Zach’s Travels

After an email from my mother saying I need to update my blog about my trip to Touba, I’ve decided to overcome my brief plague of laziness and actually write something.  That and I’m currently sitting in my room not doing much of anything else.

We left last Wednesday afternoon – myself, Doucoure, Baye Fall, Amadi, Madjigen.  I was originally told we were going to be taking a bus, but at the last minute learned that Baye Fall was driving his car.  I didn’t know Baye Fall had a car up until this point, but was happy to be taking a car instead of being cramped on one of those tiny little busses.

My happiness ended once Baye Fall started to actually drive.  Within the first few minutes I was flashbacking to my most recent driving experience with my grandmother – sharp turns, quick lane changes, random speed changes, continual fear of this being the end.  This, of course, combined with the general driving environment of Senegal, where driving lanes are really recommendations and solid lines that, while in American would mean “do not pass,” take on the meaning of “I think you can beat that oncoming bus of people that is only 100 yards away and traveling at a speed as fast as you.”  I tried to check our speed, but the speedometer was broken.

And then it started to rain, both outside and inside the car.  Drip. Drip. Drip.  At this point I’m actually having a great time in the car because I just couldn’t stop imaging the scene as though it were a movie.  Africa road trip.  Five people in one small car.  Random white, English speaking American sitting bitch as it rains and the car begins to leak.

And then, true to the screenplay being written, we crashed into a tree after a classic case of over correction, hydroplaning, and a 360-degree spin across the lane of incoming traffic.  It was one of those things where you’re spinning, you see the tree, and the only thing that pops into your head is “shit.”

Everyone was fine.  Doucoure immediately turned back to me to make sure I was alright, probably due to the fact that he had been threatened by everyone at the Goree Institute with death if anything happened to me.  But what happened next just absolutely shocked me.  I thought the trip was over. Cancelled.  But instead everyone got out of the car, we grabbed our bags, and Baye Fall began to drive the car back to the last city while the rest of us waited to catch a bus the rest of the way to Touba.  No more than 5-10 minutes had passed between the car crash and our waiting for a bus.  No mourning the loss of the car. No phone calls. It was just a car - certainly not something worth stopping our trip over.

So there we were, standing on the side of the road in the pouring down rain trying to catch a bus – an impossible task since everyone and their mom was heading to Touba at this time.  But while we stood there, huddled together under a tree, I couldn’t help but start to chuckle, once again, at the sheer absurdity of the situation.  Doucoure noticed and began to laugh himself, saying, “Hey.  At least now you have good story.”  And then all of us were laughing, drenched, and Madjigen asked, “Are you happy?”, one of the few inside jokes we all shared and I realized that I was remarkably happy to be standing on the side of a random road in Africa in the pouring down after just having crashed into a tree.

Part II coming tomorrow.

Back in a couple of days.

Yesterday Doucoure and I headed to the stadium to watch some Senegalese Wrestling.  To make a long story short:  I had a great time.

Wrestling is huge here and that was definitely the wildest and craziest experience I have had since I’ve been here.  Tons of people all squished together as people play drums, sing, chant, and yell.  Women are moving through the crowds selling water that is for both drinking AND for throwing, peanuts, juices, frozen milk-esque stuff.

There were eight fights that day (typical time per fight is about 1-2 minutes), but most people had come for one:  the last showdown between Baboye and Yekini.  Talk about powerful rivalry.  The two groups of fans had taken up separate sides of the bleachers, separated by a small group in the middle who weren’t as passionate (read: crazy).  This is where we sat.  It also is the best section because it’s directly in line with the fight ring itself.

No alcohol is allowed in the stadium and thank the heavens for that.  These people are crazy enough without alcohol.  Not only do they chant, but they throw things.  Water. Water bottles (sometimes filled with urine).  Sticks. Shoes. Whatever they can find. They not only throw them at each other but at the opposing fighter himself!  They have fireworks they shoot INTO the stadium, light flares, and generally just go crazy. A guy behind me started bleeding from his head when he got hit with a stick.

It’s an incredibly high energy event, and it’s amazing how long it lasts for only being eight fights.  We left the stadium around 9:00 after arriving around 3:00.  The fights don’t start until about 6:30, but you have to get there early if you want a good seat.  And I’m not going to get much into demographics here, but it would have been the easiest Where’s Waldo? puzzle ever made.

Below are a couple of videos from it.  The first is the general crowd and the second is after Yekini’s victory (the last fight of the day):

Wrestling Crowd from Zach Koch on Vimeo. 

Victory from Zach Koch on Vimeo.

For those interested, I have fully recovered from the unknown stomach illness. For those of you who sent kind thoughts of “get well,” “please don’t die” and the like - thank you. For those of you who secretly hoped this would be the end of me and sat eagerly waiting to hear the wonderful news of my departure from this sweet earth - better luck next time. I have learned to take strength from the cockroaches who have found a permanent home in my first floor bathroom. Not even the force of (any) god can kill them.

Looking back, though, I have reached a couple of conclusions. The first is that unmarked and unlabeled anti-diarrhea pills are a good thing. Of course, by the time I actually got them the damage had already been done, but they did, perhaps, prevent the complete loss of my small intestine. For that I am thankful. The problem, however, is that the effects of aforementioned pills continue to exist long after the last of the sickness has drifted.

Now I’m not a doctor, so this is only slightly better than a stab-in-the-dark guess (only because with the help of Google I consider myself on par with my last doctor - Kluzinski - in terms of medical knowledge. It’s arguable he received his knowledge from Yahoo). But my understanding of anti-diarrhea pills is this: Once the capsule dissolves in the stomach or somewhere around the small intestine, a hundred or so microscopic worker men are released. And these workers are on a mission: To build an unbreakable, titanium wall between the exit point and, well, I think you understand.

And what a wall do they build! The more pills you take, the more workers you ingest and the stronger your wall becomes. Depending on the nature of WHY you created the wall to begin with, there is a solid chance that at the time of ingesting all those little worker men you felt it was necessary to have the largest wall possible. “Bigger! Larger! Stronger!” you should from the outside.

Initially this wall is much welcomed and presents no problems, particularly if you haven’t been eating. The problem arises after you start to eat. Now I could illustrate this point with examples from cartoons, but I figure it is time to grow up and use big boy terms.

It’s really a matter of physics (the fact that I have never taken a Physics class is irrelevant, especially since I just read a book on string theory and that’s all you really need to know anyway). When you only have so much space to fill up, and you start to reach the point of maximum capacity without the means of allowing the build up exit, you have a problem.

“Break down the wall,” you say. Oh! If only it were so simple. These workers only work one way. They build. They don’t dismantle. Thus you are left at the mercy of their craftsmanship - forced to deal with a body craving nutrients it was denied for three days without any means of letting out the garbage. I think you understand the dilemma.

Is this getting too personal?

Thankfully hope is on the horizon. While our newly-created Berlin wall stands strong and formidable against challenge, a product of the authoritarian that created it, the future is found in the masses. The need for compromise to exist between stomach and exit point. An amicable, symbiotic relationship where each side realizes they need the other. Abuse of the system is what got us to this point, thus compromise is the only way out.

And the body rallies together, shouting cries of “Viva la revolution.” Brandishing whatever weapons they can find, the masses began to tear down the barrier of inequality and individualism. At first success is minimal. A strong divide has been built and its unwillingness to crumble serves as an initial sign of defeat to the forces that have rallied. But it is just when all hope seems lost, when fatigue has mixed with despair, that Large Intestine stands up to rally the troops. After a tear-jerking speech of “times before the wall” and a future where exit points and small intestines are “able to live together in harmony and peace,” fatigue began to morph into excitement and energy and despair was transformed into a renewed hope for the future. “The future is ours!” The forces let out a roar of agreement and passion and attacked the wall with a never-before-known fervor.

The wall, slowly at first but then with the speed that comes from passion and dedication from those hard at work, began to fall. And fall it did, until all that was left of the wall was the memory the old cells of the body remember as a time that we must never forget. A time of unhappiness and of inequality and pain. And a vow that it must never happen again.

…And I breathed a large sigh of relief. “It has ended.”

(I said at the beginning of this post I had reached a couple of conclusions.  It looks as though I digressed a bit and forgot what else I had learned.  Viva la revolution!)

Note:  Thanks to my CS Adviser Dave for pointing out my incorrect usage of “diuretic.” I STILL can’t find, if it exists, a proper spelling for anti-diarrhetic.  I always get the little red squiggly thing.  So I changed it to “anti-diarrhea pills.”  Technical, I know. 

Have had some unknown sickness for about 2.5 days now.  Spent two nights ago vomiting and generally purging the system.  Stomach ache, headache, general fatigue.  Went to the doctor yesterday.  Now THAT was a language barrier.  Tested for Malaria.  Test came back inconclusive.  Put me on an array of meds - no idea what they are, but they only cost me around $10.  The real challenge was trying to decipher when I was supposed to take them.  Supposed to go back Monday if no improvement.  Oh, and it only costs me about 75 cents to see the doctor.  What a steal!

Anyway, just cancelled my lunch for the second time in two days.  Not hungry, plus the idea of eating just makes me naseaus (no idea how to spell this).

Back to my cave of darkness.

Work from Zach Koch on Vimeo.

How many religious studies and computer science double majors interning in Senegal can there be? My guess is not many. Which is why I’m now famous. Kind of. But not really: http://www.traveling-stories-magazine.com/coming-full-circle/

In other news, this week has been painstakingly boring. To be quite honest I haven’t really done anything of note, and I fear this is becoming an all-too-common theme here. To date I have yet to write about what I’m actually doing here at the Institute, partly because I had yet to really define what it was that I am supposed to be doing and partly because I never felt like writing it all. And while I still don’t have it defined, I guess now I’m sort of in the mood to explain it and I have the time.

When I first applied for the internship here in Senegal, I didn’t know much about it. A one-page PDF was sent out to students across DePauw, explaining that this opportunity existed and that anyone was welcome to apply, though people with skills in technology and french (hah!) were encouraged to apply. So apply I did, despite the fact that I had already accepted a written offer from another company in Chicago. To make a long story short - I got the internship. Bet you didn’t know that.

And as I began to sit down with Dr. O’Bannon, the professor who was organizing the internship and who had the contacts at the Institute, I learned this was the first time this had even been done. They just got grant money and things were happening last minute. And because it was the first time, it was hard to know what exactly I was going to be doing. Something technical. That’s about as far as it got. Eventually we sculpted the idea a little further in that I would be working on the web site. If you have visited the site, you know it is desperate need of a new design and updated content. So the original plan was to both update the web site and install a Content Management System (CMS). To explain briefly, a CMS is a program that allows you to easily add and edit the content of a web site without technical knowledge. You just log in and type. (For the record, this website is powered by a CMS called WordPress).

After out initial meeting with Goree staff, however, we learned that they had already contracted out to a company to develop a new web site back in October of 2007 and it was due to be finished soon (this was exactly 8 months after the contract had been signed). As a result we decided I would then take the new design and implement a CMS along with other various small side projects which we would discuss later. And that’s how the meeting was concluded.

The next day, after asking for technical specs for the web server, one of the staff members brought me the invoice from the web design company, eVolution. In the list of tools eVolution said they were going to utilize and implement was Joomla!. A Content Management System. There were two main problems with this. The first is that the Institute didn’t know a CMS was being implemented. The second was that suddenly I had no idea what I was going to be doing.

After talking about this problem with Dr. O’Bannon and Nicky, we decided I would just do my user needs assessment and determine what direction I should travel in. So that’s what I did. I sat down and had individual interviews with the head people of the Institute to determine what they felt was needed the most. Throughout these interviews, I identified four common points:

• The need to centralize the Goree Institute’s various sites (they have four besides their main site)
• Some sort of Intranet, to facilitate internal communication
• Centralize their Teral services online. Teral is their revenue-generator. It is basically seminar and conference hosting. They want people to be able to submit requests electronically and the like.
• Community Education

I have already started to address the second point by contacting a company that creates Intranet software. I got them to comp one of their products, valued at $600/year for the Institute. I’m currently waiting for their coupon code so I can complete the sign up process. In the mean time I have already developed an online Teral reservation system that links in with the Intranet software using their API. But to put it all together requires the coupon code AND a completed website. I’m waiting for both.

The first and third point are both things that are contingent upon a completed web site. It is functionality that needs to be incorporated into Joomla! and the design, and therefore is very difficult to work on without the site being completed (if I haven’t mentioned it, the site was supposed to be finished 2 weeks ago). So I’m waiting.

And waiting.

Virtually everything I want to be doing is contingent upon something else being completed that is out of my hands. A very frustrating experience. So this week I have done virtually nothing, because I am having a hard time trying to think of things I CAN do. Once the site is completed there is a whole slew of things I want to do, such as centralizing Teral online, updated pictures, email newsletter sign up and implementation, and updating content.

But in the mean time I wait.

Completely unrelated, should be a good weekend. In two hours I head to American Embassy’s Fourth of July party and then tomorrow I am going “clubbing” with a South African named George and some Peace Corp people. Should be a good time.

Saturday night I slept outside on the topmost point of the island, next to some old guns that the French left behind many years ago. Beautiful night. Great temperature with a nice breeze and a sky full of stars.

I was invited by Duchere, one of my closest and most helpful friends on the island, who sleeps there every night during the summer. I originally declined the offer, to which Duchered replied, “why not?” Not having really any good reason, I got my pillow and sheet and joined him at the top. Duchere provided the mattress, a thin piece of foam that reminded me of sleeping conditions in Japan. Only in Japan directly under the thin mattress was tatami, thickly woven straw that gives way, and under me here in Senegal was concrete. Which doesn’t give was as much.

Looking back on it I realized that had I seen these guys sleeping outside on my first night here I would have assumed they were homeless. And now here I was, a toubab, sleeping right next to them!

I slept well, too. And, surprisingly, I didn’t have any mosquito bites in the morning. Even in my house I typically wake up with a new bite every morning (in fact, in writing this entry, I got another one on my right arm). Bastards.

Today I am heading into Dakar with Duchere. Monday is his day off, his “holiday.” There aren’t any tourists really today, so most of the island artists take the day off. I’m not sure where we’re going. When I asked him he said, “I don’t know. We see.” So there you go. We see.

On a brief note of excitement, there is a 4th of July Party this Friday being put on by the US Embassy. A little camaraderie with some fellow freedom-loving, terrorist fighting Americans maybe? And did I mention they’ll have hot dogs?

Random: Rather moving story from the NY Times