From HLM Fass

I'm now living in a boarding house in a neighborhood called Fass. It's close to the university and SIT, and it's run by a wonderful old woman named Baye. It's pink and yellow and has three floors, with a courtyard in the middle and the best view of Dakar I've ever seen is what you see from the roof, if you're not too distracted by the pen full of sheep up there. That's right, there are sheep on the roof of my house, along with a few rooms for boarders and communal laundry lines. There are a lot of boarders, and it's nice to be in a place where I can talk to people who speak French but where I don't have to worry about what time I come home; it's definitely better for ISP period anyway, although I miss my homestay a lot! Outside, there's the grossest-smelling canal in Dakar (because it's basically a garbage/raw sewage drop-off spot), but at least I know that when I smell the canal, I'm in the right place. I'm living with three other students from the program, and a fourth one will be joining us in about two weeks. It's really really strange living with other Americans again after living in a host family. Sometimes I actually get tired of speaking English and talking about American things when I want to practice my French and actually be in Senegal. I hope I get used to it before I come home!

ISP is weird. I've been hanging out with medical students at the university, mostly my host sister's friends, and it's been really interesting to see the university system/situation up close. The campus is HUGE, it makes Smith look like a quaint little traffic circle or something. There are several entrances lined with people selling snacks, passport photos, bookbags, clothes, shoes, notebooks, homemade bissap and bouye juice, and the use of the copy machines in the little shacks they sell things from. The buildings are almost all concrete, and some of the dorms look a little like they're falling apart. There are palm trees and taxis driving through the campus at all times, and a lot of students. They're all really young-looking, and most of them wear western-style clothes; some girls are veiled. There are also a lot of foreign students, so I don't really stick out too much when I'm there.

The medical school (which also houses pharmacy school and some other schools I can't remember) is actually in a large and beautiful building with a tiled facade and columns and has directional signs, which is really weird to see. My favorite place thus far is a "garden" outside the medical school that is basically just a lot with some trees on it, and some concrete benches that are so tall your feet dangle from them. It's a nice place to sit in the shade when you're waiting to interview your informants.

I have less than a month left here in Senegal, so I'm trying to get the most out of it. On Saturday, I went back to Goree Island with one of my friends from the program, and we went to the beach and to the market, where women say things like, "Come to my shop, good price!" in English and "Elle est ma cherie - She is my lovely" to us while we look at the jewelry they're selling, and then charge us exorbitant prices for the jewelry, because they're used to tourists. Then we had a wonderful dinner in a less tourist-full (if that is possible on Goree, which it's not really) restaurant, and saw "Persepolis" for free as part of Goree's Diaspora Festival. It was great, although I didn't catch all of the dialogue (it was in French), so I'll have to see it again when I'm back in the States.

It was really weird going to Goree a second time. The boat over was full of more tourists than usual, probably because of the diaspora festival, and honestly it was really strange to see so many white people (I've been in Africa for two and a half months), it was even weirder seeing obese people. That's not really a problem in Senegal. Coming back on the boat, it occurred to me that most tourists probably visit Goree, go to the beach and the House of Slaves (hopefully, because it's kind of the reason to go there), buy a quilted bag in a stereotypically "African" print (men with spears, anyone?), and head back to their nice hotels in Dakar. This is what you do when you're a tourist, and I've definitely done that before, in other countries. But that really hasn't been my experience here in Senegal, and I'm grateful for the difference.

As I said, I have less than a month left. It's weird and sad and good to know that I'll be home in a short time. Also, Thanksgiving is this week and I'm in Senegal, where you can't even buy a turkey that isn't pre-plucked...or, I think, pre-slaughtered for that matter. There are a lot of things I have to do before I go home, including an increasingly complicated independent research project. Oh well - petit-d-petit, l'oiseau fait son nid.