Flying By

The Independent Study Period (ISP) of the program has been enjoyable, but at the same time a lot different than the first 2 ½ months of my time here were. For the first 12 weeks of the program I was essentially taken in as the child of a Senegalese family. They fed me, gave me a place to sleep, did my laundry, included me in family outings, and did everything they could to make me feel comfortable. At the same time however, I was given the limitations of a child. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house after a certain time, I had to eat whatever it was that they chose to prepare, and I was basically just told what and what not to do. By no means however, am I diminishing or trying to complain about the time I had there. I enjoyed my time there a great deal. I love my family and developed a stronger sense of what Senegalese culture is really like. There is no better way to become immersed in a culture than to live with a family. Additionally, I would be at school from pretty much 8:30 am to 5:30 pm everyday. So all in all my life was fairly structured.

It has been a huge transition to go from a life of such structure, to one with relatively no structure at all. I now live with my friends in a house we are renting and classes have finished. I wake up when I want, I cook for myself, I do my own laundry, and I was given a lump sum of money that I have to budget accordingly. 

It’s kind of like summertime has started early. For most this would seem like an ideal situation, and in many ways it is. I have more independence than I could ever hope for. I am able to go out and explore the city whenever and however I want. And I can eat whatever I want.

With so much time though, it does become easy to procrastinate on actually doing my research project (I’m actually procrastinating by writing this post right now). My project, whenever I get around to doing it, has been fun though. As I said before I’m doing the ‘creative alternative’ to the ISP option. I’m attempting to capture the essence of Senegal through photography and spoken word. I’ve become pretty apt in the art of photo-taking and photo-editing, and as always I love writing slam poetry. I’m writing my poetry on several different Senegalese themes (child beggars, polygamy, the village, and on more that is TBD) and doing photography portraits of people who have shaped my experience here over the last 3 months. Below is a sneak peak of some of the photo’s I’ve taken:

This summer, as I’ve already told many of you, I will be interning with the World Water Organization. In agreeing to work for them, they offered me the opportunity to go back to the village I stayed in and creat a report regarding the agricultural and water situation there. They said that I would have the opportunity to present my report to the executive board and possibly get funding for the village to build wells and get more effective irrigation systems. This way, they could become self-sustainable instead of having to buy their food from other areas of the country. While I knew that the trip to the village would mean me sitting on a hot, foul bus for more hours than I would like, I couldn’t pass up the chance to possibly make a real difference in the lives of people I who become such a wonderful part of my own.  Thus, this week I went back to the village, to gather information for the report I’m going to put together. I had my father - who as I mentioned has a degree in agriculture from the University of Dakar (God works in mysterious ways) –bring me to different agricultural estates within the Kersadora and in neighboring villages. I spoke with farmers, cultivators, school leaders, village chiefs, and countless others as I made an effort to obtain every detail possible so as to have the most specific report possible.

It was great to see my village family again. The love I’m shown when I am there is unbelievable and it was difficult to leave them once again. But I know I’ll be back again someday, hopefully soon.

I only have two weeks left here and it’s probably going to fly by. I’ll miss this place, but I am also excited to go home and be with my family and friends, whom I have come to appreciate that much more since being here. I’m also starting to make a list of all the thing I need to devour as soon as I get off the plane: 3 Double Cheesburgers and a 2 Large Fries from McDonalds, Chili’s Baby Back Ribs, pork fried rice from the greasy Chinese place down the street from my house, a monster ham and cheese sandwich with iceburg lettuce, honey baked ham, and miracle whipe, a 5 piece meal from Popeye’s…alright alright I gotta stop because I’m making myself salivate on my laptop.

Hopefully I’ll have a few more post in me before I leave but you never know.

Be beneen yoon.

I Love My A PHI!!!

There were a lot of good things that happened this week. But the only one I feel like writing about right now is how on Saturday I had the esteemed pleasure to watch the probate of new line of Alpha Phi Alpha’s Tao Omicron chapter at Davidson College. Thanks to the wonders of technology, and the kindness of my friend Emily (who I’m going to buy a steak for when I get back to school) I was able to watch the probate via Skype video from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Emily brought her computer to the show, and got there early to make sure that she (and I for that matter) had prime seating. 

I’ll admit that when Emily and I came up with this idea, I didn’t know if the Senegalese and Davidson wireless – both of which have tendencies to not work when you most need them – would allow me to really get a good look of the show. I wasn’t pleasantly surprised however, when the quality of the video was near perfect. I could see everything just as if I was there.

The probate was scheduled to start at 10:06, but like most probates, it didn’t start until around 10:45. The time difference from the East Coast to Senegal is 4 hours. Not horrible considering where I am, but I felt kind of shady walking to the University’s library at 2 in morning. I knew that the library closed at 11 p.m., so the day before I told the guard there of my plans and bribed him with a kilo of clementines. With the sweet scent of citrusy fruit in his hands, he was more than happy to bend the rules for me.

Since I was online about an hour before the show started, I was “there” before most other people got there. So when people began assembling outside of the Union for the show, and saw this girl in the front row sitting with a Macbook on her lap an hour before the show, they naturally went over to see what was up. Much to their surprise, they saw my face covering the entire screen. People went crazy. This ended up being a common theme for the next hour. People would come up and I would hear (“Emily, what are you doing with your laptop out here – OMG it’s Clint!” I loved it, and was great to get to see so many people whose faces I haven’t seen in a while. When I heard the screaming and chanting ensue at around 10:45 p.m. (2:45 a.m. Dakar time) I knew it was time to sit back and watch the show.

The Phive Pillars of Phrozen Elevation, as the line is known, handled their business just like I knew they would. It was the best show our chapter has ever had. As much as I love being here and Dakar, this was the one time this semester that I really wanted to be back at school. Shout outs to the Neos and welcome to the Pham: Damion Samuels, Justin Hua, PK Kyei, Eddison Wilkinson, and Jordan Starck.

A PHI A ‘til the day I die!!!

School is Out

School is over. I’m not even kidding, there are no more classes. Last week we began what’s called the ISP period. It’s a staple of SIT programs around the world, and what sets them apart from other study abroad programs. For the next 4 weeks we’ll be conducting in-depth research on a subject matter of our choice. It’s cool because they really allow us to pick whatever topic we want to study, and support us in finding people who will be able to assist us in achieving the best possible final product. I chose to study the dynamics of slam poetry here in Senegal and what role it plays from an artistic, social, and cultural perspective. I’ll also be using a combination of my own spoken word and photography to try and capture the essence of different Senegalese themes, and I’ll have a presentation for the group when we reconvene in a month. I’m really excited about it. Most people who know me know how much I love slam poetry, and photography is something I’ve really gotten into a lot since being here. So I’m looking forward to using both of those to try and convey what my experience here has been like.

Speaking of spoken word, last week I went to a slam for the first time here at one of the many culture centers that can be found within Dakar. I actually wasn’t even aware that there was a slam poetry culture here until my Senegalese brother (who had watched some of my performances on my computer) showed me a flyer for a competition that was being held that weekend.

Going into the show I really didn’t know what to expect.  The slam itself was held in the courtyard of the cultural center surrounded by all type of greenery and lots of sunlight. Definitely a different feel than the dimly-lit café, spoken word scene found in New York. Unlike back home, here the competitors in the slam are determined a week before the actual event takes place. There were ten competitors, but there was an open mic portion between each one. I was surprised by the mélange of languages that were used in the poems, and enjoyed how it added a new dynamic to my experience there. There were poems in Wolof, French, Arabic, English, and everywhere in between. Even though I couldn’t always understand what people were saying, I move still be moved by their pieces. It’s hard to explain but I guess that one of the beauties of spoken word.

As the show was winding down, the host asked for someone to come up and spit a poem between the second to last and last competitors. I had no intention of going up on stage at all, but my brother took my hand out of my pocket and raised it into the air, signaling to the host that I wanted to go on. Before I knew what was going on, I was on stage, standing in front of about a hundred people looking up at me anxiously. I decided that I might as well go for it, and recited one of my poems. This was the first time that I’ve felt nervous when performing any of my poems. I guess it’s usually because I know that I’ll be performing beforehand, but this time I was literally on stage before I could even realize what was going on. After I was done though, I was given a standing ovation, and the director of some publishing company in Dakar gave me his card and asked me to call him. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

As I mentioned in my last post, I moved out of my homestay last week. I now live in a house with my friends Avery, Aurora, Lizzy, Clare, and Sally. It’s a three bedroom, two bathroom, with a kitchen, and nice courtyard. Plus, it came fully furnished and all of our utilities are covered in the down payment. It’s only 10 minutes from my homestay family and is centrally located so we’re not too far from anything in the city. It’s different having to cook for myself but I enjoy it. I make a lot of pasta, rice, and grilled chicken because they’re all pretty simple.

On Saturday night, we all went to a hip-hop concert that was being held in one of the parks near our house. The place was packed, and even though I couldn’t understand the guys rapping in Wolof, the beat was dope and we had a good time.

Easter in Senegal was a cool experience as well. I went to a Senegalese mass with my friend Megan from the program. The mass was scheduled to start at 9:30, didn't actually start until 10:30, and lasted until 1:30. So despite the fact that I was sitting there for over four hours, I had a good time. The sermon was in both Wolof and French, there was drumming, dancing, singing, and seemingly every woman in the place catching the holy ghost in the middle of the aisle.

The entire ISP period is setup in a pretty relaxed way. I actually feel like summer has started already. I’m living in a house with friends, going to the beach, and studying spoken word and photography in another culture. Doesn’t get much better than that.

On another note, I got an internship offer to work with the World Water Organization in New York this summer. It’s an organization that works with the UN and other NGO’s to promote water sustainability in impoverish regions of the world. I think it’d be a really cool opportunity so if I don’t here back from anything else in the next week or so I’ll probably accept the position. If anybody has got a place to stay or extra room in New York City this summer let me know. I’m on the look out.

It’s crazy that I’ll be back home in a month, and even crazier that I’ll be a senior in college. Ba benen yoon.

Kersadaro, Touba, and Saint Louis

On the morning of Thursday March 26, I groggily awoke to the all too familiar sound of Muslim prayer songs and screaming goats. The departure time for our second excursion was scheduled for 8 a.m., but as has proven true throughout my time here, the Senegalese are not the most timely of people. Thus, we didn’t end up pulling away from the SIT building until around 9:30 a.m. Nevertheless, I was excited for our journey and even more excited to learn that we wouldn’t be on the bus for 22 straight hours like we were on our last trip.

The first stop on our trip was “Le Lac Rose” (The Pink Lake). The name is pretty self-explanatory. It was a lake with pink water. I had seen postcards of this phenomenon, but didn’t actually believe that the lake itself was really pink. I thought that it would just be some sort of tourist gimmick that had been photoshopped on the postcard to look pinker than it really was.  When we got off the bus however, I was as surprised as anyone to see that the lake actually was pink. I’m not really sure what the exact scientific makeup of the lake is that gives it its pink color, but I do know that it had something to do with the massive amount of salt that can be found within it. I tried to take some pictures to capture how it looked, but was unable to take one that could fully depict its…well pinkness.

The next stop on our trip was a four-day stay in the village of Kersadaro. I have to admit that after my last village stay, I had mentally prepared myself to once again be put into the most rural of conditions. But to my surprise, Kersadaro was significantly more developed than my first village, Semecouta. It is important to keep in mind however, that ‘developed’ is a relative term. There was still no running water, livestock roamed freely (and freely left their remnants on the ground), and most children didn’t have shoes on their feet. There were however, mattresses for beds, a more sophisticated education system, and even electricity in some places.

As we were for our last village stay, the group was split off into different compounds within the village. My family was the Seck’s, and my name during my stay in the village would be Mbake Seck (mmmhh-bok-ay). Upon our arrival I was immediately and enthusiastically swept away by my mother N’dye, with my younger brothers and sister nipping at my heels.

Thanks to the kindness a family friend who works for Delta Airlines and flies through Dakar each month, I was able to receive some packages from my mom (in the States) without having to go through the often unreliable Senegalese mail system. Along with peanut butter, beef jerky, and jolly ranchers (none of which I had seen for months) my mom had packed some toys in the bags for the kids.  They were absolutely ecstatic when I pulled the small gift out of my bag, and each kid in my village family kept their respective gift close to their side the entire time I was there.

My father, Aziz Seck, was definitely a fascinating person to talk to. He was only around in the mornings and evenings, but talking to him was always a treat. He speaks four languages, and even has PhD in agriculture from the University of Dakar. Yet, he passed up on more lucrative opportunities to return to the village of his birth and teach the people of his community how to more effectively cultivate their land. The fruits of his work can definitely be seen in the vast array of gardens that envelop the land. He also teaches his craft to the Peace Corps volunteers who come to Kersadaro for their three-month training session before being sent out to the respective villages across Senegal. I definitely came to admire Aziz for his commitment to helping his home, and he is one of the more inspirational people I have met during my time here. He embodies the proverb “If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him how to fish you feed him for a lifetime.”

My mother, as with most women in the village, did not speak French, only Wolof. And seeing as how my proficiency in the Wolof language is equivalent to that of a 4 year old, verbal communication was difficult. Still however, I developed an extremely close bond with my aunts, sisters, and mother, despite the fact that we were seemingly playing a four-day long game of charades.

The only thing about my relationship with the women that made me feel uncomfortable, was the fact that I was treated like a king. You’re probably thinking, “What kind of problem is that?!” but as much as I appreciated their extreme kindness and hospitality, being treated as a superior simply because I was a man wasn’t something that I enjoyed.

Adjusting to the not-so-subtle gender inequality exhibited here in Senegal has been tough to get used to, especially considering how I’ve been surrounded by strong female figures like my mom my entire life. In the village, I didn’t want to be told to sit down in the shade and eat food all day (the perfect day for most Senegalese men). I wanted to help wash clothes, I wanted to help feed the livestock, and I wanted to help cook the meals. But I wasn’t allowed to. It was a bit discouraging. If I wanted to be treated like a king, I would have just sat on the couch in New Orleans and bossed my little brother around. At one point, I even made my way over to the area where the women were cooking, picked up an onion, and started peeling. My mother looked up at me bewildered and slapped the onion out of my hand. She then shuffled me back to my chair, yelled something to my little sister in Wolof, and within minutes, I was sitting underneath a mango tree with my sister peeling an orange for me. My role was clear.

I ended up spending most of my time playing with the kids in our compound. We’d play soccer, draw things in the sand, wrestle, and chase chickens. The kids’ favorite thing to do though, was definitely chasing around the bubbles that I brought with me. They don’t have bubbles here in Senegal, so every time I blew some the kids would run around screaming and laughing. I probably had just as much fun as they did.

On the final night before we left the village, all of us students were brought from our various compounds in front of the school for a dancing/drumming/going away party. It was the first time most of us had seen each other in days and we were all sporting traditional Senegalese garbs.  It was quite the colorful, and for some even comical, sight. We all took turns moving to the middle of the circle, showing off our best dance moves for all to see. It was a good time.

The next morning we got on the bus headed for our next stop, the city of Saint Louis. But before that, we made a stop in Touba, a city that holds one of the largest mosque in all of Africa. Upon entering the mosque, we all had to take off our shoes, and the girls had to wear veils. The mosque was beautifully and intricately built, down to even the smallest detail. It shows no sign of withering either, because it’s pretty much in a constant state of updating and renovation.

After a full day of driving, we finally arrived at our destination, Saint Louis. It’s a city in the northwestern most part of the country and includes two small islands right off the coast. We stepped off of the bus, and were somewhat surprised to see an absolutely beautiful hotel looking back at us. Making it even better was the fact that us four guys, who usually get screwed into sharing a small room with only two beds, were handed the keys to the apartment suite behind the main building of the hotel. We stepped into the suite, and saw three rooms, four beds, a kitchen, a TV, a terrace, and a bathroom (with a flushing toilet and hot water from the shower!). After having just hours earlier been in a village, it was kind of overwhelming to be thrown into all of this luxury…but at the same time none of us were complaining.

That night we had a group dinner on the dock (the hotel is on the water) with white tablecloth, red wine, stuffed chicken, and Kenny G playing in the background. When I signed up to come to Senegal I hadn’t really envisioned this part, but I’ll definitely take it.

The rest of our week was filled with trips to the beach, visits to the market, visits from various speakers, more stuffed chicken, and more beach. The one bump in the road was a run in I had with a 48-hour stomach virus. I think I threw up everything I’ve eaten in the last twenty years. It was rough, but not even that was enough to dampen my mood. As soon as those 48 hours were over I was right back at the beach.

We just got to Dakar and are about to start our last week of classes before our independent study period starts. This is essentially the final month of the program in which we don’t have class and just conduct an independent research project of our choice. On Friday, I’ll be moving out of my homestay and into a house with 5 of my friends from the program. I’ll miss my family but I’m also excited to live with friends and be able to have more freedom to come and go as I please. I’ll only be 10 minutes away from them though, so I plan on visiting frequently, especially during dinnertime.

Sorry this post was so long. That’s the gist of my last two weeks. Til’ next time…