Saalaamalekum!
Albeit a French country and although I just took a class in Wolof language, I am currently listening to a Spanish song by Juanes that captures my current sentiments quite well: "Hay tantas cosas que me gustan hoy de ti. Me enamora!" There is so much that I like about this country today that I fall in love. :-)
Love #1: Teranga
This is a Wolof word embodying the open arms and hospitality of the Senegalese people. Each and every one of them considers themselves embassadors for their country, creating relations with America through us. They love us, want us to return frequently, and hope that we'll send home wonderful stories of Senegal. I shared a heartfelt conversation about teranga with Amadou, the doorman at my current dorm. In speaking with another exchange student, I came to learn that this kindly Senegalese man had need of une torche (a flashlight) to save him from having to feel his way up the stairwell in search of intruders throughout his night watch. Thus, the two of us decided to purchase one as a gift for him. His pure joy shone through as he thanked me and explained how this was true teranga, something that one did from the heart instead of out of self interest. He has invited us to come and meet his family at his home in a nearby banlieu (a sort of ghetto), which we are looking forward to greatly. Amadou spends his rainy shifts sweeping water off of the entryway patio in order to prevent the lower level of our residence from flooding. He then returns to a home where he must sweep the water off of his flat roof and wade in water knee high. In light of these habitual conditions of some locals, the other students on our program who were flooded out of a second set of dorms on their first day here do not feel at all out of place. Their experience of rushing luggage away from the deluge in their rooms and onto a bus headed toward a nice, dry hotel was truly a luxury in comparison to local banlieu inhabitants.
But I digress. I was describing the hospitality and friendliness of the people here. They honestly do want to treat you the way that they'd have their own children treated aboad, in spite of the fact that we're also viewed as walking money bags by the vendors and beggars. Frankly, the multiple requests for our phone numbers, as white American women here, is also indicative of certain financial expectations. Apparently I can expect several marriage proposals in the comming months. If any of you are desirous of a Senegalese husband, just send me a note saying so and I'll pass it along. You'll be hooked up in no time!
Love #2: The fruit bats
Oh yeah, baby! You thought mangos were good in the states, but they cannot compare with the delicacies that suspend in the embrace of these local chauves-souris. From the balcony of our rooms, we can witness the swooping flight of these winged mammals up-close and personal. Cuping their mango du jour, they hang out, reaching over to snag a tasty morsel from a nearby limb and looking quite cute, actually! I hope I have such great entertainment when I move in with my host family! Speaking of which, I'll be meeting them tonight. I'm in a matriachal Catholic family with a widdowed host mother, Elizabethe, who has several married children living in her home along with four grandchildren: a six-year-old, two toddlers, and an infant. I'm excited to meet them. :-)
Love #3: Balcony Dancing (shadows included!)
Gym membership is not yet activated and there is little time for seeking out climbing these days, so one must take excercise into one's own hands. Ab workouts are great and all, but I need a little more breathing and blood-pumping going on to make it a true workout. That's were dancing comes in; apparently no one can see me from my balcony, so my ipod and myself just get jiggy. No better way, I tell ya! I can twirl around there, trying any number of moves that might draw stares at a club, and just let loose without a single witness besides the fruit bats and my own shadow. The shadow itself can be quite entertaining at times. You should check it out one of these days! Just get yourself some good lighting and a fabulous tune in your head and see how that shadow can be the source of perpetual fun!
Okay, now that you know my secrets, I'm going to head off to lunch. The food here, albeit laden with oil, is delicious. Yesterday they trained us in eating with our hands out of a communal bowl, which was magnificent, but there's no telling whether my host family will adhere to that tradition. Dinner tonight with my family may include spoons.
Well, ba beenen yoon inshalaa!
Je vous aime!
Hugs,
Jocelyn
Showing posts with label dancing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dancing. Show all posts
Friday, August 28, 2009
Monday, June 4, 2007
Photos: GRADUATION!!!
From top to bottom:
1: Teresa on my right and Paloma on my left. School friends at the graduation ceremony. Teresa and I went out to a tea house last week and Paloma is in my class.
2: The boys.
3: All together now! From left, a kid in my class whose name I cannot remember at the moment, Gaston, my English teacher Clara, my drawing teacher Maria Jose, me, Juan An. Below me is Paz and to her right is Isa. At the bottom we have Andy, who does not actually go to our school, and Paloma.
4: A few guy friends getting a little ahead of themselves. Save the dancing for the club, guys! Actually, its my fault: I told them to dance!
5: Us at the club latter that night.
1: Teresa on my right and Paloma on my left. School friends at the graduation ceremony. Teresa and I went out to a tea house last week and Paloma is in my class.
2: The boys.
3: All together now! From left, a kid in my class whose name I cannot remember at the moment, Gaston, my English teacher Clara, my drawing teacher Maria Jose, me, Juan An. Below me is Paz and to her right is Isa. At the bottom we have Andy, who does not actually go to our school, and Paloma.
4: A few guy friends getting a little ahead of themselves. Save the dancing for the club, guys! Actually, its my fault: I told them to dance!
5: Us at the club latter that night.
Graduation fun and Dancing all night
Groaning groggily and reaching blindly for my glasses, I sat up in bed and observed the clock; 14:12?!? How could I possibly have slept until just before lunch?! And then it all came back to me and, with a smile, I hopped out of bed. Well, dancing until 2:30 in the morning can do that to you, can’t it?!
But let me go back to the beginning: last night was the graduation ceremony for my class. Sadly, this ceremony does not include caps and gowns, but rather a ceremonial retrieval of the class photo by every senior, whether he or she is graduating or not. The one plus to all this: you get a sort of fashion show of all the dresses and suits! Of course, this can be extra interesting when you throw into the mix a rickety old set of metal stairs that bend under the weight of the lightest grad and don’t lend themselves too well to the abundance of stiletto heels in attendance and a light breeze that frequently caused the Marlilin Monroe effect on some of the poor, unsuspecting females. Oddly enough, most of the teens in attendance paid no attention to the ceremony –leaving that to their parents- and opting instead to chat with their friends at one end of the patio. This may seem disrespectful, but they just don’t seem to give as much importance to this event as we do in America. The ceremony was initiated by a few speeches –one from a teacher (“This is the last lecture you will receive from one of our teachers, but I promise you that I won’t quiz you on irregular English nouns! Instead, I would like to share a few words from John Lennon’s Imagine…”) and another from a student (“I know the teachers have been very patient with us, but we have been doubly patient with them!...”)- and brief musical numbers performed by the younger 7th – 10th grade students, including percussion, flutes, and voice, were interspersed here and there. The final number was, in fact, We Go Together, and made me nostalgic of our lovely good old days in Grease. The food tables opened up thereafter, and the hungry teens swooped down on the pizza with great zeal, fortunately leaving the Spanish omelet sandwiches all to me! They also had, of course, olives and cheese out, because it just isn’t a Spanish buffet without the olives!
Then came the social hour until a quarter to ten when we all took a bus, or hitched a ride with a professor as we smart students did, over to an Italian restaurant for dinner. There, we chatted, or rather shouted over the ruckus so as to be heard, and generally enjoyed ourselves for the hour or so before we ordered and ate. From the very beginning, pitchers of sangria (a fruity, lightly alcoholic beverage) and beer lined the tables, and were refilled every five minutes or so by busy waiters. (Remember, the legal drinking age in Spain is 18, so this was only illegal for a select few). A friend of mine was kind enough to ask a waiter to bring me water, and they kept the water coming all night long! My pesto pasta was delicious, and everybody else’s pizzas looked good too!
At midnight, teachers and all walked over to the club that was reserved especially for us, and we got checked off the list and stamped on the forearm. Inside, the music was loud, but usually had a good salsa beat that was fun to move to. There were a lot of us, and after a while they opened the club to the public, but it was never uncomfortably crowded. After getting over any embarrassment over dancing, since I haven’t ever danced at a club before, I fell in love all over again. I cannot express my passion for just moving my body and letting the rhythm move me. There was very little of that traditional partner dancing, which is better by far, but it was fun all the same and I got to meet some new people. Granted, by 2:00 in the morning the floor was fairly sticky due to the number of drinks that had been broken and spilt all over the place, but that didn’t really impede the dancing –nor the drinking. In the end, I had to leave before the place filled up as much as it probably did later in the night because my host dad kindly volunteered to pick me up and drive me home since the busses and the tram stop running long before the parties start. There is a night buss, but it doesn’t run out to where I live. The only thing I could think as we drove home, aside from how my feet were rather sore and eyes very droopy, was that I really want to go out dancing again. We’ll see if my wish comes true.
Well, that was Friday night and Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon included some hardcore lazing and an evening outing to Alicante to hang with another exchange student friend called Molly. We stopped by a little event on the street where booths from all sorts of volunteer and aid organizations distributed pamphlets and Moroccan goodies –such as cookies and tea- and sold T-shirts and books so that the proceeds could go towards eradicating poverty. Meanwhile, a little theatrical production went on for the kids and nearly drove Molly insane by the repetitive musical lyrics and, admittedly, not particularly trained voices. But, their jester outfits certainly captivated the attention of every child –and adult- on the street, and reminded me of a certain Garbeaus´ show and Hailee… :-) It is amazing the sheer amount of organizations that you can volunteer to here in Spain, and most of them work directly with the children in Africa or India. Molly told me about a friend of hers who appears materialistic and only into fashion and shopping who actually made a trip to Mexico to dig sewers in rural areas and now plans on going to India for do another service project there. Goes to show that you can’t judge a book by its cover, or a girl by her clothes. And all this reconfirmed a notion that has been making turns around my mind for the past few months: I think I need to go to Mexico, or another Latin American country, one of these upcoming summers to do a service project. After our stay at the booths, we, predictably, made our way to one of the many tea houses and sat down to chat until I had to make it back to the station to catch my last tram. Fortunately, unlike most other days, we did not get there late and miss it!
Sunday I went out climbing, but my climbing shoes have been forming holes in the toes, so I sent them off to be repaired this last week. I figured that if I wanted to do some serious climbing through Europe with my dad then I had better have some new rubber on those tips. However, the shoes did not make it back to me in time for this climbing trip, like I had thought they would, so I climbed barefoot. Now, this was ok for some of the routes, and only upped their difficulty a grade or two, and one heel hook move made me very proud, but other climbs were downright painful. Remind me to never climb barefoot on that kind of rock again, because some of it was like broken glass. Granted, I came away with minimal cuts, but I had to be practically hauled up the end of the last route because my feet were just too red and sad to do it anymore. If I climbed more regularly barefoot, then my feet would adapt and toughen up and I would probably climb better without shoes because my toes can curl better and my feet fit into smaller holes, but I’m just not willing to go through that kind of torture. All this brings back memories of that amazing pre-teen climber from Santa Cruz who did a double toe-hook on the ceiling in that open Women’s final at one Rocknasium competition a ways back. *sigh* Mad talent.
Well, skipping back to Thursday, I got a chance to do some volunteer work, like I´d been hopping. I spent the moring at the university with a couple other women manning a booth for the Association Against Cancer. It was fun because we traded people cigarettes for lollipops as a way to promote quitting smoking and promote awareness of different web sites and groups that can support you as you try to quit. There was none of that “This is what your lungs look like after 20 years of smoking. Death will befall you!” stuff. But we did have this cool little thing called a coxometer (or something to that effect) that measures the amount of carbon monoxide in your lungs and, essentially, how much negative influence smoking is having on your lungs. Some people got good news, and others got bad news. We gave the people with bad news extra lollipops.
Well, as always, thanks for tuning in to my wave length and checking up on the happenings of my life and mind. I always appreciate it and I relish your comments. Can’t wait to see you all again!
Love,
Jocelyn
PS Random Spanish fact: In Spain, you wear your wedding ring on your right hand.
But let me go back to the beginning: last night was the graduation ceremony for my class. Sadly, this ceremony does not include caps and gowns, but rather a ceremonial retrieval of the class photo by every senior, whether he or she is graduating or not. The one plus to all this: you get a sort of fashion show of all the dresses and suits! Of course, this can be extra interesting when you throw into the mix a rickety old set of metal stairs that bend under the weight of the lightest grad and don’t lend themselves too well to the abundance of stiletto heels in attendance and a light breeze that frequently caused the Marlilin Monroe effect on some of the poor, unsuspecting females. Oddly enough, most of the teens in attendance paid no attention to the ceremony –leaving that to their parents- and opting instead to chat with their friends at one end of the patio. This may seem disrespectful, but they just don’t seem to give as much importance to this event as we do in America. The ceremony was initiated by a few speeches –one from a teacher (“This is the last lecture you will receive from one of our teachers, but I promise you that I won’t quiz you on irregular English nouns! Instead, I would like to share a few words from John Lennon’s Imagine…”) and another from a student (“I know the teachers have been very patient with us, but we have been doubly patient with them!...”)- and brief musical numbers performed by the younger 7th – 10th grade students, including percussion, flutes, and voice, were interspersed here and there. The final number was, in fact, We Go Together, and made me nostalgic of our lovely good old days in Grease. The food tables opened up thereafter, and the hungry teens swooped down on the pizza with great zeal, fortunately leaving the Spanish omelet sandwiches all to me! They also had, of course, olives and cheese out, because it just isn’t a Spanish buffet without the olives!
Then came the social hour until a quarter to ten when we all took a bus, or hitched a ride with a professor as we smart students did, over to an Italian restaurant for dinner. There, we chatted, or rather shouted over the ruckus so as to be heard, and generally enjoyed ourselves for the hour or so before we ordered and ate. From the very beginning, pitchers of sangria (a fruity, lightly alcoholic beverage) and beer lined the tables, and were refilled every five minutes or so by busy waiters. (Remember, the legal drinking age in Spain is 18, so this was only illegal for a select few). A friend of mine was kind enough to ask a waiter to bring me water, and they kept the water coming all night long! My pesto pasta was delicious, and everybody else’s pizzas looked good too!
At midnight, teachers and all walked over to the club that was reserved especially for us, and we got checked off the list and stamped on the forearm. Inside, the music was loud, but usually had a good salsa beat that was fun to move to. There were a lot of us, and after a while they opened the club to the public, but it was never uncomfortably crowded. After getting over any embarrassment over dancing, since I haven’t ever danced at a club before, I fell in love all over again. I cannot express my passion for just moving my body and letting the rhythm move me. There was very little of that traditional partner dancing, which is better by far, but it was fun all the same and I got to meet some new people. Granted, by 2:00 in the morning the floor was fairly sticky due to the number of drinks that had been broken and spilt all over the place, but that didn’t really impede the dancing –nor the drinking. In the end, I had to leave before the place filled up as much as it probably did later in the night because my host dad kindly volunteered to pick me up and drive me home since the busses and the tram stop running long before the parties start. There is a night buss, but it doesn’t run out to where I live. The only thing I could think as we drove home, aside from how my feet were rather sore and eyes very droopy, was that I really want to go out dancing again. We’ll see if my wish comes true.
Well, that was Friday night and Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon included some hardcore lazing and an evening outing to Alicante to hang with another exchange student friend called Molly. We stopped by a little event on the street where booths from all sorts of volunteer and aid organizations distributed pamphlets and Moroccan goodies –such as cookies and tea- and sold T-shirts and books so that the proceeds could go towards eradicating poverty. Meanwhile, a little theatrical production went on for the kids and nearly drove Molly insane by the repetitive musical lyrics and, admittedly, not particularly trained voices. But, their jester outfits certainly captivated the attention of every child –and adult- on the street, and reminded me of a certain Garbeaus´ show and Hailee… :-) It is amazing the sheer amount of organizations that you can volunteer to here in Spain, and most of them work directly with the children in Africa or India. Molly told me about a friend of hers who appears materialistic and only into fashion and shopping who actually made a trip to Mexico to dig sewers in rural areas and now plans on going to India for do another service project there. Goes to show that you can’t judge a book by its cover, or a girl by her clothes. And all this reconfirmed a notion that has been making turns around my mind for the past few months: I think I need to go to Mexico, or another Latin American country, one of these upcoming summers to do a service project. After our stay at the booths, we, predictably, made our way to one of the many tea houses and sat down to chat until I had to make it back to the station to catch my last tram. Fortunately, unlike most other days, we did not get there late and miss it!
Sunday I went out climbing, but my climbing shoes have been forming holes in the toes, so I sent them off to be repaired this last week. I figured that if I wanted to do some serious climbing through Europe with my dad then I had better have some new rubber on those tips. However, the shoes did not make it back to me in time for this climbing trip, like I had thought they would, so I climbed barefoot. Now, this was ok for some of the routes, and only upped their difficulty a grade or two, and one heel hook move made me very proud, but other climbs were downright painful. Remind me to never climb barefoot on that kind of rock again, because some of it was like broken glass. Granted, I came away with minimal cuts, but I had to be practically hauled up the end of the last route because my feet were just too red and sad to do it anymore. If I climbed more regularly barefoot, then my feet would adapt and toughen up and I would probably climb better without shoes because my toes can curl better and my feet fit into smaller holes, but I’m just not willing to go through that kind of torture. All this brings back memories of that amazing pre-teen climber from Santa Cruz who did a double toe-hook on the ceiling in that open Women’s final at one Rocknasium competition a ways back. *sigh* Mad talent.
Well, skipping back to Thursday, I got a chance to do some volunteer work, like I´d been hopping. I spent the moring at the university with a couple other women manning a booth for the Association Against Cancer. It was fun because we traded people cigarettes for lollipops as a way to promote quitting smoking and promote awareness of different web sites and groups that can support you as you try to quit. There was none of that “This is what your lungs look like after 20 years of smoking. Death will befall you!” stuff. But we did have this cool little thing called a coxometer (or something to that effect) that measures the amount of carbon monoxide in your lungs and, essentially, how much negative influence smoking is having on your lungs. Some people got good news, and others got bad news. We gave the people with bad news extra lollipops.
Well, as always, thanks for tuning in to my wave length and checking up on the happenings of my life and mind. I always appreciate it and I relish your comments. Can’t wait to see you all again!
Love,
Jocelyn
PS Random Spanish fact: In Spain, you wear your wedding ring on your right hand.
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