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!