Wandering Footsteps: Wandering the World One Step at a Time » West Africa

Touba Visit

Brittany — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 14:47:00 +0000

Last Saturday, our CIEE group visited Touba, a town about 3 hours NE of Dakar. Touba is the holy city for the Islamic brotherhood Movement, Mouridya. Ok, now here’s a long explanation of what this means.
When Islam came to Africa, it stemmed out into brotherhoods, sort of like how Christianity has branched off into Catholics, Protestants, and whatnot. So, there are four brotherhood movements, but two primarily exist in Senegal. My family is Tijane, but the majority of Dakar seems to be Mourite. (Also, baayfalls are a sub-category of mourites). Anyway, to tell you the truth, there aren’t any real differences between tijanes and mourites. Well, only a few. Tijanes do call to prayers from mosques, and mourites chant in the evenings. Other than that, the main difference is that they have a different marabout, or spiritual leader. For the Mourites, it’s Cheikh Amadou Bamba. He is the one that build the gorgeous mosque we got to visit in Touba.
Bamba is quite an interesting character. Apparently, the French exiled him at put him on a boat, because he was controlling too much of the local population (this was back in the colonial days). But Bamba returned, because he’s a “man of God”, and then proceeded to essentially create an empire out of Touba. Every single believer became his talibe, or follower, and did ANYTHING he wanted. Basically, what he had them do was work on agricultural fields and give him everything they made. Thus, he worked his followers to the bone and reaped the financial benefits of it. Eventually, he gathered enough money to create this mosque. After he died, his sons have continued working on the mosque, adding marble and gold details and stuff.
The mosque is breathtaking. But what is simply depressing is the poverty surrounding the mosque…
Oh yeah, and Touba is basically outside of Senegalese law. It has its own police force and set of laws (no smoking allowed in the town), and it’s looking into building its own airport, you know, so that all the other mourites in the world can come visit their mecca.

The weather

Brittany — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 14:44:00 +0000

To answer a few questions one of my friends asked:
what is senegalese juices?
ditax (green – tastes sort of like some perfect food mixed with grass and apples – tastes better than it sounds), booy (made of the fruit of the baobob tree), and bisap (made from bisap flowers, very red, very sour)
whats the temp. temping at these days near your?
temperature today is in the 80s. the sun is still damn hot, but the biggest difference between now and september is that there is a lovely breeze most of the time, which cools things down, at least when you’re not in the sun. when you’re in the sun, though, its as hot as ever. the other thing that is different is that nighttime temperatures are cooler, which means i am actually able to sleep without a fan (which i havent had in over a month anyway). maybe soon ill be able to wear a sweater.
hows all the african material good that you have brought?

Venting Needed

Brittany — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 14:02:00 +0000

Just a note on my Senegalese mother. I need to vent a little. For dinner both Saturday and Sunday night I was given chiakry, which is basially yogurt with a little millet in it. A good snack, but not a meal! Especially not two nights in a row. This is in addition to the butterless piece of bread she gives me for “breakfast” in the morning, which I end up buying butter for, and suplementing with fruit or yogurt and juice.
Also, the entire month of November, we have eaten lunch’s leftovers for dinner, which means 2 things: 1) I eat the same thing twice in one day, and 2) I usually don’t get to eat enough for dinner, cuz there never really is enough leftover from lunch to consist of an entire meal.
Sorry, I just needed to vent.

My Senegalese-style American Thanksgiving

Brittany — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 13:45:00 +0000

Last Thursday night, our entire program spent the evening at Serigne’s house (our Senegalese director) to celebrate American thanksgiving. Of course, me, not being American, had very little need to celebrate this holiday, but it was still fun to pig out and spend the evening with everyone from the group.
We ate chicken instead of turkey, both because turkey is hard to find here and because Serigne isn’t a big fan (it’s not high quality meat, he says). But, other than that, the meal felt Thanksgiving-ish. We ate stuffing and mashed potatoes (yum!!) as well as salad and a few other choice vegetables. The side dish selection was nothing compared to the feast my dad cooks (Wow, i appreciate your cooking) but it was still much better than what I’ve been offered at home lately (that’s a whole other story). We also got to drink a bunch of different Senegalese juices, like ditax, booy, and bisap. They are so good, orange juice might feel a little dull…
After dinner, Catherine, our other director, wanted to go around so that everyone could say something they were thankful for. It got kind of mushy, which was a little bit of a forshadow as to what our farewell dinner, in about 2 weeks, is going to be like… Yikes, don’t even want to think about that.
The Senegalese aspects of the evening
– we ate dinner on the roof of Serigne’s house, meaning it was warm enough to eat outside. This was kind of weird, since every Thanksgiving I can remember has been cold and has essentially marked the beginning of the winter season.
– after dinner, myself and a few others started a drum circle using plates and pastic bowls. It was actually pretty successful, and we got people dancing!!
All in all it was a fun evening. It was kind of nice to hang out with the American students, which I don’t do much of. They are a pretty nice group, and we all mesh well.

More on Makha

Brittany — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 11:15:00 +0000

The first picture is of Makha’s niece and nephew. The girl (left) is Fatima, and the boy (on right) is Mohammed (who I’m in love with and would adopt as my child in a second). I spend a lot of time at Makha’s house, playing hide and seek with the kids, eating, and trying to understand their Wolof banter. The second picture is of Makha and I at a reggae party on Goree Island a couple of weeks ago. He sure looks like a Jamaican Rasta doesn’t he? (he plays the part well).

my friends

Brittany — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 11:04:00 +0000

These are some of my best friends here. In the first picture, my friend Stephanie is posing with Lamine. Lamine is the cousin of my friend Makha (in the second picture), whom I spend a lot of time with. Both Lamine and Makha are baayfalls (which I’ve written about), which explains why they both have dreadlocks.

Njaygen

Brittany — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 17:53:00 +0000

So, last week I went to a village called Njaygen in the Louga region, near St. Louis. It was a very peaceful week, but tiring at the same time. It was peaceful because there was a lot of sitting around, efforts to speak Wolof, ataaya drinking, and dancing. The tiring part was that we were working with a very inefficient organization, Green Senegal, helping them plant trees and work the field that you see in the picture here.
I would have liked to stay with a Senegalese family, but instead they stuck all the girls in this dorm-like building. Ah well, at least I already know what it’s like to live with a Senegalese family.
I have a looooootttttt of work to do this week – 2 presentations and two tests. As such, I don’t have a lot of time to write a huge blog entry, but I just wanted to say hi and tell you all that I’m alive and well.

All is well

Brittany — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 11:02:00 +0000

Just wanted to mention that I posted some more pictures, this time of Toubab Diallo. I received the pictures from Sahnah, and so, even though they are about 2 months old, I thought I’d post a couple. I placed them back with the entry on Toubab Diallo. Go to September archives, and you’ll find them.

Korite

Brittany — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:25:00 +0000

Korite officially marks the end of Ramadan. There was some disagreement as to when the end was supposed to come, because apparently Korite should only come with the new moon. I remember Wednesday night looking up at the sky to see if the moon was there or not – I couldn’t find it. But apparently some religious leaders got together to discuss the status of the moon, and by midnight, Senegal was informed that Thursday was in fact Korite.
Anyway, we got up pretty early. My mom and sister went over to the Big Family’s house to start making “ngalax” a sweet, creamy substance made of peanuts. Myself and my friend Ewan joined them a few hours later, just in time to chug the ngalax down.
Most of the day was spent eating or waiting to eat. Ewan’s Wolof is amazing (by far the best in our program) so of course he wowed my whole family. Now their expectations of my Wolof are SO much higher I am almost cursing Ewan.
After lunch, Ewan and I decided to put on our boubous. It is a custom here that every one gets a boubou specially made for this holiday. Sometimes they spend $50 on a boubou, but I spent about $10. The women usually don’t get dressed until around 6-7pm at night, which I find ridiculous (why would you get a boubou made only to put in on once the sun is down, and to wear it for only 3-4 hours). So, Ewan and I boycotted this tradition and had them on by 3pm. It took us about 5 minutes to get ready, which greatly contrasts with the 2 HOURS it took the women to get ready! Man, they go all out. Heavy heavy makeup, nails done, new hairdos… The works. Oh, Senegal.
Mostly, Korite is a holiday in which people get really worked up for, and blow tons of money on, and it really isn’t all that exciting. But, then again, that’s the way a lot of social events are here in Senegal – more time put in the preparation, and when the actual festivity comes around, it involves nothing more than sitting, speaking Wolof, and eating a lot of food.

Bridging the Gap

Brittany — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 17:47:00 +0000

This is a picture of myself with Ali (our Mauritanian tour guide and friend) in front of the bridge which links the mainland to the island portion of St. Louis.