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!
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