A Brief Senegal Slideshow...

I would never have guessed it, but I took nearly 800 pictures while in Senegal! Even flickr.com wouldn't let me upload them all without paying for a pro account (which I'm still considering). In the meantime, I thought you all might enjoy a slideshow of my favorite memories from the trip. Enjoy!

A Day Like Any Other?

I did this for my boys today.

It's the first "Stars and Stripes" cake I have ever made. But what better way to instill a sense of patriotism in a 2 year old and a 4 year old than with cake?

They are napping right now, but they will see it when they wake up--just in time to join a few friends and family members for a barbecue and to play on the swings in the backyard. What a life they have. Right now, they have no concept of what it means to have won one's independence. It will be years still before they fully understand the tumultuous history of this country and what this day represents.

Although I worry about the world they have to grow up in, I thank God that they are here now rather than 50+ years ago. Perhaps it is my recent return from Africa that inspired the thought this morning, but one of the first phrases that came to mind was "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?", so I thought I would post a link to Frederick Douglass's Independence Day Speech at Rochester, 1852.

Independence...how sweet it is.

Still organizing...

...and writing captions. For those of you who just must see some photos RIGHT NOW (which apparently is everyone I have talked to in the last few days), I will share with you the flickr files of a few of my fellow travellers who went and were kind enough to share (and quick enough to have theirs up already).

The photos here are credited to Emily Williams (who I believe slept with her camera in her hand. Every time I saw her, she was zooming in on something) : Emily's Photos

The photos here are credited to Brian Hill (who thoroughly enjoyed the trip and single-handedly boosted the local economy by buying everything that wasn't nailed down--oh yeah, he made some friends): Brian's Photos


Photos from other trips are on both of their sites. Be sure to click on the Senegal albums.

Home again...

Hello, everyone. Thanks for following my blog while I was in Senegal. (I am so grateful for the internet.) I am even more grateful to be home, though leaving Africa was certainly bittersweet. I have been home for a little over a day now, and I'm still trying to adjust to the time difference. I have been up since 4:00 am (8:00 am in Senegal, breakfast time at la Maison de Universite), and I'm still taking the malaria medication for the next four weeks. Every great expereince has a tradeoff.

Now that I am home, I have a few loose ends to tie up (i.e., grading for online classes) before I can jump back into blogging. My plan is to have the grading done by Wednesday, July 2. After that, I promise to post photos and more details from my trip.

Thank you all for praying for my safe return.

Shown: "Door of No Return" (Maison des Esclaves), Goree Island

So much to see...

Well, we are down to our last few days in Senegal. While I will be happy to go home, I will be a little sad to leave. I feel like there is so much more to see. I can't wait to get home so I can post my pictures for you all. This past weekend was spent in Toubab Dialaw, a resort (loosely speaking) built by the beach. The rooms wouldn't get a whole star by American standards, but the common areas were splendid. The trip to the Holy City left me speechless. Unfortunately, I will not have any pictures to post of the mosque in Touba. I'm not feeling especially chatty this morning. The last couple of days have been a little rough...malaria medication.

We have some more school visits today, and we will be distributing the school supplies we brought from our respective institutions. According to one teacher we have spoken to here, the supplies will be very much appreciated. There is never enough to go aroud here, and the lack of supplies contributes to the drop out rate. Many parents cannot afford both supplies and lunch for their children. (The schools don't have cafeterias or free lunch programs. If the students don't bring food or have money to buy food nearby, they just go all day without eating. This, too, contributes to the drop out rate.)

So, maybe I will have lots more to say later. I have not had a chance to read or respond to all of my email, but I did see that Kaela wants to know what the weather is like and what the temperature is.

Currently, it's 8:20 am (4:20 am at home) and it's relatively cool, about 77 degrees. Most days it gets up to about 95, but it feels like closer to 110 at times. It has rained only one day since we have been here even though it's the rainy season.

Khalil, what's up? Come up for air every now and then with the video games. ;O)

And for Mykal and Darius... no, I have not seen any elephants, lions, or giraffes yet, but I did see a camel and plenty of goats. I'll keep my eyes open though, and my camera ready. I can just hear the two of you singing the opening song to The Lion King, and Mommy can't wait to get home.

Common to man...

I'm excited. I actually found a computer with a QWERTY keyboard at the West African Research Center. Blogging will be easy this time. Today was a day of school visits. We went to a private, Catholic primary school and a public middle school. The difference between the two was astounding. One thing they had in common was relatively large class size, between 40 and 60 students per class. I cannot imagine. The children at the primary school greeted us with a song as we were entering the school gates. The teachers were very gracious in allowing us to come into their classrooms mid-morning, especially considering that students are now preparing for their end-of-year exams, which I am told are very tough. Only about 30% pass to the next level on the first try.

Our next visit will be to a university later today. Some of the others are currently eating lunch. We did lunch and computer time in shifts today. (Dama xiff.) I ate, but the meal wsa grilled fish and tossed salad. Just before I was about to devour my salad, one of the program directors stopped me and warned that the salad had been washed with local water. Sigh. So I just ate my little fish and drank some bottled water. I am happy, though. One thing I have noticed is that in certain parts of Dakar, any meal is a luxury. Some people eat only one a day, while others do not always get a meal each day.

That's not to say that all of Senegal is poor. It's not. In fact, while walking through some neighborhoods today, we saw quite a few nice residences. One had a Jaguar parked outside. Another had a new Range Rover. The division of wealth here is as inequitable as it is at home. And just like at home, the price of fuel is causing chaos. Gas here is nearly $9 US per gallon. That would be catastrophic for us, and the average income per month here is a fraction of ours. Still, like usm they have managed to keep their cars on the road. There are many more vehicles here than I expected. The streets here are no different than any other larger city in the US. In fact, downtown Dakar looks a lot like some areas in New York. The market place could have easily passed for China town.

The longer we are here, the more I see how widespread the economic effects of the state of foreign affairs are. With the exception of the language being spoken, most of the conversations oveheard here are much the same as ones you would overhear at home: fuel prices, unemployment, need for education reform, the media's unhealthy influence on the nation's youth... the list goes on.

My photographs from today are probably some of the most interesting I have taken so far, not because they were of things I had never seen before, but because the sights were remarkably similar to what I would see at home. One example before I go: At the public middle school, we sat in a classroom today at desks students would normally occupy. There was carving all over the wooden desk, just like students do at home. That was to be expected. Kids are just kids everywhere. What I did not expect to see, however, were the names "G-Unit, The Game, and Young Money" right beside a carefully carved hand holding up a middle finger.

Some of the girls were eager to pose for pictures, and they were dressed no differently than any girl you might find in a US middle school, except I'm sure these girs were violating a few US dress codes. It's amazing the influence American music and hip hop culture has had even here. And most of the students don't even speak more than two words of English. They are educated in French.

My time on the computer is about up, and I think we are leaving soon for our next school visit. If I do not get the opportunity to blog again later this evening, I'm not sure if I will be in touch again for quite a few days. Tomorrow, we leave for Touba, the Holy City, and from there we go to Toubab Dialaw for the weekend. I am not sure about internet connections there. My next entry could very well be Sunday evening when we return to Dakar. If so, I should have quite a lot to tell by then.

Nangeen def?

(How are you all?)

There were a number of power outages today, which I am told is nothing unusual. I had hoped to blog earlier while at the West African Research Center but was unable to for that reason. There have been a couple of outages of power and water since I got here, but they usually do not last very long, or they occur at times when we are away from the university guest house. I keep hearing people mention the possibility of going to an internet cafe, but so far not one has materialized. I would love to go to one right now, because as much as I would like to keep a record of my trip for everyone at the moment, Dama Xiff. (I had a Wolof lesson today; that means I'm hungry.)

Speaking of food... I haven't mentioned it, but the food is absolutely wonderful here. The first meal I had made me want to jump in the plate and wallow. Every meal since then has reqlly been something to write home about. I have taken a picture of everything I have eaten. I hope my camera battery holds up. Between the market, the beach, downtown, Goree Island and all of my meals, I know I have taken about a thousand pictures. It's a shame I cannot upload them from here. I would try, but I'm afraid this IBM E74 will wipe my pictures out and neither of us will have them.

Today we visited a high school and learned about the education system in Senegal. We also had the Wolof lesson and a discussion of the slave trade. Tomorrow there will be more school visits and a reception with educators and community leaders at the WARC. We're into the business part of our trip now. This weekend, it will be all about play again when we spend a few days at Toubab Dialaw (a resort of sorts). I wonder if there will be internet service there?

Listen to me. True to form. Of all the things I could ask, and it's about internet access; I can't help it. I like to stay connected. Still, if there is no connection this weekend, I promise to go with the flow and just enjoy myself and take many more pictures of delicious food.

Jàmm rekk. (I am at peace/It is well with me.)

A buyer's market...

As internet time is hard to come by here, I have to keep in contact with everyone here rather than via email. It's hard not being able to read messages regularly or to talk on the phone at all, but I'm adjusting. Perhaps as well as I am adjusting to the French keyboard. Someone should have warned me to pack a good old American QWERTY; I never would have imagined the need for it.

I'm sure somewhere in Dakar someone will give me a "good price" for one. I have learned that anything can be bought here. After bluffing to a vendor that I was out of money today, she offered to trade the necklace she was trying to sell me for my lipstick. Maybe if I had two tubes...but I packed light, so no deal. Plus, it was used lipstick! I could not do that in good conscience. After we exchanged US money for CFAs yesterday at the bank (the value of a dollar being down to 395 CFA, whereas it is optimally closer to 500 CFA), we were introduced to the open market, and it's everywhere! Obviously because we were Americans, we drew a crowd, but people were selling everything from cell phone chips, t-shirts and caps, dolls, and jewelry to boom boxes and jelly shoes. I lie not. It started raining suddenly and a flock of umbrella salesmen appeared. One girl was selling shower caps.

So far, I have spent my money on internet time (500 CFA per hour) and jewelry to give to my friends when I return. Still, the computers here in the guest house are slow and do not have Microsoft Word, speakers, cameras or microphones, so my communication seems one sided, except when I can use Yahoo Messenger. Too bad my boys are too young to type.

I have only been here about two days, but already I have a million stories to tell and about as many pictures to show. I'm having a great time and learning a lot, but I'm surprisingly homesick. It feels more like I will be here a year rather than twelve days. Today was fabulous, though; going to Goree Island to see the slave houses and the "Door of No Return" was a truly priceless experience. It was so worth the trip to have that tour and to hear Professor Ousemane Sène's lecture on Leopold Sedar Senghor and the Negritude Movement. I am so full. I could go home now and be happy, but we are just getting started. I can't wait to get home and add my pictures to my blog. I might later check to see how difficult it would be to upload them from here.

I have so much more to share, but the rest will have to go in my journal. My time is about up in the lab, and others are waiting. Before I go, however, allow me to share a thought from Prof Sène:

Humans (westerners, Europeans, etc) are too narcissistic to accept anything they cannot control (i.e., the spirit world)--they try to turn everything into something they can control--money.

Waking up in Dakar...

I awake near 6:30am to the sound of what may be a truck passing but sounds like a plane overhead. I wait for the sound to pass and I listen more. Nothing.Other than the gentle hum of the window unit and the oscillating fan set to blow on the shirt I washed in the sink last night, there is no noise, no indication of where I am.

I step onto the cool tiled floor and sneeze. There is mold in the room. I could not tell last night, but this morning it is very noticeable. Having crossed into the next room, which also smells moldy, I soon display the knowledge of my first trial and error lesson from the day before: Pull the lever up to flush, not down. Actually, it is more of a button than a lever. Any American would have pushed rather than pull.

I open the curtains to reveal the view that was concealed by darkness the night before. The sight does not match the sound I now hear at the window. I hear birds, but I see none. Unlike the area that I was led into yesterday, the back view of this university guest house looks as if a bomb went off or a construction project was thwarted years ago. What could easily be five or six, five-story buildings lie in gray ruins. In the center of that scene, in a littered courtyard sits a mature tree with bountiful foilage and far-reaching branches. The birds must be there I think. So this is Dakar.

I open the window to my bedroom and lean out for q few photos. I can see far from the fourth floor. The Caribbean color and landscape of the building I'm in blooms in sharp contrast to the gray ruins ten paces away across the courtyard. The faint smell of ocean brought in by a breeze erases the trace of mold until I close the window. This will be my first full day in Senegal. Today should be interesting; we will go to the central banking district to exchange dollars for CFAs...

Hats off...

...to all the authors who have made it to the point where they write for a living (i.e., no longer have the "day job"). The past few days have been incredibly hectic for me. I've just started teaching a new round of online classes and the "setting up" process of Week 1 has me rattled. What's worse is I've spent so much time working on the classes, I have barely written a word outside of email replies to students. I can tell a real difference between myself now and say 10-12 years ago. Back then, I could make it for two days off of ten minutes of sleep, but now... I am seeing double.

One day I will be able to say that I write for a living (and not just that I live to write, because you know I do), for the time being, though, I'll just have to keep trying to burn the candle at both ends and hope I'm strong enough to make it. Selah.

Television OFF...Brain ON...

Need I say more. There is very little that holds my attention for long on TV anyway, yet sometimes I find myself skipping from channel to channel or watching a marathon of shows I have already seen before. I have a thing for certain sitcoms and almost any plastic surgery, medical wonder, forensic science, or investigation type show. When I get into one of these, I can spend literally hours on end glued to the set.

Now we know that is counterproductive. Trying to validate my vegging, I have even used the excuse "maybe I'll see something that will spark an idea for writing." Well, let me tell you, that rarely--if ever--happens. Hence, I am on a TV diet. No more than one hour any given day, no matter what. Whew, that's harsh...how about two hours...an hour and a half? I know, I know...Television OFF...Brain ON...

Literally, GEMS Book Club

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The Official MBParker Website

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http://www.margueriteparker.com/

Ode to Accountability...

Last night I reluctantly sent the schedule for my major summer writing project to my accountability partner. In exchange for my watchful eye on her progress as well, she has agreed to hold me to my schedule. Why do we do this? If you are a writer, you know how easy it can be to lose focus now and then. I cannot count the number of times I have scheduled and rescheduled a production date due to procrastination, writer's block...life. Having a network of acccountability partners helped me stay on track with A Debt Too Deep. So, I know if I'm going to have this sequel ready for release this fall, I need someone to help keep the fire lit under me.

Do you have a goal you really want to reach? Whether it be writing, banishing debt, or staying clear of a no-good-for-you old flame, do yourself a favor and get an accountability partner. (Yes, have someone all up in your business, looking over your shoulder... and choose someone that you would hesitate to let down.) It can make the difference in you meeting your goal and making a new schedule for the same goal again next year. Selah.

Summer Reading...

This weekend I will settle into reading the book club's pick of the month, The Garden of Ruth by Eva Etzioni-Halevy. I have been putting it off, but I am looking forward to the read. Our last experience with this author was The Song of Hannah, and it was really great. This author truly has a gift. She can spin three verses in the bible into a full-length novel with detail like you would not believe. That's an inspiration.

Miracles never cease...

I cannot believe it is quarter til nine on a Saturday morning and my babies are still in bed. Usually by 7am Mykal is peeling my eyelids back asking for Cheerios. I thought I would take this moment and get at least one entry in. It took me a little while to get started though. With cnn.com as my homepage, the first thing I always see when I sit at my computer is world news. I must say, this past week has truly been a rough one for the world. Today, my heart and prayers are still going out to China. Sure, closer to home there are "tragedies" happening. Economic slump and insane gas prices are unsettling the locals, but we have never seen the likes of earthquakes and other natural disasters that wipe out what amounts to more than the population of the city in which we live in a matter of minutes. These are praying times. I was thinking at one time of taking cnn.com off as my homepage--too depressing. However, now I think I'll leave it there...so I know how to direct my prayers.

It still doesn't officially feel like "summer vacation" to me. I guess that's because I decided to teach summer classes this time, and they start on Monday. Still, they're online and I don't have to keep regular office hours, though I'm sure I will be there still. I need to go ahead and finish tying up all my travel loose ends before I start having those "unprepared" nightmares.

You know, I just hought of something. I need to think of a way to keep the most personal aspects of my home life out of this blog. (It's kind of hard to do when I revert to using it as a journal.) Still, there are such things as stalkers in this world, and I'm not trying to invite strangers into the deepest parts of me here. So, is my task for today to think of a singular theme for my blog? Sounds like a challenge... Dare me.

Does this count?

Hey, technically, it's a new entry, even though I have not moved from this spot since I posted "yesterday's" message. But I'm not just dawdling here. I forgot to add that since the time I originally created this blog, some truly awesome things have happened. The one I wanted to highlight most of all is the April 2007 publication of my first novella. A Debt Too Deep marked the beginning of new things for me as a writer. 2007 was an eventful year, and venturing into self-publishing made it memorable. Though the "high" of being able to click into Barnes & Noble and Amazon online and see my book listed is starting to trickle off a bit, I'm SO looking forward to reviving the feeling with a new publication this year. Speaking of the next publication... I should probably be (really) writing rather than blogging at this very moment. I have a long way to go. Wish me God's speed, then come back tomorrow to see what else I forgot to say...

Giving it one more shot...

As you can see from the date of my last post, I had truly abandoned this blog. I cannot really remember why I did so at the time, other than I never have been one to keep up with a "journal" on an absolute daily basis. (However, I do have an on-again-off-again journal for every year of my life, dating back to high school. Now that there's some interesting reading. LMBO.) Another reason for my long absence here is that I discovered Myspace (www.myspace.com/margueritebenjaminparker) a ways back and started a bit of a blog (also seldom updated) there.

Originally, this blog was to be a bit of a discussion cafe for my fledgling book club, then Parker-Bordeaux Reading Group. Two years later, the gorup is still going strong. We've grown quite a bit, lost and gained some members and got a new name. You can find us now at our new home on the web http://www.literallygems.com/. Our new website, while full of life, does not (yet) have a blog. Hmm... I said yet when, in fact, I doubt we will ever have one. The team blog concept just did not pan out for us. Even after the trouble of fonally getting all signed up, we were all just too busy to keep up with the thing.

I think now, this blog will become what most people's blogs are, just an online journal for me. I am going to try very hard (for real this time) to keep up with the thing. I actually have some pretty exciting things to share coming up. Namely, I'll be in AFRICA next month for a study visit. I REALLY want to chronicle that trip here. Aside from still not knowing enough French to fill a thimble, I'm very excited about the trip.

So, let's see how this goes... Any wagers? Will I keep up with it this time or not?