Le Terrain

One of the daily staples of life here at the Maision d'Espoir is the daily trip to "le terrain." Le terrain is one of those words that doesn't quite translate exactly into English. It literally means "the ground" but Americans would never refer to the place where they play soccer or basketball as "the ground." We would say we're going to the field or the court. But here, the places the Senegalese play soccer usually don't have grass. Just dirt. And rocks. So I think "le terrain" is a fitting term.

The terrain where we go every day is on the grounds of the Catholic school located up the street, the school where the older boys are enrolled during the school year. There are 4 soccer "fields" there and 2 basketball courts. The soccer fields are nothing more than dusty, sometimes sandy, dirt patches with a soccer goal frame at either end. There are boulders in located here and there throughout the field which add an extra element to the games. The basketball courts are made of concrete squares that are marred by cracks and fizzures that make for an uneven playing surface. Only one of the rims is actually parallel to the ground, and one was dunked on a bit too hard and is no longer of use (I know what you're thinking. It wasn't me). Trash is strewn all around the perimeter of the playing area. I thought that all of this makes for fairly hazardous playing conditions. I would be cautious in my sneakers to avoid twisting an ankle on a rock or stepping on a shattered bottle while retrieving the ball. But then I saw that many boys play barefoot (not the Maison d'Espoir boys, but other neighborhood boys)! I cannot think of many American mothers who would allow their sons to play in such conditions (or many American boys who would be content playing in such a place). But here, in Senegal, the boys play. And play. And play. We go and play soccer or basketball for 4 hours, at least 4 days a week. The boys don't seem bothered at all that all they have to play on is a rocky, dusty expanse in their bare feet. They all pick their favorite soccer, errr football, star and pretend they've scored the winning goal in the World Cup. They have as much fun...actually I would wager they have more fun than their American counterparts who play in their organized leagues on soft grass fields.

I really enjoy just watching them play and enjoy themselves. I can't help but notice the contrast between these Senegalese boys playing pick-up soccer and the middle schoolers in Michigan I coached for four years in basketball. Now I had a great time coaching middle school basketball - it was one of the highlights of my college years and I coached a GREAT group of kids. But it was often a challenge to get them to focus, and it seemed like they would rather be somewhere else doing something else. When these Senegalese kids are at the terrain, they are there 100%. Nobody leaves early, nobody wants to. One of the guys is interested in basketball, and when I teach him stuff, he listens intently. Is this because they love sports more or they're better kids? No, there simply isn't much to do here, so time spent at the terrain is always time well spent. They're not thinking about how they would rather be home watching TV or playing video games or whatever. If they could go home and play XBOX, I guarantee that would be a distraction.

Again, it's been refreshing to see these kids who have so little enjoying themselves so much. I think it's precisely because they have so little that it is so easy for them to have so much fun - they're not thinking about what else they could be doing instead. They have no doubt that being at the terrain, as lousy as it is, is the best thing they could be doing on a summer afternoon in Dakar. And so they're not distracted by other opportunities and they're able to be entirely present at the terrain and thus enjoy their time more fully. I think it's true that having less (options) makes it easier to have more (fun).

I would have posted photos of the terrain...but my camera has died. Really lousy timing :(

My First Market Experience

Recently I had my first market experience in Dakar. I did not intend to visit, let alone buy anything from, any one of the city's markets so early in my stay here with my French still being quite wobbly, but fate?our President?a very pushy Senegalese merchant? had other ideas. It all started out very innocently with a much enjoyed pizza at a restaurant. We paid the bill, walked outside, and there on the other side of the street was our President staring at me. Well, a painting of him, that is. Amongst dozens of paintings of various African scenes lining the sidewalk was a portrait of President Obama with a bold background of the stars and stripes. I thought it was a good scene to capture with my camera. Maybe it was a good scene, but as far as ideas go, it probably ranks somewhere between "Of course the ice will hold" and "There's no way they enforce that NO U-turn sign" in the pantheon of Brad Hoff decisions. No sooner had I taken the photo than the seller came running over to me demanding in French, "Why do you take a picture but not buy something from me!?!" Instantly regretting my decision, I apologized and offered to delete the photo. No, no, it's fine - but why don't you take a look at my paintings? That's when I made my second mistake - I let my guilt overtake my better judgment. So I looked at some of his stuff, and actually found something I liked, a couple of people dancing. At least I think I liked it. It may just have been my guilty conscience or a paranoia that all the vendors were going to gang up on the nervy American with the broken French and beat him over the head with his own President. Whatever the case, at a certain point I decided I would buy this painting. Ah - but I was not a naive tourist right off the plane with a wallet-full of cash, I had been prepped. You must negotiate at the marché, you must haggle to get a good price. I had been told that whatever they offer, cut it in half. I was prepared to do so. I asked him how much and he told me for a good friend such as I, for a nice guy like me, he could offer it to me for 45,000 francs. $90. Ha! The painting was about 12"x18" and I liked it, but there was no way I was dishing out that kind of dough. Even with my strategy of cutting it in half, $45 was too much. At this point, Nicholas stepped in and tried to offer me advice. The merchant did not appreciate this. He and Nicholas began talking very quickly and forcefully to one another in French and I don't know exactly what they said, but I did catch the words "war" (clearly he did not understand that Nicholas is Swiss), "homicide", and "shallow grave" from the merchant. OK, I made the last two up, but he did keep talking about a "guerre" which made me wish I had left my stupid camera at home. Fortunately, I knew I only had 15,000 francs on me. So, I said I'm sorry, it's a beautiful painting, but I don't think I can afford it. That's when I made my third and fourth mistakes: I told him I had 15,000 francs, which was a mistake because now he was going to accept nothing less. And my fourth mistake was to tell him I had 15,000 francs because I only had 13,000. Of course, I only realized this after we had shook on the price and his assistant began packaging my painting. Remembering his frequent reference to armed conflict, I seriously considered taking off running and not stopping until I reached the US Embassy, but realized I had no idea where the Embassy is...and that I was in AFRICA, home to the last 87 Boston Marathon winners. Out of options, I sheepishly looked over to Nicholas who graciously covered the difference.

So I walked away embarrassed that I had to have my friend cover for me, but feeling fairly confident that I had gotten a decent deal. I cut the merchant's original price in 1/3 and I thought $30 was reasonable for a nice painting. Nicholas, however, was not impressed. He didn't mind covering for me, he just thought I got ripped off. "But I knocked his price down 30k - I did well!" No, he said. You probably could have gotten that for 6000 franc. I could hardly believe that the merchant would accept such a low price after init

ially asking for 45,000, but I then thought that he could have asked for anything right off the bat. And he's a pro - I'm sure he recognized my guilt and played on it to make the sale.

Oh well, I may not have gotten a great deal, but I did sidestep an international conflict, something for which our President would be proud.

The House(s) of Hope

Bonjour tout le monde! I haven't written in a while - not because nothing is happening here, but because I am learning to deal with one of the realities of life in Senegal...the daily power outage. We've had one every day that I've been here, except for today - which could very well mean that I will finish this tomorrow. I've asked a few people why we lose power every day and the consensus is that there simply isn't enough capacity available to meet the demand for energy in the summer. Someone also noted that the government has been known to not pay its bills on time and that the electric company in fact does have the capacity, but cuts the power every day to put pressure on the government to pay up. Whatever the case, it's a daily occurance and lately it's been hapenning in the evenings when I usually have time to write. The lights (and computers and fans and refrigerators) usually go off for 2-5 hours at a time. For me, it's really more of a nuisance than anything, but I've noticed that some businesses have bought generators to keep the power going. In other parts of the country, however, it's more of a problem. In Popenguine, where I started, we were losing power for 8-10 hours a day. Iain is in charge of finances for WEC Senegal, and more than once he was forced to work late into the night on the computers because that was simply the only time he could! A steady current of electricity is something I always take for granted (unless there's a nor'easter blowing outside) but it is far from a sure thing here.

Sooo this is a post I've been wanting to write for a long time: what exactly am I doing here (besides butchering the French language)? The truth is that it took me about a week for me to figure that out myself. This week I've been able to get into a bit of a routine and get comfortable with my role here. There are actually two Houses of Hope here in Dakar, which are home to 20 boys aged between 8 and 17. I'm living with the older boys in the creatively named Maision I and the 8 younger ones live in - you guessed it - Maison II. Now Casibo, the man who runs this ministry, warned me to use discretion with what I write online (and that I should not post any photos of the boys, sorry) about the Houses and the boys, so I will err on the side of caution with what I say. At least that's what I think he was telling me. It was in French, so he very well could have been reminding me to take my malaria pills. In short, the Maision d'Espoir houses boys who for one reason or another were preiously living on the streets of Dakar. They have either been orphaned or separated from their families. Many of them have been victims of abuse at the hands of marabouts, religious leaders who served as their guardians after their parents were no longer in their lives. The boys who live here come of their own volition and stay here because they want to. Sometimes, they run away. The Maision gives the boys a place to live, access to an education, good clothing, 3 solid meals a day, and a safe community. Most importantly, the Maision is a place where the boys are respected and shown the love of Jesus.

My typical day here is as follows: wake up at 8, have breakfast and get ready for the day. At 9:15 school starts at Maison II for the youngins. I help Nicholas, a young guy from Switzerland who's been here since February, teach the kids. Though my French is limited, I've suprised myself with how much I've been able to communicate and actually teach the boys. Usually I work one-on-one with one of the boys who is just beginning to learn French - it feels good (though confusing) to be teaching somebody the language that I struggle with. So we do phonics and reading and math and I actually do teach them some things. School runs until noon (since it's summer they're on a half-day schedule) and Nicholas and I return to Maision I for lunch. After lunch is siesta until 3. I'm beginning to understand why they take siesta. Recently, I haven't really rested during siesta and I find myself exhausted even though I'm sleeping well. You need the siesta to get through the hot humid days, especially sans air conditioning. In the afternoon, I hang out with the older boys. Often we go to the Catholic school nearby where there is a soccer "field" (more like a dust bowl with rocks strewn everywhere) and a basketball court. If we don't go out, we play board games in the house. Dinner is at 7ish and after we talk some more or watch TV. My favorite thing to do is really just to do whatever the boys want to do. I'm really enjoying getting to know them all!

One of my concerns as I arrived here was how I would be received and how I would get along with the boys. As I've already written, I've had an extremely warm welcome. But I had a realization yeserday as to why exactly I felt so comfortable here so quickly. I was certainly worried that I might feel alone here. Very quickly, though, I came to feel like I had 22 brothers with me, who were looking out for me and were going to make sure I didn't do anything stupid. They told me when to cross the street (crosswalks are non-existent and nobody stops for pedestrians), what was in my food (nothing suspicious so far), made sure I only drank filtered water, clarified what somebody was saying when I didn't understand, and showed me how things are done around the house. And they've given me gifts, from drawings to snacks to a bracelet with my name on it. I feel accepted and appreciated by them and I'm so blessed to have met them all.
Here's the bracelet:

parlez-vous français?

So I've been in Senegal for a week now! It's been great and I'm hoping that I will be able to establish a routine this week. I've now met all the people I'll be working with and I've got to know all of the boys a bit. I'm starting to get comfortable with the neighborhood (le quartier), the cuisine (rice, fish, carrots, more rice, cabbage, and more rice), and I'm settling into my living accomodation. As far as the language goes...it's a work in progress. Speaking French is a struggle at times (ok, most of the time) but I think I'm improving day by day. Though it's a challenge to understand others and an even greater challenge to communicate what I want to, being in this setting has taught me some things that I would not have realized without this opportunity. For example, I like to think that I'm mostly self-sufficient (though I know deep down I'm far from it). Here, I rely on others all the time - on the patience, grace, and kindness of the people I'm attempting to communicate with as the French slowly tumbles out of my mouth - the words out of order and mis-conjugated, of course. And then there's been so many times when I just take a back seat and let somebody else do the talking for me. I certainly would not be enjoying my time here if not for the patience of my new friends. I cringe to think of what my French sounds like to their ears, but I don't see any of them frantically scrambling to learn English, so I suppose it could be worse.

But it is frustrating, especially when I can't understand simple things like "How did you sleep?" and I have to have them repeat it 3 times and I still can't get the message until they make a pillow gesture with their hands. Aye yi yi. At such moments I wonder if I learned anything in all the years I studied French! Other times, though, I'm able to carry on a decent conversation. By decent I mean to an observer it looks more like two people talking to each other than a game of charades. Maybe. I must admit, due to my limited vocabulary I find myself telling a lot of half-truths. Sometimes, it's just easier to say "Je suis fatiguée" even when I might not be exhausted than to stumble over a more accurate description of my present state of mind. Uh, oh...I can just imagine anyone who kindly donated for my trip picking up their phone to demand their money back...

I like talking with the boys because I feel less self-conscious around them and they really know zero English so it's either we figure it out in French or we try morse code or something. If we're sitting around the table, I like to bring my dictionary out so I can look up words to ask questions and then understand their answers. Even with this, though, I must be careful. The other night I looked up the verb "soutenir" which means "to support" but almost used the preceding word "souteneur"...which means "pimp." Yikes.

Next time I'll write a bit about the mission of the Masion d'Espoir and what exactly I'm doing here!

Oh, and I'm not doing a very good job at taking lots of pictures...but here's one of me in front of the Presidential Palace. I promise to take more.

More in Popenguine & Arrival in Dakar

I've arrived in Dakar & I'm currently writing from the House of Hope (on their computer which features a silly French keyboard with a bunch of keys out of place...so if I spell anything zrong or ,isplqce qny punctuqtion ,qkrs; itùs the keyboqrdùs fqult:) It's really good to be settled here (I'm living in an apartment attatched to the house) and to have finally met the boys and all those I will be working with. Everyone - literally everyone - I have met thus far has been wonderful and I truly feel welcomed and loved here. I'm excited to tell you about my first day with the boys, but first let me back up a bit and fill in the gaps between now and my last post.

So, I arrived in Dakar yesterday from Popenguine, a small coastal village (population: 900) outside of Dakar. I spent two days there with Iain & Linda who (among other things) are in charge of welcoming and orienting new team members here to the field in Senegal. Bringing me out to Popenguine was really a brilliant idea as it afforded me the oppportunity to adjust to the time change, the culture change, and the language change in a more relaxed and tranquil setting than the hustle and bustle of smoggy Dakar. Iain and Linda are absolutely lovely (I expected nothing less from a couple of Brits!) and they really made me feel at home as they introduced me to life in Senegal.

One of my favorite parts of orientation was a walk around town with Iain to buy some vegetables. That simple trip took nearly two hours. OK, we could have done it a little quicker, but it is an indication that things do take longer here. For example, anyone that Iain recognized as a friend we had to stop and say "Hi" to. Even if we were in a hurry, it would be rude to simply walk by or offer a hurried "Hey! How are you?" as we would have no problem doing in the States. In Senegal, it is customary to stop and greet everyone you know, ask them how they are, how is their family doing, etc. And for close friends, it is polite to sit down and chat for 5-10 minutes. Afterward, the host will walk his guests out the door and down the street a bit before excusing himself. So you can see how even a simple run into town for errands can take a while, especially in a small town where everybody knows everybody. But I really appreciated the politeness and friendliness which I'm guessing at least in part just a small town thing but was a reminder that people do things differently in different places, and sometimes I like how they do it better!

This came as a surprise to me, but Popenguine is a center of pilgrimage for Catholics.

Every year during Pentecost, thousands of Catholics from across Africa (and some from as far as France) descend upon Popenguine. There is a large covered seating area for services and a TV studio to televise the event as well as a large Stations of the Cross featuring a black Virgin Mary which was said to have been sighted years ago (hence the pilgrimage site).

Wednesday morning I left Popenguine for Dakar. I was honestly quite apprehensive about leaving and having to speak French full time now. The people I was about to come in contact with and work with knew no English :/After Linda & Iain had warned me that time and appointments have a different meaning in Africa and to get used to things happening behind schedule, my taxi driver showed up 20 minutes early, haha! There was a fair bit of traffic but the ride went by quickly after the driver picked up his cousin, an English teacher...so much for diving right into the French-speaking world, haha. I arrived at the WEC guest house, and my trip to Senegal began in earnest.

OK, so I'm not quite caught up, but I'll get to the rest soon. This computer is slow as molasses and I keep hitting the wrong keys. Thanks for everyone who is reading this and thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. A quick note about that - despite the insufferable heat and humidity at night here, I've slept like a baby which is pretty remarkable considering I've had a lot of difficulty sleeping at home for months under ideal conditions (AC, earplugs, various medicinal sleep remedies, white noise machine...I know, I'm a dork). I can only chalk it up to a team of people praying for me and for that I am very grateful! God is good :)

First Impressions

I arrived in Dakar at just after 4:30 am local time. So my very first impression of Senegal was "It's dark. And it's hot." The humid 84 degree air hit me like a wall as I stepped of the plane where I had literally been shivering (downside of exit row) minutes before. Now I'm not going to go on too much about the weather here because I just noticed that back in Boston it will hit 100 today, but I will say this: though the heat and humidity of the day isn't all that much of a shock to my system, at night it's a different story. It doesn't cool off at night - it was 88 when I went to bed at 10pm. I'll have more to say about sleeping later, but for now I'll focus on my first impressions.

After navigating customs and immigration, I spotted Iain, my contact through WEC who was there to pick me up and bring me back to his home in Popenguine, where he and his wife Linda live. He was, as I suspected, pretty easy to spot: the lone Scotsman in a sea of African faces. I was to spend my first two night outside of the city for orientation and to adjust the the culture and time change at a more lesiurely pace before heading back into Dakar and the House of Hope. Iain whisked me away in his SUV and we made our way through the darkness out of Dakar.

I always find driving in different countries fascinating. Whether it's driving on the wrong side of the road, going counter-clockwise around roundabouts in England or narrowly avoiding being sideswiped by an 18-wheeler in Costa Rica, I'm struck by how different driving is in the U.S. from the rest of the world. It's SO easy to drive in America - the roads are well-paved, well-lit, well-marked, straight, and plenty wide. And we mostly drive automatics. It's really too easy I think, and it appears most of my fellow Americans agree - that's why you'll see us texting, eating, singing, shaving, applying makeup...basically focusing on anything but the road. Drivers simply can't afford to do that anywhere else. Senegal, I learned quickly, is no exception. We exited the airport onto a newly constructed highway that could easily be confused for an American interstate...that is until Iain had to hit the brakes from 60 mph to avoid hitting some men casually sauntering across the 4 lanes of traffic. Though this section of road was built to modern standards, it was not only for the use of cars. In addition to swerving and braking to avoid pedestrians, we had to allow for slow moving buses with young men hanging off the back and my personal favorite - carts pulled by donkeys. Imagine slowing for a cart doing 6 mph on the expressway! The road got even more congested once the freeway ended and we got onto a 2 lane road, but we managed to make it the 70 km to Popenguine in about 90 minutes.

Iain's wife Linda prepared my first Senegalese meal: a variation of the national dish, Thieboudienne. It consists of fish and vegetables over rice. I found it very tasty and if I hadn't been half-asleep I would have remembered to take a picture of it to post here. We ate it "Senegalese-style" which is to say we all ate from a large circular plate, each of us taking a third of the pie, so to speak. We used only a spoon in our right hand. It's important to note that we used only our right hand because in Senegalese culture (or it might be Muslim culture in general, I forget) the left hand is unclean as it was historically used for wiping your bottom. So clearly you'd want to keep that left hand away from the food. Left-handers don't exist in Senegal; natural lefties are forced to switch over to their right side. So it's a safe bet that the Red Sox won't find any left-handed bullpen help in Senegal.

More on my stay in Popenguine, my first conversations (Hmmmm "conversation" might be a bit of an overstatement seeing as all I could manage in French was "Hi. How are you? I'm well.") with the Senegalese, and sleeping in a mosquito net in my next post. Oh and some pictures too!

Leaving tomorrow!

Hey everybody!

So this is my new blog, which I hope to be updating regularly from Africa. I leave tomorrow for Dakar, the capital of Senegal, where I will spend the next 39 days helping out at the Maison d'Espoir, or the House of Hope for those who do not parlez-vous francais. I am a combination of excited and nervous. Excited because I am traveling to a new place, will be meeting new and different people, and because I feel that God has prompted me to undertake this journey and that if I am open to listen, He has some (or hopefully many!) interesting things in store. Nervous because I am traveling to another continent by myself to a country very different from my own or any other that I have ever visited. Once I board the plane at JFK, in less than 8 hours I will go from being in the majority (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in America) to being very much a minority (a tall English-speaking Christian white boy in a country of black French-speaking Muslims). Needless to say, I am going to stick out. I don't really like like attracting attention to myself, but I think it might be inevitable in Africa. And once I open my mouth and attempt to speak French, it will become unmistakable that I am very far from home.

Fortunately - I am very happy to report - my excitement far outstrips my nervousness. Right now anyway, haha. We'll see if I still feel that way if the Senegalese cuisine doesn't quite agree with my digestive tract right off the bat. Maybe its naivete, maybe ignorance is bliss. There's so much I don't know - what will the people and the boys I'm working with be like? what will my housing be like? how will the food taste? (and will my stomach accept it??) how quickly will I catch on to speaking French? what will fill my days? did I bring enough bug spray? Part of my excitement is not knowing everything. But I do know the most important thing - that God has prompted and provided for me to undertake this and that He'll be with me. I'm so excited to meet the boys living at the House and to get to know them!

Anyway, back to packing. Shorts are a no-go in Senegal, so I've been told that scrub pants are my best bet for keeping cool. I guess in Senegal wearing shorts is perceived as juvenile. But wearing medical pants - even if I have no medical training beyond the Boy Scout First Aid merit badge and it's not Halloween - is ok. Hmmmmmm... Here's me modeling my new wardrobe: