We've got the beat

I arrived back in New York yesterday. Happy to be home, but sad to leave. Thank you to everyone who has been following along on my trip with me! The positive responses and love I received from many of you has meant so much. I have a few more wrap-up posts to do now so I hope you'll follow with me a bit longer :) Especially now that I can upload videos!

Drumming was a very integral part of my entire Senegal experience. Music is so intertwined with life here, and the drum (called a tam-tam) is significant in many of it's rituals. The beat is seemingly transcendent in its ability to connect individuals, to draw you in deeper than any words ever could. At Sobo Bade, we were fortunate enough to experience the most incredible drumming performance.

We saw drumming used to worship, to welcome, to motivate, to express, to socialize, and above all, to celebrate life. 

I've added videos featuring more drumming to my posts on "Village Life" and Wrestling.

Plastic is invading us

I mentioned one of my first impressions of Africa was the amount of trash everywhere. I have since learned that in the early days of our trip the garbage collectors were on strike, which somewhat explained the huge piles of trash everywhere. However, even when these workers are doing their job, garbage and pollution still abound.

A very important issue in Africa is the lack of space that exists here. Space is a luxury that only the wealthy can truly afford. One of the professors on the trip with us lived in Senegal 30 years ago. She said at the time she was here, the population of Dakar was 150,000. Now the population is close to 3 million, about 25% of the country’s population. With that many people living in such close confines, unless you can afford to create space for yourself, you have none. The whole city becomes your home.  You maybe have a roof or a small shanty to sleep in, but people seem to roam freely. You eat where you can, you use the bathroom where you can, you make money where you can, and you throw your trash where you can. In poverty, there is no defined space for such things, which is somewhat of a foreign concept to an American. We have a kitchen to eat in, a bathroom to relieve ourselves in, a bedroom to sleep in, trash cans in nearly every room, a dump to bring our garbage too, and endless amounts of space in which to perform our daily activities.

The director of WARC made what I felt was a rather important comment that “Plastic is invading us.” He mentioned specifically the impact that plastic bags have had on rural villages. Plastic bags that litter the ground are accidently eaten by cows as they graze and, ultimately, cause the animal’s death. Is there anything more unnatural than plastic? Yet it is everywhere, even in Africa, the birthplace of humanity, where nature has always been revered as central to life. How has this invasion of the unnatural affected Africa? Has it hindered, destroying the pureness of the land and the livelihood of rural families, more than it has offered? Even in America, such synthetic materials make our lives convenient, tidy, easy, but what have they cost us? We are, for example, told to avoid plastic water bottles containing certain chemicals now known to be toxic to our bodies. Are we poisoning ourselves, losing our connection to the natural beauty that surrounds us, in the name of convenience?

It’s difficult to take pictures that truly capture the amount of garbage, but it is somewhat overwhelming. Plastic has truly invaded the landscape. 

1: Me

2: http://www.righttosightandhealth.org

3: yveslebelge.skynetblogs.be

Since Thursday...

1-4: Holy city of Touba

Senegal has it's own "brand" of Islam, more or less created by Sheikh Amadou Bamba, the most famous Senegalese Islamic leader. He founded the city of Touba in 1887, and many Senegalese people make a pilgrimage to the mosque here at least once a year. The mosque was architecturally very beautiful, but to enter the women had to have their bodies and heads fully covered. We all had to take our shoes off. Women and men are not allowed to touch as soon as they enter the mosque grounds and pray in separate areas.

5: African drumming class

"This is not a prayer, you can not do whatever you want." 

Words spoken to me by the instructor in response to my lack of tempo. 

6: Acoustic music night African style - kora, guitar, and 2 other unknown instruments. 

I received the African name of Awa Ndiaye from the kora player. Later that night, we watched the most incredibleeeeee drum performance. I can not even begin to explain how powerful and awesome it was. Can't wait to upload videos of it!

7-9: Sunset from Sobo Bade

10-11: "Safari" at Bandia Game Reserve

Lots of traveling, lots of beach, lots of good food, lots of music, very little sleep.

Back in Dakar for the last few days of our trip. Hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

To Create

We didn't go back to the women's organization today (so we will never know the conclusion of yesterday's drama), but spent some time instead at a hospital in Dakar. It was so great to see the programs being implemented for patients suffering from mental illnesses.

First we visited the therapy garden, run by a member of the Peace Corp from Tennessee named David. Here patients and their families can spend time tending the garden, and any vegetables grown are used in the hospital kitchen.

David employs urban agriculture techniques of planting in tires and plastic bottles. In this way, he is able to both recycle and teach patients techniques that allow them to grow plants in their own homes with objects easily found littered on the streets.

Next was the art therapy studio. The workshop is open to the patients and supplies them with any type of artistic materials needed (paint, clay, canvas, etc.). Some of the patients were great artists, and some not so much, but it is the creative process that can be so therapeutic. The artwork is sold at the hospital, with part of the funds going to the patient, and part to fund the studio. 

I was very pleasantly surprised to find mental illness so recognized here and so much being offered for these patients. The patients were all so nice and very excited to show off their work to us!

After lunch, we went to the Leopold Senghor Cultural Center to visit a hip-hop organization called Africulturban. The organization is home to a recording studio and radio station, and works to support the upcoming generation of hip-hop in Senegal. They organize different events to showcase the talent - we missed a huge concert that just happened a few days ago, and there will obviously be a B-boy competition with teams from all around the world right after we leave the country. Senegal is apparently at the top of the rap game right now, and we did convince one of the artists to rap for us (in French). The rappers in the studio told me their favorite American artists are Jay-Z, Tupac, Talib Kweli (my favorite!), and Kanye West.

 

 I bought a CD that I'd be happy to share when I get home :)

Women's Rights

I’ve been spending my week so far interning at the Association de Femmes Juristes – an organization that offers free legal advice to anyone (but mostly women) who is unable to afford it. One of the organization’s main objectives is to educate women, particularly in rural areas, about what their rights are and how to access those rights.

Islam plays a huge role in what is socially acceptable in this country. Since it is permissible for an Islamic man to take up to 4 wives, we have spent quite a bit of time discussing the marriage contract here. Traditionally, once a woman is married, she moves in with her husband and in-laws, where she generally becomes responsible for the cooking and housework. He will eventually be pressured to take on co-wives, who tend to hate each other because they are competing for the attention of the same man. It can be a very oppressive situation for women.

A generally new belief in human history is the idea that one has a right to be happy. The “pursuit of happiness” is, after all, perhaps the only line from our constitution the American public knows. The belief that women have a right to happiness is an even newer concept. But as it takes hold in a society, something changes. Women demand their rights, marry for love, plan their families, and can stand on their own. Above all else, women start expecting to be happy.

The modern Senegalese woman wants a monogamous relationship with a husband she loves in an apartment of their own. She wants to choose her life. Divorce is still looked down upon in the Islamic community, but the younger generation of women is starting to become free to end a negative relationship. I don’t mean to commend divorce, and I think as women we tend to depend far too much on our partners to bring us ultimate happiness and fulfillment (thus setting high expectations that can never be reached), but I do not believe a woman should be trapped in a marriage where she is being abused or her husband is going to take another wife against her wishes or she just feels utterly miserable and abandoned. When a man and woman sign a marriage certificate in Senegal, the man must state whether he will be monogamous, engage in limited polygamy (2 or 3 wives), or polygamy (4 wives). In this way, the woman now has an official document to prove her husband promised to be monogamous (and grounds for divorce) if he later tries to take another wife.

The problem is that many couples never get this marriage certificate. They have a religious marriage ceremony, but never complete the paperwork that causes it to be official in the eyes of the state. If the marriage later turns ugly, the woman can leave her husband, but since they are not officially married, she is not entitled to anything. One thing I have noticed in my time at this organization is that women in Senegal do have rights, but since pre-marital sex is not recognized in such an Islamic nation, she must be married to exert those rights. The main consequence of this is that only a married woman can file a paternity suit for child support. If a man gets you pregnant and you aren’t married to him – oh well! He doesn’t owe you anything.

This little diagram is to help you understand the following paragraphs, which are admittedly fairly confusing.

We witnessed a very interesting (and bizarre) case consultation where an Islamic father and daughter came into the office. The daughter had been married 4 months ago, but in a strange turn of events, the husband moved in with her family. Eventually, the father told him he would need to start renting a room of his own for the 2 of them. At this point, the husband said he no longer wanted to be married and disappeared. The problem is that the daughter is already pregnant. The husband is claiming the child isn’t his, so to force him to recognize the child, the daughter needs to file a paternity suit. They are in the process of filling out the paperwork to obtain a marriage certificate since they never originally did this (as long as you have 2 witnesses who will testify that the couple was indeed married, you can get the marriage certification at any time). Once they can prove the marriage, the divorce and paternity suit can proceed.

The problem is that to complete the paperwork, they need to know the parental information of the husband, which they don’t. This is where it gets weird. How do you marry your daughter off to someone whose parents you don’t know the names of? I personally felt that the woman was mentally handicapped to some extent. Her father did all of the talking, even when she was directly spoken to. She was 28, which is rather old to not be married here. Why else would you be so desperate to marry off your daughter that you give her to someone who can’t support her, who has to move in with you, and who you clearly know nothing about? And to top it off, the husband apparently already had a wife that the family didn’t know about. It was a very confusing situation, but it does illustrate my point of women needing to be married to be recognized by the Islamic community and access their rights.

Side note:  This entire post was influenced by my reading of the book “Committed” by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love). Highly recommended!

We have one more day planned there tomorrow...hopefully we'll find out the conclusion of the above drama.

Weekend: Wrestling Match

Wrestling is the national sport in Senegal. It has its roots in traditional Senegalese culture - although it has evolved with the urbanization of the country. Traditional wrestling has been fused with urban boxing to create a more modern sport, but one that is still highly ritualistic.

The early part of the event basically serves to make the men feel more manly. Each wrestler had his own entourage with him and they would dance to the drum beats and pour holy water on him - all rituals to increase the strength of the wrestler and offer him protection. Traditionally, the wives or girlfriends of the wrestlers would also sing songs about them as inspiration (one of the many roots of rap music). There was singing, dancing, crowds going crazy. There were 5 wrestling matches, each about a minute long, but the event lasted an hour and a half.

Drum circle and dancing

We were apparently in the "foreign" section in the middle of the stadium. The fans of each team were split to our left and right. The right side (pictured here celebrating) won every single match. The sport evokes a lot of angry words and gestures :)

The wrestlers still wear the traditional outfits made of a strong cloth woven in Senegal. The objective is to get your opponent either on his back or on all fours. The instant one of these occurs, you lose. 

I don't know what to compare this sporting even to because there was soooo much going on all the time. Even during the matches, the drums were going, women were dancing - half the time I was too distracted to even watch the actual wrestling. I enjoyed the experience though. 

I have videos of a couple matches, as well as lots of videos of the music we have been experiencing, but it is impossible to upload them on the internet connections available here. They will all have to wait until I return. I've been here 2 weeks today!

Oh, and all photo credits go to Beth because her camera (and she) is awesome and I have been slacking in the picture taking department.