Togo Togo Togo

I’m back from Togo! And not yet departed for the Cassamance, so here’s the update . . .

Cody, Lucy, Ellen, and I went to Lome, Togo for a week to take in the Rotary District Conference (and we figured since we had already paid for the flight there we might as well stick around and see the country for a few days).

The conference itself was held over the Friday and Saturday. The program on Friday was a lot of introductions and short speeches during the day, with a “home hospitality” evening. The highlight of Friday for me was probably when I had to stand up in front of several hundred Rotarians and introduce myself in French (and yes, I did make several stupid errors because I was nervous). But no moment was more surreal than when we went to the home that was welcoming 200 Rotarian guests for dinner and drinks as part of the home hospitality program. We rounded the corner to the backyard and found: palm trees, a swimming pool surrounded by candle lanterns, a LAWN (I hadn’t seen that much grass growing anywhere in months), and several shrubs that had been sculpted into animals (yes, I too thought these only existed in the movie “Edward Scissorhands”). And, as any self-respecting Rotary Scholars would do, we danced the night away, even when everyone else quit dancing with us.

Saturday was only a half-day program, focusing mainly on updates about what is going on in Rotary International and the Rotary Foundation, especially the large changes going on in the Foundation to streamline its grants program and raise public awareness of its existence. So, anyone out there looking for funding for international charity projects or study abroad opportunities, check out the Rotary Foundation website and see if they’ve got something for you! And spread the word! One more shameless plug: Rotary International is doing another big push for polio vaccination this year. The goal is to raise $200 million, which is projected to be enough to eliminate the disease entirely. Given my microbiology nerdiness, this program is close to my heart and I think we have what it takes to make polio a thing of history, much like smallpox (and it remains my dream that we’ll see AIDS someday in the same category). If you’re interested in making a contribution or organizing some fundraising, go to www.rotary.org/endpolio or talk to your local Rotary club (each club is expected to contribute to the program, largely through local fundraising efforts that will also raise awareness . . . let’s get this thing going)! Ok, I realize that became a little too motivational but I couldn’t help myself.

Now, the rest of the week we spent visiting Togo, spending most of our time at a monastery which is near the northern city of Kara. The monastery was peaceful, located near the mountains (actually a little bit terrifying driving to Kara in a bus as we passed several large trucks on narrow mountain roads because they were overheating and barely moving, but we got there. And back. And Celine Dion music videos were playing on the bus so that distracted Lucy and I as we sang along. Celine Dion is practically worshipped in Western Africa, even by otherwise macho young men). Staying with the monks there we were well-taken care of: each a private room complete with mosquito-netted bed and balcony area, all meals prepared for us and encouraged to eat until we thought we would burst, and the Brother in charge of visitors took us on a tour to surrounding village homes where villagers were eager to greet us, some generously offering us pentad eggs (which were later cooked into our lunch) or palm wine. We were likewise warmly welcomed in Lome by a local Rotary president who picked us up from the airport and arranged for us to get to and from the conference every day. Hospitality again abounded our last night in Kara when we stayed in the city and the local Rotary club organized a meeting solely for the purpose of meeting and visiting with us, and then one of the Rotarians got up at the crack of dawn the next day to drive us from our hotel to the bus station. If one day I make it back to Togo, I’ll look forward to checking in with all of our newfound friends.

Now for some random notes about how things are different in Lome and Dakar:
-taxis in Lome are almost exclusively motorcycles, whereas Dakar has cars
-when flying out of Lome at night, it looks like a network of little blue lights, whereas Dakar clearly takes the form of a large city with orange-lighted freeways
-the vegetation is greener and more plentiful in Lome, whereas in Dakar’s current dry season the sand is more plentiful than anything else
-traffic lights work and are obeyed by drivers in Lome, whereas in Dakar traffic lights exist but rarely function (I know of only one that does) and driving turns into a free-for-all
-the starch base of a dish in Lome is often a ball of cooked corn mush, whereas rice or millet are the staples in Dakar
-there’s not much garbage on the streets of Lome and garbage cans are available on the beach, whereas in Dakar garbage in the streets is a much bigger problem, in part due to the lack of garbage cans in public places
-you don’t hear the call to prayer in Lome where the Muslim portion is only 15%, whereas it’s heard every day in Dakar (and more than once I’ve been asked during a Skype convo, “where is that music coming from”?)

So, in closing, Togo was excellent. And although I’ll be off to the Cassamance in two days, I’m looking forward to spending my last two months exclusively in Dakar. This morning I visited an orphanage where I’ll be working a few times a week for the rest of my stay and I’m very excited about it (with 88 babies all under 1 year old, the Sisters who run it are always in need of some extra hands). That’s all until I get back from the Cassamance!

It's Easter. And I got married (ok, calm down, not really)

Ok, look at me here, blog posts in quick succession, aren’t you all proud of me? Actually, I’m leaving for Togo tomorrow so it was either post now or post in a week and a half. And after promising to post more option I figured this was the better option.

I’ve had a busy week, with the most significant event being a trip to visit Illy’s village for Easter to celebrate with her Catholic family. Almost all of her cousins came back to the village, where two sets of Illy’s aunts and uncles live, for the weekend. I left for Mont Roland on Saturday afternoon, taking a Ndiaga Ndiaye (see earlier transport post if you’re confused at this point). It was a smooth trip other than the fact that the traffic was really intense to leave the Dakar peninsula, so a trip that could take an hour took about four hours. Good news though: they seem to be constructing some sort of overpass system. Bad news: in the three months that I’ve been here not much has seemed to happen with it. I’m optimistic though . . .

As for the celebrations at the village, there was a lot of eating meat involved (they killed a cow on Friday and a pig on Sunday, and a few chickens along the way. All for one family). And for those of you who are like, “Yay, she’s left her vegetarian ways behind her!” you should be warned that while I tried the dishes I for the most part ate around the chunks of meat. I mean, it was dark (there’s no electricity there)! How was I supposed to dissect prior to eating?

Other than the weekend was occupied by the female cousins preparing the meals while the male cousins sat around and drank from one morning to the next without stopping. And then they kidnapped the girls one by one to get them to buy bottles of wine for the group. And generally acted like 10 year olds (although they range in age from 20 to 35). Their favourite games were to pretend that they were a camera crew and run around interviewing everyone, and then on Sunday they married each of the girls to one of the guys. My husband was wearing a bright orange Versace t-shirt for the ceremony which the “priest” performed by the power vested in him by the palm wine he was drinking. I somehow doubt it’s legit.

But anyway, the coolest thing about Easter here is the traditional dish that Catholic families make on Good Friday. It contains several of my favourite things in the world: baobab fruit, peanut butter, millet couscous, vanilla, and nutmeg (and of course sugar). And it becomes this wonderful soupy mixture. I’m salivating just thinking about it. And even more awesome is that they take it around to all of the Muslim families in the neighbourhood to share the celebration!

So that’s all for now, don’t have any pictures because my camera is currently broken. However, do expect more to be coming once my dad and brother bring me a camera in a couple of weeks!

Drink some water . . . or some other stuff

Hey all,

It’s been a while since I last posted, but admittedly that post was a tad lengthy so I wanted to give you all time to recover. And as I mentioned, I’m now staying in Dakar for a bit which means I’m back in a routine which means I have less exciting news.

However, I did have my first substantial experience with being sick here last week. I’ll spare you the gory details but I had to rope my friend Lucy into taking me downtown in a taxi so I could get a malaria test. Which normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but it was election day (for the mayors of each neighbourhood) and we had been told repeatedly not to leave our houses. But when you have a fever climbing and approaching 40 C while your host family is telling you to drink water and you’re thinking, oh, great, I’m going to be delirious soon, you do what you have to. And it turned out that downtown was deserted so we didn’t have any problems. And I didn’t have malaria. I’m thinking it might have been Giardia, everyone’s favourite parasite, but whatever it was I’m doing better now.

As for the election itself, the results spoke clearly of a dissatisfied Senegalese public. The president, Abdoulaye Wade, had endorsed mayors of his party, Sopi, and yet very few of the Sopi candidates won (even Wade’s son lost, and promptly hopped a plane to go live in France). The big winner (by a landslide margin in most neighbourhoods) was a coalition of opposition parties in whom the citizens have placed their hope for change.

And now our new and exciting theme: beverages! Which could also be labeled as: “copious amounts of sugar!” since for example my teacher regularly adds 4 cubes of sugar when preparing a glass of powdered milk, and all other beverages are also heavily sweetened.

My favourite beverage here and the one most emblematic of Senegalese culture is Attaya, or tea. Making and drinking attaya is a group event, often taking a couple of hours to drink three rounds of tiny glasses. The tea itself is gunpowder Chinese green tea and is boiled in the water along with vanilla sugar until the tea is very strong. At that point one of the small tea glasses (probably double the size of a shot glass) is filled and the process of pulling the tea begins. To pull the tea, it is poured carefully back and forth between glasses so that a layer of froth remains at the bottom of each glass and the tea to be drank can be poured over top, leaving the frothy layer floating. While it sounds like a simple process, I definitely need some practice as I have dumped entire glasses of tea on the ground and myself more than once. Such difficulties have led other students to cleverly pour a bit of tea into a bottle and shake it vigorously as a spill-proof method. Once the tea is poured, everyone is served their glass and is to drink the tea in a slurping fashion, letting out a subtle sigh of satisfaction after each sip (the legend is that once a guest at a man’s house didn’t let out the appropriate sigh after each sip, and the man stabbed him in the stomach at which point the guest made the right sound). And once all that is done, it’s time to prepare round two! It’s most common to prepare three rounds of tea: the first is bitter like death, the second sweeter like life, and the third sweetest like love. Many families make attaya every afternoon, others prefer to make attaya with friends late at night. Whatever time of day it’s always a great time to sit around and talk with family and friends, a tradition that I’m hoping to bring back with me along with some tiny tea glasses.

In terms of drinks that you buy on the street, café touba is definitely the most popular. Everywhere you go you see little rolling Nescafe carts or men carrying around a silver pot full of steaming coffee. All coffee here is instant, and café touba in particular has added spices and sugar (of course). Add to that a little froth on the top from pouring the coffee back and forth a few times, and there you go!

As for juices I’ve already explained the baobab juice made by stirring dried fruit into water until it dissolves, then adding sugar and possibly a bit of pineapple juice. It’s definitely my favourite juice here, and I’ve heard rumours that baobab powder is now being imported into North America: definitely something I have to look into when I get home. Other local juices are much more colourful that the white baobab juice, including the bright red bissap, brown tamarind, yellow ginger, and green dita (a local fruit). Once you start mixing these together (the most popular mix being baobab and bissap) the sky’s the limit!

The ubiquitous beer here is Gazelle, brewed in Dakar and served in a large green bottle. I’d offer you more information, but I’m not a fan of beer so although I’ve tried it, a reasonable description is beyond my capabilities.

And finally: while most students don't drink tap water directly, almost all of us drink the filtered water which removes particles but probably not a whole lot beyond that (and leaves the chlorine taste firmly intact). I've been drinking filtered water since my arrival and haven't had any problems. Yet when travelling within Senegal I try to play it safe with bottled water, as we did on our Tambacounda trip, and you can see below what a four day water supply for seven people looks like.

That about sums up the drinks here, so until next time (which I promise will be sooner rather than later . . . time just goes so quickly sometimes)!