Mango is Mango in Wolof

I’m finding it’s harder to write in length about my time here now because the oddities of daily life are becoming so normal.  It’s been the better part of a month now, and this is really starting to feel like another home to me.  I suppose I can tell you all about the classes I’m taking now that we’ve had almost all of them!

First is Wolof, which we’ve been taking for quite some time now.  My Wolof class is the smaller of the two, with only four of us.  Our professor is named Abdou and he’s a very funny man.  It’s cool because a lot of the class is sort of driven by what we have heard or what we want to know how to say.  Wolof is hard though.  Unlike anything I’ve ever spoken.  When I’m sitting in class with everything right in front of me, it seems to make sense, but once I’m out of that setting, it just all flies away!  And it seems as though all Senegalese people think it’s the easiest thing ever and that four weeks is plenty of time to be able to speak it.  Not true.  Oh well!  It’ll be fun if I ever run into a Senegalese person back home.  I’ll be able to greet them, that’s for sure!

Next is French.  Three of the girls in our group were in an upper level French literature class before coming here, so they are in a literature class with the five girls here from Beloit College.  The rest of us are broken into French classes based on our skill level.  It’s been really helpful to have French classes because I’m not really afraid to speak up in French (compared to every other aspect of my life here, where I’m pretty terrified to initiate conversation).  There are just three of us in my class and it’s been quite helpful!  I do really just need to get over the fear of speaking thing though.  It’s completely psychological.  In time, in time.

We have History of Islam three days a week, which is really interesting!  Our professor is pretty funny.  We spend the first hour of class asking questions and discussing things we’ve noticed in our stay here, which is very helpful to understanding some of the culture.  Someday I’ll get up the energy to type up some of the interesting stuff we’ve learned in that class, but it’s Friday afternoon right now and I just can’t do it.  The last hour of class is spent discussing more of the history and traditions of Islam and more specifically Islam in Senegal.

We have seminar class twice a month that’s sort of a time to ask questions about issues we’ve noticed living in this new culture.  It’s also meant to be related to volunteering that we’re supposed to be doing.  None of us have done it yet though because we haven’t really had free afternoons during the week and with the strikes and manifestations (which are pretty much done now) it’s been hard to go anywhere.  But it’s an interesting class nonetheless. 

We have a Senegalese literature class as well.  The poor girls in the other French lit have it too.  It’s the same professor for both of the lit classes as well as our seminar.  She’s a brilliant woman, but her idea of a discussion based class is that we ask a question or raise and issue, and she discusses it for a half an hour.  It’s brutal.

We are taking an African/Senegalese art history and culture class (I don’t know how to better title it).  It’s pretty interesting.  We’ve only had it twice so far though.

Finally, we have a class called Continuity and Change that we haven’t had yet.  It includes a group and individual trip into a village at some point in our stay here, so that will be interesting I’m sure!

Classes are always two hours long, but for the most part they give us a break in the middle which can last anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes!  It’s best during morning classes because they always have coffee and tea out for us.  Classes are taught in French (though sometimes with Wolof it’s more like Franglais).  It’s exhausting.  Usually by the 90^th minute I find it very difficult to concentrate.  Hopefully it gets easier though!  And it’s nice because there’s always someone I can ask to clarify what’s going!

We had a bit of a dust storm in from the Sahara for a couple of days, but it’s mostly gone away and it’s nice and sunny again!

Here’s a video that Camille took of our walk to school!

On Friday night we went to a rap concert downtown that was pretty cool.  The guy's name is Nix and he's from Senegal.  It was at this place called Institut Francais, so there were a bunch of white people, which is no longer normal.  It was fun though! Here's one of his music videos (I really have no idea what this song is about...):