As our Fulbright/Hayes Seminar on Religion and Diversity in West Africa winds down, I find myself with a free afternoon and thought I might recount the extent to which we've "gone to school". Much of our time spent has been a whirlwind of classes, seminars, lectures, and cultural tours.

Here is a brief list of some activities while in Senegal:(Most events were at least 2 hours long.)

-Professor Ibrahim Thiaw: A Pre-Atlantic History of West Africa---
-Professor Mamadou Fall:  West African Slave Trade and its Impact---
-Professor Penda Mbow: The Colonial Division of West Africa---
-All day trip to Goree Island, the gateway to the middle passage for slaves
-Dr. Fallou Ngom; Introduction to African Islam
-Dr. Timothy Longman: Introduction to Christianity in Africa
-Tour of the Grand Mosque of Dakar
-American Anthropology Association Conference, Dakar
-Abdoulaye Mbaye: Senegalese Culture and Politics
-Professor Ousman Senn: Introduction to Seereer Culture
-Visit to local village on Sippo Island
-Mr. Raphael Ndiaye: Introduction to African Indigenous Religions
-visit to childhood homes of President Leopold Senghor
-Professor Fatou Sow: Gender, Religion and Senegalese Culture
-2 evenings breaking Ramadan fast with local St. Louis Sow family
-Dr. Babacar Dieng: The People and Cultures of Northern Senegal
-Dr. Alpha Sy: West African Rural Culture and Religion
-Professor Mahmadou BA: Peaceful Co-existence Between Muslims, Christians, and Followers of Indigenous Religions
-Professor Abdourahmane Seck: Economic Development and Migration in Senegal
-Visit to Mosque, Catholic Church and cemetery with Cheikh Ibrahima Yaffa
-Paul Diedhiou: Exploration of Diola Society and Tradition
-Ibrahima Yaffa: Joking relationships as Conflict Resolution Strategy

Suffice to say I now know a bit more about Senegal and West Africa and can listen, speak, and teach with more wisdom than before.




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power surge

A power surge in the hotel last night in Cap Skirring fried my laptop surge protector and charger. For now posting with a tablet. Please forgive the brevity of posts.

Wall near Diola Mosque in Ziguinchor

 

 

 

Cemetery, Ziguinchor.

 

This is the guy who was Fallou's father's foil in Ziguinchor as he was growing up. Fallou's Dad was a typical Seereer, perhaps a bit bossy and aggressive and this Mandinka neighbor was the one who could stand up to him.

 

 

 

We leave Ziguinchor on Friday for 2 days in Cap Skirring, a beach town about an hour west. Apparently this town grew up around a Club Med in the 1970s. Have not seen this compound nor do I want to.
We bundle now into two vans, one with a roof rack, another not, which does create some shuffling as we prepare to depart. Eventually we all settle in and I am lucky to get a bit of leg room. We zig zag through a dirt road route for a while until we hit the main 2 lane thoroughfare west. There is a kind of by-the-side-of-the-road construction going on with men digging or finishing a trench---by hand--picks and shovels. There are crews of 10-20 guys every 200 yards or so. It is hot and humid and they are out in the open. This goes on for miles. At one point there are fellows unspooling what looks to be like 2" plastic pipe in sort of a fire brigade, pulling in tandem for a mile or so. After about 30 miles,  suddenly modern trench digging tractors churning up the deep red earth. I am speculating these guys with shovels are "finishing" the trench.
We are in the Casamance region, one that is far south, subject to some separatist slow-simmering guerilla warfare that has calmed down in the last 5 years.(Due in a large part to political appropriation of ethnic "joking relationships"---complicated ancient relationships rooted in ritualized insults. The population has tired of the rebellion due to the framing through these relationships.

 This is rice and cashew country. They grow African rice, not for export, but for domestic consumption. It is the end of the dry season, but greener down here. Whole swaths of palm and scrub are being burned for the coming rains and you see fallow rice fields everywhere. The dominant ethnic group down here is Diola, a recalcitrant thorn in the side of colonials and now the Wolof cultural dominance of the Senegalese political system.

When we arrive at a very nice hotel---off the beach but very comfortable with a pool---you walk down a dirt road for 10 minutes in either direction and then a 100 yard walk down to the water.It is dusty, deserted---wide---cows are here. They hang out on the beach to escape the heat and the flies. But it is beautiful and very peaceful. The beach in Africa. I have wanted to do this for a long time. You have this feeling here that this moment of your life is not going to be replicated often and so I try to savor it between the seminars, visits, tours and so forth. We have another two hour talk on Diola culture this morning and then maybe, just maybe a few hours to ourselves. The subject will be on the "joking relationships" that different ethnic groups practice. Interesting stuff but I am feeling drowsy. Woke up at 6:30am. Sleeping in my own room here, but I meet up with my old roommate Brandon and we take an hour walk up the beach. Back for breakfast---and then a few minutes to write here and try to post photos at a glacial pace.

 

Something like a headstone in the Ziguinchor cemetary. Things are a bit rustic compared to graveyards in the US.