“He knew nothing about the men around him except for how they moved and laughed––on this side of language” - Michael Ondaatje

This post is long overdue, for it is a compilation of a semester's worth of musings that have been rolling around in my head. I have finally put them into words as I begin to sit down and write my ISP, for I have found that these personal musings and the project I chose have an awful lot in common...

All semester has been a struggle with language. Finding different ways to navigate through Senegal with and without words. At times, I have been frustrated and discouraged by my incompetence. I have not been able to access relationships and information that I’ve needed due to what at times seems an insurmountable barrier. Language is one of many factors here that has rendered me an outsider from the start. It has been challenging, rewarding and always humbling to struggle with communication on a daily basis. The power that comes with being an American is unavoidable and at times extremely uncomfortable. Yet it was entirely humbling to live in a country where though everyone wishes to learn English, it cannot get me what I need. I have found beautiful commonalties that exist cross cultures, yet I found that there are some things that simply are not translatable between cultures. Pieces of myself must remain hidden here because I do not have the words to explain them to my new Senegalese friends who do not have the ability to translate them because of cultural norms. This struggle was beautifully paralled by a book I was reading when I arrived in Senegal, Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion. 

Odaantje says two things in particular that really struck me, first the title quote of this blog, and second that at times his main character "lived in silence, with noise and conversation all around him."

At times this semester I have been able to cross to the other side, where friendships are made and secrets are shared. There have maybe been more times where I have steadfastly stayed on my own side of language where there is broken wolof and grammatically horrendous French. These are the times when I felt shy, timid and silent even though there were conversations flying all around me. 

When I stepped on to the Maison D'Eduaction Mariama Ba campus, I held both power and a disadvantage as an American student. My ability to speak English made both professors and students wary about speaking it with me. My inability to speak French fluently at times stood in the way of me asking for what I needed or understanding what was asked of me. The research that followed was always fascinating and at times frustrating, as I felt like my language kept me at some kind of surface level I could not breach. Yet now, back from the tranquility of the island and into the dense heat of Dakar I am starting to write and using my personal challenges to do so. I am finding it difficult to transition back into english grammar and am also relieved to make use of the vocabulary I have. Twenty pages in and a week to go, I think I can do it. 

More about the project itself soon, I do realize that has been a gaping hole in my blog in the last few months.