I was planning on not sending out an email until Monday but I am all inspired (and have a lot of notes on things I have to tell all of you) so I'm doing it today! I've now gone through a week of classes, best part no classes on Fridays, and I have now had a full week in my host family's house. Tomorrow, we head out to our first time out of Dakar, to Goree Island - it is supposed to be wonderful and will do some good museums and hopefully hit up a beach or two!
I know you all have been thinking for the past week: did she get some toilet paper? I did, don't worry, and I'm loving every square of it! And the bigger question, what is going on with those darn cockroaches? Well, not quite as an inspiring response but they are slowly but surely dying off. I bought some African Raid and every time I killed some it looked really good, until right before bed, then hundreds would find their way into my room, so my independence of killing my own cockroaches, utter fail. However, the other day the family realized the problem and has been putting poison in the corners of the room so now they are steadily dying off! So, all is getting better in that regard! The only big flaw with that is now Bebe Cher and Mohammed aren't allowed to throw my teddy bear, Julius, around because I don't want to sleep with something that might have been in cockroach poison - I know, smart thinking, but they sure think I'm boring now!
So to do the not so great bits now there have been two problems so far for people in my study abroad group. There is, first, Luke from New Hampshire, after a few days of being here he got these incredibly large blisters all over his upper body. After a lot of pain, he went to see a doctor who diagnosed him with shingles! You know where I would not want to deal with a new case of shingles, Dakar! He's doing better but he is sure having a tougher time than the rest of us. The second case, is a girl - no joke - named Katherine C Getz, yes, almost the same name and she goes by Kate and we have roomed together and have all but one class together, well, anyways, Kate lives a neighborhood a little further away than mine so she has to take the car rapide (public transportation) and on Wednesday people forgot to wait for her so she had to go home alone. At the final stop, where she lives, she was about to get out of the bus when a guy jumped between her and the back and wouldn't let her out, after a bit of yelling he finally let her out. It was only then that some older women, who were worried about her, noticed that her bag was open and the guy behind her had stolen her stuff. Let's just say everyone is finding a walking buddy now!
Part of my walk to school
Host family stuff has been going pretty well though I do have a few amusing stories. One of the maids' friends is really interested in learning English so I teach her English and in return she teaches me Wolof, it has been really fun so far and she is really smart. I do not know her name though and I think she is here only for a month before she goes back to her village but, until then, we are great study buddies!
Food stories from the family: Breakfast (when I got up at 5am) was wonderful, some porridge stuff, some tea just absolutely wonderful. However, there before fast meal and after fast meal does consist of the same thing (and you better have all of it) white bread smeared in chocolate sauce (not nutella) and tea with three cubes of sugar (each time I think of it I want to make a Three Cups of Tea reference). Every family has this same tradition it seems but sure makes you wonder how healthy they all are! Dinners continue to be interesting with many of the dishes being the national dish of fish and rice, which is pretty good however we have had two pretty different meals this week as well! The first one, I had a really tough time with, everything looked, felt, and tasted like liver, intestines, and brain!!!! Ahh, Baba cracked up at one point because he saw that I was having trouble swallowing but when my host mom asked what he was laughing about he was very nice and said nothing. Hopefully I don't get that meal too often. The other meal was (make sure you are picturing this) a salad - greens, cucumbers, tomatoes - covered in french fries and grilled chicken and the whole thing was drenched in ketchup and mustard. It was a fun meal for sure but sure makes you wonder, do they ever just eat a salad?
The kitchen on the roof where all food comes from!
The big one is that the boys, Bebe Cher and Mohammed, have been using me to go out every night. So we head out to Beth (another study abroad girl) that lives one street over and hang out there - though recently they have been disappearing and not coming back until close to midnight, more to that when I figure that out - and I am loving her family! She has a sister, Aida who is 15, who just loves to talk and keeps me very active in listening and talking in French so she is great, loves to talk about all the boys that she knows, and she really wants to braid my hair, so we will see if that happens. She also has a younger brother, Mohamed (are you seeing a trend?), who is a kick, he really gets along with me well and thinks I'm the funniest thing that has ever exited - still can't tell if that is a good or bad thing yet! There family though doesn't usually have dinner until midnight so I hang out there until then and Beth just realized that her mother is one of three wives, the next question is what number is she, let's just say for a girl from Wisconsin i think that was a pretty big shock for her!
Overall, everything has been going really well! The classes are interesting, the profs seem pretty good (though I have to say the English classes are pretty slow) but still very enjoyable. We also seem to have a lot of field trips for all of our classes so I'm excited about that, each class seems to have at least two field trips this semester - so stay tuned for more on that! I still cannot believe how well people dress, even in the middle of a down pour. They would rather be covered in mud in their best clothes than to be seen wearing something subpar - this is going to be a challenge for me to even look decent! Though, on the subject of clothes, I have never seen so many boobs in my life, for a city that you cannot show your legs there sure is a lot of boobs popping out from every direction, bottom of the shirt, through the arm pit, everywhere (I have never loved my bras so much!).
Another long email, hopefully some of it is interesting! I hope all is going well with all of you. Please keep in touch with me! I don't get internet on weekends but I check my email most weekdays!
Yendul ak jamm,
Katie
