I'm jumping all over the place here, but for some reason pics are not uploading again so I am going to write about the bus ride to St. Louis. I will write about the holy city of Touba soon. For now, if you are student, please do some internet reading about the Sufi Muslim Brotherhood called the Mourides---especially their founder, Cheikh Amadou Bamba.
After a dusty, hot tour of Touba, we have a long bus ride to our hotel in St. Louis. Around 3pm, we stop in a dusty town where the seminar leader has mentioned there is a great handcrafted show market. The bus unloads....this trip often has an unintended shopping focus--not my thing so much but.....
There is also a semblance of a bathroom which may terrify you should I go into detail. I overhear the snippets of 1st world complaining from various individuals and I silently sympathize---but this is why we are here. Bathroom culture is just that: culture. Those of us not shopping get surrounded by small boys begging for coins---Talibes---kids(boys only) entered into Muslim schools where part of their curriculum is to experience humility through begging. They are persistent, aggressive, and everywhere. A bus of Americans draws them like a beacon. A couple of women in our group feel quite threatened at one point when one of them makes a throat slitting motion after one refuses to hand him their fit-bit.
We are here for over an hour---with 2/3 of the group buying what the consensus is, very high quality handmade shoes. As the afternoon is getting long, we get back on the crowded two lane road. We ride into the dark for 3-4 more hours. We are supposed to be in St. Louis by 5pm but instead arrive at our "resort" after 9pm. The pace is wearing thin on many of us but the excuse is that the funding for this requires excessive time in organized class/seminar work.
After a dusty, hot tour of Touba, we have a long bus ride to our hotel in St. Louis. Around 3pm, we stop in a dusty town where the seminar leader has mentioned there is a great handcrafted show market. The bus unloads....this trip often has an unintended shopping focus--not my thing so much but.....
There is also a semblance of a bathroom which may terrify you should I go into detail. I overhear the snippets of 1st world complaining from various individuals and I silently sympathize---but this is why we are here. Bathroom culture is just that: culture. Those of us not shopping get surrounded by small boys begging for coins---Talibes---kids(boys only) entered into Muslim schools where part of their curriculum is to experience humility through begging. They are persistent, aggressive, and everywhere. A bus of Americans draws them like a beacon. A couple of women in our group feel quite threatened at one point when one of them makes a throat slitting motion after one refuses to hand him their fit-bit.
We are here for over an hour---with 2/3 of the group buying what the consensus is, very high quality handmade shoes. As the afternoon is getting long, we get back on the crowded two lane road. We ride into the dark for 3-4 more hours. We are supposed to be in St. Louis by 5pm but instead arrive at our "resort" after 9pm. The pace is wearing thin on many of us but the excuse is that the funding for this requires excessive time in organized class/seminar work.
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