Sama waa ker Amerig new nanu

As you probably figured out from the title of this post, my family (specifically my mom and sister) came to visit me for a week here in Senegal. We had an awesome time together and it was an interesting trip from my perspective because I got to see other people taking in the sights I've come to know for the first time. Those of you who have the opportunity to talk to my family about their experience will probably find that their versions of our adventures might be slightly different, but I'll share some of the details about their trip from my point of view.

Two weeks ago Thursday, I traveled down to Dakar via my usual transportation (a sept place) so that I could find a place to stay for the night and leave to pick up my mom and sister from the airport early the next morning. During the trip to Dakar I sat next to a strange man who spilled his meat sandwich on me (and proceeded to eat the meat after picking it off my clothes) and who also placed a hard case behind my head so that every time the car slowed down the case would slide forward into my neck. After a few hours next to this man my patience was starting to wear thin, so when he kept trying to speak to me in English I would respond in French. I sometimes do this because I meet a lot of people here who either think I don't speak French or speak to me in English because they want to do practice their English. The thing is, I want to learn French, so I generally respond in French unless it's someone I know (that could be kind of prideful of me, not really sure, but it's what I do). So anyways, the man would say things like, I want your phone (he really meant my ipod) and then I would reply in French that it's really expensive. After I would say something in French he would look at me kind of strangely and say, "I don't speak French." What threw me off is that I heard him speaking in Wolof with the other passengers. Consequently, after a little bit of pondering my "shrewd" deductive skills allowed me to realize that this man was from Gambia, the small country located inside of Senegal whose languages are English and Wolof instead of French and Wolof like in Senegal. I kind of felt like a jerk when he told me that was true and I made conversation for a while until he informed me that he wanted a tubab wife, and we parted ways soon after. I thought that story was a nice example of how once again you have to either be completely aware of all the perspectives concerning an issue, or you should proceed with caution... especially when abroad and representing your country.

Back to my mom and sister though, Thursday night I eventually rolled into our hotel around 8 pm looking very disheveled and carrying a huge hiking backpack. Upon entering the hotel I was extremely disoriented because I had stepped into an upscale place after I had just come from one of the more dysfunctional parts of Senegal, which is the "bus depot" for lack of a better translation. More specifically, I think I was experiencing a bit of culture shock but more along the lines of what it will be like when I go back to the U.S. The women behind the concierge desk seemed to notice as well because they brought me some juice in a champagne glass to make me feel less awkward? Fortunately, in a relatively short amount of time I was in our hotel room with hot, running water! A few hours later, at 4 am, the hotel shuttle and I arrived at the airport to try and find some lost looking Americans. The hotel turned out to be a pretty sweet deal because they had their own waiting room, but that meant that the very specific directions for the airport that I emailed to my mom wouldn't go according to plan. Consequently, I stood outside of the gated arrival area looking for them, and when they came out I had to scream my sister's name 10 times to get her to turn around because my mom took off at a run out the door of the airport. hahaha, it was so funny! A funny detail about our hotel in Dakar, the room was actually supposed to have two single beds and you could have them bring in a rollaway bed. As it turns out, two single beds actually means one really really big bed, so the three of us comfortably shared a bed.

Friday we visited Goree island, one of the islands off the coast of Dakar formerly used for slave trading. We walked all around the island, toured the slave house, and had a nice lunch of shrimp and local juices. Obviously my mom and sis were pretty tired so we spent the rest of the evening at the hotel and went to bed early. Apparently they didn't sleep too well because they were woken up by the call to prayer from the mosques, I remember those days... Saturday we toured the area were I lived with my host family and where the Baobab center is located. The tour also included a trip to our favorite little grocery store and lunch at the restaurant with hamburger complets and crepes filled with ice cream! Saturday afternoon was spent at the pool and then we dined at a really great restaurant featuring vietnamese food, kinda strange I know. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I left my cell phone at the restaurant where we had lunch, and after our time at the pool I dragged my mom and sister on a crazy adventure to find the lady who had found the phone. Our adventure included about an hour of driving, borrowed money from a nun, and me telling the hotel doorman that the taxi he called was too expensive. After all of that the hotel staff either liked me because I'm crazy or because I'm cheap, but we had an interesting time and made some new friends.

Sunday we traveled, in a little more style than I usually opt for, by private taxi to Saint-Louis. The drive was the usual five hours, and my mom and sister were fortunate enough to experience the wonders of Senegalese traffic, heat, angry taxi drivers, and random donkeys crossing the road. While in Saint-Louis we stayed at Hotel de la Poste, a hotel with a great location and known for it's sense of history. Back in the day when the postal service operated directly from Saint-Louis by private one person planes, the pilots would stay in hotel de la poste. I thought it would be fun to stay in the suite at the top of the hotel from which you have an awesome view of the city. Unfortunately, Hotel de la poste was maybe a little too authentic because our room had some hot water troubles and it was freezing at night, I don't think my guests were expecting cold weather in Senegal. After we unpacked, I arranged for a horse drawn cart tour of the city. The tour was actually pretty cool, I had to translate everything our guide said so I'm sure my mom and sis missed a lot of info, but they were able to see the many faces of Saint-Louis from the old crane that loaded cargo onto ships to the filthy area were they smoke and salt the fish they catch before apparently sending them to China.

Monday we ventured into the markets to get some fabric and then we hit up my tailor for some sweet outfits. After the tailor we visited the university campus and had a nice lunch of maafe, hopefully it was nice anyways, maafe is not my favorite Senegalese dish. Later that afternoon we checked out the hotel's pool, which seems to close down a bit during the cooler season because they placed a patio/dance floor over most of the pool. Tuesday we went on an excursion to the supposedly highly populated bird island just outside of Saint-Louis. It definitely was an excursion forcing my mother to climb through a traditional fishing boat for our tour. Strangely, our guide brought us to a small little hotel that was serving excellent spanish cuisine for lunch. As you can see, we didn't have too much Senegalese food, which was not by choice because ceebujen is great. Wednesday I was not a great hostess because I needed to take a test for my Wolof class, so I brought my mom and sister to our little hideaway called ranch de bango where they could spend the day at the pool. The catch about hanging our there was that we they had to eat lunch, which meant that they would have to order their food by themselves, in French! I arrived just as they got their food and I was extremely impressed to see how well they managed. For dinner that night most of the other girls on my program came to have dinner and desert with us (and to entertain my mom and sister with some of their wild stories). We also had to make a late night stop to the tailor because he hadn't finished the clothes earlier, so my mom and sister were able to watch them make their clothes on the spot. It sounds kinda sketchy but they did a good job.

Thursday we headed back to Dakar for their last days in Senegal. My mom enjoyed some shopping sprees in the artisan markets courtesy of a hilarious man who spoke English and wore a button with President Obama's face on it. Friday we toured a bit of Dakar's beaches, enjoyed some ceebujen, camped at the pool, and then dined at our vietnamese restaurant again. At 1 am we were back at the airport and they got into line behind some huge American shot putters who we had followed from our hotel, there was some strange athletics convention going on. I returned to Saint-Louis the next day to get back to business with my studies...and I've been here melting ever since. Have a great week!