This was where Professor Fallou Ngom got his post secondary education. He was one of only 400 Senegalese who got full scholarships---very exclusive, very prestigious. Ablei was his classmate. They apparently worked very hard but had a lot of fun. It is very apparent that he is the "big man on campus". He taught there on a post graduate Fulbright in the 90s.
We were to meet with the college President who was a no-show. Fallou at one point told someone to tell him "that we were here". As he says, it is always important to "register your presence". He also jokes that it is also sometimes necessary to register your absence. We then toured the campus. The campus seemed relatively deserted. The students were doing what the post-colonial French educational system calls a strike--(registering their absence!)---cutting classes en-masse to protest the deplorable condition and overcrowding of dorms---they are in a state of decay, with 4-5 to a room. many are now in pods with what appears to be no air-conditioning. To demonstrate this, Fallou casually mentions that when he was here he had a room to himself.
We had a relatively moribund lecture later that morning on the people and culture of Northern Senegal. At one point after some anecdotal veneration of motherhood, a female member of our group asked about recommendations for female writers. The all male academic VIPs hemmed and hawed and were basically unable to do so. Very quickly the discussion took on gender and male hegemony. Tension in the group became palpable. I maintain that these experiences are what we came here for. We have some fairly large differences here. Hopefully I'll continue to report on this....
Lunch is at a restaurant in interior St. Louis and is a kind of beef stew with rice. There is no meal without rice in Senegal. Today, one of our seminar leaders mentioned in an aside that dinner tonight would be non-Senegalese for a change. I think we might be looking forward to this!
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