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!

Back from Palmerin

I'm back in Dakar, as of a few hours ago. (No internet in Palmerin, so no blog updates.)
I'm very busy trying to work, and also I got up at 3AM this morning to get here, so this is just to say that I had a fantastic time there (beaches, palm trees, baobabs, sunsets and such...) and I want to take everyone I have every known back there to see it! My interviews went well as well... I was getting sort of bored by the end, to tell you the truth, asking the same questions over and over, and I was mostly thinking about all of the final putting-together work I have to do, but everyone was very nice and welcoming. The women are phenomenal. The stuff they're doing ranges from small to sort of medium-size enterprise, but everyone thinks big. Ah, too much to say, too little time!
Happy almost-Thanksgiving!

For Poppop's men's discussion group!

SEM Fund Kiva Page

I have found the SEM Fund profile on Kiva.org, for anyone who is interested! And here is a link to some of the groups from Keur Gu Mag in Diourbel (wolof is spelled out in many different ways, because it's not originally a written language, remember). The site is the SEM site, but each group links to their kiva loan page. I met with groups from Jabbot, Propaf, Tocossone, and Kheweul. (And maybe others, but those are the names I recognize.)
SEM Fund Diourbel page

I also found that a Kiva Fellow (volunteer) who visited Senegal to meet with Kiva's partners in the area visited Keur Gu Mag, too. Ibrahima Faye showed me a picture of him that he had in an album, so I was surprised to see the same picture when scrolling down the Kiva Fellow blog... here's the link to the Fellows Blog for Senegal. The picture I'm talking about is in the entry called 'Happiness'.
Kiva Fellow Senegal Blog

Wow, that's lots of links. I'm clearly procrastinating, but at least you, dear readership, get to reap the benefits of my web-surfing!

the beginning of the end

I'm quite happy to be back in Dakar. It felt like a homecoming, much more than the other times when we have come back from trips away. I finally feel at home in this city, like I could say that I lived here for a short while without qualifying it as "well, sort of" or "not really". Of course, this realization comes at the same time as my realizing that I have no mental (or actual) map of the city and can't get anywhere without a taxi. Oh, well.
My schedule seems to be somewhat figured out for the rest of the ISP period. I leave Dakar again on Saturday (hopefully very early in the morning) for Palmerin. I should have Saturday afternoon and evening and all day Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to do more interviews and research. I haven't decided if I'll come back late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, but I'll be back in Dakar for the Thanksgiving dinner that one of the other students is hosting. (Her family is coming and apparently her mom is going to re-create every aspect of a traditional thanksgiving dinner. Fear not for my holiday meal!) Then I'll stay in Dakar after that, doing some more research, interviewing people from my NGO and writing my final paper and preparing the oral presentation. We have a few days down in a nice hotel near Mbour, as a sort of exit-orientation period, where we give our presentations and relax by the beach and say goodbyes. We go back to Dakar on the 13th and grab our bags and those of us who leave together on the group flight will head to the airport! I'll leave with the group but stay over in Paris for a few nights and be back in the states on the 17th or so, I think. It's all very fast approaching and sort of exciting. Given the mini-breakdown I had in front of the ice-cream section of Casino the other day, I'm finally starting to feel homesick! (Breakdown in a silly way, not in an actual breakdown way)(Casino is the French chain of supermarkets here, so it's like a slice of western/pre-packaged/expensive/organic/air-conditioned/materialistic/clean goodness in the middle of the goats and dusty streets of Dakar. We all sort of lose it when we're in Casino. I won't tell you how much I spent on cheese the other day...).

Anyway, that was a grammatically convoluted paragraph, but what I'm saying is that I miss you all and I'll see you sooner than you think!
xoxo,
Robin

diourbel, day 5...

Still in Diourbel but leaving tomorrow morning for Dakar. Won't I ever be pleased to get back to my computer with the keyboard that doesn't stick and such! Had, I think/hope my last interview today. At least for diourbel. Tonight I'll try and squeeze some more information out of Ibou and photocopy some eco village paperwork and then tomorrow morning i'll stay just long enough to go to their meeting with the UN group that is helping them with their solar oven project. I'm planning on leaving right after, 1pm at the latest, so I'll probably leave around 3 at the earliest. Senegalese sense of time is quite different, you know.
I'm a little stressed about getting my audio files back to dakar and getting them translated and transcribed and everything, especially since I'm planning on only spending one or two days in Dakar before leaving for the second eco village in Palmerin. I also need to go to a tailor, just for fun and shopping purposes, but what with all my meetings and tabaski coming up (big muslim holiday) i dont know when i'll have time to go or if they'll be too swamped with work to see me.
Despite these little stresses, I'm doing well and having fun. I'm feeling much better, the cold persists but no more sore throat. Also there is a magic plant that cures colds and athsma here. I'll try to bring some home with me...
xoxo,
robin