Week one: découvrir Dakar

Salaamaleikum! Bienvenue au Sénégal. It’s only been 5 days but it seems like a lot longer. It’s now my second day with my host family, the Diouf family. After talking with the other students in the program, I can see that I got pretty lucky. I am lucky to be sharing a host family with Meera, because I would be really lonely if I was here by myself, at least for the first few days, but I also got one of the most well-off families. The house is great: Meera and I share our own room and bathroom, which are across the courtyard from the kitchen, and we are the only ones with the key so no one else ever goes in our room.

The food is great here. The first day, we went to the house of a woman named Honorine, who used to run the program but now she just does the cultural orientation. We went up on her terrace for lunch and we had tiéboudienne, fish and rice, a very typical Senegalese meal. It’s a big platter full of rice with a whole fish and whole vegetables and traditionally you all sit on the floor around it and eat with your hands, picking off pieces of fish and veggies and mixing it with the rice. This is much more difficult that it seems! You’re supposed to squeeze the rice into a ball in the palm of your hand, so you can eat it without getting it all over your face. They had us eat our first meal like this in case our families did, but fortunately in my house we use spoons, still all eating off the same platter. Yesterday was the Muslim new year, so we had couscous, with chicken and meat. Another thing about the food here—“meat” can mean just about anything, and they don’t really differentiate between beef, lamb, goat, etc. It’s just meat. Anyway, our host sister Juliette told us that the legend is that the night of the new year, the angel of love comes and visits you while you’re sleeping, and if you’re light enough he’ll take you away but if you’re too heavy he will leave you in your bed, so you’re supposed to eat too much so that the angel doesn’t take you away.

Since it was the new year last night, no one works today and we have the day off from program stuff. I’m slightly disappointed because we were supposed to have our first wolof class today, but it’s ok because we get to spend time with our family and our mom made us a great lunch. I thought I would be fine here because my French is really good, and I have been perfectly able to communicate with everyone, but if I’m going to be here long, wolof is imperative. Basically, everyone talks to us in French and to each other in wolof. Even in our house, they sometimes talk to each other in French but I think it’s only for our benefit. The maid doesn’t speak any French, so she will be good to practice with while I’m learning. I’ve picked up about a dozen words and phrases, but I can’t wait to really learn. Also, our first day with the family, our host sister Sandra made fun of us for not speaking wolof, so now my competitive nature is kicking in. I’m pretty sure that just the way she is, and her teasing doesn’t mean she doesn’t like us, but when I learn enough wolof and/or French to be able to tease her back, then she’ll really like me. Other than that, the family is really great. As soon as we met “maman”, she said, I’m your mom, this is your house, you can do whatever you like. Our sister Juliette is super sweet. Sandra is kind of crazy and total drama queen, but in a good way. I think we’ll get along fine. There is also a mysterious brother, Michael, who everyone speaks of but who we haven’t actually met yet. Then there is Moussa, maman’s nephew, who also lives with the family. Then there is a random array of friends, cousins, and neighbors who wander in and out all day. There is much more community here than in America. You have to say hi to everyone you see, and people share everything, including their houses. In the front of the house there is a shop, the back of which opens into the courtyard, so people come through there and we also go through it since we don’t have a key to the front door yet. The cousin Jean-Daniel runs the shop and has a small bedroom behind it, and it’s mostly a liquor shop although they have other things. Our family is Catholic, and they apparently drink a lot and have lots of fun. Juliette goes out dancing a lot, so once we aren’t so tired, we’ll go out with her and her friends.

We’ve done a lot of stuff around the city with the program, but I’m excited to start getting to know it by walking around. I think in only a few weeks, I’ll really feel at home here.