Tubaab Dialaw

This weekend the CIEE program took the students to a "resort" called Touba Dialaow. Before I tell you how awesome it was, let me explain the name of this place. In Wolof, Toubaab means foreigner or white person and Dialaw comes from the word that means to keep coming, so loosely this resort, right on the coast of Dakar, is called the "White people keep coming". Just from the name I'm sure you can tell that this place was really nice or atleast very touristy. I went wave surfing with some friends on the beach, climbed a huge rock where I sat and thought about life while glazing out into the ocean,collected tons of cool looking shells, and lounged around all weekend. This was a real treat, a little get away from the hustle and bustle of the city life in Dakar. The program also paid for us to take a dance, drumming, or batiking class while we were there and I chose to batik. To batik, you make designs on your fabric with pencil (we started with a white cloth) then use a paint brush that you dip in wax and outline your design. The cloth is then dyed the color of your choice. After the first dying, you then color in with wax the parts of your cloth you want to stay this color (everything else will become the color that you dye with next) The cloth is dyed again and the final product is complete and your left with a two colored cloth decorated in the designs that you have drawn. It was a lot of fun, even with my limited artistic skills. (they had stencils that we could use so mine didnt come out too bad hahaha)


On Saturday night the people who took the dance class and the instructors put on a performance and then started a big circle where any one could come and learn dance moves. The dancing is full of energy with lots of kicks, flips and hip action. It definitely is a work out but still a lot of fun, I would love to be able to come back home and show off some of these moves.

The Friday before we left for Tubaab Dialaw, me a few other people from the program went to a dance performance at the Francaise Institute downtown. The performance showcased, modern, contemporary, and traditional Senegalese dance. Of course I loved the modern dance pieces the dancers were soo strong and their moves were so precise it was incredible watching what they could do. Although we weren't suppose to take any pictures, I did take a few (shhhh dont tell anyone) so hopefully you guys will be seeing them soon.

Sidenote: I just found out this week that my mom was a second wife, which can explain why they don't share a room and I see him mostly at night. Having more than one wife is very common here in Dakar and especially where I live in Sacre-Coeur (some one told me jokingly it was neighborhood of second wives).