Fall Break!

My apologies for being bad at blogging, but fall break happened 2 weeks ago, so here is the low-down on what happened!

A group of 12 students from my program (including me) got together and rented a house by the beach in M’Bour for the week. M’Bour is about 2 hours south of Dakar, along the coast. I was a little worried that the week would turn into “The Real World: Senegal” but turns out we all got along great even at the end of a week in a house together!

Since I could go on for pages and pages about the week, and I am clearly already behind on my blogging, here are some highlights!

The house had beds for 11 (5 bedrooms with a variety of twin bed and double bed combinations), but my friends Alyssa, Angie and I slept 3 to a double bed (which is trickier with a mosquito net) but it worked out perfectly! The backyard was sand and palm trees, with a gate to the real beach, and OCEAN! The only negative of this was that pretty soon, everyone knew the house where the toubabs lived, and every day we would have a different group of people waiting for us there. It could be anyone from young boys asking us for drinking water, women selling us necklaces, men wanting to hang out with us (slash get a green card), but all that was a small price to pay for a fabulous week.  We spent time on the beach participating in drumming/dancing circles, bonfires, drinking tea (attaya), playing soccer, and various other beach activities. 

The house is owned by a French man, and a local family lives on the property. The mom, Fatou, was incredibly sweet, and brought us bread for breakfast and cooked us lunch every day. The dad, Felix was hilarious, and made everyone feel at ease, taking care of things like broken air conditioners, or questions about where to find things. They had several kids all around three to nine years old, but they mostly kept their distance, except Amanita. She was by far the coolest kid I have ever met (and if you are lucky enough to facebook stalk me, she is in my profile picture). At age 5 she would just walk around the house to the back porch and sit with us. We would spend hours making animal noises to each other, chasing each other around the yard, modeling (she absolutely loved taking and being in pictures), going swimming, having fake phone conversations (always in Wolof), and many other games.

For dinners we were on our own, most nights we cooked. You might think this would be simple, but there was a gas shortage in Senegal that week (that combined with the frequent power cuts, and the full day without water made for a more rustic week than we had planned for), and so we had to cook outside over coals, we also had to improvise on pots and pans. All ended up delicious, however, and we were pretty proud that we had succeeded. Several times when cooking dinner Fatou would come over and laugh. She kept telling us how she’d never seen toubabs cook like that before, and asking if we were sure we knew what we were doing. It was very endearing!

Although we did spend a fair share of time lounging at the beach we had adventures as well. One of the days we went to downtown M’Bour, where we got to see l’arrivé des pêcheurs (the arrival of the fisherman). The week we were in M’Bour happened to fall exactly when the fishermen came back to shore, after having been out to see in their tiny pirogues (fishing boats) for anywhere between fifteen and thirty days. The beach was bustling with people bringing in the pirogues, carrying fish to shore, cleaning out various sea creatures, and of course, selling things. A man approached our group and became our impromptu guide, explaining to us what each of the fish were, where they would go, or what they would be used for.

Another day took us further south to the Sine-Saloum river delta area. We took a van and what we expected to be an hour drive took over 3 hours because our driver had to make several stops on the way. Our group didn’t mind because it gave us even more time to have sing and dance alongs with our driver and our guide. At Sine-Saloum we visited several villages got to see lives completely different from those in Dakar; it was extremely eye-opening. In of the villages we saw a small hut with a huge drum outside, and in the village if anyone was sick, if someone died, got married, or needed a blessing they go into the hut while another member of the village would drum outside. In another village there were two baobab trees that were next to each other, and as they had grown had combined to look like one huge tree, this is where the villagers would make sacrifices or ask for blessings. There were also the most poverty stricken villages I have ever seen. At points I felt incredibly uncomfortable as a group of twelve Americans, with cameras, walked through people’s communities, and listened to our guide (from M'Bour, not Sine-Saloum) tell us about life there. After a little while, I went back to our van with a small group who felt similarly. Our guide had asked us to hand out cookies to the children in the villages, and at that point I felt like I was only prolonging stereotypes that rich Americans came to visit, give hand-outs, and leave not caring. I was sad not to see other parts of the river deltas, but it was too uncomfortable, I think a smaller group without a guide would have been more ideal.

Overall, the week was wonderful, and it was great to see parts of Senegal that aren’t Dakar, as well as grow closer to the other 11 on the trip. I wish I could tell more, but I’m afraid I’ve already rambled too long. I promise my next post will not be so overdue!

No big deal, but this is the view of our backyard from the porch.

L’arrivé des pêcheurs.

Mystery Solved

The other day, I came home from school to find the door to my house locked (side note, this was the 4th of 5 doors I have to go through to get from the street to inside the main house), I don’t have a house key but I knocked on the door, figuring someone would be home, as they had always been before. A few moments passed, and no one came to the door, so I knocked again, minutes went by, still nothing, but I could hear voices coming from the living room. A third time, fourth time, fifth time, I knocked harder, waiting shorter periods of time between each one. Finally a man, who I had never seen before, came to the door and just looked at me appearing angry to be bothered. I greeted him in Wolof as politely and formally as I could manage given my limited training, but he soon cut me off anyway, to ask (in French thankfully) “what do you want?” so I started to explain that I was a student living in the house, and the man again interrupts me to ask, “so what are you looking for?” starting to get nervous, I continued my explanation that I am an American exchange student studying at a university in Dakar, and I live with the Tall family. It was only after I started naming the family members that he opened the door, not looking any happier about life, but I was satisfied to at least be inside. I walked the few steps down the hall to my room, not escaping his glare, and opening my door, I told the man: "this is my room; I have lived here for about a month, and will be here until December." It was only at this point that he believed me. It was still incredibly awkward, as no one in the family was home for another few hours.

I passed this event off as just another cultural quirk and didn’t think anything else of it, or why no one in my family had been home. A few days later, however, my host mom asked me if I had seen Khadim lately. I hadn’t, but he usually sleeps until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, leaves the house fairly often to hang out with his friends, and depending on the night, won’t eat dinner with us (if there are other men at the house for dinner they will eat separately from the women). Needless to say, it was not unusual for me to not have seen Khadim for a few days. My host mom told me that I should go see him soon, and I said ok, still confused as to why it was a big deal, but not wanting to make a fuss I agreed to see him “soon” which in Senegal time essentially meant whenever my host mom wanted me too. Nothing else was said about it that night, and I went to bed as usual. The next day, my host mom again asked me if I had seen Khadim, I said no, but this time was more concrete, and promised to see him that night. She looked pleased, and then said nonchalantly, “good; he was in a motorcycle accident the other day. He isn’t feeling too well, and he had to spend a day and night in the hospital. It’s hard to have him home because he can’t eat anything”. WOAH! I was shell-shocked. That is why no one was home a few nights prior, and that is why I hadn’t seen Khadim. Not sure what to expect, because my host mom had given no hints as to what had happened, or what state he was in, I went to Khadim’s room after dinner that night.

Khadim, although in relatively good shape considering the severity of some motorcycle accidents, looked like a character from a horror movie. Lying in his bed, he was wearing only shorts, and his skin on the right side of his body, from his cheek, down his arm and ribcage, to his knee, calf, and ankle, had been completely scraped off, and completely exposed were wounds, bright pink and all fairly deep. It doesn’t appear that he broke any bones except maybe his jaw or ribs, but there are a few teeth missing. He and I talked for a little while, but the conversation didn’t go very far since he couldn’t move his mouth and I had a hard time understanding him. He told me he had to eat all his meals through a straw, and couldn’t really move the entire right side of his body. Leaving his room, I felt guilty for not staying and talking longer, but it really was difficult to understand his French/Wolof blend (which I am getting used to struggling with) and also his mumbles and murmurs through closed lips. As I was walking down the hall, however, one of his friends stopped me to tell me how brave I was. “What do you mean?” I asked him, and he explained to me that I was the only woman who was able to even look at Khadim, much less talk to him. His friend told me that every other woman who has gone to visit Khadim has had to cover her eyes, and turn away her head. I thanked him, and breathed a sigh of relief. I was glad to know that I wasn’t so rude after all, and my efforts were appreciated.  Not to mention the fact that I finally had figured out what was going on with my host family!

I found my identity!

This is a small side note, but I found out more about my Senegalese name! I am Mame Diarra. 
Turns out I am kind of a big deal, Mame Diarra Bousso is the mother of Ahmadou Bamba, the founder and first marabout (religious leader) of the Mouride brotherhood. In Senegal, the Mouride brotherhood is the largest sect of Islam, so Ahmadou Bamba was quite powerful, and is still highly respected. Feel free to google me if you would like more details!

Time for the Toubaab show

In Wolof, the word toubaab means foreigner, but is often used to refer to white people. I hear the word pretty often, with many different connotations. My favorite is every morning on our way to school, just outside the entrance to the campus, lives a girl about 5 years old. Every day we pass by her house she is standing outside, and will start chanting “Toubaab, Toubaab, Toubaab!” like how one would chant for chocolate or ice cream! She bends her knees to bounce up and down a bit with each yell, and also holds her hands above her head, opening and closing them like lobster claws. Pretty darn cute if you ask me. Other times, I hear it from men on the street trying to get my attention, “hello, toubaab!” not as cute. Or by street vendors trying to get me to stop and buy a necklace, some shoes, or some perfume (although to some of the guys in our group the vendors will yell, “hello pretty boy” “big boy” or “play boy” to get their attention). Anyway, we have started referring to those moments especially “toubaab” of us, or where we are even more clueless than normal, as “Toubaab Show”.

The Toubaab Show premiered after school the other day, when it was pouring down rain, and a group of four of us was trying to get home from school. Usually we walk the 25 or so minutes to our neighborhood, but the streets were almost completely flooded, the sides of the road incredibly muddy, and we had our school books with us, which we didn’t want to get wet. Thus, we decided to take a taxi for the first time. Taking a taxi in Senegal involves much more than it does in the States. Hailing one is easy for us, since we stand out just a little, but then you have to barter the cost with the driver in Wolof before getting in. Most of the time, the driver will ask for an inflated price since we are Toubaabs, but our group was told how much a taxi should cost from school to our neighborhood, so we felt all set to go! Stepping out to the street, we were already ankle deep in mud, but ready for our adventure, three cabs pull over to pick us up before we even raise an arm, and we lean in to talk to the first driver. We went through our Wolof greetings, and then asked for the price we were told was good, the cab driver laughed and started to pull away. No problem we thought, it isn’t as if another taxi won’t stop for us! We began to walk over to the second cab, when the first driver realized what we knew, which was that another taxi would easily take us where we were going. He went in reverse back to where we were standing, and agreed that the price we named was good; satisfied, but soaked, we climbed in.

We got to our neighborhood, and told the driver where he could drop us off. He pretended not to understand however, and stopped just where we were, in the middle of a busy street with 2 lanes in both directions, to let us out. We opened our doors to see another large puddle, but from the back seat it didn’t look very deep. Three of the four of us climbed out stepping gently on the puddle, and stepped to the side of the road. Our friend in the front seat, however, had a deeper pool of water waiting for her. The Toubaab Show had started. Hiking up her skirt, she stood up on the side of the car, and leaned forward to put the hand not holding her skirt on the roadblock a good 3 to 4 feet away. With her body almost completely stretched out, she realized that there was no way she could avoid the puddle, and what’s more, that she was a bit stuck. We alternated between offering her our arms, cheering her on, and laughing hysterically, before she finally jumped, landing right in the puddle, and hurried to join us on the side of the road. Looking back at the cab, we saw our drivers face almost in tears he was laughing so hard before he drove off. Thinking the battle was won, we began the walk to each of our houses about a block away, soon enough, however, we realized that we needed to cross the busy street, which was full of water, but only ankle deep. We waited for a lull in the traffic, and ran across at the shallowest point we saw.

We then had to cross another small street, which wasn’t as well paved, or drained. It was hard to tell that a street was even below the river that filled it. We walked along the “curb” standing on blocks varying distances apart, going along the street looking for a place to cross. After going back and forth three times, we found a place with a cement block in the middle of the street, and shallower water a bit past it, taking leaps and strides, we crossed one by one, all making it to the side of the road we needed to be on, shouting to each other and laughing the whole way. Exhilarated, we stopped to take a breath and realize what had just happened. It was in this moment that we looked around to see that not only had other pedestrians stopped in their tracks to watch us, but traffic had also stopped—each driver was looking over at us, and various workers, most notably the construction workers on the second floor of a nearby building, had stopped what they were doing, taken a seat and watched our ordeal of street crossing. Awesome. And we still had a block to go before we reached our houses. People began to go back to what they were doing, and we had caught our breath enough to keep going. Soaking wet, muddy, and still in a state of shock, we completed our walk without ordeal, but still managed to turn the head of everyone we passed by.

You might think that this is a river...

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but it's a street.

The Fam

I moved in with my host family a little over a week ago, and what an experience it has proven to be thus far! To start out with, I have a host mother, sister, and brother, for sure, and then there are about 8 other people that are at the house pretty often, but I don’t know who they are, if they live there, or what… But I will start by describing what I know, more details will follow on who else is in my family. My host mom is welcoming and warm, but still very much a powerful matriarch. Everyone calls her Mère Tall (my host family’s last name is Tall, and they are all coincidentally lanky). Mere Tall is constantly yelling at me for not eating enough, even though I am pretty sure I eat just as much, if not more, than everyone else in the house.

My older brother is Khadim and he is 23. Although he is observing Ramadan this month, he is continually talking about wanting to go out to a club or a bar, and how he can’t wait until Ramadan is over! He is fun to hang out with, even though we are pretty much completely different. I have been super tired here, since I get up for class every morning at 7 (definitely NOT a natural occurrence) so I go to bed by 11 or midnight, while Khadim will stay up until about 5 or 6 am every night. I haven’t exactly figured out when he sleeps or what he does yet. Saturday night he was on my case for being lame and sleeping so much, so I decided to hang out with him. Although he can’t go out since it is still Ramadan, we walked around the neighborhood, I got to meet some of his friends, and then we went back to the house to watch some movie(s). A movie was on tv, I have no idea what it is called, but Jessica Alba was in it, and it was dubbed in French so I understood most of what happened. We ordered a pizza around 1:30, and It was a delicious reminder of home. It wasn’t exactly what I had eaten before; the pizza came with mayonnaise and ketchup on the side, which Khadim put on his pieces, and told me to do the same. I admit, I was pleasantly surprised, but it probably won’t be a habit I repeat often. The movie finished at about 3:30, at which point I was absolutely exhausted and ready for sleep. I told my brother goodnight and I would see him tomorrow, but he thought I was joking. He was planning on watching another movie before going to bed; I am not sure how that sleep cycle will work out with morning classes all semester.


My younger sister is named Mbayang, and is 13, she is very sweet, but quiet, and it is harder than I thought to figure out what to talk to a thirteen year old about. Sometimes we have great conversations or be having fun, but she can keep them going for much longer than I thought would be necessary. Wow that sounds incredibly rude, and I absolutely love hanging out with her, so here’s an example: she had come with me to buy some notebooks for school, and when we got back to the house’s entryway she climbed onto one of the three motorcycles sitting there, and pretended to drive it, making plenty of sound effects and movements, which I agreed was fun, funny, cute, and many other positive things, so I laughed with her, and played along, but Mbayang didn’t stop for a good twenty minutes. It got to the point when I didn’t really know how to react, or what to do, so I just walked upstairs to my room after a while, but she wasn’t fazed and just kept on driving. Mbayang is very lovable, and fun to have around, we talked about boys the other day and she now wants to find me a Senegalese boyfriend (and/or husband), this probably won’t end well, and I understood part of why in our “Survival Wolof” course during orientation we learned how to say “I already have a husband” a phrase that will be necessary.


I already have a long list of misunderstandings and cultural gaps, and so will only share a few. I have pictures of my room below (before I unpacked) and you can see how they fit the room which I was explained would have “an armoire or a closet, and a desk for school work” I am just happy I have a fan! Also, I was asked by my sister almost as soon as I arrived, “so, are you from Washington or Missouri?” Answering, that I was from neither, but I was from Connecticut, she insisted, “yes, but is that in Washington or Missouri?” You could say my map of the United States has been plenty useful already. And finally, I learned my name yesterday! After several days of hearing a word I didn’t know repeated over and over. I kept wondering what it could mean, and what they were constantly chatting about. Then, I noticed that after using the word they would sometimes change to French to talk to me. Connecting clues, I found out that it is the Senegalese name my family gave me, but didn’t tell me about, I still don’t know if this was on purpose, and they are telling secrets/mocking me, or if they thought I knew my name wasn’t Sarah but actually Mamdiara (although I am still not sure exactly how it is spelled or pronounced). Time will tell, hopefully.

My bed and armoire (If you can see, my pillowcase is Tinkerbell) 

My desk, disney curtains and window.