If your ceebu jen doesn't taste good

Your husband will leave you.

(Ceebu jen dee ko roof, Mbaa sa jekker fase la)

That's what I learned in class today.

But first I'll start with Sunday. It was the day of a big "lutte" match, (lamb - wolof, wrestling - english). Most of the Senegalese were either at the match or watching on the TV, which is probably the only time the streets have ever been relatively quiet. But before the match started, I went to l'ile de Ngor with some other students and their families. We took this boat to the island (for 500 cfa - $1), and enjoyed some warm, cloudy weather.

On Tuesday one of the other students had her raging 21st birthday party - so many vegetables we were all so excited! Most of us have been eating a lot of rice and bread and fish and bread, and bread, (which I have been enjoying!) it just makes seeing a tomato or carrot really exciting. Apparently Natalie's - the birthday girl - family asked her what she'd like to eat and she said she knows we all like vegetables (and have been missing them), so these two enormous platters of cauliflowers, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, celery, peppers, onions, and beets were brought out after an appetizer of fried dough with mustard sauce and bissap juice, and before the platter of chicken and french fries and bread. An incredible feast, emphasizing the teranga here - the culture of generous hospitality and sharing (the national soccer team is called the Lions of the Teranga).


Then on Wednesday I went apartment shopping for the first time ever. The most painless shopping I have ever done. We saw one apartment yesterday, and put a down-payment on it today. So I have a home for ISP! with three other students - Abby from Wheaton, Jarvis from George Washington, and Devin from Berkley. (At least it's not just me rushing into this purchase, so you can't blame me if it doesn't all work out...dad).

Takes off a lot of stress (I guess if one were to feel that feeling here...) because we leave tomorrow for another week of village homestay-ing and St. Louis for cultural exploration. The week after we get back is the last week before the ISP...so it's getting pretty close.

(But ALSO on Wednesday we went to Bouna's business class that he teaches in Sacre Coeur to meet his English speaking students, which was incredible! Apparently they go out a lot to "les boits" in Les Almadies, which we've never been too, so they're going to help us out with our Dakar education.)


The rest of today we made ceebu jen. That was class today - "a Ceebu Jen Workshop." I am currently recovering from all the lessons I learned and ate, hoping to digest in time to walk home before it gets too dark.

Mam Binta (in the foreground, my French teacher) and Fatou are making holes in the fish (thiof) for others to stuff with spices. I stuck to the vegetable peeling station. I could handle the manioc and squash.

We also made juices - tamarin, bissap and buoy - with some plant leaves, hot water, and a lot of sugar. (ALWAYS a lot of sugar. I had some tea last night at home, but it was more sugar than tea, which clearly was still enjoyable. Sugar is just well enjoyed here.)



This was all made outside in the back of our classroom, also where we had our Batik workshop, and djembe workshop.


I think there were five of these platters. And I don't have a picture of the final product which is stupid because it was incredible. Anyway, there were five platters, with about 30 people eating from them, and bowls full of leftovers. Fortunately, a lot of the juice was left as well, which we are currently storing in the freezer to help us through our journey to the village tomorrow. I mean, we're taking an air-conditioned van on nicely paved roads, so...it's not like we're back packing or anything.

I don't think I'll be hungry until Easter (also the 50th Anniversary of Independence).

There are no Irish in Senegal

Well maybe a few, but they certainly did not go to the one Irish Pub in Dakar last night.

The holiday began well. Class started at 10:30, so we made fried plantains before. Any down time = food, I guess. Abby, Alisa and I bought the fruit from my husband's stand down the corner (for $1), sugar from the boutique/snack shack/cell phone credit/choco-bread stand across from our school office, and found a relatively clean pan in the kitchen.

Maybe not quite like those at Pambiche...


...but this was after a LOT were eaten. The sugar was key. I am a serious toggkat now (chef). (The girl on the right, Alisa, is wearing her shirt she dyed in the batik workshop a few weeks ago. I think it turned out pretty incredibly. You will note that there will never be a picture of me in mine).

After lunch we had our art workshop at the Village des Arts. I was in the bronze workshop...which was as much a misnomer as "Le Celtic" Irish pub. (It was as Irish as the Ethiopian restaurant).

We never actually saw any bronze, but it was incredible all the same. I learned the way you make a bronze sculpture is to create a shape in wax, which will then be cast in plaster, the wax is melted and the remaining plaster shape is filled with the bronze.

So, I was supposed to create something out of wax. I tried a hand. I really can't understand why, thinking about it now. I don't even like my own hands. Since when are hands something I can draw? on paper? in two dimensions with a pencil and many erasers?

We'll see in a month when we get the sculptures at the final semester party. By then maybe I'll have forgotten I made a hand, and I'll appreciate the bronze bowl-like figure I've made...


This was our station for three days. The green is a gas tank used to heat up the wax so it was supposedly malleable...I also have no pictures of the hand.


Yes more food. Snack after the strenuous two-hour art class, at La Gondole. Their ketchup and mustard is so classy, and they sell the best ginger juice by the goblet.

Nothing really exciting to show. I should start stealing more pictures so you have something more to look at. Just my non-Irish St. Patrick's Day. I think the pub did have an Irish flag, and it was called a "pub."

Am naa jekker

I'm a chef, quoi.

Lessons I've learned -
1. Pizza tastes better in Senegal
2. Pizza can be made in a frying pan
3. Add "quoi" to every sentence
(literally it means "what" but if you say it with the right gestures it makes you look really cool, and Senegalese, and young and hip and everything. So now that's my new favorite word, quoi).

And now I'm set.

Saturday night Abby, Alisa and I brought our culinary skills together in a master presentation for a gourmet dinner for Alisa's family. Eggplants don't quite have the same fresh, Sauvies Island farmers market taste here...but sauteed, salted, and covered in cheese they end up pretty good. I guess anything sauteed, salted and cheesy would end up pretty good...


Yes there was even an apron and cutting board involved. It was that legit, quoi.

Pan fried pizza - cheese, peppers, olives, onions and eggplants. And no one got burned, too badly.


Alisa and Abby with the hefty dish of food. Did not have much trouble finishing it (there were other people eating too though! Not just us...)

After dinner we went to the British Counsel for an "Around the World" Rap-Slam Poetry performance. I don't know why I don't have pictures. It was a gorgeous runway set up outside in a courtyard, with dancers, singers and lots of dreadlocks.

But now to why I have a husband (am naa jekker, in Wolof). I just went to print off a paper at a cyber cafe (obviously closed..it's Sunday). Took a nice detour on my walk back around the Olympic Stadium (I think). Found out their pool will be open in a week (theoretically, so maybe in a few months on Senegalese time...?) and is open to the public to swim. May have to use it, as the later we're here in Dakar, the hotter it's going to get.

There was also a soccer game and basketball game going on. This was around 4 in the afternoon. As in...4 in the afternoon! one of the hottest parts of the day, and I'm dying just walking around. So on my way back to the SIT office (where I've been kind of doing homework) I had to get a grapefruit (had to) to cool off.

This is where my husband comes in. In exchange for teaching me Pulaar in the future, I will be the fruit stand man's wife. Not too shabby a deal. And I bet I can get a few free grapefruits here and there. Maybe even a mango.

So since I don't take pictures of pretty events, and apparently only food, here is my grapefruit (delicious as always).

... and I bought Madar soap from the boutique across from the office, because tonight I need to do some laundry. Especially now that I have a husband. He may want my clothes to be occasionally not dirty.

Adventure.

My new favorite word.

A while ago I got a pretty useful email with this quote "An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered." (Jarama, Paul).

I think I've become really good at rightly considering things. It's simple to make anything into an adventure here. For one thing, daily life is clearly different from anything I'm used to, and constantly exciting. For another, calling something an adventure makes me (probably overly) proud of myself.

On Thursday I had a great adventure. I took my first car rapide, and with another first timer - not even with a Senegalese friend to keep me from making mistakes! That added to the legitimacy of the adventure - being two Toubabs working our way through the public transportation in Dakar. I'm not sure if I paid the right amount, or asked for the stop in the correct manner, but I made it to the supermarket and back during my lunch break on Thursday, with plenty of time to rest up before my last dance class.


The yellow bus to the left/back is a car rapide. You climb in the back, then jump off when the bus slows down a little for your stop. Good thing traffic is so heavy though, that the car rapide can never really go fast enough to make jumping off too intimidating.

I went to the store with Alisa to get supplies to make a cake for our homestay families. I came back with a chocolate box mix, and two packets of vanilla pudding (excellent recipe, merci Lizzy). I mixed this with some powdered milk, and cooked it in a sort of pot for making rice (after I cleaned out the dead bugs and rotting vegetables - our SIT kitchen is not the most sufficiently stocked...), and created something my family ended up actually liking (or at least saying they liked). I gave myself more adventure points for this.

Friday I had some more wonderful adventures. Half day of class = Voile d'Or again (one of the many paradise beaches I've been to so far). I did some great studying all afternoon, really analyzing the correct direction to lay for maximum - but not too much, don't worry Mom - sun exposure. I'm becoming a great student of nature.

Other adventures...

Ethiopian fine dining with three students from my group, and one journalist from NY. The restaurant is just a few blocks from our SIT classroom, is incredibly gorgeous, and makes you feel comfortably comatose afterwards.

The car we took to the waterfalls during our Kedougou visit. I'm there on the left, leaning forward past Abby. There were four of us in the back, three in the middle, and two in the front. Sometimes I miss my subaru.

Class Time

Wolof. It's the best language.

Am naa mag wante amuma rakk.

This means I have an older sibling, but I don't have a younger sibling.

Fecckat laa.
(Pronounced fetch-cat...as in "so fetch" from the classic movie Mean Girls...which makes it even more fun to say.)

This means I am a dancer by profession. Which is basically true. Today we started the "Atelier de musique et de danse" and I have chosen to focus on dance, so for three days a classmate (Alisa - from Bates [yeah NESCAC!]) and I are going to try and follow the movements of our teacher, while two men play the drums. It's an incredible student to teacher ratio...except there is no where to hide. (Everyone else chose either the djembe (drum), kora (pretty guitar-like instrument) and the tama (the talking drum)).

My really stiff, off-beat dancing is front and center. It's not my fault though. My body was not made to move in a pretty, delicate fashion. I'm definitely blaming my parents right now. Just making sure it's clear that the interesting rendition of African dance I am performing is not my fault.

Next week I'm going to be doing bronze sculpting for our art workshop. Maybe I'll create prettier things then.

In the meantime, I have two more afternoons to become a true fecckat.



Being studious in the Bedik village...learning about the Baobab Tree and other important things I'm sure.

Learning 4th year French in the Ibel school 2-3 km from my village homestay outside of Kedougou last week. I had to go up next and read the lecture. Good thing I have a really good French accent or else it would've been really painful for everyone involved...

"Considered" the largest Baobab Tree

Friday was our last day in Kedougou. We went on another hike, in the Bedik village of Iwol. It wasn't a very long hike, but was steep enough to make the reaching the top a great treat. This village, being home to the largest Baobab Tree in Senegal (or, the text read "considered" to be the largest...so whatever that means...), had a much more tourist-attraction feel than the other villages. Clearly. This was a business.

The women were prepared to give us a price for their jewelry and not bargain down. This was something we hadn't faced yet. Usually bargaining was an enjoyable part of the transaction, a part of the transaction the vendors would tell us to do, and guide us through in some cases. (Honestly, many of us have been coached through the sale by the person who we're trying to buy from, and we generally get a good price). Fortunately, our guides spoke Bedik and made sure we weren't taken advantage of too much.


Our family photo - not in the famous Baobab Tree - but in another tree that apparently used to make people have swollen bellies and eyes, but fortunately it no longer does such things. Only part of our class came on this hike, as some were still recovering from the village homestay (fevers and stomach problems, in case you wanted to know).

Aroune and Assane (I'm sure I butchered the spelling) were our guides. Here we are in front of the "largest" Baobab Tree. It was pretty large, I just couldn't get a picture that captured it's size well enough.

Senior picture? I think it's pretty glamorous. I kind of prefer my hair when it hasn't been washed in a week. Also, I must say I'm pretty proud of myself. My hair-tie broke so I figured out a way to knot my hair into a bun. I'm taking all the credit I can get.

View from my rock to some of the others. We sat here for a good 30 minutes - the most peaceful heat I have ever experienced. Everyone was content to stay as long as possible. Fortunately, if there was even a schedule for the day (which rarely matters), no one in our group knew it.

On the way down our guides thought it would be fun to race. I would say it was definitely exciting. Fun? ...well, once I was safely standing at the bottom I guess it was fun.

The way we went down took us to the back side of the Ibel school I had visited days earlier with my village family. So again we went through the classrooms, led by the teachers, disrupting any of the organization that was there. This time some of the classrooms sang/shouted songs for us. I don't know if I'm going to make it back in the US, where people won't cheer for me wherever I go. I'm living a celebrity's life right now and I kind of like it.

Boubou and School

Francoise Boubane's son (Francoise is Martin's older brother), found a monkey and brought it home. So we went to visit. They named him (?) Boubou.

On Wednesday the three other American students and I walked to school in the Ibel village 2-3 km away, with the kids from our compounds.


This was along our walk to the school.

I thought we were just going to walk them to school, see where they learned, then wander home. I don't know why I thought this would be possible...we sort of stand out and cause a scene wherever we go. And class time is not so rigorously structured, at least in this village.


So, most of the teachers came out to meet us, we had a photo shoot, I taught a class briefly because their teacher did not show up (then they were allowed to go home early) and I sat in on the fourth year class.

One side of the school - which had three buildings and a large hut in a rectangular shape with a center courtyard area.

The teacher to the right of me happened to also be a local radio talk show host, so on Friday the three other American students in my village and I were interviewed. I wouldn't say being interviewed is a strength of mine, and speaking in French definitely did not help. Hopefully no one was listening. We were asked to talk about the type of work in the village, how it differs from that of the US, what we can do to help the situation in the village, and the things we'll remember the most. Really, most of the questions I was asked I wouldn't even be able to answer in English. Good thing our SIT program director, Souleye Diallo, was there to give a few decent, concise, and understandable quotes.

Our community gardens could take a few pointers...

Monique doing laundry at the well.

Walking back home from the well with my shower water.

One of the many demanded posed pictures.

Kids from another family keeping the up supply of buckets for watering the crops, which other women would come to take.

This is one of my favorites. I tried to ask this woman if I could take her picture (I loved the colors of her jewelry) and I thought at first she said no. Because we don't speak the same language it took a while, but I realized she just wanted to find another prop. She was only holding one watering can at the time, so she took a minute to find another. Then she was ready for the photo.

Martin walking through some of his crops. Each person in the family had a few rows of their own. This garden is for all four families in the village.


Kids hanging out while their mothers work.

Laundry hanging on the fence. The road leads back up to my compound.

I thought I was strong, but these women put me to shame...they carry buckets of water on their head, their babies strapped to their backs, a pile of vegetables in their arms, then ask me if I need help carrying my small water bottle.

My Village Family

Frederick (5 years old), Justine (7 years old, nicknamed Jungle-Bi by the neighboring Bedik village), and Augustine (2 years old).

This was taken within the first few hours of my arrival, after they had already demanded that I have a few fist fulls of leftover couscous.


On the second day I was in the village, Martin took me and another student across the road to see the marble mine site. He had been the guard at the mine when it was running. It has been a year since the site has functioned, and as far as I could understand, they're waiting for more money to be found to fund the site. It looked as if the workers had all spontaneously taken a work break, and hadn't come back. The tools, machines, and blocks of marbles were still scattered throughout the site.


The following pictures are slightly out of order...but that doesn't really matter.


This is from my last morning, when Martin went around his compound picking up different props for pictures. Odette is stirring the breakfast corn we're about to eat.

My camera was a real attraction. Any picture I took, no matter what the subject, was looked at for minutes by whoever was around. At first I was really surprised that a picture of one of my family members simply sitting on a chair was something exciting and incredible to look at. But this family clearly doesn't use the type of technology I am used to, if any technology at all. They don't even have a mirror. So it quickly made sense - their fascination with seeing a picture of themselves.

I have been asked by all of them to send back pictures when I can.


Martin and his family, along with the surrounding villagers, work as farmers. They grow beans, nuts, corn, onions, and a handful of other vegetables. He was very proud of his crop and insisted I took a picture of him with his peas.

All of these photos were taken because they insisted on taking them. They made it easy for me. I wanted all the photos I could get, and they wanted me to take all the photos my memory card made possible.


All I had to do was sit with my camera in my hand, and I had models posing non-stop.

I brought home cookies one day (after we walked to the school) and Frederick was really interested in them. I think they were eventually eaten, but he was more excited by holding (and smashing) the package. That didn't matter, as I'm sure they were entirely melted by the heat already.


Breakfast one morning. Frederick and Augustine ate the couscous from the night before, while Monique made to corn/baobob fruit concoction.

Leotine (14 years old) and Monique (20 years old). Leotine went to school 2 km away every week day, and studied French. (She took my notebooks to pose with in this photo).

If she passes the test at the end of the year she wants to go to high school in Kedougou. One of Martin's daughters, Elizabeth (from his first wife who died), is currently studying in Kedougou, so I wasn't able to meet her (as she wasn't living in the village compound). Monique went to school, but now works at home cooking, farming, taking care of the family and humoring her American guests by giving them simple tasks to complete.

My family members only spoke French if they went to school. So it was mostly the kids I could speak French with. Martin did not learn French in school, but he has taught himself some, so I was able to have pretty decent conversations with him. (He told me that a visit of three days was not enough. In order to really get to know someone's character, in order to have a good exchange, he wished I could stay for at least 10 days). His wife, however, only spoke Basaari, so I had to find other ways to communicate with her.


Leontine, just before walking to school. Monique in the background (on my bed/bench) making breakfast. The stack of bowls holds their water from the well..which isn't far down the road.


Self-explanatory I think...but anyway - Augustine washing himself.


Leotine after school, with Augustine, relaxing in the shade.

Monique, on the first day, making the peanut sauce. If she looks like she's hot, I made her look freezing in comparison - with my red face and sweat.


This is my favorite picture. As I said, on my last day, Martin went around picking up different props to pose with. He set this one up carefully, almost like a soccer team photo...kind of. He pulled out a briefcase I had never seen, the soccer ball I gave on the first day, and the bottle of palm wine he had given to me as a parting gift. (Martin and other people in his village make palm wine. He says it only takes three days after draining from the palm tree for the wine to be appropriate to drink. It has a sort of interesting wine/beer/nut/champagne taste to it. Very enjoyable, but very unusual).