Nearly Week 3

So it has been a pretty cruddy couple of days over here unfortunately - the diet has caught up with me, or else I accidentally consumed some tap water, or who even knows what it could be, but I certainly spent a lot of time in the toilettes this weekend. A lot of us are getting sick with stomach stuff so we're in the same boat - and anyways, I'll move on from that so as not to dwell on the negatives. If you want to hear what is not so excellent about my sejour in Africa, I'll gladly whine to you in an email.
So! Starting with last Friday: We went downtown, about five of us and and someone's host sister, to go to the bank, the pharmacy, and the markets in the city. The bus ride took nearly an hour due to terrible traffic but only cost 150 CFA or about a quarter. I cant figure out the bus system thus far but it seems to me that you have to take bus ten to get downtown and bus 20 to get back uptown. Once in town, we went to a "fast food" restaurant which is basically a place that sells chawarma, falafel, hamburgers, et cetera, for super cheap and delicious lunches. I got chawarma, which is like a gyro, and comes with fries wrapped inside. Senegalese hamburgers consist of a giant slab of some kind of meat, fries, onion sauce, and sometimes lettuce or bits of tomato on top, inside a big piece of bread. mmmm. We headed out to the market after that, to find varied things such as an alarm clock, fabric, baskets, bags, and clothing. No one ended up buying anything because even with a senegalese guide it was terribly tiring to be pushed at from all sides by women selling stuff and men shoving things in our faces and asking us questions et cetera et cetera. Its not like you can just go through and be an observer, you have to be aware of everything and responsive and careful and talk to some people and fend off others and bargain your ass off for a price that is probably twelve times the price they would offer a non-Toubab. It is often best not to really look at anything unless youre serious about buying it - if you pick something up and try to ask about it they assume immediately that you want it and will follow you down the street shouting prices. I want to go back but I'm not ready at all to buy anything or go alone which seems to be the best way to not get trampled by sellers. After that insanity we went to the pharmacy where I found Malarone to be insanely expensive so I didnt buy it yet and will have to go back. There are pharmacies literally on every corner but none of them sell Malarone except for the big one downtown. We got back uptown and I spent an uneventful evening with the family.

Saturday. I woke up mad early in the AM to go take an African Dance class (for credit I think!) and walked down to the gas station (called On The Run and attached to an ice cream and fast food place called, of all things, The Creamy Inn. Yeah, I know). There I met with about 15 others, and a coordinator showed up about half an hour later to take us all by car rapide to the North of Dakar. It was very disorganized and we met up with some teachers and got sort of dragged around to the teacher's half brother's house. We sat in a room painted insanely and decorated with Bob Marley posters and which smelled permanently illegal, if you catch my drift. Then all the teachers broke out the stuff and made it smell all the better, while we Toubabs sat awkwardly listening to Wolof reggae. Following a long walk through the tiny streets of Ouakam, where we were regaled by small dusty children shouting TOUBAB and touching our foreign garb, we arrived at a small shop in the street where the coordinator shoved us all in and put on some Marley while he again lit up and made a bunch of phone calls to inquire as to the whereabouts of someone who could teach us to dance and somewhere to put us while dancing. Finally a woman arrived and we walked some more, out onto a huge garbage-filled beach, and after a bit the coordinator decided he was tired an didnt want to walk all the way around to the beach where we were supposed to dance. So instead we sat in a courtyard and waited for a room to open up in this big building, and finally around 11:30 (almost three hours after we met) we went in and started to dance. It was worth the wait and the soreness later because it was about the coolest dancing Ive ever done, and I've done a lot of dancing. They told us the stories behind the dance we learned and we got yelled at a lot to move more or less or perhaps just to motivate us, I have no idea. I'll have to bring my camera next time because we all looked like complete idiots.
Speaking of the camera, my pictures are on facebook now. There are hundreds of daily things Id love to have a picture of but its so socially inappropriate to take pictures here that I just cant do it. Pictures of things like roosters and goats in the street and women carrying babies and kids running around and people weaving faster than Ive ever seen, and the giant pots they cook in, and the gas stove, and the men soldering stuff in the roads, and families eating around a huge bowl at midday in the street. I just cant break out the camera. Even around my family I avoid it because they go crazy and take a hundred pictures of themselves or very nearly drop it in fighting over looking.
Saturday afternoon we said goodbye to Joe (the youngest of Maman Amities 7 kids) who was visiting with his daughter Sowane, for about a month, and they left after the Deces which you can read about in my last post. Its quieter without her running around but theres still Farou the maid's son who is always around, usually sitting on the potty or taking off his hand-me-down pants or generally causing mischief in the living room.
That night I went out with JB to a club a few blocks away to dance and hang out a bit. I thought he may have taken it as a sort of date because after a while he wanted to slow dance and hold my hand. However, as I found out after insulting him by saying no, holding hands here does not mean the same thing it does in the states, it is simply a sign of affection and companionship and even guys can walk home holding hands, no problem. Ah well. Anyways we stayed out till about 7 am which is what people DO here, and I dont ever want to do it again because its ridiculous. Dancing seems to be far less sexual than it is in the states; during fast songs you dont even touch but just stand next to each other and avoid eye contact unless you do want it to be sexual, and during slow songs you dance like middle school. By the end of the night Id started to feel very sick and then spent the rest of Sunday and Monday and some of Tuesday between bed and bathroom. So it goes. By Sunday night I couldnt blame it on a hangover anymore...
Last night my roommate arrived. It seems I got lucky in knowing she was coming since a lot of students didnt know, and there were so many kids on the newly arrived program that yesterday they called up some families to ask if they could take a second kid. Great organization, right? One friend on my program is sharing a bed with his new roommate. This is no big deal here since everybody shares beds but its kind of a big deal for us Americans who dont want to be wrestling a stranger for some more space. In any case, my roommate Hannah is wonderful - shes from Alabama, goes to Grinnell College, and also danced ballet for a long time. We actually look a lot alike in build and just general features so our families think its hysterical. On the one hand, its great to have someone to speak with in English and share stuff with. But even after one day of questions its really hard not to resent a little bit sharing all of my knowledge about the family and lifestyle here that I had to figure out myself over the last three weeks. Such as how to flush the toilet, or whose brother is whose, or how meals work. Mostly though, Im happy to share, and I know I would have asked the exact same questions of someone if I'd been able to. In a way, watching her is like watching myself arrive all over again, which is both comforting (holy crap Ive come a long way) and uncomfortable (wow, I still have no idea how that works).
As for academics, still sub-par but getting better - history of Islam in west africa seems to be pretty cool, if you like names and dates. The Senegambian History professor has not provided us with the class material so we're still making tons of expensive copies of his books and articles (all of the course material was written by him.) Its interesting stuff but very dense and difficult to have an opinion in front of him because, come on, he wrote the stuff, and hes also just this really well-respected figure in the field and doesnt really want to be here teaching us, or so it seems. Hope that gets better. French is dreary but obligatoire, and Literature is quite the performance of Senghor poetry in which the professor has explained in detail every obvious metaphor, which really frustrates a lot of people, but I love listening to his voice. In any case my french listening skills are improving. Im also continuing with Wolof which I missed a bit when I was sick, and the dance class is a sixth one for credit, so we'll see how that all works out when I get back for sure.
Random observation of the day:
All notebooks here are made of graph paper. All of them. How can people see anything they write?? I know I can't.
Okay, after this long installment I am ready to eat some lunch. I hope your days are filled with peace, tranquility, and regular bowel movements.
Tootles!