Grace for Grace

So I'm back in the States now-- I flew in several Fridays ago with an airlines that apparently doesn't feed you on the long flights unless you are willing to pay. My new friend in the next seat shared her sandwich with me, a real blessing for a hungry stomach. At the time of the flight home it was hard to really comprehend what that meant for us to be flying "home." And what did "home" mean anyways? I had spent my semester making Dakar a sort of home, being at home in the previously unfamiliar. I had made friends and family there, people I didn't want to forget. And then I had traveled in Europe, making new "homes" along the way with people we only stayed with for the max of a week.

I think the whole idea of "home" has been a tricky one for me. The hardest question to answer is, "Where are you from?" This is pretty typical Third Culture Kid, though, and you learn to say that home is where your family lives. Home is wherever it is that God has you. According to "Lion King", "Home is where your rump rests," and I see a lot of wisdom in that. Because life here is transient. Because in the end our homes should not be found on this Earth. So going back to taking that last flight of my semester abroad: I couldn't help but feel a bit bittersweet about it all. Yes, I was going back to the familiar. I was going back to the world in which I have a job, in which I get to cook for myself again, in which I can drive. I was going to people who know my story and don't need the same 2 minute explanation about who I am and what I am studying. And I knew I was starting a whole new adventure by boarding that plane. I knew I was walking into a busy summer and a senior year filled with new challenges and joys-- I was ready for it. But I also knew that this new beginning meant an end to the sort of adventure I had been living since January. Time to go back to the life that had seemed so far away. Like I discovered when I got to go to Thailand last summer, a certain part of me really comes alive when I am overseas. But God loves to adventure with us wherever He leads us, and the very nature of this adventure is shifting and forming as you go.

Like a river. The same stream but different water. The same all-knowing and loving God, but He moves different ways at different times. The water keeps flowing but the stream stays the same. I recently read the book "If" by Amy Carmichael (really good-- go read it!) and was very challenged by my limited understanding of the love of God. She talks about the idea of "grace for grace" and relates it to that river. Grace instead of grace. A supply of grace that constantly replaces the present grace. Life is like that- you need different grace, different direction and wisdom at each corner of the path, and yet God is the same unchangeable God who never ceases to pour out his Love on us as we wait for Him.

I've missed having mountains to hike (this is Mt. Si)

A Trail of Teranga

Learning to make attaaya (the tea)

It has been a while since I've posted, and I'm gonna just blame it on the speed of time's passing. I'm no longer in Senegal, though every day I remember where I was the past 4 months. God really blessed my time there. From the friendships I formed with others on the program to the daily interactions and friendly banter I had with the vendors on my street, I made some very special memories and experienced some really incredible things. Alxamduliaa for everything!


18 Mai: My Last Day in Senegal

Some of my family: me, Lydie, Bébé Co, Herbatin, Marie

My final day we participated in the "Dakar Semi-Marathon" to which my group showed up about 10 minutes before the supposed start of the race, only to get yelled at by the registering officials about how we needed to learn to show up on time (we were actually scolded by Senegalese for being late-- it felt a little ironic) and handed the remaining shirts (all sized XL). The race began another 40ish minutes after that. Most of us ran the 5k, with a few doing the half-marathon. As I ran down the street, jumping curbs, dodging car rapides and street vendors, and nearly getting hit by a bus in front of the main university in Dakar, I realized that I was glad I was only running the 5k. That had to have been the hottest 5k race I have ever run in my life, made slightly better by all the people in the cars and streets yelling words of encouragement and pity after me. My red face must have made a pretty great contrast with the white shirt (though the shirt got darkened some by the coating of exhaust and dust I got running down the streets). Since this was only a couple hours before I was getting picked up to go to the airport, I "hurried" home on a car rapide and spent some time with my family (I ended up on the rooftop chatting with one of my brothers and found myself wishing I had more evenings to spend up there with them). My final dinner, though rushed, was delicious all the same-- peas from a can with "yapp" (some kind of meat) and bread. Leaving the house that night was more emotional than I was anticipating. Saying goodbye to Marie and to Lydie (my host mom) were the hardest farewells, and I had to hurry away to make it easier on all of us. The van was waiting when I walked up the street with my host dad and another friend from the program, Camilla. My last purchase on the way was a bag of thiakry (the yogurt millet stuff) which I accidentally sat on and therefore popped in the airport about half an hour later (I was hiding it in the pocket of the coat I had wrapped around my waist). At the van was a crowd of Ouakamites from our program and some of our Senegalese friends there to say goodbye to those of us getting picked up. It was a really special moment, though sad, saying a "ba beneen, inshalla" (until next time, God willing) to all our friends gathered. Driving away and entering the airport felt surreal, and it is taking me a while to realize that that whole chapter of my life is actually over.

Madrid:
I flew through the night to Madrid with two other friends from my program to meet up with my friend Becca from my university back in the States (she had been studying in Seville). Mike was one of them, and we had a great time chatting up in Wolof the grumpy Senegalese man trying to sell wooden carvings on the street side. I soon found that every time someone tried to speak to me in Spanish I answered in Wolof. This was a problem. I never got to the point where Spanish came out, though this could be aided by my inability to speak Spanish. Some culture shock happened wandering those streets, and I am still caught off guard by the easy accessibility of public trashcans. We spent two nights in a cheap hostel-- a good experience for me after all the horror stories I had heard from friends. Living in Madrid is spendy, thus, we walked everywhere we could and I was forced into buying a McDonald's value menu burger one night for dinner. We saw famous art at the Prada and ate tapas in a large square filled with street entertainers.


London:

Greenwich Meridian Line!

Becca and I met up with a family friends' family in London and stayed with them for 3 and 1/2 days. Their generosity was incredible and their jokes were hilarious. I got a lot of great laughs out of all our conversations, especially since the man seemed to think that my British accent is actually an Australian accent (personally I have spent my whole life thinking I was incapable of speaking in an Australian accent). Apparently it needs some work ;) I loved being back in a place where coffee and tea are drunk on a regular basis, and the first half day we were there I drank a total of 4 large cups of tea. We saw so much during our time there, from Big Ben to the evensong service at St. Paul's Cathedral (and at Westminster Abbey). We went for a walk our first evening there with the couple we were staying with and came across the Queen's barge in this little harbor on the river! We took a healthy number of pictures of red telephone booths and we even got to meet up with an old friend of mine from high school who is from London. God gave us good weather, generally speaking, meaning we only really had to deal with the rain our last day there, the day we had already designated a coffee-shop day. Becca and I kept having to remind ourselves that we were actually in London, that we were actually riding that red double decker bus, actually watching the guards at Buckingham Palace change their posts, actually standing on the Greenwich Meridian Line. A beautiful city to be sure with a lot of history attached. And the family we stayed with was so generous. Teranga has really marked our trip-- teranga being the Senegalese cultural value of hospitality.

Ireland: (so far, Limerick)

Cliffs of Moher

We are now staying with one of Becca's extended relatives. To get to the first family in Limerick, we had to spend the night in a London airport on the cold stone floor (all the transit chairs were taken by 11:30pm). We didn't sleep very much, but managed to make it on our 6:40am flight. Her family picked us up and fed us an incredible breakfast of sausages, bacon, fried eggs, toast, and cereal. After stuffing our bellies we slept till about 2pm, at which point we got up and ate lunch. We saw an old castle that day and went to the Cliffs of Moher the next. Really gorgeous countryside here and more green than I have seen in ages. I'm realizing you don't see real grass in Senegal. They don't have it (at least not in dry season). You see sand and the occasional desert-like brush and baobab trees. Here you walk outside and are engulfed in bright greens that seem to dance across the rolling hills. Rafet na (it's beautiful)! Becca's family really spoiled us and even took us out places, paying for everything. There is no way we can really pay them back for their kindness. Teranga. Something I thought of is that this is a bit of how it is in our relationship with God. He has given us everything, unfathomable blessings and love, and yet there is no way we can ever pay him back. We have to live each day in a state of thankfulness, knowing that we are incredible debtors to his grace and yet He gives it to us so freely because of His love. When you can't physically pay someone back a great  debt, you have to thank them in other ways-- in your actions, in your words. A state of perpetual thankfulness.

The Beauties of a Single Light Bulb

Sine Saloum (April 26-28):
Our whole program took a trip down south to stay together in nice campements for the weekend, enjoying each other's company, riding in pirogues (the canoe-boats), touring the town in sharetts (horse-drawn carts that are really just a platform that you sit on), eating delicious food, drooling over Tuareg jewelry that was 10x out of my price range to buy, and experiencing a night of village lutte (the Senegalese wrestling that you witness both on the streets and on every 3rd billboard- the other ones belonging to tomato paste companies and MSG-packed buillon cubes that form the secret ingredient in every meal here). So basically, a wonderful bundle of great things all packed together into a weekend away from the smog of Dakar. You had to take pirogues to reach the island we stayed on, and once you were there, the modes of transport consisted of your own feet and sharetts. Not that we felt the lack of car rapides or crowded buses-- it felt great to stay in one place and read in the sun on the beach. A gorgeous location for sure with lots of mangroves lining the shoreline. We took a "mangrove tour" by pirogue and saw the sacred baobab of the island where the villagers offer sacrifices of blood and milk to the spirits. Our island tour by sharett caused a lot of excitement in the villages when we stopped and spent some time with the children on the shore of the island.

Lutter doing psych-up cultural dance

Our second night there, we were invited to a lutting match in the nearest village and witnessed the pre-match ceremonies of stepping on special leaves, picking up dirt, and pouring liquids over themselves. There was one light bulb for most of the night, giving the makeshift lutte arena a certain mysterious glow as the sand was stirred up by many wrestling bodies. They gave us the opportunity to enter the arena and lutte against each other, an opportunity that a number of us seized very eagerly. I discovered the pure adrenaline that hits you when your one task is to bring your opponent to the ground in view of over a hundred people, dust flying, cameras (from other toubabs) flashing in  your eyes as you battle to keep your feet under you. I LOVED IT. Not the cameras or the audience so much, but mostly just the competition of it. As soon as I had finished my first round, I was hungry for another match. Guys and girls from my program lutted, and my friend Ethan who was undefeated from our group took on a couple Senegalese lutters. At first no one wanted to challenge him-- probably more than his impressive lutting skills, it was the fear of humiliation if by some chance he beat them at their own sport that, that held them back. He won his first match and lost the second. I wanna bring lutte back with me to the States (minus all the rituals with the liquids and leaves).

L'Ile de Madeline (May 1):

We climbed out on the rock cliff-- naturally.

A group of 13 from my program took pirogues out to l'Ile de Madeline on the Senegalese equivalent to Labor Day. I had heard tale of my friends making the infamous pirogue journey in the past and spending the whole time in a reverent fear for their lives bailing water out of the boat and getting drenched by the waves. But the island itself, uninhabited, was supposed to be gorgeous! Needless to say, I had some high hopes going into this one. Turns out the rumors were true about getting an unwanted shower on the way over and about the beauty of the island. It felt like a bit of a rocky island paradise with a great swimming alcove and some rocky cliffs perfect for climbing. Such beauty God has created! It felt a little surreal. Some friends and I got together before heading back from our lunch spot and prayed together for the rest of the semester in Senegal, that God would guide and use us according to His will. Just about every day it strikes me how blessed I am to be studying here in Dakar.

My friends on the ride back to the mainland

The Great Green Wall (May 4-5):

Onions!!

My Environment & Development class took an overnight field trip up north about 7 hours, the last few hours of those in the backs of pickups bouncing down roads that our bus couldn't drive. We had been learning about a project called the Great Green Wall, a tree-planting project that is supposed to span Africa someday to prevent further desertification. It still looked pretty desertified to me, but they had planted a lot of trees already and we spent the night at some sort of military facility next to the giant well that supplies water for thousands of livestock and people daily. They have community gardens going as well, to provide a hopefully sustainable income for the community. It was so good to see onions being grown here in Senegal, as we each consume at least 2 onions a day in various sauces and almost all of those onions are imported-- Senegalese staples: baguette, rice, onions. Senegalese imports: wheat, rice, onions.

Women travel hours each day to get water from the well.

We saw their projects, "helped" plant some seedlings, then returned for dinner. Some ladies had cooked the goats we had bought (some of our group were disappointed they didn't get to do the slaughtering themselves), so we feasted on ALL parts of the boiled goats, hacked into pieces and placed in the communal bowls. The one light bulb gave us perfect lighting for the occasion-- just enough light to see that we were eating meat and onions, and just enough darkness to not see exactly what that meat looked like or where it was from. I know I ate some intestine and liver, but there were some other things I ate that I still haven't identified. A very filling delicious dinner, alxamdulilaa! We stayed up by the fire late into the night lounging on cots and mats on the ground (though our prof had strictly warned us against the snakes that were going to come for us-- we didn't have to worry about the larger animals that could wander into our little compound), making and drinking attaaya (the strong tea), and star gazing. We engaged in some waxtaan (discussion/conversation), taking turns telling legends and tales from our past and/or our region of the world. My class now knows about Kaldi (who discovered coffee in Ethiopia) and the reason why dogs chase cars, goats run away, and donkeys don't care. We relived tales of selfish tortoises, leopards getting spots, the Alamo, and John Henry. C'était parfait!

Mbeubeuss

Sometimes it is in the little things:

-Making tribal sculptures across from a man with dreads while drinking strong tea and listening to the Civil Wars, conversing with random people in Wolof. 

-Holding a hold a 3 minute conversation with a stranger man before he asks about becoming your husband. 

-Feeling like I'm walking on a very sandy beach just walking down the street to the boutique to buy my breakfast baguette from my shop owner friend (the streets in my neighborhood are made of sand).
-Sitting next to a woman on a bus with a Catholic bracelet who pays a stranger's fare because he doesn't have change and then gives up her seat to an elderly woman who climbs aboard the bus.
-Stepping into a "car rapide" and getting to sit down by the next round-a-bout.
-Taking an extra 20 minutes to walk home because I run into "friends" who work or live along certain streets.
-Sharing dinner around the bowl with around 6 of my family members, all of us reaching in with our hands, trying to avoid dropping onion sauce or fish on the person next to us.

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On the 21st of April I went on a field trip with my Environment & Development class to Mbeubeuss, the Dakar city dump. Each day about 130 trucks deliver garbage of every nature (including the illegal dumping of heavy metals and untreated toxic waste) to this growing "plateau" of trash, picked through by over a thousand workers. Many of those who work in this inevitably health-risk-filled environment live in a small slum right at the base of the plateau. The shelters in which they live are literally built on and of the garbage collected nearby. The suburb that hosts Mbeubeuss is home to the majority of those who work in Dakar. An enormous health and environmental risk, the toxins in the garbage that is dumped have contaminated 50km on either side of it through the air and through the underground rivers that run just meters below the ground underneath the dump. Vegetables grown with this water pass on the toxins to people in all parts of Dakar, and respiratory diseases, cancer, and birth defects are common in Mbeubeuss' proximity. The ocean is less than 2km away-- a distance that is closing with time.

Neighborhood of Mbeubeuss workers

The stench immediately hit our senses when we stepped out of our bus, following the sights we had seen driving into the dumpsite-- the smoldering fires, the heaps of sorted and unsorted trash, people walking around with pieces of curved rebar for picking through the garbage more easily. As we watched 2 more trucks of garbage drop off their contents, people swarmed through the haze to get first dibs on the new mounds left behind. When unemployment rates are high and money can be made by selling sorted garbage, the many who work there strongly oppose the closure of Mbeubeuss, dangerous as it may be to them and their country. People need to eat. They need jobs. And yet, there was something about watching a little girl with smudges all over herself and a dirt-crusted dress play with a headless doll as she sat on garbage, next to a woman sorting garbage, next to a woman selling coffee to those who were taking breaks from sorting garbage. We were not allowed to take pictures of the people there or I would have captured that moment in more than just my mind's eye. To grow up like that! For that to be your life. And how wasteful we truly are. How little we think about what we throw away. How different it felt to step on the air-con bus after that, pull out a sandwich made from uncontaminated (possibly, insh'alla) meat, and drive away from the reality that swallows thousands of people each day. To be able to shower when I got home and wash away the black dirt and grime that was coating my skin and clothing. Not everyone can escape like that. How blessed I truly am! To wake up each morning in a clean bed, with birds singing outside instead of dump trucks, with tap water to wash off with instead of dirty water retrieved from who knows where. With clean clothes, with a family that is not ashamed of what I do during the day, with the knowledge that I will not go through life with my face covered against the fumes and my hands wrapped to prevent injury from the garbage contents. How blessed we are.

Plastics: about 14 cents/ kilo

Turns Out I'm a "Water Spirit"

When I think of a typical beach party, the consumption of fish heads is not typically part of that mental image. It felt and tasted very real the other day, however. I had been invited by a Chadian friend of mine to go to a beach party with people he works with and students from Gabon. I really enjoyed being away from "toubabs" (foreigners) for the day, catching the flavor of a real young adult party in Senegal.  Only the guys played beach volleyball, and I nearly joined but for the crowd of people sitting around watching. I decided it would be a double spectacle-- a woman and a toubab. I settled with watching, swimming, and eating grilled fish and bread with my friend. He noticed that I wasn't touching the head of the fish, however, and asked me why I wasn't eating it. My response: I've never eaten it before! I didn't really know how to say that eating fish head is a nasty business that I wouldn't even know how to commence. So he walked me through it anyways. Since I ate a fish eyeball within my first two weeks in country, I told him I didn't need to eat the eyes again. An experience, for sure. I cannot say that I would choose fish head as an everyday sort of snack. The party ended with my friend's group dancing on stage. They insisted that I join them up there-- so I did. The dance was definitely choreographed. Good thing they didn't tell me that ahead of time!

I've discovered a food item that I am pretty passionate about, however: thiakry (pronounced, "chalk-rie"). Rolled and steamed millet flour in a yogurt-like substance. SO good. You can buy it at stands-- just tell them how much you want to pay, and they scoop the "soow" (yogurt) out of huge buckets and into plastic bags that have millet in them. This quickly became a favorite after class snack for me. You can buy it in little sealed cups and bags in stores, but I prefer to buy it off the street. I like my food better that way. Tastes more real for half the price.


18 avril:
Today I was called "une esprite de l'eau" (water spirit) by one of my friends from Chad. Apparently if I went to his village, they would all be afraid of me because of my blonde hair and blue eyes, characteristic of water spirits. They are jealous, and once they choose a man, that man has no choice but to only be with the water spirit. I guess if my plans of getting a doctorate fail, I could always go to Chad as a water spirit! Quelle chance!

As I was walking through the market in my neighborhood on my way home from the study center, I met a fabric vendor who wanted to sell me some that caught my eye---15,000 CFA (approximately $30) for 5 meters. My response: "Déedeet" (no). We then chatted in French and Wolof for a good 10 minutes, beginning with how many years of education I have left (leaving me with no money to spare for fabric), progressing to talk of husbands (when he asked me if I have a husband-- I told him: "Am naa juroomi jekker," meaning I have 5), and drawing to an end when he told me of his undying love for me. My response: if you love me, you will give me the fabric for 4,000 CFA (all that I "technically" had) instead of the 5,000 CFA he was finally asking. I walked away telling him "ba beneen Insh'Alla" (next time, God willing) and feeling like I should look for fabric elsewhere next time. I've gotten a good number of laughs when I tell these guys here in Wolof that I have 5 husbands. They never understand when I tell them I don't want one yet, so this is almost easier. You have got to just embrace it with a sense of humor sometimes or you go a little crazy. A typical conversation with a Senegalese man:
First question: How are you?
Second question: Are you having a good time?
Third question: Do you have a husband?
Next statements: I love you. Be my wife. (I only have 2 already.)

20 avril:
We walked into the church close to midnight and I was immediately struck by how many people were present. I have never been good at estimating numbers of crowds, but this had to have been about 70 people of various ages and African nationalities, sitting bowed over on wooden benches praying to the Lord. This was a night of prayer at the French church I have been attending-- it started at 10pm Friday night and was supposed to go until 6am the following morning. The two coffee breaks filled with fellowship and friend-making broke up the hours of prayer and worship that followed. It was incredible to add my voice to the many others belting out songs in French to the God of the Universe and whispered prayers to the Almighty. I didn't know the songs, but could pick up most of the choruses (there was no powerpoint for lyrics). Rich words. We prayed for our nation, for the government, for the future generation in Senegal and in the church, for church ministries, for the persecuted Church. For other countries that are war-stricken, and for believers who are in chains. What a blessing that we could gather like that without fear of singing a note too loud and being arrested for our faith. It made me think of the call we have as believers to live lives worthy of the calling we have received. To have a faith as precious as the faith of those who have gone before us, who have given all they had to pursue the Kingdom of God.

I wasn't sure if I would be able to stay the whole night, and going into it, I was kind of thinking I would leave about halfway through so I could get sleep before our tree-planting project (cooperating with a neighborhood environment group) the next day at 10am. Within the first hour, however, I knew I was staying the whole night. And God gave such joy in His presence! I never fell asleep, though a couple times I was praying and realized I didn't know what it was that I was whispering to the Lord. They had breakfast bread for us at 6am, yet another joyous occasion before my friend and I walked the 20ish minutes to our study center to crash in the stairwell for an hour and a half (before the tree-planting). God provides strength. Alxamdulilaa.

Days You Just Can't Plan

Lunch with a man who randomly accosted us in the street? Six hours' worth of ataaya (strong sweet traditional tea) at his house afterward and a political discussion? Dinner with his family followed by a Senegalese dance party in his room? Oh and then go with him to the outdoor concert celebrating Senegal's independence that didn't start until about 11pm? Sounds like a day. It was definitely one of those days that you just cannot plan no matter how much you might hope for the unexpected. A group of 6 of us from my program had jumped on a "sept-place" (Peugeot with 7 spots for passengers) that morning bound north for St. Louis. At first we weren't sure if we were gonna make it to our destination as our driver sped out of the "gare" barely avoiding 3 collisions in the first minute of travel. Turns out he knew how to cut traffic lines by driving in all the wrong lanes or creating his own, so we did not get too stuck in traffic trying to leave Dakar.

Our group with Malik, his sister, and the English teacher

The man we met in the street, Malik, was definitely looking for some help in getting his jewelry business going but never asked us for money and his family was very welcoming. He called over a Senegalese English teacher to join in the conversation, and we taught each other tongue-twisters and played question games in Wolof and English quizzing each other. Placed beignet bets on the first women's lutting match shown on TV (lutte= Senegalese traditional wrestling). The fresh air of the concert was welcomed after all the tea-sitting, but with that fresh air came a couple frozen limbs. Turns out St. Louis is FREEZING at night with the coastal winds. Even so, we got to watch a few artists lip sync to prerecorded songs while shaking their dreadlocks all over the stage before we got too cold and retired at midnight to the hotel's huts in which we were spending the night.

Pirogues for fishing and transport

The following day was filled with wandering around the island of St. Louis on a self-guided tour-- pretty historical and definitely European architecture. Fueled by street food and "café touba" (kinda like a spice coffee) we saw a lot of the island, surprised by the plethora of unobserved children running around playing, begging, sitting. They had this week off for break, though it really made us think about how young Senegal's population is as a whole. The English practice sentences on the chalkboards of the vacated school we explored were very different from the type you would see in the States. One of the sentences was "Not once did he allow his wives to join the women associations." (Remember that polygamy is perfectly acceptable here.) After running into our friend Malik again, randomly, we decided to go to the rugby tournament we had heard about. This was one of those times when we sat down and thought to ourselves, "what are we doing here again?" The pitch was swarming with young boys, some racing around on broken-off palm fronds (looked like they were playing Quittage), some playing soccer, some being "organized" into rugby teams by a couple of adult men. The stands being empty except for us lasted about 2 minutes, at which point they were flooded with little boys shaking our hands and asking us for "cadeaux" (gifts). The rugby never really happened while we were there, though we saw some form of toss-the-ball-and-tackle-eachother.

Along the road near our first overnight spot

Our plans to spend the next night out of St. Louis at a remote campement called Zebrabar included buying cans of beans and corn, baguettes, and chocolate spread-- we heard that dinner at the campement was $12 a plate, an amount we certainly hadn't factored into our budget. To get there, we stuffed our supplies, bags, 10-liter jugs of water and the 8 of us into a normal 4-passanger car with the promise that we would meet up with the driver's brothers partway and switch into two cars for the rest of the journey. You knew our first chariot was a good one since we had struck up this bargain in a repair-lot where most of the cars had no wheels or had the hoods up getting fixed. We had a natural sun-roof, created by the rust of time for no extra charge and the natural air conditioning of only a couple windows. I was pretty excited when the doors actually stayed shut as we drove! Zebrabar reminded me of Jurassic Park, complete with safari vans painted with zebra stripes and a nice bar and restaurant with lookout tour. Right on an inlet, we had chosen this place for its kayaks-- free to overnight guests. We slept in a tent with 6 double beds packed inside, perfect for what we were looking for.

Sunrise view from the tower at Zebrabar

Saturday (the next morning), we got up early and climbed up the tower to watch the sunrise over the land and water. I was determined to get my kayaking in, and ended up going with my friend Ethan. Turns out that one of the kayaks was good for the water we were kayaking in, and one of them was not. By the time we were past the dock I knew I was in for a treat with my kayak, and between that and the homemade paddle I was using, I didn't stand a chance against getting soaked. Honestly, I don't know much about kayaks, but what I can say is that this one barreled instead of glided. On the way back I kept getting pushed around by the currents of the water, even against the direction of the wind. I still don't really know how this happened, but I would be paddling for all I was worth on one side and still be turning the wrong direction. There reached a few points when I was so tired of putting all I had into rowing that I would release the kayak to the will of the water (and promptly get turned around backwards). It was a pretty good image of how I have felt at a few points during this semester. But you get stronger for paddling against the currents. You can't simply make them go away, but life isn't about just making challenging situations disappear. God equips you in each case to continue moving forward even when you get turned around and feel like you are going nowhere. Amen to God knowing what He is about in our lives!

Oh and Zebrabar also had a slackline-- definitely not a feature I was expecting out of a campement in Senegal (even one run by a Swiss couple). So I was able to kayak, slackline, hike out to main roads, and journey across the country by "sept-place" all in the same day. I didn't mind it. ;)

The Life of a Street-Side Sap Seller

My little friends

Rural Visit. One of the main reasons I wanted to study abroad in Senegal. One week of living in a rural village, the purpose of which was to experience and learn about life without electricity, running water, and internet. To taste the life of those who rely on the rains, who have cultural traditions that dictate responsibilities around the village, and who have possibly never seen a white person before. And let's just say that I did scare some children, especially babies. [Poor Moustafah is probably still hiding behind his mother's skirt at the memory of that white face looking back at him.] It was not much of a culture shock for me, I must admit, growing up as one of the first foreigners villagers had seen (in southern Ethiopia). I had forgotten how it felt to have kids sidle up next to you just to touch your skin then dash away, how it felt to walk around and have everyone call out after you. I was glad I chose to introduce myself by my Senegalese name: Mariama Kabou. I would have been sick of my real name by the second day if I had used it instead! Everywhere I went, "Mariama! Mariama! Toubab!" (Toubab= white person/foreigner) It seemed like everyone knew my name, as in small towns word of a stranger travels fast-- especially if that stranger is white. I stopped wearing my watch on the second day, as I discovered it attracted too much attention. A sign of wealth. As did my cheap Old Navy flip flops-- top quality. My anklet was also an area of curiousity. My maman asked me which marabout had made it for me (as a protection against evil) and found it hard to believe that I just made it for fun.

Maman and Assi (the 3 of us shared the room)

The cultural value of Teranga (hospitality) was huge in my town, and a combo of that and the money my host was being paid created a week filled with sitting and eating. I went with a Senegalese-run organization for the empowerment of women called APROFES and was placed in a small town called D'Inguiraye with one of the Chief's wives. She is the president of that town's APROFES group and is an incredibly strong woman, well respected in the community. We lived in a compound shared by about 8 or 9 other women and their children, and slept in a one room place (furnished with a bed and a small table). She gave me her bed and slept on a mattress on the floor at nights, a girl she is taking care of temporarily taking another corner of the room on a mat. We shared our room with a whole pack of mice I saw running along the rafters and heard at night scurrying around my bed. Because we lived with the chief and it was a town instead of a truly rural village, my household had electricity (and that fan got us through many a hot night). Cooking was done outside, and the bathroom consisted of an area out back walled off by compact dirt blocks and some tin. Showers at night were spectacular, possibly the most scenic real showers I have ever taken! Bucket shower, of course. There is nothing quite like washing away the dirt and sweat of the day with well water while star gazing right next to a long-drop. All you need in one location. With the refreshing wind, the clean skin, and the light cast by the moon and stars, I came to the realization that I want an outdoor shower of my own someday.  My town was Wolof-speaking, almost exclusively so. This meant that any time I found someone who knew some French it was like stumbling upon an oasis in the desert! All of a sudden I could communicate with words and be understood! I knew enough Wolof to make it around, but I wished I knew so much more. I couldn't hold conversations with my family there, and did not always know what they wanted me to do or not do. It was a challenge that was good for me, and it definitely showed me the importance of what I am learning in my Wolof class. I was glad I knew enough to be able to say, "begguma jekker" (I don't want a husband), as this seemed to come up a lot (like usual here). I decided I need a shirt that says that to save people the trouble of asking me to marry them on the street.

I ate really well. Too well. Multiple women of the compound cooked for us, and one night I had the equivalent of three dinners served to me! My last night there, my "maman" decided to cook us up some red meat- a real specialty. This deviated greatly from the typical staple of "ceere" (sort of a ground up millet? I honestly still don't know exactly what it is), and she was pretty excited to prepare it for me. As its cooking was nearing a close, she gave me some to sample. Fat and gristle are welcomed in this society's palate, but I was able to eat my way through what she had handed me. What remained, I realized after eating away the interesting textured meat, was a goat tooth. She had cooked up part of a sheep skull for me. I chose to eat dinner that night outside under starlight, better lighting than a light bulb if you want to enjoy a meal that has potential to trigger the gag reflex. This may sound unappetizing, but really, the food was delicious and I ate way more than I needed!

My maman: Fatou Ndeye

My maman ran a boutique and a random spices and veggie stand during the morning. I would often sit with her at the stand and help her bag tree sap and peanut paste while practicing my Wolof numbers and munching on some kind of root they eat with their rice. It was an excellent people-watching location, on both ends. I watched all the happenings around me, and many of those around me watched my every move. There was the man who was not right in the head who wandered in nothing but briefs and a dirty black vest, hair pointed to every corner of the earth. There was the ladies with the bread stand who started out under the mango tree, only to move over next to us when the sun rose higher in the sky shifting the location of the shade. There were the children who would walk past me staring over their shoulders, wait about 10 seconds, then walk back the other way for a second look at the toubab. There were always minivans coming in with passengers packed inside and belongings (and goats) strapped on top. I sufficiently enjoyed my time as a road-side seller.

Our "back door": the cookfire is to the left of the tree

The final day in D'Inguiraye broke the normal schedule of wake up, eat bread, go to the boutique/stand,  return for a nap with maman in the heat of the day, eat lunch, nap and read some more, socialize, go back to the boutique, socialize, eat dinner, star gaze, go to sleep. We had a town newcomer: the peanut roaster. Placed in a small, horribly ventilated room and fueled by a gas canister, we soon found the roaster to roast more than just the peanuts. We took turns entering the black smoke-engulfed room to turn the crank that rotated the peanuts. You could really only do a couple minutes in there before it was necessary to switch people. I made them let me do it with them-- I wanted to truly experience their life (though they seemed certain in just about everything that I would hurt myself or get blisters or get too hot). But they had told me "sit" too many times, and I refused to just watch this one. When I blew my nose after, all that came out was pitch black, similar to my skin color after the roasting was done!

I felt a sort of spiritual wall during my time there.  I am pretty sure that I was the only Christian in the village, and I got used to my maman getting down on her prayer mat each day to pray towards Mecca. It was interesting, though, that every time I was about to or did pull out my Bible to read I would promptly get interrupted. I tested it sometimes, and would head over to my bag to pull out my Bible, only to have someone show up right then to stare at me, try to talk to me, play with me, or bring me somewhere. I kid you not, about 9 times out of 10 this would happen. And so when I did read, there was almost always someone there watching me or having a conversation around me making it difficult to focus on the French text I was reading. But God is faithful and I pray that I was somehow a light to my family there regardless of my inability to talk about my faith with them for lack of vocabulary. I can't help but think, though, about how many villages are like that in the world, complete people groups  without a single believer in the One True God. And we are happy just sending a dollar here or there to help the spread of the Gospel? We are happy pursuing comfortable lifestyles and job security, knowing that at least we have a church? "Oh those poor people in Africa, starving physically and spiritually who have never heard of Peace in God. That's just too bad! Someone should help them, surely. But not me. I'm called to that which I know." But isn't that the whole point of trusting God? I hope and pray we don't miss the reason for our existence on earth. La vie est courte: for us and for those who have never heard Jesus's name. I'm praying that I will follow God wherever He leads. I want Him to teach me to go to the broken places, knowing that it will be hard but that in that difficulty God will be there. And that sweet communion with God is worth any sweat and tears shed along the way.

Buildings that Crumble

Warning: this post will be all over the place. Be ready.

A mosque about a 20 minute walk from my house.

I had never experienced so many mosquitoes in my room at one time than I did this one night after spending the day coming in and out of my open room door  (opens to the outside of the house) with my 12-year-old sister and the 8-year-old son of my "Mom"'s coworker. We played long and hard with a quickly deteriorating orange foam/sponge ball in the limited space of a patio-type walkway in front of my room. That night I entered my room to discover over 25 mosquitoes lazily flying around or hanging out on my walls, just waiting for me to settle down for the night. My sister couldn't believe how many there were and grabbed the mosquito killing spray which then fumigated my room. The great thing about this process is the pungent lingering smell of the spray that has become as much a part of my life as the dust on my feet each day. That night, however, the other great perk of the spray was that when I entered my room several hours later, I found the mosquitoes dead all over my floor, bed, table, and chair. In fact, I could not walk through my room without stepping on them, and I had to pick through my bed sheet to avoid sleeping with them. They made a nice little black pile when I swept them all up before bed. Definitely looked like more than just 25 in that form.
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I have been attending International Baptist Church with some friends of mine who are fellow followers of Christ. The first Sunday I went I was overwhelmed by the richness of being together with a body of believers like that. It had been about a month since I had been able to go to church, and I had been missing that community. The family that sat behind us used to know a family we knew in Ethiopia, and since then we have eaten at their house and spent time getting to know them a bit better. The pastor is from some other African country and preaches in English, the songs being a mixture of French and English. Most of the congregation are from various anglophone African countries. It takes me about an hour to get to church each Sunday, and I enjoy every minute of it. I never feel alone when I walk or take the public transport-- I sorta slip into this place of quiet communion with God as I take in all the sights and sounds (and often, smells). More about the walking: I have started walking home from my study center twice a week when my classes finish early (at 16:15). The walk home takes about an hour, unless you stop for ice cream or beignets on the way.

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I haven't really slept on a real pillow in 2 months :) My bed didn't have one, and I didn't wanna go buy one. I have discovered that my jacket and my fleece blanket work really well as pillows! My bed, like many Senegalese beds I have heard about, is dipped in the middle giving an almost sleeping-in-the-hammock feeling. I'm a fan. I sleep under a mosquito net each night, and each morning I tie it up like you tie up the ropes at the rock wall. I'm mastering this daisy-knot business. 

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Last Friday I starred in a French film. Well, maybe not "starred" but the movie was called "Des Etoiles" and I was an extra in the airport scene. One of my friends, Austin, and I made up a whole story about how we were siblings arriving in Senegal to visit our sister in the Peace Corps. There is chance I made it in the background of a 2 second clip, but that might be stretching it. There were a lot of extras from my program who did this too! The movie producers fed us breakfast and lunch, and though we did a lot of standing in lines or sitting around, we had a great time. When we returned that night to Ouakam, we discovered a huge crowd of people just down the street from my house. Turns out a building that was under construction (5 stories tall) had collapsed that morning because it was not safely built. They had built it about 3 stories higher than they had the permit to built it, and the cement blocks being used were not a good composition. The rebar reinforcement was also not a good quality, thus creating the unstable building that I used to run past several times a week. About 2 workers died, 4 were injured, and several cars who had been driving past got smashed. My family didn't want to talk about it when I got home.

View from the nearby lighthouse. 

Unexpected things happen every day. It is such a comfort to rest in the knowledge that God is in control. No matter how "safe" or "unsafe" our lives may seem to us, we are as safe as we will ever be when we are in God's hands. Safety itself, then, is really a matter of perspective. Eternal security trumps all earthly safety nets and door locks. I feel like Jesus could make a parable about this house, about how the composition of the building, the essence of its frame, is more important than how firm or pretty it looks from the outside. Our lives need to be built with blocks that won't crumble when they are pressured, with what won't be destroyed by the passing of time. Reading Jesus's teachings in Matthew always reminds me that the God we serve and the Kingdom of Heaven is worth so much more than anything we might "give" on this earth. The Treasure of unfathomable price. And yet it can be scary to pray that we would seek this Kingdom no matter the cost. We love our comfort, we love feeling like we are in control of our lives. We don't like pain. But if we truly believe in God and His Kingdom, isn't the logical next step is to give all that we have in the pursuit of this Kingdom?

Backpacking Kedougou: Part 2

Walking to the village after the bus dropped us off

We had made friends with a Peace Corps volunteer who lives in a village 30km east of Kedougou and the plan was to spend one of our last nights at her place. Though we found a minibus right away that was heading the right direction, East, we ended up waiting about an hour and a half for it to finish filling up beyond its capacity so that we could leave. This wait was possibly one of the lowest points of the trip as I legitimately felt ripped off for having to pay extra (a whole dollar!!) for my bag to get tied on the roofrack, I was low on energy (after walking across town to discover that Lonely Planet had misled us into false hope of finding somewhere with froyo), my body was sweating from every pore, and I was crammed in next to other hot bodies who were also low on energy. I felt better, however, as we were roll-started out of the lot we had been parked in and the car came shudderingly to life. When we reached the right village, the driver forgot to stop, and we ended up walking 2km back into town watching the sun set over Africa-- a beautiful sight. We asked around the village until we found our friend's hut and met her family. That night we got to listen as one of her friends shared the story of the village founder while star gazing at some of the most amazingly bright stars I have seen in years. The 3 of us girls slept on her bed (built for 1 person), our friend took her hammock, and Anthony (the French couch-surfer was staying with her for a few days) and Mike were on a small pad on the hut floor. It was basically a sauna in there, and I didn't think I would get any sleep because of the heat and the inability to move without disturbing another sweaty body. 

Our friend's village

The overnight bus we took back from Kedougou the next day was an adventure from the start. Within the first hour we were stopped, and by the second stop (about an hour and a half into the trip) every person but maybe 3 got off the bus and started praying towards Mecca. I came to find out that these frequent stops were not, in fact, because of small bladders but were the result of engine trouble. We ended up stopping a total of 7 times in the 7 hours it took us to drive a stretch that should have taken us about 4 hours. The driver McGyvered up a fix to the slit in some part of the cooling system, but there was just too much to fix. Once when we were stopped for an hour, a local drunk approached me and my two girl friends and started to proclaim his great love and serenade us with one line from a song about "1963." He provided great entertainment for everyone waiting on the bus. Knowing the tendency for buses to break down, I'm glad we were on the overnight bus. It was much better being broken down at 11pm than it would have been at noonday (much less sun at midnight)! We switched buses in one town and our trip got significantly less interesting but more restful for the remaining 9ish hours of the trip. 

God knows how to challenge me. He knows when I am ready to learn a new sort of lesson in faith and when I am becoming too comfortable. This time round the challenge was not through physical circumstances, the times when we didn't know where our next water or food would come from, but rather in relationships and continuing the process of learning to love. Discovering more about myself and what I believe. Finding refuge in Him when I feel alone on certain issues. He knows how we are formed-- He remembers that we are dust. And He never leaves us on our own. Jàmm rekk, Alxamdulilaa ("Peace only, praise be to God"). 

Backpacking Kedougou: Part 1

Picture jumping on a janky Peugeot that seats 7 (cleverly called a "sept place" here) with a driver that speaks no French or English, heading south for 12 hours with fellow adventure-seekers bound for who-knows-what. Exchanging sweat because of the close proximity in the car that sometimes feels like it is fixing to give up its last exhaust fumes any second. True to the time estimate, we arrived in the town of Kedougou that evening around 8pm and after some searching, found ourselves in a "campement" for the night. Campements are composed of a few huts with beds inside, and if you're lucky (or spend a few more bucks), possibly a wall that has a toilet and bucket with water for bucket showers behind it. Showers which we soon discovered were a sort of lifeline to improved sleep, as the heat kept you sweating all night long and the dust you gathered during the daytime created a sort of mud that clung to your body and embedded itself in the creases of your skin. All that to say, any place that had a bucket shower option was welcomed with open arms.

The road to Dindefelo

It would be impossible to sum up my trip in just a few words, but I will give an overview in two posts (and they will undoubtedly be long ones). My group was composed of 2 other girls and one guy (who split off at Kedougou the first day but whom we met up with a couple days later in a different village). Our second night, the three of us girls spent the night at the Peace Corps house in Kedougou, two of us sharing a mosquito-netted bed in a wall-less hut called the "Disco Hut." The following day, we headed off on a market bus to a small village called Ségou in search of some waterfalls we had heard about. We shared our adventures that day with a French couch-surfer named Anthony who we had met the night before with the Peace Corps. Ségou had a beautiful campement overlooking a valley that is farmed when the rains come. We tried some local tea on wooden benches in the village and saw the "international highway" that connects Senegal to Mali (tempted to take it, but resisted the urge). I wish I had a picture of this road, as it was about the width of a Honda Civic and was composed entirely of rocks. Apparently it is impassible by car which made a lot of sense to me looking at it. We hiked 7 km out to the waterfall (more of a "watertrickle" because of it being dry season) through burned off brush and through dry riverbeds. There were a few beautifully inviting water pools we swam in as we followed the river. I discovered that though my Chacos were perfect for the occasion, the rocks took full advantage of my exposed skin and took a few chunks outta my feet. Only saw one snake. Dinner that night was under the stars on a bench in village: we sat around the bowl and ate rice and peanuty sauce with hot pepper on top, a cow literally looking over our shoulders one foot away, the stars bright in the sky above, and the lady who cooked our meal eating right next to us with the village chief. 

Waterfall at Dindefelo

A 5km walk down the road brought us to Dindefelo, a larger village next to much bigger waterfalls. We met up with our 4th party member by asking where the tall American was (Mike is about 6 and 1/2 feet tall) and went swimming at the gorgeous falls. It was so cold in the waterfall gorge that I had goosebumps during the hottest time of the day! We dined on egg and bean sandwiches in town just about every meal in Dindefelo.

Mainstreet in Dindefelo

On the trail between Dindefelo and Ibel

The following morning we left Dindefelo at 6:45am and began our 25km hike to the next village, Ibel. Our guide kept a lively pace, and we only stopped once for him to use the bushes, this "break" lasting all of 2 minutes (if that). 3 hours and 13 minutes brought us to Ibel, but the campement was deserted. I explored the village with one of the others, Camilla, and ended up finding out that no one knew where the manager of the campement was. 2 hours after arriving in Ibel, we made the grand decision to keep walking to the next village, Bandafassi. It was about 12noon at that point, and we each had about half a liter of water on us when we headed out. 7km later we arrived dusty and tired to our destination and walked into the campement in time to collapse on chairs a table over from a proper-looking French family sipping tea. We probably left dirty sweat marks on the chairs when we finally got up to pump water into our bottles from the nearby well. My feet cursed me with every step I took on them after that, and walking another 1km into the village to find lunch was rough though rewarding. A random guy we met brought us to his sister who cooked us up a feast of eggs and veggies which tasted better than Thanksgiving dinner to a hungry and expectant stomach. That night we calculated that we had walked over 34 km that day and went to bed early. The night that ensued seemed to last forever, however, between laying in a pool of sweat all night, hearing dogs viciously fighting right outside (ended finally by a gunshot), and a member of our group up twice vomiting our dinner of fries and egg all over the bathroom floor. 

"Mountain" overlook

The next morning the three of us who weren't sick climbed up the "mountain" behind our village and were able to look out across the whole valley as the sun rose in the sky. BEAUTIFUL. We wished we could just stay there for hours, but we had arranged to catch a ride back to Kedougou with the campement manager at 9am. We squatted all day at a well maintained hotel restaurant overlooking the river with views of people beating clothes clean on rocks and washing trucks. Though we each ordered a drink (I had forgotten how good just black tea is), we stayed there for about 4 or even 5 hours eating our own messy mangoes (...including flossing the fibers out of our teeth right there in plain daylight), oranges (which had to be peeled with pocket knives), and millet (made with the extra hot water for the tea). Let's just say that they were ready to see us leave when we told them we weren't going to buy their lunch. Going cheap can be insanely obnoxious for those who want you to spend. 

Gorée Island

Gorée Island (by the ferry dock)

Two Saturdays ago we took a trip out to Gorée Island, a sort of holding and launching location for the Atlantic slave trade. We visited the "House of Slaves" in which they locked up human lives while waiting for the ships to come take them across the ocean. Slave masters could choose to sleep with the young girls and women, no problem, but if they got pregnant, they were released to make a living for themselves on the island. We saw a tiny windowless cell underneath a stair case which was used to punish slaves who stepped out of line. They told us that after slave-trade had been banned, Nelson Mandela visited this place and went inside that cell. After two minutes he came out weeping.

House of Slaves

There is some controversy about how and where the slaves on Gorée Island were actually kept, and it was not as large a trading center as some other posts, but all the same: human life is God-breathed and therefore VALUABLE. Hunting humans to capture and place in lifelong captivity so that one can have a new weapon or trinket should never sit right with us. A girl is worth so much more than a mirror.

After the House of Slaves and a museum about it all, we explored the rest of the island before taking the ferry back to Dakar. The island itself was very picturesque and I took about a 900 pictures of the buildings alone (only a slight exaggeration..I seriously took a lot). Fun fact: there is so much smog you can hardly see the city from the island, though in actuality Gorée is just off the coast. The water was very inviting, however, and I was slightly disappointed in myself for not wearing clothes good for swimming (or a swimsuit...).

Here are some pictures I took on Gorée:

You don't need drying machines in Senegal

A street scene on Gorée (minus the tourists who usually stick to the streets with souvenir vendors)

Bizarre, quoi?

Feb 6: Just before dinner, to whet the appetite, my host "dad" walks in holding a stiff headless rabbit...Then ensued a great debate over what had happened and how it must have been the cat and who was to blame for not putting the rabbit in the hutch. Just after dinner, at around 10:30pm when I was just beginning to drink my nightly tea with my "brother" Frankie, my host "dad" returns carrying a second dead rabbit-- this one with no obvious wounds save a broken spine. I guess it had just then been chased off the roof. What happened next was a combo of an investigation of the rabbit cages and the recent murders and a rescue mission for 2 newborn rabbits (being devoured by biting ants) that we didn't know were up there.  All conducted over one cup of tea. Who knew.

Feb 7: New record finding in my bathroom-- 7 cockroaches scuttling around! Only about 4 of them were in the shower, though, the other three were running around the toilet. Sometimes you just gotta learn to share! ;) The newborn rabbits died today. When something sad/hard like this happens, you console someone by saying, "masa." Not to be confused with "maasa" which means "school"-- that one wouldn't be very consoling for some people. I hope I used the right pronunciation when I was talking with my sheep-neighbors whose really cute baby sheep just died as well without a known cause.
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Interesting observations: In Dakar, people care a lot about cleanliness and fashion. About the shoes being clean and the clothes being pressed. About the house being picked up and there not being any trash laying around the main living areas where guests might see. What is interesting, however, is that these rules are thrown out the window when you walk on the street. The world becomes your garbage can, the sand and dust of the roads get all over your newly cleaned shoes, and sometimes you often get coated in dark clouds of vehicle exhaust that leave you coughing and wheezing. A friend in my program said that her host mom wouldn't let her leave the house without cleaning her shoes. She wiped them off with a tissue, and her mom proceeded to take the tissue and "throw it away" outside on the street. No worries, right? It is not cluttering up the house and the shoes are clean! Interesting mentality. Public trash cans are hard to come by, and even in houses, they can be scarce.

Earlier on this week, we had both a bread strike and student protests on the same day. The bread strike came as a result of the price of wheat going up on the international market (we have to import it), but legally bakers cannot increase the price of bread without government permission (it is regarded as a staple food-- with reason). The meaning of "give us today our daily bread" took on a whole new meaning for me as I thought about the scarcity of it. I was kinda curious to see what would happen if the government refused to listen to the protestors, but I guess the Senegalese are too addicted to their baguettes for that to last more than a day. (I will admit I was happy to see my beignet maker back in business...)

That same day there was at least one burned bus on the main street we use to get to our study center. I am still unsure what the students were protesting, but traffic was stopped to the point that people on other buses who had places to be just walked the rest of the way to their destinations. A friend of mine barely made it to class for this reason. The bus was gone by the end of the day, but you could see the scorch marks on the pavement.

Some Typicalities

I've been getting a lot of questions about the little details of my living situation. I suppose it is quite a deal different from my life in Oregon, so it is worth writing about.

CLASSES:

CIEE Study Center (where I take my classes)

I am taking 5 classes, all of which are taught by Senegalese professors at the study center for our program. We share the facility with a Senegalese law program, but we do not take classes together. Our classrooms are all named inspiring things like "jamm" (peace), or "jangeket" (study). It is right next to a pastry shop that has delicious quiche and is quite close to street-selling-peanut-lady with whose stand I am well acquainted. I am taking Advanced French, Beginning Wolof (the main language they speak here in Dakar), African Conflict Management/Law, Senegalese Culture & Soceity, and Environment & Development. All but one of those classes is in French. I'm getting quite good at listening and note taking during French lectures, but I'm realizing my verb conjugations are horrid. Room for improvement, right? A whole gymnasium size of room.

HOST FAMILY:
My Catholic Senegalese host family is a lot of fun. The household I live in is composed of the following: a mom, dad, 2 host sisters, a brother-in-law, 4 host brothers (one is away though), 2 cousins, a baby, another student from my program (he lives in the main house- I live in a side apartment with a couple other family members), and a maid (who basically lives with the family-- she only speaks Wolof, so we have fun trying to communicate). My shower is outside but connected to the building. Several sheep live next door and don't mind expressing themselves at random hours of the day and evening. You learn to drown it out. We have several rabbits and chickens living on our roof who roam free up there during the day beneath the clotheslines strung full of laundry.

My next door neighbor (the sheep are hard to see in this one)

In terms of my bathroom, the shower begins as soon as the toilet ends. No floor space is wasted! Just about every day I wake up and am greeted by cockroaches in the shower scuttling around my feet. They have become a sort of permanent installment in the bathroom. The door finally got fixed, too! I broke the lock after locking myself in the bathroom (doesn't have a light in it by the way) after dinner on my first night with my host family (everyone else was in the house). I tried in vain to get myself out of that small space for a good 5 minutes before finally deciding I should just try calling for help. It came, and they pried the door lock open from the outside. Because by that point the lock was completely busted, we had to wedge cardboard in the door every time we went in it-- not to lock it, but just to keep it from swinging open on its own and causing some scandals.  Sometimes I felt I was just holding that cardboard piece in place by sheer power of will. But now we have a lock and it is SO easy! The things we take for granted. Side note: I am borderline pro at snagging mosquitoes out of the air.

TRANSPORT:

Ouakam: a view of part of my neighborhood

I think I have mentioned this before, but I take the bus in the morning, and catch a "car rapide" home each day. As I was going to the study center today, I realized the rocking sensation of the bus hitting all the potholes in the road combined with the constant speed changes as traffic picks up or people want on/off-- this must be at least a bit comparable to how it felt on a real ship on the ocean. Real ship meaning one of the old ones with masts and sails. I've always wanted to get my "sea legs" but never had the chance till now! I think this is my golden chance.  A friend of mine who rode the car rapide home with me the other evening said that whenever he rides one he always feels hands patting down his pockets and can sometimes see hand prints on his pants after he jumps off...I can't say that I have ever had this experience, but it certainly adds a further element of fun to the day :) Getting the proper change is always a bit of a game for me. And if I do get it, I have enough to buy a delicious beignet from this lady who makes them fresh in the side alley I walk through on my way home.

BIBLE STUDY
Coming into this semester, I prayed that God would place at least just one other follower of Christ in our group or in country that I would meet. I wondered what it would be like to go for a whole 5 months without the fellowship of other believers. The sketchy reputation that study abroad students have racked up (with reason...) did not leave me with much hope of finding a strong community within my student body. But God gave me peace about it. We had our first Bible study last night on the roof of our study center (doubles as a cafe where we eat lunch)-- 7 people showed up, including one of our study center guards, a fellow missionary kid, and a pastor's kid. All committed believers. Each with a story of how God has been working in their lives and how we need fellowship. I look forward to hearing their stories. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. We are studying through Habakkuk, and I am enjoying getting a different sorta view of the passages by studying them in French (the language of the only complete Bible I brought).

A miniature Wolof lesson: when you ask someone about how they slept, how their day is going, how their morning was, etc. you always respond with: Jamm rekk, alxamdulilaa ("Peace only, praise be to God"). It struck me as profound: it is well with my soul, peace only, because God has given me that peace that surpasses understanding. I have such peace about where I am right now. I can be anywhere with anyone or lack of anyone and yet never be truly alone. He is with me. Always with me.