Keur Massar, Kickin It Outside of Dakar is Where its At

This past weekend I had an excellent time kicking it with my friends Leanna and Ben at Ben's family's house in Keur Massar, a suburb of Dakar. It is a huge house (4 story apartment) with tons of family members all around (more than 15). You are never alone there. Its great. Friday night we went to a sick drum circle.


Saturday we went to Ben's mom stand at the market, which is the coolest food market ive been to. Its legit place to visit but not to take photos, then we went to the more touristy Lac Rose (pink lake) which is a salt harvesting lack that is a lot like the Dead Sea.

This dude works hard in the sun all day for like no money. It was so nice to get out of Dakar even for just the weekend but as my main man Mamadou put it, everyone here in the city wants to move out there and everyone there wants to move here. he's wise. we ate a ton of great food and danced and played card games called Marriage and Menteur.

When Ben's dad was teaching me Marriage he didn't really ever tell me all of the rules and I had to figure it out by losing like 10 times in a row. Then I won and he didn't feel like playing anymore and I never really learned how to play. Haha. Both games are fun. Everyone there was so hospitable to me it was great.

I also saw camels for the first time. Saweet.
The language situation there was awesome. To each other they spoke mostly Diola, the ethnic group from the Casamanse, the region in southern Senegal that has been a hotbed for conflict for decades. To other people not in the family they spoke Wolof, and to me they spoke French. I got to have sleepovers and listen to music under a mosquito net with various members of Ben's family on Friday and Saturday nights, a highlight, people here are nice.

It was EXTRA confusing that we were both named Ben. People would be like "Leanna are you married?" and she would say "Yes, to Ben" but she meant the other Ben who is Senegalese and in their family, not me. So I just ended up introducing myself as Benjah, my name with my boys at Tulane.

Here are the pictures from the weekend.

When we came back on Sunday I bought some Senegalese clothes. I thought I would like bargaining but I don't. I feel like I'm ripping them off or they are ripping me off or both. There is almost never a friendly outcome. Taxis I can handle but for clothes and other shopping stuff I prefer a fixed price.

All and all things are going well. The project is moving forward rapidly this week. Yossarian Clamence (aka Kimble) and I cooked I dank meat and veggies played cards last night, it was chill. Hopefully I should start my health meetings next Wednesday. Again, if ANYONE AT ALL wants to help with fund raising just let me know I can set you up. We don't need much and we are making a real impact.

Dinner Chez Fatou, Mets 20 inning game, Questionnaire Central in Yoff

Saturday night I come home from a long day of questionnaire giving eat a huge Senegaelse meal in Mamadou and Fatou's apartment. Mamadou is my landlord, hilarious, speaks pretty great English and used to play professional soccer in the US for a few MLS teams. Here is his wikipedia. Fatou is an amazing woman and great cook. She teaches me how to make Senegalese cuisine and makes fun of my daily goings on. Here's our apartment building on the left.

Anyway, so I get back from this huge, amazing dinner at like 10 and I fall asleep. I wake up at like 2 AM and just start clicking through the internet and see that the New York Mets, mah fave team, are locked in a 14 inning battle with the St. Louis Cardinals (my Grandpa Kirk's favorite team). This looks like an awesome thing to watch, but being as I'm in Senegal its impossible, right? NO! In fact, I called the family at home on skype and they set up the camera so I was looking straight at the screen, marvelous. I got to watch the last 5 innings live on TV in what ended up being a great 20 inning game. Metsblog always has a good recap and here is the espn video.

The real major thing that happened this weekend was the excellent questionnaire giving that went down all Saturday afternoon into the evening in a community near mine in Yoff. I had (left to right) Fatou, Fatou, Monsieur Dieng, and Coumba to start. Coumba got married in the middle. I swear. I don't truly understand what happened but she got a call while she was doing questionnaires and then she left because she got engaged to be married. Felicitaciones Coumba!


After she left she was replaced by the wonderful Binta who works so hard and is just a great lady and an amazing friend.

We did 40 questionnaires each taking between 10 and 20 minutes. A huge accomplishment. M. Dieng knew the migrant households in the community and was such and pro. He walked us around and dropped us off one by one and people welcomed us in and answered our questions.

Even I got in on some of the action. (My French to Serer translator sitting next to me)
I will publish the statistics from the surveys once I have them finished but my observations of the day were: I love all of the action in the streets of Senegal. Kids, adults, everyone greets me with a smile. My team was incredible on Saturday. Everyone we dealt with was really nice, warm, and welcoming all day. No one said "get out!" or "never come back!" It was all smiles and good ol fashioned Senegalese teranga. We are all in this together, you know? These women may not know much or anything about the science we in the West take for granted, but they have a lot to teach us about how you treat people and what kindness and dignity really are. Here, they may not have much money, but people actually work together and help one another. Something that is rare in the US. True solidarity.