Etchwar...

A hike I know my Dad would love.

The rocks kind of reminded me of a really enjoyable walk my family once took along the edge of Crater Lake...my Dad does a good job of staying calm near edges and large drops. If my sarcasm is not yet detectable, I hope it is by now.



This is Bouna, one of our great staff/teachers/counselors/hike leaders. Before the hike he was having trouble with his foot, so he went to the Kedougou market to buy some hiking shoes. He came back with these jellies, and put us all to shame on the hike. I think he carried only a bottle of water, and his cigarettes - enough to get him through any challenge. He's the one that's going to lead us on a run to the Mauritania border when we visit St. Louis, and apparently no one ever beats him.

The hike was in Etchwar, a Bedik village (the Bedik are one of the many ethnic minorities in Senegal), not far from Kedougou. There are two settlements, Etchwar at the top of the rocks, and Indar at the bottom. (When we split up into our village homestays, four of our group stayed in these two villages).

This is at the top, Etchwar. The red-ish road, slightly visible, is the road we took from Kedougou.


That's not me at the top...but that pose was hard to avoid up here. (It's Alisa, from Bates). It just felt like the natural thing to do with all the villages stretching out below us. We sat around frying on the rocks for a while, singing a little Bob Marley (which is also hard to avoid in Senegal) then walked/slid down.



That's me. Of course in my really well-planned packing for Senegal I didn't pack a good small backpack for mini-voyages, so my track spike bag became a really useful hiking bag. That's what I'm holding in this picture.


Before we made it back to the bottom (to the campement in Indar) for lunch, the kids in the Etchwar village (who had gathered to watch us watch them) sang us a song, in exchange for an Akon song. Somehow we couldn't come up with one, so I think we sang Rihanna or some other great American artist...either way, I'm sure it was painful for them.

Campement Nieriko

Entrance to our hotel in Kedougou. We arrived late Friday night (after roughly 14 hours of driving in a van from Dakar) so I took some pictures the next morning before our first hike.

These are the rooms, about 16 different huts in the campement. This is my hut on the right, behind the chairs. They were air conditioned - we were incredibly spoiled. The AC didn't really help the transition into the three days of village life...but I wasn't about to turn it off.


This is the inside of the hut. Five star living - mosquito net and towels included. We actually only used the net twice. There weren't really many bugs, and my roommate (Abby from Wheaton, MA) and I felt a little claustrophobic. Plus we weren't too good at figuring out how to use it effectively. I guess we better keep taking our Malaria pills on schedule...

Went to explore the area Saturday morning. Our campement was right by the Gambia River, and not a far walk from the Kedougou market (unlimited supply of fabric, honey, bicycle pumps and soccer jerseys). Saw men working out in the dust soccer field opposite our hotel, women doing laundry in the river, and many cows.


I saw this and tried to stay calm, like you're supposed to with dogs or bears or whatever animals can sense fear. These cows were pretty sedentary though, so there was not much to be afraid of. I don't know what I was expecting them to do. It's not like I've heard of many traumatic cow attacks...but I definitely didn't get any more comfortable walking/running/shuffling by the cows.

Sunrise, one minute walk from the campement.

Sorry for the inconvenience...

I realize my updates are just as vital to your day as your first cup of coffee, and this may be hard for you, but for 8 days (starting on Friday..tomorrow!) I will be out of commission.

Tomorrow at 7:30 (an ugly time no matter where I am...) my group and I are leaving the SIT office for a (theoretically) 10 hour drive to Kedougou, a village in the southeastern corner of Senegal. (Look at the handy little map if you like!)

For the first few days we're staying in a "campement" together, going on mini-hikes (yes, even for my standards they're "mini"), picnic-ing and swimming in waterfall pools. Monday is the first day I am actually staying with my village family - in a Basaari settlement. As of right now I know all of their last names start with B, and they are Christian Animists...and apparently enjoy a good bon-fire dance. After three days in our separate villages we come back together - to decompress a little - and do some good market shopping. Apparently I must get some honey, indigo dyed cloth, and jewelry. I think I can handle these shopping requirements.

So to summarize...you must find some other way to fill your days than by reading my incredibly thought-provoking, witty and astounding blog posts.

Also just as an interesting aside, and to further ensure that my uncle maintains an appropriate level of jealousy, I have recently been invited, by the manager of Baaba Maal, to visit Baaba Maal at his house, after we return from the village. So we'll see if that happens...

Good luck. Get ready for some great pictures (hopefully) of Kedougou and my bon-fire dancing.



Just to add some color to all this fascinating text - this is the cultural center with free events every night, and incredible artwork. I went there (last week?) for a break dancing/hip hop performance.

Batik

I made this today! It looks better in real life, after it dried and turned red (the tub of dye is the complement of the color it actually turns into...so if you want yellow, you had to put the cloth in the purple tub. It required some advanced thinking...) Aand, I didn't even get any of the dye on my clothes. Good day of class.

Ceebu jen for a good price

I can make it now - the national Senegalese dish. (If you would like to employ me for the summer that would be great too.)

Sunday was chore day. I got to help dust. They didn't think I could do the hard sweeping because I'm a spoiled American with easier cleaning equipment. My cousin actually said she didn't think I could use their broom because I'm accustomed to using brooms that don't require you to bend over. Not going to argue that one.

But the best part of the day was making lunch. I walked through the neighborhood (SICAP Baobab) with Rose finding and buying the vegetables and dried fish we needed for the ceebu jen (rice and fish). Maybe I didn't help cook much of the dish, but I was there for the whole time and could cook up a mean combination of rice and spices and vegetables if you offer a good price...

I loved the feeling of being able to wander just a few blocks from our home to get our food, with the rest of the neighbors doing the same thing. I still am quite sure that I need a guide to wander through the neighborhood without getting lost, but it's nice to start recognizing some of the streets and people.

Here's Rose, with Ndeye Marienne in the background, and my masterpiece (or...her masterpiece with a little help from me...but who's checking). It was delicious. I'm telling you - I could use a summer job and I'm sure one of you could use a summer chef.



And here is the great indoor living room I so carefully dusted.

Mom I know my finals schedule...

...and you can push back my flight home if you like.
The second half of Saturday, we went to a hotel for a little lunch and relaxation. More like a huge lunch of chicken, rice, ginger juice and fruit salad, followed by Ataya (Senegalese tea). The hotel, fortunately, was right on the beach so I didn't have to move far when I was in my post-meal comatose phase.
This is also the hotel where we'll be staying during finals week, when we will all present our Independent Study Projects to one another, in between naps on the beach. It might be tough to fit in the presentations.

This will be our dining hall for finals. I'm here with my NESCAC friend (yeah, I've got one!) who goes to Bates when she's not abroad in Prague in the Fall, and Senegal in the Spring.

The gate leads to the back of the hotel, into a nice courtyard area with lawn chairs and tables, which then leads into the area where we had lunch.

The great thing about being abroad is I'm losing track of the Blazers' losses, so I can still be a fan even if the Celtics killed them. The book I have to read for French class (all in French!) is there under my shirt...so you can see I may have tried to be studious.
This is from the beach, looking onto the back of the hotel, where I'll do some really efficient studying and practicing for my final presentation.

Here is the view from the back of the dining area, onto the courtyard area, before the beach.

And another shot of where we ate.
After we finished here, we drove the two hours back to Dakar. Along the way, as we were sitting in traffic, some of our teachers bought vegetables from street vendors for dinner, my classmates bought mandarins, and we all got Cafe Touba to drink. Drive through shopping and eating at its best! I hardly had to move. My laziness is being greatly encouraged here. If you even so much as glance at the DVD of Lost being sold, the vendors will come up to your window.

Animals are cooler in Africa

On Saturday we went to the Reserve de Bandia Sanctuaire, about two hours from Dakar. If I could have taken a souvenir, I would have pocketed a giraffe.

 Want to ride a camel for an hour? Only $20...
I'm not really an animal person (I can only just handle my very sedentary household cat), but I definitely was one this Saturday. The wind in the truck was warm, and smelled so sweet (which is surprising, considering this was like a zoo) I could have driven around for hours.


Here are some monkeys in the famous Baobab tree. The Baobab tree has fruit - Pain de Seigne (which I had heard as monkey breath when translated a few weeks ago... of course "pain" means bread...so that was a less than intelligent mistake) - which look like they have been attached one at a time. You know the Christmas ornamental spheres some families hang in their trees outside? These fruits looked like that, hanging down from a branch by a string.
I was also surprised by the lack of boundaries that were enforced. Apparently it's accetable to sit on the animals we came to see.  Buona, one of the staff at SIT, took the first seat. Of course we each the took turns.

Mbalax

Even after three classes, these dancers' moves are no less blurry than this photo suggests. At least I can tell that this dance - mbalax - is incredible. 
If I was had any sense of rhythm my mbalax would look almost as cool, but as it is right now, I'm not quite sure what it looks like I'm doing. With all the jumping, arm swinging and repetition, at least it's a great workout.
The past three days we've spent our afternoons with roughly an hour of this dance, and an hour of djembe drumming. This means during our lunch break I rest up, hydrate, and pray to the rhythm gods in order to prepare for class. It's that intense - at least for me. No wonder I've been sleeping so well. Both classes are a complete workout, mentally and physically. My hands are too weak for the constant pounding we're expected to do on the djembe drums. And this was simply a week of orientation to drumming and dancing. In a few weeks we start the real workshops. You can choose either one of three different instruments, or the mbalax dance to focus on. I've chosen the dance.  Fortunately I can only make improvements - there's no room for me to be any worse.
It's still incredibly warm, I'm still covered in mosquito bites, but at least I think my French and Wolof are improving. That, or people are just being nice and smiling and nodding because they don't understand what I'm saying. Either way, I'm having a lot of fun, and still not realizing that this is actually accepted as "school."

College is hard

Happy Valentine's Day

(it is celebrated here, in case you were wondering)

This picture is not the best...but I wanted to show the "club" we went to Friday night. The entrance is on the right, past the crumbling wall and piles of rocks. I walked past it the first time, and had to be called back by a friend. I don't know what I was expecting, but I guess I'm still stuck with my American images of clubs. I don't know when I'm going to learn to get rid of these expectations, but they're definitely always wrong.
This "boit" was called something like Timbuktu. I've learned that the Senegalese have a similar saying to the one we have - "I'm going all the way to Timbuktu." Instead of Timbuktu, they say Santa Barbara. Pretty comparable.

Saturday night my 10 year old cousin had a birthday party, just around the corner from my home. This sent me right back to the US - Chris Brown, Pitbull, Rihanna, Lil Wayne...all the great American artists were playing.

Moussa (9) on the left, Cherif (7) to his right, with their sister Khrady Aita, all dressed up before the party - before the pizza and cookies and quiche found their way all over Khrady Aita's skirt, and well before the ties were taken off to play soccer.

This last picture is just something I saw on my walk to the SIT office this morning. Can't disagree really.

Now I'm about to go find some lunch (hopefully some more grapefruit, it's been a few days, I'm getting antsy...) and then I'm doing an "urban arts exploration." Going to go interview some men who make rugs and scarves. I'll try to elevate my mind as much as possible.