A new member of the family

Once again, I'm doing a lousy job keeping up with this blog...but I have a story to share that is cool enough to draw me back into the blogosphere. Apologies for the long absence...I would pledge to do better, but I'll leave the empty promises for the candidates in the Presidential debates. My schedule is about to get a lot less crazy, so maybe November will be a more prolific month of blogging--we'll see.
Anyhow, I got back to Dakar last night from a week-long excursion to the southeast corner of Senegal. We spent most of our time in a town called Kedougou, but we were also fortunate enough to have a three-day stay in a village. The group was divided between six different villages, each representing a different ethnic group. I was assigned to a village called Baxo 1, where four large families of the Diallonke ethic group live.
I stayed in the compound of the "chef du village," Hady Keita, with two other SIT students, Megan and Renata (side story: there was only one small bed for all three of us, so in the rural African spirit of sharing, we got cozy for two pretty hilarious nights...I think I was the envy of every man in the village, but it was less a male fantasy and more just...crowded and sweaty. But fun nonetheless.).
The village was gorgeous, situated on a narrow plateau between the Gambia river and a small mountain. Our second day there, Megan, myself, and one of the elder men of the village named Mamadou went on a long walk on a dirt road that connects a string of tiny villages running all the way to Guinée.
When we returned from our hike, we were informed that while we were gone, a baby girl was born in our family! The baby, born in the hut next to our cramped quarters, is the daughter of Hady (the chief) and his second wife, Ramatouleye. We went in to visit the beautiful, healthy baby, who was delivered by her grandmother on the dirt floor of the hut. It was truly a miracle.
As if that wasn't enough, immediately after we met the still-unnamed baby, Mamadou carefully explained to us that traditionally, if a baby girl is born while guests are staying in the home, it is the privilege of the guests to name the baby. Thus, it was up to us to choose the name of the baby--"What she will be called until the day of her death," as Mamadou told us.
What a responsibility! We were pretty stupefied--I couldn't imagine entrusting three strangers to name my daughter. But Mamadou and Hady insisted, telling us that we should choose a "vrai nom Américain" so that as the baby grows up, she can recount the story of her three American "parents" who gave to her her foreign name.
We considered the matter overnight, and finally, we decided to name the baby, KARINA, after my sister, which is pretty thrilling. We chose Karina for a number of reasons: first, it is a pretty name, and it will not be unreasonably difficult for the baby or her family to pronounce in Diallonke--she won't get laughed at for having a goofy name like "Ashley" or "Elizabeth." We also thought it would be cool to give her the name of one of our most beloved family members, to deepen our connection with her and her family.
Neither Karina nor her family are aware of the name yet. In West Africa, babies are usually named at a ceremony one week after the day of birth, and before that day, nobody is supposed to know the name. Thus, we wrote the name down and put it in an envelope along with an explanation and a photo of Karina Walker (Karina #1), and on Friday, the family will open the envelope and proclaim the name at a big party "with lots of meat," as Mamadou told me.
Unfortunately, we had to come back to Dakar, so we won't be able to be there when Karina hears her name spoken for the first time. I'll be able to call one of the young men in the village later in the day for a report, but I'm really going to miss being there.
It's an overwhelming feeling to name a baby, and I still can't believe that Hady and his family gave us the honor of naming his daughter. Luckily, we were able to name her after somebody pretty wonderful. Again, I'm staggered by the generosity and openness of Senegalese people, and I hope that it will be possible to maintain a connection with my "daughter" Karina as she grows up in her remote village. Her life will not be easy, and she probably won't have many choices in a poor area where women are expected to get married and start having children at around age 16. But her family is gentle and generous, and I pray, optimistically, that she will find joy and peace there.
So there's another Karina in the family, halfway around the world, and she's as beautiful as Karina #1. Pretty cool.

Blake returns to cyberspace! At last!

Hey everybody,
Sorry it’s been so long since my last post—it’s been a really busy two weeks and I’m still adjusting to my schedule, trying to find good times to write. I have class from 8:30 to 6:00 everyday, then I head directly home to my host family, the Diallos, and spend time eating and talking with them, so I don’t have a lot of extra alone time in my life right now. With the onset of Ramadan, however, I now have a solid block of free time in the middle of the day, formerly known as “lunchtime,” and writing helps distract me from daydreams of milkshakes and stuffed crust pizza.
The program is going really well so far—the other students are interesting people, classes are going well (although Wolof is really difficult—it’s hard to learn a language when you have absolutely no familiar sounds or word roots to latch onto), and I love my family. I have a really sweet mother, or “Yaay” in Wolof, a nephew named Mohammad who has more reckless energy than any other one-year-old on the face of the planet, three sisters, and four brothers. I share a room with one particular brother named Karim, who is a pretty interesting character—he has no formal job, per se, but at different times I have seen him get paid to do each of the following things: selling cell phones, yard work, arranging the affairs of two overweight French businessmen who are going to a village in eastern Senegal to buy large quantities of gold (this one is pretty shady), selling coconuts, dealing stereo equipment, distributing large quantities of bananas from Côte d’Ivoire, selling boubous (traditional Senegalese clothing worn by men), trading in parts for motorbikes, selling video cameras, and running courier services for local businesses. He also plans to assemble the first collection of crossword puzzles in Wolof and sell them to newspapers and schools. He is coming and going constantly, but he is one of the most dynamic, charismatic people I’ve ever met, and we’re having a lot of fun together, although our sleeping schedules rarely align (he usually comes to bed about an hour before I wake up in the morning).
My host mother is very lovely as well. She’s widowed, but really fills the house with a loving, motherly presence. She lectures me about caring for my own mother, telling me that Americans don’t know how to honor their parents—but at least we’re not as bad as the French, who “don’t even care if their mother dies.” She is very funny and she’s especially proud of me for fasting.
The Ramadan fast has been a wonderful discovery. I love the sense of familial closeness it brings to our house—as the hour to break the fast approaches, everybody gathers together to wait, and afterwards we spend the night together, eating and drinking. During the day, there is a sense of austere piousness in the streets—people are warm and friendly, but mannerisms are more reserved. At night, however, the mood is jovial and festive. Fasting is pretty tough, but it gets easier each day. Going without water is harder than going without food, especially in the heat.
Unfortunately, I just found out that the only other boy in my program has decided to return home—he’s not feeling well and he’s been having a really hard time adjusting to the new culture…which leaves me the lone vestige of manhood among eighteen students.
Ok, sorry this post is kind of a brusque summary—I’ll try to keep the blog more up-to-date, with more detailed and interesting posts, from now on. Take care!

Alphousseyni Kouyate shreds the kora (part II)

The second piece (please see the last post below, sorry but Imeem won’t let me put two songs in the same post) is really interesting--I’ve never heard it anywhere before, it’s called "Sibinnorbakari," I think. It starts with a rhythmically free introductory section, then at about the third minute it really kicks into gear: Alphousseyni plays a gorgeous, contrapuntal pattern in the lower middle register of the instrument. That he manages to maintain the elevated sweetness in his voice while outlining the intricate kora accompaniment is really incredible--you hear a lot of kora players, even really good ones, back off of the tricky parts while they sing (the focal point during such passages are the lyrics anyway, so usually the kora is understated), but Alphousseyni’s fingers keep flying across the thick bass strings with ease. Damn.
So there are a few more tunes from Senegal. I’ll try to keep posting music (including other people’s playing--Alphousseyni is just so good I can’t help myself) as I record it and I hope that the technical side of things is working--I can’t test the mp3’s embedded on the blog page because the internet connection in Pekine is too slow, so if it’s not working, let me know and I’ll try to fix it.
Hope you are all doing well, and I miss you!

Alphousseyni Kouyate shreds the kora (part I)

This morning (August 28), Alphousseyni and I had a marathon recording session at his uncles’ house. The "recording studio" was pretty haphazard--he sat cross-legged on the floor for two hours and sang into the microphone that I had taped to a stick and leaned up against a chair. Alpho played his kora with typical elegance the entire time, and his singing was incredibly on-key; we finished nine songs, each one a live track with vocals and kora, and he never once needed a second take on any song. I realized anew today what a rare talent Alphousseyni is--even by the high standards of the Mandinka community here, he is a standout. I personally have never heard a kora player, live or on record, with a more beautiful voice, and he plays with the effortless grace of a true master. I am pretty lucky to have fallen into his lap as his protectorate this month; I am really living, eating, and sleeping with (and being kept awake at night by the snoring of) an artist who might not have many rivals in the entire world, seriously. With comparable talents in the US, I sincerely think Alphousseyni would be famous; here in Dakar, though, he is sadly just another highly skilled, professionally trained musicians who can’t make a living. I wish my equipment and feeble skills as a recording engineer were better--my sloppy work does not do his artistry justice, but at least you can get an idea.
I’ll post two very different selections from the songs I recorded this morning, the first of which is a really beautiful piece called "Maryama." If you listen closely towards the end of the song, you will hear Alphousseyni sing for me in the traditional manner--he bestows blessings on me for being kind, and praises Karina and my mom (I think he forgot your name, Dad, sorry), and also says that Washington State is beautiful. Anyhow, I love the sound of the kora in this piece--he plays a looping pattern in a high register and the effect is really mesmerizing.
Please see the next post above for the second piece!

The sounds of Bounkiling

I recorded Alphousseyni playing this song late one night last week...he was really tired and actually I had been intending to record one of the other family members that evening, but he (Papis, Alphousseyni's younger brother) left unexpectedly, so Alphousseyni obliged a couple of tunes dispite the fact that he was exhausted from a concert earlier that night. His tiredness lent a sweet softness to his voice, I think, and I really like the way this recording turned out. I haven't had a chance to mix it properly yet, but here is a "rough draft" so you can get a small taste of the music I've been immersed in the past few weeks. Hope you enjoy it.

Wednesday, August 22

Well, it is my last morning in the village of Bounkiling before we head back to the bright lights (and internet connectedness!) of the big city: Dakar. It has been an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime experience, the riches of which I think I will be "unpacking" for quite some time, both personally and academically. I think it would be kind of boring to give a long account of the trip, so I’ll tell you briefly what I did and where I was and finish with a short story and some reflections from the trip.

The trip down to Bounkiling was definitely a highlight memorable experience. Before the trip, I was under the impression that I would be traveling with a few musicians (kora master (and warden of Blake for the month of August) Alphousseyni and his band: Cheikh (bass), Omar (drums), Barra (percussion), and the oft-disgruntled Louis (sound technician)) on their short tour of the Casamance region. I discovered on the night of our departure that we were actually traveling with a 40-person delegation of people from Dakar who were born and raised in Bounkiling, venturing down to the village to offer the community support and condolences after four young men from Bounkiling died last winter when an overcrowded boat sunk in the Atlantic en route, illegally, to Spain (this was actually a really major news story in West Africa, and this event is thought to have greatly influenced the Senegalese presidential elections in February). Anyhow, instead of an intimate journey with a small cadre of touring musicians, I found myself packed into a small van (capacity...probably 15 or 20) with 40 people. We left at midnight, and I was literally curled into the fetal position for 10 hours with a backpack and an electric bass in my lap. By the time we reached the Gambian border (the crossing of which involved a series of shady bribes that maybe I will describe later--suffice to say that the Gambia represents everything wrong with post-colonial Africa) I had only distant memories of what it felt like to have legs, and I felt more profoundly dirty than I have ever felt in my life. Still, it was a great time. I sat in the back with a bunch of hilarious, chain-smoking Senegalese guys and laughed my ass off for nearly the entire trip, at least when I wasn’t wincing from the pain of repeatedly kneeing myself in the face. It was great.

Bounkiling is wonderful. I have been staying here with the extended Kouyate family in their compound. There are about 15 people living here of all different ages, from the 100+ year-old grandmother (pictured above) to a toddler who screams with pure, unrestrained terror every time she sees me because she has never seen a white person before (admittedly, I look pretty strange here...I haven’t seen another "toubab" since leaving Dakar). Of everybody here, my favorite is most definitely Ami, who is the wife of Morikeba Kouyate, my kora teacher in Chicago. She has really taken me under her wing--cooking for me and caring for me as if I were her own son (she actually said yesterday that I was her favorite son, which was confusing to everybody, especially to her actual son Sirifo who was standing nearby...awkward). Anyway, Ami is amazing, and our relationship is pretty hilarious. Like nearly everybody here, she speaks no French, and I obviously speak no Mandinka, so the entirety of our relationship revolves around her laughing at everything I do. I learned the phrase "adiata baake" (very good), and I say that to her once every ten minutes or so and every time, without fail, she laughs nearly to the point of tears. It is actually a good thing we’re leaving tomorrow, because once the humor of me saying this phrase loses its luster for Ami, we wouldn’t really have much to talk about. But for the time being, it is great. There are far too many people here whom I now know and love for me to describe here, but Ami is a great example of the incredible hospitality, kindness, and sense of humor that people here have shown me.

We've been in Bounkiling for most of the past two weeks, except for 4 days we spent playing concerts in Tanaf, which is a village near the Guinea-Bissau border where Alphousseyni grew up. Although Tanaf is incredibly beautiful, I have to say that these 4 days were probably the low point of the trip--it rained a lot and there wasn’t much to do there...and I forgot to bring any books from Bounkiling. It was still fun, but I was glad to get back here to Bounkiling, where I can barely walk across the yard without somebody shoving a plate of delicious food in my face.

So that is basically a nutshell version of where I have been and what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks. I have learned so, so much, both from an academic perspective and, more importantly, personally as well. I would say that perhaps the most vital thing I have learned and reflected on while I’ve been here is the ability of laughter and humor to connect people. As I said, most people here do not speak French, and if they do, it is their third or fourth language (after Mandinka, Wolof, and Fulani), so they are less able to meet me halfway with my feeble French. Thus, communication has been a pretty major challenge and at times I’ve felt pretty frustrated and futile, though I’ve really bonded with the few people who do speak French, some English, and of course, Alphousseyni, who speaks brilliant English and has been a gracious translator on numerous occasions.

Oddly enough, the most effective means I have had to interact with people is...dancing. I never, ever would have predicted this, but it has been the single most valuable tool at my disposal this entire trip. I think it all started back in Dakar at one of the naming ceremonies I attended. At these events (as at most musical events here except the discotheques) the women dance and the men sit at the sides, watching, playing cards, or just generally trying to look cool and nonchalant. Anyhow, at this naming ceremony, during the last song Alphousseyni played, an older woman dancing with the rest of the ladies grabbed my hand, and I eagerly obliged her a dance. I don’t know if it was a backlog of unfulfilled urges to dance earlier in the day or what, but I just kind of decided to...go for it, I guess. I started dancing in the most ridiculous way I possibly could--I have no idea where I was pulling these moves from, I have never danced like that in my life. I went high, I went low, I shook every part of my body with wild abandon, and it actually wasn’t all that bad--it certainly was not good, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was strange enough to be really funny, I think. Anyhow, it caused a huge sensation--there were maybe 50 beautiful Senegalese women chanting "Toubab! Toubab! Toubab!" clapping, and laughing hysterically. Alphousseyni and his band had to stop playing because they were laughing so hard. I am not making this up--it was literally the most overwhelming response I have ever received for anything I have ever done, good or bad. After the ceremony I had 20 women lined up to shake my hand and ask me to do another little jig for them, which I happily obliged. Anyhow, somehow the legend of that fateful afternoon has preceded me wherever I go now--people I have never met before somehow know about the "dancing toubab" and tell me they are looking forward to the next concert so they can see me groove. I danced at the first concert here in Bounkiling and the next morning Alphousseyni told me that the entire village was talking about it, and I have been asked (or nearly forced, on a couple of occasions) to dance almost every time music can be heard. It is actually getting pretty difficult to up the ante every time...I twisted my knee pretty badly during one ambitiously-choreographed maneuver and had to limp around the next day. Of course, however, I gulped down enough Advil to bust a move on the dance floor again that night.

In the midst of all of this silliness, it became clear to me that laughter (and the ability to laugh at myself) was connecting me with the people around me when language could not. My fairly extreme cultural displacement, coupled with my inability to talk to most people here, could have been (and, admittedly, occasionally was) really isolating, alienating, and lonely. My salvation, unexpectedly, came from just making a fool out of myself and showing that I had a sense of humor. Once I started laughing with the people here, our interactions and awkward exchanges solidified into relationships, and this laughter even paved the way for more serious and meaningful engagement. I guess that my most important move so far here in Senegal was that first little shimmy up in Dakar. Travel essentials: malaria pills, sleeping bag, water bottle, and a few choice dance moves.

Off to Casamance!

Today is the last day in Pekine/Dakar before we take off for a ten-day journey through the southern part of the country, a region called Casamance. The most important destination is Bounkiling, the village where the Kouyate family is from. To get to this area, we will take a huge bus in the middle of the night, which must stop midway to cross the Gambian border—twice, actually: we will cut straight through the middle of this tiny, narrow country which divides Senegal into two parts.

The past few days have been really great, but I have barely had a moment to myself to reflect on all of the new sights, sounds, tastes, and smells. On the other hand, it is probably best to think about the smells as little as possible…

The highlights so far have definitely been the Mandinka music festival on Saturday and the naming ceremony on Sunday. The music festival was organized by Alphousseyni, along with a committee of other individuals in the Mande ethnic community in Pekine. As with everything in Senegal (at least that I have seen so far), the festival was a lengthy, drawn-out affair—the music didn’t even commence until around 8:00 PM. Alphousseyni told me that music would start immediately after lunch, at about 3 PM, which brings to mind another characteristic I’m beginning to apprehend about life in Senegal: everything takes much longer than you expect, and thus everything happens much later than you say it will. Dinner, which occurs at “9 PM,” is actually eaten at midnight. If you say you will go to a relative’s house for lunch you might show up in the early evening. An appointment for 10 AM might be actualized at noon or 1 PM, and EVERYTHING is put on hold for a conversation, especially a conversation over the thick, frothy “Ataff” (delicious Senegalese tea—I’m learning how to make it right now, but it is harder than it looks and usually people just laugh at me when I try to pour it). It takes some getting used to, but it reflects the friendliness and generous hospitality of people here—consideration for your family, friends, and neighbors takes precedence over the trifling commitments that I am used to taking so seriously (although I am prone to being late myself…just ask my Mom). “Time waits for time,” Alphousseyni says, and in Senegal, at least, he seems to be correct.

Anyhow, the music festival was great—a famous female singer was present and sang some songs, but I wasn’t nearly as impressed with her as I was with Alphousseyni’s band, which is huge (admittedly, probably too big: even Alphousseyni says “There are too many people on the stage…I need to kick some of these people out of my band.”), loud, and awesome.

The naming ceremony was incredible, and I am beginning to realize that the things I am so privileged to be experiencing are really unique—there would have been no way for me to see this kind of celebration—especially in this neighborhood—if Alphousseyni hadn’t taken me there. I already described the unique way he played kora at the naming ceremony, but I can’t get that sound out of my head. Hopefully I’ll be able to make some good recordings of him playing with the two “boys” (I think they’re actually my age) furiously smacking the sides and top of his beautiful instrument with sticks. I guess koras aren’t really that fragile after all!

Just for your information (all three of you who read this blog), after tomorrow I will be pretty out of touch…there are no “cybers” in the rural area we will be traveling in for the next ten days, so I will not have access to email or the “lime green wonder” until I get back. My phone will still work, but other than that I’ll be cut off from the outside world…I will probably be a changed person—much wiser, with even more remarkably high levels of consciousness and self-actualization—after ten days of forced separation between me and technological sophistication. Kind of like Thoreau, only in Senegal, which is much cooler than New England. Actually, I will probably miss whining on this blog and having the opportunity to check scores on ESPN.com.

Hope you are doing well and miss you all!