Tag Archives: dakar

Dance the Night Away

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This weekend marked the end of rural visits and the beginning of spring break, so it was somewhat obligatory that it be ridiculous. It started simply enough–a program friend suggested that, instead of going to the monthly ex-pat party (ridiculous in its own way) we go to the party that a fellow student’s host brother’s youth group was throwing to raise money for those unable to afford medical bills. We figured that if it was terrible, we could always cab over to the expat party nearby.

So, off we trekked in a couple of cabs. The group consisted of several program girls and a friend’s lone, male language partner (who, ironically, is actually from Chad and so does not speak Wolof). The language partner is good people–at pre-party drinks, he talked about not knowing what he wanted to do once he finishes law school, given that his parents already want him to settle down and get married. His mom wants grandkids. I made a Jewish mother joke, he laughed politely (if uncomprehendingly) and all was well.

Once we got to the party, the first of many confusing but delightful realizations was had–namely, that the party was being held on the top floor of a bakery. We said hello to the host brother (who promptly retreated with his program girlfriend for canoodling) and–since it was midnight and we were the first to arrive–set about interpretive dancing. Continue reading →

Cultural Whiplash

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Sometimes I have days where I feel reasonably secure in my ability to function in my life here in Dakar. Other times, I feel like I may in fact be completely broken. Today I had both of these experiences within about five minutes of each other, and felt what I can only describe as cultural acquisition whiplash.

The positive experience was–as almost all of my positive experiences are–an interaction with my tailor, Ousmane. I like him both because he makes me pretty, pretty clothes and because he is the most deadpan human being that I have met since leaving the United States. He’s great.

I was passing by his shop this evening with a friend when I saw him outside taking a smoking break. We waved. He waved back. Then, he hissed at me (the way that most folks here indicate, “I don’t remember your name despite knowing the circumfrence of your entire body, but I have something to tell you”). Continue reading →

NGO Yenta

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It is Friday morning here, which means that I do not have classes. Permenant three-day weekends are both great (free time!) and terrible (boredom, probable hatred of my host siblings with school on Friday). But on this particular week I am very, very glad for this setup because it allowed me to sleep off the remainders of a disgusting intestinal ailment that struck Thursday morning.

I do not know what I ate that disagreed with me, but it did so with gusto. As a result, after coming home from school yesterday, I had a four-hour nap. Then I was back in bed at 10:30 and slept for another 12 hours. I was awake for maybe 12 hours of yesterday. I feel better, though still not up for competitive eating.

(As an aside, I learned this week that if I am in my room with my lights off, my host mother just assumes I am not home. She didn’t realize I was in the house for the four hours that I was asleep yesterday. Whoops.)

I leave Monday for my rural visit. I’ll be staying with some employees of APROFES, an organization that works on women’s empowerment in a way that’s less development-cheese than that sounds. In particular, I’m interested in their role as a facilitator of that process–most of what they do is talk to women who would like funds/assistance of the NGO variety, find an NGO that is equipped to provide those funds/assistance, and put them in touch with each other. They’re like a development yenta.

Continue reading →

On Cultural Stress

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So for class (“Seminar on Living and Learning in Dakar,” which is equal parts wonderful group therapy and headdeskingly awful) I had to write about what cultural intensity factors (which used to be “stress” factors, but we don’t like that word) have been the biggest for me. The cultural intensity factors we were able to reference–things like language, cultural expectations, visibility/invisibility–are basically a pared-down list of Why Field Work is Hard. If you’re interested, consult the second part of the first chapter of every ethnography I’ve read in my undergraduate career. But basically, they’re all the things you think would make living abroad difficult.

So, while thinking about that, I realized that my biggest stress factor right now (and the one that directly leads to like 90% of the stories on this blog) is that I possess a complete inability to figure out why people want me to do things now.

Do you know how difficult it is to respond to other people without the ability to predict why they’re talking to you and what their requests are leading up to? Turns out, it’s really difficult. I can no longer filter what parts of requests are really important and what aren’t. Operating in a second language, in an environment I’m unfamiliar with, has given me a mild filtering disorder. It’s disconcerting.

It’s less bad now, but I remember a particular moment about a month after I moved in to my host family, which I now think of as the Worst Dinner Ever. I had spent all day being told to move chairs and plates and bowls of rice in ways that were never fully explained because—to my host parents—they were obvious.

(Of course the rice goes in the living room and not in the dining room—we don’t eat in the dining room, and we need to eat the rice. For dinner. Which we are having now, because it’s 9 pm and that’s when dinner happens.)

Continue reading →

Blazer time!

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Blazers!

I accomplished one of the things on my 21-year-old list ‘o planned accomplishments (“bucket list” makes me want to gag)! Thanks to Ousmane, my previously-mentioned and super-awesome tailor, I now have what is—as far as I’m concerned—the perfect blue blazer. Why?

1. It’s wool with silk lining, meaning that it’s quite warm and I won’t be tempted to machine wash it. Plus, natural fibers.

2. It actually fits my weirdly-hunchy shoulders. Also my chest. Also my waist. Also all of me, he is magic. (I was discussing the tailor with someone yesterday and we decided that most of our delight with his work comes from the “I gave him something flat and he made it something three-dimemsional!” shock. Every time, this man.)

3. He interfaced the back collar so it stands up and doesn’t do the cheap jacket thing where it rolls under and dies. (I know that cheap jackets do this because all of mine do.) Continue reading →

Host Compound of Unusually Spiked Emotions

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Today was a weird day. I found out after class that my dog was put down last night. This further confirms my theory that no conversation started by my father with “Hey Em” (or “Hey kid,”) ever ends without something horrible happening in it.

Linguistic weirdness aside, I didn’t think this was a particularly sad thing. The dog was very old for a greyhound, and had been very sick for a long time. She was put down at home, and as far as doggy lives go she lived a remarkably good one. I was bummed out, but we all knew it was coming.

Then I returned to the host compound of unusually spiked emotions, where–after my host mother told me she was going to whip me so I learn Wolof, because that is the way to make your host child less scared of you of course–I spent most of lunch trying not to cry. (Which, to be fair, not the first time that this has happened. This is just the first time that the reason for the tears wasn’t in the room while I was eating.)

After I finished lunch (and the subsequent mostly-joking fight with my host mom about how I hadn’t eaten enough), I retreated to my room, where I broke down sobbing.

So that was unexpected. Continue reading →

Still Can’t Rent a Car

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Yesterday was my 21st birthday. Since I’m abroad, it was pretty anticlimactic. I still have some trouble believing that I can now legally go into a liquor store and purchase myself some of the finest premium sold-in-a-plastic-bottle booze that Georgia has to offer, but my license tells me that this is in fact the case.

Highlights of the evening included a gin fizz that was actually just a glass of gin, realizing that the US has exported unironic appreciation of “Sexy and I Know It,” and having my phone and passport photo copy stolen off me at the club. But other than that last one, it was a fun night! I had tiny cake, and you’d pretty much have to murder a kitten in front of me while I ate it for me not to enjoy tiny cake.

But, outside of tiny cake, I’ve been reading a lot of Yes and Yes over the weekend. One of my favorite things on her site is her recurring feature where, each birthday, she picks a list of things she wants to do over the next year. She picks as many things as she’s turned years. I like the idea, so I shamelessly stole it. Here are my 21 things to accomplish before I quit being 21.

21 Things To Do in the Upcoming Year

  1. Buy/make/have made a perfect navy blue blazer.
  2. Drink a sloe gin fizz in a speakeasy-style bar.
  3. Road trip to the Grand Canyon.
  4. Actually remove things I no longer need from my childhood room.
  5. Get a print magazine piece published. Continue reading →

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 →