Occupy the Obelisque

Class yesterday felt a bit tedious.  Struggling through the language and sentences of The Scarlet Letter, we were all feeling a bit tired by 4:30, so I asked about the headline in the papers that said this would be a tense week in Dakar.  They laughed about it, knowing well the papers here prefer the inflammatory to the factual in most cases.  But that launched us back into a political discussion, specifically one about the relationship between citizenship, activism, and the Senegalese mind set.  This was all colored by a deep cynicism/fatalism which I questioned pretty aggressively.  Is the ubiquitous "Insh'Allah" (If God wills it) more language or psychology?  Does it create passivity and fatalism?  The response was mixed and discussion was difficult.  It became impossible after one student admitted he was a fan of President Wade.  The class exploded.  Senegalese conflict tends to be loud and aggressive- but rarely escalates beyond that.  I've seen this among kids in the streets as well as adults.  Yesterday it came to my classroom.  I tried to descalate, to encourage people to listen.  They were trying to convince me, talking to me not each other, and I said, "You need to work this out among yourselves.  I'm leaving in two weeks.  This is your country."  That seemed to hit them, although the rage over a "Wadiste" in our own ranks was still hard to accept.

 While I've sensed a general settling into the campaign here with newspaper coverage of the candidates dominating the front pages of the papers, the opposition groups M23 and Y En a Marre have decided to use an Occupy Wall Street / Tahrir Square technique, no doubt invoking those moments intentionally but also seeking to create an ongoing point of conflict and dialogue. Their language suggests they realize the violence of the earlier protests was a problem, and they emphasize peaceful protest more than ever now.   Tonight, they plan to occupy the Place de L'Obelisque,

but this is what awaits them.   At this point, the only people occupying the place are the reporters waiting for some action to fill their papers, web and tv screens.  The stroll around with impunity while the Senegalese walk around the edges of the square watching.  The M23 and Y En A Marre members were nowhere in sight when I left.  This armored police water truck is probably the one that ran over the student a couple weeks ago.  I've also seen it in the Place D'Independence downtown when protests were threatened there.  It seems to be the police showpiece.  Perhaps a hundred gendarmes ringed the square, some in trucks, some standing, and some, like this group, taking advantage of bus stop benches to wait for whatever happens tonight.  A Reuters photographer I spoke with said it's too cold tonight, nobody will come out, and that the action will happen tomorrow when the opposition has planned a march to the Place D'Independence, close to the president's palace.

wa(de)faced

Popular frustration with President Wade continues to show up on his billboards.  I've seen others that I couldn't photograph at the time.  I've only one opponent's sign defaced so far.  The protests have continued peacefully but without as much attention.  Wade has predicted victory in the first round on February 26th, and a few people have said there will be violence afterwards if that's the case.  Others have said he can't win, but many fear a fair election is impossible.  

Ngor Island

 Somewhat randomly, I decided to head to Ngor Island a small place just a few hundred meters off the peninsula physically, but definitely further psychologically.  Like Goree Island, it has no vehicles and sweet walking paths.  It's much small than Goree, however, and wonderfully low key.  It has some art galleries and a few resident artists as well, and some were quite good.  Surfing and surf kayaking are big, and it was also mostly clean as well.

This picture doesn't do the scene justice, but this apparently domesticated pelican follows his owner around the island.  I'd seen them earlier standing around, and was surprised enough.  Later, however, they walked down to the beech together, got a fish from someone who was cleaning them, and then walked back home, apparently.  The man is holding the fish here, but the pelican was following him before this as well.  It's really a gigantic bird,

Below are a painted wall w/ a doorway that opened onto the sea, and a found object sculpture that felt more lively than this picture does justice.

The Scarlet Letter

 Before starting class today, I stopped upstairs and found Pape buried in papers.  He was reading and marking from these stacks that look incomprehensible to me.  And yes, he's on strike, and yes, there are no classes going on, but Phd candidates are still taking oral exams and other students still have to pass to the next level which is what these papers are from.

Here are some of my students reading The Scarlet Letter.  We're still getting through about four to five pages in a two hour class, with reading, reading aloud, paraphrase, translation and discussion.  Today's question was why does the text, and presumably Hawthorne reject Puritan law?  If it's the law of the religion and the state, and if Hester broke it, then doesn't she deserve the penalty?  This more conservative voice was quickly countered by some others, and that lead to a good discussion of church state separation.

The hardest part of the class is the fact that these desks are fixed to the floor and immovable.  It's impossible to get into a circle, and only a few of them have joined me on the bench in the front of the class facing the others.  It's a new concept that most don't really embrace.

not reassured

This billboard by the university suggests somebody else isn't so reassured by President Wade.  I saw another that was partially torn.  A conversation today suggested that if Wade 'wins' the 50% he has said he will get on the Feb 26th election and that he needs to avoid the runoff election in March, all sorts of chaos will be unleashed.  It could make getting to the airport on the 27th a bit difficult.  We'll see.

random 2CV

It doesn't take much of a reason to include a shot of a sweet car like this.  And while I'm being random, feel free to leave a comment or send me a note if you're reading this.  This blogging thing is feeling rather one sided.

teaching again

Arriving early, I stapled the copies of The Scarlet Letter and Of Mice and Men with a borrowed stapler.  Then I found a wet rag and wiped some of the dust from the table tops, benches, and even some of the floor in the corner of the room we use for class, wishing I had a hose and brush to really clean the windows, walls and floors.  I moved a couple of the benches that weren’t fixed in the floor to form a circle, or rather a triangle with two long benches angled facing the immobile bench/table combinations.  I opened the shutters and a window to let some air in the room, although dust blew thick off the screen onto my Xeroxes and books and backpack.  I wrote the titles of the books, their publication dates, and the authors’ names on the copies, and then waited for my students to arrive.  It felt a little bit like that first day as a teacher, being ready early, being unsure just what to expect.  Would they be on American time or Senegalese time?  Would I gain or lose students?  The class was entirely voluntary, after all.  Would they really be willing and able to endure Hawthorne’s dense writing? I had no idea.

On Monday, I asked what they hoped to get from this class, what they hoped to do, how often they hoped to meet.  We agreed on two hour classes focusing mostly on literature and conversation, with some asking for writing help as well.  Hawthorne was the only text common to all their masters level English Literature programs, and it was the most difficult, although the English Literature students read Dreiser, too, and not even Sister Carrie.  A text lit students at home woudn’t read outside of Phd programs.   Afterwards we shifted into political discussing the teachers’ strike, the possibility of a lost year, the elections, and the protests that have shaken the city some.  Only one student had participated, all the rest suggested it was too dangerous.  Allou described his participation in the first protest, admitted to some rock throwing, and seemed empowered by it. 

Yesterday we launched into Hawthorne’s vocabulary, long sentences, and symbolic description.  It was a tedious slog in some ways- reading silently, then having volunteers read aloud and try to paraphrase roughly, before I would walk them through each sentence encouraging them to use words common to French, reading it aloud myself, and finally translating into French when necessary.   Yet the two hours passed quickly and they seemed engaged and appreciative.  I offered extra classes on Tuesday/Thursday, and half said they would want to come in daily to do extra work on writing and conversation.  We got through three pages, arriving at the scene where coarse Puritan townswomen talk about the ‘naughty baggage’ (always a favorite line of mine), Hester Prynne, who is about to exit from the prison.  They bemoan the light sentence handed out noting that they would have punished the ‘malfectress’ properly.  And switching into my favorite teacher role, questioning the relevance and accuracy of a text, I asked them, ‘How are girls here who cross social/sexual boundaries punished?’ and ‘Are those boundaries the same for both genders?’.   Immediately, the class shifted to French and started arguing about double standards and girl gossip.  If there had been a bell, it would have rung right then.  Instead, I said we’d come back to this question in the text, and that I looked forward to hearing how Hawthorne’s story matched their experiences.  The conversations that connect the books to our lives are always the ones that make the work (in this case the very difficult work) worthwhile.