Chocolate Chip Cookies in Senegal

I decided to make my host family dinner Sunday night just to do something nice for me, since they've been wonderful. However, making an "American" dinner is pretty tough here - ingredients are hard to find, most kitchens don't have ovens, and stoves are mostly portable gas stoves like bigger versions of the kind you would take camping. I had devised a menu of spaghetti, fruit salad, and chocolate chip cookies, so I had my work cut out for me.

Luckily, we have an oven.

I found everything for chocolate chip cookies, except the chocolate chips, so I broke up some of the really good chocolate bars they have here, and had to hunt down baking soda, which is sold in little bags in small boutiques on every street. But you have to ask for carbonate, not soda du baking. Pasta and sauce were readily available in a gas station store, and fruit is easy to find here, and cheap. After several trips to several stores, I was all set to make my family their American dinner, explaining several times that there's really no American dish, because everyone in the US comes from somewhere else (to which a friend of my sister said, "C'est un 'melting pot.' "

That is, melting pot, with a French accent.

Everyone enjoyed the dinner, thanked me profusely, and told me I was "tres gentille." I was happy to do something for my host family, because they've done a lot for me, including putting up with my sometimes ridiculous French and virtually nonexistent Wolof.

But the highlight of the night was when my host sister asked me if I wanted to give our leftovers to the talibes outside. Talibes are little kids who are sent away from their families to live with marabouts, Muslim religious leaders in Senegal. They are treated horribly - deprived of education, medical care, and even the ability to take a shower. They are sent into Dakar each day to beg on the streets for money, which then goes straight to the marabout. In order to eat, the talibes ask for food, carrying around an empty tomato paste can for offerings as they navigate neighborhoods, begging at people's doors after dinner each night. Giving a talibe food is the only way to make sure you're helping him out (and yes, they're all boys). The system is very controversial, and borderline Dickensian. I was glad to give the two kids waiting outside the door the rest of the pasta. I then decided that every time I cook a meal here in Senegal, I will give my leftovers to the talibes.

I also watched "The Da Vinci Code" on TV, dubbed in French, of course.

Next Monday we leave for Kedougou - about a weeklong trip. We've been told that we might get to see giraffes, rhinoceros(es?), and lions. And that's when we'll finally get our 12-hour bus ride through Senegal, from the northwest to the southeast. I'm excited.

More Pictures

Here are some pictures that I've been meaning to post:


Car Rapide: Public transport in Dakar; all are decorated with religious and patriotic symbols.


Me at the Mosque in Touba


More of the Grand Mosque at Touba

Ku mun, muun.

My homestay is continuing to go very well. We have a weekday routine of breaking the fast (it's Ramadan - most people in my house aren't actually fasting, including me, but we break it anyway) with tea and either bread or cake around seven, then the news and dubbed Mexican soap operas (Roderigo and Victoria and Miranda all speak French), then dinner around eight, and then more TV - generally American shows dubbed in French. I watch Lost and find it so funny to hear Jack and Kate and Sawyer speaking French in different voices. My host sister and I generally talk about politics while we watch TV, in French! It's really interesting to hear her perspective on the U.S. government - last night we talked about Guantanamo Bay, terrorism, and militant Islam, which she told me isn't really Islam, because Islam forbids killing another person.

So, I'm learning a lot.

I also learned a Wolof saying I really like: Ku mun, muun. There are some tildes involved, but I don't know how to type them. It means, roughly, if you're patient, you will smile. (I think.) French translations are "Il ne faut jamais jeter l'eponge," which means, "It is necessary to never throw in the towel."

My Wolof teacher said that this saying is really important to the Senegalese, because it basically means that even when things are hard, it's necessary to be patient and determined, because eventually good fortune/recompense can be found again. I really like this saying, and I'm keeping it in mind during my time here.

I also have been noticing these huge, leafy trees that are planted everywhere in the city. They have very bright red-orange blossoms and people use them for the shade. I don't know what type of tree they are, but I've only ever seen them here in Senegal and I love walking past them every day.

You have a button on your arm

This is what my new host sister said to me yesterday, because here anything round on your skin is a bouton. The button on my arm was a new mole. From the sun. So she told me that I have to wear sunscreen.

I've moved! To Cite Asecna in Ouakam, a busy quartier of Dakar close to the airport and 40 minutes by bus to class. I love it. It's like a village in a big city, with quieter streets but just as much life as the rest of Dakar (maybe more) and everyone seems to know each other. I live with a host mom, and host sister, and three host brothers who I rarely see because they work nights at a big grocery store. My host mom teaches home ec and is great, and my host sister is 21 and studying to be a doctor. I really like them both and I get to practice my French with them and eat meals with them and watch TV with them every night. My host sister is partial to Mexican soap operas and American TV shows (Lost, House, Grey's Anatomy) dubbed in French. Lost is way behind here, but it was fun to watch a show I like in French.

So the new situation is good. My old one was not; and it's not the fault of the family I stayed with, they just weren't very good at including an exchange student in family activities and basically didn't talk to me. That was the way their family worked, and that's fine, but I wasn't learning anything. And now I am. It's a good change.

They also keep telling me that I'm going to learn Wolof. Considering that I can really only say "hello," "how are you?", and "thank you" I'm not sure if they're being polite or genuinely optimistic. But that's Senegal for you, I guess. People are really friendly here, and I've also noticed that they often say funny things when they enter a room, like, "you're sitting?," "you're eating?" - generally stating the obvious to start a conversation. It's nice.

Leaving Saint-Louis

Tomorrow we leave Saint-Louis to go back to Dakar. I am really sad to be leaving! Saint-Louis is wonderful. It's made up of two islands and few bridges in between, and it's divided by the Senegal River and bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. The roads here are wider than the ones in Dakar, and there are definitely more sidewalks. There are also fewer people, and, consequently, fewer people hassling you and asking for money, your number, or your hand in marriage (and possibly all three) than there are in Dakar. There are, however, a ton of goats in the road, just hanging out, enjoying the trash piles or climbing up on their hind legs to eat leaves out of trees. There are also some really cute kittens who seem to live down the street from our hotel. But our program says that there is to be no petting or cuddling of animals while we're in Senegal. So no petting the cute stray kittens. The buildings here are also pretty - old colonial-style buildings in bright colors with wooden shutters, and last night, we discovered an amazing Vietnamese restaurant where you can actually get a grenadine in Senegal that isn't just a cup of syrup and uncarbonated mineral water.

Add to this the hotel with its air conditioning, western-style showers, and bread and pastries for breakfast, and it's easy to see why returning to Dakar, with its traffic, pollution, multitude of people asking after money/phone numbers/marriage, narrow roads, absent sidewalks, busy markets where your backpack might get stolen, and generally crazy noise level, is a little difficult to get excited about.

But - I've now been here a month, and I'm realizing that the rest of the program is going to go by pretty fast. Which is good, because it means that in no time I'll be home and getting ready to go back to Smith, but it's also bad, because it means that I really need to finish my book for French class, and it also means that in a month and a half I'm going to be working on my independent study project, which resembles nothing I've ever done for school, except for maybe interviewing people for the Sophian.

I hope that I have another chance to come back to Saint-Louis someday. Going back to Dakar won't be fun, but I'm glad I got the chance to come here and see a calmer, quieter side of Senegal. And I'm glad that after spending three days in a village, we got to visit such a relaxing place with both TV and the nicest bathrooms I've seen since I got here.