Family, the neighborhood, the birds and the bees, ect.

So I haven't introduce the avid senegalfall2007 blogger to the most important part of my daily living in Dakar- my host family! Below are the two brothers, Muhammad and Cher. These guys are tricky- they can slip into your room unnoticed and poke at your laptop to get it to work. Giving them gum will only appease them temporarily, what they're really after is anything expensive and/or breakable. We wrestle, I read them Potter sometimes, we take pictures, and eat together.

Here's Muhammad-

Here's Chere- these two run a tough offence, skilled in misdirection and stealth...



So the two girls are the maids. They were very apprehensive of me at first. I did my own laundry for a while, which is actually quite gratifying. Since the matriarch- grandmother- is in France right now (I learned this from people in the neighborhood) things are a bit loose-nit around the house. Fanta, my mother (host mother, mom) has been sick for a while, but is almost back to normal- sorry, no pics yet. Communication is difficult, Fanta is the only one that I can understand because she speaks French- she also understands some English. As for the rest of the family, we've got the basics down...









So here's my hood. It's hard to take photo's of people out on the street, they get angry or ask for money. It's best done out of a cab or at a distance. This is the street that I live on in Sacre Couer III (Sacred Heart). It's a pretty posh neighborhood, and very conservative as well.

Soccer in the street.


This area is under intense development- roads and buildings are going up everywhere. This is a main highway that passes by Sacre Couer. Walking to school takes about 20 minutes, although I get lost without other tubabs with a better sense of direction.



A few nights after I moved in, a religious assembly was held nearby. It was very intense- singing, even screaming. It didn't seem like many people showed up though. There was a screen onto which was projected video shot at a mosque of singing, and live video on the center of attraction. I didn't get any pictures but shot some video, which created a little tension, at least to my perception. In any case there is only one bar/restaurant in the neighborhood, so we have to take a cab downtown to enjoy Dakar's frantic night life. I've only been once- last week- and let's just say it wasn't my type of club...
On that note, in terms of the birds and the bees, generally speaking the young women here are waiting for marriage, while the men are free to do whatever. In other words, it would be a lot easier for a tubab girl to hook up with a Senegalese man than say... me with a woman. Nevertheless, the men here are always trying to strike a bargain to trade female freinds, or exchange their friendship for access to ladybab acquaintance.
In this way it is hard to make friends here, because generally speaking, people that you run into have ulterior motives. You take that as a given, and then work from there.I didn't realize this at first, and was taken advantage of for awhile. But I'm starting to get the hang of it. I'll post later about working your way through the market- a crucial skill...