First week in Village des Arts

Hello all:

I've been a bit removed from technology for the past week, so I haven't been able to chat with anyone about what's been going on. In the past week, my life has changed quite drastically. On Saturday, I moved into a workshop at the Village des Arts with two friends. We have this box of a room and we are practically camping...There are a lot of bugs, a lot of sunshine, and a lot of wood carving.

My typical days starts around 8:30. I walk a ways down the road to the little boutique by the high school where I buy a plastic baggy of juice and baguette for breakfast. I return to our little house where we make eggs and eat out baguette with Nutella. At 10 or 10:30, I walk over to the tree where my advisor works carving wood. I spend the rest of the day there, sanding, rasping, carving drinking tea, trying to speak Wolof, speaking broken French, and making wood sculptures. It is a little tolling on the body, but only because I spend the entire day on a little wooden stool.

At 2 or 2:30, the wife of the security guard brings me my lunch. This is by far the most looked-forward-to part of my day. Normally, it's delicious fish and vegetables with rice and in giant portions. And the best part is, it costs me $1.20.

After lunch, I keep working, normally until 5 or 6 in the evening. Elsa, Alexa and I leave the village again and hunt for something we could make for dinner. By the time we finish cooking and cleaning up, it's time to go to bed.

There have been a few bizarre happenings though: every weekend night, there is a concert just outside our door at the restaurant. They blast heavy bass until 5 am. We don't sleep a lot. Another favorite was the disposal of the enormous pile of trash by our house. We were in our workshop when we heard an enormous bang. It continued, and we looked outside to see what it was. The restaurant owner assured us they were just burning the trash that was there. We watched as spray paint cans engulfed in flames and the fire violently kicked garbage in our direction.

The most bizarre part of where we live, however, is the fact that next week is Tabaski, the largest holiday here in Senegal. This means that each family buys at least three giant sheep and slaughters them in the street. Currently, vendors are in the process of selling the sheep.There are giant fenced-in cages of moutons running a mile down our road.

There are plenty more things to write about, but they I would have any good stories to tell when I got home. Hope all is well in what I hope is becoming winter wonderland....

The inside of our atelier

Our essential mosquito net

Our front yard

Our pet kitty, who I haven't named yet. He is very cute and actually clean, so I kind of want to pet him.

Our front yard

Almost there...

Bonjour tout le monde:

Things have been slowing down here, but at the same time, speeding up: next week, we begin the independent study project on our subject of choice. What my subject of choice? Living in a small studio in an art commune with two other girls and no amenities apart from a toilet while I carve wood with a man who only uses one tool to make beautiful abstractions of the human body out of a piece of wood normally used for making a fire to cook over. That's my topic.

But in a more academic setting, I describe my project a little differently. I am going to practice with this man, Serigne Mor Gueye, for three weeks. I hope to make a new sculpture each week. Before I make each sculpture, I am going to interview an artist at the Village des Arts. From the information I gather in these interviews, I hope to understand a little bit about why they are making art, why they've chosen the subject matter and technique they've chosen, and how they see their art practices. From here, I will start my sculpture, keeping in mind that particular artist's way of seeing their art practice. Hopefully, my carving will reflect their view of art-marking. Top it all off with a little exhibition at the end of the month, and I will be a very busy girl.

My hope is to be able to take (and I suppose, therefore, post) process photos and video, if the Internet complies. I will only be around a computer with connection to the tubes once a week, probably during the weekends. So, posts may be a little scarce (not that they haven't been already). Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving (too early?), and keep an eye out on this page every weekend.

I forgot to say...

I ate this:

Sometimes this place surprises me with beauty

Two striking things I saw today:

The first: a tri-color printer smashed to bits by Senegalese, soccer-playing youth. The bright magenta, cyan and yellow were smeared like sugar all over the red rocks and grey concrete.

The other: at dusk I saw a Sedan rolling slowly towards me on a road of sand--it was silent and moved like a ghost towards me under yellow street lamps. Like a movie with no sound.

Stuff

Here they are. They don't have captions yet...they may never have captions. But all you need to know is this: The huts are where I spent three days, the kitten is named Henri and he is, unfortunately, not with us anymore, and the mountains were very cool, especially when we were standing on top of the giant rock formation.

I had a lovely time and have now turned my attention to writing the proposal for my independent project which will include an entire month of carving wood....

http://picasaweb.google.com/cschuele/KedougouAndEtchwar?authkey=Gv1sRgCOeRjon5hZPOOg#

Villages

Hey all,

It's been a while since I've written anything here, but I just thought I'd throw out a little update.

I got back from the village of Mouit on the 2nd (?) of October. We spend 3 days in the village in a homestay family and then spent 3 days in beautiful, air-conditioned hotel rooms in Saint-Louis. Needless to say, the drastic switch-over was a little unsettling.

Mouit was wonderful though. It is a concrete-constructed village--I had my own room with a nice comfy bed, we at bread and butter from breakfast, and people had cell phones. However, things were far different than in Dakar. I showered from a bucket, I walked to my host dad's boat to retrieve fish, and I offended people if my knees showed when I sat down. The people in the village were very, very welcoming. They held us toubabs a sabar dance, which means we all dressed up and danced around like fools, and then our host sister and mother took the floor and showed us up. YouTube search "guana dance" and that's what we tried to look like.

Saint-Louis was, like I said, very different. It felt much more like a vacation--we had chocolate croissants for breakfast, delicious vegetable-filled dinners, and all the air-conditioning we could dream of. We looked at some historic sites, but mostly did a lot of vacationing...

Tomorrow, I am off on another "excursion". We are driving all day long to reach the town of Kedougou in southeastern Senegal. The town is nearly in Guinea. There, we are staying in a campment and hiking to some cool waterfalls and up some mountains. Or so we were told they were mountains. After a few days in Kedougou, we are headed off to our respective villages. Me and a classmate will be in the Bedik village of Etchwar. It will literally be grass huts, porridge, and workin' in the fields: http://www.google.sn/imgres?imgurl=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2165/3002686659_38cf1cd3db_m.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/32097021%40N03/&usg=__hgDiUiuBRrXLYDNgQmKPRwvQccw=&h=180&w=240&sz=22&hl=fr&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=gvahxaFOKBKrbM:&tbnh=106&tbnw=133&prev=/images%3Fq%3Detchwar,%2Bsenegal%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dfr%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D485%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=705&vpy=213&dur=650&hovh=144&hovw=192&tx=117&ty=110&ei=R762TOulBcb84AaYpdiwCQ&oei=R762TOulBcb84AaYpdiwCQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:10,s:0

I will be out of Internet range, so check back in about 10 days, and hopefully there will be a load of interesting photos!

TMI

When I take a shower, the color of the water running down into the drain is always, always brown.