Research meetings and grocery shopping

Today was long, but good. Vicki came with me to a meeting I had with one of her colleagues, Mbaye Thiam. He's a professor at the University, and he's an expert of Wolof oral traditions/history. I'm still a little unclear what oral traditions are, but my understanding is that they are the oral versions of written history; they get told over and over again and become ingrained in culture. Vicki is an expert of gathering and using oral traditions. This method of research is especially useful in cultures that have (or are) non-literate. Wolof, as I said in one of my blogs, was only recently (within the last century) transcribed, and until then history had been remembered orally. Now, historians are pulling those traditions out and putting them down on paper so that they are preserved for future generations of Africans, and for the world.

I met with Mbaye in the morning. His office was located on the University campus, which was great because I got to see what it looked like finally. It wasn't that different from Fresno State, just less green. Otherwise, even some of the bushes/plants looked similar. It was kind of weird. I brought Vicki with me 1) because she's interested in the topic, 2) she's fluent in French, and 3) she's an expert of Wolof history. In other words, she could help me when my French failed, as well as when I missed important questions to ask of Mbaye. Without having her there, it wouldn't have been as successful. But, because of it, I got some good info, and, even better, he agreed to introduce me to several professors next week who might be able to help me even more. Apparently there's quite a few professors interested in the topic of peacemaking, so this is working out beautifully so far! I'll meet with them next week and go from there.

Later, after Wolof, I met with, Gary, the director of the Baobab Center. I was interested in meeting with him because he had mentioned before that they (the Baobab Center) is branching out their social justice efforts by organizing and hosting a peace-building conference in November. They hope to make this an annual event, provided they get continued funding. Essentially, it will be a training institute for practitioners who work for social justice (and related) organizations to become skilled mediators who could help parties resolve conflicts. This model has been applied successfully in the Casamance area (southern Senegal), which has been a place of serious conflict for years (why? I'm not exactly sure, yet). Gary set up another meeting for me with the guy leading this endeavor, Djiby, on Thursday. I should know more about this then, and how it might benefit my research.

If I'm sounding vague about all this, it's because I'm just as unclear about it! I know that my follow-up meetings will help clarify much of this, so bear with me. In any case, it's exciting to know I'm moving forward with this. I must say, however, it's also a bit overwhelming. Vicki continues to make explicit how sacred this work is- her position is that Africans have been screwed over for so long by outsiders, that she doesn't want to inflict any more harm, which in this case, would be some naive American student trying to get something out of this for himself without serious consideration about how to give this back to the Africans who will spend time and resources helping me. It's serious, and I acknowledge this. I'm also beginning to realize that if I'm to take this seriously, I am not just looking at my time here this summer, but I'm also looking forward into the next few years, and how I will come back for a longer time- maybe a year. It seems like the next step in this effort, and that is ... well, I don't know what I feel about that. Here's the conflict, as succinctly as possible: I don't want to take this work lightly, but I don't know if I can commit to what it calls for in order to give it due respect. And, if I commit, can I fulfill that commitment? I don't know. I don't know how one makes a commitment like this without being 100% sure about the outcome. It just seems too risky. We'll see, though. All I can do with it is move forward for the time being, and be open to the possibilities.

My stomach is growling! Sayda should be here soon, with Lasagna I think.. with homemade pasta! She's amazing.

Tomorrow we are having someone come over to teach us how to make the national dish, Ceebu Jen. This was the fish and rice dish with vegetables. It'll be an all morning thing, starting at 10, and probably ending at 3. I'll take photos!

The damn electricity keeps going out - it's been doing it a lot these last few days.. maybe 3-4 times each day. It's frustrating when I'm online because it causes the router to go out, and zap, no more internet. It's kind of funny, too. We just laugh about it now.

Ok, that's all for today. Hope you're all well. See you tomorrow!