Le Weekend

Rollercoaster weekend- all ups and downs.

Saturday I got up, as usual, at 7. Cold water from the showerhead, warm water in a bucket below. Still working out the logistics of that. Tour of Dakar today.

We saw the Millennium Monument (not the big one), the rich quartiers, stopped at the beach on the westernmost point of Dakar, which is also the westernmost point of Senegal, which is also the westernmost point of Africa (except the islands) which is also the closest we'll ever be to home. Waved "hello" to the states, took pictures. Papa Anicet said later that when the sun sets it looks like you can see the torch of the Statue of Liberty on the horizon, because of the light. Le feu. Saw some beautiful cliffs, an old military bunker turned into someone's home, he tried to sell us something I'm not sure what. Saw Les Mamelles, two mountains like the Tetons but smaller. On top of one was a lighthouse, we got to go up inside it. The lightbulb is about as big as my thumb, it's surrounded by mirrors, though, and lenses- we got to go inside- it was like a funhouse optical illusion, looking at everyone's distorted images from either side.

On top of the other Mamelle is Le Monument de la Renaissance de l'Afrique. What an eyesore. Everyone thinks so. Monsieur Wade le President had it built- he "invented" it. And by "invented" I mean paid North Koreans the equivalent of $28 billion in tax money to manufacture this thing, made out of bronze which makes it the largest bronze statue probably ever, it's as big as the statue of liberty, except bronze is not one of Senegal's main natural resources. The Monument is of a man, helping a woman up from the ground and holding a baby on his other shoulder. The baby is pointing away, towards "the future". It's all very inspirational except for the fact that the direction this inspirational baby is pointing towards is West, away from Africa. Alors. I have yet to meet anyone who thinks that anything about this monument is a good idea. Sometime during our stay here will be it's "Inauguration"- it's still under construction, I think for all the stairs leading up to the thing, à la some South American Mayan temple.

http://www.afriscoop.net/journal/IMG/arton486.jpg

Waly told us to save him a spot in the future, when we go back to the states.


At this point in the tour is when I start to feel pretty bad. I mean, since I got up in the morning something was not right with regards to my personal health, but headache, etc was going on on the way back to WARC. We ordered lunch- I had chicken and fries, but I couldn't touch it. Hadn't eaten anything all day, but I couldn't stomach any food. This was bound to happen. Instead of lunch I blogged, checked email, woke up my family (*my* family, not my (host) family) with a phone call till my credit ran out... everyone went to the beach, and I stayed behind and napped outside, that plus the advil Joey gave me had me feeling much better by the time we got home.

My family (my (host) family, not *my* family) appreciated the chicken I brought home, asked how my day was, I said I had been feeling sick but was better now. My brother's sick, he's got a cold or something, hasn't been eating much for the past few days. My sister too, has some sort of fever, it's not the same as Pascal but she's been sleeping a lot. I didn't catch either of these, mine was just to get used to the food here (turns out about half the group has/had some sort of ickiness this weekend, as I found out this morning) apparrently it takes a week for the body to realize that these new sleeping/eating patterns are not going to change so you might as well get used to it.

But since I was feeling better, just exhausted, if I sat and watched TV which is really the "thing to do" here, television sets are always on, I would absolutely fall asleep. Same if I went into my room and read my book considering my book is "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace (which should explain my long-windedness and crazy writing habits, he's my one source of English at home)(I also brought The Epic of Gilgamesh and Twelfth Night. In hindsight perhaps something lighter would have been wise) No, instead I went out into le jardin to help Mama Binta with the fatayas. I really did end up learning the name of that boy who mumbles, I really did, I just forgot it since then. I have also learned that Djouma is the maid, la bonne, who is tiny but has amazingly muscular arms for someone who looks to be about fifteen, and Yassine is the other maid who is absolutely beautiful but never smiles with her mouth, just her eyes. We all were working, with my sister and mother too. Saturdays aren't really Saturdays like I'm used to, then.

But I absolutely rock at making fatayas. I graduated from the small triangular ones to the larger semicircular ones that are much harder to press, and I glowed when the mumbler told me (in the first sentence I think he's ever said to me that I could understand) that he told Mama Binta that I was a very good worker. I realize of course, that he probably did not expect some student from the states to start helping right away, and work for so long- by long I mean a few hours at a time, maybe three, as opposed to the others who work from 7 or 8 in the morning until dinner at 9 or 10 at night. But I was ready to celebrate moi-même, myself, at being useful and even remotely competent at something. I can't light the gas stove or eat soup without asking how, but I am un bon travailleur at helping fold fatayas.

We worked until dinnertime- beef stew with potatoes, and since I hadn't eaten all day, I was actually hungry and it was very very good. I also got to witness the phenomenon that is "Vaidehi".

Vaidehi is an Indian soap opera that people here can't get enough of. Everything stops for Vaidehi. When it's on television (Saturday and Sunday nights around 9pm) you stop cooking dinner, or serving dinner, or going shopping, and you find the closest television (knock on doors if you have to) and you watch this show. It's dubbed in French, from the Hindi (I'm assuming). Now, I've seen a lot of bad movies. Films that are truly terrible. They ain't got nothin' on this show. But- you don't laugh at Vaidehi. You don't make fun of it, or point out mistakes. People take this show very seriously. Follow it like any Grey's Anatomy fans or So You Think You Can Dance fans, they know the history of each character and what is going on and pay rapt attention to the screen. I think this weekend was a pivotal episode. Someone got framed for someone's death or something. Oh, and one girl's pregnant. That's about all I got. But I was highly entertained.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKJL09-5xVw&feature=related

At this point in the night though things got to be a bit much. I hadn't had a very good day, there was Indian/French bad television blaring and my family conversing about it in Wolof and I was already full to bursting when they told me I'd missed the best part of the stew, and pushed a huuuuuge chunk of fat over to my side of the dish. I nibbled what meat there was off the corner. That wouldn't do. Everyone else was sucking on the marrow bones that I had foolishly, politely, refused. Silly me. More for them. It's not so much that it's a huge chunk of fat- it's that it's a huge chunk of fat that I can't chew. I tried biting off pieces small enough to swallow whole, which worked a few times but in the end my brain caught up with me and in one moment of "oh my god I'm eating a huge chunk of fat" I did gag a little. Not noticably so, and so excusing myself to get some water I did the classic American Student In a Strange Environment thing to do- spit the rest of the fat in my hand and hid it in a corner of the sink. I am ashamed. Truly ashamed. But on such a rollercoaster day, enough is enough. It's bad timing, really. I was so exhausted intellectually, physically, emotionally I just went to bed, right then and there.


I love Sundays. Did I mention I love Sundays? Sundays are my favorite days of the week, from now on. Every day I get up at 7am, for a cold-shower-hot-rinse. Sundays everyone sleeps until 11, when it's so hot I appreciate the cold shower. We eat breakfast slowly, clean up even more slowly, and do any work that might need to be done (counting fatayas is a great way to practice elementary French- we had deux-cent-soixante-douze small ones and quartre-vingt-dix-sept large ones) before making lunch. Mama Binta told me that every Sunday I'm not out with friends, she'll teach me how to make a different Senegalais dish. This one was called "Yassa"- if you want to taste some of what I'm tasting, pay attention:


YASSA
Ingredients-

Onions (lots of onions, always onions, onions in everything, more onions than meat) cut in big rings
La Viande- meat (beef, with the marrow bones left in, of course, and don't you dare trim the fat) cut in thin, long strips
Les Piments- hot peppers, just one or two, leave them whole just to add a little flavor

Garlic, lemon juice, green pepper, "Maggi" (which is a cube of spices, I'm not sure which kinds are included, it's just a generic serving of spices), a little vinegar, some mustard, some black pepper, dried hot pepper: you mix all of these together with "le mortier et pilon" (huge morter and pestle) to make a sort of paste that you rub on the onions, meat and peppers, add lemon juice and vinegar, like a marinate/spice rub/paste.

Grill the meat separately, and when the meat's cooked, put it in a pot with some oil and water (1 part oil 2 parts water) to simmer, to make it more tender. When the meat's nice and tender, put the onions and peppers into the pot, cover and let cook for about 15 minutes? until the onions are all cooked.

Serve over short-grain white rice. If you want a more authentic feel, serve around 3 or 4 pm in a huge dish and eat with your right hand. If you want to feel like me, be sure to spill half the rice on your lap, table, and floor, squeezing the rice into balls that look perfect in your hand, but fall apart instantly on the trip from hand-to-mouth.



Another reason I love Sundays. After lunch is nap time. Une petite sieste, wake up at 5:30 and go either to the beach or if it's too cold (and I guess 70 degrees is freezing here) go visiting family. I walked with Mama Binta to the Baobab neighborhood to meet her mother. She then told me to stay there so I sat awkwardly watching dubbed Extreme Home Makeover with various family members who were coming and going including that poor girl who is still terrified of the fact that my hair's too big. I forgot to bring my cell phone. I have no idea how long I sat there. Someone, we'll call him an uncle, tried to speak English with me for a while but we ran out of common vocabulary in English and Wolof and he finally called Mama Binta to ask when she was coming to get me. (I know this because by this time it was well past dark and the family was starting to mutter to each other and I did hear the words "toubab" and "Binta" and "fataya" and considering i was the only "toubab" (white girl) there and there was still no sign of "Binta" anywhere I think it's safe to assume. Mama Binta showed up and after a bit of chitchat we took a taxi home to catch the next episode of Vaidehi before dinner.

Another reason I love Sundays. Mama Binta explained to me that since we eat huge fatty dinners (no kidding) pendant/during the whole week, Sunday dinner is just a little porridge. It's like oatmeal, but made out of something similar to barley. You eat it with sweetened milk/cream and yogurt. This is my first meal that I could actually finish. I love Sundays. Did I mention I love Sundays? I love Sundays.

Classes start today, at four. We met from 9-11 to meet all the teachers, and now I don't have class for another three hours. This English break has been nice, but I've been typing for almost two hours. I'll see you all later.