4 New Posts: This One: Christmas Gifts

Are you giving Christmas or Chanukah gifts? If so, please consider giving a gift to my two friends Abdoulaye and Zacheria. A check for $25, $50, or $100 will help us achieve so much LONG TERM change in their lives. After my first request I did not know what to expect in terms of contributions. My request was indeed circulated around the world, and money has come in from Michigan, California, and Australia. I will be keeping the money in my account until we reach our goals, then I will pull it out and help them purchase their vehicle/livestock. If you would like to contribute--now, or later but with a pledge now--please email me at eliasjkhalil@yahoo.com or write out the check payable to me and send it to: Elias Khalil, Fulbright Teacher // 2130 Dakar Place // Dulles, VA 20189-2130. If you would like a refresher on their stories, visit the following entries in my blog (eliasjkhalil.blogspot.com): 11/7--Profiles; 11/14--Caring; 11/21--The U.S.-Who is Welcomed?; 11/24--Happy Thanksgiving.

December Sentiments

As the dawn breaks the pink hues softly fade into a increasingly brightening sky. The brisk air, so common in the morning of a beautiful autumn day, welcomes you through the window screen of your bedroom. You turn slowly toward the light, stretch, and gladly fall victim to the smile that finds its way onto your face to say, “Welcome to a beautiful day.” It is December 13, 2008. The wind is blowing, and sitting on the balcony watching the palm trees from the Austrian Ambassador’s residence bending to nature’s forces, I know I am blessed. The last few days have been amazing: the air is fresh, the sky so blue, the sun’s heat is warming yet not burning. I have begun a Dakar winter.

This past Tuesday was the biggest holiday in Senegal: Tabaski. It commemorates Abraham’s faith in God by his willingness to sacrifice his son. As many know the story, his son is spared by God and a sheep is slaughetered instead. So Tabaski is, as they say in French here, the Feast of the Sheep. Eash household buys and slaughters a sheep, and a mutton feast follows. Asking forgiveness from each family member and neighbor for any harm you may have caused over the past year is the tradition and standard greeting for the day. It is truly beautiful and humbling. Imagine a society which celebrates and values each person’s utterance of “I’m sorry.” A sincere forgiveness so that relations can move forward in a spirit of peace. Should holidays really be about anything else?

Dakar being the capital, has many transplants; which means home for so many Senegalese who work here is actually elsewhere in the country. Part of the beauty of the last few days has been the relaxed feel in the streets: fewer people, no traffic jams, less garbage, more smiles, and full stomachs. People are just coming back to Dakar today, and on Monday the reality of big city living will resume...

It’s been weeks since I have written; there are reasons. Life here is so demanding on a daily basis that I feel drained at day’s end. Life in the underdeveloped world is difficult. I now appreciate why government and businesses call such places a “hardship” post. With Thanksgiving behind me, Tabaski wrapping up, and Christmas approaching, I realize more than ever the importance of family and friends. No place nor persons can replace the warmth of sharing traditions with your loved ones. So, while I have had no shortage of new, rich experiences, I have had a shortage of excitement. It’s difficult for me to share with others when my state of mind is not ebullient. With that said, there is so much still to say; so please continue to follow me on this journey, looking above and below for other December entries.

How about this for an image...

How about this for an image...

A ten year old walking down a dirt road (few roads are paved) with a black plastic grocery bag, sticking out of which is a hoof and lower leg of a sheep that was slaughtered two hours prior.

The majesty of a grey heron or a pelican with a wingspan of 8 feet taking flight in Djoudj, the third largest bird sanctuary in the world.



Instead of luggage in the lower compartment of a tour bus, you see sheep.

On the luggage rack on the top of buses, 8 sheep, each individually wrapped in blue tarp and tied down to the rack as the bus navigates the crater-filled roads at dangerously high speeds.

A local open-air market, and as a consequence, all surrounding consumers walking by, sporting hundreds of butcher knives and machetes.

A Thanksgiving feast hosted by an Embassy employee for 40 people in her downtown home that would have made even the biggest gourmand salivate, while outside the walls of the home were beggars sitting on the sidewalk.

A street vendor who wanted to charge me $14 for a pair of sandals because I’m white, but after chiding him a bit in his Wolof language, walking away with the sandals for $5.

A country whose population is 95% Muslim, selling artificial Christmas trees and garland on street corners all over the capital.

Hearing Black Senegalese yell out orders for Lebanese food--with perfect Arabic pronunciation--in the local Lebanese eateries.

Sitting in a sublime Jazz restaurant nibbling on lamb chops and listening to amazing live Jazz, Reggae, Blues, and traditional African music with a saxophonist whose tonal clarity rivals James Carter.

Going to the West Africa and International Trade Expo and buying beautiful ceramic vases for $6 and $10 from a handicapped artist from the country of Burkina Faso. Visiting boothes from Libya, Syria, China, Egypt, Mali, Nigeria, the U.S., and Tunisia.

Getting excited and spending hours walking up and down the aisles of a brand new French supermarket, because its one of the few places that is clean, orderly and reminiscent of home.

Sara, one of the building security guards and my friend, who literally lives in a tin shack, saving some of the lamb he slaughtered on Tabaski, to give to me as a gift.

Spirit of St. Louis

St. Louis, the New Orleans of Senegal. The Jazz capital of all of West Africa. I just returned from spending four days there, celebrating Tabaski with some Senegalese friends. In colonial times, the French laid out a perfect grid of streets on this island, with classic French architecture, buildings of 2-4 stories with beautiful wrought iron balconies overlooking the pedestrians who would be walking down below. St. Louis was named a World Heritage Site by the United Nations in 2000. Today the UN is threatening to take away that honor. The reasons being: the neglect of the buildings, the noncompliance with historical preservation codes in rehabilitating the structures, the absence of infrastructure support by the state, and the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of dollars given by UNESCO for such purposes. So, what does St. Louis look and feel like? The ghost of its former self. It would be as if Hurricane Katrina wreaked its havoc on the French Quarter of New Orleans (one section of the city that was relatively unaffected). It’s sad. Everyone from the rest of the country believes St. Louis is a beautiful historic city. Although many have never left their birthplace in Senegal to visit their own country for lack of financial means, they still have pride in St. Louis. Moreover, their pride in French architecture goes beyond the fact that as colonial powers, the French exploited thousands of local citizens to achieve such beauty. The Senegalese are intelligent, yet simple and forgiving people. Unfortunately, I have now heard the broken-record story more times than I can count: corrupt, bad governance. A leadership that lines its pockets at the blatant neglect of its people. A historic city crumbling; teachers not paid their salaries for one to two months; the monopoly electric company gouging the poor with bills for consumption levels that are physically impossible in their humble dwellings; a taximan, after a fender-bender with the wife of a government official, loses his car because the official extorts him--with pressure from the police, to produce money he physically doesn’t have, while the official has at his disposal more money stolen from the citizens than he knows what to do with; the guards--my friends--here in the building not being paid their monthly salary right before the biggest holiday of the year because the government building manager just didn’t feel like it and left town for a week when payday came around; classes canceled at school last Thursday when kids from another school came by with rocks threatening to stone us if we did not let our students go with them for a citywide student strike--for no apparent reason other than to make the holiday break longer, and we having to comply because there are no locks on school property doors, no hall monitors or guards, and no police to call if such an event occurs. When I came here, I expected to see underdevelopment because of poverty. What I did not expect to see is such abject corruption. These people, hard-working, faith-filled, and family-focused, deserve better.