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 →
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.) Continue reading →
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 →
So you know what makes people like 8 billion more times more likely to not think you’re an asshole? Stumbling through “hello” in their first language. (Shocking, I know.) I entered Senegal with the impression that this language was, for most people, French. It’s not. Instead, it’s Wolof–and now that I know how to appropriately greet people in it* people are substantially less likely to glare at me. Success.
As far as I know, Senegal is unusual in rejecting the colonial language in favor of a native language for the lingua franca. Though there are of course other major languages in Africa in general and in countries specifically (like Swahili and Hausa), countries like Kenya use the colonial language in public discourse in attempt to appear forward-looking to the west. Continue reading →
Today was my first full day in Dakar. (I got in yesterday, but after two days of more-or-less nonstop plane travel punctuated by actually falling asleep without conscious input, I think that yesterday does not count.)
The day was filled with the sort of awkward smalltalk that punctuates any first-time gathering of college kids. It was like the first few weeks of college, except that everyone talked about wanting to go into development. I don’t, and have neglected to mention that I am in fact an anthropology major. Some of the folks seem to hold us in disfavor.
My new commute to school (at least for the moment) involves jaywalking across a large highway. It is every bit as fun as you can imagine. (ie, not really at all. It is mostly terrifying.) Continue reading →
It’s something of a joke among those who live in close quarters with me that I tend to dress in uniforms. This probably comes from the same part of me that can spend a month watching 6 seasons of a foreign TV show, twice, without tiring of it basically being the same show each week. I am comfortable with routine.
The most recent iteration of the uniform was a blazer, a scoop neck t-shirt, jeggings, red shoes, and a large scarf. Because all my shoes are red and all of my t-shirts are the same thing in different colors, this allowed for a variety of outfits with pretty much no effort. Plus, I always had a built-in blanket for cold classrooms. It was a win win.
Recently, however, I’ve moved away from the blazer-scarf-jeggings power look. I got tired of having a sweaty neck all of the time.
Without meaning to, I have settled in to a new uniform. For the past three days (I really wish I was exaggerating for effect, here) I have worn one of my two pairs of skinny jeans, one of the same scoop neck tees, and a tweed jacket that looks like a stole it off a very narrow-shouldered male archaeologist. The jacket is reversible, so if I tire of the tweed* I can revisit my elementary school uniform and wear some khaki instead.
The uniform, combined with my short hair and a non-expression that I am told makes me look very angry, tends to make me look sort of like a teenaged boy. I think that part of it is me making myself as unnoticeable as possible using the things over which I have control over for when I go to Dakar. I can’t control being white and American, but I can confine myself to earth tones with the best of them.
But I think even without the trip abroad, I’d be moving in that same direction. There was a period in high school where my wardrobe was hyperfeminine, as was my hair—there were a lot of sundresses and pincurls and pencil skirts. Without me noticing, my wardrobe has shifted from red into blue into grey and brown over the last semester.
I spent so much of this year being anxious whenever I spoke in class and hoping that I would be sort of ignored. Of course, I still raised my hand in class and pretty much never shut up**, but I felt bad when I did. It was a really weird combination of feelings and impulses, and I think that the move into more muted colors and more androgynous cuts of clothing had something to do with it.
But, even as my clothes become less colorful, I am struck by how I feel when I’m wearing them. When I’m channeling Agyness Deyn with some combat boots and the punker jacket, I feel powerful in a way that sundresses and heels didn’t necessarily make me feel. It’s superficial, but there’s something to be said for the knowledge that you could kick some ass in your clothing.
The weather now is similar to what the weather will be when I go abroad. All signs point to me keeping more or less this uniform while I’m there. I’m interested to see whether my feelings about power and clothing stay the same while I’m traveling. I suspect that they will not.
This got to be much more serious than I intended. Because what I originally wanted to share about the jacket that makes up the main part of the new uniform is that it’s reversible, it’s tweed, and it cost me $6.95.
I am the queen of thrift stores.
* I will not tire of the tweed.
** I thirst for external approval like a vampire for blood. Blame magnet school.
Dances With Nerds 