Petit à Petit – Ndank Ndank

That’s a phrase I learned my second day here and I realized this is the description of my life while here. Little by little. Everything I learn, everything I do will happen little by little, and there is SO much to learn and do. It’s not just important to learn one language here, but you need to know two, and if you learn both French and Wolof, then people will still ask why you don’t speak Pular. What I’ve learned is that languages are hard to learn (and people speak so fast, even when someone says something I know, it takes me a while to realize that I know what they said and to come up with a response!). But I will learn, I am learning, petit à petit. I’m currently taking a French class at L’Institute Francais, a very nice place in downtown Dakar with a wonderful restaurant, and yesterday I had my first Wolof lesson while sitting with Ewan’s friend Sadio while he worked. He insisted that I learn Wolof here and had me sit down, get a notebook and start learning! People are always shocked and awed when they hear Ewan speaking Wolof, and immediately ask if I speak Wolof. When they learn that I do not, they ask why. This happens many, many times a day with nearly every interaction we have. It’s made me very determined to learn the language.

Besides languages, there is so much else to learn. How to greet people, buy food, bargain with taxi drivers and salespeople, take buses…. I’m slowly doing these things more independently but it’s hard. For instance, today on a very crowded bus, a man handed me money to hand back to the ticketer. I thought, “this is easy, I just hand it to the next person and eventually it’ll reach who it needs to.” But no one would take it from me as I tried handing it back. Not being able to ask why, I tried motioning whose it was and who it was for. Eventually I realized that they just needed to know where the man was going to determine how much change he should get. I thought I understood the system but misunderstanding one small part of it and then not being able to speak with people turns a little thing into a long and confusing process.

Since I first learned “petit à petit,” things truly have been happening little by little. Yesterday, we signed a contract and paid a deposit for our house, which we may be able to move into this weekend or early next week! It’s a very cute house and happens to be right in the middle of the two locations I will likely be dancing at, with a bus running through to all three of these! Today we decided to call Bassilo, a drummer and good friend, or "bruddah" of Djibi’s. Djibi told us to call him as he would be a great person to take drumming lessons from, and a wonderful friend of theirs and excellent dancer was staying with him and was excited to teach me. We had Bassilo’s son’s and wife’s numbers, so eventually got a hold of his wife, Koumba, and she immediately knew who we were, knew we were connected to Djibi, and told us to come to Grand Yoff Marche where lots of chickens are sold.

We arrived at the chicken stands and soon a few kids came over to us and led us to Koumba’s house. From there, everything that I could have hoped for happened. Bassilo wasn’t there but soon two young men came in with djembes. One of them was Bassilo’s son. Then a man poked his head in, saw us and said “Amy?” It was the dancer Djibi recommended, Ablaye. Soon Koumba arrived with a communal dish of ceebu jën, and, amongst dancers and drummers I enjoyed my first communal family style meal here. Delicious! To simplify what happened next, we spent the next few hours with Ablaye, he showed me where I’d have lessons in Grand Yoff (a nice, spacious room) and then we went to Centre Cultural Blaise Senghor, a place I’d heard so much about. There we met Bassilo who was thrilled to meet us, said Djibi had been talking about us for months and that he would have picked us up at the airport and if his cousins weren’t visiting now we could have stayed at his house. I briefly met another dance teacher who was very highly recommended, watched two incredible dance companies practicing, and set up my first lesson for tomorrow. Blaise Senghor was all I had dreamed of and more. The groups practicing there were thrilling to watch. Such energetic dancers and incredible drummers, including two kids aged maybe 2 and 4! The place was full of such kind people, there’s a café, and a huge courtyard. I wouldn’t mind hanging out there all the time, and it happens to be only about a mile from our house.

It’s hard to simplify everything that is happening and my thoughts into a blog entry. Simply put, I’m very happy to be here and so excited to start dancing tomorrow. My first impressions of Ablaye and Bassilo were very positive and erased any concern I’d had about finding good instructors here. I can’t wait to get moving to the rhythms of Senegal and Guinea right here in Dakar!