Goree Island is beautiful, but it is terribly small and without much beach, which was a bumber since I was very excited about jumping in the water since it is always oh so very hot here! Silly me thought it would resemble Zanzibar to some extent but not quite so much. I do feel like it was a great event since we went to three different museums, all very interesting, one on the slave trade through Goree, another one on women, and just an overall museum - which was actually by far the most interesting (and is where the picture attached was taken). The only major flaw was that it rained a large portion of the time we were there (which I guess makes up for not having a beach) but the rain has most definitely proved itself in the last week that I am, in fact, here during rainy season!
Group shot!
So a couple of family stories from the past week!
Sunday was the football match between Senegal and DRCongo (yes, we won 4-2) and so I decided to invite a couple of people over to watch the match. By the way, when I say watch the match I mean stare at a tiny TV screen and most of the time not being able to see anything because of the static (though I'm getting better and seeing things in static now!) I bought some juice and soda and we just had a good time. Bebe Cher and Mohammed were pumped about having all these tobabs over that liked watching some footie but all the women would not respond to any greetings or anything anyone of my friends said to them. It was pretty strange, but hey, family always is! Though, the great part of the story is that hopefully from now on one student will host us at their family's house and hang out on Sundays.
The living room
As I think I've told you, Mohammed and Bebe Cher go through everything I own. So, while I was taking a nap one day, Mohammed went through my bag and found my phone. They are very competitive about some of the phone games so Mohammed woke me up asking to play some, I said sure but a limit of five or so, well after half an hour he is still messing with it and my phone is making a lot more noise that it makes when just playing, I tell him it’s time to stop and he gets out. A few seconds later, I get a text from Mom. I check my phone and he had made over fifteen calls to friends, family, and texted numerous people. When I talked to him about it he denied it. Let's just say someone lost phone privileges until they apologize - he would rather get hit with the belt then say I'm sorry. So, we will see what happens...
Mohammed
Korete, the party end of Ramadan, (which I just called Karate for the first few times because I couldn't remember the name) should be taking place either on Friday or Saturday (depending on the moon) and everyone already seems excited! My family most definitely practiced their Korete dinner last night and I am loving it! I'm not quite sure how much of the festivities I will be invited to, my family told me to not get an outfit made and reminded me that I was Christian and that this is not my holiday. So, hopefully they were just messing with me, but if they lock me in my room for the day I wouldn't be too surprised.
And some dinner stories... So, to start this off, I just realized I never quite explained how dinners work in Senegal. So you eat around a bowl - does this sound like a social affair to you, well it did to me, but no - you sit in silence, eat as fast as you can and as soon as you finish you leave the area. Let's just say, quite a change from dinner at the Gehron house! So last night I actually had an amazing dinner and found myself too full to sleep for an hour or so, first time I have felt even close to that way since I got here (and I ate with all men so there were jokes and smiles around the bowl)! The other night though (or maybe twice this week) we had something with intestines, again, but then when I thought the pain was done they would bring something out (goat?) with the jaw as the centerpiece of meat. You know what I don't like doing, touching teeth when I'm trying to get my protein! Hopefully, soon enough, I will become numb to bones and intestines, but for now, just not tough enough.
Suffolk University Campus
Mom implied that she was worried that I might not be studying in this study abroad program, so just wanted to talk a little about classes. So now after almost two weeks of classes I feel like I have a better idea about what I think about them! Classes shouldn't be quite as challenging as back at William and Mary but there is still a lot of reading but, major bonus, there are field trips! I have a field trip for some class or another every two or three weeks which will be a great addition and will make the classes literally come to life, so I'm looking forward to that! So my public health class, in French, is by far my favorite class. We had a guest speaker today come in and he talked about HIV/AIDS which was interesting but I think the real focus of the class is going to be community health which should be really cool. Really pumped about it and the professor has worked for a long time in each part of the field.
My class on Senegalese Society and Culture has been alright, each day we have a different person speak which is cool but since it is in English it is usually pretty broken English. The man that led it on Tuesday though was amazing. He talked about the caste system that used to be in place in Senegal which was very interesting but his dynamic nature really added to the class. He was making a point about the way people title themselves and was trying to tie it back to something we understood and said 'People are proud to be New Yorkers but who says "I'm a native Alabamian" that is just not done...' We all cracked up - in short, Luke, I miss you!
Class with Kate and Monica (yes, I'm sporting my glasses more often than not now!)
The class I'm taking for Wolof (the local language) is interesting. It is really tough but at the same time the professor is really good at making sure we understand what we are saying in Wolof (an important addition in my personal opinion) so that has been nice. Also, this is the class where if we have 'culture questions' we are supposed to throw them out there, so I asked sometime last week if I'm supposed to do like Bebe Cher does and point with things with either a nod or (more often) my tongue, since in Madagascar I remembered there being something about not pointing at graves, etc (yes, I said all of that en francais) but she just laughed and said 'no we just call that a bad habit'. So much for being culturally sensitive! The other nice thing about it is the class is maxed out to five people! So there is most definitely a lot of one on one time with Prof Mam Binta Fall!
The Gender and Development class is really interesting but the there doesn't really seem to be any structure to the class, so luckily there is a lot of reading, so I'm able to feel like I'm really learning something. She seems to go on numerous rants and doesn't quite know how to get us back on topic. This is one of the classes with a lot of field trips so I'm sure that will make up for some of the problems...
So my biggest worries right now are making my fall break plans (I have a week and a half of free time and haven't confirmed anything yet!) and, thanks to mom, already stressed about Christmas presents!
Ba Suba,
Katie
I miss you!!! Keep posting so I can know what's going on with you. :)
ReplyDeletebtw, it's Aleina. :P