Hippos, lecture, and laax - bu baax!!
So...since I last posted I have been on a trip through the south to the border with Guinea with four ladies who go to school in the Philly area, both at Penn State and Brynnemar (sp?), Professor Barry, and our driver M. Fall.
See the map of Senegal for reference points. I am going to school in St. Louis, in the north on the Atlantic coast and the mouth of the Senegal river. We drove from there down through Touba to Tambacounda and then to Simenti and saw hippos, crocs, babboons, many relatives of the deer family, various birds, and lots of warthogs and bread-hungry monkeys.
From there we went down to Kédougou and saw an amazing waterfall on the Gambia River just outside of Guinea-Bissau...where we met a group of students from an SIT program based at the Baobab Center in Dakar.
The mosque at Touba is absolutely amazing. It is the religious center of the Senegalese Mourides sect of Islam, and we will be going back there again this weekend to attend the Magaal, their biggest celebration of the year. It is going to be completely packed, but it should be awesome.
Wish me luck on not getting cholera!!
Classes have started now and they are almost solely dictated (the profs ARE the authoritative texts, and they read their notes to be copied to the letter)...but I am mostly in lit classes, so I will have some structure on which to critique african francophone authors and their works...still very cool.
I am also taking courses in Wolof hardcore to catch up to the othe r American students, which my host family in Ngalelle is also helping me with.
I've included a pic of my host brothers and sisters: Binta, Babucar, and Mami. My sis Aida is not in the photo, nor are my host parents. Their family name is FALL and I will be chez eux every weekend.
I ate ceebu-jen, the national dish of fish and rice, for the first time there on Sunday (with my hands around one big bowl, selon la tradition) and another dish called laax which is like oatmeal made from millet with heavy cream sauce.
More pics at FLICKR.COM from the trip!!
I will post most all images there now...
See the map of Senegal for reference points. I am going to school in St. Louis, in the north on the Atlantic coast and the mouth of the Senegal river. We drove from there down through Touba to Tambacounda and then to Simenti and saw hippos, crocs, babboons, many relatives of the deer family, various birds, and lots of warthogs and bread-hungry monkeys.
From there we went down to Kédougou and saw an amazing waterfall on the Gambia River just outside of Guinea-Bissau...where we met a group of students from an SIT program based at the Baobab Center in Dakar.
The mosque at Touba is absolutely amazing. It is the religious center of the Senegalese Mourides sect of Islam, and we will be going back there again this weekend to attend the Magaal, their biggest celebration of the year. It is going to be completely packed, but it should be awesome.
Wish me luck on not getting cholera!!
Classes have started now and they are almost solely dictated (the profs ARE the authoritative texts, and they read their notes to be copied to the letter)...but I am mostly in lit classes, so I will have some structure on which to critique african francophone authors and their works...still very cool.
I am also taking courses in Wolof hardcore to catch up to the othe r American students, which my host family in Ngalelle is also helping me with.
I've included a pic of my host brothers and sisters: Binta, Babucar, and Mami. My sis Aida is not in the photo, nor are my host parents. Their family name is FALL and I will be chez eux every weekend.
I ate ceebu-jen, the national dish of fish and rice, for the first time there on Sunday (with my hands around one big bowl, selon la tradition) and another dish called laax which is like oatmeal made from millet with heavy cream sauce.
More pics at FLICKR.COM from the trip!!
I will post most all images there now...
posted by Matt Thiede at 10:26 AM
1 Comments:
Hey Man! Sounds like some pretty sweet adventures...I have to say I am just a little jealous!
Oh, and it is Bryn Mawr, two of my friends here, Anjali and Liz, are from there - perhaps they know the peeps you were with...?
Love ya, wombie.
~Danno
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