It is pretty easy to get discouraged about school when your professors don't show up to class or when they do, they lecture for 2 hours about not talking in class and what the word 'problematique' means! But then you go to a class and the prof shows up (more or less on time) and spends his two hours lecturing on EXACTLY the things you came to learn!!! That makes it all worth it...
Yesterday I had a History of African Politics class and the professor was phenomenal! It was just the intro class so it was fairly general but he followed a well developed plan and touched on a lot of neat things! He talked about how there are different ways to look at African history and how a common western view point is that Africa has no history prior to colonialisation. He even went on to explain how it was possible to look at it in that way and what the discussions are around that view point. Then he talked about the African historians' movement to reclaim African history from oral traditions!! He talked about the western view that Africans didn't know the concept of states and laws prior to colonialisation and why they think that way. Then he talked about his theories that counter those view points! It wasn't necessarily all new information but it certainly made me super excited for discussions in the classes to come!!
To make the day even better we discovered that there is a sort of film club on campus that screens documentaries 4 days a week! Last night they screened a movie about clandestine immigration from Senegal to the Grand Canary Islands. There is a big operation along the coast for illegal immigration. The movie was largely in Wolof with Spanish subtitles but we were able to follow along and one of the guys translated the gist of the conversations! The movie largely followed a group of youth whose parents paid for their voyages, hoping that they would be able to find work and send money home, but upon arrival the kids (being minors) were taken into 'centers' where they have to live until they turn 18. The most interest part of it all was the discussion afterwards!! It was so neat to sit and listen to these young Senegalese men and women talking about illegal immigration and the effect on their society and culture!!! One guy was convinced that if Senegalese parents saw this movie they would immediately put their kids on these pirogues that make the treacherous journey because in the centers the kids of well-fed, looked after, and given an allowance. The others were not so convinced given that the movie portrayed the kids as well-fed but lonely and home-sick!! Really neat discussion!
This morning I got up early for a morning run (before 8 am it is actually quite cool out!!!) Which started the day of wonderfully...at 10 I had another phenomenal course! Cooperation, planification et développement local...
This is what you call a practical course. The whole course is about how to do local development planning in a way that integrates all players. It is neat because the professor seems to have a lot of experience with local development planning here in Senegal so he constantly makes real-life compairsons and examples! We have two major assignments in the course and one of them is to take a local development plan (which pretty much all communities have in Senegal apparently) and write a critique of it! We can work in groups and the prof made a big point to the other students that they should include us in their groups because we would learn much more that way! So that will be really interesting!!
Now we are about to head out to Dakar for the weekend... I feel much better going away for the weekend knowing I am coming back next week to at least two really engaging and interesting courses! Phew!!!!!!
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