Who knew that running late to class and taking an alternate bus to get to the Lady Oprah Winfrey preschool stop would result in being a first-hand witness of a full on motorcycle accident and the ensuing fight! Three of us from the same neighborhood, Ouakam, were walking the 5 minutes from our bus drop off spot to our CIEE study center. Taxis were passing each other (and us) by a hair's width, fruit venders were sitting around trying to sell a whole color scale of bananas (mostly on the darker side), and the random sheep (that look like goats) were standing by aimlessly munching the trash that had been strewn all over the ground. All of a sudden a motorcycle speeds past us and gets t-boned by a second moto. Before the detached parts of the bikes had even come to a rest on the pot-holed cement, the first man was up throwing himself at the other with punches and yells of anger. Not quite the same reaction you would expect in the States. There was an insane scramble of one man trying to beat the other to the ground, and the other trying to make his getaway. Each time he tried to get back on his bike someone would yank him off again-- he finally drove off shirtless, bag-less, and with the whole community chasing after his scared face. What a way to start off the day!! He will have quite the story to tell about why he is half-naked. The community is huge here in Senegal. They look out for eachother. In fact, we learned in our cultural orientation that if you properly greet someone you run into, you are sort of mutually responsible for one another.
Other highlights from today:
-buying my first banana from a street fruit vendor
-finding a place to buy plastic pockets/sacks of "yogurt" with cerealish grains floating in it (SOOO good)
-riding the car rapide home and refusing to get ripped off because I am a Toubab (foreigner)...this is always a highlight as I ride the car rapide every day home from the study center. I should start counting how many near accidents we have each day. It would be quite a tally.
-running on this road along the coast watching the sun set over Senegal
-I'm currently drinking some very sweet tea my host brother just made me (I think it is more sugar than tea haha)
JOM.
That is the Wolof word for knowing who you are, always fighting even when you know you cannot win the battle, never giving up. The decision to do challenging things even though you know you may not succeed. The decision to try instead of avoid. That is jom. They have another saying (this is the English version): “He who endures will smile.” If someone has jom, they keep persevering, they have patience with life even when it is hard, and in the end, they will be rewarded. This reminds me a lot of our faith. We fight the good fight of the faith; we discipline our bodies to run the good race knowing that the end is so much better. The other day my fellow students had the day off for Mohammad’s birthday and decided to check out Joff beach. A group of 4 of us decided to run there instead of taking taxis like everyone else. Along the way, it struck me that the beach and surf would feel so much better because of the effort I spent in getting there. In my faith, I want to truly live. If the beach was Heaven, I don’t want to ride the taxi to the beach-- I wanna run there and arrive sweaty and drained from the hot sun. I don’t want to miss out on what is along the way by taking the easy “safe” way. I believe God has called us to more than that in our lives. If we truly want to live, we have to put it all in God’s hands and say, “not my will but Yours be done.” What a challenging prayer it is to pray, and yet how important it is that we pray it.
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Side note: I haven't taken many pictures yet (maybe 5?), so that is why there aren't any on here. There are some places I want to return to for the purpose of picture-taking, but I don't know when that will be. Bear with me, but trust that it is beautiful here :)
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