Orientation, Part 2




a baobab tree near the beach on the plateau in Dakar

Here’s an account of my week of Orientation, Part 2.
    Last week, the French pre-session ended and this week we had a second orientation with all of the new students. On Monday we spent the day in Yoff in northern Dakar talking about living in Dakar and eating wonderful tiéboudienne (pronounced chebba jen, I finally found the right spelling, it is rice, fish, root vegetables, and eggplant cooked in a spicy tomato sauce) and yassa poulet (chicken with onion sauce) and French fries. French fries are very popular here. Every sandwich I’ve eaten in Senegal, even the falafel, has had French fries in it.
    On Tuesday, we went back to the Marche Sandaga (sorry for the misspelling in my second post) and went shopping for fabric. We took a car rapide to the marche. I spent the ride squished between a middle-aged woman and a very skinny little boy. It took twice as long as a cab ride, but it only cost 100F Cfa (which is about 20 American cents!). There is a guy that stands in the back and collects the money and everyone passes their money back to him and when you want to get off, you bang on the wall and the car stops and you jump out the back. It’s all a little messy, but a very cheap way to get around Dakar. We bought some really beautiful fabric and I bought a couple of tank tops, as it’s way too hot to wear a lot of the shirts I brought. For lunch we ate the falafel with French fries and afterward we went to a really beautiful beach on the plateau. Dakar is an interesting mix of super urban and beautiful beach. We swam for a bit then took the bus home.
    On Wednesday we went to Goree Island, which is off the coast of Dakar. It used to be a stopping place for slaves from all over West Africa on their way to America and the Caribbean. We visited the Maison d’Esclaves, where the slaves were kept before boarding the ships. We saw the door that they stepped through to get on the ships. The island is really beautiful, many of the original French colonial buildings are still there and they are all painted bright colors and covered with bougainvillea. It’s hard to imagine the slave trade even existing while you’re there. After the Maison we visited the Musee des Femmes and learned about the women of Senegal. There was a really interesting exhibit of the different styles of dress of each ethnic group in Senegal. The ways that the women here find to express themselves through clothes are really beautiful. We had a huge, delicious lunch on the island (I have eaten better this week than in my entire previous month in Senegal) and went swimming once again. I think I am going to come back to the U.S. part fish because of all the time I have spent here in the water. To get to Goree you have to take a ferry that says Beer on the side of it. Wednesday was a beautiful day, a little cloudy and cool, so the ferry ride was my favorite part of the trip.
Goree Island

the door that slaves left through to board ships to the Americas

maison d'esclaves

Kids fishing on the dock in Goree
sand paintings made by artisans on the island

    The rest of the week we spent in orientation and on Friday afternoon we had our first Wolof class! Just as a refresher, the Wolof are the largest ethnic group here (they make up 43.3% of the population according to the CIA Senegal Fact Sheet). So, most everyone, even if they are not Wolof, speaks Wolof in Senegal, it’s more widely spoken than French. Our teacher is really funny. His name is Cidy and he is probably 6ft tall and weighs 100lbs (ok, an exaggeration but that’s what he looks like). He made us pronounce each word and phrase until we had it right and he went around asking us each the questions that he was teaching us. I’m really excited to be able to communicate with my family in Wolof, cause that’s what they speak when they are not talking to me. The most important things I learned were how to say were “Degg uma Wolof bu baax,” (I don’t understand Wolof well) and “Waxal ndank ndank,” (Speak slowly). So, I’ll end with that Wolof lesson and look out for more soon!
Much love ☺

P.S. Sorry for the repetitious description of all the food, it’s a huge part of my experience here and mealtime is really the most important part of my day because I spend it with my family or in the case of this week, the new students. Also, I'm just a little obsessed with food in general.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mumbai Weekend

Image
Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and a typical crowd of selfie-takers We are safely back in the US, but I wanted to do one last post about our last few days in India.  They started out with a trip on the night train from Miraj to India.  The train trip was uneventful (if you don't count trying to use the bathroom while the train was bumping over the tracks), but our driver to the train station was a hoot.  He told us that Miraj was the city of 3 D's: Dust, Doctors and Donkeys.  This is a pretty accurate summary of the main features of Miraj :)  After a very bumpy train ride, we arrived in Mumbai.  On our first day, we visited the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, or King Shivaji Museum.  Shivaji was the founder of the Maratha Empire, which ruled India in the 18th century, and many places in Mumbai are named after him, including the airport and a train station.  The museum is a beautiful old building surrounded by a perfectly manicu...
Read more

Sokone and Toubab Dialao!

Image
pirogues about to go to Ngor Island Sorry for such a long break between posts, it’s been a crazy couple of weeks. Here’s an account of two little trips I have taken since I last posted. Enjoy and please comment! Sokone     We left for Sokone, a little town near the Gambian border, last Monday to work with the Cheikh Anta Diop University students on their “vacances citoyens.” Every year they go to rural towns and work in health clinics, teach computer skills and plant trees. After much waiting around on the first day (everyone keeps telling me that there is no concept of waiting in Africa, but it’s difficult to be patient), on our second day, we got up at 5am to eat with the students who were fasting for Ramadan and left at 7am to drive to the forest. The forest has very few trees, but the ground was covered in wild mint plants, which smelled amazing. We planted palm tree seeds. The boys dug the holes and the girls planted the seeds. This was a tiny demonst...
Read more

Korite and Kalaas!

Image
Fatu (my host cousin) and me on Korite Sorry there hasn’t been a post in a while, but here’s a little update about what’s been going on in Dakar ☺     Last Friday was Korite, the celebration of the end of Ramadan. I think the name Korite is individual to Senegal and in most of the Muslim world this celebration is called Eid. For my host family, it basically consists of wearing nice clothes and eating a gigantic lunch. My host mother and cousins were up most of the night before Korite cooking and cleaning the house. I accidentally slept to late and missed the beginning of eating, which started early with a very sweet drink that was like very thin and very sweet peanut butter with cooked millet mixed in. As you can imagine, I was not too disappointed to have missed that. When I got up, my cousin Daba lent me one of her outfits, which was way to long for me, but I fit in. We spent the morning cooking and sitting in the backyard. My host parents friends all came ...
Read more