Week 8 - Dakar finally!

“It is not pleasant to see an American thrusting his nationality forward obtrusively in a foreign land but Oh, it is pitiable to see him making of himself a thing that is neither male or female, neither fish, flesh, nor fowl – a poor, miserable, hermaphrodite Frenchmen!”

“He was born in South Carolina, of slave parents...he has grown up here. He is well educated. He reads, writes, and speaks English, Italian, Spanish, and French, with perfect facility; is a worshiper of art and thoroughly conversant with it...He dresses better than any of us, I think, and is daintily polite. Negroes are deemed as good as white people, in Venice, and so this man feels no desire to go back to his native land. His judgement is correct.”

“Now we will descend into the crypt, under the grand altar of Milan Cathedral, and receive an impressive sermon from lips that have been silent and hands that have been gestureless for three hundred years”

“All this country belongs to the Papal States. They do not appear to have an schools here, and only one billiard table.”

“There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild beasts and stirring up their finer feelings in an Inquisition. One is the system degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened, civilised people. It is a great pity the playful inquisition is no more.”

Taking longer with The Innocents Abroad that I expected, given how much I enjoy it. After returning home from work at 6.30pm ish, there isn't much time after a short run to read before the light fades, and the light in my room isn't good enough to read by alas.

Village life here is the closest thing I have yet come across to match my Kazakhstan Peace Corps experience. I live in the village of Peycouk-Serer (the Serer referring to the tribe most prominent in the village), about 20mins outside of Thies, the 3^rd biggest city in Senegal, with around four hundred thousand inhabitants. Having taught English here in the local school for the first few weeks, my fame (and name) is now widespread. I have managed to go running two or three times a week, nothing crazy, just a 5km jaunt out into the fields surrounding the village, but my moments through the village are marked by children running and laughing alongside, shouting the numbers and colours and fruit they are able to remember, and it is great fun. This is exactly as it was in my village of Beskol in Kazakhstan (although I also had to contend with viscous dogs as well). It also helps to re-enforce that the role we have out here, while sometimes feeling small and insignificant, does indeed work in useful ways. While very few of the village kids will require English in life, it is required to pass school, and heck, it helped them enjoy their summer holiday.

African dress – bright prints, different cuts, collarless shirt/trouser combos for the men – is vastly more popular here than in Sierra Leone. There, it had to be presidentially 'suggested' for Africana to be worn on Fridays, and for men at least Fridays were the only time outside of weddings that it was used. In Senegal, Africana is daily dress for many, especially outside Dakar. From market traders, to taxi drivers, to NGO directors, it is everywhere, and there are a corresponding number of fabric shops and tailors to meet demand. The bustling Freetown market only had two shops dedicated to African prints, while even little Thies has a whole street of the stuff. I just bought the fabric to make a truly fantastic shirt, and photos will be provided upon completion, fear not.

It was announced last week that Ebola, the current scourge of West Africa, has reached Senegal. A student from Guinea is the first confirmed case, and it seems to be a relief to the national psyche that the first victim is foreign. “It may be here, but no Senegalese have Ebola” etc. Unlike the slow, and tragically comical response to Ebola in Sierra Leone, here - and with the benefit of two extra months of hearing about the outbreak – the response has been much more active. The border with Guinea, the only neighbouring country with the disease (and the source of the outbreak in the first place), it now greatly monitored, and temperature checks (to spot fever, the only early sign of Ebola) are now mandatory. In the clinic where we work twice a week, glove use and hand washing are now far more strictly enforced amongst the staff (even the receptionist wears gloves now), and if nothing else, will lead to improved standards there!

There are none of the “Ebola isn't real”, or “It was sent by god to cleanse the homosexuals”, or “We can pray this away” that so punctuated the discourse in Sierra Leone, and which lead to the very slow official response, and a terribly lax attitude amongst residents. If Ebola does indeed spread further here, the petty superstition and distrust of government and NGO's that pervaded in Sierra Leone will not stand in the way, and one only hopes this will help to ensure the quick and effective isolation and treatment of cases, and not mass panic and bodies left in the streets that Freetown and Monrovia have witnessed.

Watching TV here is an interesting look into a form of neocolonialism, albeit the soft kind. While satellite TV in Sierra Leone comes via South Africa, everything here is French company Canal+. Most of the channels offer popular cartoons, shows and films from the US/UK, dubbed into French, on top of domestic French programming. Only one or two channels cater to wolof (the local prima lingua) speakers, and for some reason, the only English channel is Polish National Geographic. On top of language, the French programming offers some more subtle examples of neocolonial projections. Namely, the adverts broadcast here are aimed at the French domestic market, not Senegal. Shampoos with white models, huge amounts of candy, vast supermarkets, kids toys, music concerts, all offer a glimpse of goods – the developed world – that are not available to the vast majority of people here. It cant help with the national spirit, or government efforts to convince unemployed or recent university graduates that they should stay in Senegal, rather than try – legally or otherwise – to move to France, where it is daily shown on TV that McDonalds and Evian flow freely down the gold-paved streets. The programming also offers up examples of cultures that are markedly alien here, and indeed sometimes illegal. While Kazakhstan received most of its TV from Russia, a country with similar views on homosexuality, here the attitudes and sexual norms of Europe and the US are daily broadcast, in direct opposition to the conservative Catholic and Muslim Senegal, where homosexuality is illegal. With no open displays of same-sex affection, certainly no 'camp' people, and rather modest fashion, the images, even on teenage TV programming is very different – there are certainly not any gay teenage characters in domestic made soaps. I wonder what effect this has both on the role of traditional role models/ decriers of acceptable norms, and how young people view their own ability to express themselves.

I know I have spoken about food here before, but heck, I will do it again. The practice of eating around a communal bowl certainly an African authenticity to family meals, and forces everyone to eat together (well, men with men, and women with the kids in my house, as there are too many of us to share a single bowl). But, and I never thought I would say this (and I fear I am starting to sound like Dad), but I wish the experience was slower and more relaxed. The whole event is over in five minutes, with people, as subtly as possible (or not) trying to each as much of the food in front of them as possible before someone else around the bowl does. There is no time for talking, or even drinking. A quick grace is followed by an almost medieval devouring of food, with fish or chicken bones discarded onto the floor to be swept up afterwards. Five minutes later, and people return to whatever they were doing before. No dessert, no commenting on the chef's work (large bowls of couscous and bean sauce, in honesty, don't really deserve much culinary praise). I am (in)famous at home for the quick speed at which I eat, and yet the whole thing here is so rushed as to be almost unpleasant. We, the UK volunteers, relish the times we eat out in Thies, with our own plates and more cutlery than just the normal spoon (half of the family eschew even that, eating with their hands), or to share our own bowl of food when at camps, taking vastly longer to eat than the others, but leaving happy and relaxed. This wasn't meant to sound as negative as it might do – I fully understand the important of cultural identity – but in this instance, it is one which directly effects me on a daily basis, and I don't like it!

 (Yoff, the view from the holiday apartment!)

This weekend saw my first real exploration of Dakar, as well as another elicit visit to somewhere expressly verboten. Senegal played Egypt in a qualifying match for the African Cup on Friday night, and I, along with the 5 volunteers under my watch all went, decked out in Senegal jerseys of course. Due to a riot at the last home match against Ivory Coast in 2012 (to which Senegal received a 2 year home-match ban), the YMCA was adamant volunteers couldn't attend. With the Embassy here having no concerns (after visiting the Ambassador in the first week, I am now in regular contact with his deputy), the Y-Care boss also seeing no issues, and common sense predicting that a home crowd starved of football for two years wouldn't be so stupid as to riot this time (coupled with a markedly increased police presence), I took the decision to allow my team to go (the Team Leader in Kaolack did not), as much because I wanted to go, as the reality that there is little I could do to stop them going alone. It was a great match, with Senegal dominating, both physically and dynamically, the young Egyptian side, and the 2-0 score reflected this. There was also enough bad refereeing to keep things interesting in the stands, with Egypt avoiding a clear sending off for a 'last-man' foul, and Senegal somehow avoiding a blatant penalty in the final minutes. Needless to say, there wasn't a riot, and apart from someone trying to pick my pocket, the whole thing was a success. Now just have to wait to see if anyone spotted us on the TV coverage, and what the punishment will be. Having received our living allowance till the end, and Y-Care hardly likely to send 6 volunteers home, it is unclear what exactly a punishment would entail. Not that I am hoping to find out of course, with the maintenance of the current Y-Care- YMCA – ICS volunteer relationship being very important. 

 (The train station, or what it left of it)

Dakar itself, is so markedly different from the other cities in Senegal, and so clearly the capital, it comes as a bit of a shock. Western clothing, women driving, big 4x4s, bakeries everywhere, more French (and English) spoken, less flies, less litter, less Talibe kids (which is strange, given the clear wealth on show) and white people everywhere. The bus system in extensive and works, thankfully, as the taxis are double the price from the provinces. The pavements are paved (as opposed to just sand) etc etc etc. I even visited my first 'real' supermarket in almost 6 months (there wern't any in Sierra Leone). Dakar truly is a different city. With a tick-list of things to see, Georges and I (the girls all travelled home the morning after the match) managed to visit the fabric market, the former main railway station with its beautiful but crumbing facade, the empty and equally crumbing Independence Square, the huuugeee clearly Soviet inspired Monument of African Renaissance (which is rumoured to have been built by the North Koreans), the most westerly point in Africa, the beaches of N'Gor and Yoff and plenty more besides.

(Soviet statue, and a baobab tree, Dakar)

Each area of the city is clearly a separate entity, in terms of culture and wealth. So Yoff is strictly Muslim (no smoking in the street), N'Gor is a fishing 'village', and the area called 'Les Alimedes', is the posh part of town, home to palatial houses, expensive restaurants, the colossal new US embassy and seemingly every major NGO possible – UNICEF, the UN (and all related bodies- UNHCR etc), the World Food Programme, Red Cross and Red Crescent are all within a 10 minute walk of each other. As well as a small supermarket dedicated solely to American food stuffs – namely sugary drinks, Tex-mex kits, cake kits and junk food. In a country where the only food additive is MSG (and it is in everything, unfortunately), to offer all of the e-number and saturated fat filled crap from the US, seems a shame and a waste, but there is clearly a market for the stuff.

 (Dakar's suburban mass)

Even with all this exploring, I will be back again next weekend for more! The former French fort and slave area on a small island, the presidential palace, a couple of art galleries and the nation museum, there is plenty more to see, and with only two more weekends left, it would be a shame to miss out. There are a number of places in Senegal I didn't get to visit, namely the national parks which require one to have a 4x4 and cash, but I think I will leave Senegal with a good sense of the country, and having been able to explore it more than I was Sierra Leone. 

 (Most westerly part of Africa)