Day 21: “Service Learning”, Media

Today is Tuesday. According to the BBC, oil prices are up to $67.39. Regular priced gas is around $3.00 per gallon, and the Red Sox are ahead by only 0.5 games. What is going on? Seriously.

Living here, it seems that nothing changes. News around the world really means nothing here, you rarely see someone reading a newspaper, and whenever I go downstairs to see my family watching TV, they are almost always watching a soap opera or some movie. Coverage on Katrina was non-existent, which is even a little surprising because of the similarities between New Orleans and Senegal (both being colonized by the French, both being in danger of floods etc.) The media we do see here is rap culture. Kids with t-shirts with logos of rappers like Nelly, Ja Rule, and I’ve even seen a bunch that say “50 Cents.” Another very popular artist is Bob Marley, and people ask us all the time if we like him. As far as advertisements go, there aren’t that many (certainly not like the US,) but because we are close to the city, there are a few billboards next to the highway. For the most part though, media influence here is far below that of the US.

With that said, today’s quick summary: There was all the usual stuff like waking up eating breakfast (which was really the freshest bread we’ve had so far,) and having French class. At 11, we got together with our service learning groups to think of questions to ask in the afternoon (at our service learning sites). Let me explain: Service learning is a component of this course that involves not only learning but also acting in the community. The idea is to understand what the problem is, what needs to be done, and then do it. It’s like a living and learning environment. Anyway, I had chosen to help with the sanitation here, because I think it’s the biggest problem and more importantly, one that could be helped immediately. Today being the first of four visits to our service learning sites, it was really just a day to get info and ask questions.

After lunch, five of us (Kaila, Katie, Djimera, and Ali, me) walked to the sanitation headquarters here. For the next 90 minutes, we sat in a room with the coordinator of the project, asked questions, and received info about the sanitation project here. Basically, it’s very difficult to get projects going here because there’s a huge lack of funding, and problems have just grown to such a size that they are overwhelming.

Rich and I had a couple people over at night, and we just hung out on the roof for a while. Note: Senegalese are very welcoming when it comes to having people in their homes. For example, it would be perfectly okay to have the six other American students over. For meals, if you are at someone’s house, you are expected to eat there. No questions.