On Est Ensemble

Ok so I found that for my week in Sokone, I couldn't write a good entry, so this is more like a photo album.  We spent our third week in Senegal in Sokone, a village just north of the Gambia, on vacances citoyennes with about 50-60 students from the university.  After a 5-7 hour bus ride through the Senegalese country side - literally through the country side, because at times the bus driver opted to navigate through the fields rather than around the pot-holes scattered throughout the road - we arrived at our home for the next two weeks, a building/compound thing.  There was a canopy-covered patio between the building and the front gate, and a tall cement wall surrounded the grounds, probably about an acre, complete with two grazing bulls, destined to the glory of our future dinner plates.  The building was made up of one big, central room, a bathroom with two stalls, and four smaller rooms.  The rooms were very bare, with the exception of the piles of 3-4 inch thick old foam mattresses that would be our beds.  The girls took the big room, and the boys divided themselves into the smaller rooms. 

The bus ride there.  This is Seydou,
 I think this picture says it all.

The reason we were there was for vacances citoyennes, or to help the local community.  We ran a medical clinic (about 1/4 of the 50-60 students with us weremed/pharmacy students), reforested local farms/forests, and educated people in alphabetization and information technologies.  I did the med clinic one day and reforestation the rest of the week.

Tying up mosquito nets

 Funny story.  So we had to use mosquito nets.  This picture is clearly one of us hanging up the nets sans string, nails, posts, and anything else that you could think of as necessary material.  But the really funny part actually happened both before and after this.  So we got our mosquito nets, and before we started hanging them, Alex and I decided to have some fun.  and reenacted Madonna music videos and scenes from Lord of the Rings, using the mosquito nets as props.  Unfortunately and unbeknownst to us, the mosquito nets were treated with bug-killing chemicals.  Needless to say, we both woke up after a few short and restless hours of sleep to burning sensations all over my face and Alex's arms and neck.  We suffered the consequences of the chemical burns for about the next 48 hours (explaining my red eyes in some of the pictures). In this picture, left to right: Waly, Adama (maybe?), Bity, Fatou, Korka.

This one's better 

(except that my eyes are blatantly 

battling the chemicals 

from the mosquito nets)

Some of the kids who lived down the street and visited often, also some of our first friends.  Left to Right: Basidi, friend (don't know his name), Me, Adama.  You can't tell from this picture but Basidi loved me.

BLOOD.  Or BLOOT, pronounced buh-lutt.  This card game is how i made a lot of friends.  The guys would play literally all day and into the night once we got back from our work in the morning.  The first day I thought I recognized it, so I ended up spending hours watching, asking, learning how to play, and meeting people.  After 

a day of learning and hours of playing with the help of onlookers, I finally had my first winning streak in the middle of the day on Tuesday.  

Getting my hair braided.
 This is Mamy, who is actually my cousin (I think),
 but most of it was actually braided by Fatou.

One night we went to a dance, a combination of traditional and more modern styles, organized for us by the village.

On est ensemble.  

Left to Right: Alex, Christian, Me, Assane.  

We were fast friends with Christian and Assane, as well as the other card players.

Célèbre

It's 9:00 A.M. Saturday morning and the 8 of us, accompanied by Waly and Adji, groggily make our way through the streets of Fann to the Université Cheik Anté Diop.  None of us are really sure what is happening, thanks to our combined interpretations of the French explanations we received in class.  We know that there is some presentation this morning, and that tomorrow we are leaving for a town called Sokone for a week with a group of university students. 

In my hand is a short speech written by Waly that my classmates generously volunteered me to recite.  I look over the speech as we walk, preparing to present it briefly to 10 or so American students from Boston, as Waly had explained to me earlier.  We wait outside a building of the university as busses and escorted vehicles pull up to the entrance, which gradually becomes the center of attention, news cameras, microphones, backdrop and all.  Finally I am ushered by Adji up the steps, into the building, and into a room full of professional looking people.  I am given a baseball cap with the name of the group on it, to pull together my ensemble of a turquoise paigne (wrap-skirt) and a child's size Ray Rice T-Shirt (waiting for laundry day).  We are all ushered out of the room onto the front steps, crowded around a set of microphones, facing about 200 people and multiple television and video cameras.  So Waly underestimated a little bit.  Did I mention that the speech is in French? 

So about an hour and a half later, after standing under the sun and in the middle of at least 20 people, listening to endless speeches that all said the same thing - "thanks for having us here with you, we look forward to helping the people of Senegal, blah blah blah," - I am introduced to the lackluster audience of students, directors, and teachers.  I briefly introduce myself, recite my speech, and am greeted at the edge of the stage by the enthusiastic handshake of the overall director of the program, a tall, light-skinned, jovial man.  After explaining a bit about the MSID program in hushed tones, I am released to go stand with the students.  Less groggy and more confused, we make our way back to the WARC, where we spend the rest of the day in the air conditioned computer lab, working on our papers that are due Monday.

The speech (Waly's home video version, so the quality isn't so great)

Later that evening, while playing cards with a neighbor, Luca, I explain to him what I know about my upcoming week, based on what I had heard that morning.  We are going on something called "vacances citoyennes" to Sokone for a week, but most people will be gone for two.  In Sokone, we will be doing various activities to help the community, including reforestation and alphabetization.  As I contemplate my next discard, Aby and Diallo rush into the house and excitedly rush through a sentence or two directed at me.  Advised by Luca to slow down, they repeat themselves, more coherently this time, "On t'a juste vu sur le télé! À l'université, t'était sur le télé!" - "We just saw you on TV! At the University, you were on TV!"  Laughing abashedly, uncomfortably aware of the multiple eyes and smiles upon me, I can't help but hope that my family is proud of me, and realize how much I will miss them during the coming week.