When you emerge yourself into a different culture, even when you think you begin to understand things, sometimes things happen that make you realize you really don’t.

Take cold water for example. Today, to my complete disbelief, I discovered that the guard at my work place and our neighboring guards believed that drinking cold water gave you a belly. So as a result, they’ve swarn off drinking cold water to help get rid of the small guts they’ve developed over the years.

To me this is just a poignant example of how much our cultures (and not necessarily lack of education) affect our belief systems. While I still think the notion of water being the source of my, ahem, belly is completely crazy, it shows just far off the page we could potentially be even on the “givens” when trying to understand each other. It makes me wonder how many of my beliefs I am “crazy” for thinking.

It looks like the Zim government has finally lost it. The government just burned down 6 miles (6 miles!) of curio stands. Of course, I’m sure these people were a public nuisance and deserved it especially since there are so many jobs in the formal sector with the economy doing so well and all.

Here’s a couple of articles on this debacle:

• CNN: Zimbabwe police burn 6-mile line of vendors’ stalls — Kudo’s for CNN for deciding this was newsworthy
• Zimbabwe Police Torch Vendors’ Shacks - Washington Post
• BBC: Depression in the Streets — Another depressing article on the current state of Zimbabwe.

For those who don’t know, I spent almost a year in 1999 in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe once the bread basket of Africa is such an incredible place. It hurts me deeply to see what African leaders can do to their own people. It’s hard not to be jaded.

Here is a particularly upsetting excerpt:

Driven to tears

I am suffering even more than before now.

A looted supermarket in Harare after hundreds of residents rioted after police destroyed street stalls in an ongoing crackdown on vendors and other illegals in the capital (AFP/Getty Images)
Edwell fears his problems will affect his son’s future

My family is suffering because I am not doing anything.

I am not very busy, sure.

I charge Z$15,000 ($0.26) to fix heels and for soles it is about Z$35,000 ($0.60) and now that I am hardly doing anything I am crying.

I recently had to buy my 15-year-old son some things for school. All I could afford was his books, a new pair of shoes and socks and some short trousers and it came to over Z$200,000 ($3.60).

I still have to pay his school fees for this term which come to Z$350,000 ($6.20).

I don't know how I will be able to.


Editors note: When I was in Zimbabwe, the Zim dollar was 50-1 to the US.

The Africa You Never See
After posting the links about Zimbabwe, I thought it may be good to also post this article about business in Africa. Did you know Botswana has an A+ credit rating with some of the highest per capita savings rates in the world or that the Ghanian Stock market returned on average 144% last year (highest in the world!)? Neither did I. If you get the chance please also read this great article.

The Africa You Never See — By Carol Pineau

Related Website: AfricaOpenforBusiness.com

The Senegalese in general are a strikingly beautiful people. Here are some pictures my roomate Raffaele Moles took of Senegalese women at the Senegal vs. Zambia Rugby game. To see a closeup or the full set of these pictures just click on any of the images. This also goes for most pictures in this site.

I’m sure you’ll all be glad to know that there is a Bed Bath & Beyond in Dakar (see below). So if you ever decide to get married in Senegal you now have one more option for your wedding registry.

Bed Bath & Beyond - The Dakar Store

Geek Corps Senegal Guide Wiki Added
In other news, I just started a wiki Geek Corps Senegal Volunteer Guide for future volunteers.

IRB World Cup Qualifier between Zambia and Senegal Tommorow
Tommorow I hope to go see Zambia (#66 world ranking) vs. Senegal (#71) in a world cup qualifier in the stadium down the street from my place. The game is free to the public so the crowd may get pretty crazy. I wonder if there are any good rugby songs in Wolof?

Today was a very surreal day. I got to hang out with my old Karate teacher, Maitre Thiam, former African Karate champion, martial art instructors for the police, and teacher for rich embassy kids. Anyways, it was incredible to see him doing well. I actually got to go to his house, met his children and we watched a Kung Fu movie!

I also got to go back to my old school, the International School of Dakar. I still hope someday to give my children the chance to experience such a truly multicultural setting. Seeing the student body reminded how incredibly diverse my education was. After ISD, It would have been really difficult had I not gone to internationally diverse schools like Knox or Thunderbird. Anyways, I’m gonna go catch a bite to eat with Mwavi a close childhood friend who I found out is teaching at ISD. Crazy.

 
Maitre Thiam
 
 
ISD my old school

 
The American Club

Last night on the radio during dedication hour…
DJ: Ngadef! (Wolof for how are you?)
Caller: Waay, suma xarit, mangi fi rekk! (Friend, I am here)
DJ: Naka waa ker ge? (How are the people in your family)
Caller: Nunga fe! (They are there)
DJ: Naka sa baay? (How’s your father?)
Caller: Munga fe! (He’s there)
DJ: Naka sa ndey? (How’s your mother? )
Caller: Munga fe? (She’s there)
DJ: Jamm nge am? (Do you have peace?)
Caller: Jamm rekk, alhamdulilay! (Peace only, thanks be to God!)
DJ: Donc, avez-vouz une dedication? (Switching to French - Do you have a dedication?)
Caller: Wow (Wolof - Yes)
DJ: Ok
Caller: Donc, premierement pour m’est amis a Dakar. (First for my friends in Dakar)
DJ: Wow
Caller: Et ma t’ante in Pekine (and my Aunt in Pekine)
DJ: Wow
Caller: Mon auncle Abdulaye Gueye en N’Gor (My Uncle Abdulaye Gueye in N’Gor)
DJ: Wow
…. this continues on till most of his conceivable family members and friends are covered.
DJ: Mais! N’avais vous pas de parents en Dakar!? (But, don’t you have parents in Dakar!?)
Caller: Wow! Merci! Je voudrais donne un “shout out” a eux aussi.
DJ: Ok, Dierrediouf! (Ok, Thanks!)
Caller: Ciao
DJ: Ciao

The DJ then picks up the next caller and the same process starts again! Needless to say, dedication hour is not the time to catch up on the latest Senegelese hits.

Today was a great day. For the first time, I have begun to feel at home. My headache from speaking French 24/7 has started to go away but I’m still waiting for my tongue to catch up with my mind. Actually, I’m still waiting for that to happen with my English, so I may be waiting for quite a long time. Overall though, it’s been wonderful to be working in a French environment and I am increasingly thankful that I opted to polish up my French in such a fashion instead of spending +$20K at Thunderbird to attempt the same.

Mmm, mmm good

Chez Balbe
Today was another success in that we found a local charamawa place in which to frequent. For those who don’t know, a chawarama is sliced beef on pita, covered in a yogurt kind of sauce and stuffed with fries. They are the lebanese version of a gyro (or tacos arabique as they were called in Mexico) and constitutes Senegal’s primary form of fast food. Anyways, we found a small hole in the wall shop run by Ibrahima Balbe and we definetly will be returning often. On our next visit, I’ll be sure to take pictures to better share the experience.

Cyber Louma, marché Sandaga, Dakar

Cyber Louma
Today was also really good in that I think I found a great open source/web based accounting package for the Cyber Louma. One of my main projects with DFI will be working at the Cyber Louma which is basically a computer lab with phone services, etc. What makes the Cyber Louma importantly unique is that is based in Sandaga the big market in Dakar and its primary purpose is to serve the needs of the merchants/commercants of the market. One of my goals is to offer some basic business services, starting with a simple inventory tracking program to offer these merchants. The ultimate goal is to make the Cyber Louma self-sustainable at which point it could potentially be replicated across Senegal and other countries in Africa by DFI and other USAID sponsored projects. Before that can happen, I need to get a sense of the current financial health of the center. The staff there is currently doing a good the books with an Excel based system, however, a robust accounting system in the long term is needed. So far the leading candidate is WebErp. What I really like about it besides its price (free) and the robustness of its features is that it is being actively developed by software companies from developing countries like South Africa, Costa Rica and Pakistan for their clients who can’t legitimately afford ERP systems like SAP or People Soft. Thus, they’ve taken the ERP challenge in their own hands and have done a very good job thus far. Enterprise systems for the bottom of the pyramid… you gotta love it.

Orientation

DFI provided us with this brief cultural orientation guide in case your interested.