An Encounter with a Senegalese Death Pepper, and Other Adventures

HEY GUYS.

I am here in Dakar, at present sitting at my new found favorite place in the world, MyShop. We haven't had internet or phone access until this very moment, and it has been beyond frustrating. This post will be short, but I'm definitely going to come back here tomorrow and write more!

The plane ride was fine, South African Air is a pretty cush airline. They even gave us socks! I befriended this group of three older men who were on their way to go hunting for black wildebeasts in South Africa, and they helped me through airport security and to the gate. When I got there, there was a huge gaggle of kids who were obviously my group, so I sat with them until we departed. They are all nice, and I think I'll make some good friends here!

We stayed in a hotel (with air conditioning, thank Allah) the first night, and visited the house of a Senegalese woman, Honoré, who had worked with MSID for 10 years on our first day. It was raining BUCKETS, so we hung out inside, ate, danced, talked about things to do and NOT do with our host families, ate, ate, and then went back to the hotel.

At Honoré's house, we had the Senegalese national dish, chebujen, for dinner. We all sat on the floor around these huge communal plates and ate with our hands. (Only the right one! To eat with your left hand in a big no no.) Chebujen is really tasty- it's cooked millet, veggies, and fish, seasoned to delicious-ness. It was while eating this dish, though, that I made a near fatal mistake. I was eager to try everything in front of me, so when I saw what looked like a small harmless bell pepper, I grabbed it and offered to split it with the girl sitting next to me, Allison. What happened next I can only compare to a dementor attack (for the Harry Potter fans amongst you,) if dementors stuck flame throwers down your throat instead of making you feel cold. Immediately upon contact, I started weeping, shaking, sweating ALL over, and turning the most incredible shade of red. Allison was suffering a similar fate, and the other kids sharing our food were quite concerned. To make matters worse, the Senegalese don't drink any water with their meals, so to quench the fire we just had to shovel more food in our mouths. I can honestly say that is the most uncomfortable I have ever been in my life!

Anyhow- it is nearing 6 PM and I have to make my way home before it gets dark, but I will write much more tomorrow and post pictures! Briefly- we don't start classes til Monday, but we moved in with our host families day before yesterday! My family is great- Maman Binta and Papa Anicet are extremely nice, and Raissa and Pascal are a lot of fun. Pascal was thrilled that my umbrella opened with just a button.

In Senegal, white people are known as "toubabs"- with each passing day I feel like more and more of a big dumb toubab! It's become a running joke amongst us students- you bought that necklace for 6000 CFA?? You are such a toubab! You left your underwear for your host family to wash?? (big no no!) Tu es vraiment toubab!!

Things are so cuckoo bananas here, I can't even wrap my mind around it. Anyway, more later.