Cities: Spangolofrenglish

We'll be spending four weeks living with host families in Dakar. I can already tell that mine is likely to make for a fascinating and fun experience...

My seven-year-old host sister is trying to teach me words in the Wolof tribal language but she only speaks French so she has to ask her aunt for help.

Sometimes I can understand her aunt because what she says sounds like the (very limited) Haitian Creole that I learned last semester; sometimes she can understand me when I try to speak to her in Spanish because she grew up with a creolized form of Portuguese spoken in her grandmother's country, Cape Verte.

But if all else fails, then I can turn to my host dad and ask him to translate with the English that he knows, or turn to my host mom with Spanish because she studied it in school. The latter is especially helpful when my words then get translated into Serer, the tribal language of the maid who stays here during the week.

There are technically seven languages going on here (eight, if you count the Italian than an uncle throws in to try to understand my Spanish), but four of them are the most dominant: Spanish, Wolof, French, and English. Or as we like to say on IHP, Spangolofrenglish.

I came here on a mission to be able to hold a conversation in Wolof after five weeks. This was the dominant language, I had heard, and it would be a fun challenge to throw myself in off the deep end and try to master a new language in a month - before departing for the comfortable Spanish of Argentina. But the reality of Dakar's linguistic complexities is making me chill out with that particular ambition, and work with seven languages simultaneously instead.

Dakar makes it easy enough to chill out. It's always in the 70's or 80's here, and during the dry season there's almost never a cloud in the sky. The city rests on a peninsula so the scent of the sea and the cool breeze it creates always surround you. And everything is bright - bright from the long, sunny days; bright from the white sand that covers every inch of unpaved city; bright from the buildings painted either white or pastel.

So it's a nice place to be, and an interesting one too: French colonization, a deeply tribal history, rapid urbanization, a long history of migration from nearby African countries, constant European tourism, and a proliferation of American study abroad programs are all apparent, even in just one conversation around the dinner table.

I don't have any photos of Spangolofrenglish so here are some other photos of things to look forward to in the coming weeks instead: