Hi everyone!
I apologize for not posting anything sooner, but I hope to make up for this by posting twice now. It has been almost two weeks now since I arrived, and while, in many ways, I am still feeling like I am not always sure which way is up, I am also starting to feel very acclimated. The heat is still incredible, I guess I must have forgotten this from the last time I was here in October, but everyone has been assuring me that come November, it will start to cool down. Because it is so hot, the pace of everything is much slower (especially my brain), but this is something I am slowly getting used to.
I went to my first Dakar Rotary meeting last week. There are 6 Rotary Clubs in Dakar, and my host club is the Dakar-Doyen (the head club in Dakar). My host counselor has been a wonderful host so far, coming to pick me up for meetings and calling to check-in every now and then. The Dakar-Doyen club has also been incredibly generous in showing the famous Senegalese "Terranga" (roughly translates to "hospitality" in Wolof), making sure that I feel at home in the Rotary community here and helping me to plan my visits to other clubs in the city. The meeting was held at the Hotel Terranga downtown, a beautiful hotel in the center of the city, with air-conditioned (!) conference rooms. This first meeting gave me the chance to introduce myself to the club and find out a bit about the sort of projects that they are involved with in Dakar. I also presented the Kalamazoo Sunrise Rotary banner and received a Dakar-Doyen banner in return - and soon I will post a photo of this exchange. I found out that there are a number of American Rotarians visiting Dakar, and I look forward to the opportunity of using my English a bit and helping with translating, if need be. At this meeting, I also made contact with the local Rotaract Clubs, of which there are 3 in the city. This gave me a chance to talk a little with people my own age who are invested in the service work of Rotary. They told me about a blood drive they were hosting the following Saturday, and invited me to participate.
My host counselor also invited me to an Inter-Club Dinner the following Friday at a downtown hotel. This was a wonderful experience because it helped me see how large and connected the Rotary Clubs of Dakar are, and gave me the opportunity to meet many of the members. Additionally, the food was delicious. Through contacts made that evening, I have plans to attend the Dakar-Soleil club this evening, and attend a few more club's meetings next week. I am also planning on giving a more formal presentation on myself, my academic interests, and my home and sponsor club to the Dakar-Doyen Club in a few weeks.
The following Saturday I went to the Centre National de Transfusion Sanguine (National Blood Transfusion Center) to check-out the Rotaract blood drive. I took some photos that I will post in a slideshow that can be viewed by clicking on the icon on the right side of my blog page. The picture above is of me and the Rotaract-Doyen President at the blood drive. The drive was quite successful, Rotaract members told me - they estimated they had collected at least 30 pints of blood by the time I left. It was an interesting experience, and I hope to help out more with the next drive they have. I also plan on attending the Rotaract-Doyen meeting scheduled for this Friday.
In other news, I have successfully braved the giant open-air markets of Dakar armed only with my feeble vocabulary in Wolof to go grocery shopping. And it has been so much fun every time! I am getting a better sense of prices, what's in season, and to know what I can and cannot waxaalé for (the act of bargaining). And with the help of my Senegalese host sister, I have a much better sense of the Senegalese university system. School will not start likely until November, so in the meantime, I have decided to sign up for additional local language classes through the center where I took my classes in Dakar when I studied abroad. I am taking Pulaar (also known as Fulaani), a language spoken by the Peul who make up about 33% of the population. I am also taking more Wolof, and really would love to become as fluent as possible by the end of my trip. Pulaar, however, is new for me. For the time being, I have two phrases:
1. No mbadha-dhaa? (How are you?)
AND
2. Mi jangii pulaar hande. (I learned Pulaar today.)
Quite a vocabulary, I know.
I apologize for not posting anything sooner, but I hope to make up for this by posting twice now. It has been almost two weeks now since I arrived, and while, in many ways, I am still feeling like I am not always sure which way is up, I am also starting to feel very acclimated. The heat is still incredible, I guess I must have forgotten this from the last time I was here in October, but everyone has been assuring me that come November, it will start to cool down. Because it is so hot, the pace of everything is much slower (especially my brain), but this is something I am slowly getting used to.
I went to my first Dakar Rotary meeting last week. There are 6 Rotary Clubs in Dakar, and my host club is the Dakar-Doyen (the head club in Dakar). My host counselor has been a wonderful host so far, coming to pick me up for meetings and calling to check-in every now and then. The Dakar-Doyen club has also been incredibly generous in showing the famous Senegalese "Terranga" (roughly translates to "hospitality" in Wolof), making sure that I feel at home in the Rotary community here and helping me to plan my visits to other clubs in the city. The meeting was held at the Hotel Terranga downtown, a beautiful hotel in the center of the city, with air-conditioned (!) conference rooms. This first meeting gave me the chance to introduce myself to the club and find out a bit about the sort of projects that they are involved with in Dakar. I also presented the Kalamazoo Sunrise Rotary banner and received a Dakar-Doyen banner in return - and soon I will post a photo of this exchange. I found out that there are a number of American Rotarians visiting Dakar, and I look forward to the opportunity of using my English a bit and helping with translating, if need be. At this meeting, I also made contact with the local Rotaract Clubs, of which there are 3 in the city. This gave me a chance to talk a little with people my own age who are invested in the service work of Rotary. They told me about a blood drive they were hosting the following Saturday, and invited me to participate.
My host counselor also invited me to an Inter-Club Dinner the following Friday at a downtown hotel. This was a wonderful experience because it helped me see how large and connected the Rotary Clubs of Dakar are, and gave me the opportunity to meet many of the members. Additionally, the food was delicious. Through contacts made that evening, I have plans to attend the Dakar-Soleil club this evening, and attend a few more club's meetings next week. I am also planning on giving a more formal presentation on myself, my academic interests, and my home and sponsor club to the Dakar-Doyen Club in a few weeks.
The following Saturday I went to the Centre National de Transfusion Sanguine (National Blood Transfusion Center) to check-out the Rotaract blood drive. I took some photos that I will post in a slideshow that can be viewed by clicking on the icon on the right side of my blog page. The picture above is of me and the Rotaract-Doyen President at the blood drive. The drive was quite successful, Rotaract members told me - they estimated they had collected at least 30 pints of blood by the time I left. It was an interesting experience, and I hope to help out more with the next drive they have. I also plan on attending the Rotaract-Doyen meeting scheduled for this Friday.
In other news, I have successfully braved the giant open-air markets of Dakar armed only with my feeble vocabulary in Wolof to go grocery shopping. And it has been so much fun every time! I am getting a better sense of prices, what's in season, and to know what I can and cannot waxaalé for (the act of bargaining). And with the help of my Senegalese host sister, I have a much better sense of the Senegalese university system. School will not start likely until November, so in the meantime, I have decided to sign up for additional local language classes through the center where I took my classes in Dakar when I studied abroad. I am taking Pulaar (also known as Fulaani), a language spoken by the Peul who make up about 33% of the population. I am also taking more Wolof, and really would love to become as fluent as possible by the end of my trip. Pulaar, however, is new for me. For the time being, I have two phrases:
1. No mbadha-dhaa? (How are you?)
AND
2. Mi jangii pulaar hande. (I learned Pulaar today.)
Quite a vocabulary, I know.
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