In Which I Buy the Best Book Ever

The time between the second and third visits to Guede-Chantier was somewhat flustered. So many preparations to make, so little time! And Emmanuel is a great project partner, but he gets tired easily. I was always saying, "Let's do this! We have to do that!" and Emmanuel kept trying to make me chill out. Finally he smiled and said, "Wow, Charlotte! You Canadians, you really love to be busy! Canadians, they never sit still."

This was really funny to me, because I'm not even a real Canadian. I'm used to saying, "I come from Canada!" all the time, because that's where my family lives now, but I was born in the USA and I study there. It just goes to show: when you go abroad, you're the ambassador of wherever you come from. Even if you're a total nonconformist, everyone will assume that your personality represents your place of origin.

The principal errand we did was to make a pilgrimage to the Bibliotheque Libre de Dakar. "Free Library," is a bit of a misnomer; they did charge us for the books. Nevertheless, as sustainable development folks, we got the cheap bulk rates. As far as I could gather, they were an NGO whose aim was to provide reasonable prices for people trying to equip African libraries. Most of their stock was donated by Canadians. I even found a brightly colored beautiful children's book that was donated by my Canadian bank-- small world, eh?

We were stuck in several traffic jams on the way there (the French call them embouteillages, or bottle-ups.) During one traffic jam a dusty street child came, jumped through the door on the back of the bus, and begin singing. It is not an exaggeration to say his voice was transcendently beautiful. I've never heard such gorgeous music in my life. He sang a prayer in Arabic, echoing, wailing, haunting. The divinity of it was such a contrast with the masses of ugly cars and sweaty people. People passed little coins towards the back of the bus to reward him for his efforts. Mere trifles-- the Senegalese equivalent of nickles, pennies, and dimes. He collected them in his hat. Then, when the traffic jam started to clear up, he bowed, jumped off the back of the bus, and was gone forever. It was good entrepeneurship, but risky; buses probably had thicker crowds than he could find elsewhere. Still, its a wonder he wasn't run over.

When you find talent like that, in the midst of poverty, its a little bit like finding a pearl mixed with the stones lying on the beach. It catches your eye, you stoop to admire its luminous glow, and before you can reach out to touch it, the waves have swept it away again. To be tumbled endlessly in the shifting waters. By chance, on that very same bus ride, I happened to be seated beside an interesting man who worked for an NGO that helped street children. They tried to organize volunteers to give them lessons on useful skills. "But we can never find funding," he told me. "We have no access to the higher-ups in government-- that's the problem. And we're always sending emails to all these foreign aid organizations, but they never answer." Having had much the same troubles with my library project, I nodded in sympathy. "My cousin adopted two street children," the man continued, "Gave them a room in his house and everything. But two was all he had room for. There are so many-- what can you do?"

I asked him something I had been curious about for a long time. I knew there were two categories of child beggars. There were those who were simply homeless, and there were those who worked for the marabouts. Since zakat (alms-giving) is an obligation of Islam, the marabouts were able to use street children quite easily to raise funds for their religious organization. I asked him which category of children had the harder life. He told me things were very hard for both kinds of children, but at least the ones under the protection of the marabouts were less likely to be abused.

After we came back Emmanuel and I had lunch together and I was flipping through our shiny new purchases (all of them in French, most of them with pictures.) All of a sudden, I came upon the most wonderful book in the world. It was entitled, "The Zloukch." It was simply epic. Its about a boy named Zachary who dreams he is not like all the other little boys. He dreams of being a breeder of dragons at a firework factory. He dreams of living under the sea with a noble sea-horse steed. He dreams of living in the trees and being friends with all the animals. You see.

At school, Zachary's teacher asks all the little boys and girls to draw their favorite animal. The rest of the children draw normal animals like horses and cats and dogs. But Zachary spend the entire afternoon attempting to draw something beyond the bounds of imagination, something that defies description. Something called...... a ZLOUKCH. The other children are very intrigued to hear Zachary is drawing a Zloukch. They ask him, "What is a Zloukch? Where does it live? What does it eat?" And then the teacher (what a bitch, in my opinion) shows up and tells everyone that Zloukchs do not exist. So everyone starts making fun of Zachary and decides he is "nettement nul,"-- a total loser. A real zero.

BUT ZACHARY REMAINS UNDETERRED BY THEIR CRUEL MOCKERY!!!!! ZACHARY HAS FAITH IN HIS OWN VISION!!!! ZACHARY IS TRULY INSPIRED, AND THE LAUGHTER OF THE IGNORANT MASSES CANNOT MAKE HIM FAINT OF HEART!!!!!!!!!! (Please note, this is not a direct translation. This is the tale of the Zloukch a la Charlotte.)

It was this part of the book that made me realize that Zachary and I are truly kindred spirits. I cannot count the number of times my ideas to change the world have been greeted with laughter and heartless mockery. But like Zachary, I remain fearless in pursuit of my dream. I give not a fly's whisker for all these naysayers. You can tell me that Zloukchs do not exist, but I will never, ever, EVER believe you. IF NEED BE, I WILL CHASE THE GLORIOUS ZLOUKCH TO THE VERY ENDS OF THE EARTH!!!! YEA, TO THE VERY ENDS OF THE GALAXY I WILL PURSUE IT!!!!!!!!!!

But anyway. In the book, the other children go to play with puppets, leaving Zachary all alone at the drawing table. He makes sketch after sketch, but none of them succeed in capturing the Zloukch. One by one he crumples up his sketches and throws them away, until he is surrounded by snow-drifts of ripped-up papers. He draws and draws until at last.........

"YOUPI" he screams (French for Hooray.) "I have it, I have it, at last I have it!" He leaps to his feet, scattering papers in every direction, and dancing around with joy. Everyone crowds around to see this Zloukch he has finally succeeded in drawing. I wish I could scan the page of the book for you, because Zachary's Zloukch is truly a thing of wonder. It's a friendly-looking giant rabbit-mouse with three ears, colored in blotches and stripes and polka-dots of orange, blue, and yellow.

I don't why, but none of Zachary's classmates appreciate his clearly great artistry. Quite the contrary, in fact. "Tout le monde avait le fou rire," says the book sadly. (Everyone had Mad Laughter.)

And so everyone leaves for home, while Zachary remains staring forlornly at his picture of the Zloukch. It is then, when everyone's eyes are elsewhere, that the miracle happens. The Zloukch peels itself off the page and comes ALIVE!!!!! IT'S ALIIIIIIIIVE!!!! The final page of the book is a picture of Zachary and the Zloukch walking happily hand in hand together.

I was so excited about this book that I started telling everyone I met about it. "I think it has a good moral," I said.

"What's the moral?" my classmates demanded, somewhat puzzled.

I shrugged. "I don't know........ If people laugh at your dreams, your magical friend will arrive and kick all their butts?" I imagined further, unpublished pages of the book in which the Zloukch uses its fire breath and laser eyebeams to demolish the houses of everyone who wished Zachary ill. Everyone agreed that the moral was indeed a good one and I should make every effort to share this book with the children of Guede-Chantier.

I think I'll leave you there..... The next entry will began recounting the events of the third and final visit to Guede-Chantier.

In Which I Defy the President in a Sexy Red Dress

Three weeks in Guede-Chantier gives me a lot of free time between project meetings. So I'm going to take advantage of it by catching up on my written work. That way I'll have blobs and blobs of blog entries to upload when I come back to Dakar.

Preparing for my second visit to Guede was incredibly stressful. For one thing, I was sick with food poisoning. For another thing, the first visit had made me realize I was working within certain uncomfortable and unpleasant limitations. I was a stranger, in a way a sort of intruder in the village. I really wanted people to like and accept me, but I wasn't sure they would. My family was warm and welcoming, but doing projects with the villagers was another matter entirely. Older men had a tendency to ignore me and talk to Emmanuel. They smile at me as if I was a cute little mascot, instead of someone competent and sensible. I think I become even more loud and assertive in an effort to compensate.

Brooke says there are often problems with American woman and Senegalese men working together, since American women tend to overstep traditional gender roles within Senegalese society. I often get the feeling that I'm not being taken seriously. I also get harassed when I walk alone in Dakar. Strange men will call me "Ma cherie" (my dear) and "Ma belle" (my beautiful) and follow me down the street. If I respond politely to their questions, they cling to me like glue and I can't get rid of them. If I ignore them, they get angry at me and accuse me of being snobby. When I complain about this phenomena to my male friends, they laugh and thinks its funny. "What's wrong with being called beautiful?" But its not funny for me! Its scary! It's getting so I'm afraid to walk alone in Dakar. More than anything else, its the way they look at me. It makes me feel like prey.

Sydney, who is somewhat more adventurous and outgoing than me (and also very blonde) has had worse problems. Once a stranger walked up to her and kissed her on the neck! Luckily one of our Wolof-speaking classmates was there to defend her. Jess also had a stranger touch her without permission. She grabbed the arm that touched her and screamed at him in French, "You NEVER touch a woman you don't know!" It happened right in her neighborhood, and when the neighbors heard her screaming, they all came out of their doors and started collectively chewing out the person who harassed her. Jess said it was heartening to have her neighbours rally around to defend her like that.

The upshot of this is I've become a lot more feminist since coming to Senegal. I think in order to become really passionate about feminism you have to experience poor treatment. Its made me really touchy about words like "sexy," too. I snapped at my boyfriend for calling me sexy, but the poor guy was only trying to be nice to me. Then he told me I was the most beautiful girl in the world, and I started bitching, "Why does it always have to be the most BEAUTIFUL girl in the world? Why not the most SENSIBLE or the most COMPETENT girl in the world?"

The Wolof language has at least six or seven words to describe different kinds of sexiness. The word "Pacha," means voluptuous and curvy. My friend Aissetou told me to compliment me that I was "Very pacha." I replied "No, no, no!" Then, after a little reflection, I replied, "Maybe a little pacha. But not much." For some reason everyone thought that was hilarious. Now whenever anyone wants to tease me, they start calling me "Pacha." For some reason it really embarasses me. I cover my face with my hands and start blushing and babbling, "No, no, no!"

So finally one day Aissetou asked me why I didn't want to be pacha. It took me awhile to figure out the answer. "Its because I want to be judged by my character," I told her finally. "I'm worried that if people are distracted by sexiness, they won't notice what I'm saying. I want people to listen to my ideas and take them seriously."

Aissetou nodded wisely, "You are right Charlotte, you are very right," she said. "I have noticed myself, when girls talk, often men are looking at the Boobies instead of at the face." I love the way Aissetou says "the Boobies." I don't know why slang words are so much funnier when used by non-native speakers.

"I want people to pay attention to my inside, not my outsides," I continued to explain. "L'interieur, pas l'exterieur."

"Is this why you do not wear make-up or....." and here, Aissetou made flapping gestures indicating the chest region. "Low-cut blouses," I decoded, nodding.

Aissetou sat up and shook out her thick black braids. "Your philosophy makes very much sense, Charlotte," she decreed imperiously. "Maybe from now on I will be more like you."

What a digression from the next episode of the Library Saga. Anyway, as I was trying to tell you before I got distracted by Other Matters, we returned to find a glum Mr. Saal. Five or six students had signed up for library cards, three or four books had been checked out, but very little had changed. "I could lie to you and tell you everything has been fixed," he said. "But what good would that do?"

"I'm glad you're being honest with us Mr. Saal," I said. I looked around. At least the library seemed marginally cleaner.

"It's all the student's fault," said Mr. Saal, and then went into a long rant about how the students didn't have any Culture and were uncivilized and all that. This is a concept that comes up fairly often in conversation with Senegalese people. It makes me uncomfortable whenever I hear them describing one another as uncivilized. I think it's part of the French colonial legacy; if a French man looks up his nose at you and says, "O!!! Vous etes si sauvage," (you are so savage!) often enough, maybe you start to believe it.

This time I was more annoyed than usual by the "Senegalese are so uncivilized," rant, since I suspected the real problem was Mr. Saal's tendency to keep the library door locked. A locked door, even if it technically opens on request, is a real discouragement to potential library-browsers.

So we did a bit more awareness-raising. Some classroom tours. I waved my arms and told them using libraries made you Super-Intelligent. They laughed at me. That was fun, but things were pretty frustrating on the whole. Once we were told to come meet the principal at 9:00. We waited in the library all day, and he didn't arrive. It turned out he was on a journey and his subordinates were ill-informed about his whereabouts. Things could have been worse. We met him the next day and he was a very nice man.

"This is my first year as principal of the school," he told us. "So I haven't been up to much yet. This year, the library is my principal project."

"Have you purchased a library card?" asked Emmanuel.

"No," the principal admitted with a blush.

We tried to talk to the teachers some more, but the problem was, they kept going on strike. Strikes here are so weird. I always think of strikes as "not going to work until your employer satisfies your demands." But here, strikes are more like an excuse to take vacations. The way it was explained to me, the government is supposed to pay the teachers extra for invigilating exams, but it doesn't. So in revenge, the teachers take time off whenever they feel like it. A Friday here, a Monday there..... lots of long weekends for everybody. The students get to help their parents with the tomato harvest, the teachers get to sit in their shady houses and drink tea..... a win-win situation, for everybody, including the government, who can feel justified in not delivering the extra wages to "those lazy strikers." Everybody, that is, except for the poor sustainable development students, who keep showing up for their appointments only to be told, "Sorry..... everyone's gone home...." This happened to us over and over again.

But it wasn't just us. Everyone, (the compost group, the community garden group, the food processing group, the ecology education group) was having similar trouble getting their village partners to show up for meetings. It's a passive way of resisting change. Nobody wants to be impolite to us, so they won't tell us "NO," to our faces, but they find other ways of manifesting their noncooperation. Little by little, we're winning their trust, but its a process.

I tried to forget my worries about the library in the enjoyment of being with my host family. The baby of the family had progressed from futile wriggling to high-velocity crawling in the short time I'd been away. However, he still needed to perfect his technique. He tended to propel himself with furious kicks of his left leg while letting his right leg dangle uselessly. He used his new-found mobility to get up to all kinds of mischief. His nickname is, "John McCain baby," because he was born during the campaign and his family decided he looked exactly like John McCain. Ha-ha! It's true! Except for being a black little baby, Muhammed is John McCain's identical twin. Did I forget to mention the baby's real name is Muhammed?

Our family is well-off enough to have a television and sometimes I think it gives them awfully strange ideas about the outside world. Kalidou (the nine-year old boy) is sitting in his little chair all the time with his eyes like six inches away from the screen, and it drives me crazy. Stop watching those cartoons, Kalidou! Look at them-- they don't even come from your culture! Everyone in them is white!

Houleye (the three-year old girl) seems to be a bit more active-- she's always running around and dancing and singing. She sang me the Senegalese National Anthem, and I was really impressed. She doesn't understand any French, but her grandma helped her to memorize the syllables by route.

We like to draw pictures together, me and Houleye. We're really good friends. One time she was getting bored and I rolled up some construction paper to make a telescope. Only she didn't think it was a telescope; she thought it was a megaphone for calling people to prayer. So she put it up to her mouth and started howling, "Allah Akhbar!!!" (God is great.) So young, and already steeped in both nationalism and religion. I could only sigh. Back in Dakar the mosques blast that on their stereos five times a day. Its enough to drive you crazy, except I'm kind of getting to like it; it reminds me I'm in Senegal.

I love my host mother so much! She's the grandmother of Houleye and Muhammed, and except for the Dumbledore spectacles perched on her nose, looks exactly like the stereotype of an African matron; a generous figure swathed in blousy, colorful fabric, a warm voice, always a child on the knee, always laughing. But below that warm and cuddly surface, there's a keen and piercing intellect. She's a teacher and successful business woman and has written a number of beautiful poems in her native language, Pulaar. She's my proof that you can be a career woman and a family woman at the same time.

She asked me what I was writing just now, and I told her I was writing a letter for my family back home. She said, "You must tell them that your mother in Guede-Chantier sends them lots of love and kisses! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!" And she made kissing noises. I said, "Its funny you should say that, because I was just in the middle of describing you." And she said, "You must tell them that I am very old and ugly and fat." She's so funny that way. Its the African sense of humor. You wouldn't believe how much people joke around over here.

But let me tell you about the elections, because that was really a bit exciting. I was just pacing back and forth in the street in front of my house when a big group of woman came walking by dressed in these perfectly beautiful dresses. "On va danser. Vous dansez?" They kept telling me over and over, happily. (We're going to dance! Are you dancing?) I had an esprit ouvert (open spirit) that day, so instead of refusing I just laughed and said, "Pourquoi pas?" (Why not?) So I walked with them down the street and came to a HUGE gathering of people of all ages and genders. They were seated on mats around the edge of a big circle. In the middle of the circle, a young man with a microphone was speechifying energetically. I asked my new friends what he was saying, and they told me! "He's saying you should put your vote on the yellow ballot. He's saying that the green ballot is bad." I saw he was waving around a yellow piece of paper. Unfortunately, it was all in Pulaar, so I missed all the finer nuances.

My host sister, Awa, then magically appeared behind me with Houleye in her arms. "Fancy meeting you here Awa!" She tucked Houleye in my lap and I watched people wave their arms and jabber away in Pulaar for awhile. I had the impression that nobody really cared for the speeches, but were just waiting politely for the music to start.

Dances in Africa are really something else. The crowd forms a huge circle, and you wait for people who are brave enough to enter the circle and start shakin' themselves around. Strangely enough, the older woman usually lead the way. They waggle their behinds, they shake their fists, they swirl and twirl their voluminous skirts, they kick up their heels in the dust, they dance as if they were on fire with joy. It doesn't matter if you're eighty and shaped like a ball, you'll still bounce with the best of them, and people will cheer you on! African clothes are really rather flattering to the older female figure (you look like you're draped in flags, or maybe like you're a grand old ship with the wind in your sails.) And people are more colorful than whole gardens full of flowers.

I have trouble imagining a forty-ish American woman dancing with zest and gusto in the center of a cheering crowd. It's different here. Here, you don't have to be young to be beautiful. And the young people don't isolate themselves. Teenage boys will play happily with babies. Teenage girls will dance on the same floor with women old enough to be their mamas. Adults and children, married and unmarried, old and young, can all enjoy themselves at the same event. Its not like the US where people rarely socialize outside their age group.

During the whole length of our second visit in Guede-Chantier, people were preparing for the local elections. This meant that we would frequently hear the booming of loud music and speeches from some part of Guede-Chantier. Or we would go to a meeting with our village parteners, only to be told, "Sorry, they're all at the rally." Everyone was very excited, because Guede-Chantier had finally become big enough to have its own mayor. First they would choose which party they wanted in power. Then they would have a second round of voting to pick the mayor among the men of the winning party.

Anyway, all our host families were really hoping Ousmane would become mayor. You know Ousmane from my former blogs. He's the director of our program and one of my favorite teachers. He doesn't teach any of our regular subjects, but he's been trained by "Living Routes Ecovillage Study Abroad" in what I like to call the "hippie curriculum." So whenever we have something random, like a lesson on the "Gaia Theory" or a film on "Nonviolent Communication," he comes in to teach us. He also taught French class a couple of times when our regular teacher was absent. We had some of the usual grammar stuff, and then he threw up his arms in the air and said, "Hey everyone! Name as many animals as you can think of!" Something like fifty French animal names went on the board. Then he said, "Okay, I'm going to teach you what these animals say in French." (Did you know that animals speak differently in France than they do in the US?) He had all of us making animal noises until we were laughing like crazy. It was the best French lesson ever.

Its things like that which have Pete saying, "Ousmane's missing a few goats." O, but I must explain to you about the goats. Its something akin to, "bats in the attic," or "a few eggs short of a dozen." Except goats are incredibly important in traditional Senegalese society, so they happen to be the metaphor of choice. And its a wonderful metaphor. You can explore endless variations. That's all we did on the bus to Guede: tease each other about how many goats we had. "I think your goats have wandered off." "You better watch out-- your goats are looking pretty sickly to me." Or (should someone happen to say something particularly outrageous) "Oh my God! You must be missing ALLLLLLLLLLL your goats!"

Then someone started asking Alassane his opinion on the goat levels of various persons on the team. The more goats you have the better, you see-- the more sane and intelligent you are. He said that I had only two goats. But he gave Jess ten goats. And I know it was only something small, a silly joke, but I got SO MAD, and SO JEALOUS of Jess. I was outraged over his assessment of my goat levels.

Then later, when I met Alassane in the village, I made a point of refusing to hug him and very coldly saying goodbye. I told him I couldn't hug anyone who believed I only had two goats. Then he told me, "I think you have a hundred, goats, Charlotte!" And I gave him a big hug. Namuri said, "You have to watch out for Alassane, Charlotte. He's a real player. He's telling you sweet lies in order to worm his way into your affections." And I said. "Never, never, Namuri! Alassane is a very honest man. I really trust him, you know."

But then the next time I asked Alassane how many goats I had, he said, "Not only do you have one goat, Charlotte, but it a sick, sick, goat. It is a lame, crippled goat, with......" (here he paused to think) "only one eye and one foot." And then he was smiling triumphantly, and the whole room was shouting the Senegalese version of, "Ooooh, BURN!!!" But I had my revenge when Sydney told him his sole goat was a blind one with no testicles.

So anyway, maybe Ousmane is a few goats short of a herd, but he's really a very nice man. He was born in Guede-Chantier and splits his time between there and Dakar. You have to understand the distinction between "village mayor" and "village chief." The village chief is more concerned with daily manners of governance; settling disputes between people and so on. Village mayors, on the other hand, almost without exception, live in Dakar. Their role is to butter up the central administration and the various NGOs, so that their village will be in for a share of the dough when the time comes. The best mayor is the one who brings the most money back to his village. Of course, most of them embezzle like mad.

I don't think Ousmane would embezzle though, because he really loves his village. Let me sketch his personality a little further. Once I head some loud music and was walking down the street to see where it was coming from. It was another political rally, naturally. I reached the edge of the crowd and suddenly someone tackled me with a hug from behind. I screamed!!! What random Senegalese man was attacking me?? I turned around and it was, you guessed it..... Ousmane, with his usual goofy smile on his face. Oh Ousmane. Then he started talking about the "Free Hugs," video on YouTube. If you've never seen it, you should definitely look it up. Basically this guy gets this idea to write "Free Hugs" on a cardboard sign and walk the streets, displaying it. At first everyone ignores him, then they begin to take advantage of his offer. Soon there are mobs of people hugging him. It becomes this Thing. Soon Free Hug events are being organized in cities across the globe. Its all on film, you should see it.

That was the day I was wearing my pretty red dress that I bought in Dakar for the equivalent of five dollars. Its really gorgeous, its got rainbow tie-dye patterns and rainbow beads and stuff, I'll show it to you when I come back to North America. But when I came back from the political rally wearing that dress, my family was SHOCKED. They were absolutely DISMAYED. It turned out the president had made this big announcement on TV, "Anyone who is not in agreement with my regime should show up to the rallies wearing red!" So unknowingly, unwillingly even, I had been a dissenter. I was mildly amused by the whole event, but my family was distressed for me. I tried to excuse myself by saying, "the dress is more pink than red, really," and assure them I had no intention of returning to the rally. But all the same, I had to go to my room and change to a blue dress before they were happy again. The president has been known to jail journalists who disagree with him, but I don't think I was in any danger really.

I was sitting on the stoop helping Jess peel onions while the final rally was taking place. Ousmane dropped by at one point, all exhilarated from having made a speech. I asked him what he had spoken about, and he laughed and said it was untranslatable. Jess and I howled in protest. "Try, anyway! Try, try!" But then his phone rang, and he gasped, "They need me!" and before we could get another word in, he was swooping away to the rescue like a disorganized, flustered, super-hero.

And the next morning we found out his PARTY had won. But then we had to wait and see whether Ousmane himself would be chosen. (This business of chosing the party first, and then the man, is just the reverse of the way things are done in the US.) So I'm going to keep you in suspense a little. You'll find out when I tell you about my third visit. I have a whole shitload of blogs written, but I think it might be a bit much if I uploaded them all at once. So I'll just post one a day unti I run through everything I've written in Guede-Chantier.

In Which Some Wishes Are More Successful at Taking Off than Others

I'm letting my blog lag far behind the course of actual events, which is terrible.... Its kind of overwhelming to be beset by so many new experiences. Before you have time to process the first thing, you're already coping with the next thing. But I don't want you guys to miss any of the highlights of my experience. So I'm just going to put myself in a time machine, take myself back a few weeks, and try to catch you up. This particular entry covers the interim between the first two visits to Guede-Chantier.

We have guest lecturers come into our class on a fairly regular basis. But one day I showed up for class and there was nobody there to teach us a lesson. We hung around talking and chatting and drinking our delicious cups of coffee. The other students seemed to be fairly chill about the absence of a prof. But I was getting all anxious and impatient, "What the hell is happening here?" Going with the flow is not one of my skills.

Finally they came and told us we were going to the professor's house. I could only roll my eyes as they bundled us all into taxis. What, our guest speaker was so lazy he couldn't even be bothered to leave his house to come talk to us? I huddled glumly in my corner of the taxi, upset at this departure from the usual routine, while Rokhaya and Soda babbled happily away in Wolof.

"Why do you think they're dragging us all the way across the city?" I asked them sulkily at last. Soda laughed comfortably, not in the least concerned. "Maybe the teacher wants to show us something at his house," she said.

This, in fact, turned out to be exactly the case. I brightened up all over as soon as I entered the door. We were in a beautiful little courtyard garden. Dark green vines with gorgeous pink flowers covered the walls. Fruit trees with tall upright leaves grew up out of the floor. I could smell the faint stench of dead fish and fertilizer, but also a delicious perfume that reminded me of fresh rain. Most interesting of all, the red brick tile floor was torn up in places. There were small piles of gravel resting next to the holes from the cement that had been chipped away, and newly installed pipes were running out of the holes to irrigate the garden.

We then passed into one of the most beautiful houses I have seen in my life. Sculptures and paintings everywhere, and chandeliers that had glass bells in the shape of white flowers. Jessie whispered, "I gotta marry me someone who will buy me a house like this." We all greeted our kind host and squidged ourselves into sofas. He started talking enthusiastically in French about organic agriculture, and the politics of sustainability. Then he showed us his second courtyard garden, in the back of his house. He said, "My neighbours think I am crazy because I have two gardens, but I love my plants." He explained how he would plant his trees into boxes buried in the earth. That way, the fertilizer he added would be trapped by the box and not leach away into the soil. He told us he wished it was mango season so he could show us how delicious his mangoes were. He leaped up to pick us some medicinal seedpods to look at.

His perspectives were an interesting mixture of the scientific and the spiritual. He had grown up in the woods, with his father teaching him about different plants. Then he moved to the city and got certified as a biology teacher. But, "school is useless," he said. "I never learned anything in school that I didn't already learn from my father, in the bush." I love people who are a mixture of romantic and practical. This man was clearly practical since he had raised enough money from the businesses he started to buy his giant gorgeous house. He had even obtained a post as a government official, in recognition of his various accomplishments. But this hard-headed business sense was combined with a certain mysticism. "When I leave my house on a journey, my plants feel it. They miss me!" he said, caressing the leaves of the nearest tree as fondly as if they were the hands of a friend. As for me, I would love to believe that plants have emotions and know how to miss people. Even though the more likely explanation is that he takes better care of them than the interim gardener. When they wilt, are they missing HIM, or the dead fish he so assiduously arranges over their roots?

He thought the best way to maintain sustainability in economic development was to incorporate spiritual and cultural elements. He gave a wonderful example. In his home village in Casamance, there was a sacred grove. Whenever anyone died, they would bury them in the sacred grove and plant a new tree in their bodies. According to their spiritual beliefs, the life force of the person would be sucked up and become part of the tree, so in a very physical, very real sense, the person would BECOME the tree. And the people of the village would cherish and tend the tree very tenderly, because it was the new reincarnation of Grandma. Then, when the government sold the rights to the sacred grove to lumber companies, the villagers felt as if mass murder was taking places. All their ancestors were being killed a second time.

Modern science tells us that forested land serves a number of invaluable functions, such as preventing erosion and absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Trees help people to survive. Here's one case where the heart and the head are remarkably agreement, where traditional spiritual practices and the most sophisticated conclusions drawn by our modern computational projections are in accord about what needs to be done: SAVE THE TREES. Maybe that's what he meant when he said, "School didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know." I don't know. I still like school anyway.

What he had to say about Senegalese culture was fasinating. He thought the Senegalese had wandered to far from their roots. They were always trying to imitate other civilizations. First it was Islamic culture, and then it was European culture, that they tried to fit over themselves like a borrowed suit of clothes. He said as long as the Senegalese were trying to be someone else, instead of trying to be themselves, they would never make progress. Its an interesting viewpoint, although I'm not sure I agree with it.

At the end, I asked him, "You say sustainability recquires widespread cultural change. But how can we create that change? How can we raise awareness?" He chuckled and seemed immensely pleased with the question. "That's exactly the question we should be asking," he said. "What it boils down to, is you have to start with your own lifestyle, and your circle of friends and family. Me, I have five children. One of them is living in France, driving a big car, going against everything I've taught him, you know..... but another child has really embraced my ideals! Personally, I think one out of five isn't bad at all."

That really made me laugh. I agreed with him that you should try to lead by example, and convince your nearest and dearest to live by your principles. But I have a personal theory that your nearest and dearest are the HARDEST people to convince, not the easiest. See, your family knows you. They've seen your triumphs, but they've also seen your screw-ups and your mistakes. They know that sometimes you're full of bullshit. They have no glorified illusions about you. Its sort of like the Senegalese saying that, "No one is a prophet in his home town." Which is quite literally true-- Muhammed's teachings were horribly received when he preached them in his home town. In order to obtain recognition for his ideas, he was forced to immigrate to another city and start preaching there-- and there people listened to him. In order to convert his home town, Muhammed was actually obliged to go back there with an army. Its been awhile since I read Muhammed's biography, but I'm pretty sure I have those details right. See, to the people in his home town, Muhammed was just the ordinary dude who'd been selling them their beans (or whatever it was) for the past 10 years.

But on the other hand, when you do convince the people you love, you tend to make a deeper impression them than you would on a passing stranger who was dazzled by your eloquence and charisma or whatever. Maybe in the end, its best to work on both fronts.

But the problem of getting people to all move in the same direction is not a simple one. It really is like herding cats. For example, there's the solar ovens. We had a lecture on solar ovens given to us by an NGO expert. He traveled around, building these nice ovens and convincing people to use them. He said getting money or materials was not too tricky. But the problem is, Senegalese women have the habit of opening the pot many times to add bits and pinches of different spices. If you open a solar oven's lid too many times, all the heat disappears and the food takes hours to cook. THE MOST DIFFICULT PART ABOUT THE PROJECT was just convincing the woman to change the way they did their cooking, and add the spices in a block instead of in little bits and dirbbles.

Isn't that crazy? Getting finances, no problem. Building dozens of ovens? We can do that. But getting people to change a lifetime's entrenched cooking habits? Practically impossible. In fact, it was so much of a problem that the solar oven project was not really successful in Senegal. That was surprising to me, that what seems like such a "little" thing could stand in the way of a good idea. But actually, similar things happen to thousands of development projects worldwide. I think no matter what you're trying to do, the most difficult factor will always be the human factor.

I'm becoming more aware of sexism living in Senegal. Men in the street will make little kissing noises and call me, "Ma cherie," and "Ma belle," (my dear and my beautiful.) I ignore them, but some of them even have the brazenness to scold me for ignoring them. ("Hey, what's wrong with you, lady! You stuck up or something?") Also, in the village, the village elders tend not to direct their words at the female students if there's a male student around. I never really had problems with sexism in the USA or Canada, so what can I say? Its an adjustment.

We had a lecture on "Women in Development," given by a female Senegalese NGO worker. In one village, she tried sitting under a shady tree with the village elders, and they tried to charge her a fine for it, "Because women don't sit under this tree." She was a bit of a fiery feminist, so she said, "If you won't let me talk to you under your tree, well then I'll just take myself and my pile o' NGO funding somewhere else," and then they changed their tune. I like how she didn't take any shit from them, but the fact she was coming to their village to give them things gave her leverage.

The most interesting story she told us about the projects she had witnessed was the story of the village well. One nice NGO noticed that women were hiking kilometers to fetch water, so they decided to help out by digging a well in the village square. When the well was completed, the women were very polite and grateful. But they only used the well for a few days, and then they went back to taking their kilometer-long hike to the other well. The NGO was perplexed, but whenever they asked what was going on they got evasive answers. Finally they had the idea of holding meeting where no village men were present, and found out the truth.

The women used the water-fetching time as social time. They liked the distant well because there were no men within earshot. The well the NGO had built was right in front of the banyan tree where the the men liked to sit. Getting water from that well, the men could hear every word and they didn't feel at liberty to talk freely. I love this story because of the way it hammers in the moral-- always, always, always, TALK to the beneficiaries of your "charity," BEFORE you do it, even if the need seems crystal clear. If I had to name a top cause of failure of development projects, I would say a lack of communication between the do-gooders and their "victims." "Solidarity not charity," should be your watchword, otherwise your efforts will go wonky-shaped and it will all be in vain.

Sometimes our classes are a little disorganized and random, but I think we get the chance to talk to more interesting people than we would with a regular progam. And one day Ousmane randomly brought this dirty little boy holding a cage of birds into class! We looked up from our computers and papers, dumbfounded. What was going on?

Ousmane smiled. "In Senegal we have the tradition, that if you set a bird free, you get to make a wish, and the bird carries it up to Heaven," he said. "Who wants to make a wish? It costs 100 CFA" (about 20 cents.) A little flutter of excitement went around the room. Sydney was the first to buy a bird to set free, squealing as she felt its scraggly brown body wiggling against her hand. She went out to the balcony and watched it fly away, and Ousmane said, "Well, that's one more thing that's free in the world."

A little sarcastic flicker of thought reminded me that the bird had probably been captured in the first place for the purposes of the wish-making industry. So we could hardly claim to be great philanthropists, setting it free...... I decided to make a tiny wish. I didn't want to give the small, ill-used bird the burden of carrying a really heavy wish to Heaven. Best to give it something lighter, something it could carry and still fly with speed.

A word about street children. Some of them just hold out their hands and look pitiful, but others have gimmicks they use to earn money. I listened to a street boy the other day who leaped onto the back of a crowded bus stalled in traffic. While we waited for the traffic jam to clear, he sang us a prayer in Arabic in what is honestly the most beautiful voice I have ever heard. I slipped him a few coins and a lot of other people on the bus did too. Other children will dance. Once, I even met a group of them who had banded together to form a choir. I supposed the bird-releasing business is a good way for them to make money, even though it is tough on the birds to be stuffed in the tiny wooden cage. There are charities to help street children, but they have trouble getting funding......its one of the saddest things about Africa.

The dingy little sparrows crammed in the boxes are destined to fly free. On the other hand, nobody's going to give those grubby little children a chance to fly away from the crowded, noisy streets of dusty Dakar.

In Which I Describe My Service Learning Project

When we were brainstorming in Dakar before traveling to Guede, I was painfully aware of my own limitations as far as the service learning project was concerned. We were supposed to mobilize our own funds, and as a student, my financial resources are limited. I thought about a lot of different options, but the idea of working to improve the library tempted me the most. Libraries were what Andrew Carnegie built to ease his conscience of his ill-gotten gains. I love reading and I come from a family that loves reading. I truly believe in the power of books to take you beyond your own time and place-- and in doing so, expand the power of your spirit, the range of your imagination. Books are what can make you realize that the world is bigger than your own little village.

Also, unlike other projects, "improving the library" was flexible in size. If I could raise funds for bookshelves full of volumes, that would be wonderful. But if I could only manage to contribute a few shelves, that would be okay too. I wanted a flexible commitment so I wouldn't be put in the position of promising something I couldn't deliver.

I was astonished and a little alarmed by how unrealistic my classmates were during the brainstorming session. They were saying things like, "build a new school building. build an addition onto the hospital." Rather than thinking of their own abilities, they were thinking of the village's needs. Which is admirable and everything, but you need to be aware of what you can and cannot do. I can't blame my classmates for it, because the U.N. does exactly the same thing on a grander scale. It must be a flaw built into human brains.

After my Senegalese friend Emmanuel saw the ramshackle classroom building in Guede, he wanted to "build a new school building." Our teachers told him very gently and tactfully that he needed to be more realistic. I was less tactful. I rolled my eyes and said, "Where are you going to get the lumber for it, pull it out of your pocket?" I don't know why I'm so impatient with people who think all you need is good intentions.

Eventually, Emmanuel decided to join my library project, because even if it wasn't as grandiose as building a new school, it was still in the field of education. And I have to admit it is a relief to have a Senegalese person on the team, to help with languages, navigating the city, etc. Although I worry that I must be a very irritating teammate for Emmanuel because I'm so full of my own plans and ideas. I don't want to steamroller over him in my excess of enthusiasm.

Well, I was prepared to find all sorts of problems in the Guede library. I know that sometimes library projects in Africa fail because people don't bring back books. They told me they would find me a "village mentor" for me, and I could begin by interviewing him. So I prepared a list of questions to tactfully interrogate him on the library's functioning.

My mentor was quite simply the school official who held the keys to the library and worked in the office next door to it; his name was Monsieur Saal. We cordially shook hands as I swallowed down my nervousness. How often do students used the library? I asked. Monsieur Saal appeared embarassed. He hedged and hedged. Finally, he was forced to admit that not a single student had yet borrowed a book. In fact, only six students even possessed library cards.

I swallowed and took a moment to assimilate that. This was a little more than I was bargaining for. Gradually, I grew to understand the nature of the problem. The library had been created by the students who had visited Guede-Chantier last semester. Someone's church had made quite a substantial donation towards the project. They had painted and renovated the room and filled it with books and shelves. The library had officially existed for two months, and it was quite a pleasant little room. "Bienvenue," (Welcome) was written on the chalkboard in all different colors of chalk. One wall was decorated with a mural of handprints in rainbow colors of paint. Above the mural it said, "Mains du Monde," (Hands of the World.)

But everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. I sneezed as I walked through the room. Then Monsieur Saal said, "Oh dear, the termites have gotten to these books." He flipped through them and I saw that three or four shelves full of books were riddled with holes. The wall behind the bookshelf was streaked with what looked like thick sandy trails, betokening the presence of hungry insects. "The students last semester told us we should buy bug-spray," said Monsieur Saal, "But bugspray, you know, is just so difficult to get....." he clicked his tongue.

"How do the students borrow books?" I asked.

"Oh, all they have to do is knock on my office door and get me to unlock the library for them. But they never knock on my door," said Monsieur Saal, neatly excusing himself from all responsibility.

"Well," I said, as tactfully as possible, "The real problem seems to be there is no librarian." (Remember that this whole conversation is taking place in French, and you will be that much more impressed with me. I am SO glad I studied French hard when I was back at Bard.) "You clearly are already burdened with too many responsibilities. You don't have time to sit there in the library, dusting shelves and lending out books."

"Exactly!" said Monsieur Saal. "I am a very busy man. I have lots of responsibilities at this school."

"Also, I think students might be intimidated to come into your office, and ask you to open the library for them," I said.

"Nonsense! Of course not!"

"If I was a student, I would be afraid of bothering you when you were busy," I said. "Here's an idea; what if we create a team of student volunteers to be librarians? They can take turns lending books and make sure the library isn't neglected. It'll give them a sense of ownership and get them used to being in the building."

Monsieur Saal appeared completely shocked. "Trust.... trust.... students?" he stuttered. "Trust them with the KEY? Trust them with RECORD-KEEPING? That's a ridiculous idea. Students can't handle that kind of responsibility!"

I totally disagreed. I think students are capable of just about anything. But our teachers had told us over and over, before we left to Guede-Chantier, that we must approach our work with a humble attitude. We couldn't just be arrogant Americans, blasting our way into town and assuming we knew everything. "You must work WITH your village partners, trust their judgement, and solicit their opinions," they said. We had two teachers for our service-learning class, one Senegalese man and one American woman, and they both really emphasized this point.

So, remembering what they had told me, I gave Monsieur Saal a dazzlingly bright smile and told him, "This is your village, this is your school. I'm just an outsider. I don't know anything. You'll have to be really kind and tell me what the best way is of doing things."

Monsieur Saal appeared taken aback. "You're not like the students last semester," he told me. "They didn't ask ME what to do. They knew exactly what to do already." He seemed very disconcerted.

Then my teacher (a tall Senegalese man called "As") popped into the room. "Well, how is it going?" he inquired cheerily.

"This young lady is very prepared," Monsieur Saal said. "She had a list of questions written out and everything!" I had the strange impression of being a circus animal who had performed her trick correctly. Blushing in embarassment, I looked at my knees.

Prof As asked a few piercing question and was quickly brought up to date on the state of the library. As soon as he heard no one was using the library, he began to shake his head slowly back and forth. Monsieur Saal now was starting to look REALLY embarassed. "Don't worry about anything," he begin to say, "The library project is going really well, I have everything under control, and even if there's nobody using it now...."

"It's important that people use the library," Prof As told Mr. Saal gently. "It's important."

Mr. Saal's torrent of excuses dried up in the face of this undeniable fact. He rocked slowly back and forth in his chair, biting his lip. The two of them, my teacher and my mentor, begin to talk together. To my relief, I found I could follow their French. Soon it emerged that Prof As was suggesting they create a team of student volunteers to care for the library.

"That's exactly what I suggested!" I cried.

Prof As gave me an approving nod as Mr. Saal renewed his flood of objections. But Prof As cut him short. "I know of a great big library in Dakar," he said, "that runs entirely off of student volunteer labor."

Well, if that was the way they did things in DAKAR, what could Mr. Saal say against it? Dakar was the Big City, and Guede-Chantier was only a little village in the boondocks. "All right, maybe we can organize something like that," he said reluctantly.

"Pick six responsible students, so we can meet with them tommorow," As ordered imperiously.

Impossible. Impossible. Mr. Saal was too busy. We would simply have to wait a few days.

"We're LEAVING in a few days," Prof As pointed out. My gaze ping-ponged from one man to another as they locked their eyes in a staring contest. Mr. Saal was sweating. My face blossomed in a smile as I recognized the dynamic. Prof As. was above Mr. Saal on the dominance hierarchy. He was educated, he came bringing foreigners with him from the Big City. He carried himself with authority and confidence. Also, he was six-and-a-half Mr. Saal caved.

Emmanuel then joined me and we started talking with teachers. I asked them all what books the library needed, and they all said the same thing as Mr. Saal. "We don't have enough copies of each book in the library. There are some books there is only one copy of! We need lots of copies of each book."

I had come to Guede-Chantier anxious to work WITH my villager partners and listen to their suggestions. But this answer was completely ridiculous. They were missing the entire concept of "library." The purpose of a school library is to provide students with a wide variety of fun and enriching books, and teach them to love reading. In a tiny one-room library, you don't want 20 copies of each book. You want as many different books as possible. This is just common sense.

Its understandable to be concerned about textbook shortages, but it was beyond our means to buy a textbook for everyone in the school. The sensible thing to do would be to get a few copies and hold them in the library for reference. In that case, it would be just plain stupid to buy more copies than there were chairs in the library. I hate to say it, but nobody seemed to really be thinking things through. The one sensible suggestion I got was from a geography teacher who wanted an atlas.

Anyway, so this should provide you with plenty of food for thought about Development in third-world countries. The students from last semester did a fantastic job, they really did. Since coming back from Guede-Chantier, I've been in email contact with them. The student who came from the church who made the donation was really upset to hear the library was being neglected. Apparently they set up this huge committee with lots of teachers and officials to make sure the library was well-managed. Everyone acted really enthusiastic and promised to take good care of the library. But then the students go away and everyone forgets about it. And if Emmanuel and I had been interested in something other than books..... say, organic agriculture or food preservation..... what would be happening to the library now? Who would be taking care of it?

But anyway, we had a nice meeting with the student volunteer committtee and started things in motion. Maybe when we make our next visit to Guede-Chantier, we'll see improvements, who knows? I'm actually a little anxious about seeing how things have gone in my absence. Doing things in the real world is hard. Its not as black-and-white as it seems when you read pages full of theory. My first priority is to find fun books. I want to show the kids that reading doesn't have to be a chore, it can be enjoyable. When I think about how much I miss my friends and family and boyfriend, I feel discouraged. But I love kids, and if I can make them excited about something new, I'll consider the project a success.

In Which We Steal Mangos from Mauritania

I think people who come to Senegal as tourists must miss so much. To really understand the country you have to talk to the natives and share people's lives. Living Routes is the only study abroad program in Senegal that puts Senegalese and American students in the same classroom, which I find slightly shocking. Why do people go abroad, if they're just going to recreate the same familiar world around themselves?

Having a native show us around the Guede-Chantier area, really helped us learn the true story of the country. For instance, there was the tomb in the dusty city near the river. An imposing-looking slab of white marble. Ousmane explained that it belonged to a French official who was constantly insulting and degrading the Senegalese people. The mockery came to a peak when he went to a Koranic school, a holy place, and pissed on its floor. This was considered an unbearable insult against the whole community. So Ousmane's grandfather killed the French official to defend the honor of his people. Then the grandfather was brought to a French court of justice and put to death. I hope I got the details of that story right-- its been awhile since I heard it. But it made a huge impression on me. Especially when Ousmane finished telling the story, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "And so, in honor of my grandfather--" and gave the tomb a hearty kick.

It made me realize that colonization is not just the extraction of resources. The French weren't just pillaging the land of its wealth-- they were waging war against the very spirit of the people. Trying to make them ashamed of their most sacred customs and valued institutions. Trying to make them lose belief in themselves. It's a higher level of cruelty altogether-- not a war against bodies, but a war against souls. And in the war against souls, weapons are ideas. Ideas like, "You are barbaric. You are heathen. You are primitive."

I've avoided thinking about racial issues for most of my life, but now I'm butting up right against them. I feel so strange about the way people treat me here. When Cisco (the student coordinator) was giving us our housing assignments in Guede, he said something in Wolof that I didn't understand, and Jess burst out laughing. (Jess has been here a month longer than the rest of us, and she knows more Wolof.) I asked her what was funny and she said, "He says, one 'star' per household. The American students are celebrities here." It gave me an uneasy feeling in my stomach.

A stereotype is like a piece of clothing you can't take off. My skin is bleached white by the snows of my ancestral lands. I can't take off the skin, but as long as I wear it, people will see the skin, instead of seeing me. The other day a random guy said, "Toubab! Nanga def?" (White person! How are you?) I looked at him and said in French, "My name is not toubab." I then added in Wolof, "I am fine," and walked on, while the woman beside him burst out laughing. Apparently she thought it was a good joke on him. He hadn't expected me to understand him.

MY NAME IS NOT TOUBAB!!! MY NAME IS CHARLOTTE!!! What does my skin color say? It says I belong to the vicious, savage race that has ruthlessly exploited and dominated most of the world. The race that offers poison with a smile, as if it were a gift. The race that has filled literature and film with its insidious propaganda, making "light" a synonym for goodness, and "dark" a synonym for evil. The race that runs around the globe, preaching "development" and "modernity," while selling sin and death. At home, my skin color didn't matter. But here, its like the gross symptom of some sort of plague, that marks me as belonging to a race of oppressors. Maybe I'm getting a little melodramatic about this.

Its because there's something deeply wrong here. Beggars will pursue me like they're ANGRY I'm not giving them anything. When I was walking in a town near Guede, this boy, around 12 or 13 years old, pursued me down the street, asking me to buy him a soccer ball. It was the weirdest thing. He kept asking over and over, in different ways. Buy me a soccer ball. Give me money to buy a soccer ball. You're so mean, toubab, why won't you buy me a soccer ball? I'm like, "Kid! You're a total stranger to me! Why are you following me like this?" It was so weird. I was walking next to Ousmane, and when he saw I was starting to get really bothered, he put his arm around my shoulders, frowned menacingly at the kid, and said in French, "She's not a toubab. She's my wife. So scram." The kid looked disappointed and ran away, and I burst out laughing at the success of Ousmane's ruse. It was actually really funny.

One of the villages we visited was the village of Ousmane's 104-year-old grandmother. We went into the cool, shady room of an adobe hut, and sat down on the colorful mats the floor was covered with. On the bed in the corner sat an ancient women with cloudy eyes, her hair covered by a scarf as blue as the sky just before the stars come out. Although we could not understand the Pulaar she spoke, we could understand the liveliness and vivacity that animated her face and the gestures of her hands.

Ousmane crouched beside her, nodding and listening respectfully, and occasionally translating her remarks for us. She told us about the time she defended her flocks from a lion. Ousmane also told us about the time an alligator had tried to swallow one of her baby goats. She was a very strong, muscular young woman, so she simply took ahold of the goat's leg and stood her ground. The crocodile pulled on one end of the goat, and she pulled on the other. In the end, it was the crocodile that gave up on the tug-of-war match. The baby goat was dead, but at least the family got to eat the meat instead of the crocodile.

There was something really touching about watching Ousmane and his grandmother together. Here is this big tall man with his fancy education, wise in the ways of the world, strong and mature. And yet, when he kneels beside his grandmother, its like he's a little boy. Listening in awe to the stories she tells, learning from her the right ways of living in this world. And yet, even as she cares for him, he also cares for her. He is her little grandchild, but he is also the person who has to serve as her legs, her arms, her eyes. And so we have a duality of roles; he is both protector and the protected. Its very sweet, and I wish I had the words to explain it better. The vocabulary to describe this dynamic doesn't really seem to be available to me.

She tells him he has to get in touch with his cousin who has gone to Italy. This cousin has not sent any news in weeks. He is drifting apart from the family. He needs to be reconnected into the web. Ousmane hastily explains what she is saying to him, and then goes back to listening to her. Its the role of the matriarch to make sure the family sticks together, no matter how far apart they are geographically. I've seen my grandmother, my mother, my Aunt Gretchen, doing the same thing. The women who call one another up to share "news," have their own sort of power, more profound and meaningful than that which shapes the destiny of nations.

We then went to visit the village of Ousmane's sister. Ousmane had deliberately not informed his sister he was arriving with a group of fourteen people. As near as I can tell, this was because, if he had given her advance warning, Senegalese etiquette would have compelled her to slaughter a goat and have it ready for us when we arrived. He didn't want his sister to go to a lot of trouble for us. However, the surprise meant she didn't really have anything for us to eat. Ousmane, hoping to distract us from our pangs of hunger, took us on a canoe trip to Mauritania.

The Americans took a great deal of delicious pleasure in being "illegal immigrants." However, the truth is that the Mauritanians and the Senegalese cross the river all the time without much bothering about whose country is whose. Borders are a colonialist invention. Before we went over, Ousmane asked us, "Is there anybody who can't swim?" And two or three people raised their hands. There was an awkward pause and then we shrugged our shoulders and got into the leaky canoe anyway. Oh well..... just let them drown then...... (kidding.)

It was really perfectly safe, but the thrilling thing about it, was that it felt like it wasn't. The leaks were relatively minor, and somebody had plugged them up with old bandanas. But Sydney screamed when she noticed water trickling in through the cloth. Jess said with her usual dollop of gleeful relish, "we're all going to die." I concentrated on not rocking the canoe and sending us all overboard. Neither Sydney's fastidious shrieking or Jess's maniacal death wish, could shake me. I stood my ground. I kept my cool. I was more suave than Captain Jack Sparrow. I was more phlegmatic than James Bond. I was more fearless than Horatio Hornblower. And when we reached the other side, I rejected the gallant offers of my Senegalese classmates to carry me through the last few steps of shallow water. That was for the girly girls. I like muddy feet.

Mauritania was beautiful. Luxuriant mango trees hung along the banks of the river. We walked through a garden plot and chatted with an ancient man we met beside a little mud hut. Then we returned to the shade beside the green river, and I took a few leafy photos of my classmates who felt the urge to climb the trees. We were excited about the mangos. Jess cried out facetiously to a tree climber, "If you'll bring me down a mango I'll pleasure you eternally," in a drippingly seductive way. I snorted out an embarassed giggle. Sometimes I really HOPE that the Senegalese student's cannot follow Jessica's humorous English. We did finally get ahold of a mango, but it wasn't ripe. It was a measure of our hunger that plenty of people were still willing to devour it.

We sat in a circle and shared our thoughts and feelings about the day. Then we lay down among the fallen leaves or wandered our separate ways. With nothing to do but stare into the moving patterns of leaves, I fell into a sort of dreamy trance. And maybe its my sentimental, overactive imagination at work again. But I started to get this feeling that the land I was lying on was loved, deeply...... loved. Well, there was some evidence for that in the carefully tended garden patches, in the flourishing mango trees. But more than that, I started to get the feeling that the land was also LOVING. That like a tender mother, it cared for the people and creatures that lived on it. That with the wind tenderly lapping over me, I too was held in its embrace.

I know. Its hard to say things like this, without people asking you what mushrooms you've been eating. And I've been called an earth mama hippie chick more than my share of times. (It has to do with how I refuse to shave my armpits.) But is it scientific to deny the evidence of your senses? If my heart tells me something, why is that data inherently less reliable, than the data given me by my nose or eyes or ears? Is it so outrageous to say that if people take care of the land, the land will take care of them? To me it seems like logic. Relationships, even those with inanimate objects, are reciprocal. In order to receive, you have to know how to give.

Okay, now I've been enough of a flake for today. We made it back to Senegal without incident, by which time Ousmane's sister had managed to find some rice for us. Which we gobbled up like starving wolves. And forgive me for my aggressively nonchronological way of recounting events, but I think that pretty much covers the events of our Sunday tour of the Guede area. The next entry will be about my project (finally!) This seems to be a natural chapter break.

In Which I Go Into the Desert and Am Mobbed By Cute Children

Sorry about the big gap between entries. Synthesizing new experiences can be an overwhelming task. So overwhelming you procrastinate on it.... Anyway, lets start with a scene from Guede-Chantier.

"We're so dusty," Sydney complains, running her hand over her gritty face.

I stop and grin. "Yes, we're dusty from the desert, and we're coming home to an oasis. How magical is THAT?" I exclaimed enthusiastically. Everyone stops to look at me, and chuckles. "You're so cute, Charlotte," says Sydney. I frown in puzzlement and made a "What? What? Why am I cute?" sort of grimace, and we continue on our way.

Guede. How can I descibe it? So many goats, so many children. Trees bearing exotic fruits like mangos and dates and lemons. A large green river for the fishermen. Birds with irridescent blue wings. I could hear miles of silence in every direction, and feel myself relax after the exhausting hustle and bustle and traffic of the city. You can walk along the canal through the rice fields in the early morning and feel so peaceful and happy.

I think Ousmane (the program director) really enjoyed showing us his home. When he's in the city, he seems so stiff and British (he was educated in England you know) but when we got into the country it was as if he relaxed and became a little boy again. When we were walking through the community garden, he cried joyfully, "Oh! A lemon!" and climbed up and got it for us. It was the biggest lemon I had ever seen: swollen like a grapefruit. The whole class shared it, ripping pieces away from its sweet flesh of juiciness. I don't know why, but even without sugar it was so delicious.

Also in the garden, we saw an anthill as tall as a man. It was like the ant Tower of Babel. If only human beings could be that organized in their collective efforts. There was also a gigantic bird's nest that Ousmane explained was made by a very tiny bird. Flamboyantly, he gestured at the nest, saying, "There is proof that meglomania also exists in the world of animals. What does such a tiny bird need with such a huge nest?" I really enjoy the way Ousmane expresses himself.

We visited the marketplace and saw a wide variety of local foods are grown. But you know, people sell the larger part of it to pay their debts, and then they don't have enough left to feed themselves. Debt can so easily become a vicious cycle. But despite the poverty, the children seemed happier to me than American children. Americans spend so much time with electronic entertainment devices, they become vacant-eyed, slacked-jawed, and fretful. These children were scampering around, boisterous and full of life. I saw a boy who had attached wheels and a stick to a plastic bottle, and turned it into a little truck he could push around. He made a toy out of garbage, that was every bit as entertaining as something you could buy at some fancy American toy store.

They rarely see white people in Guede, so great excitement (especially on the part of the children) accompanied our arrival. Whenever a child saw one of us, they would scream, "TOUBAB!!!! TOUBAB!!!!" Which means "White person! White person!" After awhile I started to feel like I was some sort of zoo animal or museum exhibit on display. I felt like saying, "Hello! There's more to me than the freakish color of my skin, you know. I'm a person; I have a name." We learned how to say good morning, good afternoon, and good evening in Pulaar (the local dialect) but whenever I used the words I knew, people were so astonished to hear me speaking Pulaar that they were struck speechless. White people are supposed to speak French!!! The children would run up and practice the French phrases they learned at school on me. They would want to shake my hand, or hold my hand, or kiss it. (Kissing hands here is old-fashioned, but not improper.)

We have this slightly abrasive guy in our class called Pete. When we discuss things like polygamy, he'll say stuff like, "Four wives! I have to say, Senegal is the PERFECT society to be a man. It's AWESOME over here," seeing if he can tweak any of our feminist noses by blatantly rejoicing in patriarchy. But anyway, when we were touring the community garden, a little child crept over to Pete and began holding his hand. Pete's confusion was a pleasure to see. He looked at the child; he looked around; then he held the child out to us, saying, "Ummmm, anyone want a homey?" But the child had fastened barracuda-like onto Pete and was not to be parted from him. The longer we stayed in the garden, the more children homed in on us. Soon I had three children clinging to one hand (each of them took a finger or two.) Pete looked at the little flock that had gathered around him and said, "Help! I'm being over-homied!" In fact it is very cumbersome to move with several little ones holding onto you. I was simultaneously inconvenienced and charmed.

But that was just on the first day. Later, I grew to be less enchanted with the children's enchantment with me. It made me uncomfortable that simply having a weird color of skin should merit all this fuss. The children didn't flock around our Senegalese classmates, who were also visitors-- why should they flock around me? I'm just a person like any other person. I decided my Mission was to convince my little niece in my host family that my name was not Toubab, my name was Charlotte. Whenever she wanted my attention, she would shout TOUBAB! I got someone to teach me how to say, "I am not a toubab," in dialect. I repeated the sentence several times. I also learned the words for yes and no. Whenever she said "Toubab", I would cry "No no no!" in her language, and make faces. Then, whenever she said my name, I would clap my hands happily and cry, "Yes yes yes!!!"

It backfired a bit because she thought the horrible expressions I made when I heard the word toubab, were hilarious. So she started saying "Toubab," just so she could watch me make funny faces. But she also enjoyed making me clap my hands and dance around. So she said the word, "Charlotte," a lot too, and I think I eventually got the idea across that I preferred to be called Charlotte. What a cute little girl! She also taught me to sing a little song in Pulaar. I have no idea what it means, but she taught me how to sing it.

My host mama was gone for a wedding at a neighborhood village during the bulk of my visit, but when I first arrived here we had a really nice conversation. She didn't speak much English, but she said in English, "I want you to know, you are welcome here." It made me feel so GOOD to hear my own language. Nothing can give you a subconscious resonance of "home" like hearing your mother tongue. Mama explained she loved learning languages and was always trying to collect new words. "Each word you get is like a treasure," she explained. Later, she flipped through my English copy of "une si longue lettre", and sighed, "I love English! Next time you come, you must bring me a French-English dictionary."

We got to learn a little bit of the history of Guede from Ousmane. The village was actually started by the French, who grabbed and kidnapped people from a bunch of different villages and collected them in the Guede area to do forced labor. We looked at a big cage the French used to hold recalcitrant people. Ironically, one side-effect of the village being formed this way is that there are no "first families." In other African villages, the longer your family has lived in the village, the higher your status is. At the top of the hierarchy are the people descended from the villlage founders. But that kind of hierarchy doesn't really make sense at Guede, because there were no "founders," everyone was brought over at the same time.

Different subcultures exist within the village. For instance, all the fisherman live in one gigantic house that holds about a hundred people. But the herders and the farmers don't take communal housing to that extreme. According to local superstitions, it is dangerous to offend a fisherman because they might cast a spell to make a fishbone stick in your throat and choke you. They are also said to talk to crocodiles and have this sort of mystical connection with the river.

We made brief visits by a Naming Ceremony and a wedding. I was kind of oblivious to what was going on, just sort of drifting after the group, so when we entered the wedding I was just like, "Here is a big group of people standing around..... I wonder what is going on?" Then this LOUDLY dressed African lady makes this whoop-of-joy sound, and starts CLANGING these big silver dishes together like cymbals, to make a sort of beat. And then, oh my god, she comes dancing right at me! I flinch back at first, but then I smile a little and start swaying back and forth to the beat. A circle forms around the dancing lady. When she finishes dancing, she backs out of the circle, and Aisha pushes my American friend Benson into the center of it. One by one the visitors from Dakar are forced to dance. When I twirl around in my spinny skirt, everyone claps and cheers and I narrowly manage to avoid melting into a little puddle of embarrassment. I'll even confess that it was kind of fun.

The next day, somebody is talking about "the wedding we went to," and I'm like, "What wedding?" They stare at me and say, "Remember? The wedding we went to? Where we danced?" Oooooohhh, I exclaim. So THAT'S what that was! (Way to go, Charlotte.)

The Naming Ceremony was superficially similar to the wedding; big silver bowls of food, singing and dancing, people sitting on mats chatting with one another and having a good time. The mother of the baby was dressed in her best clothes and had pink glitter on her eyelids. The ceremony makes total sense to me. One week after a baby is born, everyone in the neighborhood assembles to give it gifts and learn its name. If we have funeral rituals to celebrate death, why don't we have corresponding rituals to celebrate life? Why don't we have "naming ceremonies" in America? Maybe we just keep things on a more informal basis, but in my opinion, the miracle of birth deserves a certain majesty and formality. Come, friends, let us gather together to herald the coming of a new life!

The baby at my host family's house is just starting to learn to crawl. Mostly, he lies down on the mat and wiggles like a fish trying to swim. You can see the look of frustration on his face, when his limbs aren't carrying him forward. He loves his grandma so much, his face lights up all over when she approaches. She told me, "Look, my grandson can dance!" Then she picked him up by his armpits so he was roughly in a standing position. He laughed and kicked his legs against the floor while she bounced him back and forth, and it looked like he was dancing a little jig. I'm so glad I'm not a baby. How infuriating to have to wait for others to help you do the things you want to do.

In Pulaar (the village language) the word for child is "chookolell." Such a cute word. We visited one children's school that was in pretty bad shape; gaps in the wooden walls and thatching, not enough benches for all the children to sit. And the only reason they have enough chalk and pencils and things because Ousmane knows how to wheedle money for school supplies out of charity organizations. Sometimes the parents have difficulty paying the school fees. For instance, Ousmane told us the story of a kid who was extremely intelligent, who was getting some of the best grades in the school. When his parents didn't have enough money for fees, he was kicked out, and now he works as a tailor. "Maybe we lost a genius!" said Ousmane.

Since we were making the trip with our Senegalese classmates, each American had a Senegalese roommate. I was staying with Soda, which was wonderful because she is usually quiet and this gave me a chance to know her. She's one of the nicest people I've ever met. If I said I liked a food, she would try to give me her portion of it. If we came home hot and dusty, she would make me take my shower first while she waited. Frankly, it was slightly off-putting. I tried to argue, "No, no, you take the shower first," but she was firm and unswayable. I received an explanation for it later when I demanded the meaning of the word "baifal" (spelling uncertain.)

"Baifal" is a religious concept; it means someone who's trying to be without desires. I got curious about the word when they started joking that my classmate Cody was a baifal. It's because Cody wears his hair in dreadlocks; frequently baifals will wear their hair in dreadlocks to show they are above such worldly desires as trying to create pretty hairstyles. Baifals follow the teachings of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba. Going to Senegal and asking, "Who is Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba?" is like going to America and asking, "Who's this Obama guy I keep hearing about?" Ahmadou is their national hero. There are stories about him facing lions and not getting eaten by them, and so on. (A lion is the national animal of Senegal, so you can see how symbolic it is if one of them refuses to chow down on you.) He was a marabout (religious leader) who lived during colonialism and made the French nervous because he was accumulating so much power. They worried he would persuade people to revolt against colonial rule.

However he was a very pragmatic as well as a very spiritual guy, and so he told his followers that the "greater battle" to improve their souls was more important than the "worldly battle" against the French. But even though he's preaching nonviolence against the French, he's still making the French very nervous. So they decide to exile him to Gabon. In those days, when you exiled someone, they would usually die. But not only does Cheikh Ahmadou not die, he manages to make it back to Senegal. For the Senegalese, that's like coming back from the dead.

He believed industriousness was good for the soul, and to combat the problem of joblessness, got his followers to start a recycling business. They would take the stuff city people threw out, refurbish it, and sell it. They made quite the pretty penny this way, and to this day, many of the stores you see in Dakar are owned by descendants of followers of Cheikh Ahmadou. So you free yourself from worldly desires, and then you become wealthy.......? I enjoy the irony. Also, his refusal to incite armed struggle reminds me of Jesus refusing to raise an army against the Romans.

Soda explained that she tried to be a baifal, but didn't always succeed. When she made me take the first shower and offered me her cheese, those were her attempts to be baifal-ish. If someone in the United States explained they were trying to live a more self-sacrificing life, everyone would laugh at them (or snicker behind their hands) and call them a flake. But Soda's efforts here win her respect. Why is the pursuit of goodness considered so foolish and naive in the U.S. of A? It seems to me making a conscious effort to improve your character is a pretty reasonable thing to do.

I still haven't told you about my service learning project, which is the most important part of this whole story! But its time to go to sleep, and since I've kind of been starving you guys of news, I'm going to post what I have and tell you the rest in the next entry. :-) I shouldn't forget to tell you about the 105-year-old lady we met either.

In Which I Ponder Governmental Corruption and Observe the Washing of a Goat

Oussmane, the program director, narrated most delightfully our bus tour of Dakar. As we passed the Parliament building, he said humorously, "This place is full of fat, useless men, who earn huge salaries for doing absolutely nothing at all. Their numbers should be reduced down to seven." As we went down a nice highway he said, "This highway was built for ther International Islamic Conference, so that the visitors could speed along pleasantly from the airport to the hotel. But the main streets in town are nothing like so nice as this! People were furious at the use of funds; they said our real priorities were elsewhere." We stopped by the Millenium Arch, which was built by the current government to celebrate their rise to power. It was actually several enormous stone arches, one built under the other. Perched upon one of the arches was a big man made out of polished yellow material, playing some sort of musical instrument. ("The material to make the man came from my village!" One of my classmates said proudly.) A giant could have passed under the largest arch without bonking his head, but the smallest arch was human-sized. You had only to stand under the small arch to feel your ego inflate like a balloon. It gave you this wonderful feeling of being the center of the universe.

"When the government first came into power, people were really happy," Oussmane explained. "But now the president is not so popular. People think he has misused funds, and is grooming his son to be the next president." At first I was puzzled by this; if the son's competent, what's wrong with promoting him? But then I thought about it some more and I realized that the passage of power from father to son reeks of dictatorship. I mean, look how well its worked for America (cough cough.)

The presidential palace was really splendid but we sort of zoomed past it because we had only paid for the use of the bus up until noon. I was left with this vague impression of white towers, golden domes, and waving palms, all behind black, high bars. But at the UNIVERSITY we stopped to linger for a nice long visit. I guess Oussmane has his priorities straight. The university library had a roof shaped like a giant open book. Oussmane teaches in the English department, so we went to visit that building and I was struck by the pleasant, cheerful corridors open to the sun. "What a pleasant place to study!" I exclaimed.

At this, Soda (who probably does not think she is named after an American beverage) took me aside. "In this lecture hall sometimes we run out of seats," she explained, "so people sit on the floor, or stand in the back. Sometimes you cannot see the professor even, if there are too many people standing in front of you. So you see, it is not a very pleasant place to study. But we come because we think it is important."

We will be doing our community service projects in Guede-Chantier, a little ecovillage in northern Senegal, Oussmane's home town. He gave us a presentation on it today, to prepare us for our visit there. "There is a community garden there," he said, "which has been there since 1912. I remember in my childhood I would go there to rest in the shade and eat the mangos. You could get plenty pineapples there, plenty dates." He smiled in pleasant reminiscence. "But then," he said, his expression darkening, "The government decided they wanted to build a dike. In building the dike, they destroyed 2/3rds of the garden. But nobody needed the dike; building it was a mistake. It doesn't do anything. It cuts the village in two!"

For some reason this reminded me of the European partioning of Africa into nations. European powers divided Africa into nations according to their whim, heedless of where the cultural and linguistic boundaries actually lay. Ethnic groups were cut in two by new national boundaries, just as Oussmane's village was cut in two by the dike. This causes a lot of war and conflict in Africa, because many groups are part of nations in which they don't really belong. Politicians, whether they be European or African, have a fondness for the setting of arbitrary boundaries.


I imagine well-fed men in well-tailored suits sitting comfortably in a room somewhere. Before them is a map. One of them takes out a sharpie and draws a line on the map. The other men grunt and nod in agreement. Another man takes out a sharpie, and draws another line. The others applaud. They sit there all day, drawing lines, lines, lines, creating an orderly world, and congratulating themselves on how intelligent they are.

Then they give the map to the captain of the guard. The guard nods earnestly, his red earnest face shining with sweat. When he looks at the map, he winces, and shudders. The guard talks to the common people. He knows a little bit about what drawing those lines will mean. But he knows better than to question his superiors. Rubbing his aching head, he goes off to give some unpleasant orders.
His soldiers mobilize the people. And then the people, driven by kicks and curses, go to build the lines that the politicians have drawn. They go forth to bring reality into the dreams of the powerful. But the real world is not black and white like the map. The tame, humble little dots on the map are actually cities and villages teaming with activity. Cars speeding down the roads, animals shitting all over the roads. Vines climbing over the walls, flowers holding up their skirts and sticking down their tongues. Hundreds of laughing shouting fighting people, advertising their wares, shaking hands with one another, burning incense, bowing in prayer, dancing in the discotheques, plowing their fields, making love.

People cannot be organized like the numbers in an Excel Spreadsheet. They are alive. If you put them in a box, they get restless and wander out of it. So how can it be that a line drawn by a politician in a shady, pleasant room, can have so much power?


"When I came back to my village and saw the garden was gone, I was just devestated," Oussmane said. "People like my father protested against the building of the dike, but it didn't do any good because the central government......" he shrugged in despair. "Later some MP's came by the village and we complained to them. We said, look at how some of the children are suffering from malnutrition as a result of the dike you have built. And the MP's promised some recompensation, but we wait and wait and still there is nothing."


Every day when I go to school I have to cross this really busy highway. Between the two lanes of the highway are two concrete barriers, maybe a meter high, with sand and garbage lying inbetween them. There is no crosswalk, no gap in the barriers, nothing. You have to wait for a pause in the traffic and then dash across as fast as you can. Then you swing yourself athetically over the first barrier. Then you sit waiting on the second barrier until there is a gap in the traffic of the second lane. Sometimes taxis pass within inches of your dangling toes as you sit there waiting. If dad had to watch me crossing this road he would probably have about nine heart attacks. I think it's exciting, but maybe a little too exciting.

The funny thing is that on both sides of the street, there are staircases to nowhere. These nice, well-constructed concrete staircases that go way up high and then just stop. They are the beginnings of a pedestrian overpass that was planned for the street, but when the funding ran out for them, construction stopped. So there they sit, symbolic of man's futile quest for progress..... (she says somewhat pompously.) Once I saw a little boy and his friend go to the top step of one of the staircases, and sit there above the city, happily trading cards.


Another thing about Africa is that everything tends to take much longer here. For instance, we had a group project on Sunday. To get up to the computer lab and start work, first we had to wait for the guy with the key to arrive, who was late because of the bus (more on Senegalese buses later.) Then, when we got there, a man was sleeping on a big mattress on the floor of the computer lab, (don't ask) and we had to wait for him to wake up. THEN the internet didn't work. We made some inquiries, and it turned out the technician in charge of the lab was still asleep due to having seriously partied on Saturday night. So we messed around on our own for a little bit, and finally Big Dave (my hero) managed to make it work on his own. And we danced around happily and finally did our project. But just getting access to the internet on a Sunday was an hour-and-a-half-long project. I've got to learn to relax and be patient, or this country will drive me crazy.

The mattress on the floor of the computer lab puzzled other people too. Someone asked, "who was sleeping there?" and we joked that Sydney and Big Dave had been sleeping there together all night. Africans love to joke, especially about love and marriage. The other day Youseff was saying Aissetou had to join his group because she was going to be his wife. Aissetou primped up her mouth and swatted away his remark as if the was brushing away a fly, while everyone laughed at them. Youseff made big eyes and said, "What, you don't want to be my wife, Aissetou? Why don't you love me anymore?" and the laughter swelled further.

Then this fascinating discussion about gender roles got sparked. Aissetou said, "Why, why is it always the woman who cooks the food, and cleans the house? The men are so lazy! They are always yelling at their wives to come and do things for them. Why don't they do things for themselves?"

"But the men are not used to cleaning," objected Yousseff feebly.
"Why, why, why, are they not used to cleaning?" Aissetou exclaimed. "Me, I think this is the way it should happen. If a man sees his wife his sleeping, he should walk very quietly to the kitchen and make something for her to eat. Then, when she wakes up, he can say, 'Surprise! Here is some breakfast for you.' The husband should be kind to his wife like that."

Of course the men of the class weren't going to take this lying down. There was great uproar and tumult. Everyone joined in the debate. Then it was time for lunch. Namuri went down the stairs singing at the top of his lungs, "Men rule the world, men rule the world!" just to see if he could annoy anyone. I think as long as there are women like Aissetou around, men will not really rule the world.
I went to the market yesterday, an overwhelming onslaught of sounds and colors, dresses and pants and shoes dangling on strings, swaying in the breeze from the ocean. I managed to buy a pretty dress for 2500 CFA (about 5$ American) and it was my first experience with bargaining. But look, here's the irony. I knew Senegal wasn't a wealthy country, so I packed very plain clothes, hoping to fit in. That was completely the wrong move. The Senegalese dress like kings and queens! Even the poorest man will make it a first priority to buy a fine suit of clothes. Its a matter of pride. I've never seen so many bright colors, gleaming fabrics, sparkly embroidery, gold bracelets. If I wanted to fit in, I should have brought along all the bling I could find. Its embarassing, it really is. Youssef and Alassane, Namuri and Big Dave and Emmanuel, will show up in these perfectly ironed, pinstriped shirts with neat collars. Ro-hai will drift in dressed like a rainbow with a scarf of sequins over her shoulder. Soda will have enormous gold earrings dangling from her ears, and Aissetou will swing her zebra-patterned purse. And here are the Americans with their battered T-shirts, and beat-up backpacks, looking like total slobs!!! That'll teach me not to make assumptions.

For all that the streets are covered with garbage, the Senegalese are very uptight about personal hygiene. It makes sense when there are such crowds of people rubbing up against each other all the time; if you're dirty or smelly, it's a public disservice! We took a bus to the bookstore so that I could buy a Wolof dictionary, and people were jammed together tighter than I thought people could be jammed. Everytime anyone wanted to get out, you had to wiggle and suck in your stomach so that they could slither like an eel past you, through the mass of people, and pop out the door. They didn't even bother trying to shut the doors of the bus; the doors were too crammed with people. Occasionally you would hit a bump in the road and the bus would hop like a bunny. Poor Big Dave was half-in and half-out of the bus, feeling the wind whistle past his ears I guess. Then when I finally got to the bookstore, they charged me a fortune for two tiny books. Even though food and clothing is 1/4th as expensive here, books are about 4 times as expensive. Bad luck for Charlotte the bookworm!

Big Dave and Sydney and I took a walk on the beach after we finished with our group project. There are lots of dead little fish washed up on the beach, because the fishermen throw back anything that is too small. One fish started flopping when we came near. Sydney and I screamed and clung to one another, acting like typical toubabs I guess. Big Dave started to throw the fish back, but two little boys playing in the sand nearby ran up and said they wanted the fish. "Oh no! Don't give it to them! They'll kill it!" cried tender-hearted Sydney. Heedless of her words, Big Dave handed over the fish. But when the boys felt it flop in their hands, THEY screamed and dropped it. So we returned it to the ocean.

And yet all this was nothing compared to the Washing of the Goats. This is how they do it in Senegal. Apparently salt-water is good for goat's skins (or at least that's what Big Dave tells us) and so they will take groups of goats down to the ocean and wash them. It is both comic and pathetic to see them grasp the poor goat firmly by one leg and drag it down the beach, bleating and struggling. I couldn't stop laughing. I've never seen such an unhappy-looking goat. Sydney got lots of pictures.

On the way back from the beach we started chatting about Senegalese standards of beauty. Sydney and I were confused because weight is considered to be a good thing, beauty-wise, in Senegal. And yet slender woman can also be considered beautiful (although its definitely a good thing to have a big butt.) Sydney thought perhaps there were multiple conceptions of beauty, rather than one central ideal. Worried that Big Dave was being left out of the conversation, I asked him in French what his ideal of beauty was. But he was no help to our philosophical discussion. All he would say was, "Moi." (me.)

Personally, I think beautiful means being full of energy and having fun. It doesn't matter what size and shape you are. What matters is that your face and body be animated by the liveliness of your spirit. I hope my spirit stays lively in this coming visit to Guede-Chantier. Tommorow morning, we begin our visit there, and we won't be back until Thursday afternoon. So I'll be out of touch with the internet for about a week. I'm a little nervous about the community service project, and I seem to be coming down with a little cold or something. Wish me luck. I'll be sending loving thoughts to you, testing for the existence of telepathy.