making memories

There's something poetic about having only a few days left to distill Dakar in my mind and memories.  However, I also have final projects, which interfere with my last-minute impressionism.

Nonetheless, last night was a memory-maker.  After school, I caught a cab with my friend Dian to go to la Pointe des Almadies, a rocky outcropping at the northwest end of Dakar, where a group of shacks and restaurants compete to serve all sorts of seafood.  (La Pointe is also the closest I can get to the States while still being in Senegal.)  Together we polished off an immense order of oysters, mussels, and "coques" (some other in-shell creature), right there on the water.  Over the course of our meal, several vendors came to tempt us with leather boxes and wooden sculpture, but we bought only bin-bins, the waist beads that women here wear to be sexually irresistible to their men.  The sun sank as we talked and piled up the shells.

We then hopped back in a cab, where we tried to convince our taximan Cheikh that "jigeen ak jigeen" (woman and woman) marriages were just fine.  He said it wasn't "normal" and it wasn't good for "la sante" (health), and called us both "saay-saay" (roughly, "playboy" or "flirt").  Later, he said that he wanted to marry me.  Dian and I knew we weren't getting anywhere with this conversation, so we just laughed.

We arrived an a packed art opening at Galerie La Manege (Dian knew one of the artists), where we wandered until we found the wine and our friends, Frankie and Logan.  The four of us perused the art and joked about buying it for our (imaginary) multiple million-dollar mansions.  It was an artsy, monied, and mixed-race crowd gathered there; the people were as much fun to look at as the art.  We left together--Dian, Frankie, and Logan went to an Indian restaurant to celebrate the birthday of another friend, Michael; and I went home to sleep.  Now I'm up early this morning, researching sharia law in West Africa, and procrastinating by writing this blog post.

Dama kontaans / Je suis contente / I'm content and happy.

Ten days left.

my family

I've kept my host family out of my blog posts for a while now, but because they have been so fundamental to my happiness here in Dakar, I feel it wouldn't be fair not to dedicate a post to them, describing how great they are.  This probably violates lots of privacy ethics.  I'm sorry.

When I first arrived, I was tired, jittery, and incredibly nervous.  Aysha greeted me at the door--I remember thinking that she was so pretty--and led me in to talk with Maman Toure (me with my stuttering French, her with eternal patience).  Maman gave me my Senegalese name (it's Daba, by the way) and told me that I was welcome, and that I should consider this house to be my house.  I think it was Ousmane who carried my incredibly heavy bag up to my room, and then it was Fana showed me my closet, my bathroom, and my bed.  In about an hour, I had moved in, but only technically.  I became a part of the family over the next few months: eating dinner in the courtyard, watching TV in the salon, doing laundry on the terrace.  I now know how to unlock the door and where to leave my laundry and what it sounds like when Fatou is setting out the table and plastic chairs for dinner (I listen for that).  I'm tuned into the people, and the house that is now my home.  On the endless weekend afternoons, my favorite thing to do is to make tea for them all--carrying it around to all the rooms, collecting the glasses, and getting their smiles when they know that, yes, it was me who made it this time.  After growing up as an (almost) only child, it's a strange miracle to have so many siblings in my house.

My sisters: Aysha and Fana

Me and my sisters talk about guys and about shopping and about all those differences between America and Senegal.  We watch TV together and eat dinner together and sometimes I pull some mbalax moves to make them laugh.  They invite me to come to the store, to go on a walk with them--just for the company, and just to get me out of the house and into the wider Dakar world.  Aysha is dramatic and bubbly; Fana, an excellent storyteller and a hard worker.  (And I have two other sisters, Adji and "Mama," professional who have married and moved out to their husbands' homes.)

My brothers: Ousmane, Tidiane, Djim

Me and my brothers talk about Obama and Senegalese politics.  We make tea and eat dinner together.  They are all busy, ambitious, and accomplished--working at the school, or in computer networking.  They will live together in the house after they are married (not anytime soon, it seems); the unfinished third floor will become their apartments.

Maman Toure, wearing the shawl Mom gave to her

Maman has raised seven children to adulthood, earned her Master's, traveled to France, and started her own school.  Now she welcomes American students into her home, saying that all children in the world are really the children of all the mothers in the world.  

Papa

Papa has worked as a minister in the Senegalese government and has visited more placed in the United States than I have.  He's retired, but still welcomes friends and former dignitaries into the house to discuss current events and to do research.  He likes his tea very light (the third boil), with plenty of mint, and with diabetic sugar.

Okay, sorry for the brief post, but I've really got to get back to work.  I have two major research papers due next week and a Peace Conference that I have been chosen to go to on May 12 - 13.  Classes end the 14th, and I get a few days to sit on the beach and drink tea before I board a plane headed back to the States.  Leaving behind one family for another gives one all kinds of sweet and sad feelings, but I'll have to deal with those in my diary before I even hope to present them in a blog post.