Notes from Barcelona

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This is an actual thing that I saw!

So, Barcelona? Was kind of excellent. Both for reasons I expected (it’s Europe), and reasons I didn’t (I really liked not being the translator anymore). Because I’m terrible at keeping track of things in a linear fashion (particularly when on enough Senegalese sudafed to take down a small horse, because—of course—I’m sick again), here is a set of things that I remember from the trip, in no order except for the one my brain tosses them out in.

The last night we got dinner, we went to a tapas sports bar, which combined two of my favorite things—tiny food and cute waiters—into one. The tapas were served in what is apparently a standard fashion there. Partially to make things easier for the bartender and partially to make it so that the drunk people/me eat lots of tiny things, all of the tapas are the same price. You grab as many as you want and when you pay, the waiter counts the number of toothpicks on your plate. Clever! Delicious! One of the tapas available at this particular bar was basically two inches of cream cheese with jam and toast, which is in no way authentic but is in all ways delicious. So that was awesome.

On the cute waiter front, the guy who took our drink orders was a) maybe 19 and b) learning job-specific English in an excellent fashion. He, like everyone in the Barcelonan service industry, as far as I can tell, spoke perfectly good English. However, he had apparently not heard many people order “cider” in English (I’m better at consuming fermented juice than I am at learning Spanish), and so as he wandered away he was muttering “cider” to himself in order to memorize the English pronunciation, as far as I can tell. Adorable? Adorable.

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Mo’ Money, No Problems (and a Return to Dakar)

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I love these carts so much.

You guys, I have a new theory: the ratio of happiness gained per dollar spent? (The mo’ money, no problems quotient, as it were.) It is far and away highest in the airport.

You laugh*, but it’s totally true. Take, for example, my trip through Dakar via Paris. Because I was scared that my debit card wouldn’t be approved in a foreign country/I wanted to save money, I refused to buy wireless coverage, real honest-to-god restaurant food, or booze. I wound up sweaty, exhausted, and near tears in the airport bathroom, ready to keel over from exhaustion. Continue reading →

Parents! In Dakar!

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Becca and me, stylin'.

Unrelated to anything in this post, I have a new dress. (I'm the one that looks like Mrs. Frizzle on acid.)

So, my parents are in Dakar. It’s both delightful (I have missed them! They are staying in a swank hotel that looks like an Indiana Jones set!) and strange (They don’t speak French! Everyone thinks my dad is German for unknown reasons!).

Mostly, though, this trip has given me an insight into how little of downtown Dakar I have visited. This is not entirely due to my homebody ways–my program directors have managed to convince me that downtown is full of Riots, All The Time.

It turns out that that’s not true! (Knock on wood.) Mostly downtown Dakar is full of really good (if expensive) food and hilariously unsafe traffic. Also, there’s embassies. Like, twenty of them within a block of our hotel. I can’t tell if there was a meeting about it or if the tax rate in this part of town is great, but this place is internationally bouncing. Continue reading →

Cold Showers are Unpleasant

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Not hair product. Just endless, endless sand.

So apparently my family is reading this blog. Hi, family! Welcome. I’m sorry that this is vaguely incoherently copyedited pretty much always. (Please don’t tell my English professors.)

ANYWAY. Back to what I was thinking about, which was: cold showers. Specifically, the fact that I have been taking one a day for–just checked the calendar–25 days (there were hot showers during orientation)–and I have still in no way grown accustomed to them.

At the beginning, cold showers seemed like a surmountable obstacle. Everyone else here does them, I figured, and so I should be able to too. It’s not like I’m hanging out taking leisurely, thinking-type showers. I’m basically doing a slightly glorified version of hair-face-pits-crotch-feet and bouncing. My mid-back has not seen water in literally two weeks, and I can’t tell if what’s going on back there is dirt or sunburnt skin that won’t peel or what, because it does not contribute to my overall odor factor. Continue reading →

Dresses! Also, boredom!

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I could lie and say that I’ve quit updating as regularly because I’ve been off exploring Dakar, but that would be a complete lie. Mostly, my computer got knocked off a desk and its screen imploded, so that’s been putting a cramp in my style. Rather than using the extra time to learn Wolof/figure out how to barter at all successfully, I’ve been taking naps, reading, and talking to my host dad. It turns out that Dakar is a lot like the year that I moved to Atlanta, in terms of my active social life and propensity to take risks.

As an aside, yesterday my host dad told me that I need more friends. I may need to reevaluate some life choices here.

Life is not all incredibly boring, though! Last week, I went to the HLM market, the local source for all things fabricy, with a friend. (See, host dad!) I took the wax cloth that I bought to the tailor in order to have it whipped into garmenty shape, and I picked the dress up yesterday. The whole setup cost $17 (fabric plus labor), and fits wonderfully. Plus: fabric covered buttons and pockets. I think the tailor may have replaced the guy who works at the sandwich shop behind school as my favorite person I’ve interacted with this week. Continue reading →

There’s a Frood Who Really Knows Where Her Towel Is

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I have finally accomplished one of the few things that I really needed to do while I was in Dakar: two weeks after moving here, I finally bought a towel.

It was more complicated than you might think. Not all of the population uses towels—instead, the long wrap skirts that women wear to cover their legs when eating also do double duty as something to dry yourself with.

As a result, despite the fact that everyone in the program was on the lookout for me, it took a week for anyone to actually find towels in a store. Even then, that store was in the incredibly swanky mall downtown, and—because rich Dakarois will apparently pay through the nose for stupid things—cost 30,000 CFA ($15.00). For comparison, a large loaf of French bread (the favored breakfast, lunch, and dinner of everyone in the city) costs 100 CFA ($.20).

So, not wanting to pay through the nose for a towel—not to mention the cab fare that it would take to get to the insane mall and back—I bided my time. In the interim, I air dried and used a scarf that I had brought when I absolutely needed to dry my hair or wipe toothpaste grossness from my chin. (I am the sexiest international traveler.)
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Awkward Moments in Cross-Cultural Communication

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At lunch today, I realized that the maid who works in my host family’s house does not speak French. This is somewhat embarrassing, given that I’ve been living here for a week.

We had been getting along just fine with gestures and avoided eye contact. It turns out “no, that doesn’t go there,” and “I find it funny that you cannot ever light the stove,” are messages that can be conveyed totally without words. I had assumed that the rest of the time she was just busy or shy.

But no, it turns out that she has avoided talking to me because we do not share a mutually intelligible language. Whoops.
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Senegal: Week 1

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This was written during my first week in Senegal. Due to craptastic wifi coverage, it hasn’t seen the light of day until now. Enjoy!

It is an interesting experience having everyone who comes into contact with you assume that you’re slightly retarded.

That’s been my major takeaway from my first week in Senegal, where—I swear to god—every time I interact with a new member of my host family they look at me and say (in very sympathetic French), “Oh, so you don’t know French?”

I’ve taken French since I was 12. I used to be good at it. I have given up trying to explain that my French used to be better back before I didn’t speak it for two years, both because a) I don’t think anyone believes me, and b) I no longer possess the knowledge of the appropriate tenses required to express this sentiment.

For the record, my French used to be better before I didn’t speak it for two years.

Other than that, this week has been full of the sorts of things one learns when one watches a lot of foreign TV with one’s elderly host parents. For example, when they score a goal, the Ghanan soccer team dances (I swear to god that this is true) the Soulja Boy. Also, at 8:30 tonight the local news station played 3 Brittany Spears videos from the mid-90’s without any explanation. They weren’t even the classics—this was like the b-sides of her first album. Continue reading →

I Want to Be Able to Joke

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I think my host family finds me to be slightly dour (and more than a little simple). Most people who encounter me in English-speaking contexts do not, I hope, share this impression. In English, I’m funny (usually) and loud (sometimes) and a presence to be reckoned with.
But in French (and it’s even more difficult cousin, Frolof), I’m unable to joke. I’m also usually unable to understand other people’s jokes. It’s a crapshoot as to whether I’m able to respond to direct questions, most of the time. About the only thing I’m able to do with any consistency is obey direct orders to go get things out of the kitchen, and even then they have to be set out for me or I’m unable to find them.
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Burning Tires of Rage

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So one of the news stations in Dakar (Walf TV, the favorite of my family) enjoys using the Rocky theme song as lead-in and lead-out music. Normally this is just an amusing bit of copyright violation, but tonight it took on a dimension of the surreal.

For those not up to speed on Senegalese politics, it was recently ruled that the current president can run for a third term. To make this happen, he bought off the constitutional council (who decided this). Folks are mad, and have spent parts of the last week rioting. End history lesson! Continue reading →