I'm alive!

Hallo!

Sorry for the long blog absence- Joe, if you're reading this, I didn't drown in any floods, not to worry! I was sick for 3 or 4 days last week, which was dumb, but I'm fully recovered now (knock on wood.) I was concerned I had malaria, which my host family thought was hilarious, and went to a clinic, but I'm fine now, so no worries.

I've been here for exactly two weeks now, which is bizarre- some days it feels like I've been here for so much longer, others it feels like I've been here no time at all, but it definitely doesn't feel like two weeks.

We started classes last Monday, and they've been going alright- most of the professors are great and hilarious. Everyone has to take Country Analysis, which focuses on the history/culture of Senegal; International Development, a class whose sole purpose, as I understand it so far, is to make sure we all despise the World Bank and IMF; and Wolof. Wolof has been pretty ridiculous so far- all of us toubabs are divided into 4 groups, split between two professors. I think I got the short end of the stick professor-wise- Aissatou, while very kind, tries to teach us in one day what would normally take weeks to go over in any other intro language class. In a two hour class last Friday, we "learned" 3 different verb tenses, negation of verbs in all of these tenses, (every one is different,) and 5 different sets of pronouns. Try absorbing that much information when you're sick, the air conditioning is off because the power is out, and someone is smashing bathroom tile with a sledge hammer 10 feet from the open classroom window. I thought my head was going to explode!

Other than those three classes, everyone gets to take one other course of their choice, in whatever "track" interests them. I'm signed up for Environmental Studies, and am also auditing the Education track. I missed the Environmental Studies course last week because I was sick, but the Education class was great- the professor is really intelligent and thoughtful, and the class was really interesing. I'm excited to see what the Environment class is like this week!

Although we're in class for a lot of hours every day, we really don't have a lot of homework other than a couple papers thoughout our first 6 weeks in Dakar. It'll be nice to have an academically laid back semester.

Otherwise... This past weekend was pretty interesting. Friday afternoon my host sister Raissa took me to one of Dakar's markets to buy fabric so I can have an outfit (a boubou) made for Korite, the big party holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan (this coming Sunday!) The market was absolutely jam packed with people looking to buy and vendors selling everything from baby clothes to shoes to fabric to bootlegged CDs to pots and pans. I ended up buying a dark turquoise fabric hand woven with hot pink ribbon for the pagne, or skirt, and pink fabric for the top. Last night Raissa took me to a tailor right around the corner from our house- in sum, I'm paying 16,000 CFA, or 36 dollars, to have a fancy outfit made just for me. That includes the price of fabric!

Friday night was this girl Melinda's birthday, so a bunch of us toubabs went out to a club called Just 4 U. They have live music there every night! Some of the kids brought their host brothers and sisters, and we all sat around a big table, talked, and drank West African beer. After a while we all got up and danced, which was great fun- some of the Senegalese guys were trying to teach us mbalax, the crazy knee jerking arm waving booty shaking Senegalese dance that makes all beginners look extremely foolish. It was pretty awesome. I'm excited to go out when Ramadan is over and more Senegalese people are out and about on the weekend nights!

Saturday I went with the host family to Grandma Binta's house. After chilling for a while, I made plans with some people to go to a beach called Ngor. I invited my host sister and a couple of her friends to come along as well, which turned out to be a mistake. In Senegal, everyone shares everything- food, clothes, belongings, etc. This is generally a really nice thing, unless you spend the entire day catering to my host sister Raissa, the queen bee of moochers. I ended up paying the entire taxi fare to and from the beach and the fee for renting an umbrella and a mat, which I didn't even want. On top of that Raissa asked to borrow my phone and used 800 of the 1000 credits I had just bought that morning, and "borrowed" money to buy food, which she has yet to pay me back for. After we met up with my friends Amanda, Emma, and Britta, she also promptly inhaled literally half of the pizza they had just bought for lunch. Last time I take her to the beach!

Moochers aside, though, the beach was absolutely stunning. The water was perfect, and the palm trees, grass umbrellas, floating pirogues, and the circle of men beating drums completed the scene. There is also a beautiful island a little ways offshore at Ngor that you can pay to take a boat to- apparently Akon owns a house there! Didn't get to go this time because Maman Binta made me solemnly swear I wouldn't "traverse the water" because of choppy conditions, but I definitely want to go back. We had a great time anyway, though, just lounging, floating, and people watching.

Yesterday, I went on an adventure with my neighbor Elke downtown. We successfully rode the bus, an experience unto itself, and then went to my new favorite place on earth, N'ice Cream. (YES.) They have Obama flavored ice cream there! It is delicious chocolate with crunchy chocolate chunks. If Obama really tastes like that I'm sure all of his Secret Service agents are constantly trying to lick him. They also had a flavor called 'Mozart,' but I just couldn't bring myself to mix the two. Next time.

Soooo yes that was my weekend! Right now I have class, but I hope you are all well. I miss home a lot, and love reading all your comments... Keep em coming!

Also, I had to buy a new sim card for my cell phone because the last one never worked, so here's my new number-
011 221 776107558
Please call! And if someone reads this and talks to my dad soon, could you pass the number along? I don't know how often he gets internet.

Baax suba