Family Time

Yesterday we finally had our first music and dance class, only 2 weeks after classes started! As with everything in Senegal, all in its own time. We met at school, with the guy who works there who was going to take us to the class. Then we all walked together to the main road, Cheikh Anta Diop, to get on the Car Rapide. For those who don't know what a car rapide is, it's the most common form of public transportation. They are smaller than buses, usually painted blue and yellow and covered in all kinds of weird and tacky decor, and have guys hanging off the back of the bus who collect your money and bang on the side of the bus to let the driver know when you want to get off. It costs 100 CFA francs, roughly 20 cents. They are surprisingly comfortable on the inside, and true to their name, are much faster than the "real" buses. So, we all got on the car rapide heading towards Ouakam, a neighborhood north of the city, which is kind of a smaller city within Dakar. It's very traditional and feels like a village rather than a big city. Once descended from the car rapide, we went to the home of our guide's grandmother to pick up our djembes (drums). We finally got to the actual location of the dance class around 10 am, despite being told that the class was from 9-12. The actual dancing was really fun and exciting. The dance instructor was introduced as [forgotten name] from school, but while here you all have to forget she's from school, and at school forget she's your dance instructor. The dancing wasn't nearly as racy or scandalous as that introduction would suggest. We did about an hour and a half of dancing, then played djembe for about a half an hour.

When we got home from dance class, most of maman's sisters, mother, and other women from our family were in the courtyard getting ready for a feast that we were hosting for the whole family. A few days ago, Maman told us that we were going to have pork for said feast, and the night before, Sandra took me out into the front courtyard to show me the pig that she was going to kill the next day for the feast. Unfortunately, this happened while I was out. My vegetarianism has clearly gone out the window, because I was genuinely disappointed to miss such an opportunity. Anyway, Meera and I helped the women get the food ready for a while, until all the men in the family descended on us to chat with us and pretend they spoke english and try to give us kisses and alcohol. At this point we fled to take refuge in the boutique with Jean-Daniel. This would turn out not to be the best place; when we returned after eating "lunch" (at around 5 pm), Maman's younger brother showed up to pick a fight with one of our good friends from the shop, who would never hurt anyone. There was a lot of shouting in Wolof and a struggle to prevent a physical fight, so I figured it was probably a good idea to gather up my little cousin Jennifer and take her into the house. This turned out to be a great idea because she's now my newest fan and also really adorable.

Most of what happens now seems normal to me, but I have to keep reminding myself that I'm just becoming accustomed to the bizarre. An example of something that we always get a good laugh about among the Americans: no one ever has change at stores etc. In fact, they say the don't have change and make a big fuss when you present them with a big bill, but then it turns out they actually do have change when you say you really really don't have any petites pièces. Additionally, every customer tries to use the biggest bill they can get away with, so they can have change. People come in the the shop specifically to ask us to "faire de la monnaie", and we've dubbed this the "game de la monnaie". It is like a big game, and it seems that everyone in Senegal is just hoarding change, with no intention of really using it. Just one of many weird phenomena of everyday life in Senegal.

Well, until next time. Leegi leegi!