I have a dream

This week one of the sessions in the girls' empowerment program was devoted to thinking about dreams. In the session the girls reflected on different kinds of questions: What is a dream? Why are dreams important? What are my dreams?

The idea was to get the girls thinking about their hopes for the future. If one has a dream, the logic of the session goes, one can begin to envision the steps one needs to take in order to make one's dream come true. Since these are girls who have minimal schooling, many of them have been taught that their main calling in life is housework and child care. If they could dream up a future for themselves, what might it look like?

To help the girls start thinking about goals that they might pursue, the group leaders read an excerpt from the "I have a dream" speech that was translated into Wolof. (This was not an easy passage to follow, but hopefully the 13-16 year olds have a better Wolof vocabulary than I do.) After we discussed the speech, the girls were told to close their eyes and imagine themselves at age 40. What memory would make them the happiest? What would they have liked to achieved? What would they have done that they would be proud of?

Each of the sixteen girls drew a picture of her three answers, and then they shared their dreams with the rest of the group. Perhaps this shouldn't have been surprising, but I found the similarity in the girls' answers striking. Three themes emerged as the runaway winners: studying and getting a diploma (14 girls mentioned this), sending one or both parents to Mecca (10 girls), and building their parents a house (9 girls). About ten girls also mentioned having some kind of career aspiration, from just "working" (2) to being President or Mayor (5).

Without reading too much into the exercise, it is obvious that almost every girl wishes she had been able to attend school. Some of them have never attended, while others went for a few years before they were pulled out to help with housework, or because "girls don't need to go far in school since they are just going to become wives and mothers." Each girl who completes the empowerment program will be recognized at the year end ceremony next July. I've been told that every year there are proud tears as the girls receive their diplomas.

The other clear message is how much social status and recognition comes from doing right by one's parents. Sending your mother to Mecca, or building a house for your father, is a clear sign of a good son or daughter who puts the needs of others (particularly parents) first. Perhaps this is not a radical path to girls' empowerment, but these girls have definitely learned what is valued by their society and culture.

Perhaps most interesting was the brainstorming session about how to begin working to make their dreams come true. My favorite answers: be determined, respect yourself, get up early, don't sleep until the sun is high in the sky, be ready to work hard and sweat, and don't get married too young. Words to live by. You go girls!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I certainly have nothing against Christmas, but one of the nice things about being in another cultural space is that one gets to embrace a totally different events calendar. Who needs Halloween and Christmas when we've got Tabaski and Tamxarit and even Magal Touba?

We hadn't planned on doing much for Christmas, and we still don't have any definite plans for he 24th and 25th, but I was mistaken if I thought that Christmas would pass by largely unseen here. Although only 5% of the population is Christian, Senegal seems to have fully embraced Christmas (at least the version with Santa Claus, Christmas trees, tinsel, and lots of cheap plastic crap for kids).



One of the earliest signs of the season was the ambulatory artificial tree salesmen. Not only do they carry artificial trees around, but they often have long strings of tinsel wrapped around their necks. This makes for quite a festive scene.



The fancy Casino grocery stores are selling real (real!) Christmas trees at a variety of prices, from $25 to $500.There has also been a glut of inflatable Santas in a variety of sizes being sold all around Dakar. I was in an elementary school yesterday, and the classroom I was in had a tiny tree with a single bow on it. In the school's corridor an inflatable Santa was hung up by the neck, which made him look a little bit like he had been lynched. Poor Santa.




I'll need to start doing some research to find out how best to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Dakar. Stay tuned for more holiday updates.

Two dozen interviews down...dozens to go

Between the two of us my research assistant and I have conducted about two dozen interviews over the past month. (When all is said and done, we hope to have a sample of around 80 women, some of whom we will interview more than once, so a ballpark grand total of about 160 interviews).

There are of course many pros and cons to using interviews as a research strategy. On the plus side, if you have worked hard on your questions, and you continue to refine them over the course of your field work period, you are able to ask direct questions that get at exactly what you want to know. On the down side, interviews are a very artificial form of communication. No matter how much you try to put a person at ease, it is just not a normal style of conversation when one person is asking all the questions and recording everything.

Another down side, and one that we are struggling with, is that people are often unwilling or unable to give full, truthful answers to our questions. (Hence the importance of field notes in which you write down what people actually do and say in more informal interactions, instead of relying solely on their own accounts of their actions).

In this first round we are interviewing a lot of people we know, so we have a pretty good idea of what they are omitting. By far the most difficult thing is for unmarried women to admit that they have had sex. The "good girl" ideology is so powerful here (and good girls, of course, don't have sex before marriage) that even girls who we know have multiple boyfriends who they use for different things (money, going to clubs, eating in restaurants) are still unable to discuss sex directly. They will tell us that they think about 80% of young women sleep with their boyfriends, but not them of course. I haven't decided what to do about this methodological conundrum. The interviews in which women have actually recounted their sexual experiences, and there are several, are worth their weight in gold.

We are still polishing our interview guides, but we have a few gems among our questions. Among my favorites: What advice would you give to a friend who was about to get married? This question brings out all kinds of answers that touch on what kinds of behavior society expects from married women, but also the inevitable disappointments that marriage brings and how to cope with them.

Questions about polygamy and relations among co-wives also generate a lot of interesting responses. Some women are convinced that polygamy never works, while others contend that it is no big deal as long as you have confidence in yourself and your own relationship with your husband. As one woman reasoned, "no woman is the second wife in the bedroom." Words to live by, if you find yourself with a co-wife that is.

Post-Tabaski update

It was bloody. It was gory. It was Tabaski. According to some estimates around 650,000 sheep were killed in Senegal last Saturday for the "Fete d'Abraham." People ordered sheep from the rural areas to be sent to them, bought them in their own neighborhoods (expensive if you live in Dakar or environs), and sometimes even traveled with their sheep from one part of the country to another.

We made it out of town two days before the holiday, which still made for lots of chaos and jockeying trying to get out of the city. Once we hit the main roads things were fine, but we found all the pre-holiday congestion and last-minute shopping in Saint Louis that you would find in any American city the day before Christmas.

On the day of Tabaski we arrived at our friends' house just as the 9:15am prayer was getting started. Most men go to the mosque for the holiday prayer, then head home to start sharpening their knives and gearing up for the slaughter. You have to wait until you get word that your imam has killed his sheep first, and then you can proceed to kill your own.



We got the green light slightly before 10am, and our friend M was ready to go. Assisted by his 25 year old and 10 year old nephews, M expertly cut the sheep's throat, drained most of the blood, and then proceeded to skin and butcher it. Although the actual moment of death is a bit harrowing (I actually thought A might keel over, much to the amusement of all the kids watching him gape in horror at the whole thing), once the sheep is dead the butchering process quickly becomes more like a science project. You quickly forget the drama of death and become interested in sheep anatomy.




M knows his way around a sheep, so it was fascinating to watch his strategies for getting the skin off intact, removing the forelegs and hindlegs, and then proceeding to open up the insides. About two hours later the whole process was over, and M's wife N was grilling us up a lovely late-morning brunch of fresh grilled mutton.


The day after we returned to Dakar M telephoned to say he had totally forgotten to package up one of the legs so we could bring it home with us. I told him he had already gone above and beyond the call of teranga (Senegalese hospitality) and not to worry. Besides, what do people in an apartment with a tiny freezer and a small oven do with an entire sheep leg, complete with foot and hoof?

Tabaski fever

While the rest of the world, and even my own university back in Massachusetts, has been cautiously watching the leveling off of cases of swine flu, a very different kind of fever has gripped all of Senegal. Tabaski is only six days away, and that means that if you haven't purchased your Tabaski ram yet you are beginning to get very nervous and perhaps to feel mildly ill.

Tabaski is known in most of the Muslim world as Eid-Al-Kebir. It marks the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca and is the most important holiday of the year. For those who aren't on the hajj to Mecca, the day's events revolve around sacrificing a sheep (or another animal). This religious slaughter is done in remembrance of Abraham's submission to God, which he demonstrated by willingly sacrificing his eldest son (or his second oldest, if you get the version from the Torah or the Old Testament). Lucky for Abraham, God intervened at the last minute and replaced his son with a ram, so he gets all the credit for having been willing to kill his son without actually having done so.

Fast forward a few thousand years to Senegal where the global financial crisis looms large, and yet it is unthinkable not to try to obtain the biggest, baddest, most handsome sheep you can possibly come by, even if you have to go into debt to do it. Although everyone looks forward to Tabaski (for the poorest of the poor, it is the one day of the year when they are sure to eat meat), one only has to ask, "Have you bought your sheep yet?" to unleash the anxious hand-wringing that accompanies this holiday. "Not yet" confessed one of my colleagues last Friday. "And not only that, I can't even answer my cellphone without it being some relative who needs help bankrolling the holiday. Before they can even ask me how I am I tell them I am still working on getting hold of a sheep, so they will know that I can't help them."

There is no religious obligation to slaughter a ram if it is beyond one's economic means. One year the King of Morocco sacrificed a ram on behalf of the entire country to fulfill the religious duty of those too poor to buy a sheep themselves. And yet. In Senegal keeping up appearances is almost as important as fulfilling one's religious duties. In many neighborhoods small bands of boys wander the streets in the days before Tabaski offering their opinions on the sheep tied up outside people's houses. Pity the man whose Tabaski mouton doesn't measure up to the sidewalk commentary as he will be the laughingstock of the neighborhood.

As of this writing sheep are being bused, taxied, and herded into Senegal's cities and towns in preparation for the big day. The Minister of Livestock Raising (yes, there is a Ministry of Livestock Raising) has assured the public that there will be enough sheep to go around, and that she expects Senegal to be self-sufficient in Tabaski sheep in just a few years. Viva Tabaski fever!

UPDATE: There is a sheep beauty pageant on television right now. I'm not even kidding.

Learning to drive

There are few experiences in life as utterly forgettable as learning to drive. Americans are so dependent on their cars, and adults usually spend so much time driving, that it is nearly impossible to remember the process by which one came to take driving for granted.

I counted myself in this category until just a few weeks ago when we made the purchase of our 2003 Ford Fiesta diesel with "boite standarde", i.e. stick shift. There were lots of good reasons to purchase the car, and many of them were even research-related, so it seemed a good investment in making our life easier here. One slight hitch--I never learned to drive stick.

A is an excellent driver, and he is also a very patient person, so with his reassurances that I would learn in no time we embarked on the car adventure. Before we had even purchased the car I had spotted the perfect spot to practice. One of the Catholic cemeteries here has a nice big lot, long lanes for getting up to 3rd, and some decent turns to boot.

A few days after acquiring the car (the most expensive thing we've ever bought to date and we paid in cash!) we headed to the Catholic cemetery. A, being a firm believer in the capacity of the internet to solve most of life's problems, had found a few tips from the Car Talk guys about practicing with just the clutch to get moving before learning to shift. We spent an hour driving around in circles with me putting the clutch in an out, and I realized this might not be too bad.

By lesson #3 I was zipping around the parking lot, dodging and weaving among taxis going the wrong way, horse carts pulling construction materials, mopeds, and various and sundry pedestrians who are a fact of life in Dakar driving. But was I road ready?

The first test was the long road out to the Pointe des Almadies where I managed to avoid livestock, runners, joggers, taxis, and other obstacles. After my second road lesson I was ready to forge into real Dakar traffic and get us home. This is where the real flashbacks of learning to drive kicked in--sweaty palms, clenching the steering wheel, little ability to focus on anything else besides the car itself (forget other cars, they will just have to watch out for me!), no radio, and don't even think about trying to talk to me unless it is to tell me to shift. It was just like the first time around with Mr. Swinn at the Sear's Driving School in Flint, MI.

After several outings with A as my driving coach I was ready to go on my first solo flight. My research assistant and I had planned to visit a group of young women who are part of our 20-something swingers set, and then head over to her house so that I could meet her aunt, whose network will be part of our 50-something older marrieds/divorced set. I woke up around 5am yesterday, and I was already anxious about the driving ahead. I am still at the point where when the car actually responds and goes from a dead stop into first it seems like a minor miracle. How to make this miracle happen again and again is the challenge, especially given the numerous opportunities to come to a complete standstill in Dakar traffic. (A likes to describe driving in Dakar as "Welcome to the Thunderdome.")

In spite of my jitters, which my research assistant told me to stop talking about because I was making HER nervous, we forged ahead and set off for our first destination. There was little small talk on the way but we arrived at the TIMS girls' apartment without so much as a sputter at a stop sign. I even had to drive down a few sandy lanes to park in front of their apartment building.

The next leg was much more ambitious--a good several kilometers through some of the most congested and torn up roads that the Dakar suburbs have to offer. We arrived at her house with only one major incident--getting stuck in about six inches of sand as we careened down from the main road into her aunt's neighborhood. Something about the sand made it nearly impossible to get enough acceleration to get into first without stalling, so after about four stall outs we invited the now assembled group of boys to push us through the sand. They had a terrific time telling me exactly what to do (more gas! into first now!) and they were even more pleased with the 50 cents we gave them for their services.

The last leg, my trip home sans research assistant, was the most challenging. All went well until I had to slow down on my way into a busy rotary to ask directions, and that lead to a few episodes of stalling before I was underway again. Stalling out is not in itself so terrible, but our ignition key is quite temperamental, so after the car goes off it can take up to 30 seconds of jiggling the key to get it to turn again. Since I don't seem to be able to stall out once without adding a second and a third to complete the set, the process of getting underway again can take a good several minutes. As I pointed out to A, the one advantage of Dakar traffic is that most cars are clunkers and it is entirely common to see cars broken down in the middle of rotaries, highway lanes, busy intersections, etc. I usually get a few honks and waves, but Dakar drivers are accustomed to navigating around all sorts of obstacles without any advance notice.

I had to stop once more to ask for directions (this time without stalling out) and I finally arrived home just before dusk feeling quite pleased with myself. My sense of accomplishment is undoubtedly out of proportion with the actual victory at hand, but I'll take my victories where I can find them. Next major challenge--driving after dark!

How I spent $600 on the Marine ball

Being a Fulbrighter but not quite an "official" American (i.e. an employee of the state department)is a bit like not wanting to be part of any club that would have you as a member. There are all kinds of perks that we can take advantage of, like cashing checks at the Embassy, but in most ways we are very much not of the ex-pat world here. This is just fine, but every once in a while it is intriguing to peer into the bubble to see what life is like on the other side.

The annual Marine Corps birthday ball seemed to present just the occasion for ex-pat voyeurism. It is a big annual event, most of the Embassy crowd shows up, and as my friend in the foreign service argued, "How often do you get to see a birthday cake cut with a sword?" The Embassy doctor also encouraged us to go, saying that if there was one big event to attend, this would be it. When the tickets went on sale we jumped and ponied up $160 for two tickets.

The problem with these kinds of functions is of course, what to wear? I managed to bring a few things suitable for a fancy dress party, but hubby did not bring a suit. Ten years ago you could have a very nice suit made in Dakar for around $100, but it seems that these days the price is more like $500. After crunching the numbers, we decided to order him a suit online and have it delivered to his mom, who would send it to us here. $215 later two suits were on the way to Denver. (We should have told her about this plan earlier. When the suits showed up at her house she thought it was a mistake and she was about to send them back, but we caught up with her just in time.)

We knew the next hurdle would be quite pricey, and so it was. $185 to ship the suits to Dakar via DHL. Regular blog readers know the rest of that story well, others can review the DHL saga from a previous post. Bottom line, our marine ball budget took another hit from local DHL and the Senegalese government.

The event was originally going to be at the Radisson Blu, which aside from being a swanky new hotel, is also in our neighborhood. When we purchased our tickets we chose our entrees, which I have long since forgotten, but they seemed very good at the time. Next thing we know the Embassy newsletter informs us that the venue has been changed, allowing for a "buffet dinner" and a "live band." Buffet dinner means lots of dried out hotel food, three quarters of which you have no interest in. For those who like to swing dance, live band in Dakar means that of the 20-30 songs the band is likely to play, perhaps one or two of them will be amenable to swing dancing. Yet, what to do? At this point we are officially in for over $600 and our enthusiasm for the event is beginning to flag.

There were few choices left except to attend the ball and try to have the time of our lives. We showered, shaved, blow-dried, primped, and got ourselves to the ball a fashionable 30 minutes after the start time. Where were all the people? After walking down a red carpet into the pool area of the former Club Med, we saw that there were only about 15 people there.

I would like to say that things picked up and a great time was had by all, but a more candid account would acknowledge that most of the ex-pats were standoffish, the turn-out was less than robust, and the band, while good, was a little too much Bob Marley and the Wailers meets slow Motown. Not ideal for swing dancing.

Nonetheless, we made full use of the open bar, made several trips to the buffet line, and managed to put a few other couples to shame on the dance floor. Live and learn as they say. Live and learn.

November work plan

In addition to being a huge fan of the 45 minute unit, I like to start every month off with a good to do list to keep me clear on the month's priorities. When I am feeling particularly keen on planning I also determine how many units I intend to allocate to each task in the monthly work plan. Since I am on sabbatical, after all, I don't currently feel the need to be quite so concise in the planning. Nonetheless, I do have the checklist and the month calendar up on the bulletin board above my desk.

So here it is, the month's offerings:

1. Matlaboul Fawzaini Article—resubmit by Nov. 15th
Work on revisions
Send my revisions to C
Last phone conference with C?


2. Senegal Community Dialogues-submit to African Journal of AIDS research by Dec 1
Finish revisions
Share draft with R, C, G, and A for comments
Circulate and edit draft of manuscript to partners and participants


3. Fulbright Research
Do Dial’s notes—new research questions?
Read Séduire
Meet with C
Read articles on transactional sex
Introduction to F Dial
Reconnect with Karlene
Start calling F’s contacts
Contact F Sow
Finalize interview instruments with R
R: Does initial rounds of interview with 20 somethings (married and unmarried)
R: Notes and key phrases from interviews with M and A
Meet group TIMS
Interview R’s aunt and several friends
Interview A
AWA: Set up meeting with Mme N and Dr. T
(If MSM meeting happens, get introduction to D and then follow-up by interviewing those who did the prostitution study and those who are currently working with the clandestine sex workers).
Connect with J—look up the participatory methodology she mentioned


4. MSM project
Meeting with G
Draft of strategic action plan (8 units)
Help organize next committee meeting


5. PEVF Yeumbeul
Attend training on Nov. 4th and 5th
Interview: O and F
Have conversation about pre and post test questions?
Work on interview questions for past participants and past educatrices
Meet with A (or whole team?): Coordinate a data collection strategy and calendar for interviewing past participants and former educatrices

Den mother

One of the nice things about having come here oh so long ago (17 years!) as a study abroad student is that I now have quite a lot of Senegal experience under my belt. On the down side, there are things that are funny, unusual, baffling, amazing, and even repulsive that I fail to notice anymore. Good thing hubby is along so that I can remember that sense of wonder about getting to know a new place. (Oh my God, is that man really peeing in the median!? Are people really climbing over barriers to stroll across this superhighway!? Is that boy really giving his ram a bath at the beach?!)

The current crop of college students, some of whom are K girls as I once was, are also a great source of entertainment and access into that initial experience of American friction with a new and totally different cultural setting. So far we have hosted two brunches and a few dinners for the college kids. These meals have been an occasion for them to vent, for me to offer advice (no, it really isn't okay for the kids in the house to be entering your room and rifling through your things), and to provide them with more in-depth cultural translation than they are getting from their program directors.

Unfortunately there are many cultural dilemmas that have no resolution. A huge part of living in a different culture is just learning to ignore or accept things that you really don't understand or like. On the other hand, Americans are often overly concerned with being nice and friendly, and therefore end up tolerating lots of unwanted attention that Senegalese (particularly Senegalese women) would never put up with.

For the younger "sister" who isn't giving you respect--make her do your laundry. In Senegal you have full right to boss around anyone younger than you in the family, so you can put her in her place by starting to impose the sibling hierarchy on her.

For the five-year old terror who harasses you when no one is looking--threaten physical violence until he becomes afraid of you, and don't be afraid to rat him out to the family disciplinarian if he keeps it up.

For the male "friend" who keeps trying to put the moves on you--sorry, there really is NO concept of platonic friendship here, so you either have to become his girlfriend or call things off.

There are other problems that are much more difficult to resolve. That crappy lecturer from the university who they hired to teach your Islam class? Sorry, guess you just have to put up with that. Your host mother and sister spend all day watching the TV and aren't interested in anything else? That is par for the course, so join in, read a book, or find other excuses not to spend all your time in front of the boob tube.

It is difficult to realize how much internalized knowledge you have until you are faced with questions and queries that allow you to reflect on things that have long since become intuitive. It took a decade or more to acquire all of this cultural expertise, and most of it I learned the hard way, just as they are. Thanks to all the college kids for seeking my counsel and for making me realize that while some frustrations with Senegal will never be resolved, I know a damn lot about this place.

How I spent a good part of this week...

October 29, 2009

Dear DHL,

I am writing to convey my extreme frustration and disappointment in using your shipping services to receive a package in Dakar, Senegal.

The original package was shipped from Aurora, CO on 10/19/09 tracking #3134979676. The package cost $185.00 to ship. I tracked the package through Brussels on 10/21/09, and then the package went completely off the grid. As of Monday 10/26/09, a week after the package had been shipped, there was no update online about the package’s status.

When I finally called the DHL office in Fann-Residence, Dakar, I was told that the package was in customs at the Dakar airport. Although my local phone number was available on the shipping bill, I was not informed that the package had arrived in Senegal until the following day when I was already on my way to the airport to authorize customs procedures.

At the airport I was surprised to learn that not only would Senegalese customs charge me over $100 in customs fees, but that the DHL office here would also charge me over $50 to process the package through customs. I had the option of navigating the customs process myself, but I would still have to pay DHL $50 to release the necessary paperwork to take the package through customs myself.

Having few options, I authorized DHL to process the package through customs. After waiting for another hour for this to take place, I was told that I could not pay the additional charges (76,800 CFA or $171.00) with a credit card. I had two options to pay for my package, a check drawn from BCIS, a Senegalese bank, or cash. I was furious to learn that an international company is not capable of accepting a credit card payment on a charge that was close to $200. I was obligated to leave my package at the DHL office at the Dakar airport and return with cash.

Today when I returned to pay my customs duties and DHL fees, the office processed my payment, but told me that they no longer had my package as it had been sent to the DHL office originally specified on my waybill. While inconvienent as I had already made two trips to the airport, I agreed to retrieve the package at the Fann-Residence office. When I called the Fann-Residence DHL office to confirm that I could retrieve my package, they told me that the package had not yet arrived in Senegal. When I insisted that it had arrived, and that I had already paid the customs duties on it, they told me that the package must still be at the airport.

I have now made four phone calls to the airport trying to determine the location of my package, which has now cost over $356 to send. Neither the airport office, nor the Fann-Residence office can verify the location of my package.

This is not the level of professionalism or customer service that I expected to receive from DHL. Suffice it to say that I will never use DHL’s services in the future, either domestically or internationally.

Sincerely,
One pissed off customer

Luck be a lady

Anyone who has ever dabbled in field research knows that while persistence is mandatory, a fair amount of luck and chance can make a huge difference in the ease, speed, and quality of one's research. One tries to make strategic choices, but as in life there are unanticipated twists and turns that exert a tremendous influence on short and long term outcomes.

From the first moments of conceptualizing this project I thought I would need at least one research assistant. I've had a young woman in mind for a while now, a very savvy university student who showed an intuitive knack for research and focus group facilitation when she worked for me last summer.

After e-mailing her to see if she was interested in a long-term research stint, I discovered that she is in Egypt doing a Master's in International Health. When I asked if there was anyone else she might recommend, I received the name of a potential assistant who was a former sociology student and had a "lot of field work experience."

Last Thursday I went to meet the prospective assistant at a trendy bar/restaurant near the university. She was typical of most Senegalese 27 year-olds, impeccably dressed, very poised, and best of all punctual. We chatted about her past research on garbage pickers who live at the Dakar dump and a WHO-sponsored study on female circumcision.

When I explained my research project to her, her eyes lit up and she immediately made the connection with her own peers and experiences. "I have the perfect circle of friends to start with" she said. "They are all twenty-something, working, living on their own, and using boyfriends and sex to get all kinds of things." Game on. In the course of this first conversation I learned that many of her friends are involved in all kinds of transactional sex, that she is an avid internet chatter/dater with a French boyfriend she met online, and that she can easily recruit at least half of the women I hope to include in my study.

At our second meeting she had already recruited nearly a dozen young women who are willing to talk with us over the next eight months above love, relationships, sex, and marriage. We will start with her inner circle of friends, who she says are already eager to explain to me what skilled seductresses they are. "So perhaps we should pick an evening or weekend for me to meet them," I suggested, "since they all have jobs and are busy during the day."

"Actually" she said, "mornings are better because Fatou goes to work at 3pm." When I concluded she must work in a bar or restaurant,she replied, "Well actually she works for an underground phone sex company. You know, they post photos of nude white women online in France and the calls are directed to the call center here. The guys think they are calling French women but it is really Senegalese girls working the phones." I'll be damned.

So while her first draft of interview questions needed some revision, and she isn't quite clear yet on what it means to keep field notes, I think we are going to be fine. Perhaps even better than fine. Let the data collection begin!

Because marriage is mandatory

One of the things that often surprises American visitors to Senegal, and particularly female visitors, is that one's marital status is considered to be a subject of public concern and thus is fair game for conversation with just about anyone who crosses your path. One of the first questions that women are asked in casual conversation is "how is your husband?" If you are foolish enough to answer 1) I don't have a husband 2) my husband is in the United States 3) I have a boyfriend or 4) I have no husband or boyfriend, you have effectively opened the door to any and all potential suitors. Popular opening lines include "You need a husband here and in the US" or "You need a Senegalese husband because we are so much more effective than other men."

I was reminded of the marriage mandate on Saturday when I spent the day at a back-to-school open house at the community center I am studying out in Yeumbeul. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that things always look more important if you have a tubaab in attendance, I found myself sitting at the VIP table in the front of the meeting hall. Shortly after I took my seat, I felt a gentle tap on the shoulder. I turned around to face the two sixty-something gentlemen who were seated in the row behind me.

In a very polite tone, gentleman #1 tells me that gentleman #2 wants to know if I have a "kilifa", a polite and deferential word for husband. "Ah yes" I said in response, "I do indeed have a kilifa."

"I knew it!" gentleman #2 retorted. "Anyone can see that you have a kilifa!" Although I could be mildly flattered that gentleman #2 thought I was attractive enough to be married off already, the fact is that few Senegalese women remain unmarried for long stretches of time, so it is not unsurprising for a woman of my age to be married. I joked in response that I was an old lady and so of course I was already married, and the older gentlemen clucked their agreement that yes, it was to be expected (however disappointing) that I have a husband.

The flip side of the marital-status-is-the-public's-business is that once it has been established that you are indeed another man's wife, it becomes extremely distasteful if not outright offensive to show romantic interest in you. You are effectively off limits.

This principle came into play less than 30 minutes later at the same event when the mayor of Malika, seated to my right, asked me when I was going to pay him a visit. Having no intention of ever visiting him, I nonetheless handed him my business card and said I could visit him at the time of his choosing. I was not entirely clear if his intentions were above board, but I had an inkling that he was not inviting me to see him because he had an interest in cultural anthropology.

Throughout the event the mayor watched me exchanging glances and a few comments with an American colleague (male) who was also in attendance. As soon as the event ended Mr. Mayor made a beeline for said colleague and immediately apologized. "I have made a grave mistake" he said, "I invited your wife to come visit me." Not thinking that he could have easily accepted the apology and therefore shielded me from further advances, my colleague responded, "Oh, no problem. She's not MY wife." Nonetheless, the mayor was deterred and I managed to get through the rest of the event with no further propositions or questions about my marital status.

Note to all prospective female travelers to Senegal: You do have a husband, he is in Senegal with you, and anything that Senegalese men can do, he can do better.

Three steps forward...

I knew that when I took a few days off work to entertain our guest I would lose a little bit of momentum on the research front. Nonetheless I have plenty to keep myself busy to fill in the lulls: article revisions, conference abstracts to submit, and piles and piles of reading relevant to this new project that I need to plow through during the eight months here.

In spite of no shortage of things to do, this week I can't help feeling a bit done in by the slow, slow, slow forward motion that seems to characterize most of life here, or at least my life at the moment.

On the three steps foward front:
Caught up with an old colleague who has a fascinating relationship history and I should be able to interview her soon. She also has juicy divorce gossip on another of our colleagues. Good stuff.

Had a great interview with a lawyer yesterday who gave me a comprehensive overview of the legal and illegal aspects of prostitution here. Whenever I'm ready to publish something on sex work I'll have all of the legal issues nailed down. Score.

Continue to plod along with the girls' education group, and they actually gave me their entire calendar for the year (provisional of course, but still).

On the two steps back front:
My right-hand man, the only scholar in Senegal whose research is even remotely close to mine, continues to elude me. Last week it was UNDP trainings, this week he is out sick. I have been here for six weeks and have spent exactly 10 minutes with this man. Ten minutes.

The director of the sex worker organization that I hope to embed myself in is leaving on Friday for France for six weeks. Yes, she passed my research application on to the NGO's board, but now I have to chase down a doc at the STD clinic and talk myself into his good graces. That means at least another week or two of power-building before I can even imagine getting something that resembles data.

The very savvy graduate student who we used as a research assistant last summer, the one who actually had a more intuitive sense of how to do qualitative research than some of her superiors, has gone abroad to do a Master's in International Health. I'm hoping she can point me to a stand-in who is half as good as she is.

And so it goes on the research front. Here's to hoping that next week the trickle turns into a stream.

Tourist in Senegal

As anyone who lives in a decent-sized city knows, it is often only because you have a guest visiting that you take advantage of all of the offerings that can be found just a stone's throw from home. Since we have R visiting us this week, it was a great chance to check some of the tourist destinations off of our Senegal list.

First was Goree, known mostly for the old slave house, but the Christian churches, Dutch fort, and women's museum were interesting as well. I was surprised to learn that there are currently about 400 Catholics who live on the island out of a total population of 1200.

Our big adventure was to head a mere 50 km out of Dakar to the top of the Petite Cote, Senegal's premier tourist destination complete with white-sand beaches, Club Med equivalents, and more people hawking tie-dye tank tops and beaded necklaces than you thought was possible. We chose the sleepy fishing village of Toubab Dialaw, which came highly recommended by friends and colleagues. We ended up in a small house that sleeps five with steps down to the beach right outside our back door. The payoff for excessively hot and humid weather was the sound of waves crashing against the shore all night right below our windows.

The biggest splurge of the trip was an afternoon at the Bandia nature preserve, which would seem like the kiddie pool if you have been on real safari in East Africa but was just fine for us amateurs. R fulfilled her life goal of seeing rhinos up close, and I was particularly charmed by the herd of giraffes.



There was some end of trip anxiety (mostly on my part) about the not inconsiderable crack we put in the bumper of the rental car. I was imagining how we might talk ourselves out of getting fleeced by the rental car agency after they discovered the damage. (R's experience getting charged 75 euro for a minor ding on a rental car in Greece did not foster much optimism). But after all of my angsting the clerk who inspected our car either didn't notice, or didn't care, since he reported to his boss that there was "rien a signaler" after the inspection.

Left on the tourist to do list: visit to Marche Kermel, walk through downtown Dakar, meal at the swanky cafe in the French cultural center, and happy hour at Club Atlantique.

Sex health

As anyone who has ever been quoted in the press knows, there is often some slippage between what one actually said and what makes it into print. When my university issued a press release about my Fulbright, the sub-title indicated that I was to study "sex health issues in urban Senegal." This description is not entirely wrong, but not entirely apt either.

In any event, this week I attended a training for young women (20-25) who will hopefully become peer educators and then lead a year long empowerment/sex ed program for adolescent girls in their neighborhoods. In Senegal (and throughout francophonie) these kinds of programs are given the amazingly vague title "Education in Family Life" or Education a la Vie Familiale. The overarching goals of the program are to reduce the rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections in the Dakar suburbs (read unplanned neighborhoods/shantytowns here) and to reduce the risks of HIV and STIs for the girls who participate in the program. Other objectives include reducing teen pregnancy, teen marriage, and "forced" marriages.

One of the tricks of the program is that with a peer education model, the facilitators are supposed to have the same social background as the participants, which in this case means girls 13-20 from very poor neighborhoods who have never been to school or who have very little schooling at all. The dilemma--how do you transform timid, barely literate young women into dynamic leaders who will become community organizers on reproductive health issues and role-models for their peers?

The program in question is now entering its 14th year, so they must be doing something right. The first three-days of training were also an audition. The supervisors will select two or three girls from the group of five trainees and they will become the group leaders. It only took a few hours to see which of the young women seem to have the requisite sass and poise to pull off the job of peer educator. One young woman, who could barely raise her voice to an audible level when she was called on to speak, looked horrified during a small group exercise when I suggested that teaching about contraception might be part of the program. "But that would mean talking about pre-marital sex!" was the jist of her objection. Yes indeed, sex and contraception are taboo subjects, but how does one talk to girls about teen pregnancy without talking about sex and contraception? (Unless of course we want to promote abstinence, because we know how well that works.)

Perhaps the best part was that the trainers decided to throw me in with the other women and treat me like a student, which means I got about 16 hours of interactive discussions and small group work in Wolof. (Believe me, I wrote down a LOT of new vocabulary to learn). The other trainees took my presence in stride and since I am getting to know them at the very beginning, I don't think I will have any problems shadowing them for the rest of the year. I have a pretty good guess about who the supervisors will pick, and over the next six weeks I will follow their progress as they head back to the neighborhoods to recruit girls for their groups.

Is this social change in action? Hard to say yet, but the whole project is a fascinating endeavor and I will be fascinated to watch these newly-minted peer educators lead discussions on topics like "What is love" and "Who owns my body?" in the months to come.

Airport instructions

Our first guest from the US is arriving this Friday on the 4:15am Delta flight out of JFK. For those who are planning to come, and for those who want to live vicariously, here are the arrival instructions.

The airport is a bit of an experience. First, the plane will land but it will take anywhere from 15-20 minutes for them to get organized to let you out. Here are the steps.you will take:
1. Walk down plane steps with carry-on, board bus to terminal.
2. Walk through customs line with passport and white tourist card that you filled out on the plane. The form will ask for your address in Dakar. You can put Residence Privee, 7222 Mermoz-Dakar.
3. After you walk through customs you will enter the baggage area. There will be a belt for the luggage and lots of porters wanting to help you with luggage carts. If you can manage all of your luggage by yourself, just say "Non merci."
4. Once you have your luggage, you get in another line to put it through an x-ray machine. Don't ask why, just do it.
5. Collect your luggage on the other side of the x-ray machine, and then walk through a door that will lead you into a large empty room. Walk through with your luggage and you will eventually come to another door that will spit you outside into a cordoned off parking lot. Hopefully this is the point at which you will see our smiling faces waiting for you. We will try to get as close as we can to the door, but we might not be able to talk our way into the building.
6. If by any chance we aren't waiting by the door, as you walk outside turn right and walk along the sidewalk toward the taxi stands. There will be people who want to 1) exchange money for you 2) help with your bags 3) be your driver into town. Just ignore everyone and park yourself somewhere until we find you.

Am I gaining weight?

There are multiple forces that conspire against the tubaab who would like to stay fit, or at least not gain weight, when living in Dakar. The urban Senegalese diet, while high in fresh fish, is also high in fats, oils, and carbs (think fried fish and fried white rice every day for lunch, sometimes with a heavy dose of palm oil to boot). Then there is the eating around the common bowl, which makes portion control impossible. Finally there is the Senegalese hospitality mantra to contend with: "Eat more. You haven't eaten anything. You must not like it. You are only pretending to eat." Put all of these things together, add heat and humidity that make it nearly impossible to get any exercise, and you have a recipe for a body mass index disaster.

In the past I have almost always lived with Senegalese friends and family. This turns out to be a pretty good technique because in spite of the questionable nutritional content of some meals, the rotation of Senegalese dishes gets monotonous enough that you tend to eat only your fill. There is also very little snacking in a Senegalese household because there is no fridge or goody cupboard with highly refined carbs to eat at any time of day or night. If I spend more than a few weeks with a Senegalese family I usually lose several pounds.

Our current living situation seems to be creating the worst of all possible hybrids: Senegalese lunches and often Senegalese dinners, AND a fridge and cupboard full of tubaab snacks (fruit yes, but also ice cream, cookies, beer, cheese, bread). Then there is the fall-back strategy for dealing with our cook's mediocre cooking and limited repertoire Senegalese dishes, which is to hit our neighborhood Salon de The for some pain au chocolat with a side of cafe and perhaps a big buttery crepe on the side.

The standard of beauty here is for women to be round and curvy, if not downright obese at a certain age. Since gaining weight is a good thing, people are sure to tell you if they notice that you have put on even a few pounds. Since we don't have a scale, I will be on the lookout for side-long glances at my arse followed by approving clucks that I am gaining weight and that life in Dakar must be good. If the consensus of the public scale seems to be that I am putting on the kilos, we might have to take some belt-tightening measures around here.

(Of course, fast food junkie A has already lost about 5 pounds from his McDonald's withdrawal. That's what I get for having healthy eating habits in the US).

Two steps forward

Life is starting to feel busy. This is quite reassuring to my latent Protestant workaholic streak but also a reminder that I could learn something from the Senegalese predilection to just let life happen instead of trying to push it along at full force. A colleague who recently returned from India reminded me that Americans are the only people in the world who worry about whether or not they are working hard enough. Senegalese certainly work hard but "Let go and let God" could be the motto around here. Things happen when they happen. But lest you get too lazy, Wolof speakers will remind you "Yalla yalla bey sa tool", i.e. believe in God but plant your field.

There are lots of small shoots coming up in my research field. Tomorrow I will renew my contact with the executive director of an organization here that focuses on advocacy and outreach for sex workers. This is one of the organizations that I hope to spend the most time with over the next few months. I am hoping to get a sense of how they understand gender and vulnerability to HIV/AIDS, and how well their programs meet the needs of their clients. If I can become familiar enough of an entity among their constituents I will conduct life history interviews with some of the sex workers.

Monday I am going to visit a youth center out in a Dakar suburb (i.e. shantytown) that has an innovative girls empowerment program. I am planning to follow some girls through the year-long program and to interview program graduates. The program supporters seem keen to have me help them refine some of their evaluation processes so I hope I can be helpful to their project without getting too far afield of my research. It is always a tricky balance--how to offer something useful to people who are infinitely generous with their time and resources? Sharing research results isn't always enough, so it is ideal if there are parts of one's research that can actually address issues that the organizations themselves are concerned about.

Meanwhile I have another side-project going to help flesh out an advocacy strategy for sexual minorities (gay men) who have been persecuted here for doing AIDS education among their peers, and I think I will submit an abstract to an AIDS conference in South Africa in December. Now that Ramadan is over I will start pursuing a dozen or so other research leads that I had on the back burner.

Biggest quality of life decision to make this week: should we join the American Club, now renamed the Club Atlantique to be slightly less provincial? I am going to go read the section entitled "Relations with Expatriates" in my overseas research manual. Not even kidding about that: Barrett and Cason, 1997. Overseas Research: A Practical Guide. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 60-63. I will report back.

Yaa moom sama tuur

We had a grueling yet fun four days of travel, sitting, feasting, swatting flies, and sweating in Saint Louis for Korite. Nothing like relying on the kindness of friends, acquaintances, and strangers to make you happy to get back to your own space.

Of all the possible highlights of the long weekend the best was getting to spend time with my tuurando (namesake). She was born in February and her delinquent parents had not even managed to send me photos from her naming ceremony, where I was the guest of honor in absentia. (This failure it not entirely their fault, they have not managed to get the photographer to burn them CDs of the supposedly dozens of digital photos he took. Will be following up on that soon.)

Little Rama is well-tempered, has beautiful almond-shaped eyes, and is a total pudgeball, which in this difficult environment means she's a healthy baby who will hopefully have no problems when she gets fully weaned to solids. Much to her parents' chagrin, she is not a good sleeper and is easily awakened by both noise and light. The saying here is that you inherit seven traits from your namesake, so hopefully as she grows we will discover that I've offered her something more useful than my bad sleep habits!

Itching update: A is reporting much relief from previous symptoms, but we have yet to determine if this is because Saint Louis water is less harsh, or the fancy French skin cream is actually working. Stay tuned.

The writing (and reading) life

In many ways my work schedule here isn't that much different than the one I have at home. On days when I don't have research appointments (or at home, classes to teach) I can have a leisurely day puttering around the apartment punctuated by a few units of writing. Knowing that I would have some down time upon arrival, I came with a few writing projects to work on before things really get busy.

Last week I did some revisions to a piece I have been working on for well over a year. The first journal my co-author and I sent it to didn't like it one bit, but reading between the lines we think their objections were based more on politics than the quality of our arguments (not that those can't always be improved upon). We are revamping a bit for another journal and hope to get the piece sent off again next week.

This week I've been working on an article manuscript using the data I collected here last summer. A team from my home university and my collaborators here did a series of "community dialogues" with sex workers and youth about Senegal's current AIDS policies and their progress to date in the fight against AIDS. I'm hoping to have a decent draft by the end of next week, which then gives me a good jumping off point to corral my university counterpart who is extremely busy and therefore hard to pin down. My hope is that with the promise of a publication almost ready to go out the door, I can get a chunk of his time and plan out some of our other collaborations for my time here.

Once these two writing projects are off my desk, I will get to the ten or so monographs and 30 or so journal articles that I shipped to myself before leaving the States. I just finished an extremely useful book, "Mariage et Divorce a Dakar", and now I have to decide what to read next. I could start with "Modern Loves: The Anthropology of Romantic Courtship and Companionate Marriage", or perhaps "What's Love Got to do with it? Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic". Ah the life of the mind.

He blinded me with science

Of all the things that one expects to deal with in Senegal, horrible itching for the 30 to 40 minutes following one's shower is not one of them. Heat, humidity, pests, rain, trash, traffic, and noise pollution are all fair game and must be overcome by the Dakar novice. Showering, on the other hand, is supposed to provide a refuge from the heat, sweat, and general stickiness that plagues the Dakarois. I myself prefer a three-a-day shower regimen, although on some days I can get by with two.

Alas, poor A has been plagued with some unfortunate malady that has made showering almost intolerable. The itching began last week, and now he positively twitches in pain after his shower until he is finally dry and the torment slowly subsides. The first suspected culprit was his malaria medicine, so we have a plan to switch him from Lariam to Malarone. Second possibility is that he is reacting to the high levels of chlorine in Dakar water. Third theory is that it is not the chlorine itself, but the subsequent dryness of his skin causing all the itchiness after the chlorine sucks all the moisture out of him.

In an attempt to test the chlorine theory we purchased 10 L of bottled water today that has low chlorine content, and then ran it through our Brita filter which is supposed to remove all chlorine. A then took a bucket bath with the magic water but sadly it did not quell the itching (or if it did, only a fraction of it).

Tomorrow morning we head to the German doctor who is used by the Embassy when the regular doctor is out of town. Hopefully she will help us get to the bottom of this medical mystery. Poor A has been a tremendous sport about all of this, not complaining at all and putting a good face on things. I'm hoping this will be his biggest hurdle for the foreseeable future and once it gets resolved he can start falling in love with Senegal!

Loxoam saful dara

After about four meals A and I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that our housekeeper is not a very good cook. Not terrible mind you, but not great by any stretch.

The first indication of a potential problem was when I started reeling off some of my favorite dishes to her and she responded that she doesn't know how to make a good third of them. Granted, I like some moderately obscure stuff (ceeb u neebe ak keccax anyone?), but some of the things that she can't make are part of the basic Senegalese repertoire. This would be less of a problem if the things that she has mastered were spectacular. They are not.

Yesterday she was making us a white ceeb u yapp (rice and meat) and I saw the meat before she started cooking it. It was pink, mostly lean, and looked quite excellent. The cooked meat that arrived in the bowl was overdone, tough, almost leather-like.

Since the housekeeper is a package deal with the apartment there is little that we can do except try to coach her into preparing things that will be a bit more tasty. A suggested we ask her if anyone has ever given her feedback on her cooking, and then offer her some. My much more indirect Wolof-inspired approach is to tell her that we have bad teeth and therefore she has to make sure the meat stays nice and tender for us.

Our next step might be to ask her what her favorite dishes are and have her prepare those. Surely the things that she likes the best are things she can cook well? Suggestions welcome.

This is Africa

A large chunk of Friday was spent at the Embassy getting more paperwork squared away and learning which post services I am eligible for as an "unofficial American". The first appointment was with the head of security who gave us a safety briefing. As we were waiting outside his office an announcement came over the PA system. It was a statement prepared by President Obama informing state department employees that Sept 11th is now a National Day of Service. I could have sworn the statement also said the day had been renamed Patriot's Day, but since I haven't seen anything about that in the press perhaps I just made it up. In any event, after the statement was read we were told that we could resume our business. The whole thing was very reminiscent of high school.

There wasn't much new information for me at the security briefing, but the officer did convey that he considers Dakar to be "Africa Light" after his posts in Mogadishu, Kampala, and Kabul. Fair enough. He also reminded us that crime rates go up during the major holiday seasons here as struggling heads of household try to get enough money to buy a goat or sheep to slaughter for korite and tabaski.

Even spending a few hours at the Embassy offers an interesting view of ex-pat life. We saw one woman in her mid-40s wearing the shortest denim mini-skirt I have seen in years. She has to know that showing three or four inches of thigh is totally inappropriate here (or anywhere after age 35 if you watch What Not To Wear). Thanks to my dear friends who are now in the foreign service I am becoming much more tolerant and nuanced in my evaluations of state department employees, but I had to raise an eyebrow at that one. It’s the month of Ramadan for crying out loud!

The most important part of the day was getting our security badges. They took all of a few minutes to make, but once we had them our status changed immediately. On our way in we were screened, our passports were taken , we relinquished our cell phones, and our names were checked against a list of people permitted to enter the Embassy. Once we had our badges we were free to circulate more or less as we pleased. We can get our mail, cash checks, visit the health post, etc. Not a bad deal and a very nice privilege of being a Fulbrighter. The post technically doesn’t have to offer us any services at all, so it is great that they extend some of these conveniences to us.

The end of the day was an iftar dinner at my friend S’s house. The TV was on during the meal, because that’s just how things work here, and it being the rainy season the evening news was giving the rain report. Total amounts of rainfall from various parts of the country flash across the screen set to cheery music. Once the rain report was over, images of smoke billowing out of the towers and other images of 9/11 began coming across the screen, still set against the backdrop of upbeat pop songs. A and I exchanged a look and commented on how bizarre it was that the local TV station got it so wrong. This is a case that our security officer would chalk up to “TIA”, this is Africa. TIA indeed.

The 45 minute unit

One of the support services that my alma mater offered to struggling Ph.D. candidates was an afternoon with a writing consultant/time management specialist. Among a host of superb ideas there was one that stood out for its simplicity and its promise: the 45 minute unit. According to the people who research these things, 45 minutes is the most efficient block of time for tasks that require a significant amount of concentration (i.e. writing).

The experts argue that in a 45 minute block of work time you have ample chance to focus and to progress on a task, but you should pause after 45 minutes while your attention level is still on the rise instead of plateauing or on the decline. Planning to complete several 45 minute units with small (five minute) breaks in between allows the dissertator (or assistant professor) to get the greatest return on the two or three hours that can be carved out of every day for writing. The underlying philosophy of this strategy is that writing is something that happens when you sit down to do it, not when inspiration finds you.

I have been faithful to the 45 minute unit since I attended the workshop in 2000. The rules are pretty basic:
1. Determine how many units per day you plan to write (the time management consultant said 2-3 is average, 4 is difficult, and 5 almost impossible)
2. At the beginning of the unit, close all computer screens other than those directly related to what you are writing (even Facebook!)
3. Set timer for 45 minutes
4. Begin writing
5. Don't move from the computer until the timer goes off. Do not check e-mail, answer the phone, make tea, change the laundry, or get a snack.

Other important tips include stepping away from the computer during your breaks (checking e-mail does not constitute a break) and taking the last two minutes of each unit to write down the tasks you will work on during the next unit. This last step allows you to skip that time-consuming process of trying to remember what you were working on last.

I am downright evangelical about the 45 minute unit. I write down how many I will do each day in my Outlook calendar, I mark each completed unit on my wall calendar, and I am able to estimate with astounding accuracy how many units most major writing tasks will take. (I am revising a journal manuscript at present; I think I have about eight units to go. I did two today.)

In addition to facilitating schedule planning, the 45 minute unit also helps temper all sorts of writing neuroses. No matter how badly a session is going, or how blank a screen seems when you start, you only have to suffer through it for 45 minutes. And usually, after the timer ticks off four or five minutes, you are off to the races and have forgotten how difficult it was to sit down in the first place.

The 45 minute unit. Live it. Love it.

Dakar Index (with a nod to Harper's)

Times ceeb u jen has been served for lunch since arrival: two

Times per week that ceeb u jen was served for lunch in the village during my last field work stint: seven

Number of wheeler dealers who have volunteered to introduce me to their best friend so I can get data on prostitution: one (Full disclosure, said friend owns a popular bar)

Power outages affecting Mermoz apartment: three

Average length of power outage: one hour

Number of times area between apartment and VDN has flooded: five

Witnessed incidents of public urination: three

Number of books President Abdoulaye Wade completed while on his recent one-month vacation in France: two

Number of Senegalese mega-stars who have now released songs critiquing President Wade's recent delinquence: two (Youssou N'Dour and Positive Black Soul)

Cockroaches spotted in apartment: one

Cockroaches slain in apartment: one

Average cost of Dakar taxi ride: 1500 F/ $3.30

Average number of taxi rides per day: two

Cost of 10 liters of bottled water: 1000 F/ $2.22

Amount the housekeeper says she needs to buy groceries for one noon meal for two people: 5000 F/ $11.11

Hours that it takes our washing machine to fill, agitate, rinse, and spin: 2.5

Times that husband has asked me how many days we have been here: three

Times I have been told that husband is a good man: two

Une journée bien remplie

Today was a day of firsts: first trip downtown, first visit to the Embassy, first delicious pain chocolat with café au lait at a snooty salon de thé. Downtown is even nuttier than I remember. There are cars, vendors, push carts, sidewalk merchandise stalls, taxis, SUVs, and pedestrians all over the place. The main drag, Ponty, is so congested that you have to weave in and around cars stacked up bumper to bumper to get from one side of the street to the other.

On the plus side the Embassy folks were very nice and seem to be going out of their way to be accommodating. As with any large bureaucracy, my job today was basically to fill out some forms (of course all of the information asked of me today they already have in my Fulbright dossier) so that the administrative assistant can make some appointments so I can fill out some more forms. A slight exaggeration, but it sounds like I will make at least two more trips to the Embassy for a security briefing, getting my security badge, meeting with the medical doctor, getting my cash-checking clearance, and meeting with the community liaison officer (CLO). The CLO might turn out to be a very important person in my life; more on that in a future post.

The highlight of the downtown trip was seeing one of my dearest friends who now has the corner office in the new accounts department of one of the large downtown banks. She and her sister-in-law (also a good friend) refer to A as “Obama” because they think he looks so much like him. Good thing everyone loves Obama here.

The perfect end to the day was watching a broadcast of Senegalese wrestling on TV. Wrestling or “lamb” is a national obsession if there ever was one. The matches are full of spectacle, drumming, dancing, crowd participation, and numerous appeals to mystical and occult forces for protection and perseverance over the opponent. In other words, just about everything an anthropologist is looking for all in a single event complete with commentary by impassioned sports announcers. Next project: pick a favorite wrestler and start following his career.

C'est quoi, colbet?

Since Dakar is really a very small town of 3 million people, it came as no surprise that I bumped into an old colleague on Saturday when I was visiting another friend who runs a top-notch non-profit organization here. I first met said colleague, a history professor at the university, when he was visiting East Lansing in 1995 for a conference on Islam in Senegal. I probably haven't seen him in four or five years but he is a real gem--a true intellectual, creative thinker, and all-around wonderful man.

He asked me if I remembered when we first met (I did not). Apparently I had been sent to pick him up at the Lansing airport, and when I spotted him coming from his gate I greeted him in a fast stream of Wolof. Not only did I go through all of the standard greetings, but I must have really been on a roll because I also told him that my nickname was colbet (CHOL-bet). The nickname in and of itself is somewhat pedestrian, but the word colbet suggests a knowledge of rural flora and fauna that no Dakarois would have. As he recalled on Saturday, he was astounded to be met with such "deep Wolof" in East Lansing, Michigan, of all places.

If I had to have an animal totem, a colbet would be a pretty great match. It is a small bird that flits about, has lots of energy, and even when it comes to rest it is still in constant motion with a "wagging tail". For you birders out there, I think a colbet is either a white or gray wagtail.

In any event, I had all but forgotten this nickname until my historian friend brought it up. I do think I have mellowed somewhat since my 20's when the nickname was bestowed on me, but it still seems a propos. And so here I am, colbet, come from my rural roots in Ganjool and Ndar to roost in the big city of Ndakaaru for nine months. Hence my blog, Colbet in Dakar.

Pre-dawn musings

Sometimes you wake up in the early early morning and through no fault of your own, your brain starts churning out interesting research scenarios, leads on data collection, theoretical insights, and perhaps even an article title or two. The best advice in such situations is to seize the moment, roll out of bed, and start capturing your ideas on paper.

Bien arrivée

After what seemed like weeks of shopping, packing, purging, moving, and storing, we were finally able to actually get on the plane last Thursday and now we are finally settling into our Dakar life. This is the swankiest version of Dakar life that I have yet to experience: our own apartment, great DSL connection (though our wireless router has a few hiccups), a washing machine, ceiling fans, an office with an air conditioner, and a housekeeper. Thank you Fulbright, and thanks to you too dear reader, these are your tax dollars at work.

In spite of the relatively posh accommodations, we have zero water pressure, torn roof shingles, and windows that leak during heavy rains. We had great thunder and lightening during two different showers today. Unfortunately we forgot to close our back windows when we went out for dinner so we had some mopping up to do when we got back.

Tomorrow is the first day I will do much resembling work. My colleague will pick me up and show me her new office digs so that I can get myself to and fro in the months to come. The next week or ten days will be spent making the rounds and renewing connections before starting to think about getting my research started. Ndank ndank as they say in Wolof.