Tomorrow is Tabaski, the Muslim holiday that commemorates Abraham's almost-sacrifice of Ishmael. In Senegal, Tabaski is celebrated by slaughtering moutons* in courtyards such that the blood runs out into the streets, then feasting with family and neighbors until there is no mouton left. I'm also told that the moutons are sometimes slaughtered on the beaches then washed in the ocean. After recreating the Red Sea, Senegalese bury pastel-colored mangoes in the sand in order to combine as many Biblical holidays as possible. Just kidding! Mango season is over.

*Senegalese use the word "mouton," which means sheep, for their goats. Possibly because they only have goats instead of rams, which Wikipedia tells me was the actual Biblical animal of choice. Changing the name of the animal seems to make it symbolically appropriate.

In the past week, the moutons have been out and about by the thousands in the streets of Dakar, and here in the big city they sell for up to $800. Or, if you're smart, you go outside the city, get a really nice mouton for $100, then load it in the bottom of a bus along with everyone's luggage and bring it back for your family.

(Five points to the person who can confirm that these are goats and not rams.)

There has been a mouton tied up across from my apartment for several months now, often being fed cardboard and garbage in order to fatten it up. This afternoon, three more moutons had appeared. Tonight, a mouton appeared in my courtyard, right outside my door. I'm really really hoping that this does not also mean that it will be slaughtered outside my door at 9 am tomorrow.

At least the owners gave it some water, right?

I will be celebrating Tabaski by traveling to an island that is technically closed with a guide who is supposed to stick around to make sure we don't burn down the place but who is instead going to leave in order to celebrate with the moutons. It's quite possible that either we will be forced to pay enough for 5 moutons in order to be allowed back in the boat, or our guide will not find it convenient to return at all, and we will be forced to call in UN air support to rescue us from our descent into Lord of the Flies, Act V: Ile de la Madeleine.

Wish me luck!

The Rumors are True

For those of you who have seen my latest Facebook status, it's true: This weekend I became a Senegalese television star. I was at Goree Island, a fifteen minute boat ride from Dakar, for the annual Goree Diaspora Festival. (Historical side note: Goree was the point of departure for much of the slave trading in West Africa, although the famed "Door of No Return" does not actually lead to a potential ship but to a cliff face.) When we arrived at Goree, we found not a festival celebrating--well, frankly, I didn't quite know what a Diaspora festival would celebrate--but a festival mostly celebrating the island nation of Cape Verde and various other island nations, such as Martinique. Not important that Goree is not an island nation. In any case, the President of Cape Verde showed up to shake hands with the Ambassador from Venezuela in front of a picture of Chavez, so a good time was had by all.

To prove to the country that not only is an island made famous by a horrible tragedy F-U-N FUN, but also that white, non-French tourists also find it fun, my friend Sergio and I were stopped by a TV crew asking us to give an interview, but only if we were Anglophones. We were asked to describe the festival in one word. I chose "colorful." Sergio chose "fun," followed by "warm" (hi, it's Africa). Can you tell which of the two of us really cared about reaching out to the Senegalese population to show our love for their (Cape Verde's) culture?

The best part was that our efforts at stardom paid off. Both of us were seen on TV by our colleagues, who practically fainted as we walked down the hallways of our respective UN agencies and blew kisses at the adoring fans.

I would upload a photo as proof of my celebrity, but my internet is so bad that I have to load Gmail in html. What is this, 2005?

(Update: Okay, so it is no longer 2005, and I found some better internet.)

Sorry

Yeah, I know, I'm bad at this whole blogging thing.

(PiAf, if you're reading, you can get a blog post or a fellows' flyer submission. Not tons sure you will get both.

KIDDING! Ish.)

Just had my first no-water-at-the-apartment experience since I've been here. Sorry, meant to say no-water-at-the-apartment-after-I've-just-covered-myself-in-soap-in-the-shower experience. Serious soap. Loofah soap. I never realized how much water I use in the shower until I had to dump water bottles over my head to get clean.

New experience #2: The nicest bowling alley I have ever seen in my life just opened in Dakar, along side the swanky new mall and the swankier new Radisson. Purple lights, shiny logos, a DJ spinning top 40 hits, a fancy bar, an arcade, and lots of Lebanese teenagers. It was great. The new experience, though, was that I almost won a game of bowling. "Almost won" being loosely defined as I was winning for the first five frames and then came in third.

I'll end on a more serious note by describing my other new experience. A few weeks ago, as I was leaving a night club on my way to get a taxi, a man ran into me, then wouldn't let me pass. Next thing I new, he had ripped my necklace off and run away. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for the man, the necklace was fake gold and had cost about $2 at a thrift store. But, although I had heard about incidents like this, I was still extremely shocked that someone could be so desperate for money that he would resort to stealing something just because it was shiny. Contrast this with the extremely nice, respectful note that my housekeeper left me asking for support in buying her children's school supplies. (School supplies for one year for two children: $50.) I don't mean to make this into a "poor people in Africa" story; the same exact thing could have happened anywhere. And honestly, it would have been just as sad.

I made it Part III

I have just been informed that a certain reader, whose name starts with D and ends with !, has used my life and blog to convince a public policy grad student that he has just spent a year working with the World Food Programme in Dakar. Can I sue for that? Or should I just feel sorry that his life isn't interesting enough to talk about?

NB: ! actually has a very interesting life. He does physics research.

Some Pics

These kids alternated between helping their parents harvest corn and blowing snot all over me.

Burkina Faso is secretly a Scandinavian country where it never gets dark. And where the women are gracefully able to ride bicycles and mopeds in full-length traditional dresses.

This is a village.

These are all the most important elements of Burkinabe society.

I made it Part II

In case you're wondering, I got my passport back, but it came with invitation of marriage and a request to be taken to the United States. A fair transaction, I think.

Description of trip and photos to come.

I made it

After a wonderful flight from Dakar to Bamako (capital of Mali) to Ouagadougou, I had an equally wonderful surprise waiting for me: my passport was promptly confiscated by customs. At first, it was confiscated because I didn't have enough money to pay the visa (I was told it was $20. It was $188). Fair enough. But when I returned ten minutes later with lots o' cash, I was told that they had run out of receipts. Meaning that I still could not have my passport, even though I had just forked over enough money for approximately one million bananas. I seriously, seriously hope that my passport does not get lost or stolen, as they placed it in a pile of several dozen other passports in an unlocked cabinet.

So, I may not be able to leave this country come Sunday, but at least I can drive safely while I am here--because Ouagadougou has traffic lights! Real ones! With reds and greens (and maybe yellows I didn't see)! Dakar does not have traffic lights. Dakar does not have yield signs. Dakar's traffic does not run on gasoline. It runs on testosterone.

I also had a lovely dinner companion tonight. I didn't expect him to join, and in fact I was quite frightened to see him there at first, but he was quiet and polite and let me read my book.

It was actually very nice that he was there to protect me, as I may have accidentally agreed to marry my waiter.

Time's Cafe, we meet again

Tonight's menu includes cheese fries made with gouda. (Surprisingly a little bland.) Tomorrow's menu includes a trip to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, to film some farmers with their maize. Ouagadougou Wednesdays! Let's get Ouaga Wild! Oua-hy are the only other people in this restaurant sitting at the table next to me!

(The girl (let's call her Patty) is on the phone, and the guy (let's call him Carl) just pulled out his laptop and is singing to himself. It's turning out to be a great date. Looks like I won't be able to watch True Blood without headphones as I had planned. Carl, re the menu, in English: "I'm just looking for something special for me, and I can't find it.")

Moving on:

(Can't move on, because Patty just ordered a hot iced tea. The owner is confused. She is insistent.)

Last Friday was Korite, Senegalese version of Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan. I made the bold decision to travel to the beach town of Popenguine on the night before Korite. Those of you who have studied a map of Senegal know that Dakar is on a peninsula, so that all traffic in and out of the city is quite literally becomes trapped in a bottleneck (in fact, after driving out of Dakar, I can now tell you the secrets of ships in bottles). Moreover, all traffic going either north or south along the coast has to take the same route for several dozen kilometers. On a normal day, this means that there is no such thing as rush hour, only rush all the time.

(Patty and Carl are now watching Beyonce Live in Vegas. Carl is singing along. They appear to be completely unaware that this is a public space.)

Anyway, on the night before Korite, when everyone is leaving the city to visit family, the normal traffic becomes what could conservatively be called a nightmare. I shared a taxi with someone who paid one third of what I did to go farther, and the driver decided that it would probably be faster to leave Dakar via backroads than via the highway. Thus, getting out of Dakar, a journey that usually takes twenty minutes, took two hours. For those full two hours, I had literally no idea where we were, as the only landmarks were people's backyards, several cows, and the washed out roads from the previous night's rain. Not convinced that it was faster than the highway. However, I did get to break the fast with my driver and fellow passenger, which was actually quite nice. Our ceremonial pre-Korite dinner consisted of bananas, bread, and cafe Touba, which is a spicy coffee made with pepper, maybe. Two hours and several kilometers later, seeing that we probably weren't going to move for at least 20 minutes, my driver got out of the car to smoke a cigarette. I guess he wasn't satisfied with all the diesel fumes from the many many minibuses and trucks that threatened to crush our little taxi at any minute.

(Patty and Carl have now moved on to the Black Eyed Peas. Screw it, I'm watching True Blood without headphones. Carl just gave Patty a foot massage. Still a public space.)

In the end, it took 5 hours instead of the usual 2.5 to get to Popenguine, which is at most 35 miles from Dakar, but it was pretty much worth it because that far out of the city the sky is clear enough to see the Milky Way. Coming back to Dakar on Sunday, from the Sine-Saloum delta further south near the border with the Gambia, took 6 hours. Events of the trip back include a lunch of canned peas and approximately 20 mosquito bites. Upon arrival in Dakar, the car broke down. Despite my fear of flying, and my greater fear of flying on Air Burkina, I'm quite looking forward to non-car travel tomorrow.

Signing off now, as Time apparently does not believe in anything other than mood lighting, and my headache is not being helped by the Senegalese rap videos that Patty and Carl are currently showing me. Next time (maybe) from halfway across West Africa, i.e. the distance from Philadelphia to Chicago. Africa is big!

Oh, language!

Currently sitting in Time's Cafe to surf the web, as episode seven of Celebrity Deathmatch: Rainy Season v. Leaky Roof is called "I Woke Up on Friday and My Modem was Sitting in a Puddle." At first I thought the possessive in the name of this cafe was another "Oh, you!" malapropism, but judging by the well-intentioned attempt at retro Americana decor (John Lennon poster next to Rosie the Riveter poster next to Rolling Stones poster, all above vaguely dinerish furniture), it may actually be that the owner really wanted to give time a restaurant of it's very own. Next up: Space's Cafe, featuring fifty years' worth of broken satellites hanging from the ceiling and lots of Dippin' Dots served by furtive looking cosmonauts.

The pizza here, made with real mozzarella cheese, was much superior to the pizza I had last weekend, which was made with emmental cheese, i.e. Swiss, i.e. gross. Both pizzas were served with the option of mustard, ketchup, and hot sauce. Only the ketchup actually tasted as it should (America!), but then I realized I was eating pizza with ketchup, so that was the end of that.

(Currently on the sound system: Rock Around the Clock remixed with various Elvis tunes, followed by Fleetwood Mac. Time, you're confusing me.)

Now that this weekend's pizza has surpassed last weekend's pizza, I hope that the prostitutes I saw last weekend, who mostly just seduced themselves by dancing in Electric Slide formation in front of a mirror at an Atlantic City-esque bar called Calypso, will similarly be outshone by whatever tonight has to offer. I expect the Cha Cha Slide in Vegas.

Attack of the Europeans

Apologies for the lapse in posts. I've been too busy watching True Blood and getting my cuts infected.

Tonight I had an epic expat experience. Ultimate Frisbee on the impeccably groomed athletic field of the international school, where the site of the sunset over the surrounding trees hid the dust and the noise and the poverty that lay outside. Wish I had a picture, but I've also been very busy breaking my camera. The American guy who organized the venture had the booming voice of an ex-military man and the white mustache of a Southern plantation owner. Imagine Colonel Sanders in a cut-off t-shirt. Although the participants were of all levels, the action got fairly competitive, to the point where the women were mostly just running up and down without much acknowledgement from the men. I was stuck with guarding a feisty 12-year-old, so I took pity on his short stature and let him score a couple times. Didn't want to run the poor kid over and all that. I did have a sick defensive block that would have been even sicker if it hadn't been caught by the other team. I'm over it.

Last weekend I ventured down to Popenguine, a village south of Dakar with beautiful beach houses for rent. In addition to being a legitimate village, and not a beach resort town, Popenguine's claim to fame is that it is the site of an appearance of the Virgin Mary approximately a hundred years ago. People from all over now make pilgrimages to the village, including Pope John Paul II. Well, when he was alive. Let's not spread rumors! The paintings in the church depicted some hard-hitting truths: Jesus and his disciples were not white. They were Senegalese. Popenguine was also the sight of some potential French-German skirmishes during World War II, and the hills around the village still have concrete French bunkers built into them. Standing on the top of these hills, during the rainy season when nature is actually green and populated areas are few and far between, it was quite easy to imagine why explorers would hit upon this land and want to take it over. Meaning that they must have all landed between July and October. From November to June, all explorers reaching the Western coast of Africa and deciding to stay were clearly just running away from their in-laws.

Real Life

I know I haven't been posting more than once a week, but something happened today that is surprisingly more exciting than a pillowcase that opens sideways. I'll spare the details for the more squeamish audience members, but the short story is that I was poking around at what I thought was a fly bite, and I managed to pop out this bugger:

Yes, it was alive. Yes, it started wriggling and growing to about a centimeter once it was on the ground. Yes, it left a millimeter-sized hole above my right butt cheek. (Look at all these metric units! Soon I'll be measuring distances by actual distance instead of time, amirite?) After my initial yelp of fright, I started laughing out of pure shock, much like the time I got a $200 speeding ticket. However, I have since been having PTSD flashbacks of The Birth, and I will now have to sleep with a nightlight. Turns out these worms come from dogs and the beach, so as long as I stay away from sand during my entire year in this coastal city, I should be fine.

On the plus side, this incident has now brought me a new friend. I've now seen the same doctor three times in one week for green onion-induced heartburn, a leg infection from a spinning class gone wrong, and a baby blood-sucking parasite. When he left today, he said, "See you in 15 days." I expect a dinner invitation within the week.

Ripley's Believe it or Not

On Thursday I made a big purchase in my journey toward turning a bland apartment with a leaking roof into a comfortable living space. I went to Orca, the Dakar equivalent of Ikea, where I was greeted by a giant inflatable Orca whale that would have made a lovely stand-in for a garden gnome (which Orca also sold). Instead, I opted for a new pillow and pillowcase. But when I got home, I found that this pillowcase had something truly bizarre about it, something more bizarre than the hormone-driven mating rituals of the Lebanese gym community and that gave me a good 30 seconds of confusion. The pillowcase opened lengthwise. What?!

In other news, also on Thursday, a Senegalese telecom monopoly decided to shut off internet to the whole country. That's right. The Whole Country. Also all international phone calls. Miraculously the shutoff lasted less than 24 hours. But, this is on top of the fact that many West African countries have already suspended phone service to Senegal because of the high prices charged by the new telecom company owned by the president's son. Did I mention that no one is allowed to own more than 50% in any real estate venture that the president's son is involved in? And to think people are complaining about Sasha's expensive trip to Spain.

Hit the Deck

This week I learned that the United Nations loves mandatory training seminars.

My week began with a CD-ROM course called "Basic Safety in the Field--Staff Safety." Now, to most people sitting in the headquarters of any international organization in Washington or New York, being in Africa in any capacity is considered being "in the field." That is, if I'm in Senegal, surely I'm in direct contact with the starving people who receive WFP's food rations all the time, and I'm also probably living in a tent with no running water. False. (See previous post in which I reveal that I have a real toilet.)

Therefore, most of this Basic Safety course involved recommendations for what to do when confronted with land mines, child soldiers at checkpoints, gun fights, kidnappers, violent demonstrations and rioting, or any combination of the above. While it's true that living in Dakar presents the same hazards as any city--theft, auto accidents, asphyxiation from lack of greenery--I have a very minimal chance of encountering any of the dangers that would require me to crawl to the nearest cover or insist on my rights as a humanitarian worker. Nevertheless, after the course, I left the office believing that I would be blown up and/or ambushed by one of several vegetable ladies before the end of my ten minute walk home. And, if I actually leave Dakar, I have to take "Advanced Safety Training," which will probably advise me to stay out of areas where machetes tend to fall from the sky.

As if two hours spent on a program designed in the early 90s and embellished with Word Art and staged hijackings wasn't enough, yesterday I had to spend another two hours at a security workshop, held in French, in which the only words I understood were "white woman" and "terrorist."

Today, in what I assume will not be the end of my mandatory trainings, I attended a seminar on the proper and careful use of a tool that will vastly increasing the security of all WFP Dakar staff members, one that will avoid hours of needless pain and suffering in the face of a crash, fire, gun fight, violent demonstration, or kidnapping:

This afternoon, I spent 45 minutes learning how to use an external hard drive.

[Update, 7/30: Okay, I admit it. I just had to call IT to have them help me set up the hard drive.]

Apocalypse

You know it's the rainy season when:

a) You wake up to a cool morning, so you suppose it must have rained the night before.

b) It begins to drizzle one night on the windshield of your taxi.

c) 15 seconds after leaving your apartment for work, it's suddenly 1992 and you're in the middle of Hurricane Andrew, and 15 seconds after that the entire street has turned into six inches of white water rapids, except the rapids are brown, so your feet are dirty for two days.

Hint: It's not called the "fresh as spring dew and buttercups season."

As a white person in Dakar, having a look of slight confusion sometimes leads to men in the marketplace accosting you, bringing you to their buddy's store which they swear has exactly what you want for a good price, leading you all over the market so that when you come back to the buddy's store three times you think it's different each time, and endowing you with a Senegalese name (Maty) that also belongs to some beloved female relative.

In the middle of a West African Rain, however, being white and slightly confused can also lead to much kindness and generosity. Thus, I took 30 minutes out of my 10 minute walk to work to sit on a bench offered to me by a security guard inside a doorway, where I chatted with the guard's friend about how the local name of the rainy season is simply "August, and sometimes September." Eventually I decided to brave the floods, with only a rain jacket and a tiny umbrella that seemed like a great idea when I was packing light. When I finally arrived to work, wringing out the bottom half of my dry clean-only dress, I endured smiles and knowing looks from those whose knowledge of Senegal and Rain exceeded what I had learned in the first ten pages of my guide book.

On the plus side, the guard and I now say hi every day. Best. Friends.

America

Yesterday morning, I found myself (well, let's be honest, it was a bit more purposeful than that) listening to the blasting beats of a spin class, on a treadmill in an air-conditioned gym populated by sweaty, short-shorts wearing Lebanese men, overlooking a palm tree-lined swimming pool and jet skiers on the ocean. Point being, for those of you who were legitimately surprised that my toilet is "Western" and not a hole in the floor, I'm living in the most developed city in West Africa, dammit, traffic lights or no traffic lights.

In other news, as everyone knows, Africans love Obama. They love him enough to put him on their chocolates, along with other ambiguous world leaders and an insignia that looks strangely like that of the University Cottage Club.

"Je voudrais le chocolat avec Obama."

Nod. Smile. Nod. General indications of comprehension, though perhaps I should have known better by the amount of nodding and smiling I've been doing in the last week.

Not only is this balding, Soviet man not Barack Obama, but he also tasted vaguely of Play-doh.

Cockroach kill count: 7

(This post is dedicated to Justin Bieber, whose dance-mixed beats in a taxi last night made me feel right at home.)

My first week in Dakar was spent accompanying the previous PiAf fellow and Disney Princess Callie around the office and around town. Not only am I taking over Callie's apartment, job, and phone, but, according to my boss, Malek, our names rhyme, and we're both from the same state, Philadelphia. The Commonwealth of Brotherly Love. Does that mean that Will Smith is actually from Pittsburgh?

Highlights of the week included a trip to the European supermarket Casino (chips on red if you think the power will stay on; ah, too bad, red!); yoga in a beautiful Canadian embassy apartment that overlooks the city, accompanied by Angel and Grace cards for daily motivation; 30 minutes of Malek giving his amateur analysis of the 1982 World Cup; several compliments on my French, generally in the context of someone trying to sell me something; my first date with Pepto Bismol, with whom I envision a long and happy life; a successful bartering for some shoes that I'm not sure I even really like; 5:30 am calls to prayers from the mosque across the street; and several meals at the French Cultural Center, an oasis of greenery and The West in the middle of the city that induces the sensation of a Banana Republic-esque escape from The Other, and by The Other I mean last season's front-pleat chinos. One more post that references fashion, and I'll be able to write for ELLE.

Oh, and sweat. Tons o' sweat. Don't complain to me, East Coasters; in two months you'll be feeling the autumn air, and I'll still be struggling to keep cool in a Muslim country where I can't wear shorts. My life is super hard.

To end, a picture of an ambiguous sheep/goat that did not appreciate that Callie and I had taken a wrong turn into his 'hood.

I've got a new haircut, so I guess I'm ready

T-minus 24 hours until I leave for Dakar for my year-long Princeton in Africa fellowship with the West Africa Regional Bureau of the World Food Programme. T-minus 24.25 hours until I realize I left my passport, glasses, and/or money at home.

Another essential item is the mosquito net, inspired by the Spring 2010 Rag & Bone camouflage anorak and perfect for reading the magazine that you somehow managed to make room for among more important things like full denim outfits.

Let's hope my apartment has a green screen as good as this one.