I’m alive! I’m still here! All my apologies for the lack of updates lately. Hopefully I’ll adequately present my excuses in the blurb to follow. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll just reiterate my laziness. Here goes nothing! In April I moved to Dakar. Let’s just say that during my COS (close of service) conference sometime [...]
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I’m still here. I’ve been out of touch, and I know it. To everyone equally, I hope. The cold season is still here and stubbornly refusing to go away (not a problem, not a problem at all). There’s no choice but to take advantage: I sleep until 9, with a sweater and long pants on [...]
I’m standing in a kitchen, waiting for the seconds to tick down on the humming microwave so I can pull out my handsome reward, a steaming bowl of oatmeal. My hip is leaning against the tiled countertop. My mind wanders as I passively note the magnets populating the refrigerator; it’s the run-of-the-mill kind with the smaller freezer [...]
This t-shirt belongs to my adorable little year-old host nephew, Sada. His mom purchased it at the lumo, or weekly market. Just in case you think your eyes are playing tricks on you, I’ll translate the text: “TOP SPORT ment nautical instrument thec, lock (or iock?) young 78 of newstan new top.” Yeah, I don’t know what that [...]
….A good score on the GRE! No that isn’t just a really large bracelet on my arm, it’s a gris-gris! Gris rhymes with glee (c’mon people, its French!). I’ve been openly studying for the exam with my family during the past few weeks and maybe my stress was starting to show. But lucky me, we have [...]
The last time I went to Ndendory, I spent the entire trip trying to swallow the hard marble of suppressed tears after Jeynaba’s death. And here I find myself again, to greet her brother on his first trip home from Angola to see his family since it happened. Ndendory looks so much different now. The rains [...]
June 23, 2010 might have turned out to be a night like any other night. It was about 8 pm. An eerie almost full moon back-lit the sparse clouds making them seem to pop off the grey sky. Ok enough. I guess I’ve provided sufficient atmosphere: It was on this night that I passed one of the most important milestones in my [...]
My shoes are gone again. I had just sat down on the mat with my family, leaving my sandals on its perimeter, and already they’ve shuffled away on someone else’s feet. “To paddam ngoni?” – “Where are my shoes?” I ask my family. In response, three separate people offer me their shoes, including little four-year-old [...]
Myrum comes to our house every night to watch television. Well, it probably isn’t the television-watching scenario you’re imagining. For starters, it isn’t really in a house. There aren’t any comfy sofas. Actually, there isn’t any furniture at all, save for a rickety stand that elevates the TV to an appropriate level for its audience, [...]
The journey leading to my glorious two-week vacation in the States starts out early in the morning on Day 1. I strap my backpack onto a flat backed wooden charrette, pulled by a very skinny horse, then I jump up and take my seat, holding on to the backpack, as I’m taken across town from my family’s house [...]
The crowd Planning my biggest project yet, the Journée de Sensibilisation pour la lutte contre le SIDA in Kanel, a concert featuring 15 local musical acts, two theatre troups, and free testing and free entrance, evoked in me many things, all set to the tune of that oh-so-appropriate Queen song. Somehow, I made it through and the concert went [...]
Heyo Jeynaba Ly!
I wanted to use this opportunity to tell you how proud I am of you. Many times before, I have told my friends that if I could chose just one person to take back to the States with me after this whole experience if over, it would be you. But you know, I could never [...]
…And on that farm he had, well, everything.
Pulaars are traditionally a semi-nomadic herding people and I’ve gotten used to animals being EVERYWHERE. Cows rumble past my hut sounding like Jurassic Park dinosaurs, chickens run freely, and of course, there’s that unfortunate ram strapped to the top of almost every bus I see.
Animals are great and all, except when it’s a mangy, snotty-nosed sheep [...]
There’s a stabbing pain in my right thigh, the intensity of which is more of less keeping me immobile. Even if the pain wasn’t an issue, I couldn’t go anywhere anyway, because there is a comical human wall completely surrounding me, starting about 2.5 inches from my face. I’m trapped.
On my right (sitting) is an old man who stays [...]
My day had started by being awoken by a shrew. I didn’t know it was a shrew at first, all I knew was that something was clawing at the metal front door and the sound was reverberating through my little stone hut and it was only 3:30 in the morning. I lifted my mosquito net, [...]
I have another interesting Alham tale for you. Hope you enjoy it.
The cold season has arrived, and oh, how I love it. I can actually sleep inside. I can work for more than one hour without becoming drained and tired. I can actually enjoy the scalding hot “coffee” that my Senegalese mom gives me every [...]
If you will kindly reference item #9 from the previous post, it might help you to understand the concept of being peed on by a sheep while riding in public transportation more easily.
I was on my way to to St. Louis, aka Heaven, the place where I can have brick oven pizza, visit a white [...]
1. People here really like writing their phone numbers on the side of their homes and businesses. They write it in marker in bold letters on exterior walls, they pencil it in on the sides of doorways or in inconspicuous places, I’ve even seen it traced with a finger into wet cement.
2. Pink is not [...]
About a week ago, I saw for myself just how painful a scorpion sting can be. My sister, Fama, had gone out to a nearby store by herself to buy some sugar. It was after dark and she didn’t bring a flashlight. She didn’t really need one, now that the rains have stopped and the [...]
What would I do with myself if it weren’t for unexpected little reminders? They keep me sane…
I was confronted with just such a reminder, one that came in a most unlikely package, in the form of the inndeor baptism for the newest member of the Lam family, Sada. Originally, I was extremely excited about the event. It [...]
Heading towards Ile de Madeleine
The ile itself
Sitting in le boabab parasol
Swimming across the lagoon in the center of the island
C’est moi
In lieu of the usual rants about whatever seems to be bouncing around in my head at the moment I finally have quality time with a computer, I’m going to leave you with [...]
It’s the hot season here in the Fuuta, which means that almost everyone choses to sleep in the cooler outdoor air. Adjacent to my hut is a small walled area… my “bathroom,” I like to call it. It’s where I take my bucket baths and also where I sleep, comfortably even, on my little wooden bed with my [...]
In a sharp departure from the generally serious tone of this blog (unintentional, I promise), I’ve decided to write about something frivolous. And also, at the suggestion of my mom (thanks, Mom), it will concentrate on the Senegalese people. AND in an homage to my Neiman Marcus girls (and guys), I’m gonna talk about fashion. [...]
In a dusty village in the north of Senegal, 7 kilometers from the nearest paved road, there’s a woman draped in black sitting on her bed. She is a mother and a widow. It is for this second reason that she is customarily required to stay in her bedroom, always in black, for four months [...]
Doors don’t exist here the way they do back home. Structurally, there are doors of course, just not the same kind of doors functionally speaking.
My front door in Mboro is made of solid iron on the bottom half with artisinal iron bars on top. The space between each bar is about 2 inches, or something like that. [...]
What does a birthday celebration in Senegal entail? C’mon, you know you’ve asked yourself that question a million times! No more sleepless nights, I’m here to report the real deal.
Mostly birthdays here are low key, though this varies of course, just as it does anywhere else in the world. Some of my friends here have attended [...]
Hello everyone! I’ll preface this entry by saying that I can’t spend nearly as much time on it as I’d like. My computer is apparently the only one that won’t work with this wireless connection, so this is a borrowed computer on an extremely slow connection. Oh well.
Since this is my first entry since being [...]
I know that I have ranted about this subject recently with some of you who have been kind enough to indulge me. And maybe it’s a bit premature. But….
….I am really not good at saying goodbye.
Of course, it’s a necessary thing. And I do appreciate the goodbyes I’ve received thus far. It’s just that lately, I’ve been [...]
Senegal borders the Atlantic Ocean to the left, Mali to the right, Mauritania to the North, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea to the South, and is sandwiched around the Gambia. It is home to around 11 million Senegalese who speak more languages that I can list here comfortably; some of the most widely spoken are French, Wolof, [...]
I must confess, I’ve never been technologically inclined. But in order to stay in touch with all of the wonderful people in my life, I’m stumbling blindly into this blog and I hope you enjoy it!
As many of you know (due to my incessant babbling on the subject….), on December 16th I received my invitation for [...]
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