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By juliaraewagner

After some 30+ hours of travel and 4 flights, IHP Cities has arrived in Dakar, Senegal! We've spent the past week getting acquainted with out new city, meeting the people, seeing the sites, and tasting this country's delicious food.

With warm weather, fresh air, and a constant, refreshing sea breeze, there's a lot to love about Dakar, but my favorite element so far has been the Senegalese attention to people. One of the first things our country coordinator told us is that Senegal has a people-centric, people-first culture, and that has been continuously reinforced in the classroom and my home-stay.

This week, we've learned how to greet people we meet, an act that is extremely important here. To not greet a person is to not acknowledge his humanity and so to ask someone to do something for you without greeting him first is one of the biggest offenses in the book. That must be why the Senegalese greet in not one, not two, but three different languages before getting down to what they wanted to discuss. So in the past week, I've learned how to say, "Hey, how are you?" in Arabic, French, and Wolof, the most prominent ethnic language.

Sometimes, this attention to the person means that things take longer than they would in our time-centric Western society. People are often late to meetings because they stopped to talk to a friend on the sidewalk or were busy checking in on their family. Our Senegalese country facilitator has joked that this loose attention to time is called WAIT, or West African Internal Time. Time here is all about giving people the time of day.

In my home-stay  I've also seen manifestations of the people-centric culture. Random family members and neighbors are constantly wandering into each other's homes and spending the night or the afternoon. Each house is home to a large extended family. I'm pretty sure that my household consists of about 12 people from three generations, though I'm still very unclear of who actually lives here and who simply spends their time here. Even more confusing is who is the child of whom and who is married to whom. The whole family gathers around the same tray for dinner every night, but we always seem to be adding new members.

Speaking of food, my home-stay roommate and I helped the women of the family prepare a huge feast today for their monthly family meeting.  Every month, all of the people of the same age within the family meet to talk and spend time together. Our house, which is usually bustling with about 20 people at any given time had about 40 people this afternoon. We spent the whole afternoon cooking for the event, but cleanup was super easy with so many hands to help out!

By nlgyon

In the absence of any great adventures, I'd like to describe a useful “skill” I'm acquiring that I think will continue to make my life easier when I return. As a student, you're forced to have decent time management skills. Ensuring that I finish my homework, internalize class material, go to work, maintain my social life and organizational responsibilities, and remember to feed myself takes a bit of foresight. But I slumped into a routine of having a plan in my head of exactly how my day will go. And it usually went that way; when it didn't, I was bothered.

But since I've been in Amman I've learned to let that go a little bit. There are so many more variables here I don't have control over. For example, there are some times on some days you can't count on getting a cab to certain parts of the city. Living outside of a well-organized grid with everything labeled on Google Maps turns finding simple goods and services into adventures, filled with attempts to communicate my needs to locals, and struggling to understand their directions. Without Whole Foods and a billion other restaurants right around the corner to cater to any cuisine my palette desires at mealtime, meals have become less like social events, and generally don't take up much time. It's such an effort to take a taxi to the store for weekly groceries and load up as much as my arms can carry, or walk a mile to the nearest restaurant, I'm happy just to still have something edible in the refrigerator. Even in the realm of leisure, I realize I slid into a routine. Here I have been busy exploring everything this country has to offer. These are just a few examples.

I think practicing this on-the-fly style of time management will be healthy for me when I get back. It has forced me to keep my eyes open and my mind on what opportunities are open to me considering my circumstances.