The last few days have been an incredible experience, possibly equal to the 3 weeks leading up to this part of the trip. I feel so much closer to everyone on the trip, so much more in tune with Senegalese culture, and I finally understand Dakar and a lot more of why it is the place it is.
Let's start with what actually happened for the last few days:
We left Friday morning for Thies, a town about an hour and a half east of Dakar. Along the way we stopped at the pink lake (Lak Rose) to see the salt mining operations that run there. Lunch in Thies, which as it turns out is surprisingly clean. It's much smaller than Dakar, but there are sidewalks everywhere and they don't disappear into the sand. There are trees and public spaces with grass and benches and relatively well maintained streetscapes. Still Africa, still Senegal, but nothing resembling Dakar (the only place I had seen until this point).
10km outside of Thies, we drove through sandy landscapes and stopped on the side of the road where a group of Villagers had gathered. We heard clapping and shouting as Ken Martin (our photography instructor & the only person on the bus who knew what was going on) got off to a woman grabbing him and screaming KEEENNNNNNN MAAARRRTINN!!!
Nobody else moved.
We slowly got off the bus and sat in chairs while the entire village stared at us, and we received very little instruction, and then we were paired with a member of our family who promptly took us to their village.
I was with the family Wade, and they immediately told me my name was Souleye Wade. My mother was Mbayague Thiaw, my father Aladji Wade. This was an immediate identity they quizzed me on constantly. There were few people in my village/family that spoke French. One of my 3 brothers was far along in his education, and he and I spoke about the same level of French, so we could actually communicate. His English was about as good as my Wolof (better, actually), and the last night I was there we spent a couple hours talking about his school, while I read through his English assignments. Yeah, he knows way more English than I know Wolof.
In the village, you eat with your hands. Right hand only, actually. (Left hand is for doing business at the other end of the digestion process). Like at my homestay in Dakar, we all eat out of one big bowl or plate for the whole group and of course my family kept pushing me to eat. The villiage is in the process of getting electricity, but the project hasn't been fully approved yet, and I liked it better that way. We ate dinner in the dark after the sun went down.
One of my brothers had taken me out to the field earlier that afternoon, and I saw their farm land to grow root vegetables. On the way back into the compound, we ran into one of my other brothers, and he gave us a ride on a horse cart. Awesome.
We were told to leave our watches behind so we wouldn't be constantly watching the time that we were in the village, and the only time I checked my phone for the time was when I woke up Saturday morning. At 6:46. I knew it would be a long day, and I was still very awkward with not having a clue what was going on, so I went back to bed 3 times, in my room with a locked door (they made us lock our doors the way they do for security), and I finally got up at what I would assume was 9:30. They made fun of me for sleeping so much, but I was well rested and part way through the day. I hadn't fully committed myself to enjoying the time, just making the best of it.
The night before, I had already used up all my show and tell, with both my photo book, and my American coins. They were FASCINATED by both. The photo book was an incredible hit, even if I wasn't explaining it. I explained the whole thing to a group of guys around my age who knew French, but nobody else understood French so they just liked looking at it. All the kids, picked out which one was me in every picture, like Where's Waldo of white people in pictures (although they picked Gabe in a few of the Grand Canyon pictures when his hair was about how mine looks now...)
Like I said, I had used up all my show and tell tricks, and I decided to pull out my camera. We'd been told that everyone there would love to have their picture taken, which I quickly found out was very true. (The night before I took a picture on the horse cart, and one of my brother, but quickly put it away because of everyone's problem with photography in Dakar.) I filled up 2 memory cards over the day and a half we were there, and had a great time doing it. This is when I really needed a Polaroid camera. You were right again, Kim (of course!)...
All day Saturday I spent my time with my brothers and semi-relatives (I'm pretty sure the deal was that my father was polygamous and every woman in the village was one of his wives, so I guess these were all my half brothers...), and we listened to cassette tapes on a boombox rigged up to a car battery in the shade of a huge tree for most of the morning. In the afternoon we shared ataaye, the signature Senegalese tea that is served in shot sized portions, loaded with sugar. It's kind of like eating a tea bag and a quarter cup of sugar. with froth.
My friend Natalie was also in my village, though she was just outside the compound. She spent her whole day working to help her mother with her tasks, but in an enjoyable, spending time together kind of way (she says).
Saturday afternoon, during tea time, one of my dozens of semi relatives tried to explain to me something that was going to happen, but I kept not understanding. He told me I was going to wear senegalese clothes and go to the school and something with jimbes...Every time he'd say it, I'd get puzzled, and ask him to figure out another way to say it. As I finally got what he was saying, I saw Natalie with her mother, dressed in African dress, and then I figured it out. We were all getting dressed up and meeting up for a party or something.
It was a village dance--incredible, entertaining, amazing; and then they made us dance. I was first. by myself.
It was really fun, and totally hilarious. I mimicked a 5 or 6-year-old boy that had gone a while before I went, shaking my knees and bouncing around and laughing like an idiot. It was really fun.
Everyone danced around a lot, and we had different turns getting pulled in the circle for all to see. Totally great.
We went back home and ate dinner in the dark again, and went to sleep. The next morning, we walked back to the meeting point again (we were split up into 5 different villages) after exchanging contact information (they don't have mail that far out, so we can send whatever we want to get to our families through our program director in Dakar...), and we left for Saint Louis.
I learned so much Wolof during that time (everyone in the village would point to something and say the Wolof word for it until I repeated it to their satisfaction), and improved my French a lot, relying on it when I couldn't figure out Wolof. Maybe learning Wolof in French really was a better thing than I thought.
____________PART 2: SAINT LOUIS
We got into Saint Louis that afternoon, and it is georgious! The city is a crumbling island of French colonial buildings. The people are friendly. The hotel was bomb awesome. The hotel had an open air atrium in the middle, a georgious restaurant downstairs, a rooftop terrace, and a dining room on the water across the street, sticking out into the Senegal River. For anyone who did not have a comfortable village stay, this was an incredible consolation prize. For the rest of us, it was yet another great part of the weekend. This was one of the nicest if not the nicest hotel in Saint Louis, and guide books suggest it as a good place for your honeymoon.
We wandered around during the day, paired off for photography assignments, and I went with Jay to the crumbling cathedral that was built in 1828. It was really great. I have some fun pictures you'll have to see later.
During this portion of the trip, I spent some time with basically all the people I don't know on the trip. I roomed with David, probably the chillest person on the trip, and the first night I went out with David, Nikki, and Annalee (amongst others) to a few bars, first an old French bar, second a more local hang out bar, and last a really funny Senegalese dance club, where we brought the party, and danced to rediculous techno including a remixed old Madonna song and the Cha-Cha Slide, which nobody there could understand except the clapping part...At the middle bar, we had a long discussion of the presentation we had heard about child beggars in Senegal, and we had some really interesting points. I'll write about that separately later. Last night I ate dinner and hung out with Chelsey, Katherine, and Aiden, and we played cards and watched funny music videos and the tour de france in the hotel. They're hilariously sarcastic and a great variety to the people here.
I came out of this long weekend, totally understanding so much more about Senegal, Dakar, and everyone on the trip. We only have 3 more days of photography class left and then it's time for the practicum (I'll also write more about that later).
I guess I should explain the title to this post before I leave completely. Everywhere we go we hear kids in particular yelling at us "Toubab, Toubab!" It means 'white person' (really 'french white person' but now just any white person will do). In the past some of us have gotten a little irritated by it and almost felt racially excluded by it, but after the village and the funny kids we ran into on the beach in St. Louis, I have a totally different, fond perspective of it. They're really just saying 'hey, you're white!' (thanks for stating the obvious) or kids are pointing out the white people in the picture. Supposedly we're supposed to respond "olof!" which means black person/Wolof person in Wolof. It kind of works and is a really funny thing when you get to do it. Our program director drove by a group of students during the photography assignment in Saint Louis and yelled it out his window at them. It's kind of endearing after a while.
I'm getting kicked out of the Suffolk lab again, so I'll write more from home...
