Merry Christmas! Story Chapter 1

So its Christmas time, and I figured I'd give everyone a little present: the greatest contribution to world literature by a Melville since Moby Dick. So without further ado...here it is enjoy. There's no title yet...so bear with me. I'll post it in installments every now and then...whenever I feel like it basically...

There are some who would argue that Dakar is hardly a city worth fighting over. All they see is the dust that blows down from the Mauritanian desert lining the streets. They see children begging on the streets, beaten if they don’t bring home more than a couple hundred francs, and their optimism withers in the face of such extreme poverty. Trying to cross the street, they are turned back by exhaust fumes, rushing taxis, horse-pulled carts, and clouds of dust kicked up by the cars. And they wonder why anyone would want to live here.

This story however, is about the others; those who see piles of trash strewn in the overgrown empty lots next to half-built houses and think “Ahh, this is a place to raise my kids.” This story is about those who see Dakar as a mere starting point, a platform from which to jump to bigger, better things. Today Dakar, tomorrow the world, as the saying goes. This story is about evil goats.

The evil goats of Dakar see this bustling African capital as one thing and one thing only: a place from which they can bide their time and plot their evil takeover of the world, establishing an Evil Goat World Dominion which looks suspiciously like the UN Security Council. In the meantime, they roam the streets of the city in evil packs, eating garbage, climbing on half-built walls like the cliffs of the Great African Escarpment of the time before the Great Exodus, and in a game known as “traffic dodging” in the evil goat community, causing crippling traffic jams throughout the city (“embouteillages” as they’re called – bottle necks – which may or may not come from the fact that one must have consumed an entire bottle of wine before braving these city-wide traffic jams).

Late on Friday nights (or early Saturday mornings depending on how you look like it), as the people of Dakar are just getting ready to go out to clubs, concerts, or other venues of mass entertainment, the evil goats are getting together in their respective neighborhood commissions, and preparing for their eventual world-domination. But the evil goat commissions are habitually divided. For one thing, goats aren’t allowed on the misnamed car rapides (they’re in fact, not very rapide at all) without the accompaniment of a human handler, which makes transportation around the city rather difficult, especially if one is planning world domination. Even if evil goats were allowed on the misnamed method of transport, they wouldn’t get very far as by some cruel trick of nature, goats have no pockets and can’t carry change to pay the fare. Because of the difficulties in travel, the goat commissions rarely get a chance to interact with each other, and as a result, the goat domination movement is fractured by neighborhoodal (I know I’m making up words again, but this is my story so cut me some slack) interests vying to take power for themselves.

This week, however, the excitement centers on a neighborhood commission in Sacre Coeur 3, where the evil goat who goes by the code name Charles (to protect his identity from the authorities) has begun implementing plans to unite the evil goat community under his rule. Evil goat leaders from all of Dakar’s neighborhood commissions are present. It is a momentous moment indeed, as for the first time in the evil goat history of Dakar, representatives from all across the city are meeting to discuss plans for the future. Evil goats from all over the city have spent days trudging through the crowded streets of Dakar, getting lost in back alleys along streets that seem to change direction every hour (or every half hour if you’re coming through Mermoz). Even evil goats from outside the city have come, braving potholed roads, sandstorms, and the odd bush taxi. The St. Louis evil representative (Code name: Lou) is sitting next to the evil representative from Tambacounda (Code name Tom) while Zinguinchor’s evil representative (Code name Ziggy) debates the proper technique for eating mangoes with the evil representative from Kolda (with the worst code name of them all: Shirly). They’re all here, and there’s business to be dealt with.

The impetus for this momentous moment concerns news that Lou brought to Charle’s attention weeks ago. They were born in the same litter (what’s an evil group of evil goat kids called again?), and still maintain touch despite the distance between them. Evidently, the eviler pelicans in Lou’s district have begun preparations for an invasion of Dakar: a bold move that if successful, would severely hamper the evil goat’s intentions of world domination. Lou was alerted by an informant in the eviler pelican community, a little diving bird named Hal.

“Order! Order! I demand order!” Charles called over the din of arguing goats. He was standing on a pile of gravel that had been left by the humans. “Brothers! We are all gathered here, for the first time in our evil goat history, for there is a dire situation before us. Brother Lou has brought us intelligence from up north that concerns us all. Brother Lou?”

Lou jumped up onto the gravel pile and spoke. “Thank you, Brother Charles. Brother Goats! As he said, a dire situation is upon us.” His voice was raspy from the many years he had spent up in the dry, dry heat breathing the dust that blew in from the Mauritanian desert. “It has been brought to my attention that the eviler pelicans are plotting a plot that is so eviler in nature, so horrific in its consequences, that it makes any evil plot that we plot seem downright magnanimous in comparison.”

A chorus of evil voices erupted in an evil din that made the demon spirits that inhabited the city late at night dive back into Hell from whence they had been borne into this world to cause mayhem and mischief. “Oh help us!” “The eviler pelicans!” “What are we going to do?” and “How are we going to take over the world now?”

“Please, please! Brothers, please calm down!” Charles yelled over the din. “Please, now I realize that this situation is dire, but we must not give in. I mean sure the pelicans are eviler than we, and sure they’re plans for world domination don’t include plans for craggy crags in every city, town, and village, for our kids to play on but we must fight them!”

“How, Brother Charles?” said Herman, as the representative from Liberté 6 was called. Herman’s evil goat head raised above the evil hoard of evil goats. His horns were curved, in the fashion of the evil goat horns from Libertés one through eight. “The pelicans can fly, and furthermore, they eat fish, a far superior protein source than cardboard.”

“True Brother Herman, the pelicans are militarily superior than we, and their superior protein source makes them more than a little bit stronger than us. I did not say it would be easy. But this is my home, I was born here, I played on these very streets as a kid with Brother Lou over there. And I for one won’t let the pelicans win! Who’s with me?”

There was an awkward silence as the evil hoard of evil goats assembled before Charles shuffled uneasily from front-left hoof to front-back hoof and back again, avoiding Charles’ searching eyes, glowing like evil coals in his head.

“Alright, if that is the way that you guys want it. If you want your kids growing up under the domination of the eviler pelican flock, then I suppose there’s nothing that I can say or do to convince you otherwise. When the pelicans arrive though, I will be fighting them, be it alone or with an evil hoard of evil goats behind me.” And with that final exhortation of a defeated leader, Charles nimbly hopped from the gravel pile to a thin stick perched precariously between two cement blocks and turned to walk away.

* * *

I hope you guys enjoyed that. That's all for now. Merry Christmas!
Love,
Jake

I’m BAAAAAACK!!!

Yes, that’s right. Jake (me) is now back to terrorize the United States like never before. I’ve been back home for almost a full day now, dealing with new things such as smooth roads, traffic lights, constant electricity and internet, hot water, and a worrying dearth of goats. How then, you must be asking, is Jake getting along with all the convieneces of Western life?

Is he burning his skin as he steps into a hot shower for the first time in four months? Have his fingers and toes frozen off in the sub-70 degree weather? What’s it like adjusting to central heating? How about orange juice and milk of the non-powdered varieties? How is he holding up without the evil hoards of evil goats?

Truth be told: just fine, thank you very much (well, everything but the goats…but we’ll get to that later).

Perhaps (or more precisely Definitely) the biggest fear I had about coming home was how was I going to adjust from the African tropical climate, where it’s considered cold when its 70 degrees (that’s in the shade), to the blustering winters of New England, where after hitting an average of the mid-40s, the weatherman is complaining about how this winter has been unseasonably mild. What was I going to say when I stepped off the plane in Paris (and then New York) and the temperature was exactly (maybe more than) half of what it was when I got on?

The answer: “This feels really, really nice!” I swear it.

Stepping off the plane in Paris, the only thing that myself and my fellow CIEE comrades could say was how astonished we were that the cold actually felt…good. It didn’t feel alright, like we could deal with it if we had to, but it actually felt refreshing. There was something clear about the cold – not oppressive like the heat in Dakar which surrounds you and blankets you in a carcinogenic cocktail of sunlight, dust, and car exhaust. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to find that my lungs didn’t freeze instantly upon taking my first breath in the cold Parisian air. Nor did they on my second or third, or any breaths after that.

That’s not to say that I didn’t have any run-ins with the northern/western/developed world (or whatever you want to call it). I’ve got this little story of cultural reintroduction, which should be fun. It's true, I swear to it.

I stayed the day in Paris to visit and catch up with some old friends that I knew from when we lived there. Naturally, I needed a place to stay, and my toubaba friend Ana (from Dakar) was kind enough to let me crash with her and her grandmother Monday night. In return for allowing me to sleep on her floor, Ana’s grandmother asked me to figure out how to turn on the TV and internet in the apartment she’s renting. Simple enough, right?

Well, if I’ve learned one thing in Africa, it’s that things are usually NOT as simple as they seem. What I didn’t realize is how much that applies for everywhere else.

Turning on the TV involved two pages of instructions, four remotes, turning on three different boxes, and then pushing 4325789 different buttons, in an intricate combination of X’s and O’s that you only got one chance to do because if you're supposed to cut the green wire and you cut the blue wire then this whole place blows up, but if you cut the orange wire (who makes orange wires anyways) then the cops come and the whole plan is foiled. What’s a boy fresh off the plane from Africa (where, it might be noted, he only had 1 TV set that, due to some conflagration involving the Senegalese government and the evil hoard of evil goats that roamed the streets of Dakar as they plotted to take over the world, only received 2 channels. And one of them was the TV guide channel) anyways, what’s this boy to do?

The only thing I could do: follow the instructions. I turned on the first TV with the 2^nd remote. Then I used the first remote to turn on the third box from the 8^th wall on the left. When I had finished that, I stood on my head, put my left foot on green and my right hand on yellow, and pushed the 23^rd button from the top on the 3^rd remote. The TV screen turned on, but it turned to face us. This is getting weird. Oh well, I thought. At least the TV was on. Now for the cable box.

I then pushed the power button on the remote control marked clearly “CABLE BOX” like the instructions said. Clearly the simplest part of the whole process.

Nothing.

I pushed the power button again, this time harder thinking maybe after being in Africa for 4 months without a remote control, my pointer finger had somehow lost some of its power strength. Still nothing. The grey screen of the TV mocked me in its…um greyness. I called Ana over. The two of us stood there in front of the TV for a good 10-15 minutes trying to figure out how to turn on the cable box. We were like cavemen suddenly shoved in front of a car and told that we had to drive it to the nearest restaurant if we wanted our cheeseburgers. It was all quite frustrating.

After 10-15 minutes, Ana finally managed to get the right combination of strength and dexterity in her pointer fingers, and the cable box flashed to life. The TV screen started dancing in high definition with um, dancers dancing to some band or something. Then Ana’s grandmother calls from the next room: “OK kids, time to go out. Turn the TV off and we’ll get going.”

Only one problem, the TV didn’t turn off. The “OFF” button on the TV remote didn’t work. The “POWER” button on the cable box remote didn’t work. There was no two-page set of instructions how to turn the TV off accompanying the two pages on how to turn it on. We sat there for another 15 minutes trying to turn the TV off. In the end, we had to leave it on. We were in a hurry. What else could we do?

My backyard could use an evil hoard of evil goats…what happens if the eviler flock of eviler pelicans attack?

Love,
Jake

PS – I know that I’m done with the whole Dakar thing…but I’m going to keep posting because, well because I really like writing (go to Africa, learn I love to write…go figure). So keep reading if you’re so inclined, and if you’re not well then too bad because, you might be missing out on something sweet…like for example the Melville’s greatest contribution to world Literature since Moby Dick. I’m not giving anything away, but suffice to say it involves goats, pelicans, and some not so rapide car rapides…stay tuned. Same bat time, same bat channel…

Learning for Dummies

This is going to be my last post from Dakar. I’m leaving tonight at 11.30. I’ll arrive in Paris at 6.30 in the am, where I’ll be spending the day and night. I leave Paris on Tuesday afternoon at around 3.30 or 4, and I should arrive Stateside somewhere between the hours of 6.00 and 9.00 in the evening (all of this, of course, includes a big inchallah).

What this means is that while I’m leaving Dakar tonight, I won’t be home for another couple of days, which has the combined effect of making me want to get home even more, and making my homecoming such a long way off that I don’t even need to think about it at this point.

But of course, I have to think about it, not the least because last night I saw some friends off to the airport, where they will (hopefully) make it home and have a hot shower (something I’m sure is sorely needed) before I even step on an airplane tonight. Saying goodbye to friends who I will (inchallah) see again got me thinking about this whole semester abroad experience. They tell us we’re supposed to grow, in ways we never thought possible. They say we’re supposed to learn things we never thought we’d learn. We’re supposed to experience things that we could get nowhere else. And as I sat there on the curbside, waving to the van as it carried my friends off to the airport, the question hit me full force: did any of it work?

Perhaps a more precise way to phrase this question would be to ask: what have I learned? In what ways have I grown? What experiences have I um…experienced?

Since this blog is (ostensibly) about my experiences here in Senegal, we won’t cover those in this post, save to say that if you’re so inclined to read them you can click on any one of the links over there ------> which will surely provide you with enough reading material to last you through tomorrow (some even have pictures!).

I wish I could tell you that I’ve grown up in x, y, or z ways, but I never liked graphing much, and even if I did I don’t think I’d be able to tell you where I stand now, much more than where I stood before I came here and started to think about this whole personal growth thing. As far as I can tell, the only growing that I’ve done in Dakar has been up, and that basically means I can now go to bars without the fear of being arrested.

So failing those two options, we’ll settle on the only question that really matters anyways: what did I learn in Dakar?

Since this whole semester was geared towards the holy grail of “cultural assimilation” – we’ll focus on that. You know you have culturally assimilated (which actually sounds kind of messy and unpleasant when you put it that way) when you can successfully throw 15 goats on top of a sept places in under 3 minutes. While the sept place is moving. Down a road full with potholes.

Not that I can throw 15 goats on top of a sept place, but I give you:
Three Easy Steps to Cultural Assimilation (complete with hints!)

Step 1) Getting There: The Long Road – Learn how to take public transportation anywhere.
In Dakar, this means figuring out where your car rapide is going, and if it in fact is going to be rapide (if so, choose another one as a properly named car rapide is probably the most dangerous thing on the road besides the evil hoards of evil goats). Once you figure out where your car is going and whether or not you want to get on, you must (naturally) get on the car to get to your destination. This usually involves some sort of hop, skip, and jump from the curb to the back of the car which may or may not still be moving (either still stopping or just starting). Chances are there’s a goat involved. Chances are it’s evil. Don’t trust it.
If you’re lucky enough to make it to your destination (any one of flat tires, traffic jams, random stops, starts, and goat hoards can stop a car rapide dead in its tracks), you need to express a desire to get off. This usually involves someone (you, the guy behind you, or the guy hanging off the back of the car in some combination) rapping on the window, sheet of metal that passes for a chassis wall, or random metal bar. If the car rapide stops, or slows down to the point where you can descend, congratulations, you’ve passed step one on the road to cultural assimilation. If not, go back to zero. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Step 2) Getting There: The Short Road – Learn how to cross a street
Corallary 1 – learn how to walk in the street.
So you’ve taken your car rapide to the general area where you need to go. Good job. The only problem is that you’re stuck on the wrong side of the street. Cars, trucks, un-rapide car rapides, rapide car rapides, horse-drawn carts, and evil hoards of evil donkeys are whizzing past you in a blur. How can you cross the street like those kids over there weaving in and out of traffic like its some sort of game or dance?
Crossing the street here is daily a life-threatening activity – not the least because there are, in fact, no pedestrian rights. Even if there were rights for people walking, I doubt that anyone would care about them. I mean, if you think its hard crossing the street dodging the evil hoards of evil goats, then you try driving with them without killing anyone or yourself. Crossing the street usually involves some sort of half walk/half run into oncoming traffic during a slight break. It sometimes involves waiting in the middle of the street, with traffic whizzing by on both sides of you, waiting for a break to come the other way. Then it’s a mad dash across the street, a hurdle over the evil goat there just to trip you up, and when you make it into the sand-dunes on the other side, you’re (relatively) safe.

Step 3) Eating – Learn how to get cheap food
Anyone who knows me knows how central food is to my existence. I daresay I wouldn’t survive if it weren’t for food. I’m that kid at the party who instead of socializing is standing in the kitchen by the counter, hovering over the pigs in a blanket while he waits for the dip to come out of the oven. The centrality of food to cultural assimilation should thus come as no surprise.
Not only does this step include eating dishes central to the particular target of assimilation (still sounds unpleasant), ceebujen, yassa, thiackary (to name a few of my Senegalese favorites), but it includes finding foodstuffs that are particularly indicative of something or another. My personal favorites in Africa happen to be bags. They eat almost anything you can think of in a bag here – ice cream, wine, thiackary, water, yogurt, juices of every variety. The man who figures out how to successfully eat a roast beef sandwich out of a plastic baggie wins my prize for man of the century. Not only do bagged foods taste better, there usually cheaper (always a plus) AND usually a little bit sketchier, which only makes you cooler when you eat them among toubabs – ‘you’d really eat that yogurt from a plastic bag? Man you’re hardcore.’

So there you have it, once you complete those three steps to their fullest (meaning, um…completely), it is my expert opinion that you are fully culturally assimilated. Congratulations.

Oh, and I learned about the evil goat plot to take over the world, AND the eviler pelican plot to invade Dakar at some point…but that’s a different story for a different time.

See you in the States.

Love,
Jake

NOW They Tell Me...

Have you ever had one of those days? You know, one of those days where everything you thought you knew about the world was turned upside down, inside out, and then kicked in the shins. Hard. Well, yesterday was one of those days.

It came as I was doing a little research for the greatest contribution to world literature to come from a Melville since Moby Dick. You know, what’s known as "field studies" - where I visited my subjects in their natural setting to observe them as unobtrusively as a human in an evil hoard of evil goats can be and took notes on everything from how they prepare their food to their initiation ceremonies to their mating rituals. And let me tell you, contrary to popular belief, watching goats figure out how to mate is not how you want to spend your Thursday afternoon.

So I’m observing these evil goats, trying my best to blend into the background so that the goats go about their daily evil business as naturally as possible - to get that streak of authenticity for my story. One of them comes up to me. It appears that the invisible cloak that dude in Sandaga sold me doesn’t, in fact, make you invisible. As an invisible observer, this is exactly what you don’t want to happen - because if the goats see me they start acting differently. So not only am I crushed by the fact that the guy in Sandaga told me it was a genuine invisible cloak (I believed him too! After all I couldn’t see the cloak on the coat hanger - and that’s what invisible means right?), but I start to get supremely confused when the goat starts talking to me. At first I just chalk my confusion up to the Larium I’m taking so I don’t get the malaria. But gradually, the goat starts making sense.

"What are you doing here?" he asked me.
"Just chilling," I responded.
He noticed my notepad. "Whatcha writing?"
"Oh just doing some research for my goat story."
"Goat story? That so eh?"
"Yeah, that’s so." I respond, irritated.
"How’s it coming along?" he asked.
"Splendidly," I said (note - I have never use the word ‘splendidly’ before this very moment).
"Even though you’re watching sheep?"

I was stunned. Sheep? I thought this was an evil herd of evil goats. They looked like every other evil goat I had ever seen in Dakar.

"Every other goat you see in Dakar must just be a sheep too," he said. It was then that I realized that I was thinking out loud.

"A sheep?" I said. "So I’ve been mis-naming these goats the whole time? They’re not really goats? They’re just lame old sheep?"
"Hey man, watch who you calling lame!" The sheep shouts. "You’re the one with the unhealthy obsession with goats, sitting here on a perfectly good Thursday afternoon watching sheep eat cardboard!"

I barely heard a word he said. The world was spinning. All this time I thought that the animals I was passing everyday on my way to school were goats, and this one is telling me they’re sheep? Then what have I been obsessing over for the past four months?

If goats are no longer goats, but sheep, then am I really who I think I am? Am I really Jake, or am I some kid by the name of Chad or Louis? Is up really up or is it now down? And if so does that make down up? And if gravity makes things go from up to down, then have I been heading the wrong way for my life? I had to sit down before gravity realized that it was heading the wrong way and I flew up, up and away.

I was getting dizzy. I began to doubt everything else (I thought) I knew. Was the American Declaration of Independence really written in 1776? Does a spoonful of sugar really make the medicine go down? Is "embouteillage" really French for "bottleneck?" Does Meatloaf really say what he won’t do for love in the epic "I Would do Anything for Love (but I Won’t Do That)"???

"Seriously man, what were you thinking?" the sheep said, suddenly.

That was a good question. What was I thinking? I mean I had seen goats in Africa, certainly. Those 10 animals that the sept places driver threw up on top of our car with the four other suitcases and the bike really were goats. Of that I was sure. They looked like goats from back home in American petting zoos. And there were others too, who climbed on walls precariously, who climbed on cliffs of the Great African Escaprment, who made goat cheese. And they ate cardboard.

But so did these animals…whatever they were. I was sure I had seen them eating from a pile of garbage, and to my (former) knowledge - goats were the only animals that ate cardboard, that must have been where it came from.

"Come on man, you start thinking like that, then every 3rd grader that tries to eat a piece of paper to impress the girl sitting across from him is a goat," my sheep friend said, sleepily. It was kind of annoying how I kept thinking out loud without meaning to. But he did have a point.

"OK Mr. Sheep, if you’re not, in fact a goat like I thought you were, how can I tell next time? I need a foolproof way of avoiding sheep/goat confusion."

"On sheep, everything goes down towards the ground: hair, ears, eyes, faces, horns, tail. On a goat, everything goes the opposite way, up towards the sky. Sheep have curly horns, goats have straight horns. That and goats are smaller. And they possess a superior intellect. And they are evil."

"That’s quite a repertoire. I can’t believe I never noticed it before," I said. "But if sheep aren’t evil, what are they?" I asked.

"We’re what we like to call morally ambiguous," he said.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"It means were too scared to pick a side in the battle between good or evil. We don’t want to be on the losing side."
"Sounds pretty cowardly to me," I said.
"We prefer the term courageously challenged," he said.

Whatever, I thought. They’re all goats to me.

"I heard that!" he said.

Man, I really, really have to stop doing that.

Love,
Jake

PS - for your learning pleasure, I have included a handy-dandy guide for differentiating the goat-sheep difference. Notice that my goat friend was right, and in fact things on goats do go up towards the sky, in marked contrast to their evil nature. Ironic isn’t it?

Sheep:

Baby Goat:

Saints may not have been as much fun

But they definitely stayed out of places like this…

When I said yesterday (or today if you’re reading this as I’m writing it which you most likely aren’t but never mind) that nothing of note happened…I lied. I’m sorry. Something of note DID happen…it goes a little something like this:

Last Wednesday, I was downtown with some friends who decided they were going to be nice and take me out for lunch for my birthday. After a delicious lunch and some ice cream (passion fruit and caramel nuts and cream for anyone who cares), my friends Hannah, Jarod, and I went looking for some stuff at the market downtown (no, I’m not telling what – it’ll be better if it’s a surprise).

Now Sandaga market has a reputation for being quite hellish. It may be crowded, chaotic, and dirty. You might get more than a little bit frustrated with all the vendors who try to get you to come to their shop with “even if you look its ok,” a friendly “My brother! We have the same skin!” or my personal favorite “Don’t be afraid of the black man, we don’t eat white people. We’re not cannibals here.” People coming up to you trying to take your pants off (or pick your pockets if there’s anything in them) might seem a bit odd to you, because where you come from strangers tend to leave your pants on.

But it’s all a bit unfair, I think. If you know how to deal with all hassling, keep your belongings safe, and wear a belt, you might make it out of there alive and if you’re lucky, still have your pants. If you’re really lucky, you’ll have some really sweet stuff to bring back home. Sandaga’s not really that hellish.

Or so I thought…

I like to think that Hannah, Jarod, and I are what you could have called Sandaga amateurs – that is to say we could pretty well deal with the hassling, the guys trying to take us to their shops (“just to look!”), and every time we’ve gone in there, we’ve come out with our pants still on (which is a good thing because an un-rapide car rapide ride with no pants would be the epitome of awkward). On this particular day, we’re walking through the main plaza at the beginning of Sandaga and I hear someone behind me: “Ahh, the young newlyweds!” “My sister!”

“Don’t look back,” I didn’t need to warn Jarod and Hannah. They knew the drill. “Keep going.”

Full steam ahead we barreled our way through the square, dodging the occasional taxi until a man catches my arm. “Hey! There you are! You remember me from the last time you were here?” Um….no, I’m thinking. “Last time, you told me you’d come to my store the next time you were in town. Remember?”
“Oh yeah, were you the guy standing over there by that thing?” I ask, gesturing vaguely over in that direction.
“Yeah, yeah, that was me!” he says.
“Hmm…sorry I would love to come visit your store and then have to tell you that I’m not going to buy anything, but we’re really in a hurry,” I said.
Hannah chimed in: “Yeah, we’ve got to go visit a friend and pick something up and then we’re on our way back home.”
“Oh, where is he? I’ll take you there!” my new “old friend” says.
“Oh, no thanks. We don’t need any help finding it,” I say. “It’s right over there in the covered market,” I say pointing. “We can get there ourselves.”
“Let’s go.” He says. And off he goes in the direction we’re going. “This way.” He says, turning off to the left.

At this point, I do not want to follow this dude, only to have him realize that a) we have no idea where we’re going and c) we’re not even sure what were looking for, but fortunately for me (not so much for Jarod), Jarod had gotten stuck between a territorial taxi and an inquisitive vendor. I stop and wait for him to catch up with us. Then we’re off, without a look at my new “old friend” who’s starting to realize that we didn’t follow him into the covered part of the market. When he realizes that we’re not getting off at his stop, he comes back to us. “Oh, you’re going this way?”

“Evasive maneuvers,” I mutter under my breath to Hannah and Jarod. “Roger that.” We break formation, banking into the middle of the street. The three of us start dodging and weaving, ducking and rolling in some sort of weird urban dance with the taxis, buses, and cars driving down the street. Off to the left a goat munched on some cardboard.

Still, our new “old friend” follows us. Usually dancing with taxis is a little too intense for the average annoying vendor. This guy is persistent. “We’re almost there!” he shouts.

To the left, I spied an opening in the booths and an inky black hallway led deep into the market itself. Desperate times call for desperate measures. “This way,” I said to my companions.

Looking back, the fact that the turn off actually worked and our new old friend didn’t actually follow us should have probably been my first indication that this was not somewhere I wanted to go. Barring that, then the three dudes with a full set of teeth between them who were sitting at the like gatekeepers to some infernal pit should maybe have tipped me off. But they didn’t, I had turned this way, pretending I knew where I was going, and to turn back now admitting I had no idea where I was going would have been a huge mistake in savvy Sandaga shopping. I probably should have.

After this experience, I can honestly say I’ve been to Hell. Not metaphorically or philosophically, like the trip to Bakel, but literal, physical Hell. Satan may not have been there, but I’m pretty sure I saw a giant eviler pelican lurking about in the shadows.

Hell is not the fiery pit of sulfur and brimstone that some would have you believe. Hell is not a place where you’re forced to roll a stone up a hill for all eternity. Hell is not even a place where you’re forced to listen to oldies for a 15-hour car ride with your family. I have been to Hell. I have seen what it is like and it is none of these things.

Hell is a basement market after closing time. Hell is a place that should be full, busy, chaotic, but is instead still, with the exception of a few vendors lingering around like that creepy gym teacher outside your school. Hell is a place where parts of fish lay rotting on counters that were just a few hours earlier covered in the fish that I probably ate tonight for dinner. There is no light in Hell. There are lights in Hell, but there is no light. Hell stinks. Hell smells like rotting fish, body odor. It smells dark. It smells worse than death, the smell is death. The smell sucks everything in, it sucks the breath from you, it sucks the light from the air.

For the first time in Dakar, I was scared. I had to get out. Something was wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it. We had to get out. We kept going.

“Uh oh, don’t step in that,” I said. “That” was something squishy, yet firm. It was wet. It was dark; I didn’t know what it was. Keep going.

“Uh oh, I stepped in it,” Hannah said. Keep going.

Deeper into the bowels of the market. Keep going. Turn right. A fish head. Keep going. A light. Then why can’t I see? “Jake, get me the hell out of here!”

Keep going…

I have never been so glad to see light in my life. We followed it. A goat stood there, munching on cardboard. After we finally made it out, there was an awkward silence…

“Sorry. I uh, I guess I took a wrong turn there or something,” I said at last. “But hey, at least we got rid of our friend.”

“Go to Hell, Jake.”

No thanks, I’ve been there already.

Love,
Jake

I know, I know I'm late....

I would like to take this opportunity to apoligize for any inconvience that I may/may not have caused in your life, your dog's life, your parent's dogs life, or whoevers life, for not posting all last week. I have no real reason for that other than there wasn't a good story to tell.

That being said, it doesn't mean I didn't do anything last week, au contraire, as they like to say in France, last week was chock full of....stuff. What between the last week of classes (I mean, not exactly excitating, but it does mean that there will be no more stories about how rediculous Wolof is), and my birthday on Wednesday, I'd say there was a fair amount of...how you say...stuff.

But I would like to clear up any misconceptions that may (or may not) have arisen from my last post. I did say that it was cold here, and I meant it. It's no longer chilly. It's cold. I'm full blown wearing my one sweatshirt every day now. And I'm greatful for it.

But I'm afraid I may not have give you a fair sense of just how cold it is here. For example, today, the coldest day we've had so far, the thermometer has plunged to a frigid 22 degrees.

See I told you it was cold.

I guess what I forgot to tell you is that 22 degrees is French for 73 degrees.

See I told you it was cold. At nights it might even plunge below 70 degrees to (heaven forbid) 68 degrees!

As you can see, this presents me with quite a problem. Because I'm coooooooold here. Not chilly, not even a little bit cool. But cold. And if I were in CT (or even DC) right now this would be downright balmy...we would be pulling out all the global warming jokes and all that jazz. But not here. Here global warming is the furthest fear from my mind. I'm more worried about how I'm going to keep myself warm. Well that and the goats. Goats scare me.

So if I'm cold here, and its really not that cold here, what am I going to do when I get home?

I'm going to freeeeeze. Mom, Dad, bring my coat. Please?

So I know this is short, but I've gotta get going...studying for finals and all that jazz. But the goat story will be here in its first installment tomorrow inchallah.

Love
Jake

Things I never thought I'd say in Africa:

It’s getting cold.

Not chilly, not cool, but cold. I can’t see my breath yet, and I fear the day when I can (because it will most likely be somewhere with an actual zip code), but I’ve been cold.

I don’t know if Africa’s getting to me, or if I’ve just been getting used to the heat or what, but I’ve stopped needing my fan when I sleep at night. Cold showers have stopped being a relief from the heat and started being…well cold. The other night I actually needed my sweatshirt. You remember, the one that I brought thinking “oh I’ll never need that, it’s Africa!” Well I needed it. Score one more for Africa.

We were sitting on a terrace hanging out, waiting for the appointed hour (1:00 am – they start things a bit later here) when we would go to Youssou N’Dour’s club to watch Senegal’s answer to Michael Jackson (except without the nose) as he played at his club. It was 12:30 and a strange sensation overcame me. The hairs on my arm started to stand on end, straight up. My arm and leg muscles began to vibrate uncontrollably.

I didn’t know what was happening to me. This had never happened to me, usually the strangest thing to happen to my arms is they get shiny with the sweat (and that’s walking home at noon). I was completely unaware as to what was happening to my body. I thought I might have developed some sort of disease – one of those horrible ones that they warn you about but are so rare that they never give you a shot for them:

“Yeah, Jake” the doctor says, “there’s this Ooluubula Fever that they have there, but it only strikes one person a year. It’s pretty bad, first your skin puckers up and then you start to shake uncontrollably and then a giant alien bursts out of your chest and devours your soul. There’s a shot for it, but I don’t think you’ll need it, I’m pretty sure they’ve had their one case this year. Though it might be one case every fiscal year in which case I’m not sure they’ve had their case yet, or it might be on the Muslim calendar, which means that if you don’t see the moon you’ve got it but if you see it, you have to wait a day or two before you get it.”

So here I am, on a roof, my muscles are shaking uncontrollably and my skin looks like a freshly plucked goose. “Hannah,” I say, turning to my toubaba neighbor who happened to be accompanying me that night, “look here, do you think this is anything I should be worrying about?” I ask (she’s pre med so I figure she knows about these things).

I show her my arm, almost hitting her in the face my arms are shaking so bad now. “hmm,” she says. “Ahh.” She takes out a tongue depressor and checks my ears. “Oh my,” she says. “What?” I ask. “What is it?” “Oh it’s just very interesting. It’s been a while since I’ve seen anything like this.” she says.

Oh no I’ve got the Ooluubula Fever. I’m counting down the seconds until my chest explodes and an alien devours my soul.

“It appears that you’re cold,” she says.

Cold. It sounds strangely familiar. Like a picture of a childhood friend that you stumble across in a closet or attic somewhere. I know that face, but I can’t put a name to it.

Cold. It reminds me somehow of Connecticut, and sitting inside by a fireplace.

Cold. It reminds me of staying up late one night at GW, watching snow (whatever that is) fall softly in the streetlight, covering the street and sidewalk in a soft glow.

Cold. “Cold?” I ask. “What’s that?”

“It’s the body’s natural reaction when the temperature dips below 80 degrees.” Dr. Hannah answers. “It happens to everyone at some point in time,” she assures me.

“Is it bad?” I ask. “Is it contagious? Can I still go out?”

“It can be bad,” she tells me. “Fortunately, it’s not contagious and it’s easily cured.”

“How?”

“A sweatshirt. Everyone should have one; you probably have on in your closet somewhere,” (as she spoke, that semicolon came out…it was weird).

“So I can still go out?” I ask. I mean, this is my one chance to see the Michael Jackson of Senegal (without the nose thing). The only way I wouldn’t be going is if an alien burst from my chest and devoured my soul. Because let’s face it, Michael Jackson’s just no fun without a soul.

“Yeah, I mean you should really go back and put a sweatshirt on,” she says, “but if you’re going out to dance I think you should be alright,” she tells me.

Phew. So I went out. I saw Youssou N’Dour. He was amazing. Let me recommend to anyone who happens to be in Africa, specifically the westernmost city (Dakar), that you go and see Youssou if you get the chance. I mean he didn’t come onstage until 2.00, a time at which point most clubs in the states are (I’m guessing) closing. But if you’re not my dad and can stay up past 8.30, its definitely worth staying up till 4.00, dancing the night away to the liquid rhythms of Youssou’s mbalax (I should really look into reviewing music) and pretending to be married to four different toubabas so they have an excuse to not talk to sketchy guys that haunt clubs (I mean I know four is a bit much, but they say if you can afford it you’re allowed, and it costs nothing to pretend to be married – that and it’s over as soon as you get into the cab home unless your cabbie is sketchtastic in which case you’ve got bigger problems to deal with).

And the best part about the whole thing is this: when I came out of the club hot and sweaty after having danced to liquid rhythms for two hours, a cold shower actually sounded refreshing. Unfortunately, by the time I woke up the next morning, cold shower sounded once again…cold.

Stay warm.

Love,
Jake

PS – If you noticed that this post is noticeably devoid of evil hoards of evil goats, it’s because all evil goat energy is currently being used to write what is quite possibly the Melville family’s greatest contribution to world literature since Moby Dick. So if you’re craving evil goat stories (and even if you’re not) then fear not, because once this masterpiece is finished, you shall have an evil goat epic for the ages. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry. It will rival The Odyssey in its epic-ness, The Collected Works of Billy Shakespeare in its lyric-ness, and Farmer Browns Goat Almanac in its insight-ness into the lives of evil hoards of evil goats.

Bubus, Tacos, and Zombies

I had my first run in with mind-altering chemicals last night. No, mom, don't worry, not those. It's the ones I'm supposed to be taking - you know the ones that are supposed to prevent me from getting the shakes and the chills and the vomiting - malaria.

The prescription slip that came along with my mind (I mean malaria) drugs reads, in big capital letters something like this:

WARNING! DO NOT TAKE THIS MEDICATION IF YOU ARE SUFFERING FROM DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, SCHITZOPHRENIA, MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER, OR ANY OTHER MENTAL DISORDER. THIS MEDICATION HAS BEEN KNOWN TO EXACERBATE (wait did I spell that right?) ANY AND ALL MENTAL CONDITIONS.

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS INCLUDE: (the boring kind like) HEADACHE, NAUSEA, STOMACH ACHE, FUZZY VISION, (and then the much more fun)VIVID NIGHTMARES, PARANOIA, ANXIETY, HALLUCINATIONS, CONFUSION, SEIZURES, LOSS OF PERSONALITY, MEMORY LOSS, LOSS OF A SENSE OF REALITY...and the list goes on and on (I didn't make any of those up either).

Now, before leaving for Africa, I was (admittedly) looking forward to some of these side effects. I mean confusion and memory loss are things that I've dealt with my whole life, usually it goes something like this: I'll be walking down the street on my way to class, then I'll almost get run over by say, a firetruck on its way to rescue an old lady who managed to get stuck in a tree. Then I'll promptly forget where I was going and I'd be confused: Do I know any old ladies? And what's she doing in that tree anyways?

Fortunately, I've managed to defeat natural selection for just over 20 years (because we all know that the caveman wondering what the old lady is doing in the tree isn't going to catch any buffalo), so confusion and memory loss are nothing new. What I wanted was something hipper, edgier: paranoia, loss of reality, hallucinations, vivid dreams. Something to write home about. Something to brag to my friends about when I got home: "yeah, you think your trip to Paris was cool, well I went to Africa where I discovered that eviler pelicans are plotting to take over the world and convinced the evil hoards of evil goats to join me in defending humanity." The seizures though I can do without.

Unfortunately, my medications and mental state would not comply and I remained hallucination-free dissapointedly sensible, and all my dreams were just weird.

That is, until late last night.

I'm on some elevator, riding it around. It's like Willy Wonka's great glass elevator: it goes upways and sideways and downways and leftways and inside and outside and inside-out and outside-in. So I'm going through my day, taking the elevator to and from class. When I try to go to the library however, the elevator decides that I would rather go to the cafeteria because it's hungry. So it does a bendy loopy turn and dives down to the cafeteria. It crashes through the window and dumps me in the top of the playspace above the food court (yes, apparently my foodcourts come with playspaces).

I pick myself up, dust myself off, and turn to go get something to eat. Except I can't. Something's holding me back. I turn around to find a man in a bubu holding on to me. That wasn't the weird thing (if you can believe it - how many times do men in bubus decide that they're not going to let go of you? How many times do men in bubus grab you in the first place?). The weird thing was that this man in a bubu had no eyes - just holes where his eye sockets would normally be. Fortunately, he kept his eyes closed so as to spare me the sight of his brain, but still it was freaky enough.

Now, when I see a man in a bubu with no eyes, I immediately get suspicious. I mean the color of his bubu looked really good on him, and how did he pick it out if he had no eyes? How did this dude find the bubu in the morning after he woke up? Do eyeless men in bubus open their eyelids when they wake up or are they just "awake" in a metaphysical sense of the word? When he finally got out of bed, how did he find his closet? Did he put the bubu on himself or did his wife dress him? Who would marry an eyeless zombie anyways? Did they have eyeless bubu-clad zombies to go with their bubu-clad house? Do you think he cleans the sockets of his eyes or do they just collect dust? What is he going to do when the evil hoards of evil goats implement their plot to take over the world? He'll just be sitting there looking as the goats silently ate every last scrap of clothing on his body, and wouldn't notice until it was too late and he was chilly (cause it doesn't get cold here).

And when an eyeless zombie all decked out in a really nice bubu won't let go to me, I (naturally enough) start to panic. I mean what does this guy want with me anyways? He better not come for my eyes because I enjoy doing things like looking. I hope he doesn't try to eat me because I'm kind of skinny and don't have that much meat on my bones - and everyone knows that toubabs taste like sour milk anyways. So I did what anyone would do when attached to a very persistant bubu clad eyeless zombie - I kicked him in the shins. But everyone knows that bubu-clad eyeless zombies are immune to shin kicks - a fact that I was made painfully aware of when my bubu-clad eyeless zombie turned into (and I'm not making this up) a little alligator wearing a t-shirt that said "get me some taco." Oh and he still wouldn't let me go.

Little alligators are scary enough, but when they come with a craving for Mexican food they become downright freaky. My dad showed up to save the day (from where I cannot say), and started to stomp on our t-shirt wearing taco-eating lizard. At this point, I decided that enough was enough. I wanted out. You might think I'm a quitter, but up to this point I had endured the Willy Wonka ride from hell, an eyeless bubu-wearing zombie, and a taco loving lizard. You would have left too. This being a dream, I did what any sensible dreamer would do - I forced myself to wake up.

I opened my eyes and found myself gasping in my room. My heart was beating a million miles a minute, and a cold sweat was pouring down my back. It was really really dark (maybe because it was only 1.30), but luckily my eyes came equipped with built in flashlights. I would look at the walls and there would be a little patch dimly illuminated - just enough so I could see the graffitti painted all over my walls.

It was at this point that I realized that eyes don't come with flashlights built in. Furthermore, upon going to sleep the walls of my room were painted in a dull shade of white - no graffitti to be found anywhere. Something was amiss. I began to panic. I knew I was awake, but still seeing all sorts of crazy things. Don't look at the fan, the little red lights will look like eyes oh my god they do look like eyes quick turn on the light before you start imagining people in the room what the hell was that shadow over by the door am i going crazy?

I reached over and turned on my bathroom light. I saw that my fan did not have eyes and was only an air-mover. I saw that my walls were eggshell white and sufficiently graffitti free. Its effect was immediately calming - like a cool breeze on a hot day - I wasn't crazy.

I got a drink of water and tried to slow my heart down. But I kept coming back to my bubu-clad eyeless zombie and taco-eating alligator. Every time I pictured that eyeless zombie face or taco shirt, I shivered a little bit.

But it might have just been the chilly (not cold) air.


Anyways, I've got to go discuss the impending eviler pelican invasion with the evil hoard of evil goats that lives by my house. Right after I take this week's malaria meds...

Love,
Jake

Food Coma: Dakar

Yesterday I promised that I would have a Thanksgiving story to tell you guys about our Thanksgiving dinner and by golly I intend to keep that promise. So ready, set, go!

I’m told yesterday at school (yes, I actually had to go to class on Thanksgiving day – how unfair is that?) to show up at Serigne’s roof at 18.30 (that’s French for 6:30 pm) because that’s what time the party starts. So 18:30 rolls around (because the watch I bought here is stuck in French time) and I realize that I need to buy some bread to bring to this party. I buy some bread and head on over to Serigne’s house. Luckily, he lives in my neighborhood and even more luckily he provided an easy to read map to direct me to his house.

It’s 18:40 by the time I roll up to Serigne’s rooftop and I’m informed that even though I am 10 minutes late, I am the first one there. First thing I’m thankful for: the fact that the other toubabs are even later than me covering up my chronic lateness.

So people start trickling in, bringing in all sorts of things that they’ve made and/or purchased for the feast tonight. I made a list as the night went on and it looks something like this:

Asian food rolls
Homemade applesauce
Kraft mac-n-cheese
Homemade mac-n-cheeze
Mashed sweet potatoes
Orange squash
Fried plantains
Vegetable noodles
Garlic and rosemary mashed potatoes
Chicken
Stuffing la Africain
Quiche with tomatoes on top
Salsa
Cranberry sauce in a can (!!!)
Juices de: bissap, buie, ditakh, gingembre
Egg rolls
Bread
Salad
Canned popcorn
Homemade trail mix
Canned fruit cocktail
Homemade fruit salad
Peach cobbler
Squash pie
Vegetable vendor squash pie
Madelines with chocolate
Cookies, esp. of the Aladin, Karen, Salsa, Favorite, and Alaska varieties (don’t worry the names have nothing to do with the actual cookies)

Second thing I’m thankful for: the creativity and ingenuity of all my toubab comrades that made such a feast possible.

Now don’t worry, I made sure that I tried everything. And I can definitively say that even though my comrades had to get a little creative when faced with some of the ingredients that us Americans like to put in our traditional foods (I mean why would anyone can a pumpkin in the first place? But squash makes a darn fine substitute), they still managed to put on a fantastic Thanksgiving meal. I am also incredibly impressed at the American traditions that somehow found their way through the USPS, a plane ride or two or twelve over the Atlantic, and then (as if that wasn’t enough punishment for a box of food), survived the Senegalese Package Depot.

Just so you understand what it was like we’ll digress for a bit – when I had to go pick up my package I had to first of all find the package depot (not a clue why we can’t just keep packages at the post office near school). That involved a car rapide ride (always fun and never rapide) downtown, asking about four different people at the post office downtown, then about a half hour walk to find a building that was only two blocks away. When I finally got to the package depot, I went up to a window and showed them my package slip. They told me to go talk to a guy in the next room. The guy looked at my package slip and told me to go talk to a guy in a back room. I wandered through this door into an air-conditioned room and found a guy at a desk whose only job must be to verify that people do, in fact, have their package slip because he told me to go find that big guy out front. He also stamped my slip to prove that he had looked and made sure that I had my slip. The big guy told me to go on through to the package room. I showed the guy in the package room my slip (that had been stamped to prove that I in fact had it) who went back into the labyrinth of bookshelves, with packages strewn everywhere like some sort of Greek ruin. How he even found my package is beyond me. But he came back with my package. He then opened it to make sure that there was nothing illegal (like goat feed) in it. After taping it back up, he told me to go talk to “that guy.” So I went back to the big guy, who wrote something in a notebook. Then I had to go talk to another guy right next to the big guy who wrote something in his notebook. They both then stamped my package slip to prove that they had, in fact, looked and even written in their notebooks (at this point my package slip was looking more like a page in a diplomat’s passport than anything remotely useful). I was then told to go pay the customs fees (oh by the way I still don’t have my package). So I go pay my custom fees (who stamps my passport – I mean package slip). He then tells me I need to go talk to the guy at the front desk, who really is just the guy from the package room. The guy at the front desk looks at my passport and tells me I need to pay these ladies the processing fee. I pay them and they stamp my passport to prove I paid. They then tell me I need to go back to the desk and our friend from the back shows up and tears out a page from my passport. He then ventures back into the labyrinth, battles a Minotaur, and returns with my package. Apparently I can now go.

Third thing I’m thankful for: packages being delivered straight to your door.

Anyways, somehow the cranberry sauce and Kraft mac-n-cheeze made it through this and into my bowl where it was mixed with all of the above (my own personal Thanksgiving tradition) and thoroughly appreciated by my stomach.

People are eating, Kiki and I are discussing the finer points of the bissap markets in the States, as well as the effect that China’s entry into the WTO would have on market dumping and the fragility of the African bissap growers (how intellectual I know!), and general thanks are being given all around. The night is getting late, it’s getting sort of chilly (not yet cold though), and someone decides to start a Circle of Thanks. After everyone had gotten in a rather large circle on Serigne’s terrace, we went around and said what we were thankful for this Thanksgiving. It was a good moment, some girls cried, and everyone was happy and felt good.

Are you ready for our Christmas Spirit moment? You’d better be because it’s coming…

That night on Serigne’s roof, I learned that the true spirit of Thanksgiving is not stuffing yourself on delicious food until you burst, and then washing it down with three slices of pumpkin pie. The true meaning of Thanksgiving is to remember all the things that we’re happy for having in life. As the metaphorical baton was passed around the Circle of Thanks and people started saying what they were thankful for, I heard people who have struggled with Dakar All the cynicism that permeates CIEE discussion about Dakar was thrown out the window, off the roof, out of the country, and replaced with love: love for new friends, love for family (and how much they missed them), love for the opportunity to have the chance to live in Dakar and test yourself and experience new things, love for Thanksgiving, and love for all that good food that had been brought. remember why they came here, remember the good times they’ve had here with all the new friends they made.

Fourth thing I’m thankful for: the power of Thanksgiving to make people happy.

Once the Circle of Thanks had dissolved, people started to trickle out as slowly as they had trickled in – saying goodbyes and happy thanksgivings and plans were made for this weekend. Stuffed to the gills, I decided to have one more piece of squash pie before leaving.

Fifth thing I’m thankful for: the fact that I only live 10 minutes away from Serigne’s house so I didn’t have to walk a long ways home before passing out full on my bed.

So I hope everyone had a delightful Thanksgiving this year. I’m going shopping today (Black Friday!) but I’m pretty sure that today is one of those days where I’d rather be hassled at a market in Dakar than looking for 4 hours for a parking place at the Danbury Fair Mall only to have to endure population densities that would make Tokyo look like the wide open tundra of northern Canada once I finally made it inside.

Oh and goats, I’m thankful for goats.

Love,
Jake

PS - I'm officially updating only the Google Pictures now. Picasa just takes too long and is too complicated. Sooo...from now on all new pictures will be on the google link over there ----->

Barlie Chown’s Thanksgiving Day Special

Does that make me Charlie Brown (or Barlie Chown as he’s apparently called in Senegal)? In any case…

Happy Thanksgiving boys and girls (and I suppose women and men for the over-18 crowd that may/may not be reading this)!!!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written last, and I’m sorry, but for the past 10 days, Devon’s been here hanging out and generally seeing exactly what it is that Senegal has to offer (other than goats of course, which she saw plenty of). We went to Popenguine, which is Heaven’s answer to Toubab Dialow. Remember how awesome Toubab Dialow was? (it’s alright if you don’t, you can read about it by finding the post “Thiebudjen in Paradise” which is found in September somewhere over there ----->). Well Popenguine was 8.548.567.578 (that’s French for 8,548,567,578) times better. Pictures are found by following the Google pictures link (also found) over there ------>. There’s also pictures of all the other neat stuff Devon and I did when she was here, including Iles des Madelines part deux, and more fun at the escarpment. They say a thousand pictures are worth one word (or something like that), so I’ll just use the pictures and save my words for a much more important story: that of Thanksgiving.

A long time ago, there were some people who came here from a far away land to escape the developed world. Nowadays, we call these people “CIEE Students.” In November, with a little less than a month to go in their trip, these CIEE students gave thanks and celebrated the fact all of them had made it this far alive and relatively unscathed (except for the occasional run in with an evil army of evil goats plotting to take over the world). They celebrated in the traditional way of their forefathers and foremothers and foreparents who they had left behind in the Old Land many moons ago (well, maybe only 3 or 4 moons): they held a large feast, and they called it “Thanksgiving.”

In the Old Land the time leading up to Thanksgiving was a time of change. The seasons were changing from Summer (the hot season) to Winter (the cold season). The time in between was called Fall, or Autumn depending on who you talked to and how pretentious they wantedto sound. Nature herself also changed. Nights would get longer and the days would start to get colder. The leaves of the trees would change color, from the deep, dark greens of Summer to brilliant reds, yellows, and oranges of the Autumn. When all the leaves changed color, the trees would shake them off and they would fall to the ground. Likewise, the clothes of the people in the old country would fall towards the ground (no, not in that way): sleeves on shirts would get longer and thicker, shorts would turn into longs, all in the name of keeping legs and arms warm. For many a CIEE Student, this period of change was their favorite time of year: the air smelled of cold and the wind carried the spice of the leaves about.

Things were different in the New Land (as it was called way back then). It was still a time of change, but the change was more subtle. Instead of hot to cold, seasons changed from Really Freaking Hott (with two T’s) – as it was called – to not so freaking hot (note the differences in capitalization). It also changed from the Wet season (which was probably a misnomer since it only rained about three times – and for only about 15-20 minutes each time) to the Dry season (which was correctly named – because it never rained - not once). The Evil Army of Evil Goats that roamed the Streets of Dakar turned into the Eviler Army of Evil Pelicans that sat on the rocks as they plotted the demise of the boatful of Toubabs that was stupid enough to get too close to them.

The change of the seasons also affected the minds of the CIEE students. Things that once appeared normal to them started to look rather strange in the New Land. They saw pictures on the television of people from the Old Land – dressed as Old Landers would normally be dressed in November: with longs (as opposed to shorts), sweatshirts, and strangest of all: coats. The outfits looked oddly familiar, like a long lost toy from their childhood that they had stumbled upon in the closet. Yet, as they tried to remember what it was like to be actually “cold,” they found that it was a concept that was largely lost on them: the vast majority hadn’t been really “cold” in months apart from a few times in a room with the air conditioner turned up way too high.

Strangest of all however, were the customs that were imported to the New Land from the Old Land. In the Old Land, Thanksgiving and November were usually accompanied with the traditional images of Christmas: white snow-covered Christmas Trees, snow-covered mountaintops, and images of landscapes covered in snow, both the ground-lying and falling varieties.

Now, the New Land was predominantly a Muslim land, with a very small Christmas-celebrating population. Yet still, Christmas paraphernalia permeated the land. Gas station convenience stores would have white-washed pictures on their windows depicting the very same snow-covered Christmas trees, mountaintops, and landscapes (complete with both the ground-lying and falling varieties). It seemed out of place to see frigid, snowy mountain peaks in this New Land with the average flatness of a pancake where the air never dropped below what Old Landers would call “sort of chilly.”

Try to imagine passing this gas station on a Car Rapide – misnamed as most of them are in fact not rapide but quite slow – packed like sardines in a can so that half of you is sitting on some dude’s lap while some other dude is sitting on your other half. Oh and it’s really, really hot and you’re sweating through your shirt. And then you see snowy mountain peaks (did I mention this is a Muslim country?).

Where am I???

So as you’re sitting in your living room, enjoying the chestnuts roasting over the open fire as the wind blows the leaves around outside, watching football, with the turkey and stuffing in the oven, wearing your sweatshirt, dreaming of a white Christmas, remember those of us who are sweating through our shorts and T-shirts, eating Eviler pelican (no turkey here) casualties of the battle between the evil armies of the Evil Goats and the Eviler Pelicans, and are really confused because the calendar is telling me it’s Thanksgiving but the sweat pouring down my back is telling me it’s closer to the Fourth of July.

Save me some stuffing.

Love,
Jake

PS- we are having a sort of Thanksgiving feast tonight, it’s at the program director’s house. It’s sure to be the most interesting Thanksgiving I’ve ever had…what with the absence of such Thanksgiving staples as cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, oh yeah and turkey (I think we’re using chicken instead). It’s sure to be interesting so you can expect an exciting post about it tomorrow…until then inchallah.

Hitchock was Right…

I have never been so terrified of birds in my life.

I used to think that I was ok with animals, wildlife in general, and especially the flying variety. I’ve got a dog who thinks that the only place she can puke and/or poop and/or pee in the house is on my bed. I’ve been to Maine where I’ve put my hands on live fish as they flop around, only to get stabbed by the evil spines in its back (I’m still waiting for the evil to take me over…but so far the Spot is fighting the effects – only one force is allowed to take me over and the Spot was here first). Even bugs don’t faze me – after prom there was this thing at school where we got to eat bugs – I ate a few of them (my friend here Ruthzee still doesn’t let me forget that). And the other night, I woke up in the middle of the night because something was crawling around my mouth. I brushed it off and it landed on my chest. It then JUMPED back on my face so I swatted it away. I got my shoe and smacked it. That morning, I picked up my shoe to find a cockroach about two inches long still twitching underneath it. My reaction on discovering that a cockroach had most likely crawled IN my mouth while I was sleeping? “C’est ca l’afrique.”

The point being: I used to think I was pretty comfortable with all fiefdoms (or however they divvy up kingdoms these days) in the Animal Kingdom. Then we went to the bird reserve near St. Louis (no, not Missouri) this weekend.

So we’re on a boat, taking pictures of wild boars drinking from the river, applying sunblock so as not to get roasted by the African sun, and watching pelicans and other birds as they lazily float by. Our only concerns are the crocodiles that might decide to eat our feet if we dangle them in the water, so we don’t dangle them in the water, and the water’s too high for the crocodiles anyways. It’s very idyllic and peaceful. It’s a real vacation from the hustle-bustle of the city. We’re enjoying each other’s company and enjoying life.

We round a bend in the river, and the stench hits us first. Then a gap in the trees reveals about 3,000 pelicans chilling out on rocks in the river. Our guide tells us that these are the pelican nesting grounds, and lucky ducks that we are (though curiously there were no ducks in this river…weird huh?), we’ve arrived right smack in the middle of nesting season.

I never realized how untrustworthy 3,000 pelicans look when they’re just sitting on a few rocks sticking out of the water, just looking for something to do.

Our guide though, wants to take us in for a closer look. Uh oh, I’m thinking, I’ve seen The Birds, I know what a flock of 3,000 birds can do if they set their minds to it. And I don’t trust these pelicans. I mean, are they used to a boat full of toubabs coming within 100 feet of their nesting grounds? Are pelicans like mama bears and kill anything that threatens their young? Where are all the goats? Whose gonna protect us if the pelicans attack? I don’t wanna take any chances on pissing off 3,000 pelicans, especially if there are no goats around. My mind flashes to that scene in The Birds with all those crows just chilling out on the playground equipment at the school. Not cool.

Unfortunately, I’m not driving, and our guide seems to think it would be a good idea so we go through a gap in the trees. Oh dear.

If you thought 3,000 pelicans were untrustworthy, then try 21,000. Yeah, that’s right, twenty-one thousand pelicans, sitting on three long rocks, just waiting for someone to mess with them. I don’t think we have that many soldiers in South Korea. And North Korea is building a nuclear bomb.

My mind flashes from the playground to the last scene in The Birds, you know, when they walk out of the house and the landscape is covered in crows: crows on their front yard, crows in the road, crows on the power lines, crows on their roof. My mind is a SportsCenter highlight reel of aerial attacks on humans: the scene where the seagulls attack the dude and that lady in the boat. And then the scene where the sparrows pour down the chimney into their house. And that montage from America’s Funniest Home Videos where the people get bonked in the head with kites, paper airplanes, giant Styrofoam airplanes, and 35 balls to the head in 30 seconds.

And here I am sitting in a boat, staring at 21,000 pelicans and their babypelicans, hoping that they can’t read my mind and get ideas from the highlight reel in my head, praying that they don’t get spooked by the motor (which the driver has now thankfully cut off), begging the kids in the boat not to throw anything at the pelicans, hoping an army of evil goats is on its way up from Dakar to protect us should the eviler pelicans attack (can goats even swim?). I’d even take the less evil daytime-only goats of St. Louis until the round-the-clock Dakar goats get here.

Just someone, please send some goats?

Love,
Jake

Flag Waving for Ex-Pats

I’m watching TV last night, which I will admit is a rare occurrence here, you're more likely to find me staring at the sun than watching TV (it might be because Senegalese TV is in some combination of French and Wolof, and can be hard to tell which is which, or it might just be because Senegalese TV is just plain weird).
Anyways, I’m watching Senegalese music videos with my Senegalese sister after having eaten some real delicious Senegalese food for dinner (which I ate Senegalese style – on the floor)…point is, I’m doing things Senegalese-style here and feeling pretty good about it, like I've got this place down. So this music video comes on, and it’s got some Senegalese rap group or whatever playing Senegalese music. I notice one of these guys in this group has on a New York Giants (yeah, those Giants) big puffy jacket, which gets me thinking. Do those guys even know who the Giants are? Next, I see a guy wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, and I’m forced to conclude, that at the very least, the New York motif is intentional. But even so, I wonder sometimes, what is this guy trying to say by sporting these team brands?
For example, does he know about the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, without a doubt one of the biggest rivalries in American sports? Does he care that this year was the first year in forever that we haven’t had a Yankees-Red Sox NLDS (or whatever those letters are…I mean I ask if this guy cares but I clearly don’t)? Does the name George Steinbrenner mean anything to him? What about Derek Jeter? Do these names mean anything to you? Does he know that by wearing that hat he’s supporting the so called “Evil Empire” that is New York Yankees baseball?
And what about the Giants jacket? Does Giants stadium mean anything to him? Does New Jersey (probably not...its Jersey why would it)? Did he care that Eli Manning was drafted and does he know that his brother is one of the best quarterbacks in the league? Does he even know who Tiki Barber is???
I ask these questions, not to mock a Senegalese rapper supporting a team that he may or may not know anything about. Because he in fact might be a Giants fan or a Yankees fan, and he may have been legitimately bored when the Yankees didn’t play the Red Sox to see who went to the World Series again. But even if he does, there’s no guarantee that the average Senegalese teenager (his assumed audience) does. And this is where I started thinking.
In the States, wearing a Giants jacket or a Yankees hat in your music video is a statement. If, for example, you wear a Yankees hat, then you are stating, very clearly, that you support evil empires in all their forms. “Win at any cost” is your motto. You throw your lot in with Gengis Kahn and his crew. Maybe Vader wasn’t so bad a guy after all, he was just misunderstood. And it really is a shame that they had to destroy that second Death Star, I mean it wasn’t even finished yet. What about all those innocent contractors? You’re probably that guy who feeds the evil armies of evil goats that roam the streets of Dakar while they plot to take over the world. But then again I don’t like the Yankees.
Now, I’m not Senegalese, but something here tells me that that’s not the message that our rap-video friend was going for. I mean the Senegalese aren’t very confrontational. Aggression is found in mostly the passive form (silent treatment, refusing to take your neighbors fish - we watched a movie on it so I would know). Vader just doesn’t seem like their kind of guy (but then again it probably is because they identify more with the rebels – that whole throwing off the yoke of colonialism thing). Plus, they definitely eat goat here. But on a more serious level, why wear a Yankees jacket if there’s a high likelihood that a good three-quarters of your audience don’t know what a touchdown is (or am I mixing up my sports again?)
As I was watching this video, and our pinstripe-topped friend rapped in a language that I could not, for the life of me understand, I couldn’t come up with a suitable answer to one question: just why was this guy wearing these clothes? I was feeling a little bit outside this whole “culture” business, because surely his Senegalese fans knew why he wore those clothes right? And if I couldn’t figure out what a rapper is doing wearing a Yankee’s hat, then how am I ever going how to learn how to cram 10 goats on top of a station wagon (not to mention the four suitcases and a bike)?
So I sit down to write this and it hits me: people probably don’t have any idea where Giants stadium is, and they’ll most likely stare blankly at me when I make fun of New Jersey to them. All any Senegalese rap fan really needs to know though is that the Giants are an American…thing. What they do or where they do whatever it is that they do is not important at all, but for our Senegalese rap friend, all that matters is the red, white, and blue lettering on his jacket.
Because one of the things that I’ve noticed since I’ve been here is that no matter how much Senegalese people complain about how Americans are rude and their President doesn’t like Muslims (though apparently Bill Clinton is a national hero here – and ‘Monica schmonica, what the president does in his private time is his own business’), I have yet to meet a Senegalese who doesn’t want to go to the States. I’m sure they exist, but they haven’t yet invited me to their secret club where they discuss going to Marseilles and eating fromage while wearing a beret. Meanwhile, American flags (and other American “symbols”) are seen everywhere from the back of wheelchairs to doors to clothing. If you’re planning on coming to Senegal to escape all the flags on pickup trucks and “God Bless America” slogans, then well, I’d start looking elsewhere, because the American dream is alive and fighting here in Senegal.
What’s it fighting you ask (or maybe you’re asking…when’s this going to end? Or did I forget to turn off the oven last night)? Preliminary reports are sketchy, but messengers from the front lines say Dearth Vader has invaded with an evil army of evil goats. Witnesses report seeing George Steinbrenner on goatback leading the charge. As for me, I’m hiding. Goats scare me.

Love,
Jake

In Other News...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/02/AR2006110201896.html

Senegal's made the Washington Post! It's a very good article that paints a good picture of life in Dakar, as well as the issues facing Africa today.

By my book! (wait, what???)
love
jake

A Joke Waiting to be Written

A turkey wearing spoons on his feet walks into a bar in Los Angeles…

I’m sitting in my Wolof class, staring at a map of the US. Like most things here in Senegal, “map” is a relative term: instead of the majestic lands of the United States of America represented from sea to shining sea, from the eastern forests, to the great plains to the great lakes, to Texas (don’t forget Texas, we can’t forget Texas), what is drawn on the board before me looks roughly like a defeathered turkey trying desperately to take off. The comparison is apt for two reasons: one, rumor has it that the majestic turkey was almost our national bird (which would mean endless ridicule by the other teams at the Olympics as the “USA Gobblers” took the field), and c) it's almost Thanksgiving and turkeys everywhere are being plucked and trying desperately to take flight so as to escape the ovens and turkey basters that await.

So here I am looking at a featherless turkey trying to take flight when my professor decides that he could use a bad case of acne. Spots are drawn in strategic places across the turkey’s body, roughly correlating with the location of several NFL franchises (Seattle, Denver, Detroit, DC, Boston, among others). Its as if standing before the class stark naked with his lack of a flying ability on display for all to see wasn’t embarrassing enough for this poor turkey, now the full force of puberty has to hit him all over at once. How was he supposed to get a girl turkey as his turkey date for the annual pre-Thanksgiving turkey ball? Nobody wants to go to the turkey ball with a weirdo.

Kebs, my professor, points to a dot labeled “Colorado” located roughly near where the city of Los Angeles would be found on a normal map. He asks me: fii California la? Which means “is this California?”

Now let’s imagine for a second. I’m looking at a very, very rough representation of the United States, asked to identify if a dot, located in what would definitely be Southern California in the real world, is in fact “California.” But of course, this is Senegal, and the concept of “the real world” is apparently deemed some sort of health hazard here, at least when it comes to mapping. I was therefore forced to deny the existence of California and substitute in some sort of alternate reality where the sandy and golden beaches of Southern California (at least I’m told there sandy and golden…I’ve never been there) have been replaced by the majestic, snow-capped peaks of Colorado.

I would like to note that this whole alternate reality thing would have been much easier to swallow if he had pointed to say, the dot on the east coast marked “Michigan” and said “Fii Seattle la?” I could have said “deedeet, fii du Seattle, fii Michigan la,” denying one false reality and substituting it for another, equally as false as the first.

Which brings me to my next point (or not at all, but you all understand the importance of a catchy transition now don’t you?). This wasn’t the first time that I was forced to confront alternate realities in my Wolof class. Why, just before learning how to ask if Southern California was really Colorado, I learned something much more valuable and imaginationally (yes, there I go making up words again – and you thought/hoped that I was finished) more stimulating: “Lii lan la?”

Roughly translated (or maybe more exactly translation, initial reports are still sketchy), “lii lan la” means “what is this?” The exercises to engrave this phrase into our mind included pointing to an object in the room (usually a door, window, table, or shoe) and asking if that object was something that it was very clearly not (similar to the California/Colorado exercise mentioned above, but without the warped continental drift). It usually went something like this. I would point to a window and say to a classmate “Is this a shoe?” They would reply “no, that is not a shoe,” to which I would ask “what is this?” and they would respond “that is a window.” All very basic, until you get one bored individual such as myself who starts to question things. Asking myself things like, what if that window was a shoe? Do you think it would make me run faster, jump higher, be like Mike?

No, that purse is not bread, but if it were, I bet it would be really hard to cut with the water bottle that you’re pointing to because you want to see if it’s a knife (though I’m told they cut things with water, which I did not know so maybe that water could make a mean knife). And it would be really hard to eat my daily pen of chakiri (that’s Wolof for yogurt and millet goodness served in a bowl – and there’s no mistaking it for a hat) with that desk…but I’d be up for the challenge.

So you see, this is where my mind is going during the insanity of Wolof class. They say (or maybe they don’t, I’ve never really asked) that you can learn a lot about a culture just by studying it’s language, and with Wolof being the 3rd foreign language that I’ve studied, I’d say that for the most part it’s true. But I never knew that the way I learned Wolof would give me such insight into cross-cultural mayhem at work. Maybe it’s because it’s been a while since I’ve studied a language and wasn’t this clever (wait, did I really make that claim? Juuuust kidding!!) when I was younger. Maybe it’s because the French and Spanish are too busy assigning genders to their forks and knives to contemplate just what would happen if you tried to sit on a fork and use your knife as a desk. Maybe it’s because of the hoards of evil goats roaming the streets of Dakar as they plot to take over the world.

Maybe I should just pay more attention in class…

Love,
Jake