Day 52: Updates

First off, I would like to apologize for the lack of entries lately. It has been over a week since I’ve had time to sit down and write an entry. However, there haven’t been any significant events here, and things have been pretty much routine.

Early in the week, the director of Living Routes (our program) came from Amherst, MA to work out some issues that had come up about faculty and academics. Being a mediator, Daniel helped everyone to see both sides of the story, and more importantly, to work towards a solution that worked for everyone.

Thinking back on this week, it’s hard to remember what I did each day. In the beginning of the program, I could recount each day clearly, remembering lots of specific details. Now however, more than halfway through the trip, I realize that days have just become blurry. Routine seems to have eliminated details. Also, now that Yoff is starting to feel a lot like home, it doesn’t really occur to me to write journal entries. I mean, would I write a journal entry everyday if I were in Brookline? However, we’re leaving for Nder (a village in the north) on Thursday. Once there, we will be assessing the village, and how we can help (in our smaller groups). We will return to Yoff after 4 days, due to the end of Ramadan (a holiday called Korate). For the Senegalese students to spend Korate away from their families is like an American student not going home for Thanksgiving…So we’ll return to Yoff for 5 days before return to Nder again to really get going on our projects. We’ll be there for about 2.5 weeks. We’ll spend Thanksgiving in St. Louis, and return to Yoff for a couple more weeks. And then the trip is over. It’s weird because even though we’ve only completed a little more than half the trip, we’re on the home stretch. It’s sad, so I’m going to stop writing about it.

So to recount all that I can from the past week: Daniel from Living Routes left on Tuesday night, and the rest of the week consisted of a lot of lectures. Personally, I was working on college apps, because I’ve decided I’m going to try to get in to some other schools for next year. Writing essays and filling out forms were things that I never thought I’d be doing again, but I’ve decided that that’s what I want to do.

As for routines that I’ve developed: I now sleep on the roof, because it’s gotten too hot to sleep in my room. Even with a fan blowing right at my face, I wake up in a pool of sweat. Anyway, on the roof, I enjoy a great sea breeze, a starry sky, and a nice view of the beach and Yoff. Also, the sunrise wakes me up at around 7, which gets me going early, and I get a lot of stuff done. Once it’s starts getting hot, I tend to get less productive.

Another routine that I’ve developed is going to boutiques (the little shops here) and getting a cold soda. The sodas come in thin glass bottle (30cl), but they only cost 200CFA (about 40 cents). Usually, I go with Allison and we’ll split a Coke and a Fanta. You might compare this to adults going to a bar and getting a drink…While getting soda may seem not very exciting, there’s a reason why I mention it. It’s so much different from the US, where I’ll drive to Shaw’s Supermarket and buy a 12 pack of cans, which I’ll bring home to put in my fridge. Here, I walk 3 minutes from my house to the boutique where I know the guy who works there, and get one soda, and sit on the stoop there, and drink it. When finished, I give the bottle back to him, (because all the glass bottles are recycled). In fact, last night, Allison and I got a couple of sodas there, and when we realized we didn’t have any money, the guy just said we could pay next time. It’s like we have a credit there now, or a tab. It’s just one of those small things that really makes you realize that you’re at home, that you live here. It’s also nice to support local businesses, rather than going to the Shell Station and buying sodas there.

As for weekend events, we took another trip to Dakar yesterday. We went to the fabric market there, which was totally different from the other market we had been to called Sandaga. At the fabric market, no one hassled, no one followed us around, and everyone was pretty nice. There was probably enough fabric at this market to blanket the entire country…

After the fabric market, we went into downtown Dakar and got burgers and ice cream (just like we had done for my birthday). It was just as satisfying.

Today being Sunday, I’ll probably just hang around, relax, and get some work done hopefully. I’ll try to write at least one more entry before I leave for Nder, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty to write when I’m away from Yoff.