Before and After

June 21, 2009

Nange def? (How do you do in Wolof)! I have officially finished my first full day in Dakar, where to even begin is the question. It has already been an experience I could have never prepared myself for, or expected! At moments it has been bittersweet, but mostly I am euphoric about being here. I will begin with the longest trip ever from the United States to Senegal. My flight from Portland boarded at 12:00 pm on the 19^th Portland time. Very small and cramped plane! The in-flight movies consisted of two movies which I have already seen and didn’t really enjoy, the race to witch mountain, and Hotel for Dogs. I sat next to a younger boy probably about 17 who was on his way to Qatar where his father lives, he told me all about it and he was very nice. But again the plane was so cramped and at times pretty miserable. The flight that I expected to be 12 hours only turned out to be 9 ½, very exciting to me because the turbulence was starting to get to me a bit. We landed in Amsterdam at around 6:30 am (Amsterdam time)on the 20^th, where I made my way through customs and sat with my belongings bike locked to a seat at my terminal and I attempted to sleep for 6 hours. I finally boarded the plane to Paris, when I find out the plane ride from Amsterdam to Paris is a mere 14 minute plane ride, hardly worth the 6 hour wait. I arrived at Charles De gallue airport in Paris, and it was deserted and very calm, I walked for about 20 minutes before I found my terminal, and had another 3-hour layover. I met 2 other students going on the program there, and Caitlin had the seat right next to me, and Thor a bit further away. We boarded the plane along with about 200 other Senegalese people, and no English was spoken from this point on. The plane was the most luxurious plane I have ever been on. The first class seats were unbelievable, literally like beds and even in coach class we each had our own TV’s and fairly comfortable seats. But it took us about an hour and a half to depart because there were trying to find seats for senegaleses women and their 5 children all together. There were about 5 families. I was in a window seat and the view flying over Europe and Africa was the most remarkable thing I have ever seen, not a cloud in the sky! The people on the plane were beautiful and the children were the sweetest things ever! I had no idea what was to come on the 5-hour plane ride from Paris to Dakar.

            I never new the fear of death until the plane landing in Dakar. The landing into Dakar was the scariest thing ever, the plane hit the ground at about 400 mph I swear and I think I might have flown out of my seat it hit the ground so hard. The runway was bumpy and I couldn’t predict when we were going to slow down, because the plane headed full speed down the runway, quite terrifying.  After the landing we got out of the plane on the ground, not a terminal. Were pointed in the direction of a bus with about 60 other people stuffed in, where we preceded to the airport building about a 5 min drive. At this point it was welcome to Africa because the heat was nearly unbearable, and it was so humid I could hardly breathe and keep in mind this was about 9:30 pm. We waited in line for customs got stamped and the chaos began. I have never seen so many people in the tiniest baggage claim area  you could imagine, you couldn’t even move. It took about an hour for our luggage to get off and to make our way through the crowd to grab it. We then proceeded to an ex-ray machine that was required to put all of our bags through before we exited the airport. Luckily right as we were walking out, another American girl (who ironically turned out to be my roommate) greeted us and showed us to pop, while she went to find baggage she had lost from an earlier flight. It was all a bit hectic because we didn’t know who she was and who pop was because I man named Mr. sow was supposed to be there to greet us. But he had a paper with all our names on it, which he preceded to show us about 5 min after the fact. He spoke not a lick of English, instead very fast French. He told us to stay in a certain spot and not move until he returned. Where we were then swarmed with people trying to get us into taxis, or help us with our baggage. Non, merci became the most useful term on the night (no thank you). It was insane the amount of people everywhere, and people would automatically leave us alone when pop would come up and say with were with him, they seem to really respect each other around here. But the second he distanced himself from us even the slightest bit, men tried to coerce into their taxis. Eventually we got into two taxis pop and Kara went in one (kara the girl who lost her baggage) and Caitlin thor and I in another. Again welcome to Africa.

            Cars, taxis were flying everywhere, no order, no lanes, nothing. People were crowed walking on the highways, and the streets. People screaming at each other, and people pushing broken down cars down the highway. The building looked like ancient ruins, and garbage covered the streets. Horses were walking around unfenced and extremely malnourished. It was immediate culture shock, and I wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into, I was exhausted and a bit overwhelmed. But the more we drove the more amazing things got! The buildings, everything was like nothing I have ever seen before. We exited the taxi and thor and Caitlin were shown to their apartment, and Kara lead me to our bungalow. 

Campus was a just dirt road, garbage everywhere, and people were pacing back and forth studying outside, very interesting. Kara showed me our room, which is a little smaller then our freshman dorms. The mosquito net hanging over my bed, and the shower with no curtain was another, welcome to Africa. Kara then took me to meet Andrew and Emily the two that were still awake in the bungalow. Andrew, or in French Andre is interesting, and Emily is probably my favorite so far. They showed me the toilet, which is like the tiniest closet ever, and the toilet has no toilet seat, and the tissue is pink. I was then showed to the kitchen, which is infested with ants. And these are no American ants they are African fire ants, quite large and loving the baguettes that were sitting on the counter for us. Who knew that in just a few hours of being in Africa I would be willing to eat bread that had ants crawling on it, but it is all about adaptation here. We have a large foyer with a TV, and a few places to sit. On the ceiling a lizard/large gecko was just hanging out, welcome to Africa. I sat with the girls ate some ant infested bread with nutella. And then unpacked and took a freezing cold shower, which was actually nice for how hot it was. Il fait tres chaud! Kara and I talked for about an hour and slipped under our mosquito nets and went to sleep with underwear and a tank top just a sheet, no blankets, and way to hot. I slept until about 2 am where I then laid wide-awake until around 4 am. I tossed I turned, I listened to my i-pod, nothing, I simply could not sleep. Also the fact that nightlife doesn’t begin until around 2 am here didn’t help, because there was loud, but beautiful African music booming through our window. Kara then woke up and we sat and talked till about 6:30 am, until we fell back asleep.

Bang, Bang, Bang, tat, tat,! Madame! Madame! My wake up call at 8:30 am to a man standing outside our window (which is barred so no one can get in) banging on the bars with a stick. Kara still sound asleep. I try to wake her up to ask if it is Pape. This man starring at me, madame, madame, overt la Porte, overt la Porte. Open the door open the door. I say kara who is this man, what do I do, where so sleeping turns over in her bed and says no merci, no merci. At this point the man walks away but returns a few seconds later, madame, madame!!! I cover my head with my sheet, and don’t really know what to do, until I hear an American voice, its Alissa the other UO student. Apparently her flight was supposed to get in at midnight she didn’t get in till around 4 am, and tried to find her lost luggage for an hour and half, at this point Pape left because he couldn’t find her. So she was stuck at the airport, haggled by a bunch of man trying to get her into taxis, and finally she just went into the doors where a security guard asked her what was wrong and called the security guard of Universite de Chiekta Diopp and got her in a taxi and brought her here, a scary and stressful experienced. Thank goodness she spoke French really good, because I would have been screwed, and terrified.

            Anyways quite the way to wake up my first morning in Senegal. We started the day by walking down to My Shop which is a little grocery shop that has wireless internet. The streets are so covered with garbage, normally I would feel infuriated by such a thing, but because there is no real garbage system here you have to learn to understand why people do such things. The smells on the street change from step to step, one moment you will smell the savory scent of Senegalese nourittoure (food). The next moment will be the nearly unbearable smell of burning trash, and of course many other smells, the ocean, the animals, the perfumes of the people, it is truly extraordinary. When arrived back at our bungalow to women in beautiful brightly colored clothing were cleaning and preparing lunch. It is difficult to watch someone come into your house and clean and cook and not be able to help. At times though things are definitely less luxurious than at home, there are also much more, especially compared to the living conditions of most the people who live here. We truly are getting treated like kings and queens in comparison.

Everyone went into the living room area to chat, and Emily, Caitlin, and I stayed in the kitchen to try and help-mami and the other women with the meal preparations.  And note the meal was being prepared in trays on the kitchen floor. So far here you have to drop everything you were ever taught back in the States. Sanitary is not in the Senegalese vocabulary, but the way of preparing food is incredible and intricate. Anyways there were a variety of vegetables and spices. We helped crush the spices in a large wooden garlic crusher like thing, and peel the tough vegetables. These weren’t any typical vegetables, there were your normal carrots but the others were eggplant, pumpkin like things, and some sort of root, things I have never really seen. Watching these women cook was so amazing, and it cooking truly is a cultural practice. They then brought out the fish, tails and skin in tact. It was darkly colored and looked like it may have been sitting for a few days, but the way she prepared it was unreal. She took her fingers poked a hole in the fish and then stuffed the paste that was made in the garlic crusher in the fish, it was very interesting. While all this was happening ants were crawling all over the food, and it didn’t even phase the women. How from one day I go to throwing away food that lands on the floor, to eating a meal prepared on the ground with ants, for some reason it didn’t bother me, and it was a rapid transition. The only way to truly survive around here is to not care, and to accept whatever, I am learning an entire new way of living, and it is thrilling! The meal was ready about 3 pm, a very late lunch, it is the only real meal the Senegalese eat, and they don’t snack throughout the day either, so my appetite was very strong by 3 pm. The food came out on gigantic platters and everyone eat from the same plate, the 3 vegetarians got our own plates, and I am a little disappointed in my self because even though most of the food was same, I didn’t get to experience the true Senegalese way of eating, all though I have stayed true the last 3 days I think it might go out the window here pretty soon, even though it is not difficult to maintain. The food was vegetables and amazing rice with sauce all cooked together, and so weird but so delicious, my dreams to loose weight are already in the past, because the meal was amazing!  After lunch we had Senegalese tea, which was made from purely fresh leaves, it was the strongest, sweetest thing I have ever tasted. We only had one round because most of us couldn’t handle the intensity, but here they normally have 3-6 rounds and it takes about 4 hours, the way of life here is much slower than in the states, people take time to eat and converse.

  We then got ready to head to the beach. Pap the same man who picked us up from the airport would escort us. Along with fata-mata and mbay, the 3 most amazing people I have ever met, so kind, so hilarious, and so welcoming. Fata-mata and Pape are Muslim but very modern Muslims and dress exactly how many people from the US do. Mbay had his traditional clothing on and they are all so accepting of us and eachother. We began our journey to the beach.

            We walked through our main campus, and it was unreal the difference between an American university and this one, people had there clothing hanging from there windows, there were little shackled buildings everywhere, and it was rare to see women walking around. Again the smells were changing every second. We made it to the ocean, and it was a spectacular sight, we kept walking and walked by muscle beach where hundreds of men were working out, running, sit-ups, everything it was amazing, and they were doing it in sandals. Pape said the beach is not sur (safe), but I didn’t really understand why. As we continued down the road more and more people were on the streets, and things got more and more excited. We came to one part of the beach where there had to be 500 people, there was some sort of impromptu wrestling match, and people were everywhere, at this point the abject poverty of the country began to be revealed.