From the Desert to the Ocean

I have fallen in love with the desert.  I remember learning that dessert is spelled with one more “S” than desert because you want more of it, but it’s a good thing I can already spell them both, as now I’m not sure which I prefer!  Cheesy, I know, but it is just so beautiful!

After a good five-hour bus ride, we found ourselves plunging into the brush in a beat-up, old army pick-up, only to stop breathlessly at the desert of Lompoul—breathless from the ride, but even more so from the sight in front of us.  Like the ocean, it seemed to stretch out to the edge of the world, and in vain we tried to capture the sight of the sun slipping into the dunes while we took turns “camel riding”; I use this term loosely, as the experience reminded me of a little kid’s birthday party, with the guide leading us just to the point where we couldn’t see our comrades over the next dune before circling us right back around!  That night, after a meal of couscous under billowing, white tents and some dancing and drumming around the fire, we spread out on the dunes to marvel at the immensity of the desert (which eventually flows into the infamous Sahara) and count the continuous stream of shooting stars.

Saturday, we were awoken before the sunrise by drumming and the disorienting English chant that accompanied it, “Wake Up, Wake Up, Wake Up…”  We bid a hasty good-bye to Lompoul (and its amazingly chilly weather!) to make the trek to St. Louis.  Usually a two hour drive, we had the misfortune to be arriving on the day Abdoulaye Wade (the current president) happened to be inaugurating the ancient bridge that links the island to mainland Senegal.  As a result, we ended up having to stop at a hotel on the way for four hours; we had the good chance to stop at one with a huge pool, so the hours passed quickly until we finally were able to enter the city.  Once there we spent the remaining daylight hours wandering the streets, bargaining with vendors, brushing by a few historical sites (St. Louis is the former colonial capital of French West Africa and a World Heritage site), and just soaking up the city.   With its colorful homes, charming street-side cafés, and celebrations around every other corner, it had us all feeling “homesick” for New Orleans!  Following an amazing dinner of brick-oven pizza, I headed to a free outdoor concert with a few friends—and a few thousand Senegalese students!  We enjoyed the classic Senegalese mbalax beats, an impressive laser light show, and hours of conversation before at last giving up on ever hearing the main act perform; turns out they weren’t to come on until 3:00 AM!       

Sunday morning we made the trip up to Djoudj, a national wildlife reserve that is apparently the third-best place to bird watch in the world.  Two hours on a pirogue and a few hundred pelicans later, I was ready to believe them!  Then it was back on the bus for the final time to journey south, south, south to Dakar, where we arrived just before 11:00 PM.  I was greeted with warm handshakes from Papy Jo and Mama FK and teasing remarks about my disheveled appearance from my brothers—“Sand!  Dirt!  Dust! Amy is boooootiful!”— before giving in to travel-induced exhaustion.  Much as I loved the desert, it was awfully nice to find myself once more in the company of my eccentrically affectionate Senegalese family, in my remarkably sand-free home!

Happy Thanksgiving folks, et ba beneen yoon,

Amy Diallo      

My Next Nine Sheep Slaughters...

So here’s wishing you all a very belated Tabaski, the biggest holiday of the year here, which took place last Monday!  Apart from the mandatory sheep slaughter (in commemoration of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, who in Muslim tradition was Ishmael), the holiday is observed with house visits to friends and family to ask pardon for any sins you might have unknowingly committed against them.  CIEE gave us class off Monday and Tuesday, partly so that we could participate fully in the festivities and partly because they knew there was no way teachers would show up otherwise, as the whole week of Tabaski is usually filled with extraordinary amounts of cooking, eating, and visiting!

And so it was that I found myself up at 1 A.M. the night before chopping garlic with Mama Fat Kane in preparation for the big day. The whole household woke up bright and early on Tuesday, and, just as on Korité, the women cleaned and cooked while the men prayed at the mosque.  One of my older brothers and his family had travelled from St. Louis to celebrate with us, and so for much of the day I was on baby duty, a job I most thoroughly enjoyed, especially compared to the alternative of sheep duty.  As soon as the men return, we all gathered for the big show: to see my brothers kill all three of our moutons!  By the third go-around, I decided Baby Aida (and I) had seen about enough, so I walked her around our terrace—only to see 6 additional sheep being slaughtered by our surrounding neighbors!  Funnily enough, it was then that the thought hit me as I looked out over the city (past all the slain sheep, of course) just how much I love this place and how much it feels like home to me now.  Once my brothers finished up, I really got into the Tabaski spirit as Mama Fat Kane had me help rip the fat off the very fresh meat before grilling it out in our courtyard.  Though it was a little off-putting to find dried sheep blood on my hands and skirt later, our huge Tabaski lunch was nevertheless delicious! Following one giant communal nap, my brothers, nieces, and I drove all over the city that night to ask pardon from our distant relatives.  As much as I enjoyed getting to see so many different neighborhoods of Dakar, perhaps my favorite part of the night was hearing Max introduce me to everyone as his “rakk bu jigeen,” that is, his little sister!

Post-Tabaski, everything has been pretty calm…especially with exponentially fewer sheep lining the streets!  As a follow-up to the holiday, this past Saturday my family and I took a quick day trip up to Thies, a city just north of Dakar, to visit a relative who did not get a chance to stop by on Monday.  There, we got a full two and a half hour tour of the family’s beautiful house—entirely furnished with things acquired from frequent trips to China, go figure!  By the end of the day, after much eating, talking, and eating again, Papy Jo jokingly confided, “This is where I want to come to recover after you leave me!”  Whether he meant recover from the sadness of me leaving or from his Amy Diallo-induced exhaustion, I’m not sure, though there might be a bit of truth in each!  Either way, by the time we made it back to Dakar just before midnight, we were all pretty happy to be home!

In denial of the fact that this week we would actually have as many days of class as we had off, yesterday my friends and I took a mini-vacation to Ile de Madeleine (an uninhabited island located a half-hour’s pirogue ride from Dakar), where we passed a peaceful Sunday hiking, swimming, and climbing dwarf baobabs.  After a day in a pristine, remote little ile, we reluctantly dragged ourselves back to the hubbub and homework of the real world…not for long, however, as this weekend the whole program is off to the desert and St. Louis!

Until next time,

Janelle

Halloween—Senegalese Style!

The whole Gambia gang!

So I completely retract what I had said about Halloween being nonexistent here in Senegal!  In between classes I headed to a local mini-mart, where I bought for the first time of the semester (believe it or not) a few bags of overpriced M&Ms.  People in general just don’t seem to buy much chocolate here, so when all four of the cashiers started jokingly giving me a hard time about my purchase I gave them a crash-course on the holiday and left with their promises to all eat some candy before the day was up.  Thus armed with my treats, I returned home for lunch on a mission.  I pounced on Ibou and Chekna first, who, though they found the general idea of trick-or-treating absurd, were only too happy to comply with my orders when they saw my bag of chocolate.  And so it was that my 19 and 21 year-old Senegalese brothers came pounding on my door with tentative cries of “Joyeux Halloween!”  After a few rounds of our miniature trick-or-treating, the Halloween spirit caught on, and soon they were bouncing around the house, shouting “I tricks and treats!  I tricks and treats!”  Even Papy Jo got in on the game, and before I knew it the entire bag of chocolate had disappeared.  For the evening fête, with a bit of cajoling I convinced Papy Jo to let me borrow his prayer cap to complete my last-minute Aladdin costume (definitely my first time to be a Disney prince), and by the time I was ready to leave the house he was proudly declaring to anyone who would listen, “I have no more daughters!  She is gone, gone, gone, and now I have this strange son!” 



Jasmine and Aladdin



And, while on the topic of Halloween, I would be remiss not to mention the fact that we got the day following, All Saints Day or Toussaint, off from class, in spite of the fact that the country is 96% Muslim!  Needless to say, this holiday was just as new to me as was Halloween to my family, and so it was after much confusion that I convinced my family that no, I do not usually spend this day going between the church and cemetery back in the States.  With that established, I persuaded the boys to take me to the beach, and so by around 5:30 that evening they were ready to go—fedoras and Prada knock-offs and all!  Definitely my most stylish trip to the beach yet and a most wonderful first Jour de Toussaint!  As my brothers don’t really swim, perhaps the funniest part of the day, however, was the affectionate lecture I received from Papy Jo when we got back that evening, “Amy Diallo, don’t you know?  Good girls do not drown their brothers!”

Ciao,

Janelle