Settling In

Dinner last night? Spaghetti. Yes, a pile of spaghetti, topped with a lamb sauce, was brought out on our communal platter and placed in the middle of five or six of us members of the Samb household. We had been waiting on our dinner mat that had been spread out on the floor like always. The power had gone out in the entire neighborhood (which is called "Zone B") and so we dined, bathed in the sublte hues of a single candle and a hand-cranked flashlight. As we ate, I decided that it is in fact best, in Senegal, for one to eat spaghetti in the dark. That way, one might hide the fact that one has not eaten spaghetti with one's hands in about 18 years, and has successfully gotten it all over oneself.

Even as I continue to run into events and situations like this, I am starting to get the hang of things around here. Although each day hosts a variety of new encounters, a "typical" day in the past week and a half has looked like this:

7:30 AM- Wake up under my mosquito net and remind myself that I am indeed in Africa.
7:45 AM- Gingerly peek around to locate cockroaches before entering bathroom for morning shower.
8:00 AM- Recieve breakfast of powdered milk, sugar cubes and chocolate mixed into a delicious hot cocao, served with half a baguette and garnished with a lively bunch (herd? flock? gaggle?) of flies.
8:15 AM - Meet up with Illana, another SIT student who lives in the house across from me. Together we walk, avoiding random goats and aggressive taxi drivers to "Point E" where the SIT building is located.
8:30ish AM- Classes begin. The schedule changes every day, but the first class of the day might be our French or Wolof language classes, in which we are split into groups of five or so and instructed by local language teachers. Or, SIT staff may present a lecture on our Field Study Seminar or reserve this time for student presentations. We have a break at 10:00 and resume classes at 10:30, in the same vein as above.
12:30 - Dejuener! (Lunch!) SIT students disperse around the neighborhood to feed ourselves and take a break. Lunch is sometimes a large mango and a baguette with nutella, eaten back at SIT. Other times, it is the plat du jour at "La Palace" down the street. Sometimes, it's pizza at the largely westernized "Pizza Inn." Either way, it's usually a welcome time to socialize, run errands or stop by the internet cafes.
2:30 PM - Classes resume. Last week, the afternoon session was held off-site, at a place called Village des Arts. Here, we took introductory lessons in Senegalese dance and djembe drumming! I felt like I had dreamt something up and then stepped right into it as we hammered out the domba, lamba and dembado rhythms in a big circle under the baobab tree. The dancing was wonderful, fun and.....athletic. I think it is safe to assume there were 20 very sore Americans by the end of the week. Even for those of us in relatively decent shape, there are always new muscles to be discovered.
5:00-6:00 PM - This is generally when our day officially ends. A good time to hit the cybercafe, grab a mango from a fruit stand, or visit the other students' houses. Eventually, I make it back to my host family in the evening. There, after taking my afternoon shower (the Senegalese usually shower at least twice a day), I might converse with my uncles on the open-air third story, play with the kids who run around the house all day, or find some homework to do.
9:00-9:30 PM - This is when dinner usually happens. It is actually kind of a non-event in the household, something I had not quite expected. We sit down on the floor mat, eat from a communal platter for a few minutes in relative silence (and sometimes, in relative darkness!), then one by one people get up. They wash their hands and resume whatever they were doing beforehand, and the maids clean up.
11:30 PM - Bed time! I write in my journal a bit, read or study, put up my mosquito net and wonder if the kids outside ever go to bed.

Now that we have settled into our situation a little more (that is to say, the spinning in our heads has slowed to a subtle vertigo), SIT is going to shake things up a bit again. This Saturday, we depart for a week and a half, and will visit the cities of Thies, St. Louis and Touba. In the middle of those travels, we will be living for a few days with a host family in a village called Ker Sadaro. In the philosophy of experiential learning, our SIT professors have not given us much of an idea of what to expect. But upon telling my host family that we're going to the village, more than one have scrunched up their noses and said something along the lines of "Oh, it's not very nice there. They don't have much money. But that is where you will find real Senegalese culture."

Expect some interesting stories in the coming weeks.