Why in the world am I here?

So up until now I've just been writing about what I've been doing, eating, seeing, and feeling in Senegal and not so much of what I've been thinking.  So let me first take a little dive into my thoughts for coming here in the first place.  Later I'll talk about my thoughts now that I'm here.


Warning: this post is not as entertaining as the others.


So first of all, I have grown up in a family with parents who regularly discuss the issues of poverty and the privilege we have (I was never allowed to substitute "starving" for "hungry), emphasize compassion for the poor in a Christian context (Proverbs 31:8-9: "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy"), encourage thinking beyond ethnocentricity (growing up we were not allowed to say that people in other countries drove on the "wrong" side of the road, but the "different" or "other" side), and constantly exposed me to the international community (my parents have a lot of non-American friends).  From an early age I knew that there were billions of people less fortunate than me, that I had an obligation to do something for them, but that they were no less smart, deserving, innovative, or loved by God than me.  I knew that my blessings in America were just that: blessings, and that I had done nothing to deserve them.


I also was blessed in high school with the opportunity to travel some, because my parents knew that they could tell stories about poverty until they were hoarse, but my siblings and I (this was before our family completion in 2008) needed to see true poverty for ourselves in order to really understand the extent of it.  Now, ok, I'm a little embarrassed talking about these trips, because they feel a little voluntourism-y to me now.  Yes, the primary objective of these trips was for my siblings and my benefit.  No, the "work" we did in orphanages in Myanmar didn't really help the orphanages in any long-term way.  But voluntourism or not, these trips changed my life by showing me first hand the harsh realities of poverty and loss.  They were also a lot of fun, because let's face it, traveling is awesome!


In 2008, my parents adopted my two brothers from Ethiopia.  The addition of Amani and Habtamu into our family just emphasized all the more how completely undeserving I am to have grown up with such privilege.  My brothers have also showed me that I am in NO WAY better, smarter, etc than "people in Africa".  In a cultural environment (America) where "Africa" is a country and all "Africans" are starving, poor, and helpless, it sickens me to know that thoughts of superiority have crossed my mind more times than I'd like to admit.  Oh yes, there are definitely starving, poor, and helpless people in the world.  My brother Amani can recount stories of poverty that still blow my mind.  And there is no doubt that Habtamu was helpless, as a 5 year old in an orphanage.  But my parents didn't "save" them, any more than a couple saves 5 and 10 year old American orphan.  Orphans are orphans, the only difference is government protection and help.  But anyways.

Through my (sorta strange) upbringing, international exposure, and brothers, I have developed a passion for the impoverished, and a huge desire to see the end of poverty, suffering, injustice, and preventable deaths.  And after a trip to Kenya with a non-profit organization (my dad's) to evaluate the effectiveness of their projects, I can't quit thinking about ways to achieve culturally appropriate, sustainable development.

I also have totally fallen in love with Africa.  Ugh, I actually can't stand saying those words because I have heard them so often in a voluntourism-y, derisive context.  Like "OMG, I met some African orphans while I was in Africa for a week and they were like soooooo cute and hadn't even seen a camera before, it was so crazy! And there were some giraffes too when I went on a safari after working at the orphanage, and they were soooo amazing.  Now I've totally fallen in love with Africa! I just hope I can raise enough money to make a trip back next year, I just have to do something for those poor little African kids". AHHHH. I really hope you can all see the millions of bad associations I have with "falling in love with Africa". 


But I don't know how else to say how much I love the variety of cultures, languages, peoples, triumphs, problems, landscapes, and faces to be found on this continent.  So when it came time to choose a major, I chose International Studies with a concentration in African studies.  And when it came time to choose somewhere to study abroad (I am required to for my major), I chose Senegal.  Specifically, this program because it has a big emphasis on exploring the issues involved in international development. So that's why I am sitting here in a house in Dakar, with a fan blowing on me (thank goodness), listening to the muffled sounds of Wolof conversation and the calls to prayer from the mosque.

This post definitely doesn't cover all my reasons for coming to Senegal, nor does it even scratch the surface with explaining the situation we are in with development, the subjugation of Africa, voluntourism as a business, and general apathy.  But now you sorta know what I'm doing here, and can see that I'm (hopefully!) not like most people who visit "Africa".  I'm not here to save the world, or enlighten the Africans with my Western wisdom.
I'm here to learn, to observe, to think, to wrestle with issues, to make friends, and to have fun.

Love you all and please let me know if you have any questions about any of this stuff.  I definitely don't have all the answers, but I know of books, websites, and people who have a few :)

Grace

Ile de la Madeleine

Today I feel like a real study abroad student.  All the stories I hear about students abroad sound so adventurous and cool, and now I feel like I have one of those stories.

This morning (not sure when I'm gonna post this...today=Sunday), the other two students and I decided to go to the fish market and try to hitch a ride with a fisherman to Madeleine Island, a little deserted island off the coast of Senegal, where we heard it was fun to hike.  We found a fisherman to take us there, and agreed on a price for him to take us and pick us up later (hopefully...we were kinda putting a lot of trust in this guy that he wouldn't just abandon us on a deserted island).

We got into his little brightly colored fishing boat and took off across the ocean.  Now from the shore, the ocean looks super peaceful.  Sure, there are waves, but they just roll along peacefully to make the scenery all the more beautiful.  But no. When you're actually out on the water, they waves are like 10 feet tall, and the teeny fishing boat was rocked all over the place, with water splashing inside.  Not quite the peaceful ride I had been envisioning, but definitely fun nonetheless.

We passed Serpent Island (basically a giant rock with lots of bird poop, but no snakes on it)

and pulled into the lagoon (makes me feel like such a pirate/mermaid to say that word) of Madeleine Island.  SO GORGEOUS.  The fisherman dropped us off on a rocky beach and took off.  The sense of being alone with nature was overwhelmingly awesome.

Goodbye, fisherman! (you can see the boat leaving the lagoon)

The water in the lagoon was clear and cool, and the cliffs around us were black streaked with white (from bird poop of course), and we could see between the rocks to the ocean beyond.  It was breathtaking.

We sat on the beach for a bit just enjoying how gorgeous everything was and looking at the cool shells, and then we decided to go exploring.  I climbed up and along the rock cliff thing next to the water and came to the far side of the lagoon where I could see waves crashing onto the rocks below me and the ocean stretching out in front of me. Amazing.  I kept feeling like I was on the set of a music video or mermaid movie or something.  The awesome thing too was that the island seemed untouched by humanity, and there weren't any roped-off sections, signs, or anything.

To the right there was another little rocky cliff thing (really don't know how to describe it, obviously) and I climbed over there and saw an awesome ocean-creek thing (also difficult to describe).  The ocean water would come in from both sies of the "creek" bed and then crash in the middle. So cool. The power of the water was just crazy.  I also saw some cool crabs that were purple, orange and green while alive and red and orange while dead.

After poking it a thousand times with a long shell and screaming once, I finally determined that it was safe to kiss.  This was actually crab-kiss attempt #2 because I imagined that the first crab moved, dropped it, and it shattered.

There were tons of other gorgeous and amazing things around the coast of the island, but as my descriptions are miserably failing to accurately represent what anything looked like, I'm just going to stop.  And unfortunately my pictures don't really convey how amazing this place was. So you will all just have to come to Dakar and go see Madeleine Island for yourself :)

I will say that we hiked around the top of the island and saw some GIANT baobabs.  I'm talking 10-15 feet wide baobabs that have probably been there for a couple hundred years or so.  I climbed up one and totally felt like Rafiki in Lion King.  There was a lot of red clay around and I was SO tempted to get some and draw a baby Simba on the baobab trunk, but I refrained.

We swam some in the lagoon too (when I say "we" I mean Anne and I; David didn't want to get "all wet and blech"), and it was sooo cool, because the water was super salty and we didn't have to do anything to float.  It was actually difficult to keep our feet under the water, they kept just popping back up.  There were lots of little fish in the water, which at first was a little gross/scary, but they were obviously uninterested in nibbling our toes, so we got along just fine.

At about 5:00 (we got to the island at 11ish), our trusty fisherman came back to fetch us, and he took our sunburned selves back across the ocean to Dakar.

So now I have one of those cool adventurous-sounding stories to tell about the fun stuff I did while studying abroad.  Unfortunately, stories will never be able to convey how breathtaking this island was, nor how amazing this day was.  So like I said, you should all come to Senegal.

I hope ya'll are all doing well :)

Love to all,

Grace

Ma famille

Asaamalekum, everybody! 

I don't really have much to say. But here are some pictures!

The mosque in my neighborhood (like 2 minute walk from my house).  Every morning I walk down this little road to go to class or to meet up with Anne and David.  All during the day there's a guy who calls out over a loudspeaker when to pray and preaches little sermons too, I think (I obviously can't understand what he's saying since it's in Arabic).  Each night at like 7:45-8ish he calls out when Ramadan is over. 

My house! Yay! 

My family! Yay! 

From left to right:

My aunt (my mom's sister, gynecologist, mother of Suley and Aisha, bought me ice cream once, super nice) Suley (7 yrs old, hilarious, loves doing karate fights with the air and counting things)
my mom, Soda (one of the nicest women I've ever met, loves watching French-dubbed Criminal Minds, enjoys telling me to eat more during every meal, says she can't remember the last time she was tired and only sleeps 2-3 hrs/night which is crazy)

Mario (24 yrs old, works for the cell phone company, likes watching bootlegged movies)

Tapha (18 yrs old, loves Avril Lavigne, chemical engineering major at local university, speaks pretty good English so I ask him how to say stuff a lot)

Aisha (10 yrs old, loves drawing with me, teaches me lots of Wolof and is very impressed by my repertoire of tongue tricks and funny faces)

Not pictured: 

My sister Aida (15 yrs old, kinda quiet around me, also likes Criminal Minds)
My brother Babacar (20-21 yrs old, he's traveling for the month of August with his job at the cell phone company)
My aunt and uncle who come over like every other night (both really nice, always try to speak English to me which I like, she has the most gorgeous clothes)
The maids (Jaqueline and Adja, both really nice but quiet, I always try to help them with stuff and they won't let me. Like I'll literally be 2 steps from the bucket where you're supposed to put dishes and they will take my plate away from me and insist on walking the last 2 steps with my plate)
Various other aunts and uncles (my mom is one of 8, and that's only counting the children from her mom, not the other 3 other wives of her dad)

I'll put some more pictures on facebook if you want to go there and see them. Hope everything is going well in America!

Love to all,

Grace

Nairna

So we’re technically not supposed to be learning any Wolof for another 3 weeks when we start the class with the other students because if we start learning now we’ll get ahead in the class, but while living with a family who speaks primarily Wolof, it really can’t be helped.  Plus Aisha (the 12 year old girl I mentioned in my last post who I found out is actually almost 11) loves teaching me Wolof words. 

I’ve mastered all the greetings (you have to say like 10 different things every time you greet someone, so this is quite an accomplishment), what to say during meals like “Sourna” (I’m full), “Nairna” (it’s good), and random phrases like “Howma” (I don’t know) and “Rafettna” (it is pretty). I’m practically fluent.  Except that the pronunciations are so hard that most of the time people have no idea what I’m trying to say, but they smile and tell me I’m good at Wolof anyway.

And it's hot.  It technically averages like 10 degrees cooler here than in Atlanta, but without A/C and with sporadic electricity, it feels 50 degrees hotter.  The electricity means fans and cold water, but when it's out (which is like 50% of the time) the only option is to sit and bake. Or use a hand fan, which I do a lot.  My right wrist is going to be so strong by the time I leave Senegal.  

So as for what I'm doing apart from trying to make the throat noises involved in Wolof words and not melting, I wake up every day at about 8am, take a shower (even though I took a shower before going to bed too...like I said, it's hot), get dressed quietly as to not wake up Aida, my sister, and then eat breakfast (usually tea and bread with a nutella-like spread, butter or laughing cow cheese) by myself.  The rest of my family gets up at 5 am to eat breakfast and then goes back to sleep after (this is just for Ramadan, not normal).  Then I walk about 5 minutes to the street where the other 2 American students are living and meet them for the 25 minute walk to class. 

By the time we get to class, I am totally sweaty and gross and look like I haven't showered in days even though it's barely been an hour. But the classrooms are AIR CONDITIONED so YAY. Sometimes I actually get kinda cold in class, it's crazy.  Anyways, then we read difficult French articles that have to do with Senegalese politics, and learn lots of vocabulary/grammar, and speak lots of French.  After class gets out, we go to the computer lab and send emails and stuff for a few minutes (the internet is really fast so that's awesome), and then figure out some place for lunch.

Because of Ramadan, most of the restaurants are closed, except for the really Western, expensive ones.  The last two days we've just gone to a little grocery store and gotten random stuff for lunch, but these meals have not been very nutritionally balanced (example of grocery store meal: big bottle of apple juice and a piece of cheese). We definitely need to figure out something new to do for lunch because we can't spend $10/day at the expensive restaurants, but we can't eat crap either. And I feel bad asking my family to make me lunch when I get back since it would be prepared just for me. 

Anyways, after lunch (wherever that may be), we have gone to the beach a couple times.  Which was fun until I got sunburned (typical.)  Then I come back home, where my family is usually napping or watching tv, and join them in these endeavors.  Oh, and I shower.  Definitely shower.

At about 6 or 7, the guy in the mosque calls out that the day of Ramadan is over, and my family (which at this point has expanded to include my cousins and aunts and uncle and maybe some others) eats dates and drinks coffee.  They give me tea, not coffee, but I don't really know why...either they think I don't like coffee or the coffee is only reserved for the Ramadan-ers.  After the coffee/tea, they lay out rugs in the courtyard and do the evening prayers.  For this, Tapha and Babacar (he's back! But he's leaving again tonight...and I now know its for his job) and my little cousin Suleyman (who's actually 7, not 9) and my uncle (if he's there) are on one rug leading the prayers, and the women are are on the rug behind them, heads covered, echoing what they say.  But I'm a little confused because my brother Mario never prays with the men, and my mom and grandmother never pray with the women.

After prayers, everyone just kinda sits around and talks for a bit (in Wolof, of course, so I'm totally lost), and then we eat.  We sit on the floor of the courtyard on mats around a big bowl, which usually has rice with some sort of meat and vegetables.  It's usually pretty spicy and super good.  No offense to my Togolese friends, but Senegalese food is much better. No flavorless fufu mush here :)

And after lots of them saying "Lekel, Lekel" (eat! eat!) and me saying "Sourna, Sourna" (I'm full, I'm full), the meal is over and everyone sits around and talks again.  We usually eat some mangoes (YUM), bananas and oranges for dessert too.  At this point, I usually just play with Aisha and Suleyman because everyone else is talking in Wolof about things way beyond my vocabulary.  We play this game that's kinda similar to red light/green light, and another game that's similar to Sorry!, and they teach me Wolof and they teach me English and we laugh at each other's mispronunciations.  It's a lot of fun, but I'm pretty sure my family thinks I'm like the most immature person ever, because I'm always playing with the kids instead of being with the adults.  Oh well.  It's funny though, because sometimes Suleyman and Aisha's mom, who is this super dignified looking woman, always in full Muslim garb, plays with us.  She's super nice and fun, but it's just kinda strange watching her run and freeze during the red light/green light game.  

Everyone just kinda drifts off to bed, to watch TV, or to friends' houses as they feel like it, and I usually go to bed at about midnight, once it's quiet enough outside my bedroom to sleep. And then it takes me at least an hour to fall asleep because chances are there's no electricity/fan, and I'm roasting. 

So yeah, that's a typical day in the life of Grace right now.  Today was a little different because I didn't have class (it's Saturday), but I went to the pool with Aisha and Suleyman instead, and that was tons of fun.  They were incredibly impressed that I could do a hand stand AND a flip underwater, so my self-esteem got a nice little boost because at home, I'm not exactly the most talented person in the pool.  I can't even dive.

Okay, anyways, I better go ahead and post this before the inevitable electricity blackout.  Sorry there aren't any pictures, but the internet is too slow for those.  I'll try to post some of my family/house eventually.

Love to all,

Grace

La Troisième Jour

Okay, so let me just start out and say how excited I am for this semester.  It's only been 3 days and we haven't done anything particularly exciting yet, and I'm already having the most amazing time :)

I got off the plane after an 8 hour flight with NOBODY SITTING NEXT TO ME. Best flight ever! I felt like I was in first class.  So much leg room...ahh. When I left the airport, nauseous, sweaty, and repulsive after waiting what felt like 3 hours for my bags to finally appear on the conveyer belt in baggage claim, there was Waly waiting for me with a helpful sign.  Waly is the program coordinator for the MSID (Minnesota School of International Development) study abroad program in Senegal.  He took me to my hotel where I was dropped off and told to just chill on my own for a day (my flight was a day earlier than the program is supposed to start).  Thankfully, the hotel had wifi and I didn't die from boredom (That would have really sucked because this semester's gonna be great and I really would have missed out).  Anyways, I won't go into detail about those first 24 hours, but it basically consisted of lots of sleeping, drawing, and surfing the internet.  Also, all I ate the whole day was a cliff bar and 3 twizzlers because I had no CFA (local money) and couldn't change any because it was Sunday and everything was closed. So that was fun.

But anyways, Monday at 12, I went downstairs and met Waly again, but this time Kouka was with him too.  She is the other program coordinator.  Also, the other 2 pre-session students, David and Anne (University of Texas and University of Richmond), came down after arriving early that morning.  Yes, there are only going to be 3 people in my class for the next 3 weeks. Everyone else gets here after that. At that point, we are going to be AMAZING at French and be all Senegalese and awesome, and all the other students will be so jealous, hehe. 

Alrighty so at this point, I'm going to refer you to Anne's blog, anneinsenegal.blogspot.com because she already wrote about Monday's events and actually remembered her camera when we went to the beach, so you can see some nice pictures. But anyway, Monday was a fun day filled with instructions, food, incredibly tasty juices, Senegalese dancing (yes.), a trip to the rocky beach, and sweat. Waly and Kouka and Honourine (another MSID worker whose home we were at) told us all the cultural faux-pas we should avoid and what we should expect from our families.  We found out that apparently there have been problems in the past with students who don't shower enough, and repulsed their host families to the point that they actually had to tell the program directors about it.  The entire way back to the hotel I couldn't quit thinking about the shower in my near future, so I don't think that will be a problem for me. 

After an ambien-induced sleep, I woke up this morning at about 7:30 and went down to meet Anne and David for breakfast. We each were served half a (large) baguette and a croissant. Beaucoup de pain.  Then Waly came and picked us up with our luggage and we set off on a little tour of Dakar.  

We saw all the sights, including the GIANT monument recently built by the President. It's supposed to represent the African renaissance, with a man, wife and child emerging from rough ground and the child being lifted toward the future.  A cool idea, but incredibly controversial.  Not only did the huge monument cost millions of government dollars in a nation where people are starving, but the statue is a human representation, which is forbidden by Islam.  95% of the population of Senegal is Muslim.  So yeah.  On top of all that, the President actually tried to claim intellectual property rights on the monument and receive personal profit for the tourist revenue.  Oh and did I mention the statue was built by North Koreans? Haha, this monument was not the greatest of ideas. 

This picture doesnt really convey how huge this thing is. Just imagine my body as the length of one of the womans fingers.

We also saw the "Porte de Millionaires" which was built after the peaceful elections of the year 2000, in which there was not only a democratic election of a new president (pretty rare for Africa), but a total change in government (from socialist to liberal). 

We also saw a few cool mosques.

And the white house.

And some GORGEOUS views with AWESOME cliffs.

After our tour, we went to WARC (West African Research Center), which is where the MSID offices are, and where we will be having our class.  Then we went to lunch at "My Shop", a totally Western restaurant thing where they had pizza. Fantastique!

And then came the nerve-wracking drive to go meet our families.  I was sooo scared...as it turns out for no reason :) My family is awesome.  I have 3 brothers, Mario, Babacar, and Tapha, and a sister, Aida.  Babacar isn't here right now though, and when they explained to me where he was, I didn't understand exactly what they were saying, but nodded and smiled anyway, so now I really have no idea where he is.  My host mom's name is Soda, and she and her children are living with her mother, whose name I can't remember, but that's because I just call her "Maman".  I am sharing a room with Aida.

Ramadan began today so I'm really glad I got lunch, because my family didn't eat until after sundown.  They can't drink anything allll day, which seems unbearable in this heat.  I downed two giant water bottles this afternoon, but I tried to be discreet about it so I wasn't rubbing it in their faces how awesomely cold and fresh and thirst-quenching the water was.

Tonight for the late dinner, several of their family members who live close came to do evening prayers and break the fast.  It was a little awkward because they spoke Wolof pretty much the entire time and as of now all I know how to say in Wolof is "hello" and "thank you".  Surprisingly, my extensive Wolof vocabulary didn't really come in handy during the dinner conversation. But 2 of the cousins, Suleyman (I'm guessing 9 years old) and a girl whose name I can't remember (12 probably) said they felt bad for me just sitting there clueless, so they spoke in French with me.  They taught me a bunch of like hand-clapping games (I'm sure theres a name for them...), and I taught them that little "down by the banks of the hanky panky..." thing.  And we talked about America, and Justin Bieber, and movies, and school, and it was actually tons of fun!

And now I am sitting in my room after a nice cold shower, and writing this.  And thinking about how long this post is, even though I left out tons of stuff, and how if I write this detailed of a post every 3 days, I will have a very large book by the end of this semester. 

Love you all and miss you beaucoup!

Grace

P.S. This actually isn't going to be posted until the 4th day, even though it only includes the events of the first 3 days, so the title isn't totally accurate.