(on the bus to plant trees)
We’re back in Dakar after a week and a half in the country, part of the University’s Vacances Citoyennes (Citizen Vacations). The funding came through at the very last minute, so we were waiting with our bags half-packed, trying to move all of our stuff out of the latest apartment, somewhat sleep-deprived, for about 2 weeks. In the end, we left on the 31st. Our mandate: to report on everything we could, to search for new funding and new students for l’annee prochainne (This meant I got to play camerawoman for the week and Aziz got to be le photograph).
The idea behind les vacances is to send university students (often 4th and 5th year medical students, doctoral canditates in linguistics or the physical sciences, etc) on a few weeks’ volunteer mission to aid in the development of rural Senegal. Given a tiny stipend, basic meals, and communal housing, the students (most of whom have spent little time outside the big capital city, Dakar) set up camp and begin their work in the chosen villages. The project was a grassroots effort by the likes of our advisor, Dr. N, and her colleagues, who, as medical students, sensed the giant lack in medical care for whole regions of Senegal and decided to do something about it. Dr. N. would hop in her car with a backseat full of meds and go treat people in the villages, of whom most had never seen a doctor before in their lives. This year there was only enough funding for 2 sites and for 10 days of work. Last year the students did 2 weeks in 4 sites.
(Dr N. and students)
On the way to our first site, Gossas, we stopped into a bustling fish market outside Dakar. The fish were enormous (many over 4 feet and 60 dollars) and everywhere, surreally frozen mid-gasp, stacked up on tables and in baskets balanced meticulously on weary fish-vendors’ heads. After an hour’s haggling (and in my case ogling), we loaded up the car with styrofoam cartons overflowing with the day’s catch. Driving through the rolling green paysage to Gossas, I couldn’t help wondering if we’d all reek of fish for the next 10 days (luckily, no).
In Gossas, we faced the first major issue: students hadn’t been provided mosquito nets, despite receiving them l’annee derniere, and this meant that they were at risk for catching malaria. This oversight/lack of funding was pretty frustrating, given the fact that much of what the students had come to treat was la paludisme (malaria). Fortunately, after a few days the organizers got all of the students a net, and people were more relaxed after that (we had brought our own but felt pretty guilty that the other students didn’t all have one- I ended up stretching my net over 2 beds in the gals’ room and just sleeping 3 to a bed).
Though the project was a bit less organized than the last year due to lack of funding/last minute departure, we witnessed hundreds of medical consultations and dental visits during our first day on location with the students. (guy with teeth) A lot of the students told us that most of the villagers hadn’t seen a doctor in the time since they last treated them (last year), and that they counted on the program to provide them with basic care. The dental student in this photo was providing consultations and demonstrating oral hygiene- I had fun playing with his teeth in my spare time.
After a few days in Gossas, where we got close to a lot of the students and had begun to feel comfortable (even the dynamics of the living situation were fascinating- all of the female students would clean the site, set up the food, and serve the male students, who were basically dependent on them to do this- sometimes sitting around waiting for the women to wake up so they could eat their breakfast- which meant slicing bread and putting butter on it, and pouring coffee into cups, really hard stuff), we took off for the other site, Niarkhenne. This site was bigger and a bit better organized, but it was harder to get adjusted at first because we were staying on our own, in a private moldy side building that had been delegated for Dr. N. and other visitors (it was a really nice gesture, but somewhat isolating). Once I decided I just wouldn’t ask anybody’s name (there were like 70 students, so there was no way I could remember everyone), I started having a really fun time getting sent on all sorts of reporting missions.
In addition, the president of the region (wearing the olive colored bubu) immediately befriended us and was very excited about the possibility of us making a video about les vaccances and recruiting American students for the project. He was the one who had donated lots of village land to the University, and is very hopeful that American students and others will come to research on the land, developing ecotourism and sustainable development initiatives. In the pic he is showing us his peanut fields behind his house as part of a tour of his village. He seems like he has a big heart.
(peanuts in his field)
Our first morning, we went with the reforestation project, which included planting thousands of trees in a national forest and on a plot of land recently donated to the University. I shot lots of footage, and even planted a few trees! The hardest things were these little prickly burrs that got into all of our clothes’ and were generally obnoxious.
(me/tree)
Later in the week, we took footage of medical consultations, math classes for local girls and a new computer education initiative. The pharmacy was packed with folks taking advantage of the opportunity for free medicines, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough to go around. At the end of the week, students were struggling to fill the needs of the many patients who were clearly too poor to go to an outside pharmacy with a prescription.
In the math classes, village girls were given supplementary education to help them succeed in their next year of courses. They came every afternoon to participate, and many of the same girls went for courses in computer ed later in the day. When we were staying near Wassadou last spring we had noticed how few women were educated out of our survey sample- maybe 1 out of 10 had had any schooling- so I was happy to see that these girls were being given some real opportunities.
It is still bizarre to see the difference between Dakar and the country in this respect- in Dakar women have high-ranking positions in business and government, even though defined gender roles are only starting to be questioned (and a lot of this advance in women’s careers is due to the affordability of hired household help). In the country, however, women are not a priority when it comes to education, as most women have 5+ children (7 is common) and are there to take care of the family. Of course there are educated women living in the countryside, but most of them are from Thies or other cities, and are now working as part of organizations that do rural development, etc.
Anyways, living in the student compounds for the week and a half was a constant adventure- I learned a lot of wolof, which is to say, I can sort of communicate in basic wolof now, as did Aziz- who I think speaks Wolof as well as I speak French now. Back in Dakar, I’ve picked up again with volunteering at the community center for kids without families (nicknamed Empire, which is short for l’Empire des Enfants- link on sidebar) and teaching some private English classes. The big thing that’s been stressing us out is moving apartments for the bizillionth time in a year. I think we’re officially nomads now- which is maybe appropriate, because everyone things we’re the Pull ethnicity, because of our skin color and features, and the Pull are traditionally animal herders who have spread all across western Africa.
Otherwise, I’m trying to put together the video from les vacances and trying to pick a departure date from Senegal, which will help me organize the rest of my time here. Aziz is here til Feb, but I think he will be heading home for some family time and grad school applications in Nov., and I am applying for some jobs in the US and here and still waiting to hear back on that/figuring out what the best next step is. We’d like to start teaching some computer classes at the Cyber we made, and I am thinking about organizing a festival at Empire if I stick around for a lot longer.
Here we are at Halloween – and in full black cat/pumpkin regalia. Some new American friends of ours (black kitty number two and Cleopatra) and their Senegalese boyfriends had us over for a sort of block-partiesque soiree. Though a good time was had by all, Aziz went back to studying for his GRE (grad school test) within all of 10 minutes of getting home (see pic- still has the pumpkin makeup on!). This is what he does all day, or at least what he tries to do. Be careful or he might start speaking GRE to you (run, run far, get out while you still can!)
Above are some kids at the international school near our house, whose Halloween parade I had to film for the video I’m making about expat life in Dakar. The video project is going well, and between that and dancing with a real senegalese dance troupe (talk about lesson in humility), my days are now completely full! I leave the house armed with camera and tripod in the morning, spend the day trying to convince people that I’m making a NON commercial film (people are often very upset when I start filming here, for a variety of reasons) and shooting scenes, head over to dance practice in the afternoons, run home and make dinner, and then go teach my English student at night until I collapse. Overall, quality of life is high, despite being busy. (see pics from my film shoot at goree island) We’ve gotten to welcome a new set of American researchers who just got in to Dakar- it is strange to realize how much we know about life here now, seeing them coming in fresh. We’ve made some good friends already, like the gal in the photo in the next post (entitled more pics from goree), who is staying with us for a few days while she gets her bearings and heads to St. Louis. I went with her and a friend to shoot footage on Goree Island, which I've talked about in previous posts. We even got to beach a little before taking the ferry home.
(diving in the water at goree)
There must be 5 million ingredients- everything from concentrated tomato paste to smoked fish to yucca to escargo. It was easy enough playing chef with Birahim's mom, but it's been a month and I still haven't managed to buy all the ingredients and make myself cheb! 
I have an extra 5 lbs to sling around. The ballet has it's first show since I've started dancing with them tomorrow, and I will be happily watching from the sidelines. I haven't even learned all of the moves yet, but they keep telling me I'm going to perform with them! I am not so sure... 
In addition, the president of the region (wearing the olive colored bubu) immediately befriended us and was very excited about the possibility of us making a video about les vaccances and recruiting American students for the project. He was the one who had donated lots of village land to the University, and is very hopeful that American students and others will come to research on the land, developing ecotourism and sustainable development initiatives. In the pic he is showing us his peanut fields behind his house as part of a tour of his village. He seems like he has a big heart.
In the math classes, village girls were given supplementary education to help them succeed in their next year of courses. They came every afternoon to participate, and many of the same girls went for courses in computer ed later in the day. When we were staying near Wassadou last spring we had noticed how few women were educated out of our survey sample- maybe 1 out of 10 had had any schooling- so I was happy to see that these girls were being given some real opportunities. 
So this week we've been volunteering at an "American Summer Camp" run by the US embassy for dakar high schoolers who want to learn english. The idea was that these kids might not have the best english instruction in school, the opportunity to speak english with a native speaker, or much chance to learn about american culture, so we would help out with providing that. Peace corps volunteers from all over senegal came out to organize the camp, which is taking place in 3 high schools around dakar. So far we've had fun helping out and teaching our various skills, including hulahoop dancing and music appreciation (along with numchuck skills, bowhunting skills...hehehe). 
The kids are very willing to participate and excited to learn the hoops and dance- which makes it easy to want to teach them! I taught a short routine that i had each group learn and compete against each other with, and mike taught a music and dance course with a playlist he put together (some groups even learned to jitterbug). All in all it was a fun time, and yesterday I had some of the volunteers over for dinner (I made a salad with mango-pineapple salsa, cannellonni shells with homemade tomato sauce, tuna, and gouda-feta-parmasean cheese, and garlic bread (well, mike made the garlic bread so he gets props for that)). Très délicieux! We had fun chatting about their projects and then all went up to the roof and hooped and drummed and looked out over twinkling dakar, the gorgeous fullish moon and the liquid night ocean.
Aziz and I had some French friends from Wassadou visiting last week, and as part of showing them around Dakar, we took them to a Serrer cultural show at the Sorano theatre. (pic to left). The show, though it started 3 hours late, was a great mix of song and dance acts, with a ton of talented Serrer (a smaller ethnic group than the Wolof in Senegal)performers. We took our friends to a few different sites, including our favorite little beach in the city, but also did our own thing part of the week. 
I had talked him into showing me how he works, and he was nice enough to give me a real atelier on the subject, showing me how he goes about making each part of the bird. We finished a bird together (he did all the work, but gave me the credit), and I made a great friend out of it, too. He told me about his family in Cassamance, and how he was inspired by the gorgeous birds out there but had to move to the city because of the conflict there. He still sees birds as a source of inspriation, freedom.
So, things are pretty calm right now in Dakar, and Aziz and I are gearing up to start some new projects and get continuing ones underway. We went to two great concerts over the weekend, one of which was traditional senegalese music and another famous salsa group called "Orchestra Baobab," after the national tree of the same name (see pic of Ken with saxophonist). Another set of friends just left to go home and our apartment mate, Liz, leaves on Wednesday. Before she goes, though, I will be going in to "Empire" with her to see how my computer skills will be useful (see pic of Liz at her going away party there). "Empire" is a sort of community center for homeless kids, who are typically runaways, orphans, or abused children, 
where she's been doing art lessons and literacy projects. In addition to hopefully volunteering there, I am starting up some English courses and maybe even yoga. We will hopefully be doing some computer education at the lab we built this month, as well. I am waiting for my toe to recover so I can get back to being active and doing yoga every day (got some kind of nasty infection that i ended up going to the doctor for- it's almost gone now, though- yea!). Otherwise, we are reconnecting with our Dakar friends who remain and looking for new opportunities to get involved...
