Threes

Top Three Things I Love About Senegal:

1. Bissap, Ditak, and all the other delicious juices they have here.
2. Hanging out on the beautiful beaches
3. Relaxing practically 24/7

Top Three Things I Dislike About Senegal:

1. Power-outs
2. Heat rash
3. Sweating all the time/Mosquitos

Three Things I Pass on the Way to School:

1. Sheep grazing in the grass on the street divider
2. A manhole missing its cover, marked by a large stick someone thoughtfully put it in to warn others
3. A open-air meat stand where you pick and chose your cuts and they chop it right there. No refrigeration involved

Top Three Things I Miss About Home:

1. Feeling cold
2. Fresh raspberry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream
3. All of you

Three Things I Did Today:

1. Bought bag yogurt as a snack in between breakfast and lunch
2. Took a tour of a school in one of the poor districts of Dakar- very moving.
3. Hung out with my host sister Mariama, and brothers Khadim and Papi

Three Words You Need To Know in Wolof:

1. Say-say (sigh-sigh): Person of questionable moral fibre or just a generally sketchy dude. Good for describing my host brother, Mohammed. Ex: Mohammed didn't come home until 3:30am. He's a say-say.
2. Asalaa Maalekum (ah-sah-LAH-mal-ee-koom): This is the general greeting used when saying hello. It literally means "Peace be with you." You reply with Maalekum salaam, which means "And also with you." This is incredibly important because you must greet everyone you know.
3. Kay lekk (kai lehk): "Come eat!" Important because you'll hear this a lot. If anyone, including yourself, is eating something, you must offer to those around you.

Three Things I Hope to do This Weekend:

1. Go to the family tailor with my mom and design my bubu for Tabaski. [Bubu: traditional skirt and top made from matching fabric (I bought my fabric at the market and it's super awesome.) Usually the tops are outrageously complicated and elegant. Skirts tend to be simpler and floor length. Tabaski: Important Muslim holiday (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Adha)]
2. Hopefully I'll go to Ngor beach with Andrew and Joleen, and maybe a few more of my posse. [Side note: Akon lives in Ngor.]
3. There is a soccer match between Senegal and Mauritania. It's on Sunday and i've got nothing else planned, so I'm going to try to make it to that, inshallah. (<-- word used after future plans, meaning "God willing.)

sadglkqbaPOWEROUThw;eal.,msgfnasdf

It is so hot. The power is always out. ALWAYS. It turns off precisely at 11pm at night and comes back on at 4am. Not cool. That is the time when everyone needs to use fans because it is way too hot to sleep. Believe me on this one.

This news article sums our sentiments up nicely:

"Senegalese president names son energy minister

Associated Press
10/04/10 11:55 AM PDT

DAKAR, SENEGAL — A presidential decree published Monday and read on local radio stations announces that the son of Senegal's aging president was named Minister of Energy.

Karim Wade, the son of President Abdoulaye Wade, ran for mayor of Dakar and lost in an election in March 2009. Soon after, his octogenarian father appointed the son "Minister of State and Minister of International Cooperation, Territorial Management, Aerian Transport and Infrastructure." The new title of energy minister will be added to his duties.

The elder Wade has been accused of trying to position his son to seize power upon his death. The post of energy minister is especially crucial now in light of increasingly frequent power cuts in Senegal."

Skype

Just a heads up y'all: I've got internet here that I use sparingly. It's at the Centre Baobab but it closes at 7pm my time, which is 2pm your time. If you want to skype with me at all, just shoot me an email. I'm usually pretty busy and also I am trying to abstain from overusing the internet- it's a little overwhelming.

Hope all is well aux Etats-Unis. Love from Dakar to all of you.

PHOTOS

I stole a bunch of photos from my friend, Joleen. I've got my own but I left them at home, so here's what we've got so far.

This is a typical market scene. Crap piled on top of more crap. Be prepared to waxaale (bargain in Wolof.)

This is the beautiful island of Gorée, just a few kilometers off of the Dakar coastline. This was an old slave trade center. Side note: the ocean here seems saltier than usual.

This is a picture from Voile d'Or. White sand beaches and beautiful palm trees. I spent my Sunday lounging here. No big deal.

This is a picture from the rooftop of one of our houses (Probably Joleen's.)

This is a common form of transportation called a 'car rapide.'

The Five Senses of Dakar: Part I- Touch

Part I- Touch:

• Rice balls!: You eat with your hands here. You can eat with a spoon sometimes, but it's usually more efficient to make a ball of rice with your right hand and mix in some of the sauce and vegetables. I've not been very successful at this. It's messy and most of my rice ball usually ends up on the ground.
• Sweat: It is always so hot here. It is the end of the rainy season, which means that the humidity will finally be going down. It's getting cooler, but it's impossible to go anywhere without being bathed in sweat. I have officially given up on being clean all the time. All of the sweat actually leads me to the next point...
• Heat rash: I am covered from torso to kneecap in heat rash. It's sometimes itchy but mostly just hideous. I look like i've got chicken pox for the second time. There's not much one can do about it either. I'm hoping it will go away soon, but i'll give it another week or two
• Sand: It basically covers everything. Your feet, skin, and sometimes the food if you're unlucky. It's nice at the beach, but there's sand replacing grass in most cases.

That's about all I can think of for now. More to come!

This is my host sister, Mariama. She's 11 1/2 and just as tall as me. Mariama is hilarious and she is incredibly helpful in helping me find my way around the house. This picture was taken at Voile d'or, a beautiful beach along the eastern coast of the Dakar peninsula.

Right Meow

SALUT!

In this picture I am eating yogurt in a bag. It cost about 500cfa, which is about $1.00. Pretty cheap for the most delicious snack ever. Especially since dairy is hard to come by over here.

** Heads up: Due to the fact that I need to be constantly thinking in three different languages, my brain power has significantly decreased. My english has gone down hill, and on top of that I'm pretty tired. The heat is exhausting. So, please forgive me for all of my confusing and not well worded posts. All of us here is Dakar seem to be suffering from trilingualitus.

I went to Voile D'or yesterday because my friend Andrew competed in a swimming race from Dakar to Ile Gorée, which measured 4.6 km. It was an afternoon of lounging on white sand beaches, swimming in the ocean, and eating mangos underneath palm trees. Needless to say the sunscreen did nothing for me because I'm fried like a piece of bacon. We also were at a restaurant on the beach and Youssou N'dour, a very, very famous artist in Senegal, was at our restaurant. Very cool. That's about all for now.