Apologies for my absence. Far too much time has passed since my last entry and enfolded into that time are moments of wonder, bliss, banality, utter perplexity, and feverish delirium—the latter being the cause for my hiatus from blogging.
After a week of a mild flu and sleepless nights (cause unknown—malaria meds? congestion? changes in temperature?), I succumbed to a series of symptoms very similar to those I experienced my first week. This time, however, the nausea was outdone by an oscillating fever and some really unpleasant chills. Three tubes of blood later (see ‘things I hate’ on my profile at blogabroad.com): no malaria. Thank Allah. But a high white blood cell count indicated that I had some kind of infection, most likely of a digestive nature, again. This girl could use a hardy gut.

After….when was it now….last Monday, I wanted to update so very badly. And Tuesday morning, before insomnia had made me an absolute nutcase, I sat down to try and make sense of what I had witnessed the previous day, and found myself at odds with my fingers, with the keyboard. Or moreover, with the English language. But the less I wrote, the more I realized that my problem stemmed from my role as a blogger—as an observer, a journalist, an outsider, a student, a westerner…

I attempted to express myself in an email to my mom that day:

Speaking of my perspectives on things, I should really update my blog. But I've reached this bizarre impasse where I've lost my ability to comment on all of the cultural norms as they are just part of daily life and though I've witnessed the craziest and most fantastical events like this ndep (one of those healing ceremonies you read about) where there was a sacrifice and blood and priestesses and frantic drumming and possessed women writhing in the sand.... I truly don't have the words to describe it or the cultural context. Lately, I want to be as accurate as possible when setting the cultural context—any kind of misleading information would be doing a great disservice to this place, this reality—but trying to extract even the most simple of facts from people is not easy. It's like coming into Cambridge and trying to unravel the cultural significance of higher education and Harvard and late nights and coffee and bookstores...it's just there. And when you live it, you know it, but intrinsically so.... Agh can't articulate. So I have 'blogger's block.' Ha.

For the first time, I had witnessed something that lay so far beyond my comprehension as an American who, despite her best efforts, can only see with eyes conditioned by her western upbringing and can only write with words skimmed from the surface of a small pool, a pool potentially made deeper and wider by a rigorous prep school education, but a small pool of words nonetheless. I felt like a wildlife photographer who suddenly realizes that she is in the middle of a spectacular savannah equipped with just one lens.

But I’ve come to accept my fate. I will never adequately capture all that I see; my view is inherently myopic. However, when I am afforded the opportunity, I will try my hardest to stretch my understanding to encompass the points farthest from its general body of knowledge, to knowingly increase its capacity. I will live the gray areas…the pink areas, the yellow areas….and those areas doused in colors I will never know.

So keeping all of that in mind, this ndep ceremony:

Marian begins most discussions of ndeps and other related ceremonies with, ‘Well, there’s the human world and the spirit world.’

And the spirit world is always there; it has always been there. I was made aware of its existence right at the start of my time here when my French teacher had us describe American superstitions. I rattled off a few: black cats, ladders, mirrors, umbrellas, the number 13….but the measly list the Americans put together paled in comparison to what Ousman, my teacher, revealed about Senegalese superstitions. ‘Superstition’ isn’t even the right word. ‘Beliefs’? Spirituality? Non of this will do!

As far as I can tell, there are two occasions for ndeps:

In Yoff, there are always spirits amongst us and at certain times of day they are supposedly more virulent than at others (for example, midday is not the best time to be outside, especially with your hair down if you are a girl). Some spirits are a bit misguided and these spirits, wrabs (?), will occasionally "possess" a body, usually a female, and torment her with a malady, physical or mental, of some kind. At this point, the family may bring in a priestess for consultation. A small sacrifice, a chicken, may be made, the woman put into a light trance, the wrab identified, instructions for the full extraction of the wrab made clear to the priestess, and a date settled upon for an ndep.

There are also the matrilineal family ancestral spirits. Yoff’s primary ancestral spirit is the sea spirit, Mamdjaray (?). Her presence is not as old as time as one may expect; in fact, her arrival in Yoff can be pinpointed to an exact date (sometime in the mid 1400s). Just this Monday, we attended Mamdjaray’s festival of sorts—an annual event hosted by one of two families descended directly from Mamdjaray. The families that can claim Mamdjaray’s lineage are, to the outsider, numerous. When a family is experiencing some difficulties, they will choose an intermediary of sorts for the family, again most often a female, to consult the ancestral spirit. The priestess of their family’s spirit will be consulted and an ndep may be in order.

Shaky as it is, that’s the brunt of my understanding thus far. What I saw was essentially trance dancing. A large circle of woman and children congregated in an open area at around 5 pm. Yoff’s griot family, which includes our dance teacher, was drumming—the deep-throated djimbes shook the sands while the smaller drums, tinny in comparison, punctuated the portentous air. About ten or so women dressed in cloth of same pattern opened the ceremony with dancing and chanting, a call and response to one woman who shouted from a hand-held speaker. As Fatou explained to me, all of the women dancing had already been cured in an ndep. Some of the women fell into trance and engaged in a kind of bull-matador like dance with the drummers.

Finally the woman/girl (she is 24) for whom the ceremony was held was led into the circle, flanked by two priestesses. Her head and arms were wrapped in a dark cloth and when she was unveiled, it became apparent that her arms were stained with the blood of a sacrificed animal, probably a cow. She wore a crown of sorts and her hair was free of any weave, pulled back in just a few small braids, making her look broad-faced and young. What was afflicting her, I’m not quite sure…though I heard insomnia from Fatou (I can sympathize).

What followed was a lot of impassioned drumming, dancing, and ululating, the girl finally falling into trance. She shook on the ground, crawled through the sand, tore at her hair, made as though she was rowing a pirogue (as Mamdjaray is a sea spirit), fell on the ground exhausted, leapt about as though her body knew no bounds…Meanwhile, women at the fringes of the circle were falling into trance. All of the sudden a scream would erupt from one corner of the circle and a woman would fall into the circle’s center and start propelling herself with her feet through the sand, or rolling back and forth, or clutching her head, clearly distraught. In total, about three spectators, all women, fell into trance. Other women were fleeing from the circle, afraid of falling into trance themselves. Apparently there are a few specific beats emitted from the drums and chants from the priestess to call one into trance and some women want to get as far away as possible when they hear such beats. Men rarely attend ndeps, afraid of tarnishing their dignity and manhood by falling into trance.

At one point, Shannon got up from her place at the inner sanctum of the circle to find a bathroom and a cry erupted from the crowd. Only as she pushed her way outside the circle and children pointed and laughed, did we realize that everyone thought she was running away, fearful of the tugs of trance.

The ceremony was a bit anti-climactic. Six or so women had fallen deep into trance, the elder of the priestesses, this teeny wiry old woman, was dancing lewdly and drawing out jeers and screams of laughter from the crowd, the girl for whom all of this took place ran wildly about the circle, holding a string of shells or rocks above her head….and then the drums slowed and that was it. The girl was led away by the priestesses and the crowd dispersed.

It resumed again that night around 10pm in a smaller, more intimate space. But I was hungry for sleep and stayed in.

So that is the ndep as I saw it.

And now I am typing away at my laptop, its wireless card rejuvenated, from a plush leather chair in the marbled lobby of Le Meridien Presidential. Belgian businessman at my right. A grand piano at my left. I am a bad bad sustainable development student. What’s my excuse? My daddy’s here.

He arrived two days ago at 7 am and I, donning my thiabas (traditional garb for younger set), was there to meet him. A friend and associate of my father’s got a whole group together to come to a pan-African music festival in Dakar hosted by non other than Senegal’s beloved Youssou N’Dor. My dad was eager to hop on board—see his daughter and hear some of the best music Africa has to offer. Having him here has been wonderful and totally surreal. I had almost forgotten that my life here and at home coexist, that all that separates the two is the Atlantic. He could not have come at better time as my fever left me a bit weakened. He battled quite the cold to get here himself and the past few days we have both been taking it easy and I have been taking full and liberal advantage of hot water. But I hope to be playing tour guide as his trip progresses and take him to some of the prime spots.

Yesterday he met my family and walked around Yoff a bit. Ndeye rushed home to meet him and though French was not even an option for communication, a lot of smiles were exchanged and I think (I hope) my dad understood just how wonderful they are.

Well that’s all for now. I want to maximize every moment with my pops while he’s here.

But I will make up for lost posts, promise.