Happy 65th Birthday, Dad! And Happy 51st Birthday, Senegal!

Congratulations, Dad! - quite the milestone.  I hope you're celebrating it well, and wish I could be there to enjoy it with you!

In other news...

Not much to update, but I'll give it a try:

1) I'm back at my friend's downtown, and got a bird's-eye view of all of the Independence Day festivities (the Place de l'Independence is just below her apartment).  The noise started last night, with sound-checking lasting for so long I wondered if I had gotten the date wrong for the holiday.   I heard some important-sounding people enunciating important-sounding words which nevertheless I often couldn't understand because of all the reverb.  I heard things like (translated):  "Monday, Monday, Monday.  TUESday. TUESday.  MONday. TUESday."  Etc.  I'm not sure what that has to do with Senegal's independence, but whatever.  The speaker DID manage to make them sound important though.  Elocution is quite valued here. 

Then this morning I had the pleasure of being woken up by cannon fire.   The windows were open - even better!  I found poor Minou hiding in a closet, shaking and tail-fluffed.  I had to carry her into the kitchen where the food was because she was too afraid to cross the threshold into the room where the window had let in the big, bad noise.  She sniffed the food but didn't have an appetite.  Poor thing!  Robespierre, on the other hand, didn't let a little noise affect his appetite...

So, I watched the festivities for a while - basically just a bunch of official-looking vehicles and groups of soldiers and police and whatnot in various uniforms all around the square.  And marching band music.  No matter where you are in the world, marching band music pretty much sounds exactly the same.  Always slightly out of tune, always a slightly withered expression of patriotic enthusiasm.  And then I saw the official motorcade moving around, and one was an open truck with press facing the limousine behind, which had the top open so President Wade could wave to everyone.  Then an open hummer-type vehicle with a few top army people dressed in their most formal miliatary garb, saluting the President.  Then a bunch more vehicles with more mysterious officialdom inside.  There was a moderate crowd behind the blockade, and they appluaded as the President went by.   And that was pretty much it.   No fireworks, no potato salad.   But, last night I heard a kora player / singer sound-checking, so hopefully later this evening there will be a concert I can enjoy from the balcony.  We'll see!

2) I went to the University last week, an event which, in typical Dakar fashion, ended up being a whole-day, exhausting affair.   My main reason for going was that there was an exhibit there on the history of the journal Présence africaine.  The journal is of great historical importance for Senegal - Alioune Diop, it's founder, was very involved in getting the first FESMAN off the ground.  So, I was excited to go and see the exhibit, especially because one whole quarter of it was to be devoted to FESMAN '66!  Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed with the FESMAN room.  It was the smallest and most sparse of the rooms, and other than the looping video clip, I didn't see anything that was new for me.  The video clip was cool, especially because it was in color - the only other one I'd seen was in black and white and narrated by Langston Hughes.  My journalist friend Florent told me he thought this clip at the University exhibit was from the Russian film that was made, which I've never been able to find.  That may be, although the narration was in English or French, I can't remember, but definitely not Russian.  But the best part of the clip was seeing Josephine Baker singing, in color!  By 1966 she was already getting up there in years, but she was as beautiful as ever.  Anyway, I was disappointed that the loop was only about a minute long.  I need to talk to the exhibit people to find out how to access the entirety of the video, but the curators are in Paris.  In fact, I met the curator when I was in Paris last year, because the same exhibit had been presented there, at the Musée du Quai Branly.  I hadn't made it in time for that exhibit, but I spoke with the curator and she was helpful in giving my research some direction.  I also bought the exhibit catalog.  Florent had told me that the Dakar version of the exhibit was supposed to be more filled-out than the Paris one.  I guess I can't say since I wasn't actually there for the original. 

Then the second part of my university experience was trying to go about getting a library card.  As a doctoral student from an outside institution, I was supposed to fill out a special form, which of course they didn't have available.  The lady just told me to see Mr. Samb, and directed me to his office.  So I go to his office and find about 50 students milling about in a tiny, closet-sized space, waiting for Mr. Samb to show up.  There was no guarantee that he would show up.  I decided I didn't have the patience to wait and figured that even if he did return, there wasn't going to be enough time for him to get through all of those students before his office closed and that it would be better to come back in the morning. 

Meanwhile I decided maybe I could just find what I was looking for myself, in the stacks, and then digitally photo the relevant pages.  But of course what I was looking for, someone's Master's thesis, was in some reserve area which required a card to be shown to the librarian before he would retrieve it for me.  And of course the librarian told me they were closing in 2 minutes, even though the website said that they would be open until 10pm and that you could check stuff out until 9:30.  Maybe the reserve stuff has separate hours.  Whatever.  At any rate, the upshot is that I never got anywhere and left empty-handed.

Add to this the trek to the library and home, which was maybe an hour in the sun each way.  This was pure stupidity on my part, because I wrongly estimated that the university was within reasonable walking distance.  It sort of was, minus the increasing heat, but then I didn't take into account that the university campus is huge and it took me maybe another half an hour to find the library.  Then walking back, etc., etc.  I should have taken cabs.  Oh well, live and learn.

By the time I got home, I was exhausted.  I went to sleep about 30 minutes later (at 7pm) and didn't wake up again until 10pm. 

So, that's all for now.  This week, since I'm downtown, I plan to visit the archives of the Sorano Theatre, which was built for the first FESMAN.  Obviously mainly for research purposes, but also because I really, REALLY want to find an original FESMAN poster and Florent said he thought this would be the best to look.  I also plan to drop in on Serge since he lives nearby.  And whatever else...