I definitely owe you a rundown of the courses I’m taking, just to cure you of the impression that I’m sitting around here all day doing nothing but having odd experiences to write about on my blog. Though really, are my courses actually much more than that? That remains to be seen. So here, without further ado, are the blurbs:
Islam in Senegal, History and Sociology: I don’t really know what to say about this course, partially because it’s only met for 3 out of the 12 hours of instruction we’re supposed to have had by now. Our professor just doesn’t show up, or, when he does, leaves early due to prior engagements. One day the previous commitment was a lecture on Qur’anic schooling in England by a professor visiting from Cambridge that our professor decided to drag us along to as an impromptu excursion. The lecture probably would have been fascinating had it not been in Arabic.
Francophone African Literature: Definitely my favorite course as the professor is amazingly profound, at least when he’s not making blanket statements about African and Occidental cultures. Though he does have a tendency to pat me on the head when he sees me outside of class. And to speak so passionately that he spits on me if I sit next to him. He’s also the one who gave me 10,000 CFA ($20) for correctly answering a question.
Wolof: Ñaata beer nga naan ci week end bi? How many beers did you drink last weekend? The fact that I learned how to ask this in class is the best course summary I can provide.
African Cinema: So far every film we’ve seen for this class has been pretty boring and very racist. (The course is structured chronologically, so we’re currently studying films used to justify colonization.) Hopefully as we move closer to present day, the films will become less boring. If they don’t, at least they’ll probably become less racist.
Translation: My one course at the Univetsité Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar. While the rest are taught by UCAD professors (my Islam in Senegal professor is, for example, the head of the history department), they’re held at the West African Resource Center, which is off campus and where I loiter from 9:00-6:00 every weekday. People in my program generally don’t take official university courses because the UCAD semester ends sometime in February, with a new one starting up again at the end of the month, which is pretty incompatible with our schedule. Plus UCAD courses are practically never offered in the correct room at the correct time. Of the courses that people have attempted to attend over the past three weeks, maybe 10% have actually existed where and when they were supposed to. The translation course actually exists at a set time and place because it’s through the university’s Institut Français pour Étudiants Étrangers, although that means that unfortunately there are no Senegalese students in my class. Instead, there are a handful of middle-aged women married to diplomats.
Here are two pictures taken at UCAD (that's my mom in the first one - it was taken when she came to visit):
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