Christmas in Dakar

Merry Christmas everyone!

I had a great Christmas Eve and am having a great Christmas Day so far. I hope that is the case for you as well!

Friday Brenna and I both found ourselves with the afternoon off (yay for early start to the vacation!). When she asked me if there was anything I particularly wanted to do, I said that I wanted to make a snowman… but there isn’t any snow around here. All my friends and family in Bend, Oregon were posting their snow pictures and I was feeling a bit left out. We don’t have any snow here, so we decided that we would try with sand. Brenna met me at the beach and we got started. Sand isn’t as easy to use as snow, so it took us a few different approaches to figure out what would work.

We realized that a tall sandman wasn’t in the cards, so we went with a shorter one. It might have taken us a few tries, but we were very happy with our results! “Sandy” as we named our sand-person, helped us find the Christmas Spirit we had been missing! Sometimes it’s hard to get into the Christmas Spirit when it’s in the 80s outside and you’re far away from your loved ones, so we were in a good mood!

Saturday we decided we’d start the day out at Parc Hann, which is a large park here in Dakar. Originally we were going because there was supposed to be a composting activity that Brenna was going to attend, but in the end it got cancelled and we decided just to go see the park. I had been wanting to go because that is where the local equestrian center is located. We started off our time at the zoo, which was a mistake because it was pretty depressing. The animals were in small cages and the tiger was literally crying loudly, which made us want to leave. I did yell at some Chinese tourists who were feeding one of the larger chimps something. The enclosures were pretty small and not exactly well set up, meaning that it was pretty easy for someone to lean over the rail and feed an animal through their cage (including the lions). So we left pretty quickly and walked through the nice forest towards the equestrian center.

"Coco" on the right is ALL MINE starting in January

Even though it was Christmas Eve there were normal Saturday morning lessons going on, so there were a ton of cute kids running around with cute little ponies. We finally found an office and I asked about riding, to which the man responded that they’d just had an owner put their horse up for lease, if I was interested. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I basically got myself a beautiful white Spanish Warmblood for Christmas!!! I am leasing “Coco” until I leave in July, with unlimited access to him and the park trails.  I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!

On our way home, we stopped at the fabric market (Marché HLM) and got some more fabric to have stuff tailored (most people have their nicer clothes tailored here instead of buying finished products). I got 3 different types of fabric for some skirts and dresses to be made. Then I stopped by the tailor because I had ordered some dresses and skirts last week.

My Christmas Dress

Arame (my host family’s house maid who lives there) is also a December baby with her birthday on the 30^th, so we decided to get some matching things made that I offered to her as a birthday present. The tailor had said he’d finish everything by the 24^th, but my host mom was very skeptical, especially because he asked me to stop by on Thursday and show him the patterns again (meaning he hadn’t started). I wasn’t worried so much about all of it being done, I just wanted to wear the Christmas dress to church! So I stopped by at about 2:30, just to see if he wanted me to come by around 5pm, and it was ALL done! Turned out very nice too!

Brenna and I had decided to find a church that was having a Christmas Eve service, since my church wasn’t. I put a call out on Craigslist Dakar and found an Assemblies of God church within walking distance. Brenna came over for dinner with my host family (really just my host mom) before church and we had a very nice dinner of salad and fish. The service was scheduled to go from 8pm to 10pm, and ended up going until more like 10:30pm. It was a very interesting cultural experience, and not what I was expecting, mostly because it wasn’t very Christmas-y. There were some elements, such as the youth performances, that were sort of Christmas themed, so that was nice. It was more like a normal Sunday morning service that happened to be on Christmas Eve. We were both pretty tired, so ended up leaving at 10:30pm (the service wasn’t finished by then) but decided that we were both glad that we had gone.

Christmas Morning we all (myself, Brenna, Colleen, and her friend Liana visiting from the US) decided that we needed something fun to do on Christmas morning when it was still the middle of the night back home, but when we would all be wishing we were home, so we planned a trip out to the Bandia Reserve for a morning safari. We rented a car and driver and left at 8am.

We arrived about 9:15 and happened to be there just as a family with 5 children was looking for a group who would be willing to share the safari truck with them, so we decided to split it with them. It’s always fun to have children with on adventures like this! We got our guide, piled into the safari truck and headed out. The first thing we sighted was a hyena, who is one of the only animals in the park that is actually kept in an enclosure (too mean to be let out amongst the other animals) and a couple of large land turtles that didn’t seem quite awake yet.
Then we went out into the actual reserve, coming first across some buffalo, who the guide told us were not very happy with us being the first to pass by, so we didn’t linger. Then we saw the most adorable baby giraffes! SO stinking CUTE!!!

BABIES!!!!

The parents weren’t too far away. The mother was lighter colored, but the males are very dark (and HUGE!). We were all pretty excited to get to see them out and about. We would soon find out that giraffes would be all over the place! Ostriches as well, although we did get to see one male do a mating dance because there was a female nearby. Some monkeys that are hard to get pictures of, but are super cute, entertained us, and then we turned the corner to zebras!!! Then lots of antelope, of two different varieties. More giraffes… lots of giraffes!

See the elephant?

They don’t have elephants here, but we did see the “Baobab Elephant” which really does look like one!
There was another Baobab that had been a burial site for the local griots (the history keepers/storytellers of African tradition), with bones visible still! Lots more ostriches and giraffes, then a family of warthogs, which were cool to see but too far to photograph. Then we cross another safari truck whose guide tells our guide something in Wolof and the only word I understood was “rhinoceros” and our driver picks up some speed. We come around a corner and see a couple of other trucks stopped and then we see TWO rhinos fighting! Right in front of us! Apparently these are the crown jewels of the reserve, they only have those two (a male and female) and most people who do the safari don’t even get to see one of them.

Apparently they’ve been there for 15 years, but the female doesn’t like the male, so she refuses to mate with him (hence the fighting). We watched for a while and one of the little kids wanted to get closer, not understanding why it wouldn’t be a very good idea… We were very happy with our luck! We then saw a bunch of crocodiles and some more monkeys, much closer this time, to finish our safari. We saw everything we had hoped for, and more! It was a great way to start Christmas!

Just Chillin'

Now I am in a café, enjoying an espresso and writing this blog before I head over to Colleen’s, where we’ve all decided to make one dish for everyone. Liana is Jewish, and Hanukkah started last night, so they’re making latkes, Brenna is making sweet potato and carrot soup while I have decided that I am NOT missing out on Huevos this year, so I’m making my own batch and sharing it with my friends. Since California is about 8 hours behind us, I’ll be having them about that same time, or just after, everyone at Grandma Mert’s.

Thanksgiving in Dakar

From the 18^th to the 28^th of November I was house/pet sitting for a woman who works at the US Embassy. There were some major upsides to this, but also some downsides, notably when it came to location. I was living in a completely different part of town. My host family is located in Mermoz, which is pretty much right in the middle along the coast from where the US Embassy is located (in Almadies/Ngor) and downtown (Dakar/Plateau).

The downside to this was I was no longer within walking distance of FASTEF, so it called for a much earlier departure in the morning in order to arrive on time for my 8am classes (which I have 4 days a week). It also meant having to take a taxi anywhere I needed to go, which is a minor annoyance mostly because taxi drivers think they can charge 2-3 times what they should just because of the color of my skin, so the haggling is a bit annoying, especially at 7:15 in the morning!  On the other hand, I was staying in a large house that had not only hot running water (yay for a break from cold showers!), an American washer and drier, but also a fully equipped American style kitchen (which my host family does not have).

I invited Brenna and Colleen over for a Western meal on Friday, to give everyone a break from traditional Senegalese food. Not that it isn’t good, but it’s a bit harder for Colleen and Brenna, who both have dietary restrictions (Colleen is vegetarian, Brenna is gluten-free). We decided to each choose a recipe for something they were craving from home and we’d all make our own dish and share it with everyone. In the end we had a cabbage salad, a caprese salad, macaroni and cheese (but nachos for Brenna), and pumpkin soup… not to mention some wine and hard-cider. We spent a small fortune, but it was worth it! The little dogs were also happy to have more people to love on them, so everyone was happy!

Some Western comfort food!

The kitchen helped a lot when it came to Thanksgiving the next week as well. The Ambassador usually invites the American community (those who work at the Embassy or are connected to the Embassy somehow, such as the Fulbrighters managed by the Public Affairs Section) for Thanksgiving dinner at his house. Colleen and I had RSVP’d and everyone was asked to bring our favorite dish. I had also invited Emily, the other American student being hosted by my host family. I asked her what her favorite Thanksgiving dish was and she said it was stuffing, so that’s what I told them I would bring. Colleen had said she’d bring apple pie. It was a good thing I was house sitting because Colleen realized that her host family doesn’t have an oven either!

We decided to start cooking on Wednesday after we both got done with work, and finish on Thursday before the 4pm dinner start-time. Since we had some leftover pumpkin from the soup we had made Friday, I decided to throw a pumpkin pie into the mix. Last year Anna shared with me her Thanksgiving cooking wisdom/recipes while I helped her make most of her Thanksgiving dinner for 20+ people, and most all of it from scratch, so I was confident in my ability to make the stuffing and pies. Our first challenge was finding all the ingredients. Bread for the stuffing was no problem, but sage was much harder to find, and I completely struck out on the celery front, so I had to switch to mushroom stuffing. For the pies, we found the basic ingredients easy enough (flour, apples, cinnamon, etc.) but I had to phone a friend when brown sugar was nowhere to be found (not even at the American Store!). I called Anna and learned that the sugar-in-the-raw that I had would work, so I was set to go for the pumpkin pie. Pie tins are also not to be found here, and they had requested that everything be brought in disposable containers, so we decided that our pies would just have to be rectangular J

Our pumpkin pie pumpkin

Wednesday I cut up the bread and left it to dry until the next day, and then Colleen and I started with the pie filling. She peeled apples as I cut pumpkin (a small green pumpkin just like the one Anna and I used from her farm last year!). Once we got the two different fillings made, I set out to make the three crusts (two apple pies and one pumpkin). That’s when we realized there was no rolling pin in the kitchen… but we had a wine bottle! That worked just fine J We filled our pies and set them in the fridge for baking the next day. It was now almost 11pm and I had an 8am class the next morning, so Colleen headed home and I went to bed, happy with our progress.

Wine bottles work as rolling pins!

Thanksgiving Day I taught from 8am until 1pm, then met with Colleen in order to head over and finish everything for dinner! Emily ended up not being able to come to dinner because it was too early, so it was just myself and Colleen finishing the pies and stuffing for dinner. We had a very specific game plan in order to get everything done in the time we had (isn’t half of cooking for Thanksgiving time management?). We pre-heated the oven and put the pies in ASAP. While they were baking we prepared the stuffing for its turn in the oven. In the end, everything came out just as we planned and I felt I had done Anna’s Thanksgiving cooking legacy proud! Colleen and I were very happy with what we had to contribute to the Thanksgiving feast.

Our contribution to Thanksgiving Dinner

Dinner at Ambassador Zumwalt’s was very nice. Colleen and I arrived at 3:55 for a 4pm start time and were, of course, the first ones there. It’s hard to get out of the American habit of showing up for things on time! There were maybe 75-100 people there for dinner, and the weather was nice so the tables were set up outside. There were a bunch of round tables set up, each of them sat 8 people, so it wasn’t too overwhelming. The Ambassador provided the turkey, but most everything else was provided by the other guests. One guest (Senegalese-American) even brought roasted lamb (like, brought in 2 actual spits with the lambs on them!) and that was super good! The people at our table had some of what we had brought and said it was good. I also tried our stuffing and pies thought they weren’t half bad!

Although Colleen and some of the other Fulbrighters were there, I decided I wouldn’t sit with any of them and explained that I didn’t want to be rude, but just wanted to meet people I didn’t know. I chose a table that had a spot open and met some other Embassy employees. Ambassador Zumwalt had each table go around and say what they were thankful for throughout the year, as is tradition in his family.

I thought back on the year that I’ve had and was overwhelmed with my blessing for the year. I started out this year in Martinique, then spent the spring studying like a crazy person for my Masters comprehensive exam in French literature, which I passed thanks in large part to a few key people God blessed me with who supported and helped me (Anna, Alyssa & Bailey!). Then I found out I’d been accepted by Fulbright and would be going to Senegal! I graduated with my Masters degree surrounded by friends and family, including my amazing Great-Grandmother who at 91-years old traveled all the way across the country (with the help of my mother) to see me graduate. I then spent a challenging but good summer mentally/emotionally/psychologically preparing myself for Africa, while working with Africans in my final months at the University of Delaware.
An epic family-themed cross-country American Road Trip with two of my favorite people, Morgan and Steven, crowned my summer. I spent some time on the West Coast visiting as much family and friends as possible. 10 days in my beloved Bend, visiting family and staying with the two people who started this all 15 years ago by taking me under their wings and mentoring me, my “Godparents” Carmelo and Marlena, was amazing! I was able to meet the newest addition to our family born in July, Kinsley Jo, while simultaneously spending more time with Great-Grandma Mert. 3 weeks at Aunts Marci and Alice’s Rancho Alimar, one of my favorite places on earth, ended my time in the US, for now. And now, I am in this beautiful country, having amazing, life-changing experiences, doing what I love, and having already met some amazing people that I can tell will probably end up being life-long friends.

Of course, I couldn’t say all that at the Thanksgiving round-table, so I stuck to some of the biggest highlights of the year as we went around. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and we even had a commemorative picture taken with the Fulbrighters present and Ambassador Zumwalt! It will definitely go down in history as one of my favorite Thanksgivings. I know this is a couple of weeks after the fact, but I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and that your holiday season has gotten off to a good start!

A Fulbright Thanksgiving:

Myself, Colleen, Ambassador Zumwalt, Kyla & Ryan

Actually Working

So my second week of work included much more actual work, which was great!

I teach 7, 2-hour classes per week, not counting the discussion and film club at the US Embassy.

On Mondays I just have the class with the three gentlemen I had on Friday. The topic that dominated the conversation was, of course, the election that was going to take place the next day. I had found a lesson plan on C-SPAN Classroom.org about how the Electoral College works, so I modified it for their level and we worked through that. I also found a simple video that explained it in simple terms and used that as well. It is not an easy system to explain! But it generated a lot of conversation, which is great. We’re working on fluency with them, so the more interested they are and the more they talk, the better. After I finished with them, I sat in on Mr. Thiam’s “Issues in ELT” course for the higher-level students.

Bottom 3 are LOTS, top 3 are HOTS

We talked about Bloom’s Taxonomy and the difference between Low Order Thinking Skills (LOTS) and High Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). The idea he is trying to get across is that true communication only happens at the HOTS level, everything else is just repetition and memorization, so unless the teacher creates activities that require HOTS, the classroom is not very communicative. He reminds me a lot of Dr. Cubillos J

Tuesday I meet with the two advanced level classes (B1 and B2 who are working towards the high school level certification). Both of these classes were dominated by explaining the Electoral College and the logistics of an American election. The students were very active and participating in the discussion, so I considered the classes a success.

I spent election night at the US Embassy’s event, which was held at Ambassador Zumwalt’s home. The Embassy decided to invite young Senegalese adults who are interested in the US and how things work there. They had asked for volunteers who could man the different booths they had set up for the evening. When the Senegalese came in, they were to pick up a voter card and a ‘passport’ that would be stamped at each station. There were 4 stations: Two on election-specific content (U.S. electoral process and diverse voters), one on studying in the United States (EducationUSA) and one for mock voting. There was also one where those who had gone to each of the stations would collect a small prize. This was an informational evening for young Senegalese, and because it was an Embassy event, personal political opinions were not to be shared. It was very interesting to see what kinds of questions everyone had, and I found that they mirrored questions I had been fielding all day from my students. I ended up working the prize booth, but even then people asked for more information about the process.

I did get to see one of our UD Mandela Washington Fellows, Aminata! I hadn’t seen her since she had been at UD for the summer of 2015, so that was fun! I was able to send a ‘neener-neener’ picture to my friend Susan who had also worked with Aminata. She had posted a picture of herself with Vice-President Biden who had stopped for some pictures after voting on the UD campus, so I figured I’d send her a picture of me with someone cool too! It was fun to see her.

Aminata, from UD to Dakar!

Wednesday I was at the US Embassy for conversation club and the Meet Me in the US film club. We were still on the subject of Education (because that’s of course what everyone wanted to discuss the day after the election?!?!) so we had an article about how many international students the US hosts at university campuses around the country, and then we watched the movie Finding Forrester. It was nice to not be talking about the results of the election for a couple of hours at least, since I had been fielding questions all day from my Senegalese friends on the surprising results of the American elections. Afterwards, I met with a woman who works in the consular section of the Embassy so I could see her house and meet her dogs before I started house-sitting for her. She was going out of town for Thanksgiving, so I was going to watch her place and the puppies for 10 days. The topic of conversation was, of course, the result of the election. Many of those who work abroad for the diplomatic corps are extremely worried by our President-elect’s complete lack of diplomatic experience (or any experience pertinent to the position, for that matter). I think many Americans, especially those with little-to-no international experience, underestimate the impact that America and its leaders have on the rest of the world. Everyone follows what is happening, everyone is worried by these results. Many people believe that the American election is about America, and that those outside of the US don’t matter, but the US actively sought out being a world leader, and with that position comes responsibilities. You cannot wish to be a world power without being accountable to the world. As an American here on a high-profile program such as Fulbright, and in a visible position such as teaching at a local university, I was getting a lot of questions about how this happened and what might happen next. Especially from my students.

Explaining the system

Thursday & Friday: I had class with my B1 students as well as with the C1 student, who is at the lowest level offered at FASTEF, on Thursday, and then with my B2 and C2 students on Friday. Of course, the election results dominated the conversation. While I may have had other plans, I felt it was important to answer their questions. Our conversation ranged from more questions about the Electoral College, how one can win the election but lose the popular vote and so-called ‘faithless voters’, to gerrymandering and the Voting Rights Act. Many of them expressed their surprise at how the US system worked and noted that if such practices were used in an African country’s election, the rest of the world would call it out as an unfair, if not rigged, system… With the US probably leading the pack. When you look at how the Voting Rights Act was gutted and the resulting inability of thousands of eligible voters to be able to vote, I have to admit that they kind of have a point there…

Saturday

Ngor island benches for enjoying the view!

After the week we were having, Colleen, Brenna, and I decided to get some beach time. We wanted to check out Ngor island, just off the coast of the Yoff area of Dakar.

There’s not much to the island except a little bit of beach and some restaurants that cater to tourists, but it was worth getting some sun and beach time! We met up with a friend of Brenna’s, Blair, and took a little pirogue (small boat) out to the island. We decided to explore the island a bit before we stopped for lunch. There were some beautiful views from different parts of the island. After wandering around, we decided to have lunch at an Italian restaurant where we thoroughly enjoyed our meal before spending some time on the beach. It was a great way to recharge our batteries after a very long week!

We all needed some Vitamin 'Sea'

Colleen and I decided that the best thing we can do as Fulbrighters is to represent the United States as best we can to our international friends, many of whom have had no previous interactions with Americans. I, as a teacher, a Fulbrighter, and an American, will not shy away from the hard discussions, nor turn a blind eye to our weaknesses and mistakes, nor the large amount of work we still have to do as a young and growing country. We are dedicated to showing them that no matter who our president is, or what he says, we as Americans and as Fulbrighters will continue to uphold the ideals of the open-mindedness and big-heartedness that launched the Fulbright program in 1946. We will show that the person in the White House does not have the power to change who we are as Americans at our core. We will continue to act in a manner that shows our commitment to the tradition of tolerance, freedom, free expression, and inclusivity that has made the United States an example to people all over the world.

An Open Letter from 1,500+ Fulbrighters Regarding the Election

First Week of Work

Hi everyone!

I know this is a bit after the fact, because I’ve been here for 6 weeks now, but I’m going to walk you all through my first week of working in Dakar (after the conference in Saly) because it's kind of funny how little I actually worked.

We’ll get caught up, don’t worry! J

Monday:

When we were doing our orientation at the Embassy, a man came to talk to us about FASTEF, not only to introduce the university to the one who would be working there (that would be me), but also for the other ETAs to know how the teachers they’re working with may have been trained (or not trained at all). That man’s name is Mathiam Thiam, and I really like him, so I was interested to see that he would be teaching a course to the higher level MA students “Issues in Communicative Language Teaching”. I asked him if I could sit in on his course, not only for my own interest, but also to better connect his class with mine. His class meets on Mondays from 11am-1pm, and I teach a class later in the afternoon, from 3pm-5pm. I went in early to be there in time for his class, but when no one came, I found out that they had moved it (just for this week) to Wednesday.

Bummer because I work at the US Embassy on Wednesdays and am not usually on campus at all… Oh well, Mr. Thiam said I could join them starting next week. So then I just spent time continuing to prepare for starting my classes that week, since I had from 11am to 3pm to work before my afternoon class. 3pm comes… no students. I asked Mr. Diagne who had them earlier that day if they had come and he said they were there, didn’t know why they hadn’t come except that on their schedule I was simply listed as “ETA” without my name or a room number (this is because they made the schedule before they had that information), so they probably didn’t even know that a class was even being held. In the words of my colleague from the week before: “Huh, I guess we’ll start next week…” And that was my first day, ha ha!

Tuesday: A holiday, so I went to Gorée Island with some other westerners:

Brenna, who I met at the Embassy Oktoberfest/softball game, is a Canadian here on an NGO internship geared towards urban development, mainly waste management. Colleen is a Fulbright Student Scholar here to research migration driven economics. Anthony (the other Fulbright ETA) and his wife Alyson went with us as well. I wrote a blog about it, which you can read here.

Wednesday:

I work with the RELO (Regional English Language Officer) department of the embassy on Wednesdays, so I headed over to the embassy in the morning to start there. The first thing I do is help Safi with the semi-weekly Webinar called Shaping the Way We Teach. The webinars are grouped into 6-week courses, usually on a theme. It is hosted by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of English Language Programs in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

It’s a program for English teachers around the globe and usually addresses methodological topics that help English teachers be interactive, student-centered language instructors. If they ‘attend’ at least 4 out of the 6 webinars, then they receive a certificate of completion from the RELO office. My job is to do the pre-webinar discussion, help them participate in the webinar while it is going on, hold a post-webinar discussion, and finally, give a quiz on what was discussed. Those who answer the questions correctly get a prize from the RELO office, usually some sort of teaching material they wouldn’t already have.

After the webinar, I went over to the Language Resource Center, which is basically a small library that anyone interested in English materials can have access to for free, they just have to apply for membership. I had met the woman who runs it, Rachel, at Bob Posts house the first Friday we were in town, as well as at the Oktoberfest. I asked her what she would need me for, and she told me about the conversation club that meets on Wednesdays, as well as the film screening afterwards. The conversation is usually led by an article (of my choice) that would generally be connected to the theme of the month (decided by the State Department). For example, November’s theme is education and, to a lesser degree, holidays. We read the article together and discuss it.

The film is also connected to the theme of the month. Because Rachel had to go to Guinea Bissau to see Liam (the ELF placed there), there wouldn’t be the discussion or film that day (I don’t think they knew that I’d be there…). So I’d start next week. I think I’ll show Finding Forrester, which is one of my favorite movies! Leaving the embassy (which means recuperating my cell phone) I see a message from Mr. Boye at FASTEF: classes have been cancelled for the next day because they have to spend the whole day going through applications for a new lecturer. They wanted me to be there to observe the process and help if I could. Darn… I was really looking forward to getting to teach.

Thursday:

I arrived at FASTEF at 9am and was, of course, the first one there for the 9am meeting. I’m still operating on American time, so I’m annoyingly on time for things. Everyone else trickled in eventually. They had 12 candidates for hiring a lecturer for our department. The university itself gives the departments a spreadsheet that they plug scores into depending on the criteria. For example, Cursus du Candidat (candidate’s educational background) with categories such as the year they graduated high school and got their master’s degree, if they have any “mentions” (honors), etc. There’s also a category for publications and professional experience. The committee discussed each candidate and filled out the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet had some formulas imbedded it in that no one really understood, so it wasn’t an easy task. For example, there was a column marked “nombre de redoublements” which means they calculated a gap in time between degrees as being due to having to retake years because of failure or something similar. None of the professors on the committee could understand why that was in there, especially because the gaps between degrees (in between their Masters and PhD for example) were usually explained by their work experience. The problem with this was the fact that the calculation for that column resulted in points being taken away from the candidate, so experience actually hurt them.

There is the column about professional experience, but it wasn’t weighted as heavily, so it was a bit of a wash between the amount they lost for “redoublements” and what they gained in the experience category. The other part that many questioned, myself included, was the weight of the degree types.

PhDs and Doctorates were most heavily weighted (between 7 and 13 points depending on the type of degree). Masters degrees were weighted at 5 points (side note: if they had multiple Masters degrees, they still only got 5 points…). The interesting part of this was that it didn’t seem to matter what the degree was in. A PhD in French literature was weighted the same as a PhD in American literature (remember this is the English Department of the university).

The Senegalese National Syllabus requires Communicative Language teaching for English, so you would think that those with the most educational background in CLT/TOEFL/TESL would be most valued, but that didn’t seem to be the case. There was a candidate who had 3 Masters degree: One in English from Senegal, a Masters in teaching English from Columbia’s Teachers College, and another in TOEFL from Cambridge. Just looking at degrees, he was awarded the simple 5 points for having a Masters (having 3 doesn’t equate to more points because then it would be equivalent to a PhD…) It also didn’t seem to matter where the degree was done, so a Masters from Columbia’s Teachers College or Cambridge was equivalent to any Masters degree done in Senegal. It was very interesting to follow the process.

I did get to be of some help… One candidate listed that he had a Masters degree from Fulbright. Sounds impressive, right? I had to explain to the committee that Fulbright is a scholarship program, they do not award degrees. His thesis connected to his “Fulbright” awarded degree had the University of Oregon on it, but I could tell something was off. The thesis supervisor was listed with just a name, but no title or university department affiliation to it. Very strange. Needless to say, that candidate did not end up in the top 5.

When they finished with the point system, I thought they would take the top 5 and call interviews, or ask them to do a mini lesson demonstration or something like that, so I was surprised when they chose the person with the most points and called it a day. And that was my crash course in how professors are hired at Universities in Senegal!

Friday

I finally got to teach my first class on Friday! I see each class twice a week, once for American Culture/fluency development and again for Communicative Language Activities. My Friday morning class is with the highest level of students the university has: students who are to be certified to teach high school when they finish here. Many of them have a good amount of teaching experience. The next class was with the students at a lower level who are here to get certification for the middle-school level. There are only 3 men in that class, so they get a lot of fluency practice. These men have numerous years of experience teaching English in elementary schools out in the villages. Their English level is fairly low, so the activities and explanations take more time. They are also much more wary of technology, and I have to remember that they will be working in rural areas that generally have no electricity, so the activities they will be able to do with their students aren’t the same as the other students who will be in the larger cities.

Our first day was just getting to know each other by doing some ice-breakers, and explaining what we were going to accomplish throughout the semester. All the activities we do in our fluency class are also activities that they can use with their students, so usually when we finish one activity, I take the time to explain how I prepared for the activity and we talk about ways to modify it for different levels of students. We had a good time and it was nice to be in front of students again!

That was my first week of “work” and I only actually got to teach on the last day! Oh well, I’ll hopefully get into a rhythm eventually…

Gorée Island

There are places on this earth that, having been witness to unspeakable sadness or horror, hold within them a power that will forever leave a mark on sensitive souls who pass there. Some locations that fall into this category include Auschwitz, the 9/11 memorial in NYC, Montsegur (in the south of France where the Cathars made their last stand), Gettysburg,  and where I found myself visiting on a day off from work, Gorée Island.

The 45-acre island is 1.2 miles off the coast of Senegal and is the most visited site in Senegal. It has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1978 and considered worth preservation by French colonists since 1944. The central location of the island made it extremely valuable for European powers because it connected the North to the South and was easily defendable. Because of that, it was one of the first places in Africa to be settled by European colonists, and a central part of holding power in the area. It changed hands from the original Portuguese, to the Netherlands, then back to the Portuguese, then back to the Dutch, on to British control of it before the French finally took control that lasted until independence in 1960. From the 15^th century until the French abolished slavery in 1848, Gorée Island was the center of the West African slave trade. 20 million Africans passed through the slave trading center that was this island. It was the last of the African continent they would touch, and for about 20% of them whose lives would be cut short while on the Atlantic, their final chance to feel solid land beneath their feet.

Fort d'Estrées

We (Brenna, Colleen, Anthony, Alyson, and I) started out our time on Gorée at a museum that traced the history of the island, which cannot be separated from the history of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The Historical Museum of Senegal is housed inside what used to be Fort d’Estrées, or the Northern Battery, built in 1852.  It has a circular set up that carried us clockwise through history. We learned about the original Portuguese colonists and the changing of hands throughout the centuries. We read about the slave trade and the commerce that drove it. One particular piece of information that stood out to me, for obvious reasons, was how the Spanish would ship horses down to West Africa to trade for slaves. One good horse was worth 20 men...

Gary the Gorée Pelican

After the museum we decided to have lunch while we waited for the House of Slaves to open up again at 2pm. We decided on a place that was right on the water, but in the shade and with a nice breeze. There is always something soothing about hearing waves tumble over rocks and I am glad we chose that particular place. All of us had something traditionally Senegalese: mafé poulet, yassa poulet or yassa poisson with guava or bouye juice (from the baobab tree).  Everything was very good and we lingered over our meals, also indulging in coffee and dessert. We were entertained by a large pelican who decided to join us at the restaurant, hanging out at the door of the kitchen, hoping for something to fall from a passing tray. I’ve never been that close to a pelican, so I don’t know if he was larger than normal, but he was pretty big. We were definitely fascinated by him, naming him Gary the Gorée Pelican for a bit of fun. The whole time I was thinking how jealous my bird-loving cousin Morgan would be that I was this close to one of her favorite birds!

Brenna enjoying the water

We left the restaurant for the House of Slaves, but it was closed for a private tour until 4pm, so we wandered around the island, and especially enjoyed the sand artists. These artists use different colors of sand from all over the regions to create their works of art. They use a special kind of glue and wood to complete each piece. The art is not easily damaged and the only way to ruin it is to soak it in water. The pieces are beautifully done and I am hoping to get some before I leave.

We still had some time, so we went down to the beach and dipped our feet in the water. Brenna was smart enough to remember her bathing suit, so she actually got to go in the beautiful water. It looked amazing and I won’t forget mine next time! We were at the House of Slaves at 4pm so as not to miss it before it closed.

This is the pièce de résistance of the island, an old slave house built in 1776. It was in this house and others like it that slaves awaited their departure on the ships crossing the Atlantic. The ground floor of the home contains holding cells with labels: Hommes, Femmes, Jeunes Femmes, Enfants where the slaves were held awaiting transport, as well as the famous Door of no Return that leads to nowhere but the waters of the Atlantic. This is the place that overwhelms the soul with the tragedy it has seen. Standing in the cell labeled Enfants, I could almost hear the din and feel the despair of crying children unable to comprehend why they were separated from their mothers, fathers, and older siblings. As I stared out of the Door of no Return, I saw the vast morgue that is the Atlantic Ocean and wondered why humanity is capable of inflicting such evil on itself, and will it ever stop?

We were a sober group that left the House of Slaves and decided to walk up the hill to the top viewpoint of the island. As we wound our way up the hill, we passed many artisans selling their work to the cruisers who swarmed the island that day. At the top, I was gazing towards the west when I looked down and realized that I was wearing the jewelry I’d gotten earlier this year in Martinique. It hit me that I had been on both sides of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade this year: about 25% of the slaves who left the West Coast of Africa ended up in the Caribbean. It was a sobering, full-circle kind of thing, and I kind of wished there was a Toni Morrison Bench by the Road for contemplation like the one in Fort-de-France.

As we waited for the 5:30pm ferry back to Dakar, I struck up a conversation with a few of the cruisers waiting as well. A couple of snow-birds who spend half the year in Montana and the other half in South Africa, and another couple, originally British, but now living in Michigan. We chatted about traveling and the benefits of seeing, and learning in, different parts of the world, continuing our conversation when we got on the ferry. At this point it was just Colleen, Brenna and myself because Anthony and Alyson had left just after lunch. We were all chatting with each other and the two couples that had sat behind us, discussing the island and its important history. At one point, Colleen and I were chatting and an older British woman sitting in front of us interrupted us to ask Colleen “Do you ever stop talking?” At first, we thought we’d heard her wrong, but she then said “Don’t you ever shut up? You’ve been talking this entire ferry ride!” I was shocked. We were not being particularly loud, and we had been talking with the people around and behind us as well. Colleen answered (more politely than I probably could have) “I’m sorry If us talking is bothering you, maybe you can move to another part of the boat, because this is a public ferry and we paid just as much as you did to be on here.” I was still so shocked that someone would be so rude that I had stopped our conversation, but then willfully started it back up again, just to prove a point. It was a bit of a bummer to end the day in that way.

I definitely want to go back to Gorée Island; it is a beautiful place with a profound history to it that merits multiple visits. Maybe I’ll make sure there aren’t any cruise ships in port next time…

Saly

Saly

I’d heard that Saly was a nice place and a popular tourist destination, so I headed out there anticipating it would be nice, and boy was I not disappointed!!

Since the rest of the RELO office was already there, I got a ride with a couple of English teachers who were heading out there from Dakar as well. Both teachers in the car were named Abdouleye, so at least I only had one name to learn! Saly is about 60 kilometers from Dakar (that’s about 35 miles), so it wouldn’t normally take more than an hour to get there. The exit off the highway we needed was closed, so it took us a little longer, but we got there. I was surprised when we pulled up outside a 5-Star seaside resort!

The Neptune Hotel has a bungalow style set up, so there were a bunch of round bungalows, each with 4 rooms (2 on the ground floor, 2 upstairs), although I’m sure there were some family-style suites that may have taken up an entire floor, or bungalow for that matter. My suite had a sitting room, bedroom and large bathroom on the ground floor. Because it was during the week of Toussaint vacations in France, there were a ton of French families staying there.

We had arrived around 11am and happened to see Safi as we walked in, so she let us know that we would have a couple of hours to settle into our rooms before the group ate lunch at 1pm. Lunch was a set menu with 2 choices for each course (appetizer, main, dessert) and a choice of drink. I found out that would be the case for every lunch and dinner during the conference.

Lesson planning practice

I was able to see some of the people I had met over the course of the three day orientation we had, including the Access teacher who let us take over her class, Marème, the woman who does the teacher training/evaluation for the Ministry of Education, Ngueye, and the Peace Corps Volunteer, Alex. Those three, along with myself and Safi, were the only women there. The rest of the teachers were men. It’s an interesting difference in that teaching is a predominantly female dominated field in the US, while it is predominantly male in Senegal.

This conference, as I mentioned before, was for Access teachers. As I mentioned in my Orientation blog, the Access program is an after-school program for underprivileged kids (i.e. not the principle’s son or the mayor’s daughter) funded by the US government.

Senegalese Access Students

When an English teacher wants to start an Access class in their school, they go through a pretty long process to get it established, including recruiting 16 students (equally gender balanced) for the 2-year commitment. Not only do the students have to be committed to the program, their parents/guardians also have to be because these students are going to do 360 extra hours of English study over the course of 2 years, including extra lessons twice a week (usually Wednesdays and Saturdays) plus summer camps, enhancement activities such as community service, and some ‘intensive’ sessions of 4+ hours in addition to everything else (in order to get the 360 hours in).

My part of the conference was an hour and 15 minute workshop on Service Learning, Active Citizenship & Leadership training. Since that title was all they gave me as a prompt for my presentation, I wasn’t really sure where to start. I decided to start at the most basic level; with the definition of each term, especially as applied to the Access program. I used the Access handbook as a guide, and after learning more about the program, decided to gear my presentation towards how to integrate all three aspects into an enhancement activity.

I found this article, by Stephanie Harbin, about the value of leadership training for teenagers and integrated that into it as well. In the end, the presentation and discussion went really, really well. The Access teachers all participated and contributed to the discussion, which kept it lively and interesting. It apparently ended up being exactly what the directors of the conference were looking for, which was a lucky, albeit educated, guess on my part.

I was the last presenter on Thursday, and then there were workshops all day on Friday and Saturday morning as well. Because we usually only had a couple of hours in between the end of the day’s conference sessions and dinner, we never actually had time to go into the town of Saly. I’m definitely going to have to come back, since I’ve heard that it’s worth a visit. While there was very little free time during the conference, that time was usually spent with Alex, the PCV, enjoying the pool or the beach. At one point, I was enjoying the pool before dinner and just started laughing…

I couldn’t figure out how on earth it happened that I was sitting in a giant pool at a seaside resort in Saly, Senegal, but I could definitely get used to it (but seriously can’t expect anything like this to happen again, ha ha!). I definitely enjoyed myself, especially getting to know other teachers who are passionate about what they do, and in a spectacular setting.