First of all, I'm sitting here in my lovely echoey hallways sharing my life story of the last week, and I've just noticed that the sun has set but there are no lights. Hence, I have a very cozy setting that makes for an interesting blogging mood. The last week has been kind of the same old same old (In an it was totally bizarre but the same as each week really) with regard to classes. Most of my classes were met and there were apparently strikes because students wanted a "study week" lol, but it didn't affect me because poli sci is a little behind the times and our exams aren't until later. I recently acquired a library card and have now checked out two books, one of them being a collection of tragic plays by a famous French author, haha, I panicked in the moment and grabbed it. We'll see if I read it but I have high hopes of reading more books in French.
Besides classes I have not yet returned to volleyball practice. I'm not sure if I will but I've been running quite a bit lately. While running I've had some lovely experiences involving security guards inviting themselves to my room and a semi-truck blowing out it's tire just as it came alongside me, i fell off the road because of that one. Friday night my roommate Juliette's mother came into town for a conference for the Catholic women of Senegal. She enlisted me to help retrieve her mother from the bus, and when we arrived at the school where many of the women were staying, I found probably 1000 Senegalese wandering around in the dark. It's hard to explain but it was a pretty hilarious sight, especially because Juliette's mom managed to be as far away from us as possible. When we got back to campus Juliette had choir rehearsal so I awkwardly helped her mom settle in/brought her food/ and then tried not to seem too awkward while I got ready for bed. She is a very nice woman and hopefully doesn't think I'm overly crazy.
Saturday I had a "youth group" meeting with the pastor of our church who came from Dakar to visit with us. Considering that the youth of our church is 4 people including two Americans, I wasn't sure that the visit was entirely necessary, but I enjoyed meeting the pastor. After the meeting I got to have hang out with my friend and choir director Noah. At one point he informed me that he likes me because I'm a little crazy...in a good way i hope. Sunday was as usual a nice Church service where I forgot most of the songs. After church Noah forced me to eat lunch with his family because he has realized that i'm not the busiest person in Senegal, and I enjoyed a nice fish sandwich, with the bones still in the fish. Eating here never really gets boring because you never know what you'll find in each bight.
The highlight of this week was Tuesday night, otherwise known as Mardi Gras. I'm not sure if I've talked too much about Catholics here in Senegal, but to me they seem a little more on the religious side than they do in the U.S. For example, for lent my roommate is fasting everyday until the evening. So far it seems to be taking a bit of a toll on her because she sleeps most of the day. But back to Mardi Gras, as the last hoorah before the fasting begins, the Catholic students on campus have a big costume party, and by costume I mean you dress as a member of the opposite sex. It was hilarious seeing how detailed people were in their costumes. Most of the men were wearing dresses, heals, make-up, and wigs, and the girls often times wore seats and stuffed their bellies with blankets. I didn't really dress up because I wasn't sure what was going on, but it was still great just to watch them all dancing and trying to impersonate the opposite gender.
Besides that not too much else is new, I went to my Bible study on Wednesday and had tea with our friend Ousmane. At the moment I'm thinking I might have a parasite. Don't worry though, i'm just experiencing a little bodily discomfort. Hope you all have a great weekend!
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Beaten and bruised
I thought that was a nice overly dramatic title of my post continuing from yesterdays post. To clarify, beaten and bruised refers to my arms, which took a bit of a hit the other day at volleyball practice. Last week I decided to check out the volleyball team, which we were told included both guys and girls. Unfortunately, the girls on the team seem to be invisible, so it was a few Americans and several very tall Senegalese men trying to hurt me with volleyballs for two hours. I went to torture, sorry I mean practice, two days in a row last week and decided I would take a few days off and give my bruises time to turn fun colors. Although it sounds like I didn't enjoy the practice, it was actually pretty fun and nice to be active and meeting some new people. I was originally hoping for some kind of team where I could meet some nice girls and keep active, but the teams with girls don't seem to really exist so I think I'll stick with volleyball. Practice itself is held either on an outdoor court next to my village, or in the gym, which is a fairly nice building with lots of space for karate/basketball/volleyball and free weights. The outdoor venue turned out to be a little trickier because of a nearby sewage leak that seemed to be a magnet for runaway volleyballs. Yeah, it's about as gross as it sounds...
Besides volleyball i've been having fun with my choir of two people, although last sunday was a little rough when I forgot how most of the songs went. Plus, I went to Bible study again this week where the boys decided we would follow a pre-planned study about relationships and sexuality, as if my life didn't already encompass enough awkward, but I'm sure it will be very interesting. One of the guys there decided that I'm going to be his new guitar teacher, not really sure how that will work out since I have no idea how to play guitar, but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to make a friend so I volunteered Elise to teach him (she doesn't know yet, but when the Malaria's gone...) Life with my roommate Juliette is always interesting, she usually has lots to say about really random things. Last night she informed me that she has watched the movies, "I know what you did last summer (1 and 2), "scream" (1-3), and about 50 other horror films i've never heard of. She's definitely a unique character. Recently, she joined the Catholic students choir, which I think she loves because she sings even more than before, which was all the time.
That's a little bit of what I've been up to. Alot of the time I don't discuss is filled with stuff like reading, sitting on benches and people/donkey watching, going to town and mulling around, and just having random experiences. Talk to ya'll soon!
Besides volleyball i've been having fun with my choir of two people, although last sunday was a little rough when I forgot how most of the songs went. Plus, I went to Bible study again this week where the boys decided we would follow a pre-planned study about relationships and sexuality, as if my life didn't already encompass enough awkward, but I'm sure it will be very interesting. One of the guys there decided that I'm going to be his new guitar teacher, not really sure how that will work out since I have no idea how to play guitar, but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to make a friend so I volunteered Elise to teach him (she doesn't know yet, but when the Malaria's gone...) Life with my roommate Juliette is always interesting, she usually has lots to say about really random things. Last night she informed me that she has watched the movies, "I know what you did last summer (1 and 2), "scream" (1-3), and about 50 other horror films i've never heard of. She's definitely a unique character. Recently, she joined the Catholic students choir, which I think she loves because she sings even more than before, which was all the time.
That's a little bit of what I've been up to. Alot of the time I don't discuss is filled with stuff like reading, sitting on benches and people/donkey watching, going to town and mulling around, and just having random experiences. Talk to ya'll soon!
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Keepin busy
Salut mes amis!
Sorry it's been a while, i've been trying to keep busy, although that is sometimes more of a psychological state of busy than a physical busy. Classes have been rolling along the last few weeks, with a minor hiccup on monday and tuesday of this week when students went on strike over scholarships. Fortunately, the scholarship problems were quickly resolved and I didn't really miss any classes besides Wolof because my professor planned to be absent on Tuesday anyways. Most of my classes are pretty laid back, where I can write a paper for most of my grade, but one of my classes is turning out to be a real thorn in my side. The class is socio-anthropology of the economy, which is a long title for a class that is basically about the fact that people aren't total selfish participants in the economy but a product of society. I know that doesn't sound too complicated but we turned in paper friday morning that alerted me to the fact that I had no clue as to what is going on in the class. Ok, I might be exaggerating a little because the paper itself was a bit of a fiasco. This is the same class in which I recently gave a presentation on the economic crisis, and we thought the paper wouldn't be too bad since our presentation went well. Unfortunately, one of the Americans with me got malaria about a week ago and on top of that, as we recently realized, some parasitic infection. Consequently, she was really down for the count and couldn't help too much with the paper. Plus, thursday night when were supposed to putting together the various sections of our paper, one of the other Americans a horrible nose bleed and had to go back to her room because she felt faint. Obviously, health wise were kinda in rough shape, but that left one other girl and I to put the entire 10 page paper together, and I enjoyed my first late night/early morning study party in Africa. To top it off, the printer decided to not work and place a strip of white in the middle of our paper on each side. Hence, I'm a little nervous about this class in which I have the exam next week...Oh, and the girl with malaria is doing much better now, practically good as new.
One more point of interest about my classes, in our Wolof class the teacher told us Friday that we were the farthest behind than any of his previous classes = we're the worst at Wolof. I have had several responses to that statement because from an academic standpoint, my grade in the class is fine so it's hard to judge by that. But I do understand what he means because my speaking ability is pretty weak. It's just kind of frustrating because he was voicing one of the thoughts constantly going through my head, "why am I so bad at Wolof/why don't i practice speaking it more often." He is also hitting on deeper issues like how we're finding it challenging to make friends, and my friendships are really coming slowly but surely but comments like that make it hard to keep morale up sometimes.
Enough about that kind of stuff because I've been up to alot of positive things lately. First of all, last weekend we visited a nature reserve about an hour and a half from campus which is home to hundreds of birds. If you know me well, you know that I was lacking enthusiasm for this specific trip because of my irrational fear of birds, but the trip turned out to be great. To be honest, the highlight of the trip for me was the vehicle we took out to the bird park, which was a car rapide that Ousmane hired for us. On the back of the car (more like van) there was a ladder and a ledge where someone usually stands calling out the route of the car and helping passengers on and off the car. Furthermore, because the road to the park was not paved and full of potholes the driver moved at a pace of about 5 miles an hour most of the time, which left me free to climb out on the back and enjoy the ride from a different perspective. I had a bunch of fun hanging off the back of the car, especially when I noticed Ousmane, his wife Aminata, and the driver pointing at me and shaking their heads like I was crazy. The only downside of the outdoor seating was that my entire body was coated with a thick layer of dust, including my contacts. I'll move onto the bird park itself because that's probably more interesting to you guys. The park is a small little river/marsh area with nicely constructed motor boats that take you out on about at 2 hour long tour of the body of water smack dab in the middle of nowhere. As far as the birds are concerned, I only saw about four different species, the majority of them being massive pelicans. I think there were probably a few thousand pelicans in all, which were pretty cool to watch scooping fish out of the water.
The trip to the bird park was pretty fun, and on the way home I was on the lookout for groups of monkeys because of a ridiculous story I heard about when Ariel and Elise previously visited the park. More specifically, during their journey to the park, their taxi driver made a wrong turn and started heading through the desert to Mauritania. Apparently, at one point they saw a group of monkeys running alongside their taxi, which I think is one of the most hilarious images I can think of and I was hoping to see some monkeys myself. As a side note, it's probably good that I didn't see any monkeys because that would have indicated that we were traveling the wrong direction, and because Ariel and Elise's previous trip included them screaming for the driver to stop because they were heading towards men with large guns guarding the border to Mauritania.
Sorry, I'm gonna run off to dinner now but I'll finish tomorrow.
Sorry it's been a while, i've been trying to keep busy, although that is sometimes more of a psychological state of busy than a physical busy. Classes have been rolling along the last few weeks, with a minor hiccup on monday and tuesday of this week when students went on strike over scholarships. Fortunately, the scholarship problems were quickly resolved and I didn't really miss any classes besides Wolof because my professor planned to be absent on Tuesday anyways. Most of my classes are pretty laid back, where I can write a paper for most of my grade, but one of my classes is turning out to be a real thorn in my side. The class is socio-anthropology of the economy, which is a long title for a class that is basically about the fact that people aren't total selfish participants in the economy but a product of society. I know that doesn't sound too complicated but we turned in paper friday morning that alerted me to the fact that I had no clue as to what is going on in the class. Ok, I might be exaggerating a little because the paper itself was a bit of a fiasco. This is the same class in which I recently gave a presentation on the economic crisis, and we thought the paper wouldn't be too bad since our presentation went well. Unfortunately, one of the Americans with me got malaria about a week ago and on top of that, as we recently realized, some parasitic infection. Consequently, she was really down for the count and couldn't help too much with the paper. Plus, thursday night when were supposed to putting together the various sections of our paper, one of the other Americans a horrible nose bleed and had to go back to her room because she felt faint. Obviously, health wise were kinda in rough shape, but that left one other girl and I to put the entire 10 page paper together, and I enjoyed my first late night/early morning study party in Africa. To top it off, the printer decided to not work and place a strip of white in the middle of our paper on each side. Hence, I'm a little nervous about this class in which I have the exam next week...Oh, and the girl with malaria is doing much better now, practically good as new.
One more point of interest about my classes, in our Wolof class the teacher told us Friday that we were the farthest behind than any of his previous classes = we're the worst at Wolof. I have had several responses to that statement because from an academic standpoint, my grade in the class is fine so it's hard to judge by that. But I do understand what he means because my speaking ability is pretty weak. It's just kind of frustrating because he was voicing one of the thoughts constantly going through my head, "why am I so bad at Wolof/why don't i practice speaking it more often." He is also hitting on deeper issues like how we're finding it challenging to make friends, and my friendships are really coming slowly but surely but comments like that make it hard to keep morale up sometimes.
Enough about that kind of stuff because I've been up to alot of positive things lately. First of all, last weekend we visited a nature reserve about an hour and a half from campus which is home to hundreds of birds. If you know me well, you know that I was lacking enthusiasm for this specific trip because of my irrational fear of birds, but the trip turned out to be great. To be honest, the highlight of the trip for me was the vehicle we took out to the bird park, which was a car rapide that Ousmane hired for us. On the back of the car (more like van) there was a ladder and a ledge where someone usually stands calling out the route of the car and helping passengers on and off the car. Furthermore, because the road to the park was not paved and full of potholes the driver moved at a pace of about 5 miles an hour most of the time, which left me free to climb out on the back and enjoy the ride from a different perspective. I had a bunch of fun hanging off the back of the car, especially when I noticed Ousmane, his wife Aminata, and the driver pointing at me and shaking their heads like I was crazy. The only downside of the outdoor seating was that my entire body was coated with a thick layer of dust, including my contacts. I'll move onto the bird park itself because that's probably more interesting to you guys. The park is a small little river/marsh area with nicely constructed motor boats that take you out on about at 2 hour long tour of the body of water smack dab in the middle of nowhere. As far as the birds are concerned, I only saw about four different species, the majority of them being massive pelicans. I think there were probably a few thousand pelicans in all, which were pretty cool to watch scooping fish out of the water.
The trip to the bird park was pretty fun, and on the way home I was on the lookout for groups of monkeys because of a ridiculous story I heard about when Ariel and Elise previously visited the park. More specifically, during their journey to the park, their taxi driver made a wrong turn and started heading through the desert to Mauritania. Apparently, at one point they saw a group of monkeys running alongside their taxi, which I think is one of the most hilarious images I can think of and I was hoping to see some monkeys myself. As a side note, it's probably good that I didn't see any monkeys because that would have indicated that we were traveling the wrong direction, and because Ariel and Elise's previous trip included them screaming for the driver to stop because they were heading towards men with large guns guarding the border to Mauritania.
Sorry, I'm gonna run off to dinner now but I'll finish tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Lekk nga sa xaalis? = are you eating your money
That's another one of those fun little greeting phrases that I don't know how to respond to. First of all, am I eating my money??? Second of all, I think it means are you doing well enough that you can eat well and be happy. Thirdly, I always feel weird when people ask me that, because when I say, "Yep, it's going good," I feel like people are thinking oh we know you rich American. But on the other hand, if I say, "I have no money," which is fairly truthful considering I have no job and am supported by my parents, people are thinking that I'm a liar. I guess it's a lose lose situation, but a good example of my social interaction here on campus where I spend a lot of my time just smiling and pretending I didn't understand the question.
Wow, ok, so that last paragraph just sounded a little emo/like I don't have any friends so let me fill you in on what i've been up to the last few days. At the moment, I'm trying to write a new blog entry, but there's a horde of what appears to be 5-10 year old children running around the room playing drums. They're pretty cute, but a little distracting. Last week I attended a few classes, which is always interesting here because you have to sometimes hover in the vicinity of the professor's office and follow him to the classroom because they often change the location of the class. This really isn't a problem for most of my classes, except for my French class, which really consists of me and two other American girls attending, mostly at random, as many of the classes taught by one professor as possible. A few weeks ago, he gave us a general test to see our level, and now we're attending almost all of his classes to get our credit hours, and then at the end he'll make another test for us. All in all, it's one of the more unorthodox classes I've ever had, and is sometimes more difficult than just taking a specific class. More specifically, last week this professor was gone, and he had another prof filling in for him. Unfortunately, we don't know what this new professor looks like, and he changed the classroom so we spent several hours wandering around campus trying to find our class and later his office.
In my socio-anthropology of the economy class, we gave a presentation on the economic crisis on Thursday during class. I thought the presentation went well, and our professor seemed to think we did well enough, but one of the students asked to borrow our paper and said we should have him edit it next time... I honestly don't think the professor expects us to be perfect, but we'll see. Besides the presentation, my other classes were fairly uneventful. I thought I made an appointment to see one of my professors in his office, but when I went there on Tuesday neither he nor his secretary were there. Fortunately, when I returned on Thursday, the man I made an appointment with was there, and I realized that he was not my professor, which was slightly awkward.
Outside of classes I've been rehearsing with the Church choir = my friend Noah and I. We have rehearsal every Saturday at 4pm. It's really fun rehearsing and getting to know Noah. He's a pretty good singer, and I...am not. At one point he told me he wished he could brush my throat with oil; I'm not really sure what that meant, but he told me it had something to do with the fact that I can't hold a pitch. Sunday during church our choir debuted, but Noah's dad didn't realize that the point of the choir was to lead the hymns and such so he did it himself. That wasn't really a problem last week though because I forgot most of the songs anyways. Besides choir I found a small little Bible study group on campus that meets once a week. We've had two meetings so far, in which we covered the same material because most people didn't show up last week. They seem like a nice group, but a little light on the number of girls. When they asked me if I had any questions the only thing I could think of was, "are there other girls?" and they all laughed and then were kinda like, sometimes.
Saturday morning my roommate Juliette and I watched the movie fight club. For those of you who've seen it, it's kind of an intense/strange movie, but Juliette told me she likes complex and horror films, so I figured she's like it. I'm not really sure what she thought of the movie, but she's been a little strange since...not sure there's a correlation but if I see her beating up people more often than before I'll look into it.
Friday I went to a tailor to get some fun Senegalese clothes made, and a pair of linen pants, so when I go back this week we'll see how I look. Depending on the result I'll post pictures. I was inspired to get the clothes made because some of Juliette's friends kept asking me why I wasn't wearing a booboo on Friday, apparently everyone does. Not sure how I missed that memo. This week has just been kinda rollin by with classes and filling out forms about our classes for Madison. So far the hardest part about being here in Senegal besides missing family and friends has been trying to fit the University in Saint-Louis into an American credit system. I know it'll work out, but it's always a little crazy! Ba benen leen (next time guys)!
Wow, ok, so that last paragraph just sounded a little emo/like I don't have any friends so let me fill you in on what i've been up to the last few days. At the moment, I'm trying to write a new blog entry, but there's a horde of what appears to be 5-10 year old children running around the room playing drums. They're pretty cute, but a little distracting. Last week I attended a few classes, which is always interesting here because you have to sometimes hover in the vicinity of the professor's office and follow him to the classroom because they often change the location of the class. This really isn't a problem for most of my classes, except for my French class, which really consists of me and two other American girls attending, mostly at random, as many of the classes taught by one professor as possible. A few weeks ago, he gave us a general test to see our level, and now we're attending almost all of his classes to get our credit hours, and then at the end he'll make another test for us. All in all, it's one of the more unorthodox classes I've ever had, and is sometimes more difficult than just taking a specific class. More specifically, last week this professor was gone, and he had another prof filling in for him. Unfortunately, we don't know what this new professor looks like, and he changed the classroom so we spent several hours wandering around campus trying to find our class and later his office.
In my socio-anthropology of the economy class, we gave a presentation on the economic crisis on Thursday during class. I thought the presentation went well, and our professor seemed to think we did well enough, but one of the students asked to borrow our paper and said we should have him edit it next time... I honestly don't think the professor expects us to be perfect, but we'll see. Besides the presentation, my other classes were fairly uneventful. I thought I made an appointment to see one of my professors in his office, but when I went there on Tuesday neither he nor his secretary were there. Fortunately, when I returned on Thursday, the man I made an appointment with was there, and I realized that he was not my professor, which was slightly awkward.
Outside of classes I've been rehearsing with the Church choir = my friend Noah and I. We have rehearsal every Saturday at 4pm. It's really fun rehearsing and getting to know Noah. He's a pretty good singer, and I...am not. At one point he told me he wished he could brush my throat with oil; I'm not really sure what that meant, but he told me it had something to do with the fact that I can't hold a pitch. Sunday during church our choir debuted, but Noah's dad didn't realize that the point of the choir was to lead the hymns and such so he did it himself. That wasn't really a problem last week though because I forgot most of the songs anyways. Besides choir I found a small little Bible study group on campus that meets once a week. We've had two meetings so far, in which we covered the same material because most people didn't show up last week. They seem like a nice group, but a little light on the number of girls. When they asked me if I had any questions the only thing I could think of was, "are there other girls?" and they all laughed and then were kinda like, sometimes.
Saturday morning my roommate Juliette and I watched the movie fight club. For those of you who've seen it, it's kind of an intense/strange movie, but Juliette told me she likes complex and horror films, so I figured she's like it. I'm not really sure what she thought of the movie, but she's been a little strange since...not sure there's a correlation but if I see her beating up people more often than before I'll look into it.
Friday I went to a tailor to get some fun Senegalese clothes made, and a pair of linen pants, so when I go back this week we'll see how I look. Depending on the result I'll post pictures. I was inspired to get the clothes made because some of Juliette's friends kept asking me why I wasn't wearing a booboo on Friday, apparently everyone does. Not sure how I missed that memo. This week has just been kinda rollin by with classes and filling out forms about our classes for Madison. So far the hardest part about being here in Senegal besides missing family and friends has been trying to fit the University in Saint-Louis into an American credit system. I know it'll work out, but it's always a little crazy! Ba benen leen (next time guys)!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Yangiy nos = are you partying?
The last week has been a party, mainly because it was my second semi-consistent week of classes this semester. Although, I did have two classes where my professor didn't show, one of them being a class that we wrote a paper for and prepared a presentation. After that class the other Americans and I had a bit of a freak out because the Semester ends mid-February, so we stormed director of our program's office. Hopefully, our semester will be slightly sorted out and include us learning a little bit as well.
Besides classes, the week wasn't exceedingly eventful. All six of us Americans are going to be helping a local middle school with their English classes We met with a few teachers last week to decide when we'll come, so Carlie and I will be helping a class Wednesday mornings. I think we were all just looking for a way to get involved in the community and do something potentially fruitful.
Friday night we took two our friends Aminata and Ousmane out for dinner to celebrate their recent marriage. I really enjoyed being able to take them out and show them how much we appreciate their friendship and their efforts to make us feel welcome. Plus, it was really entertaining because we forgot how to get to the restaurant, and we walked about two blocks extra (which was not very far in the first place) and Aminata was going on about how we should have taken the taxi. When we found the restaurant, they both said "we are here at last" about 15 times. I'm not sure how they'd fare on a college campus in the states where you have more than a five minute walk to class, but I kind of want to see...
Saturday night was the new student integration for my dorm building, and to celebrate we had a costume party. I went, as my roommate put it, as an American, although I was hoping for more a basketball player image since I was wearing a basketball uniform. In general, it was hilarious to see all the girls dressed ridiculously, mostly as men, and then dancing while staying in character. Earlier in the day, when we were all standing outside, a building of guys ran up with buckets fool of water and started dousing the girls of my building. I'm pretty sure I got hit the hardest because I was a little slow to react. Unfortunately, one of the girls in my dorm took a video on her phone and it shows everyone running away except me...she then proceeded to ask me what I would have done if it was a monster coming towards us. That question is pretty legitimate I guess, you should always know what to do in case of a monster, especially in Senegal!
Sunday I went over to a family's house after church where they fed me a lovely meal of brushpig, otherwise known as warthog. It was pretty tasty, a little tough, but what can you expect? During the meal I was forced to relive my choir concert because they filmed it, and I noticed how few of the song lyrics I actually knew. Fortunately, I can still practice, because the small church of 8 people is starting a choir, and I will be one of two current members. Haha, poor people, they don't know what they'll be enduring.
This week has been off to a relatively good start, my professor came to class this morning and gave me a bibliography so I can go read some books on my own, sad. Have a good week!
Besides classes, the week wasn't exceedingly eventful. All six of us Americans are going to be helping a local middle school with their English classes We met with a few teachers last week to decide when we'll come, so Carlie and I will be helping a class Wednesday mornings. I think we were all just looking for a way to get involved in the community and do something potentially fruitful.
Friday night we took two our friends Aminata and Ousmane out for dinner to celebrate their recent marriage. I really enjoyed being able to take them out and show them how much we appreciate their friendship and their efforts to make us feel welcome. Plus, it was really entertaining because we forgot how to get to the restaurant, and we walked about two blocks extra (which was not very far in the first place) and Aminata was going on about how we should have taken the taxi. When we found the restaurant, they both said "we are here at last" about 15 times. I'm not sure how they'd fare on a college campus in the states where you have more than a five minute walk to class, but I kind of want to see...
Saturday night was the new student integration for my dorm building, and to celebrate we had a costume party. I went, as my roommate put it, as an American, although I was hoping for more a basketball player image since I was wearing a basketball uniform. In general, it was hilarious to see all the girls dressed ridiculously, mostly as men, and then dancing while staying in character. Earlier in the day, when we were all standing outside, a building of guys ran up with buckets fool of water and started dousing the girls of my building. I'm pretty sure I got hit the hardest because I was a little slow to react. Unfortunately, one of the girls in my dorm took a video on her phone and it shows everyone running away except me...she then proceeded to ask me what I would have done if it was a monster coming towards us. That question is pretty legitimate I guess, you should always know what to do in case of a monster, especially in Senegal!
Sunday I went over to a family's house after church where they fed me a lovely meal of brushpig, otherwise known as warthog. It was pretty tasty, a little tough, but what can you expect? During the meal I was forced to relive my choir concert because they filmed it, and I noticed how few of the song lyrics I actually knew. Fortunately, I can still practice, because the small church of 8 people is starting a choir, and I will be one of two current members. Haha, poor people, they don't know what they'll be enduring.
This week has been off to a relatively good start, my professor came to class this morning and gave me a bibliography so I can go read some books on my own, sad. Have a good week!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Mali continued
Wednesday morning was kind of a wild goose chase because we wanted to look into some other lodging that was less expensive. We found a hostel run by a convent, which was a couple of dollars cheaper and very nice, but we decided it would be awkward to leave our little apartment, and it was likely that my host mother would hurt me if we didn’t stay there. Just kidding, kind of… That afternoon we visited the Bamako museum where a very tall women, with curlers in her hair and eyebrows drawn on her face with makeup that started out normal and then nearly stretched to her ears, showed us around. The museum itself wasn’t much of anything, but it was fairly entertaining to see her grabbing the exhibits, such as a traditional booboo, and then telling us to feel the fabric. Plus, I got a special bonus experience out of the museum visit; I locked myself in the bathroom. To clarify, there was no door handle from the inside of the stall, and I had to call Carlie to come let me out; hence, it wasn’t totally my fault.
I almost forgot, the best part of the museum, the garden out front featuring decorative statues that were a little past there prime. I got a nice picture of a mermaid with half a head of hair, but I had to be sneaky because a sign said you had to pay 50 cents for a photo. The rest of the evening we wandered around the fabric market and informed several vendors that we were Senegalese, not French or American; I bet we fooled them. If I remember correctly, that night was New Years Eve, and we celebrated in style by going to bed early and listening to fireworks going off in the city. All in all, it was kind of a lame way to celebrate, but due to some poor choices we made involving tap water and drinking it, Maria and I weren’t in the best condition to party it up. Thursday was our token tubab day, mainly because we were in need of some a little rest, and the entire city of Bamako shut down for the holiday. Consequently, we trekked over to a French hotel and enjoyed a day at the pool. Since we were at a French hotel, we tried out some French cuisine, which turned out to be a little gross because I unknowingly ordered buckwheat crepe. To give you a sense of the flavor of this crepe, imagine a soggy sponge that has been sitting dirty water for a week; it was tasty.
Friday Carlie and I visited the national museum of Mali. Honestly, this museum was one of the coolest parts of our trip, but I feel kind of sad saying that because it is extremely out of place in the fourth poorest country in the world. The museum was recently renovated, and featured some really interesting exhibits on fabrics in Mali and African artwork. Plus, we had free admission to the outdoor prehistoric museum, which featured caves with dioramas that I elected not to view after a flock(?) of bats came shooting out of the ceiling. That afternoon, we went on a hunt for a flight home and a small shop that featured some pretty cool crafty things. After visiting a travel agency, it seemed like we would be busing back home again (which I was really hoping not to do) because the price to fly to Dakar any day before Wednesday was $500.00, ouch! To try and cope with the thought of 50 more hours on the bus, we ate dinner at a restaurant/bar that was said to bring in an interesting crowd including Peace Corps volunteers and South African gold miners. I’m not sure about the gold miners, but there were definitely more Americans than Africans in the restaurant, not including us, and I decided to order something crazy and went with lasagna. I know that you all don’t really care, but I’ll share anyways, the lasagna was pretty good, but I think they forgot to add the tomato sauce.
Saturday we decided to check into the airline prices one more time, and found out they dropped about $300.00; hence, I returned from Mali Sunday evening by plane. After purchasing our tickets, we spent the rest of the day trying to find some shops our guidebook suggested, and after a wild goose chase in a $5.00 taxi (that’s expensive here…) we found what we were looking for, and it was closed! Sunday was another adventurous day because we decided to explore Mali’s “mountainous” terrain because it is so different from the incredible flatness of Senegal. To get to the top of a rather large hill overlooking Bamako, we took a taxi resembling the sept place I take between Dakar and Saint-Louis, but in this taxi we fit 9 people instead of 7! On the way up a man from Morocco explained to me that the drivers of said taxis have to be skilled because the cars have no brakes, haha. The rest of the day we milled around some markets, and then headed off to the airport.
We arrived at the airport about two hours before our flight was supposed to leave, and the airport officials told us we couldn’t enter the airport yet and to go sit next to our “papa” who was the other white person in the vicinity. Eventually, after some interesting sights, including several people bribing airport officials for various problems like not have the correct documentation, we boarded the flight. I hate to say it, but the flight was incredibly enjoyable! We were served dinner and had strange in-flight entertainment of a video of people pulling pranks on New Yorkers. That night we crashed at the apartment that some other Americans had rented, and the next morning we headed back to Saint-Louis. All in all, I think Maria’s comment, “It’s been real Mali, a little too real,” was completely legitimate, but it was definitely a great trip.
It’s been a while since my last post, and I can’t truthfully say I’ve been busy, but I’ve been finding a few more ways to keep myself occupied. Classes have finally started, and I’m only slightly worried about how I will pass my final exams in less than a month. Although, I’ve heard a few rumors that they will extend the semester because of all of the strikes. I’m planning on taking economic geography (with an oral final exam, uh oh), socio-anthropology of the economy (I’m confused too), and French on top of Wolof and my research. Speaking of research, the professors from Madison in charge of our program came to visit. Their visit was really nice because they had advice to give us on all kinds of levels, and they took out to dinner… I’ve decided to write my research paper on Protestant Christians in Senegal, and I’ll be starting with the church I’ve been attending here in Saint-Louis and working my way outward. I’m pretty excited about the project because I just get to basically sit and talk with people about their lives. It’s so much better than reading a bunch of musty books and trying to come to some conclusion about them like I’ve done in Madison.
Besides classes and meeting with professors, I’ve been trying to make a few friends on campus. I went to a dance last Friday, which is always interesting because it’s fashionable to arrive after 1 am and stay until breakfast. I made it until 4, I guess I’m a slacker. Additionally, last Sunday I attended the Catholic mass for students on campus and their new student integration ceremony. In general, the mass and ceremony themselves were not very interesting because the church was too small for everyone to fit inside so I couldn’t see or hear what was going on. But, my roommate, who I’ve title head of the Catholic party planning committee, gave me some food, and I got to talk to my other roommate Khady for like 3 hours. I really enjoyed that, and I thought it was interesting just because she is Muslim and still wanted to come to the integration.
Well, that’s a fairly long update on what’s been happening here in Senegal. Hope all is well back home, shout out to the nouveau President!
I almost forgot, the best part of the museum, the garden out front featuring decorative statues that were a little past there prime. I got a nice picture of a mermaid with half a head of hair, but I had to be sneaky because a sign said you had to pay 50 cents for a photo. The rest of the evening we wandered around the fabric market and informed several vendors that we were Senegalese, not French or American; I bet we fooled them. If I remember correctly, that night was New Years Eve, and we celebrated in style by going to bed early and listening to fireworks going off in the city. All in all, it was kind of a lame way to celebrate, but due to some poor choices we made involving tap water and drinking it, Maria and I weren’t in the best condition to party it up. Thursday was our token tubab day, mainly because we were in need of some a little rest, and the entire city of Bamako shut down for the holiday. Consequently, we trekked over to a French hotel and enjoyed a day at the pool. Since we were at a French hotel, we tried out some French cuisine, which turned out to be a little gross because I unknowingly ordered buckwheat crepe. To give you a sense of the flavor of this crepe, imagine a soggy sponge that has been sitting dirty water for a week; it was tasty.
Friday Carlie and I visited the national museum of Mali. Honestly, this museum was one of the coolest parts of our trip, but I feel kind of sad saying that because it is extremely out of place in the fourth poorest country in the world. The museum was recently renovated, and featured some really interesting exhibits on fabrics in Mali and African artwork. Plus, we had free admission to the outdoor prehistoric museum, which featured caves with dioramas that I elected not to view after a flock(?) of bats came shooting out of the ceiling. That afternoon, we went on a hunt for a flight home and a small shop that featured some pretty cool crafty things. After visiting a travel agency, it seemed like we would be busing back home again (which I was really hoping not to do) because the price to fly to Dakar any day before Wednesday was $500.00, ouch! To try and cope with the thought of 50 more hours on the bus, we ate dinner at a restaurant/bar that was said to bring in an interesting crowd including Peace Corps volunteers and South African gold miners. I’m not sure about the gold miners, but there were definitely more Americans than Africans in the restaurant, not including us, and I decided to order something crazy and went with lasagna. I know that you all don’t really care, but I’ll share anyways, the lasagna was pretty good, but I think they forgot to add the tomato sauce.
Saturday we decided to check into the airline prices one more time, and found out they dropped about $300.00; hence, I returned from Mali Sunday evening by plane. After purchasing our tickets, we spent the rest of the day trying to find some shops our guidebook suggested, and after a wild goose chase in a $5.00 taxi (that’s expensive here…) we found what we were looking for, and it was closed! Sunday was another adventurous day because we decided to explore Mali’s “mountainous” terrain because it is so different from the incredible flatness of Senegal. To get to the top of a rather large hill overlooking Bamako, we took a taxi resembling the sept place I take between Dakar and Saint-Louis, but in this taxi we fit 9 people instead of 7! On the way up a man from Morocco explained to me that the drivers of said taxis have to be skilled because the cars have no brakes, haha. The rest of the day we milled around some markets, and then headed off to the airport.
We arrived at the airport about two hours before our flight was supposed to leave, and the airport officials told us we couldn’t enter the airport yet and to go sit next to our “papa” who was the other white person in the vicinity. Eventually, after some interesting sights, including several people bribing airport officials for various problems like not have the correct documentation, we boarded the flight. I hate to say it, but the flight was incredibly enjoyable! We were served dinner and had strange in-flight entertainment of a video of people pulling pranks on New Yorkers. That night we crashed at the apartment that some other Americans had rented, and the next morning we headed back to Saint-Louis. All in all, I think Maria’s comment, “It’s been real Mali, a little too real,” was completely legitimate, but it was definitely a great trip.
It’s been a while since my last post, and I can’t truthfully say I’ve been busy, but I’ve been finding a few more ways to keep myself occupied. Classes have finally started, and I’m only slightly worried about how I will pass my final exams in less than a month. Although, I’ve heard a few rumors that they will extend the semester because of all of the strikes. I’m planning on taking economic geography (with an oral final exam, uh oh), socio-anthropology of the economy (I’m confused too), and French on top of Wolof and my research. Speaking of research, the professors from Madison in charge of our program came to visit. Their visit was really nice because they had advice to give us on all kinds of levels, and they took out to dinner… I’ve decided to write my research paper on Protestant Christians in Senegal, and I’ll be starting with the church I’ve been attending here in Saint-Louis and working my way outward. I’m pretty excited about the project because I just get to basically sit and talk with people about their lives. It’s so much better than reading a bunch of musty books and trying to come to some conclusion about them like I’ve done in Madison.
Besides classes and meeting with professors, I’ve been trying to make a few friends on campus. I went to a dance last Friday, which is always interesting because it’s fashionable to arrive after 1 am and stay until breakfast. I made it until 4, I guess I’m a slacker. Additionally, last Sunday I attended the Catholic mass for students on campus and their new student integration ceremony. In general, the mass and ceremony themselves were not very interesting because the church was too small for everyone to fit inside so I couldn’t see or hear what was going on. But, my roommate, who I’ve title head of the Catholic party planning committee, gave me some food, and I got to talk to my other roommate Khady for like 3 hours. I really enjoyed that, and I thought it was interesting just because she is Muslim and still wanted to come to the integration.
Well, that’s a fairly long update on what’s been happening here in Senegal. Hope all is well back home, shout out to the nouveau President!
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
"It's been real Mali, maybe a little too real..."
That’s what Maria, one of the girls who voyaged to Mali with me said as we boarded the plane to return to Senegal from Bamako, Mali. Truthfully, I was thinking the same thing at the time, but that was the end of the trip, and Mali really is a great country.
Our trip started on a bit of a strange note, because buying our bus tickets turned into a very shady exchange with a man working out of his car…We arrived at the train station the day before we were leaving to buy tickets, and we were slightly disappointed when the workers there told us that you can’t buy bus tickets there. But luckily, this man sitting next to his car in the parking lot sold us bus tickets for $50.00 and told us to return to the same place the next day at 9am. So, Saturday morning we arrive on time, and the man informs us that the bus is somewhere else, throws our bags in the trunk (it doesn’t close all the way), and tells us to get in. A few minutes later we arrive at the depot where we catch the taxis to go back and forth between Saint-Louis, and I have since decided that we could have skipped the middleman. Oh well, next time, haha.
Upon arrival at the “bus depot,” the bus departing to Bamako appeared to be nearly ready to go, so the timing seemed almost perfect. As it turns out, we were supposed to exchange the tickets for other ones; consequently, they didn’t let us board that bus and told us we had to wait for the next one. Five hours later, we hit the road; I guess it paid off to wait such a long time because the bus had so few passengers that we each had 2 seats to ourselves almost the entire trip. During the trip the rest of the day, we made a few stops, including a dinner break where we paid 30 cents to use a toilet that turned out to be a room with no hole in the floor (at least that I saw).
We made pretty good progress that night, and then during the day it was slow going because much of the road wasn’t paved, and we had frequent stops to pay of various police like officials. I’m not sure why we paid them, maybe because our bus didn’t have the appropriate papers? One particular instance had us worried when they told us to get off the bus and give our passports to some random man, but we quickly realized that we were at the Senegalese/Malien border and they needed to stamp my passport. A few hours later we crossed the border and arrived in Kai, a lovely town that suffered from and outbreak of dengue fever last month, where the bus driver informed us we would be spending the night and leaving the next day at 4 am. Theoretically, I would have been a little worried about this unknown stop, but after the previous few days I didn’t really think twice about it. Ok, I did think twice when I realized I would have to sleep outside on the floor of a gas station because the bus turned out to be at a sauna like temperature. Hence, my first night in Mali was a little bizarre, and with worries of dengue fever and spending a whole week in this country, I slept for about an hour.
Monday evening around 7 we pulled into the Bamako (the capitol of Mali) “bus depot” and proceeded to collect our belongings. After the 54 hour voyage, our backpacks that they stored under the bus were completely covered in dust, more specifically, my backpack, which is a dark red, was bright orange when they removed it from the storage area. Once we got our stuff, we attempted for about 15 minutes to escape the throng of crazy men yelling at us about how they know a nice hotel and strange things. Finally, we found a telecenter because my sim card from Senegal apparently doesn’t work in Mali (who knew?) and we called the woman who we would be staying with. Amazingly, she arrived 5 minutes after we called her in a very nice car, and brought us to her apartment right in the heart of Bamako. We had our own room with three beds, and we shared a bathroom, with running water!, with the rest of her family. The woman renting us the room is the sister in-law of my host mother, so she gave us a good price (at least she told us, it was like $12.00 a person per night), and she runs a restaurant downstairs where they sell Senegalese cuisine. To clarify, when I say restaurant, I mean they have a table with benches and lots of bowls of food. Furthermore, I just wanted to point out the irony in the fact that I went to Mali and spent the week living with Senegalese people and eating Senegalese or French food.
The following day, Tuesday, we got up, enjoyed a nice change in our breakfast habits with croissants instead of baguettes, and then we learned that the woman hosting us, Sokhna, asked her friend to show us around the city. As a sidenote, it was nice having him help us out because he had a car and he spoke english, but we felt slightly awkward because we were afraid we would have to pay him like 50 dollars. Anyways, the first place he took us was the Bamako zoo, bet you weren't expecting that one. I wasn't either, but it was really fun since I haven't been to a zoo in years, and I got to experience an African zoo. The zoo was complete with camels, donkeys, wolves?, hyenas, lions, and an assortment of really freaky looking birds. Oh, and I shouldn't forget to explain how most of the animals were kept in cages/pens, but we had a few awkward runins with camels and donkeys charging down the path at us. After the zoo we had a nice driving tour of Bamako, which is fairly different from Dakar, for a city so near to Senegal and with similar French influences. First of all, the ground is a dark red color, which is strikingly different from the light sandy color in Senegal. Plus, the region surrounding Bamako is very hilly and looks alot like the rocky terrain of Arizona minus the cacti. Another stark difference is that Bamako seems to make an effort to clean up trash off the streets, and on the street running past most of the government buildings there are legitimate trash cans.
After a lovely Senegalese lunch of ceebujen, our friends younger brother who is an actual tourists guide, took us to the Niger river for man powered boat ride. Our captain paddled our small canoe with a long pole that he pushed off of the bottom of the river with, evidently the river is not very deep. In general, the boat ride was very nice, but after we negotiated a price for two hours, the boat driver was intent on holding us to the two hours. Consequently, when it started getting dark at 6:15, the mosquitoes came out in full force to punish us for wanting to enjoy the scenic beauty of Mali. By 6:45, we told the driver to take us in and we'd pay him for two hours anyways...moral of the story, bring bug spray? Mosquitoes were a frequent companion during our stay in Bamako, probably because the daily temperatures in the mid 90s and overnight lows in the 70s kept them very happy. In fact, at night they were so bad, that Sokhna would spray our room with some scary toxic chemical that we had two wait 5 minutes before even entering the room, and then we would play a fun game of run into the room as fast as possible so fewer mosquitoes could enter. It seems to me that the mosquitoes in Mali are just alot more courageous because I got several mosquito bites in the shower.
That second night was little rough because Carlie got a nasty bout of stomach problems that could have been from our bad choices of drinking tap water the night before or the various strange things we bought from vendors on the side of the road during the bus ride. My theory is, you gotta keep things interesting, so might as well eat the sketchy meat sandwich from the woman shouting in strange languages at you. Although Carlie did have a good point, that if we get in a bad situation and someone asks if we made some bad choices to get us in that position, we would have to say, "um,which one are you referring to?" Just kidding!
I'll continue our adventures in Mali in my next post, but at the moment I'm back at school in Saint-Louis awaiting my benevolent professors and hoping they will decide to grace us with their presence. Although, I heard that tomorrow is another holiday celebrating the Muslim new year, so who knows really.
Our trip started on a bit of a strange note, because buying our bus tickets turned into a very shady exchange with a man working out of his car…We arrived at the train station the day before we were leaving to buy tickets, and we were slightly disappointed when the workers there told us that you can’t buy bus tickets there. But luckily, this man sitting next to his car in the parking lot sold us bus tickets for $50.00 and told us to return to the same place the next day at 9am. So, Saturday morning we arrive on time, and the man informs us that the bus is somewhere else, throws our bags in the trunk (it doesn’t close all the way), and tells us to get in. A few minutes later we arrive at the depot where we catch the taxis to go back and forth between Saint-Louis, and I have since decided that we could have skipped the middleman. Oh well, next time, haha.
Upon arrival at the “bus depot,” the bus departing to Bamako appeared to be nearly ready to go, so the timing seemed almost perfect. As it turns out, we were supposed to exchange the tickets for other ones; consequently, they didn’t let us board that bus and told us we had to wait for the next one. Five hours later, we hit the road; I guess it paid off to wait such a long time because the bus had so few passengers that we each had 2 seats to ourselves almost the entire trip. During the trip the rest of the day, we made a few stops, including a dinner break where we paid 30 cents to use a toilet that turned out to be a room with no hole in the floor (at least that I saw).
We made pretty good progress that night, and then during the day it was slow going because much of the road wasn’t paved, and we had frequent stops to pay of various police like officials. I’m not sure why we paid them, maybe because our bus didn’t have the appropriate papers? One particular instance had us worried when they told us to get off the bus and give our passports to some random man, but we quickly realized that we were at the Senegalese/Malien border and they needed to stamp my passport. A few hours later we crossed the border and arrived in Kai, a lovely town that suffered from and outbreak of dengue fever last month, where the bus driver informed us we would be spending the night and leaving the next day at 4 am. Theoretically, I would have been a little worried about this unknown stop, but after the previous few days I didn’t really think twice about it. Ok, I did think twice when I realized I would have to sleep outside on the floor of a gas station because the bus turned out to be at a sauna like temperature. Hence, my first night in Mali was a little bizarre, and with worries of dengue fever and spending a whole week in this country, I slept for about an hour.
Monday evening around 7 we pulled into the Bamako (the capitol of Mali) “bus depot” and proceeded to collect our belongings. After the 54 hour voyage, our backpacks that they stored under the bus were completely covered in dust, more specifically, my backpack, which is a dark red, was bright orange when they removed it from the storage area. Once we got our stuff, we attempted for about 15 minutes to escape the throng of crazy men yelling at us about how they know a nice hotel and strange things. Finally, we found a telecenter because my sim card from Senegal apparently doesn’t work in Mali (who knew?) and we called the woman who we would be staying with. Amazingly, she arrived 5 minutes after we called her in a very nice car, and brought us to her apartment right in the heart of Bamako. We had our own room with three beds, and we shared a bathroom, with running water!, with the rest of her family. The woman renting us the room is the sister in-law of my host mother, so she gave us a good price (at least she told us, it was like $12.00 a person per night), and she runs a restaurant downstairs where they sell Senegalese cuisine. To clarify, when I say restaurant, I mean they have a table with benches and lots of bowls of food. Furthermore, I just wanted to point out the irony in the fact that I went to Mali and spent the week living with Senegalese people and eating Senegalese or French food.
The following day, Tuesday, we got up, enjoyed a nice change in our breakfast habits with croissants instead of baguettes, and then we learned that the woman hosting us, Sokhna, asked her friend to show us around the city. As a sidenote, it was nice having him help us out because he had a car and he spoke english, but we felt slightly awkward because we were afraid we would have to pay him like 50 dollars. Anyways, the first place he took us was the Bamako zoo, bet you weren't expecting that one. I wasn't either, but it was really fun since I haven't been to a zoo in years, and I got to experience an African zoo. The zoo was complete with camels, donkeys, wolves?, hyenas, lions, and an assortment of really freaky looking birds. Oh, and I shouldn't forget to explain how most of the animals were kept in cages/pens, but we had a few awkward runins with camels and donkeys charging down the path at us. After the zoo we had a nice driving tour of Bamako, which is fairly different from Dakar, for a city so near to Senegal and with similar French influences. First of all, the ground is a dark red color, which is strikingly different from the light sandy color in Senegal. Plus, the region surrounding Bamako is very hilly and looks alot like the rocky terrain of Arizona minus the cacti. Another stark difference is that Bamako seems to make an effort to clean up trash off the streets, and on the street running past most of the government buildings there are legitimate trash cans.
After a lovely Senegalese lunch of ceebujen, our friends younger brother who is an actual tourists guide, took us to the Niger river for man powered boat ride. Our captain paddled our small canoe with a long pole that he pushed off of the bottom of the river with, evidently the river is not very deep. In general, the boat ride was very nice, but after we negotiated a price for two hours, the boat driver was intent on holding us to the two hours. Consequently, when it started getting dark at 6:15, the mosquitoes came out in full force to punish us for wanting to enjoy the scenic beauty of Mali. By 6:45, we told the driver to take us in and we'd pay him for two hours anyways...moral of the story, bring bug spray? Mosquitoes were a frequent companion during our stay in Bamako, probably because the daily temperatures in the mid 90s and overnight lows in the 70s kept them very happy. In fact, at night they were so bad, that Sokhna would spray our room with some scary toxic chemical that we had two wait 5 minutes before even entering the room, and then we would play a fun game of run into the room as fast as possible so fewer mosquitoes could enter. It seems to me that the mosquitoes in Mali are just alot more courageous because I got several mosquito bites in the shower.
That second night was little rough because Carlie got a nasty bout of stomach problems that could have been from our bad choices of drinking tap water the night before or the various strange things we bought from vendors on the side of the road during the bus ride. My theory is, you gotta keep things interesting, so might as well eat the sketchy meat sandwich from the woman shouting in strange languages at you. Although Carlie did have a good point, that if we get in a bad situation and someone asks if we made some bad choices to get us in that position, we would have to say, "um,which one are you referring to?" Just kidding!
I'll continue our adventures in Mali in my next post, but at the moment I'm back at school in Saint-Louis awaiting my benevolent professors and hoping they will decide to grace us with their presence. Although, I heard that tomorrow is another holiday celebrating the Muslim new year, so who knows really.
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