Dem nanu giis 'montagnes' yi - We went to see the mountains

Well, we didn’t quite fall to the ground and weep at the sight of them, as does many a poor shepherd, according to my friend Sadjo Diallo, but after fume chocked Dakar and the vast dusty plains of the north, the low mountains of southeast Senegal were a welcome, even astonishing sight. If you haven't heard anything about the trip I took with two friends during our October break (and you're exceptionally interested) scroll down a few entries to read the facts before your attempt to finish this long, rambling description.

(Jenise and Maren on the path from Kedougou to Dindefelo. Note recently-purchased sleeping mats: the best 3000 CFA spent all week)

From Dakar, we sped farther and farther south in first one and then another battered sept-place (an ancient Peugot station wagon, pocketed with dents and bangs, producing inumerable strange sounds, and famous for swerving violently into oncoming traffic in order to avoid a pothole). Once past the transport hub of Tambacounda, I pressed my face against the greasy glass of the side window (for which I was grateful - the middle seat had only a wooden board). The forests of the bush became denser, the trees became tall and proud, and I recognized fewer and fewer species. As villages rushed by, the thatched roofs became round instead of square, woven from a new type of palm. As the first, rather tame hills appeared, we shook each other awake excitedly, and when the ground dipped away before us, just before we plunged into alarming turns, we held our breath to watch the bush slope away, thick and heavy with twilight. In Niokola Koba National Park, a grey troupe of (vervet?) monkeys scattered before us (our drivers philosophy was to always honk compassionately at animals in danger of being hit; but never to slow down). The monkeys had us laughing and clapping in the back of the station wagon, drawing tired looks from the young Senegalese men in the middle row: it was undenaibly a 'toubab moment.'

The first time we actually saw the 'mountains' was on a red gravel path through the bush to the village of Dindefelo, which took us all of one night and half the next day to reach, despite the assurance of multiple parties that it couldn't possibly be more than 2 hours. A line of bluffs and dense green along the horizon, these mountains seemed a far more appropraite border with Guinea than than the invisible line through the remote plateau beyond.

Alright, that's enough over-dramatic description for now. This may come as a surprise, but our trip didn't actually unfold like a Victorian travel journal. It was a bit adventurous at times, but for some reason never seemed beyond the believable.

Our initial intention was to bike from Kedougou, Senegal, at the end of the main road of Tambacounda, into the mountains of the Fouta Djalon and reach the town of Mali, Guinea. What's more, we were going to do so by leaving on Saturday afternoon and arriving on Sunday for Mali's big lomé (local market). Just to take it to that next level, we were going to do all this without a Guinean visa, by taking a bush track that bypasses the border post. As it turned out, this plan was a tad bit ambitious. Now that we're back, we better understand the exagerated gasps and bursts of friendly laughter we received from the old Peul men we passed on the rough path to Dindefelo. "These little toubabs, fresh in from the city, were going to carry their silly American bikes up all 8 mountains to Mali?? They must be crazy, and are probably capable of anything."

(above: walking my bike across the easy bridge en route to Dindefelo)

Jaay fonde

Literally 'to sell porridge.' The Senegalese saying is that you can't lose when you sell porridge; either you earn a lot of money selling it, or you get a big butt eating it. Either outcome is highly desirable. Thus, to the never-ending amusement of us students, 'jaay fonde' can also be approximately translated as: 'big booty.'

Each day during Ramadan, Fatou Faye, a young Seereer woman, comes around to the Elton corner, dressed in a sheer brown boubou and carrying a large plastic bucket on her head. It's contents: chere, a Senegalese couscous made into porridge - fonde. Fatou is our official 'jaaykatu fonde.' The men at the corner generally buy one small packet each, and eat it eagerly from plastic cups with warm milk made up from powder.

Fatou is sharp and mischeivous. She has a wry, defiant smile and stands confidently with narrowed eyes and a cocked hip. Her voice is loud and has a nasal edge that dares your eardrums to oppose her. She jokes fiercely with the guards, exchanging gossip, harsh personal critiques, and lewd jokes.

It was last night while sitting around with the usual attaya folk that I haltingly made my first forey into the expansive realm of inappropriate Wolof jokes. I've only caught on to a few as they've flown by me on the street, but my joke seemed to be in approximately the same vein.

The joke struck me as Fatou and I were performing the normal ritual of exchanging greetings, she scolding me for not having printed the photo attached to this post. "Naka jaay fonde bi?" I'd started the sentence before I realized how it would end, and as I approached the finish I began to giggle at the absurdity of the joke and akwardness of my execution. The sentence finished, after a brief pause, everyone else broke into laughter as well.

The literal meaning of the sentence works as a polite inquiery: 'How's the porridge business going?' But colloquially it's pure smut: 'How's the big booty?'

Tanalaa tun? / Jam tun.

Just a few words in the murmering song of the Pulaar dialect that is spoken in southern Senegal. Basically 'How are you?' and 'I'm fine,' though 'Jamm tune' seems to be an appropriate response to just about any question in Pulaar. No, this post is not in fact going to explain much of anything about the week long trip from which I returned, one day early, last night. It's actually just intended to let anyone who is desperately worried (sorry to single you out Mum and Dad) know that I am still alive.

Its second slightly more devious purpose, in classic Ewan style, is to plead for an extension on the trip report. My excuses? I'm still trying to comprehend my week in traditional, remote, and dare-I-say-it mountainous southeast Senegal as I navigate the newly unfamiliar landscape of urban, Westernized Dakar. It's surprising how easily round thatched rooves, the sound of millet being pounded, and a horizon of acacias replaced in my memory the mounds of half-finished apartments, the filth of traffic jams, and the flashing colours of the boubous worn by wealthy Dakaroise.

(waking up in the campment of Abduhl, a Peul boy watching his family's herd of goats and cows) I can say that the South wasn't nearly as hot as constant comments had led us to believe. In fact, our sweat-habituated bodies sometimes shivered on their mats when cool night winds blew down from the Fouta Djaloum mountains in Guinea. I've posted these photos either stave off your demands or to whet your appetites, depending on how you see it. For my own sake as well as yours, I'm going to put aside time to write up some of the trip's important stories later this week.

(Jenise and Maren with Doba Diallo, our guide and friend [at right in white T-shirt] and some of the younger members of the village of Dandé)

Dafa tang foofu! - It's hot there!

So, in my last 11 minutes on this rickety computer I'm going to try to explain where I'm off to next week.

We have a one week break from classes to scatter away from Dakar and my friends Jenise and Maren and I (and apparently a good deal of others) are scattering off to rather rural southeast Senegal. Tomorrow we will attempt to board a 'sept place' - small station wagon bush taxi - and will swerve through 8 hours of ?foie de gnis? (pot holes) to get to Tambakounda in the south, then a smoother 4 to Kedougou.

In Kedougou we hope to meet my Senegalese uncle, who teaches English, and hopefully find the Peace Corps center. If we're lucky, we'll be able to rent bikes. (the kind with rubber tires and perhaps even breaks!) After that our plans kind of break up into a vague slushy of pipe-dreams: Bike into Guinea to the market at Mali; swim under the waterfall at ?Binginfufi?, perhaps make it to the remote eastern villages, many of which are from the Bassari ethnicity and are still animist.

So I'm fresh back from the centre-ville, where my very calm, sweet uncle Denis took me to get my hair cut. The shortest, straightest thing to be found on my head since early high school. Still, sitting in a rickity old elevated barbers chair, a burly Cape Verdian meticulously going over my head with at least 3 pairs of scissors and 3 razors, one of which was the real, old fashioned, sharp kind. I was shivering with thrill at the experience, and the fear of blood-born illness the whole time. Hearing his philosophy on cutting hair in English and creole Portugese to the amusement of my uncle was a memorable experience.

And I feel more prepared with this short mop, along with a large straw hat (which looks a lot more 'gaucho' than 'baaykat'), for the promise that no person has failed to give us about Kedougou. Dafa tang! - It's hot!

Samay xaritu Senegal - My Senegalese Friends

I think it is when I am with my Senegalese friends, more than at any other time, that I feel I am getting 'past the surface.' Though I haven't exactly met them in throngs, it has been incredibly reassuring to feel I can really trust someone, and talk to him seriously.

It's a relief to know that what awaits me on the other side of the initial greetings is more than such convertsational classics as "You're not French, right?" "Senegal is really cool!" or "America is perfect. Your life is perfect, too." Then, of course, there's the persistant, "How about all the beautiful girls in Senegal? Don't you want to marry that one? No, of course your American 'fiancée' isn't enough; you need someone here!" (To clarify, my girlfriend and I are not engaged. However, calling her my fiancée at least diffuses the preceeding conversation before it escalates into marriage arrangements.)

But back to friends. I'm writing about them first, before describing my neighborhood, my family, or my classes partially out of an obstinant refusal to do things logically, but also because they are the most important reminder for me, that I am 'actually here' - that my life here is legitimate and progressing normally.

This is my best friend, Sadjo Diallo. He is a jaaykat, a street vendor on a busy corner near the modern Elton gas station. Mounded up on his cart are found a hundred kinds of sweet cookies; plastic-wrapped batteries; bitter white kola nuts from Nigeria; green bananas and spoiled mandarins; along with incredibly popular American and less-known Senegalese cigarettes. In addition there are tiny bags of pon, an as of yet unidentified substance that is rolled into cigarettes. Everyone here calls it tabacco, but we believe, since it is evidently produced from the leaves of a giant tree, that it may not in fact be Nicotiana tabacum. These varied goods are currently supplemented by sweet, dried dates, which are purchased in great quantities in the late afternoon, used to break the day's Ramadan fast.

Sadjo is 21 years old, though his weathered face and distinct lack of teeth led me to vastly overestimate his age at first. During his life he has been an apprenti on the car rapides, worked as a street mechanic, driven a taxi in Mauritania, and lived alone in the rural southeast of Senegal, watching his family's herd of cattle.

He's a strict and persistant Wolof instructor, insisting that I write down each new lesson, and he's also taught me how to make attaya (Senegalese tea). In return, I'm helping him with his English, which already isn't bad. I'm trying to focus on practical everyday phrases, such as "Hey driver, grab some kolas and let's hit the road!" I also try to assist in selling his wares, though my slow comprehension of Wolof numbers (whose normal meaning changes when they are applied to sums of money) and my clumsy fingers mean that I quickly frustrate the taxi drivers waiting for their handful of cigarettes.

Anyway, I sit out many nights with Diallo, as he's called, and a whole group of people - guards, peanut vendors, contruction workers, and passers-by who find themselves inexplicably thrown together at the corner. We drink the three, slow rounds of attaya, practice our languages, and discuss the business of Dakar, the qualities of friends, and whatever strikes us as most important in life. A few days ago we lost Moustapha 'Six' one of the guards from the group, and a friend. His company posted him to Richard Toll in the far north of Senegal, to guard a sugar factory. This genuinely saddened me, and it felt very good to realize that I really care about my friends here. Perhaps Diallo and I will make a trip up north some weekend to visit Moustapha.

(At the Elton corner, from right: Aissatou, unknown, Aissatou's younger son, Moustapha, Moussa, Abdhul, Sadjo, unkown, me, Aissatou's older son)

I'll write about one more friend: Bouboucar Ba, the young boy who works in a boutique near my house in Mermoz. He was born in Guinea-Conakry, as it's called here, where he went to primary school. Once he was older, however, his father moved with him to Gambia so that he could attend an English-speaking school. Bouboubar lived there for several years, making it to 5th form. However, his father died last May, leaving him with no family and nowhere to live. He came to Dakar to stay with the Ba's, family friends who could offer him a job in their boutique. He stands at the counter during the night's long hours, quickly dishing out supplies to patrons from the packed shelves behind him.

I was drawn to him because of his English, but also because of his sharp and defiant manners. When I initially tried to haggle over his goods, he halted me fiercely, explaining with pride that God was watching him, and so he could never inflate a price for a toubab. Bouboucar now earns 20.000 CFA (40 dollars) a month, and is saving to attend the British Academy school in Dakar. I go to see him quite regularly to ask how work is coming along and give him a chance to practice English. When he heard that I'd taught an English lesson at l'Ecole de la rue in the Medina, he asked if he could come along the next time. Right now, I'm a little afraid to return to his shop, however, as I promised I'd have this photos printed out for him a week ago. He will not let me off easy on this breach of trust.

Juroom benni semain - 6 weeks

Being here is no longer something new. Walks along the fume-choked Route d'Ouakam have lost their awe, and the scenes of daily life along the sandy streets of Mermoz have ceased to fill me with delighted surprise. Even the tickling thrill of an unexpected French encounter beside a fruit stand or boutique has drained away, and I'm quite settled into the daily comments and chores of my host family. For the greater part, I fill my days sitting in classes, eating fruits, working on emails, waiting on benches, walking from place to place.

In short, I've broken into the routine of everyday life. And shockingly, it turns out to have a similar feel, even though I'm living in such a distant place, within such a different culture. Sometimes I even get bored, believe it or not!

Why oh why did I wait until now to begin a blog?? I can only dodge personal responsibility and lay blame upon my irrational and contrary objection to the newest technological fads. But now I'm well beyond my initial thrill and first avid, breathless descriptions. I've lived through, without documentation, my great crash of confidence and subsequent battle with digestive malfunction. What I now have to write about is more... complicated. I'm trying to organize my daily life, finish papers and applications for internships, trying to put my finger on what it is that I'm just not getting. I'm trying somehow to break a surface that I cannot describe. (below: Oranges du pays in my back courtyard)

It was witnessing the undoubtable success of several of my friends' blogs that finally conquered my cynical resistance. Their crisp, colourful entries, laid out neatly beside illustrative photographs, have trumped my scraps of journal paper and photocopied letters. In theory, this blog will make me organize my experiences and lay them out coherently. Hopefully, if I can explain them to you, they'll make sense to me as well.

An introduction? I'm here in Senegal through the CIEE Study Center on the Sufflk University Dakar Campus. The program itself is pretty straight forward: we choose 15 hours of classes, live with host families, take excursions. Not quite the romance of the SIT or MSID programs, with months out in the field and a grand independant project, but hopefully I'll be able to work a little of that in on my own. So, I'm picking up Wolof, trying to polish my French, and begin to understand how this world works. So, despite my fierce, indignant resistance, here it is: a blog on my 9 months in Senegal.