Monday, November 12, 2007

Baskets in the Red City

I am writing from the SIT program center in Dakar which is humming with American college students on study abroad. Today they turn in their final proposals for their independent study projects, a time I remember well from my semester in India. Bouna, their Academic Director, has been totally wonderful in finding a homestay family for me and welcoming me to Dakar. One student has let me borrow her computer to spend a little time blogging this morning, two others have welcomed me out to their studio in la village des artistes, just outside le centre ville.

Before I left I was hesitant about just traveling around as a tourist, since the last time I was out of the country I was on study abroad myself and had the chance to get tot know the culture and through families and our teachers, and quickly found that these connections made traveling by guidebook pale in comparison. Everyone here keeps asking me what I'm doing and it's a little hard to say...am I student? not really...I'm looking for food stories, yes, but I also feel it's pretty random that I've landed here. Luckily I was able to reconnect with SIT, and suddenly a slew of possibilities open up. I've got the number of someone who gives dance lessons, we'll see who I meet in the artist village this afternoon...when I asked the girls here at the program center about basket weaving (there are fantastic baskets for sale on the side of the road, in market stalls, piled up and spilling over themselves) they said, 'just ask one of the vendors.' En fait, conversation flows freely here, which makes it easy to get around, and very easy to feel welcome. On Saturday afternoon, after eating with the family, Mme. helped me catch a car in the road to venture out to the beach in Ngor. The 'cars' are blue and white buses packed with nursing mothers and their babies, boys with soccer balls, men and women on their way to and from work. A boy holds on to a ladder attached to the back door and clacks on the metal roof with a coin calling out to people to hop on. I fumbled my way up into a seat and off we went. Out and out into the suburbs, you could see the ocean over the cliffs to the left, and sand from the road comes through the open windows, and at each stop, more people climbed on until the bus was impossibly full, and then some would hop out, always the calling to passengers, and the persistent coin tapping on the roof. Finally someone tapped me on the shoulder and motioned for me to get out: we were at the stop for Ngor, mais en fait, I couldn't see the beach anywhere. I started out down the road, turning one way, asking directions of women when I passed them "which way is the beach at Ngor?" and they'd turn me around, and point me in the right direction. A soccer ball was kicked out of bounds and crossed the road, I tapped it back, there are roosters and sweet, sweet goats in the road, sand in my shoes. I kept walking and kept walking until I found the road a French man had pointed me to from afar, and I turned right. Into the neighborhood of Ngor: a stall selling paint rollers, a wood shop with shavings all over the ground. A woman was negotiating something with her daughter and I stopped for directions yet again. Come with me, she said, I'll walk you to the beach. Past a circle of women in marvelous, bright dresses, sitting in a circle and talking, past a flock of children who danced to the radio. When one of the boys came up to my guide I thought at first he was begging, but he just smiled all crooked little boy teeth and my guide danced with him straight through the flock of kids. Onwards we stopped to chat with a group of teenagers, around the corner, past baby chicks, 'hello' to the man at the telephone shop, around a left corner, stop to say 'hello' and chat a bit with an elder woman, who said to me (in effect) "you're in good hands with this one," meaning my guide. Just when I was testing myself to see if I'd remember the route to get home on my own, we tuned around one more little corner, and there was the beach-- the water a deep, dark blue. We walked down towards the surf a little ways where two girls were selling fruit, one was a niece-in-law of my guide and they greeted each other with laughs and smiles, and then I thanked her for walking me, and wandered off down the beach. Europeans who had spent the day scuba diving were just getting off a boat, kids played soccer, a group of boys bailed out a long fishing boat with buckets, and goats lounged easily beneath cannopies that flailed in the wind. People stopped to say 'bonjour, ca va?' and at first I was a bit hesitant to talk to everyone-- but then I realized I could let my guard down some more...it's just to say hello, and how are you? Which is the custom, and is slowly softening my hardened New Yorker shell...

Yesterday a trip to L'Ile de Goree, and last night a lasting conversation with my homestay mother on the roof of our house. The sun set while she prayed on a small prayer mat, facing east, and afterward we ate in the soft dark, talking and exchanging histories.

More soon, xo Jeanne

1 comment:

Joey Rubin said...

Beautiful, Jeanne. Keep writing so we can live vicarious!

On the home front: Bklyn goes on, chug chug, into winter. A party upstairs, a leak in the ceiling, a visit from Mr. E, yaddy yadda (as Jerry and his friends would say).

Your presence is missed, especially now that I've returned to unemployment.

Can't wait for the next post!