The last few days have been busy but fulfilling.  First, on Saturday I went out to Kër Ndiaye Lo, my friend Balla's village on the outskirts of Roufisque.  With a taxi and traffic it's about an hour, with a bus about 3 (I took a cab there and a bus back).  As usual Balla welcomed me with open arms and the usual Senegalese teranga (hospitality), which included a nice communal cëbujën lunch (fish and rice, with veggies) with him and a few of his friends.  My main reason for going out there, besides just to visit, was to help Balla put a CV together for his visa application (see one of my earlier posts).  He had never written a resume before and his friend Cheikhuna and I helped him put it together by looking at a bunch of old fliers and pamphlets from events he's helped to organize over the years and by trying to prompt his memory to fill in the gaps.  One thing I can say for sure:  Balla's done a LOT!  He has initiated and directed cultural festivals, created theatre troups, fashion design studios, cultural educational programs for youth, has worked with homeless street children in Gambia, etc.  He is a true baay faal, in the sense that he worships God by using his talents to make the world a better place and to help improve the lives of those in his village and elsewhere.  It was kind of fun putting the resume together - Cheikhuna would ask Balla, "So what'd you do after that?" and Balla would think and mumble to himself a little, and then say something like, "Well, I did a lot of disco dancing."  This made Cheikhuna and I crack up and I facetiously typed "Disco Dancer, 1975-77" and we laughed some more before I erased it... 

While gnoshing on cëbujën, Cheikhuna and I got to talking about some of the difficulties facing artists and musicians here, and after we finished the CV, he, Balla and I started brainstorming ideas about how we could ameliorate some of these things...  Balla and Cheikhuna have both already created community arts foundations for their local villages of Kër Ndiaye Lo ("Tous Pour Tous") and Bambilor ("Nyokobokk") respectively.  I've brainstormed with some of my musician friends here and passed along some of their ideas and mine to Cheikhuna and Balla. This Saturday we are hoping to pull together a few heads to meet and discuss things some more.  I feel like something potentially interesting is brewing, but I don't want to get ahead of myself, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Cheikhuna hosts a community radio show for his and some surrounding villages.  He wanted to take the opportunity of being with Balla and me to record tomorrow's broadcast, because he hadn't yet come up with a program for the week.  He thought it would be interesting for people to hear the perspective of an American musician doing research here, and that of a long-experienced cultural organizer like Balla.  I was sort of caught off guard when I realized he wanted to do the interview right then, and I started fretting about how sucky my French would sound, etc., etc.  Well, sucky or not, ladies and gentlemen:  I gave my first radio interview/broadcast in French on Saturday!  I could hear myself making stupid mistakes and rambling, because I was sometimes at a loss for how to say something as concisely as I'd be able to in English.  I could always get my point across, but not always so elegantly or succinctly.  Oh well, hopefully they'll cut the anglo-toubab some slack.  Cheikhuna said I did fine (but he might have just been being polite...!)  And then, more pressure:  Cheikhuna wanted Balla and I to record little radio station plugs - you know those "I'm so-and-so and I listen to Y-95!" or whatever.  So Balla went first and I used his Wolof as a cue, because it was supposed to be in Wolof (I forgot to mention that the radio interview/broadcast with Balla and I was a back-and-forth sort of conversation in which Cheikhuna switched between Wolof with Balla and French with me...  I could understand a lot of what Balla was saying since I was already familiar with the subject matter, but fortunately Cheikhuna gave me a break and didn't make me answer any questions in Wolof!!!).  So my little clip goes, "Man Melissa te dëgg naa 103 FM!" (or whatever the station number was - I can't remember).  I think my voice sounds slightly bewildered since I had like 2 seconds to realize what was happening and then suddenly:  ok, go!  Anyway - the interview went well, I think, and since he asked about my musical life back home it also afforded me the opportunity to shamelessly plug my band, Yid Vicious - so now we are going to be all the rage in Kër Ndiaye Lo and Bambilor, I'm sure.  I'll have to warn Kia because the calls are bound to start flooding in anytime now...  yep, anytime... any.... time...

In other news, Monday marked my first RTS (Radio-Télévision Sénégal) attempt.  I had an appointment (finally! after a few weeks of getting the run-around) for 10am.  I showed up and of course, guess what?  The power was out.  Yep, that's right folks:  you won't find any power cuts for the posh Place de l'Independance residences (where I'm cat-sitting again this week) or along the coastal road where foreign dignitaries often pass by on their way between downtown and the classy Almadies neighborhood (I assume this is so as to avoid any unfavorable impressions a blackout might give to any VIPs driving by), but the country's one and only national radio/TV station is subject to the same power cuts as the rest of us schlubs!  The employees seem to take it in stride - what else can you do if you want to stay sane?  To them it's just a nice opportunity to catch up on a crossword puzzle, have a cigarette break, get a café touba (a spiced sort of coffee - it has some kind of herb in it, sort of cardamom-ish), etc.  Since my work there necessitated electricity, all I could do was wait and twiddle my thumbs until I decided I had wasted enough time (an hour and a half) and that I may as well just come back tomorrow because who knows when the power will or won't come back on... 

So that brings me to today.  I called before coming in to make sure there was, indeed, electricity this time.  Mamadou the radio archives technician assured me there was, so I went in and started digging in.  I listened to all of the broadcasts for Fesman 2010 (there were only short little bits for each day), and starting tomorrow will get going on 1966.  I should be able to copy everything to CDs/DVDs, Mamadou told me, as long as I submit a letter of permission and it gets approved.  So, I'm making some headway...

Then I cabbed back home because I forgot my tripod and I had an interview scheduled at 4pm with Ablaye Cissoko, an extremely kind and talented kora player who travels constantly... he just got back from NY a few days ago and is only here for a week to play at the Saint-Louis Jazz Festival, then he jets back to New York, then Norway...  busy guy.  Which makes it all the more special that he took the time to meet with me despite his crazy schedule.  I thanked him again after the interview and told him that he's probably one of the busiest of all of the Senegalese musicians I've tried to interview, and yet he was the nicest, most available, approachable and accommodating.  So, thanks Ablaye!  You can check out Ablaye Cissoko's music at: 

http://www.ablayecissoko.com/

www.myspace.com/ablayecissoko

www.myspace.com/cissokogoetze