Yesterday afternoon I went to the Cultural Center of Dakar to watch my friend, Lauren, take a dance lesson. The cultural center is a really neat place with a lot of greenery, music, and people just hanging out. It’s all very laid back – her dance lesson took place on a little outdoor stage in the back. Her teacher was a man of about 60, but wow did he ever have energy!! Even at the moments when Lauren was evidently getting tired, he still continued dancing and chanting at full force. As musical accompaniment, 3 drummers drummed in a corner. I really liked that the music was live – if I had been the one dancing, I would have been that much more inspired because the drums were very intense and loud. Chant-like.
At one point, I snuck off to explore the rest of the cultural center. I could hear some very loud drumming in the distance, and so I went to find them. What I ended up finding was a professional dance troupe! They were soooooo amazing! There were probably 20 girls, 4 guys, and 5 drummers. The drummers were the best I’d ever heard (Nate, you would have been in awe), and the dancers were unreal! I can’t even imagine having that much energy – they danced for 20 minutes without even stopping! I’m going to find out if they have a performance in the area – I would pay good money to see them dance again.
Today I was done with class by 11am (because one class was canceled and the other’s time changed). It seems that most people don’t have class on Fridays, so large groups of them meet at school and organize Friday afternoon excursions. It’s going to be hard sitting in class knowing that this is all going on without me. But at least today I got to take advantage of a free Friday. I went downtown with a few friends. We walked around for a little while, and then we decided to eat at a really bourgeois French café. I had a meal that was a cross between pizza and bruschetta – with melted cheese, really good tomatoes, NORMAL spices, and, wait for it wait for it…. Whole grain bread! Wow! Then for desert the three of us shared three heavenly balls of ice cream. The grand total? $6! Apparently I can afford to treat myself to such meals fairly regularly (a very exciting idea).
Unfortunately, I haven’t been feeling that well today. I woke up this morning with my first case of “Dakarhea”. My stomach is a little questionable, and as I write this I feel a headache/fever coming on. I think the headache is due to the sun I got downtown today (too much – my nose is burnt), but I’m not quite sure what I at in order to get the sore tummy. Tomorrow, the whole CIEE group is supposed to go to this artist haven for the weekend, so I really hope whatever it is that I caught is a 24 hour bug…
African Dancing
