Wednesday, September 30, 2009

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.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

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).

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

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.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

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.

Friday, September 18, 2009

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.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

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!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

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.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

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.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

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.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

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


Tuesday, September 8, 2009

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.

Monday, September 7, 2009

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.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

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.