My week of swimming in Dakar

Last week I was in Dakar, as you may have noticed from the photos. I was there for my secondary project - working with the Piscine Olympique and the Senegalese National Swim Team. For the first time ever, the African Swimming Championships took place in a West African country and Dakar played host to some of the best swimmers on the continent. The annual Dakar-Gorée, 5km swim was included at the end of the Championships as the final event, in which I was a participant.

I started the week with the informational meeting for all delegations. The meeting was bilingual - French and English and when the translator wasn’t getting confused - translating English to English and French to French, it went pretty smoothly. The most interesting part was when the head of the Ivorian delegation launched into a 10 minute speech he had apparently prepared for the occasion - he seemed like an eccentric type. For those of you who are counting, there were 17 countries from all over the continent represented - Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mali, Senegal, Cote D’Ivoire, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya, Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Madagascar, Seychelles and Mauritius.

The next day, Monday, September 11th, the meet started. It was amazing to be around competitive swimming again! Warm-ups, heats, touch pads, it’s all wonderful. I was unsure what I would be doing to help until it was determined that the Senegalese woman who was to be the English announcer had not yet arrived and the meet was about to start. I jumped in and was doing ok, with the couple swim meets I’ve been to in my lifetime and taking directions from the meet director. The meet director was a man from Kenya, it probably helped me out that he was from an English-speaking country and didn’t speak any French, I ended up doing a lot of translation throughout the week as well. The announcing was going fairly well until I got to the name of a girl from Madagascar - the Malagasy are apparently notorious for long names. Tojohani Andrianmanjatoarimanana is her name, and no I’m not kidding. The first time her name came up, I have to admit that I panicked and only read her first name, but after a couple times, I figured that saying half of her last name is acceptable and became more comfortable with it.

During this first session, the meet director learned first hand how things are done here in Senegal, which is apparently different from how things run in Kenya. If you haven’t gotten the idea from my previous emails, things here run inefficiently, chronically late and that’s if they’re running at all. The microphones worked about half the time, the music for between heats was not played at the right time and was always the same, kinda bizarre song, and the all too common, too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen syndrome that seems to take over at many events here. The meet director was not impressed. On more than one occasion I heard him say "What is wrong with these people!?"

After announcing the first session I was told by a number of people that I needed to slow down so I made a mental note and tried to work on that later on. Then the head of the Angolan delegation came up to me and in addition to asking me to slow down, asked if there was anything I could do about my accent. Hmmm. I do a great imitation of my little sister, I may be able to pull off that thick upper mid-west accent, or even a couple words in the Philly accent but I doubt any of those would be MORE understandable to someone who speaks Portuguese. I told her I would slow down and that I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to do with my accent.
For the evening session, the Senegalese announcer was sure to show up on time so my new job was to hunt down the top finishers in each event, make sure they’re dressed in their team warm-ups and ready for awards. Well I guess the new announcer’s skills were not up to par because the meet director told me about half way through the session that I would be announcing the rest of the meet. The (Senegalese) French announcer was also replaced by a member of the Moroccan delegation, so we were sort of a team…a team that communicates in broken French and broken English that is.

Over the course of the week I got better, more enthusiastic, with my announcing, and every evening the Senegalese crowd did a great job supporting their swimmers. The most success by the Senegalese team was had by the star of their team - Malick Fall, who took Silver in the 100 Breaststroke and Bronze in the 50 Breaststroke. By the last day, the stands were more full than they had been all week and there was an authentic Senegalese drumming group in the stands. They played during warm-ups and even during the races, it really felt like the *African* Swimming Championships. South Africa ended up taking home the most medals, with Algeria and Tunisia rounding out the top three, Senegal finished 9th.

All week I also got to see the inner workings of swimming in Africa and a different side of Senegal swimming. CANA - Confédération Africain de Natation, is the governing body of African Swimming and the group that put on the meet. I met and got to know people who are a part of CANA and people in many delegations, including the President of FINA (Fédération International de Natation - the governing body of World Swimming) who happens to be Algerian. I was even invited to come announce at the next African Championships that will be held in 2 years in Cairo.

Thanks to the short sessions, I was able to get into the pool every day to do a little training for the event that would finish up the week, the Dakar-Gorée 5km ocean swim. My chances of placing well were diminished by the fact that many of the swimmers who participated in the Championships swam the open water race as well, as it was officially part of the meet (promoted heavily because Open Water is now an Olympic event that FINA would like to become ‘the Marathon of swimming’). The race started on a beach near a nice hotel east of downtown Dakar. When I got there, about an hour ahead of start time, I was greeted by 8 wonderful, supportive volunteers who helped me prepare for the race. The start was chaotic as with any open water start but I did worm my way into starting with the Championships swimmers and not with the rest of the riffraff (the hundreds of other people who signed up, including Peace Corps’ Doctor for the West Africa Region and the American Ambassador to Senegal). This seemed like a nice advantage until 15 seconds into the swim, we looked back and saw the riffraff coming right at us - they were supposed to wait 5 minutes or so. The swim itself went pretty smoothly, I hung with some swimmers from Zimbabwe for a while but was able to pull away about half way through. The most difficult thing was keeping track of where I was going because the buoys were not always visible with waves and whatnot. I had a little excitement when I swam into a plastic bag stew about 1km off shore and then again near the finish when I swam into a dead puffer fish and cut my finger - I actually screamed under water (out of surprise) when that happened. That’s when I sped up a little as I couldn’t remember if those things were poisonous so I thought I’d better hurry if my heart was going to stop in a matter of minutes - thankfully it didn’t. The finish was exciting, there were a whole bunch of cheering people (13 for me!), an inflatable archway, people handing out warm water and ice-cold Red Bull (one of the sponsors) to drink and some sort of sandwich I gave to the first kid that asked me for it. I finished 27th (around 10th for women) with a time of 1 hour and 25 minutes, ok for not really knowing where I was going most of the time. I hung out with friends and relaxed on the Island for the rest of the afternoon as a reward.

Aside from swimming, the week included staying and eating meals with the Peace Corps Country Director and his family. This isn’t really normal for volunteers but they live in the same neighborhood as the pool, and boy am I glad they do! A large, beautiful home complete with air-conditioning, a nice, fast computer, a western-style kitchen, I’m telling you, it was better than a hotel! Even though I have found that I now get stuffed up when I’m near air-conditioning, it was almost worth it to walk into a cool room after a hot day on the pool deck.
The food was delicious and on my birthday they treated me to steak quesadillas, refried beans and chocolate birthday cake.

All in all an unforgettable week.

Senegalese Birthday Bash

About a month ago I decided that I would throw myself an American-style birthday party at my host family’s compound. Since tacos are becoming more American by the minute and since tacos are doable when your kitchen is a gas tank, I chose them for the menu. Thanks to my parents and the postal services of the US and Senegal, I was also able to serve some Duncan Heinz cake, complete with frosting and candles.

My friend Connor helped me with the preparations and decided that he would refry some beans to make the meal even more authentic. I even bought cheese, many of the people who attended had never eaten cheese before, and my host mother was shocked at how much I paid for it. We got my host fam to help out with cutting up the veggies but with minutes to go in the food prep, the rain started. We moved indoors and it turned from the fiesta I had planned into some sort of strange half-breed when Senegalese fete forces took over. I wanted everyone to serve themselves – mostly because I knew not many would want all the veggies on their taco, but the women went into serve mode and started making tacos for everyone. They were enjoyed for the most part, I heard lots of “Neex na’s” – it’s delicious, but what everyone really liked was the cake.

After cake, several totally unexpected presents appeared. I really should’ve said no presents but I guess I didn’t think I had to. After the photographer showed up, each person took turns handing me their present and posing for photos – I now have each photo in an album to prove it. On a side-note the photography here tends to have sort of a strange tint to it so that dark skin looks less dark. Because of this, my skin, which is quite tan for me, looks like I just finished a nice Wisconsin winter. I’m sure if I really wasn’t tan I’d look sheet white in the photos. I didn’t open the presents right away, as I learned from Maguette’s birthday party. Since the rain had now stopped, that was a good time for the American music that I had planned for the kids to dance to. I played my totally random mix that included Dixie Chicks, U2, Thievery Corporation, etc. The kids started out enthusiastic enough but were soon asking for Senegalese music. This is when I put to use my new-found talent of Senegalese-style refusing, or ‘ma buñ!’ Senegalese toddlers get a lot of use out of this one and along with saying ‘ma buñ!’ there is this sort of half chicken wing flap(just the down motion) that one does with one’s arm or arms. Along with that I said, “this is my birthday, I refuse to play Senegalese music!” Though in the end I gave in and played a little.

My presents ended up including fabric – a great gift since clothes are so fun to have made here, pop corn (they call it puff corn here), two second-hand t-shirts – one that used to be my host-bro’s and another XL with a big picture of a deer on it from some place in Tennessee, and three second-hand stuffed animals. So I’m actually still trying to understand the stuffed animals. I turned 27. Here I guess birthday parties are something that only kids do, and also my host dad told me he was trying to find a cat since he won’t allow me to have an actual cat, he gave me a small stuffed tiger.

Even with the rain, this ended up being one of the best and I’m sure it’ll remain one of my most memorable birthdays.

The Joy of going to the Tailor

Before coming to Senegal, I had never know the joy of having clothes made, compared to this buying off the rack is so boring I don't know why I ever did it. Usually how it goes down here is that you go to the market and pick out some awesomely gaudy and colorful fabric called wax. Wax comes in designs that include lil baby chicks with hens, the Yankees symbol, the Pope, pretty much anything. After you have your fabric you go to the tailor, you can choose from hundreds at the market or sometimes a friend of yours is an aspiring tailor - don't go to the friend unless you want to hand over cash for something that doesn't fit, looks terrible and everyone will laugh at you for wearing. After finding a tailor you give them the fabric, tell them what you want and come back the next day to collect your boubou/have any adjustments made.

If you find a real gem of a tailor he will be able to make western style clothes as well, usually by copying or looking at a photo is best. A voluteer recently had the great idea to bring catalogues back from the states so I was able to have some J Crew stuff made here for about one 50th the price. Pants and a dress set me back about $15 total. The days between dropping off the fabric and the catalogue, I was positively giddy, waiting impatiently for what I was sure was going to be the perfect dress and pants. I went back the next day, and as I should've expected, the pants fit ok, and the dress needed to be altered. In the end nothing fit as perfectly as I'd hoped but it was still fun.