbors I had spoken to (through a small grating up high in the wall that divides the houses) were not coming back it seemed. I have no learned that crying is the universal sign for immediate help. Now that it's over I can laugh about it, but it was a long 75 minutes... I've rarely felt that completely helpless. Our academic director (Sarah) says that the homestay experience is a little like taking the 20 or 21 years you've spent developping independence and throwing them out the window. I certainly felt that way. It would have been embarassing to be locked out of my room in my pajamas at Barnard. To do it in Senegal, when I had to explain that the front door was bolted shut in french while being completely overwhelmed and upset, contemplating waiting 4 hours until Abby came home... I've almost never felt that completely overwhelmed by my own dependency... In fairness to myself, though, I've never seen this kind of lock in the US before. (You have to turn it... It can't be opened with a key. I had the key with me, at least, though it didn't do any good.) I had just woken up and I was going through my room, through the courtyard to the kitchen (which is kind of a free-standing building) to warm up water for my bucket shower. As you can imagine, the shower was very much needed by the time I finally got to take it... Oy. This story is better when I tell it out loud -- ask me about it sometime. :o)
The house is small. Very small. Which is interesting only because Bashir and Abby seem very upper-middle class to me. I guess I don't really have a frame of reference, though. There are four rooms: the master bedroom, the girls' bedroom, my bedroom, and the bathroom. Through my bedroom is a lovely little courtyard, and "in" the courtyard is a small building that contains the kitchen. We have a fridge and a freezer (and a microwave, though it's not plugged in. But microwaves are very rare here, indeed.) But the house has cable TV, and I am one of the few SIT students who is getting a warm shower (even if it is a bucket shower) every day. (We heat the water on a gas burner and then mix the boiling water with cold water from the tap.) The girls are adorable, though absolutely a handful. Soukeyna is five, and is incredibly bright. She's doing the kind of cursive practice excersises I did in 3rd grade. She wants to ride horses (or ponies? I can't really tell) but apparently it's very expensive and her school costs too much for Abby and Bashir to afford both. Djara is 2, and is either adorable or super annoying depending on the moment. I forgot that there was a universality to two year olds... I feel like I spent so much time preparing for how different everything would be that I didn't consider the similarities. Though my family has a much more western family dynamic than most: mother, father, two daughters, live in help. Many of my friends are living with families that have grandparents, children, grandchildren, cousins, all coming and going at different times, so much so that it's hard to tell who lives with them. I've visited two of my friends' houses so far -- it's a really cool experience.
I should probably run home for dinner now. I'll try and talk about the food sometime soon... It's... different. For sure. And if I had in any way wanted to lose weight here, it seems near impossible. People don't believe me when I say I'm full. My mother practically scolds me for not eating more. It's difficult, at times! And the food is so rich... Anyway, more on that later.
Expect another post Wednesday, maybe? Miss you all. Please know that I am happy and healthy (yay for being healthy!!) and that I am learning a lot. "Experiential learning," as we told to call it. :o) This is definitely a magnificent adventure I am having.
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