Host family and Home life

There are three neighborhoods where the students live, and I live in the one that is furthest away from the school called Ouakam. I take the bus to school, and most of the time they get so full that you’re literally pushed up against 3 or 4 armpits at a time, or literally hanging out the door.

Ouakam is a lot more like I imagined Dakar to be before coming. The first time I came to Ouakam the first thing I noticed was all the garbage everywhere, how things were generally falling apart, etc. People don’t really have garbages, and there really isn’t a good garbage system in this country. They just have little tiny black plastic bags that they fill up and then throw outside and maybe someone will come get it. I think there’s a truck that comes by sometimes and picks up trash. The other day I ate a banana, and walked around with it all day cause I couldn’t find a trash can. Then I realized that the ground was the trash can and that is where you’re supposed to put it. It’s just all over the streets, but you get used to it after a while.

There are a lot of things that you just get used to once you live here for a while. You stop noticing the garbage as much and start noticing other things like how awesome the people are! People are super friendly and everyone knows everyone. On my way to school I see tons of familiar faces on the way, shake their hand and have a short conversation. There are cows, goats, cats and dogs that just kinda hang out in the street too. In the morning on my way to the bus I usually pass two or three cows just chillin in the middle of the road. I keep wanting to pet the stray dogs and cats but everyone says that’s a bad idea.

I love my host family, my host mom has such a warm personality, my host Dad is super nice, and I have a sister who is 27 and a cousin that lives with us who is 21. It took me a month to figure out that my cousin wasn’t my sister, and it was hard to know who lived there at first because in Senegal people come and go from each others homes a lot. You don’t really have to be invited over, you just drop by whenever you want. Tea is also a big deal here, there is this Senegalese tea that is served in tiny cups and it's served in rounds. There’s a whole culture just around the tea and it's something people do a lot when entertaining or passing time. I have three other siblings that don't live at the house but come visit sometimes. This picture is my adorable 2 month old niece.

Here there is a very natural progression of friendship. Families don’t drill you with questions like Americans would do with a guest, but treat you like you’ve been living in the house for a while. The director in our program was telling us all to be aware of this and not to feel like they don’t care about us or that they’re ignoring us. At first it was a little awkward at home, because I didn’t know what to do with myself, cause my family was usually at either usually watching TV or praying. My family is Muslim so they pray five times a day, and I live right next to a Mosque so I hear the call of prayer a lot. I hear it particularly well at 5 in the morning so that’s fun. The call of prayer is just a chant that goes on a speaker and you can hear it throughout parts of the city at certain times of day. Usually when I’m home I try to spend time with my family so I just go to the living room area and chat to my family members while the TV is on. Senegalese houses usually always have either a soccer game on, or a really bad Soap opera with French voiceovers. Lutte is probably the most popular sport here; it’s a kind of wrestling sport but it has a lot of other ceremonial things that go along with it like dancing, singing, and other rituals like people pouring milk on themselves. There was a big game on the other day and everyone in Dakar was watching it and when we won, the whole city went crazy. most households have a maid that does all of the cleaning and cooking, butt they are treated often like part of the family. Our maid doesn’t speak French so I’m trying to learn Wolof fast so that I can have more conversations with her, but right now all I really have down are basic greetings and phrases. She’s usually here in the morning and I go in the kitchen and speak really bad Wolof with her. Sometimes I go in there and ground spices while pointing to things and using sign language to communicate. I had an awkward and slightly insensitive moment the other day though when I was trying to ask my maid if she knew where the nearest ATM was in Ouakam. I pulled out my debit card and tried to say bank in Wolof and acted out getting money out of an ATM. She didn’t seem to understand, and when my sister came in I asked her to translate for me from French to wolof, and she said that my maid doesn’t understand what a bank card is. I think most of the maids here come from poorer families and don't have as much access to things like education. 

Bathrooms are another a very different experience in Senegal than in the United States. I take a shower with a bucket and a hose, and when you shower you also wash you’re your underwear and socks at the same time. Most families have someone that comes and does the laundry once every couple weeks, but you have to do your own socks and underwear. If I want hot water then I heat it up on the stove and put it in a bucket and add cold water to it. There is no toilet paper, you just use a hose and a hand (hence why you aren’t supposed to eat with your left hand). I get to take showers with cockroaches or lizards sometimes so that’s new. Roaches are so much scarier and faster then I thought they’d be! My host Dad sprays stuff all over the house but you have to walk outside a little to get to the bathroom, so there are a lot of cockroaches that creep over the neighbors fence and hang out in the bathroom. My host mom said that the first cockroach I saw came because he wanted to greet me and welcome me to Senegal. I really don't mind though, I want to live the daily realities that people experience here living in Senegal and that’s just another part of it! I have a mosquito net on my bed that keeps them out when I sleep, cause it’s mostly at night when they come out the most. The other day I walked at night though from Mermoz to Ouakam and my feet and legs were eaten alive!!

Ceebu Jen: National Senegalese Dish that I eat for lunch at least 3 times a week 

My body is just rejecting things right now and doesn’t really understand whats going on. My hair is doing weird things with the weather, my digestion is different, I got these weird sores all over my tongue too but that went away. Last week I ate something bad (my dad thinks it was a shrimp that wasn’t properly prepared) and I was super sick all week, but the doctor came and gave me drugs and now I’m all better!

Eating here is very different then back home. I eat mostly carbs... all the time. Lots of fish, and this onion sauce that they eat on everything that is SO good, and some veggies at dinner. I only buy fruits that you can peel when I go to fruitstands because you have to wash it in this bleach water otherwise. In my family we eat on a low table around a common bowl. Often times there will be entire fishes eyeballs and all, that we pick apart with our hands and spit the bones out as you get them. It’s all presented beautifully though in the round dish and everything is distributed evenly. You never eat with your left hand (you also never shake hands with your left hand), you stay in your section of the bowl, don’t compliment the food until towards the end, and when you start getting full it’s a good idea to compliment it and say you’re full about five minutes before you want to stop, cause they’ll keep insisting that you keep eating… At the end of the meal you lick your hands clean and then wash up. My host Mom always pushes more food into my section of the bowl as I eat, so I don’t really know how much I’m eating ever. She says I need to eat well so that I can gain some weight before I return to the US, that way everyone will know that while I was in Senegal I was well fed. It’s actually considered a compliment if someone calls you round, or says your looking larger than usual. In Senegal, they actually prefer heavier women. They have a much healthier mentality about body image than Americans do. I’m still getting used to eating a small breakfast and then a huge lunch at 2 or 3 and a huge dinner at 10pm. At home I’m used to grazing throughout the day, but here I feel like each meal I am supposed to load up as much as I can so I can store some for later since I won’t be eating again for a while. For breakfast I eat baguette every morning with this chocolate sauce that’s kind of like nutella, but more liquidy and made with peanuts (which are very famous in Senegal.) I can feel myself starting to get bigger already so I’m trying to run a lot, but I guess gaining weight is all part of the experience, and all part of my Mom’s grand plan of showing me good hospitality.