Spring Break in the Casamance

Hi all!
Well, we are fresh off the boat (it arrived in Dakar at 6:30 a.m.) from the Casamance, where our whole group spent a week for our spring break.
This will probably be an abbreviated summary, but here it is. We took the boat (14 hours) to get down to Ziguinchor, which is the capital of the Casamance region. This is because the Gambia is in between, and while you can get a car, it takes a long time and you risk having lots of trouble and bribing to do at the Gambian border. As it was, the boat happens to be very very nice - we got sleeper cabins and all slept very well! The story behind this is sad - there was an older boat that sank about 6 years ago, killing 2,000 people. Now, it's one of the safest and most modern ferries in Africa. In Ziguinchor, we were met by the relatives of one of our friends' host families. We thought they would just help us find a hotel, but they ended up letting all 15 of us stay in a house that they owned! They showed us around town as well as the good spots to go out at night - lots of fun. They were also a huge help the next day - there was a gas shortage in Ziguinchor and so getting to Cap Skirring (where we wanted to go) was going to be very expensive for us to negotiate. Fortunately, they found a 13 person van for us (we crammed in and my hips almost died) for cheap and naturally, the driver of the van knew of a cheap hotel by the beach where he could take us. I don't know what we would have done without all that help - the bargaining would have been impossible.
Cap Skirring is the touristy beach town of Senegal - as proved by the fact that there's a club med there. However, we were in a pretty little hotel ($6/person/night - the rooms were basically beds and the bathrooms were outside) that looked out on the beach and we met a lot of the local shopkeepers - 15 young people are pretty rare there. During the days we sunned ourselves (my nose and feet have not forgiven me), swam, and walked around the village, about a 20 minute walk away. For food, we had a great bakery for morning pastries. Then at night we had another good find. A guy came up to one of the members of our group (he has dreds and every Senegalese loves him - so he's acted as our ambassador many times) and said he knew a good restaurant nearby. It's basically one (very nice) woman, who makes one thing each night and serves it in her "restaurant" - plastic chairs, a few tables, and TV - very local. It was some of the best food we've had here, and it proves to us that we're becoming very accustomed to the food - rice and fish for three nights in a row with no problem.
Also, one of the days we got a Pirogue tour to several different islands. Each had it's own little touristy appeal - an old slave fortress (completely abandoned - people do laundry in it and the occasional guide comes through), beautiful birds amongst the mangroves and one had a fishing village. Pirogues leave from this village to go way out to the ocean (for up to a month) to catch not only fish, but shark and stingrays . We happened to get there when one had just returned and I had never seen so many flayed, raw, and (in some cases) moldy shark (and other fish) in my life!
Anyhow, we had a lot of fun, and now we have the weekend to do laundry, get a few last provisions, and see what local elections are like here on Sunday (stones have been thrown in some places, but I think it should all pass fine) and then Monday morning we will leave for our internships. I will be in an ecovillage called "mbam." Others have done the internship there before and have loved it, so I'm excited. I'll be far away from internet, but when I do get a chance to check mail and post, I hope to have heard from some of you! Ba beneen yoon!

Markets, dancing

So a few new little things. This was our last full weekend in Dakar and it was a relatively productive one. We went out dancing in place in the fishermans village, along the water on Friday night (not the best smell ever, but you learn to live with that here). Then on Saturday we went to what I think is the biggest market here: Marche Sandaga. It was quite an experience. The market spreads out over a lot of streets and you can find almost anything there. I was particularly looking for fabric, but first we were found by a group of guys trying to get us to come to their one shop. No amount of saying no, or not saying anything at all, running away, or staying in one place could shake them. They were harassing us and grabbing for a full 40 minutes - very discouraging. It took a fatay (like fried dough but with meat and onions inside) and the most amazing ice cream at the really good, famous Dakar ice cream parlour in order for us to recover. Then we were finally able to go out and actually look at things (though everyone is still constantly all over you - browsing is impossible). I finally found some really nice fabric that I hope to have made into an outfit. The price was decent, though I'm sure there was a toubab mark-up. By the end, we were exhausted and came home and napped.

Then we got to go to another "family meeting," this time at the house of one of Maman Amitie's daughters. She and her husband and their three daughters have lived in the States, Britain and France and now they're building a bed and breakfast, so the house was very nice. While the adults did their meeting thing, we hung out with the kids, who speak English and a few other francophone cousins. One of the girls was so excited that we knew Harry Potter that we ended up playing the Harry Potter board game "scene it." That's one thing I didn't expect to do in Senegal. But though we were definitely at the kids table, it was still fun to see the family and see a different part of town. It was also fun to see Maman Amitie after a few too many - we were introduced to many members of the family many times and I got yet another tour of the family photos in the living room at 1 a.m.

Now we're into our last week of classes here. There have been a few minor exams but it's nothing like finals in the states. All in all, though I like Dakar a lot, I'm getting very ready for a totally new experience in the ecovillage. I've posted a picture of a mangrove to celebrate. Additionally, there's a picture of the whole group from the first week at the president's palace.

Oh and it's Mohammad's birthday today, so it's a national holiday and most things are closed and the kids don't have school. Happy Gamoul!

Class and Beach Update

So I've been a little lazy of late, but here's a little update on how things are going, as we enter our last week in Dakar. We have one more week of classes, then a week of spring break (I'll be going to the Cassamance, southern Senegal, below the Gambia, with friends) and then we head off for our six weeks of internships. My internship, if there are no changes, will be at an eco-village called Mbam, located near the mangroves here. I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing, but they have mangrove planting programs, vegetable gardens, some sort of biomass project as well as the possibility to teach kids about sustainability, so I'm very excited.
So a few highlights of the last week or so:
Class: not so much a highlight necessarily, but there sure has been a lot of it. All of our classes are two to three hours long and since two of mine are taught by people who work for government ministries, they get moved around constantly. Unfortunately, the professor we have the most (for both development and country analysis of Senegal), is absolutely insane. In trying to show off his English he has asked us whether we understand the words: town hall, pill, and witch. His style is to write his entire lectures on the board and then give us handouts (often without any indication of where they're from), and have us present in groups. The other day I thought I recognized the writing style of one article and sure enough, if you look up "mourides" on Wikipedia, you'll read what I did (assuming it hasn't been modified in the last week).
Beach: We finally made it to one of the nicer beaches around here: ile de ngor. You take a bus-ish thing up to a fishing boat that takes you to an island. It's kind of surreal once you arrive - touristy, restaurants on the beach etc. It seemed to be Senegal's answer to the Caribbean. Though the water was freezing, we did go in, built a sand castle and bought a coconut from a woman who cut it open for us so we could drink the juice.
This weekend I'll be headed to some markets for fabric shopping and visiting other members of my host family's extended family, and trying to make the most of some of my last time here. Best!