Nangendeff! Bonjour, and Hello from Senegal!

(Sorry there are no pictures yet and sorry about the ugly layout of this page at the moment, Ill add pictures to this post as soon as I take some and the layout will look pretty as soon as I have time to fix it!)

After four long flights (three continents in less than 24 hours!!) I finally arrived in Dakar to a busy airport, a perfect 75 degree day, blue skys, and an environment that is completely different then back home. I have been here for a few days now, and so much has happened already! There have been so many people to meet, so many things going on and so much to take in. Everything here is so different, and so culturally rich. The idea of trying to document everything I’m doing sounds very overwhelming and impossible, so I’m going to do my best to make this blog as interesting as possible without writing a novel for each post, or without going into too much un necessary amount of detail about every little thing…

First things first, here are some of my immediate first impresions after coming out of the airport

Holy oIDJWLDKJADLAKDJA I’m in Africa! Wait is this real? 

I'm soo excited on the inside, but I have been awake for too long to show signs of excitement so I hope nobody thinks I'm bored or unenthusiastic...

Oh my god everyone is so beautiful and colorful!

It is so warm and the sky is blue and I'm wearing flip flops and I'm not freezing!

I want one of their colorful buses

Wait, there are people standing in the back of the bus but there is no door.. Oh but I guess that’s not that crazy after you look at the ten people sitting on TOP of the bus while it’s in motion.

the city was actually a lot cleaner than I thought. In the city you also don’t see as much intense poverty as I expected to see. I expected there to be a lot more people begging and on the streets.

Everyone greets eachother and smiles at you! Unlike in America when people often avoid eye contact with eachother…

Another thing I noticed is how so many people are just outside hanging out. There are so many kids playing and people just hanging outside enjoying eachother’s company in their spare time. As my new friend says which you’ll read about further down, Senegal is a stress free country, and they enjoy life and are very happy! Its interesting to see their attitude, and then think of how stressed out, busy and task oriented people in America tend to be, and how for some reason people feel guilty for enjoying ourselves too much.

All of the people in my program are super nice, and I love the program staff! There are about 45 students in the program and the staff is all Senegalese except for one woman who is American but lives in Senegal now. I can tell that over the course of the semester we will all become a tight group, Or like our program director, Serigne, says, we will become a big Senegalese family! This whole first week is orientation week, so we’re staying in a really adorable hotel with the other students that is pretty close to the study center. The study center has an open roof/balcony on the top floor that we have been eating our meals on that overlooks part of the city, and it's sunny and just kind of ridiculously amazing. The food up there is cooked by Senegalese and has been so far so good! The food is lots of simple carbs like bread and rice, and then lots of meat and fish, with yummy sauces. Oh and don’t forget about onions. I think I’ll be having a very close relationship with onions this semester. They give such big portions though and it’s kind of rude to not eat it all so I’m loading up on carbs over here, Its great! Also when people call you round, they mean it as a compliment. In Senegal, to be bigger is actually considered more attractive, because it shows that you’re getting enough food and are healthy. And it’s actually true! All those heavier Senegalese women with all their beautiful colorful clothing are absolutely stunning! I'm kind of worried about when I'm going to get hit with the "Dakaria..." apparently it happens to everyone at some point...

This whole week we’ve been learning about cultural customs, proper dining etiquette (or proper eating on the floor with your hands etiquette) and learning about the Senegalese values and pretty much how to live here in Dakar. It’s really nice knowing a little before we move into our host families tomorrow, because there are so many things I probably would have done that would not have been acceptable; for example, complimenting someone on a trait or skill is bad. If you tell someone they are a really good soccer player, then if they have a bad game, they will think that you cursed them and that now they have an evil spirit with them or something and it's your fault. We also had our French placement assessment and have been doing roleplays of safety scenarios to be aware of, “what to do if…” situations, and more fun stuff. I think tomorrow we're going out in groups and have to ask locals about things in Wolof and then come back and discuss how it went with eachother. We'll see how that goes!

I am slowly learning Wolof, but the words are really hard to remember cause they’re really long and really foreign. When you talk to people they actually switch back and forth between the two a lot, and sometimes when people greet me in the street, it takes me about 5 long awkward seconds to figure out how to reply in Wolof. French is always the go-to language though since most people at least speak it as their second language if not their first. Some people will walk by you and realize that you’re American and will want to speak English so they say something like “Hello how are you very nice!”

One of my favorite parts of this country so far is their wonderful welcoming hospitality! “Teranga,” is a word that means Senegalese hospitality (“Ter” – helping someone to ‘land’ and ‘Gan’ – guest) People here are just soo nice and kind. It's not fakey either, you know those people who say "Heyyy how are you!?" but you know that really they don't actually care that much how you are. But here, people shake your hand for a reallllly long time, smile at you with their eyes and their spirit and their whole face, and ask how you are and then they ask again a few seconds later. And then they'll ask about your family and all the while their smiling from ear to ear. This isn't what everyone does when you just pass them, but if you stop and talk to someone then this is what tends to happen. I noticed this niceness before even arriving in Senegal, when I met a Senegalese man in the airport. He chatted with me in the waiting room and he was so nice, and wanted to make sure that I knew where I was going and how to take care of my visa when I got to the airport. For some reason when people you don’t know come up and are "too" nice in America, it’s a little bit strange and you think there must be something wrong with them, but here it’s absolutely wonderful and not creepy or weird at all. When some friends and I were walking in this neighborhood on the first day, we were invited to dinner at a Senegalese woman’s house. And then when we went running on the beach, a Senegalese man told us to come back and he would grill us fish on the beach! This Teranga value is a traditional value in the Senegalese culture, and it’s more than just a value but a philosophical code, and it’s not even really an option, but a duty. Apparently Senegal is the fifth most welcoming and hospitable country in the world! A man that we had a cultural orientation with today was telling us about how Teranga is based on a belief that if a mother reaches out and helps a visitor, then that will ensure that her children will always have support when they go somewhere. Also if you are poorer and don’t have enough to feed guests, then you ask the neighbors and they will help.

   When a group of us on the program went running, this Senegalese guy I just mentioned came over from running back and forth on the beach, shook our hands about a thousand times, and then taught us some Wolof phrases. Then he said that stress is a disease, like smoking. He said that in Senegal we don’t steal or do bad, that love and peace are the best things. We spent some time with him and joked around, and then he said that next time he will bring a grill to the beach and make us all fish! And then he gave us his number and asked for our number, and so I gave him mine which I realized was probably stupid, and he said he would call us so that we could have fish together. I would never have done that in the states, but here everyone is so nice that I don’t really know if that is a normal way to meet people or not…But maybe I shouldn’t have done that because then he pulled me aside and told me with a huge smile on his face that he sees me in his heart, that I should take a taxi and give the driver his phone number and come and see him and we can make a fish. My initial reaction was oh no… he thinks I’m interested, what is the appropriate way to turn someone down here but not be rude or offensive? And how do you make friends without them thinking you want to date them? Especially since the Senegalese love to go out of their way to be hospitable and make you feel welcome, the last thing you want to do is reject that hospitality. The thing is that in the US, if someone in the street invites you over for dinner and starts talking to you, generally you typically keep walking or ignore them. But here, it’s not the case.  And it’s hard to know what is an appropriate response to getting approached all the time, when to know when it’s friendly and when to draw the line. Most of the time they are well intentioned and so nice, it’s just hard to know when someone is hoping that you’ll be their wife and when it’s just Teranga.

Dakar is on the coast and the beach is absolutely gorgeous! And it’s not just a beach… it also seems to be a gym! I’m really excited about the fact that at least half of the people in my program like to go running, and there is this long strip along the water called the Corniche, and it’s a great place to run. This whole city is actually a great place to run. On the beach, there are groups of over a hundred guys (I saw maybe two women) who just run back and forth and will do squat jumps across the beach and then go back and forth and repeat it several times. Then along the beach there are these stations that look like little playgrounds, but they’re actually a bunch of exercise machines. I’m really excited to get more into running and be able to run more than a couple miles at a time consistently without dying! I think somewhere in my head I am more motivated to run here because I associate Africa with people who run really fast so it kinda just makes sense, right? And it’s great to have so many people around me who want to run too.

It’s so exciting to go somewhere so incredibly different then I’m used to. I love going to places that are challenging or outside of my comfort zone, cause they’re the experiences where you learn not just about the values and culture of the place, but you are able to see your own culture and values more clearly and see how they differ from and are similar to other cultures.  We have been talking about this metaphor called the avalanche, where basically on the top of the avalange, you have the surface aspects of a culture - the superficial or face value, or behaviors that you see (ie: thoughts, words, actions, stereotypes). For instance, when people think of America they might think of big companies, fast food, capitalism, cowboys, guns, freedom, the American dream, movies, Hollywood, etc. But underneath that, or the bottom of the avalanche which takes up most of it, are the values, assumptions, and beliefs that are present in our culture that influence and shape those behaviors above. Being aware of the importance of understanding the “why” behind everything you see on surface level, or being able to question your immediate impressions and responses of an un familar behavior or aspect of their culture, is crucial to understanding and living in somewhere that is so different. Without understanding the values behind someone’s behavior, or the WHY behind it, then you can never really understand without judgement why things are they way they are, or why people behave the way they do. It also makes it hard to appreciate the culture, or know the appropriate way to respond and interact with people. I am going to try to keep reminding myself when I have impressions about things here, to constantly think about what the nature is behind the way it seems to be on the surface. And to remember that my immediate reactions and judgements are products of my own western cultural lens; and that when I judge anything or form an opinion about something, to remember that that opinion is based on my own culture’s set of values. So in order to try and understand theirs, I have to take off my western glasses and not judge it as either right or wrong, but just as different, and respect that. This also makes it easier to understand my own values based on my ractions, and see how my social and cultural background influences my behavior and how I see the world.

So on a random note, everyone is on a malaria medication for prevention, but one of them (Larium) gives some people paranoia and causes them to have crazy dreams and pretty much go psycho. It’s the cheapest one though (When given the choice between $270 compared to $2400.. I thought I’d take the crazy dreams) and you only have to take it once a week instead of every day which is nice. I guess some people start just freaking out and get really angry and don’t believe that anything is wrong with them. My doctor said I should be fine, but once I got here I found out that apparently this malaria medication is banned in a few countries and our program assistant was discouraging against it because of the fact that we are already in a very different, higher stress environment than we’re used to, and to add a pill on top of that which could cause more anxiety might not be the smartest thing ever. So I’m in the process of trying to figure out if I should switch or not…

I think this is a little too long so I’m going to cut it off here.. but stay tuned for more details on the food etiquette, senegalese values, goals and academics, and host family meeting tomorrow!