First of all, may I just take a minute to recommend this wonderful book. After reading it, I liked it; but after discussing it together and getting more insight about it, I LOVE it. Seriously. I can't wait to read it again. This book tells the story of S amba Dialo, a young boy in West Africa who is sent to the "new school" after the French colonization. He has to leave his Quranic school and his studies of the Word to go learn how to "lier le bois au bois" (something to the effect of, put the wood together, ie, learn to do things the modern, Westernized way). It's a story about his faith and how it holds up in the mixing of these two worlds-- one of tradition and culture; the other of modernity and science. It really makes you question yourself and how you live your faith, or how your faith stands up to challenges. So good. READ IT!
That said, we had the amazing opportunity to have a "round table" discussion this morning with several professors of literature from the university, as well as the author of this book himself, Cheikh Hamidou Kane. It was... interesting, but after an hour and a half of class, and then this round table for three and half hours, we were all a bit brain dead by the end and having trouble understanding their somewhat obscure literary references in French... still a good book :)
Afterwards, we were invited over to the university to have a "cocktail" with one of the professors from the other day and some of his students. It was a good chance for us to mingle a bit, and get started asking questions about our research projects. I'm doing mine about marriage in Senegal because there are just so many different aspects of it! Girls marrying very young, arranged marriages, polygamy, etc. It's going to be so interesting :) It's interesting to hear all the different points of view (although right now it seems as though there are only two-- the female point of view, and the male. We'll see if this changes).
Then some of the students came with us to go to this village market place, which is next to a nice little beach. They were so nice to come with us and show us around and explain all kinds of cool things to us... here's a little of what we saw:
This was painted on the back of one of the Senegalaise guitars:
Paul, me, Seiga, Miles, and Jean-Baptiste (can you tell which are the catholics, and which the muslums?)
Tomorrow, we get to sleep in. And boy are we happy about it :) Wish me luck giving the Sunday School lesson!
1 comment:
Good luck teaching Sunday school...loving the blog!
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