The Neighborhood Watch

One of the women in our office rescued a stray kitten outside her apartment building and a few of us “cat-sat” in the office while she was at a conference. It was a rather welcome diversion from working at the computer when we had to feed the kitten and give it time to run around the office outside of its crate.

Chantal and Alex are two stray dogs that, I’m told, were left behind by their former owners. Chantal had a littler of six puppies in an empty lot across the street from a house where I was house- and dog-sitting, so part of my daily routine also included feeding Chantal and checking the status of the puppies every day. Unfortunately, their introduction to the world was a pile of garbage in the remaining frame of a house on the empty lot. Despite the fact that I can’t say what breed they are, the puppies are pretty adorable.

Nearby where the puppies are living, a pair guards hold court every day. They remind me so much of the Muppet characters, Statler and Waldorf (the two grumpy old men who heckled everyone from the balcony). However, the two guards are anything but disagreeable. Each sits in his own wooden chair and watches the action in the neighborhood. One wears a wool ski cap and holds a radio with a long antenna in his hand every day; the other sits with one leg bent so his foot rests on the seat of his chair and curls his bare foot over the edge while the other foot rests on the unpaved ground. When I drive by in the car, they both look at the car, stop their chatter, put down the radio, and smile ear-to-ear as they stretch out their arms to wave or to clasp their hands together with their arms raised. It cracks me up and I marvel at the constancy of that same enthusiastic greeting. Another guard nearby sits and reads an English dictionary while on duty; I see him holding the massive book every time I see him.

Bloom Where You’re Planted

I had a fun reunion with Jessica (with whom I went to Tanzania) in Dakar when she conveniently arrived for my birthday (and a conference). I was so happy to see a good friend after feeling, quite frankly, a bit homesick. One of her colleagues joined us for lunch on the water near their hotel and we feasted on fish kebabs. We made our way downtown to a café and, fueled by strong coffee and a chocolate sweet, we took on the downtown market scene in search of fabric. One of the street ticks decided to follow us, relentlessly hoping we’d want to follow him for a tour of Dakar, and I asked him several times to please leave us alone. After the twelfth time he was insisted that he would show us the market, we stopped in front of a group of street vendors – all older men, too – and I said loudly and firmly, “Please leave us alone.” All eyes were suddenly focused on the annoying guy and the older men started shouting stuff at him in Wolof and he left us alone.

Or so we thought. About 8 blocks and 10 minutes later - seemingly out of nowhere - someone approached us and pointed a finger in my face, scolding, “You are bad!” I turned my head to see that it is the same street man who previously followed us. We walked away and went through the same routine of asking him to leave us alone when we were standing in front of a group of men huddled around a small shop who all yelled at the man for bothering us, again. I burst out laughing when the three of us had rounded a corner away from the crazy persistent guy and Jessica said, “You are bad!”

We ended up going to another market and buying two fabrics – enough material for both Jess and I to have two jupes (skirts) and a dress each made – and made it to the tailor before closing, with the promise to finish Jess’s clothes before her week in Dakar ended. That evening we discovered a great Moroccan restaurant where we shared a chicken and abricot tagine, a chicken pastilla, and deliciously spiced couscous.

The next day, we visited Ile de Goree for the annual garden and art walk. On the ferry ride from downtown Dakar to the island, I overheard an American man pointing out all the Dakar landmarks to a few other Americans, so I started eavesdropping. As we were arriving on the island, we started chatting – or, I should say, Jessica said, “This is my friend Shelby, she lives here and needs some friends”. She obviously had picked up on my pangs of homesickness. In turn, a man wearing a Red Sox hat gave me his business card and said to get in touch some time.

It was a great weekend to be on Goree – the weather was perfect and some of the people who own homes there had opened their gardens to local artists to display their work. We wandered in and out of leafy patios, past brightly painted Mediterranean-style homes, and small shops, bought some necklaces after much haggling over the prices, and had lunch on the island. Goree’s history isn't as pretty as the island is today; it is most notable for it’s role as a port for the slave trade. While there, we toured the Maisons des Esclaves, with the “Door of No Return” and listened to a tour guide recount the stories of people who passed through Goree.

I took the next day off from work so Jess and I went to Toubab Dialaw, just an hour south of Dakar, right on the ocean. We found ourselves at a Peace Corps hangout - a hotel decorated with shells called the Sobobade and wandered around half expecting to see gnomes. Lounging in the sun for a couple of hours while overlooking the ocean wasn’t half bad, though. We later had some pool time at Jessica’s hotel back in Dakar, and went for a killer run (in the heat!) along the water. So good to have her here!

Dinner Club, Dakar-Style

I had another visitor from Seattle last week and am enjoying this trend (2 visitors in 4 months, with another arriving in June!). Jonathan, a friend from school and a fellow dinner/cooking club pal, was here to set up a research project which will bring him back to Senegal later this summer. When he arrived, it was a little like Christmas as he unloaded two bags full of goodies from REI and Trader Joe’s that my parents had kindly sent with him, as well as a gift from dinner club friends in Seattle. Not that I am roughing it here, but it was really fun to receive items from home that just don’t exist here. It reminds me of the thrill of receiving mail at summer camp (only I’m not in a cabin in the woods, nor singing campfire songs, though I can smell a heap of trash burning as I write … okay, still not quite the same).

Jon and his parents, who live here, picked me up for dinner and met the (very sweet) dog that I’ve been taking care of while the dog’s owners are traveling. We noticed three worms that had burrowed under the dog’s skin, which is apparently very common here when the temperature rises in warmer weather. There are more flies that appear when the mango trees bloom this time of year, and the flies lay eggs that can burrow under skin of animals and humans (clothes and sheets have to be ironed here after drying outside to kill any eggs that might be on the fabric). My skin crawls just thinking about these worms. However, none of the others were fussed at all and Jon's dad, a surgeon, took the worms right out while I squirmed more than the dog. This is after they treated me to dinner – I think the next dinner will have to be on me.

I joined Jon and his co-workers/fellow students for dinner later in the week, at a restaurant serving fish kebabs and tajines, fried plantains, and mighty strong mojitos. The server brought us a menu in English, although we were all equally perplexed by some of the translations (bananas Nordic?). We sat outside on the patio, seemingly the only customers for the evening. It wasn’t until we were just leaving, close to 10:30 in the evening, that other tables starting filling up (and this isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this here). They regaled me with their travel stories and updates from Seattle and I was a bit nostalgic when we said farewell.

Gym Class

I went for a run yesterday evening with a co-worker and his brother and it was the first time I’ve gone running without being heckled. The beach is usually crowded with people, but I don’t see many women exercising, only a few runners and small groups of foreigners sometimes playing Frisbee on weekends; by and large, the beach is ruled by soccer players and their nightly matches before sunset.

Usually I can’t go for a run without at least one person hissing at me (the equivalent of whistling at someone in the US, trying to catch someone’s attention in a not-very-welcome way), following me for a few paces repeating, “Bonjour Madame! Ou, mademoiselle? Je t’aime!” or kicking a soccer ball into my path (or at me). But running yesterday, beside two tall Senegalese men, there was none of that. It was a dream.

We stopped at one part of the beach with a small hill and did a series of training exercises and stretches, led by my co-worker. I was standing like a triangle, stretching my right arm to my left ankle, when I heard a bunch of giggling not far behind me. I released the stretch and stood up, turning my head to see 6 little kids mimicking the stretch and laughing uncontrollably. They stopped for a second when they caught me looking at them, but I waved them over and said, “Come here!” in Wolof. They scurried over, started following our stretches and kept giggling wildly.

There were 5 girls, all dressed in multi-color and multi-pattern pagnes, probably between 4 and 8 years old, and one little boy, who looked about 2 but it’s hard to tell. He was wearing a red t-shirt with “50 Cent” written on it and a picture of a gun. The little boy stood there while his sisters jumped around, howled with laughter, and joined us doing sit-ups and push-ups. When the girls ran off to dip their toes in the ocean, and I was sitting on the beach with my arms wrapped around my knees and felt a little tug on my shirtsleeve. The little boy held my shoulder absentmindedly while watching his sisters splashing in the water. He didn’t say a word the whole time.

We decided to leave once the girls came out of the water and we said goodbye. They were still giggling and one of them took the little boy by the hand and they skipped off in the opposite direction. When my co-worker and his brother and I parted ways, I thanked them for such a fun run and we agreed to do it again soon.

Mango Season

There’s an enormous mango tree at the university, its branches nearly in arms’ reach from the window of the nutrition lab. I’ve been waiting, impatiently, for the fruit to turn from green to yellow and to drop. Finally, the first mangos of the season appeared in the markets last week. Although mangoes signal the sticky hot weather to come all too soon, they’re abundant and sweet, and so delicious that it’s hard to resist eating one daily. They might, just might, be a trade-off to the unbearably hot days ahead.

I recently finished reading The Shadow of the Sun, an engaging portrait of Africa written by Ryszard Kapuscinski. In the book, he describes Dakar: “A beautiful coastal city, pastel-colored, picturesque, laid out on a promontory amid beaches and terraces, slightly resembling Naples, the residential areas of Marseilles, the posh suburbs of Barcelona. Palm trees, gardens, cypresses, bougainvillea. Stepped streets, hedges, lawns, fountains. French boutiques, Italian hotels, Greek restaurants.”

Recalling a train ride leaving Dakar, Kapuscinski continues, “The lush, flowering gardens have disappeared, swallowed beneath the ground, and a desert has commenced, but a populated desert, full of shacks and lean-tos, sand upon which sprawls a neighborhood of squalor, a chaotic and swarming district of slums, one of the depressing bidonvilles that surround most African cities.”

Indeed it is beautiful, with sweeping views of the Atlantic, which is dotted with fishing boats (pirogues) off the coast. Dakar is Mediterranean-like and there are several upscale venues catering to European tourists. Last week I attended a work-related cocktail reception at a hotel (which happens to sit on the most western point of Africa) with at least two swimming pools overlooking the ocean, a golf course, polished tile floors, and immaculately manicured lawns and shrubs. After some nibbles around the pool patio, my daily routine seemed oddly distant since this hotel was so extraordinary.

While commuting through largely expat neighborhoods with a variety of restaurants and shops en route to downtown each day, we pass other neighborhoods constructed of recycled materials – corrugated metal roofs, scrap wood, and cardboard. The markets are overflowing with people looking to sell and trade goods in overwhelming numbers. People selling sunglasses by the dozens try to coax a sale, “Madame, you like these! They’re not expensive! They’re very pretty!” Groups of people are seen sitting. Sitting along sidewalks, or under a tree, presumably without work. A taxi driver told me one day, “People here are tired. Tired of no jobs.” Living standards are comfortable, if not luxurious, for some who live here, and seeing this contrasted with the urban poverty is consistently jarring in highlighting the disparity in living conditions.

Thursdays at The Café

I get the biggest kick out of kids aged a year and change. It's a fun age, watching them learning to interact with each other and starting to babble. Moms seem highly amused when their children are comfortable being carried around by a foreigner. It's a nice break from project data entry and verifying questionnaire forms when a I spot a little one who needs to be carried around or entertained.

The neighborhood surrounding the clinic brims with energy: rainbow-colored car rapides dodge potholes as they putt-putt down the street, taxis honk as they sneak up behind pedestrians walking in the street and barely avoid running them over, barefoot children run after each other shrieking, neighbors exchange ritual salutations, Nescafe coffee carts wheel around corners, goats rummage through heaps of trash, men pray on mats, women sit on inverted buckets on the sidewalk washing clothes, preparing the daily meal in large metal bowls over fires, or selling oranges, grapefruits, and candied roasted peanuts in small clear plastic sachets.

There are blocks and blocks of workshops where furniture is constructed, clothes are sewn, metal housewares formed. If I could capture the mosaic of sounds heard outside the clinic, of the clanking metal, whirring sewing machines, and instructions shouted in Wolof, I’d submit it to NPR for one of the guessing games of “name this sound.”

On Thursdays, in addition to feeding the children cereal, we collect blood samples of participants finishing the study in the morning (in order to analyze the plasma zinc concentrations of subjects) and lead an afternoon-long orientation with newly recruited study participants at the clinic. These are easily 12-hour days, from the time the taxi picks me up at 7 am, or quarter of, and I return home, following stops at the university to drop off the cooler and to store the samples and ice packs in the freezer.

After the participants have left the site each day, we have a brief team meeting, clean the room and prepare folders for the following day. Normally we munch on bread topped with canned tuna and sliced cucumbers, brought from home, for lunch at the clinic. Occasionally one of us will remember to bring mustard; then it feels like we’ve upgraded our meal plan.

However, we’ve instituted a weekly treat: our mid-day respite on the longer days is a café just a 10-minute walk from the clinic. The smell of freshly baked bread lingers in the air surrounding the building and inside there are rows and rows of treats at the patisserie counter. Napoleans, operas, éclairs, lemon tarts, apple tarts, croissants. Raisin bread, sesame rolls, whole wheat loaves. There are chocolate bars imported from France and boxes of loose leaf tea for sale. Recently on display are giant egg- and bunny-shaped chocolates on tables covered with yellow tablecloths.

We sit at one of the tables in the bright, airy room with sunshine streaming through windows, and flip through a Jeune Afrique magazine or newspaper after ordering lunch. Usually it's a hot panini sandwich with a green salad; sometimes I splurge for freshly pressed juice, but I always splurge for a perfectly-made cappuccino.

March Madness

I read that living in Africa can be both exhilarating and unsettling. Earlier this month, I had an adventure riding local public transport with my French/Wolof teacher. We took a bus to the HLM marketplace, which sells everything one can imagine and more. We wove in and out of stalls with rolls and rolls of material, past dyed shoes, sparkly costume jewelry, and sequined dresses. We then rode in a car rapide to the Point E neighborhood and joined a group for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. I met some Fulbright scholars and we chatted quite a bit; unfortunately they left the following day for their field research in village located hours outside of Dakar.

Maybe it’s just part of living overseas, the unsettled feeling of being far away from family and friends for an uncertain period of time and meeting other people who are also in transition. Fortunately, I haven’t really had time to overanalyze it. This month was consumed with starting the larger study of zinc fortification of infant cereal and preparing for a workshop held in Dakar. I was simultaneously doing research for one of the background papers presented at the workshop and arranging the meeting logistics while getting the study rolling along with a new team of data collectors. The learning curve is steep and the work is exhausting but it’s, well, exhilarating. This is the kind of work I'd hoped to find, and I'm still pinching myself daily.

Just as the workshop wrapped up and the study was started to run more smoothly, I had my first visitor from Seattle! We visited Ile de Goree and feasted on lunch at a waterside restaurant before taking a tour of the historic island. My visitor was such a good sport, too, coming to work with me at the clinic on Sunday morning to observe the study site on her day off. We went to the lighthouse later in the afternoon and could see all the way to Goree Island and the coast of Senegal; I did a double-take because I’d never seen it so clearly.





We then ran from the lighthouse through the Almadies neighborhood (so nice to have a running buddy!), and met some friends for dinner at a restaurant perched on the water, serving cold Gazelle beer and fresh fish. Sitting at the table and watching the sunset, (though swatting at mosquitoes) I felt not entirely unsettled, but relaxed and grateful for good company. And grateful for bug spray.

Now, who’s next coming to visit?!