what's new?

Ok, before I start on what's new with my life here in Senegal, I need to backtrack. I left off last week with my adventures two weeks ago in Dakar with my host family while we celebrated the Muslim holiday tabaski. I skipped one crucial portion of that day, dinner! I vividly remember hovering awkwardly over a pot of soup in the kitchen with Nathalie and holding a bowl while she ladled goat soup into it. More specifically, the vivid portion of my memory focuses on the large goat jaw that became the center piece of the bowl. I was slightly confused because Nathalie told me that the goat legs are good for making soup, but this was definitely a jaw complete with teeth and tongue. Consequently, i had a lovely goat tongue soup for dinner that night (and for lunch the day after) and Nathalie kindly shared the tongue meat with me...i don't think i will eat tongue willingly again.

After Tabaski, I spent the rest of the week in Dakar hanging out with my host family and visiting the malian embassy more times than necessary because I'm not the brightest knife in the drawer. Wednesday morning, Carlie, Maria, and I trekked off to the Malian embassy with hopes of returning with visas for our upcoming trip. When we arrived at the embassy, we realized that between the three of us, we only had enough money for one visa, plus, Carlie and I left our passport size photos at school in Saint-Louis, so we decided to return in the afternoon. Unfortunately, most of the people in Dakar were still recuperating from the holiday, so none of the shops that would take photos for us were open. We ended up just kind of wandering around the streets of Dakar in search of any shops that were open, and what we found was a really cool book store and a nice little crepe and ice cream restaurant...

Thursday, we eventually got our photos taken and began the process for the visas. I think that the people at the embassy found us mildly entertaining because they tried to force us to drink tea and told the security guard he was scaring us. I spent the majority of my time in Dakar with my host family. In general, I feel pretty comfortable there and Isaa is always crazy/trying to hurt me/being cute so I'm always entertained. Although, they may have been more nice to me than usual because apparently they had a nasty encounter with a bandit from Nigeria. Apparently, a few weeks ago, a woman from Nigeria knocked on their door and asked if she could stay with them because she had no money and no place to stay. Being extremely generous and trusting, my host family let her stay for five days, and then after five days they gave her the boot. Then, 9 days later, while I was there, she showed up at our house with police officers, and accused my host family of stealing her things. On top of that, she also took tons of fabric to various tailors throughout the city and is trying to cheat them out of their money by claiming that they didn't do what she wanted, so she doesn't have to pay. It's pretty messy and I feel bad for my host family because they were just being nice, but I think they like having me as a house guest much more now compared to a crazy bandit.

Besides following the story of this bandit lady, I didn't do much in Dakar. Friday I collected my visa, and Saturday we ventured into the downtown area to see what it would cost us to fly to Mali. Unfortunately, the travel agency only accepted cash, and I don't normally carry a few hundred dollars in cash around with me so...instead, we went to a very malllike building where Maria shopped for jeans and the shopkeepers handed me jayfonde sized jeans that were ridiculously huge. As usual, I got sick when I was in Dakar, I'm pretty sure this one was Isaa induced because the poor kid was coughing and crying much of the time I was there. Hence, I caught Isaa's cold, and it's been kind of dragging me down the last few days. I still haven't managed to shake the cold, but the doctor on campus prescribed me alot of strange things so hopefully I will heal right up. Speaking of which, I meant to catch you all up on what I've been doing since I left Dakar on sunday, but I'm feeling pretty wiped out right now. The week was low key like I said, because my classes never really happened until thursday. I think maybe professors were on strike during the beginning of the week, but I am definitely looking forward to January when we will be down to business.

Classes thursday were pretty good though. I was two for three on classes that day. In on class, the professor assigned me to write an essay on the economic crises in the US, hmm, well that could be challenging since I don't know much about it nor am I living in the U.S. right now. Oh well, at least it's homework! (I can't believe I said that). The week and weekend were a little rough in general here because of being sick and mainly because my Grandma passed away during the week. She was a really cool lady, and being away from home has given me a different appreciation and perspective on her life and on my family.