chanting on the shores/ of africa

As I predicted, my huge research project has led to radio silence. So sorry!

I’m now at Mbour, with the other students, in a nice hotel on the beach. The weather is perfect, and the beach is fantastic. In fact, it’s almost chilly at night! We are giving our oral presentations of our final projects here, letting our fellow students know what we’ve been up to for the past month. Some of us have been away from Dakar, including myself. I’m presenting tomorrow with the last batch of students. We’ll head back to Dakar on Saturday morning and our flight leaves on Saturday night. (I stay over in Paris for a few days, but then I’m home again. Too surreal to even contemplate right now…)

My ISP has been an intense experience. I traveled to two villages for about a week each, and then spent the last two weeks in Dakar, doing more research and writing the final paper. Anyone who wants to see a copy of my paper or power point presentation when I get back, I LOVE talking about my subject so feel free to ask!

I think I might be the luckiest out of my program, in terms of farewells. I’m the only person who knows for sure that she’ll be coming back here again (inch’Allah) so it makes it easier to say goodbye to Senegal. Easier, but still not easy. I can’t even begin to imagine the culture shock of being back the US but right now I just don’t want to leave this country. We went to watch a lutte (Senegalese wrestling, the national sport here) on the beach. It was sort of a theatrical presentation for the tubabs/tourists, with dancing and such, so it felt a little fake and voyeuristic at first. (This is a resort area with lots of French vacationers). However, it was such an incredible display that I decided that if they were willing to share their culture with me, I wasn’t going to waste time feeling guilty about it!

Today we also visited Joal and an island made entirely of seashells. Really! It is an interesting place, because the majority of the population there is Catholic, quite the opposite of Senegal. There was a very beautiful church, with mosaics and modeled after the traditional African hut (but, obviously, bigger…) instead of the european-style. I really enjoyed it, and our guide was quite nice. He spoke good English as well. Maybe if I can convince my parents to visit me in Senegal I’ll take them back there… just a thought.

Too many thoughts! I’m insanely excited to be coming home, and insanely excited to stay in paris for a few days and visit the friends I have there. (Both French and American study abroad students.)

That’s all for now, sorry to be brief, but it’s so odd having less than 48 hours left on this continent that I find it hard to organize my thoughts. Love you all,

Robin

p.s. My mom asked me to summarize my findings of my ISP in 25 words or less. Even better, here’s a haiku:

Senegal is poor

Can micro-credit change things?

The answer is yes!

Oh, you haven't seen the last of me.

You might be thinking that you're done with me. That, seeing as how I'll be home in less than two weeks, and leaving Senegal in about a week, you won't have to be reading this blog much longer. (I mean, I don't even know who is reading this exactly, but...) So you think you're done with my travels, eh? Well, guess again. I give you: Direct from Dakar, Part Two: The Internship!

Today I can finally say with certainty that I will be back in Senegal next summer for my CISLA internship! (cisla.conncoll.edu will explain that further, if you're interested). I'll be back here in late May, and working for The SEM Fund/GENSEN from May 25th until July 31st, based here in Dakar. I'll be traveling around however, to the ecovillages (including Diourbel and Palmerin, where I have already visited) to do work for the NGO. It's not completely clear every specific of what I'll be doing, but I'll likely start out doing journal entries for Kiva.org, and collecting data for the NGO on their loan recipients. I think if all goes well and I settle in nicely, they're going to ask me to teach some technical skills classes in some of the villages. What they really need is business management. While I'm not exactly qualified for that per se, I am in touch with a woman here in Dakar that runs ANOTHER NGO which teaches women about business management. So, hypothetically, she could teach me to teach others. Also, I could definitely give English, French, or technology (computer) classes, on a rather informal basis.

Anyway, this is all very exciting, because most students in my CISLA program don't get their internships confirmed until next semester. I'm always stressing at the last minute about things, so it is a huge (and exciting) relief to have dates and accomadations set! My program pays for my housing and such, so that I can work for the NGO for free. So, that's it. I'm definitely coming back. This couldn't come at a better time, because I definitely don't want to say goodbye to Senegal. If I didn't have so much work to do on my ISP still (I'm writing the report and preparing my presentation now) I would be freaking out about leaving. At least this way when I leave I can say... "ba bennen yoon, inch'allah!" ('till next time, god willing).

Yay!

Apologies and excuses!

Sorry for not posting... we are moving into the crunch week of our ISP, when we're supposed to be putting all our data together and analyzing and writing and... you get the picture. Very busy.
I have finally gotten to experience a little of the Dakar nightlife, however, by helping Zoe do "fieldwork". Ha. Somehow her project means that she has all this insider information and contacts in the high-flying nightlife of Dakar, so we went out the past two nights to a restaurant and a club and danced and had some fun.
Also...
... I saw Youssou N'dour! Now I can leave Senegal happy! We heard him do a few songs at this big free concert at the stadium here. We also some of the other big names of Senegalese music, but I must admit I don't really know any of them. Except for Titi, a female singer who is insanely popular here, who sang right after Mr. N'Dour. It was very fun, and VERY interesting to see the cultural differences in crowd reactions and shows of appreciation.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, I really have to work, though! So many stories and pictures for you all when I get home though... which is not very far from now!