buying fabric, Youssou N'dour, and PANCAKES

This weekend was certainly eventful.

Saturday morning I went with Shani and her mom (who's name I don't know because Shani never calls her anything except "my maman") to buy fabric for my Tabaski outfit. Tabaski is the Muslim New year, known as Eid al-Adha in other muslim countries. (And yes, I had to look that up to tell you, everyone here calls it Tabaski.) It's a very big deal, even more important that Korite, the Senegalese name for the festival at the end of Ramadan that the Arabic world calls Eid. For Korite, all of the American students had been expecting a huge party, so all of us were a little confused when everyone got dressed up and then sat around all day talking, just like they do everyday. For Tabaski, my host family is taking me to Kaolack, a city in the interior of Senegal, where we have even more family.

Getting dressed is a big part of both Korite and Tabaski (even if it is hard for us Toubabs to understand, since we don't seem to do much once we're dressed up) so you have to get nice clothes made, and get them made far in advance, because everyone else in your neighborhood is doing the same thing. In Senegal, there is no such thing as buying nice clothing. You can buy jeans, t-shirts, skirts etc, but for nice clothes you go to the fabric market, pick out the tissue you want (fabric, sorry, there are some french words creeping into my english vocabulary) then take it to the tailor and describe the outfit you want, with the help of several glossy magazines, which look like catalogs to me, but seem to be more like suggestion guides.

In Saint Louis, I got an outfit made at a good price because the tailor was the brother of one of the Senegalese students in our program. (Later we found out brother actually meant cousin, but it's best just to go with these things.) Shani, Lauren, Emily and I wore our outfits to school last Friday. I had thought I drew a lot of attention on the streets just by being a toubab, but it's nothing to how much attention we got by being toubabs in Senegalese clothing. We were hilarious.

Anyway, buying anything in a Senegalese market goes much better when you have someone Senegalese actually helping you. Last weekend Shani and I went to Sandaga so I could buy some earbuds, and we could look around. We made a friend as soon as we got out of the car rapid, and he was a great help with my earbuds, but afterward insisted we come to his shop, an adventure which ended with us in a sketchy upstairs office bargaining for purses that we weren't sure we wanted and really couldn't afford. Shani's mom however, is large and impressive and in control at all times, and no one bothered us when we were with her. We went early, because she said we could better prices if we went to the distributors instead of the stalls. We found fabric we liked, but since the distributor woulkd sell us 30 meters of it or nothing, we ended up having to find something similar in the stalls after all. My fabric, in case you're curious, is royal purple and slightly shiny, with designs on it. (I have yet to sucessfully load any pictures on to the internet, but I'm trying I swear, it'll happen one day.) We went to the tailor after the market, and hopefully will get our clothes before too long... but it's Senegal, so we'll see. I'm learning not to expect puncuality.

That night Youssou N'dour was playing at his club, so we all went to see him. A lot of the Senegalese we told about it before hand laughed at us, I guess it's a bit of a stereotypical thing to do, since he's so well known, and by their reactions I was excpecting it to be a major toabab scene. There were certainly more toababs than in some places, but it was still at least a 90% Senegalese crowd. we got seats in the balcony when we got there (around one) and watched the opening act and chatted. Around 1:40 people started crowding the stage even though nothing new was happening; we figured it meant he was coming on soon and a few of us went up to the front too. My personal bubble (which I'm learning is very American) was certainly challenged by that concert, there wasn't space to move your feet, and if your fell, you'd only go about 6 inches before you hit someone. When Youssou N'dour came on, the crowd went nuts. He had a guy with him, dressed all in white (who is apparently very famous too, which makes it embarressing that I can't remember his name) who revved the crowd up before Youssou N'dour actually came on. He had a pretty big band with him, nine people all told. There were four percussionists besides the trap player, one playing the tama, and three playing drums a bit like jembes, though I think they have a diferent name. There was a lot of call and response through out the concert, which was cool even if I knew none of the responses. (At one point, he yelled "Est-ce que vous etes fatigue?" (are you tired) to which of course the audience responded "Non!!" but I couldn't help thinking, well yes actually.) The audience went wild, every so often someone would jump on stage and dance mballax, until they either jumped off themselves, or got pulled off the stage by the bouncer, who sat on the side of the stage waiting for such an occurance. One guy gave him money, another jumped on stage and got Youssou N'dour to try on his glasses. We got really close to the stage, and at times he was no more than maybe 6 feet away. In some ways it was a boon that I had no room, because it was easier to get away with just swaying in place and calling that dancing: no matter how I try I will never be able to dance like the Senegalese. Eventually we all got tired of being bandied about by the crowd, so we went back to the balcony to sit. It was harder to get back than it had been to get to the stage, instead of a crowd in front of the stage like it had been, the club was solid people. I stepped on quite a few toes to get back to the other students and when I got there I realized I was in fact, exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open. He finished around 4:40, with no encore.

The next morning Shani had all the students in our program over to her house, and we made pancakes with real maple syrup, and scrambled eggs with tomato and green pepper and only a little bit of oil. I'm almost emabrressed to admit how happy something that American made me.