Tabaski

Hey you guys,

I want to warn you that these are going to be semi-gory pictures. So watch out, Tabaski images are not for the faint of heart! The rest of the pictures are great though, so skip quickly and look at the rest!

Two weeks ago was Tabaski (celebrated as Eid in most of the Muslim world). This is a holiday (I'm not quite sure for what) that people get together to kill and eat sheep. When us Americans got together to discuss it we decided it would probably be the best of Thanksgiving (the incredible amount of food that must be eaten) and Christmas (the sheep are the Christmas trees). It seemed to fit those two pretty well and there was a lot of family and friends over so it really got the holiday spirit going. Of course, the Christmas carols were replaced with recordings of people singing the Koran (which is not the same at all and just makes me miss the Christmas carols more - thanks mom for making me think that Christmas carols should have started up well over a month ago!)

A few days before Tabaski, we got one huge sheep (big sheep go for about 300 dollars). The sheep lived on the patio right outside my window so I heard the sheep burp (yes, burp) all night for just under a week. The Monday before Tabaski we got one more sheep. I then asked how many sheep we were getting and I was told we were getting seven sheep. I know you are all thinking, 'seven sheep?! What do you do with seven sheep?' don't worry, I still don't know what we did with seven sheep! Anyways, Tuesday at around midnight the other five sheep showed up and everyone told me which sheep was there sheep (and reminded me that I was not Muslim so I could not have a sheep).

The morning of Tabaski, the rest of the family went to the Mosque and did their morning prayers, after their second round of prayers ended (at about 10am) it was time to start the celebrations! The sheep came out one by one to the front patio where my host dad (the Imam) got a new set of knives (they have been more knife vendors in the past couple weeks than I have ever seen in my life!) and sliced the necks of the sheep. Baba was in charge of bringing the next sheep through the house and into the patio area. The first few sheep didn't seem to know what was going on but, sadly, the last few sheep were freaked out and knew what was coming. Most people said that at their family's houses the sheep died very quickly, at my house that wasn't the case and they were kicking and trying to breath for about 15 minutes each. I guess that is the problem with trying to rush through killing seven in a row. It got pretty messy.

After that, the dead sheep were moved back into the back patio (which luckily the maids were in charge of cleaning the floor so that there was no more goat poop every where!). We then had two men that we hired and cut up the sheep. The blew air into the legs, pulled of the skin, and then with great order cut the meat. My host mom and her mom were deciding how big each piece should be and if it should be given out to the poor and extended family or if it was for us to keep. We then barbecued the heart and liver and at those with some mustard (not my favorite part of the day).

I then met up with some of the other students in the program that I've in my neighborhood and took some pictures in our new outfits. On that the back story to my outfit is that my host mom (who I don't quite get along with) gave me the outfit the night before to wear. I still have not figured out yet if she made it or just got it made. The material is silky and the colors of Thanksgiving. Just throwing it out there but I thought that it was over the top (and I think nothing is over the top). The pan (skirt) went down to my ankles if it was above my chest and the dress had medieval sleeves which just made me look too cool for school. 

The rest of the day can be summed up with eating a lot of meat. I made a fruit salad and I had a big glass of unpasteurized, just out of the cow milk. Let's just say that much sheep and milk my stomach (two weeks later) has not come back to normal.

Thanksgiving (this part will be short) was great. I played with Serigne's kids - who I had not seen for a long time - and ate lots of good food. They had imported turkey, corn bread (that tasted more like cake), mashed potatoes and gravy, and plantains (just to remind us that we were still in Tanzania). The funniest part of the night though was the music that was being played. We got into the compound and we could already hear the pounding amps. We listened to so much American rap music that none of us knew what to do. When I am eating turkey and listening to the song 'Birthday Sex' there is a problem with Thanksgiving! All in all, a great time, though, missed all the family and the Segelhorsts.

This past weekend the whole class went on a huge trip up north. We left Friday and arrived late Friday to a desert! It was gorgeous and the first time I've seen one. We played around in the sand for hours and had a great time. A delicious dinner of fried chicken, cous-cous and veggies followed. The night ended with a huge bonfire and dancing around it. We slept in tents and continued our trip to the next spot at 6am.

Just over six hours later we ended up at a bird park. We put all 50 of us on a motor boat and went out birding. We saw some wonderful pelicans but other than that there was not a lot to see, since it was 1pm and nothing wants to be out then! It was a beautiful area and had a great time.

Another four hours later we arrive into the most beautiful town I've seen here. Saint Louis. It is gorgeous, the people are nice, the food was great! We walked around and discovered all the colorful pirogues, all the parties to celebrate some women that are going and coming back from Mecca. It was a great time. We had a good night out on the town (in short, a few of my friends went swimming in this not quite clean river). We then learned about the history of the area which is very colonial and makes any Caucasian feel very guilty about that.

After a long long drive home, I got home. School is starting to wind up with school work. There are now a lot of tests, papers, and exams coming up! Means I'm going to be back with you guys in less than three weeks!

All the best and miss you all,

Katie

Rural Visits and a Side of Pictures

Hey you guys!

So here are a bunch of update pictures of family!

Bebe Cher and Baba (my favorite two family members)

Baba and Me

 

My public health trip to Niakhar was a lot of fun. Though, it started off poorly with five hours of traffic on the way down, but once we got there I had my first meal without bones in my meat! Thank goodness for that! While we were having dinner we learned about a special kind of bug found in the region that when it pees on a human cause’s acid burn and, if swallowed, will burn your insides and cause kidney failure. So, in short, not the bug you want hanging around you for long periods of time. Shockingly, this bug is everywhere, flies crazily, and scared the hell out of me and all the other kids in the group! I have never loved having a mosquito net more than I did those two nights!

The next day, we were put into groups of four (I was with Elisabeth, Brit, and Jessica) and we went off to do our interviews in the local village. The interviews were to get information about the rate of malaria and the knowledge about the issue with children under the age of ten. It ended up being very interesting. The families were very nice and the kids were hilarious. At the second house we sat around, chatted, and had just roasted peanuts. The crazy part was while we were at this house her son comes back with a seven foot boa that he is hanging from his arm. He dropped it to the floor and it was only then that we realized that it had been killed. As he told us, it was taking a good look at the sheep (and seeing that it is so close to Tabaski) that is unacceptable and needed to be killed. 

The Big, Dead, Boa

At the fourth house, the kids were very dynamic and the girls taught us some dances and then the boys creamed us in soccer! We then thought it would be a good idea to teach them how to do thumb wars but all that happened was that our hands were covered in scratches and arms bruised because they didn't want to lose. That happens though. Luckily, it was all in all a wonderful time and we really bonded as a class. We also got to learn how funny our professor is, all he wanted to do was diss the physical irregularities of his friends and coworkers (this one is too skinny, this one is very fat) and learned a lot more about his bumb leg. 

Learning a Cool New Dance

As soon as I got back to Dakar I showered and sprinted off to, in my humble opinion, the best hotel in Senegal to meet up with Denyse! I had two of the best dinners of my life, had wonderful conversations about life here and got caught up with the world. We also went off to do a city tour, a little bit of shopping and went to Goree Island (all of which was much better with Denyse and with just a smaller group!). I ended up taking a shower in her hotel room and it was only then that I realized that I was taking my first hot shower and having water run from a place above my head since I have gotten here! It was tough leaving Denyse and the life of happiness but will be back in a month and a half. 

 

My time in Sandiara was incredible! I took a septplace down to Mbour (a pretty large city down south) and then had to wait for a few hours for the Canadian, Joell, to pick me up for a ride down to the village. When we got there he pulled a bed off the roof of the car and that was my bed for the trip - pretty nice! I was given his GPS and I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out the GPS. I wish that he would trust the Senegalese enough to teach Gabby (who is just over 20 and is the local in charge) how to use it.

The Reservoir at the Beersheba Project

Before I continue with these stories, I'm going to try to explain the living situation. I was staying in a house that was being constructed - therefore the floors were covered in bits of cement and rocks and the bathroom had no door! I was the only person in the semi constructed house but in the same complex there is the semi constructed office building which was where Gabby, Nicholas (about 20 and is in charge of some bible study groups in the area), and Khadija (about 15, is Nicholas' wife, and though they kept telling me she is still a student she spent every waking moment keeping the compound clean and cooking for the herds of people that show up for lunch and dinner).

My Room

My days consisted of me going, by horse wagon, 7 km every morning to the project I was working at. On this ride both ways Gabby would beat the starved horse so much the horse would start tripping but he seemed to think it was alright as long as he accompanied it with very evangelical songs. The songs had to involve the words 'blood of Christ', 'for my sins', and other very strong phrasing that made me miss the singing that everyone from Bebe Cher to most peoples' host parents of 'Rude Boy' (if you don't know this song, look up the lyrics and you will be traumatized).

My part of the work was to survey the area and attempt to make a map that documented where all the trees in the project are and the other parts of the project. Once we were there we would go through the high grasses for a few hours where I would get about an average of 15 ticks a day - luckily most of them would just stay on my clothes but once there was one on my eyelashes, so I did the craziest dance anyone has ever seen, trying to get thing away from my eyes! Gabby usually forgot I was behind him and so Acacia branches would come flying right into my face (only once did he notice that he did that so he apologized and went back to doing it!). It was a beautiful and wonderful ways of spending the mornings. After that, we would go back to the village and eat usually two lunches and two dinners. When I was eating I was reading the humorous book 'French Lessons in Africa' (Dad, you should read this, you could beat a lot of these stories!).

The Map I Made of the Project

So due to the nature of the bathroom, I have a few funny stories about it. As I said before, the bathroom did not have a door to it. The only running water in the bathroom was to the toilet (that was pretty exciting). The last thing is that my bathroom was the bathroom for the other three members of the compound, so there were always people coming in and out of there (I think other people liked using it to which is also why it felt so busy all the time). The first story is mainly to show that I am a little bit slow to catching onto problems. After my first day bush hopping I decided I was in dire need for a shower, so I got in the bathroom and decided to use the huge barrel of water that is in there. So I put some in a smaller bucket. The water was dark yellow and putting the smaller bucket in there disturbed about twenty mosquitoes. It wasn't until the third day that I realized everyone else in the compound filled the small bucket outside and didn't touch the nasty water.

The second story is that one night I was taking a shower (aka, pouring buckets of water on me) and I heard the door to the house open. I knew the only reason people ever come into the house is to use the bathroom so I put on my towel and stand prepared. Nicholas comes in, when he sees me he says 'Oh mon dieu' and covers his eyes incredibly fast. After a few seconds of apologizing he realized that I was in a towel and asked why I was showering with a towel on. I said I heard him and he seemed to think that was one of the more brilliant things a woman could do.

The best part of my visit though, was meeting Astou, a '16 year old' (I think she was at least 20), Muslim girl who lived in the village. She taught me how to dance some of their local and national dances. She attempted to teach me how to make millet couscous and some delicious vegetable sauces. Friday night she told me that she had always wanted to braid 'Toubab' (white people) hair. So she had a good time doing that. It turned out kinda crazy but it looks alright. One night, I showed her some pictures of me (and many of you guys) and her two biggest comments were 'your mom is much prettier than you' and 'you look much better fat'. Astou also took me to the big market Saturday morning which was an intense and lively experience, it was interesting to see such a sleepy village wake up so much for Saturday! I would love to be able to visit her and her huge family again before I leave!

My new hair doo!

So this has been another long post, I will try to get one out later this week or early next week about everything else that is going on. Tomorrow is Tabaski. Tabaski is the holiday of killing male sheep over a year old. Supposedly it is good for the sheep because it is the only day that they can go to heaven, so my family is being generous and going to have seven killed! Yikes. The next week is supposed to be pretty bloody and the next two weeks are supposed to be pretty smelly! Alhamdulillah!

Lots of love to all of you!

The Week Ahead and a side of Cults

Hey you guys,

I am about to take part the biggest adventure of my trip! I am leaving tonight to spend three days in the field doing research. This will be with my 'Sante Publique' (Public Health) class! I will be doing research on children with malaria and what they know about malaria. I was in charge of making the questionnaire for the class, so hopefully all will go smoothly! I will be in Niakhar, in the Fatik region, from tonight until Saturday. 

Saturday I have lunch at home and then go out with Denyse Morin for dinner! I'm pretty pumped about having someone visit *note that no one else has visited me*. So hopefully I will be able to see her as well on Sunday.

Then earlier Monday morning I jump on local transportation and go south for a couple hours to Sandiara. There I will be mapping and doing some work on project that works on agriculture and reforestation. I think I will end up doing more in the reforestation but it should be quite exciting and a very new experience for me! I will be living alone but there are a bunch of expats that I will be working with and they will be checking up on me from time to time, so don't worry :-) Their website is beershebaproject.org and is pretty cool.

So a funny story from this week. It was Mohammed (the ten year olds) birthday on Friday. Everyone all week had been reminding me that I needed to get him a present and so each time they asked I would ask them if they were getting something for him and the response always was 'maybe'. So I thought this was the new joke and decided my response should be maybe too. Well I get back home from school on Friday and each member of the family tells me to give him his present, I kept saying that I wanted to wait until everyone else gave him their stuff. Finally, after seeing them set up for a birthday party I decided I better just give him the stuff I realized I got tricked into being the ONLY person to give him a birthday present - was pretty ticked at the family for that move.

Anyways, so setting up for the birthday party was putting amps on the roof (huge amps, Undefined, you guys would be jealous of these guys!), all kinds of mats, at least three goats, and all kinds of other goodies. So I was thinking, well maybe no birthday present because they are going to have the craziest, most expensive birthday party ever. There were ten friends of Mohammed and Bebe Cherkh that helped set up. I also helped, I cleaned the mats, moved things around, and all kinds of other small tasks (was good bonding time with Fanta). Then, when everything was set up, she told everyone to come back at 10pm for the party - kinda late but that is how most things work here. We went downstairs and I was told dinner was going to be 'a little late' - we usually eat at 8pm.

So at 10 all the boys reappeared and we played with the new nerf football that I got Mohammed (went into the neighbor's fortress twice, that is a story in itself). I had decided to get dressed up and wear a cute dress that was a bit strappy but I thought it would be appropriate for a snazzy birthday party. Then all of a sudden there were a lot more adults then kids and women sitting on the side and men in the middle and towards the other side of the roof. The music (which I should have described before) had been blaring someone singing the Koran since about 2pm. A group of men began to take seats around the microphones and brought up their Korans and began singing the Koran themselves. All the men wore prayer robes but a few were 'bayefall' which means they were colorful clothing (yes, more colorful than me!) that are strips of a variety of material (if you want to know more about them, let me know, they have a very interesting perspective on religion). As soon as that happened everyone got very quiet and got out their Korans and began following along. The boys started playing games next to me and they got in a lot of trouble, a couple slaps, a couple 'Allah is not pleased with your actions'. So this continued until 1h30 when the singing ended. This whole time everyone was snapping their fingers when they heard something they found touching and were moving themselves back and forth, hypnotized to the music. A man started doing something that I am going to call a 'sermon' because I have no idea what it was. He talked mainly in Arabic but every once and a while I heard some Wolof thrown in. This continued until 2h30 (just to note, I usually go to bed here at 9pm so I am hungry and tired). The food comes out, people fight for seats around the bowl and the food is gone within ten minutes!

I thought of this whole thing as a semi-cultish practice but quickly realized that it is most likely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood that my family is a part of. Though I still cannot figure out how often it takes place (the Imam was not involved at all in the proceedings, he never left his room), the reason it took place, and why they had this event on Mohammed's birthday (I've been told it has no relation). Anyways, I left the whole thing pretty bitter because they tricked me into being the only one to get him a present but they did have a great ice cream cake!

A lot of other stories I would love to tell but I have class soon and want to be able to send this off before I leave for a week and a half!

Love to all of you,

Katie

Puzzles and Green Cards

Salaamaalekum,

I hope you have all been having a great week. I've been playing catch up at school and have finally, I think, caught up, which is great. I've had a lot of time with family, so I've even finished a 1,000 piece puzzle, that mom sent me, with my brothers! Quite a feat! We are supposed to be in dry season now but it is still raining once or twice a week which does keep the boys in so going to redo puzzle number one and then start puzzle number two!

I am still on the mend to feeling better which is great. The doctor gave me a clean bill of health last Thursday and told me to start running. Of course, following doctor's orders, I did and had a lot of difficulty breathing at one point so I'm going to not follow doctor's orders and walk more than run! That way, all of you loving people will not have to worry about that part of my life until I get back to the USA. So please, stop worrying, I don't want to be the cause for stress, love you all too much for that!

I was hanging out at my program director's house the other day and playing with his wonderful kids when Baboucar, the 7 year old boy, told me that he wanted to have white skin. It was interesting because I had heard other people's host siblings saying similar things but to hear it first hand was quite shocking. I then made a joke about my preference being neon green or purple and luckily that made the conversation a little better but he still came back to saying that, in the end, white was the best color for skin. I guess it is that thinking that makes so many people here bleach there skin and so many white people sit in tanning beds trying to tan (or go orange). So strange.

Elizabeth, probably my closest friend here, had her 22nd birthday last Friday so a few of us decided that we should hold a huge celebration. We found a crepe shop, which was delicious, then a wonderful Indian dinner, a big wonderful chocolate cake, and a night out dancing. It was a lot of fun and was a great experience out (which makes up for my not so great clubbing experience from before). One of my friends, Hannah, had this guy that kept following her and kissing her which she most definitely did not appreciate. So I was given a great opportunity to slap him and tell him that she, and all other women do not appreciate that, he was angry for someone getting between him and a girl that wouldn't slap him, but he left and soon after we went home. Felt very tough telling off a guy like that - hopefully he learned!

On the same note of Senegalese guys, being here has made me realize that I have a huge problem with people 'using' me, and others. The way people here spend a lot of their time expecting to get presents, money, and other things from foreigners is pretty mind boggling, especially when I'm expected to call them family. In my program, there are about six or seven girls that came here to find their African man, I know, worrisome, and have very easily found them. Though for those of us not looking it is amazing how quickly a guy will say 'I love you' without knowing your name and say, so when will you be taking me to America? It really makes being here tough when you feel that everyone is out to use you and not to just be friendly. Hopefully though, with time that will change on both sides.

A few days after I got out of the hospital I went to another student's house and hung out there playing uno. All of a sudden there was a scream like one of our brothers smacked there head on the tile floor, but as soon as we turned around we saw a little goat being carried in. I quickly realized what was going to happen, it was going to be dinner, but Allison, didn't jump to that conclusion and followed it to the patio asking questions. She started making a huge fuss when she realized it was dinner and started crying (in a culture where no one really cries). She decided she wanted to watch it get slaughtered and held through it pretty well but kept making a scene. Luckily, I think her family just thinks she is crazy anyways and didn't get annoyed with her. It was very interesting how clean the whole thing was and how everything was put in piles for food. Blah. Not quite what I wanted to see, brains, eyes, lungs, heart, everything was thrown into the little piles. I didn't mind watching it but in a few weeks we will be celebrating 'Tabaski' which is where they slaughter all the goats/sheep in celebration, which I feel will be a bit tough! More on that when it happens though!

Lots of love,
Katie

Popenguine and a vacation in the hospital

For those of you who are already in the know, yes, I am doing better!

So this is going to be a pretty crazy addition to my other emails (blogs). As I'm sure many of you have noticed that I have been able to be silent for two weeks now. Well, after my fall break I got hit with a big sickness, more on that to come! What does need to be said though, is for all of my family and friends that have been thinking of me this past week thank you, it is most appreciated! Also, if you check out the blog, that won't have pictures until sometime next week, decided it was better to get something out soon than to wait for all of it!

I'm going to start with the happier and calmer parts of life since I last wrote to all of you. I went to Popenguine for my fall break. It is about two hours south of Dakar, right on the coast, cute small fishing village, all in all very enjoyable. The five of us decided the best decision would be to not take a taxi down there but try to take a 'sept-place' a hearse-looking car that fits seven people and goes to a fit destination. In this case, it was Mbour, which is, as we realized after, quite a bit further south than Popenguine. We then got dropped off in the middle of the transportation center (at first I thought we were at a car garage for how many broken down cars there were) and I did an amazing job fighting for a terrific price back to Popenguine, the whole group was very proud!

So the house, the one we finally ended up getting, is a cute little house that looks down on the beach. It had two bedrooms, a living room with a kitchen and a real toilet (though that didn't start working until Monday - it's the idea that counts sometimes). The first day, we decided that we needed to do some grocery shopping so that we could have a cheap dinner. On the walk down to the main part of the town we noticed an incredible number of foreigners the same age as us, that all spoke English and knew some Wolof. Pretty weird. Then we got a bit further down and saw some more of them with a horse pulling a huge thing full of booze and then I got down to two thoughts. Spring break college students or PCVs? Well, of course, it was a group of new peace corps volunteers getting their first weekend off and having a partying little time in this tiny town. Made me think of all of you that have done that at some point or another, we were invited to the party but was too tired to get my act together and get there. As a side note, it is the first time that I have ever realized how young PCVs are, I have always thought of them as big people, and now they are almost the same age as me. Pretty crazy.

In Popenguine there is a celebrated author named Arma. One of the girls I went down with, Rezina, had met him before and was staying with him for the week. He is a really interesting man that is an atheist and divorced (some would call bitter) but has written some of the most well known books about West Africa. His whole family was incredibly welcoming and it was great to know an insider to the little town!

A little bit on the food now. The food we cooked at the house, spaghetti and the likes, was awful. The food we went out for, was amazing. We had a great meal at the hotel that we got our house through. Garlic shrimp and jasmine rice! Yum. The second night we went to a women's community group restaurant and had more local food that was very tasty and we knew that we were giving our money to a good cause all at the same time. There were these two bugs at the restaurant that looked and acted like they had some relationship to the rhino, they were huge and always charging, made me a little nervous in the service but luckily the food was worth it!

On Monday, we took a jagenji (local bus) to Mbour, to meet up with someone Matt knew. The man's name is Eric and he works for SIL (a bible translating group). He ended up showing us around his side project, which is an interesting agriculture and reforestation project (the website is http://beershebaproject.org/). I liked it so much that I am going to try to work there for my week for rural visits! Of course, there had to be a problem in the day and that was in our jagenji on the way home. We had to sit in a little VW bus and wait for an hour and a half to get 28 people in it. Let's just say, I've never thought of myself as someone that is claustrophobic but started getting pretty close!

So, the sitting on the beach part, was awesome. Yes, there was a bit of trash, but it was nice and sandy so who am I to complain! I was able to relax and read a whole book in one day - quite a feat for me! However, I did get covered in something that looked like hornets though none of them stung me, just kept scaring me. Also, I befriended some semi-street, semi-hotel dogs and they came and joined me whenever a young Senegalese man wanted to try his moves on me.

The part some of you know is that I came back from that wonderful vacation about four days early - yes, this was not by choice. Monica, the other girl on the trip, ran out of funds within 24 hours (meaning she came with 50 bucks in her bag and nothing in her bank account) and then the other two decided Tuesday morning (while I was down on the beach) that they were out of money too and were packed up and ready to go when I came back up. Let's just say in short, I was beside myself and very annoyed with this not so great travel buddies but luckily, I had a good time while I was there!

Now, the story you have all been waiting for, how the heck did Katie end up in the hospital? The answer, by poor thinking on her part.

To start this out, I have been hanging out at my CIEE directors house, who is a very nice Senegalese man who has three very fun kids that want someone to hang out with (and Serigne wants them to practice a little English). So I have gone over there a couple times now and they are a blast. Each time I go over there I get to play games and just leave feeling very happy.

Friday night/Saturday morning at about 2am I started not being able to breath, but for some reason, I just thought, hmmm, must be an allergic reaction and I should be fine in the morning. Morning came and I was not feeling better to say the least. I stayed in my room until 11 or so. My host mom and Fanta came in and asked me why, silly me, I didn't come prepared with medication for this. I then called Serigne, since I had plans to go see the Senegal-Mauritius game that evening. He told me to come over to his place and have lunch.  I went over to lunch and then the two older kids, Baboucar (M,7) and Khady (F,3) told me many times, 'Katie, you breath funny' so yes, I was breathing very poorly.

Serigne, in his defense, tried to tell me that I really shouldn't go, but of course, I could not let the idea of missing a national soccer game slip through my fingers. So off we went. The game was amazing, we won 7-0 and each score came with incredible cheers. My breathing, however, deteriorated during this, I did a bit of walking to and from the match and had a tough time just sitting and watching the match. By this point if felt like someone was strangling me and throwing rocks at my chest and ribs - aka, not a good feeling.

Once we got back to Serigne's house we called the SOS Medcin doctor (if you end up in Senegal they are amazing) but with an incredibly low blood pressure, a nebulizer, and after many, many shots (I attempted to make a joke about she gave me more shots than the Senegalese team did in the match), they decided that an ambulance was very necessary.

When the ambulance arrived they had me stand up and I fell faster than I stood so they tried to get the different monitors on me. However, the t-shirt and sports bra I was wearing stood boldly in the way. So one of the EMTs threw my shirt and bra to the side (not so gracefully since I already had the IV in my arm). Luckily, I had on one of my awesome skirts that the nice lady doctor quickly pulled up my skirt that converted into a nice dress for four days! I ended up in my first ambulance and was driven quickly down the potholed streets to a hospital (after numerous events visiting local hospitals I was very worried about what was to come).

I ended up watching myself get into an elevator and get rolled into a very wonderful looking and very updated ER room. I was pretty pleased! I got some great food over those four days there, not quite as good as that meal in Popenguine but most definitely some of the better meals I've had here. Of course, in the very Senegalese fashion, my nurse the next morning asked me if I was married and went on to tell me that he would make a very good husband for me. Well, I made a comment about it to Serigne when he came in to visit and Serigne put him in his place. Of course, then when two of my great friends here, Elizabeth (my running buddy) and Kirsten came and visited and there were no chairs he was very rude and would not let them sit on the floor or braid their hair! Though, when my family visited (the one and only time they visited while I was there and only because Serigne told them they better show up) and gave me a bag of fruit. They wouldn't let the two little ones into the room but they jumped high enough for me to wave at them, so that was good. Though when the nurse was about to get off duty he asked if he could have a piece (and I said ok, but wanted to tell him off for being annoying) and then he had the nerve to take four pieces of my fruit!

Other than that, I spent the majority of my time reading (I have found my new found love in the Economist) and finished another book (I'm a little reading machine these days!). Also, I answered a lot of worried calls from my wonderful mom, thankfully, those kept me pretty busy, which was great and very nice.

So to what I actually had. I had/have a lung infection though there aren't too many specifics on exactly what it is. In the midst of all this they also thought that I had diabetes, which I believe was caused by an ice cream that Elizabeth and Kirsten gave me, but caused a bunch of extra picks in my fingers all day every day, and a lot of extra stress. Finally, on Tuesday, they had a pulmonary specialist come in and check out what was wrong with me (a little late in my opinion since the diabetes lady was able to get there on Monday). He checked my breathing and I failed all the tests he gave so I stayed in the hospital another night but luckily he got me on some better meds and was able to be released in the morning.

Since I've been back at my house I haven't really been doing anything. My brothers and I are about half way done with the 1,000 piece puzzle. I spend a lot of time just hanging out. I had a great conversation with my dad (who is actually an imam) about the rest of the galaxy and planets which was great bonding. And I spent a lot of yesterday helping Baba (my maybe cousin) with computer stuff.

I also just found at, while writing this, that a wonderful one of my Sharpies at WM committed suicide, keep her family and all of her friends in your thoughts and prayers. She was a beautiful, brilliant, eco-loving girl and the world will miss her smiling face. Those of you who knew her, a big hug from me, and those to you that go to WM please find my Sharpies and hug them.

I'm counting on getting back to school on Monday and having a pretty calm weekend. I hope you all have a great weekend too.

Lots of love to all of you,
Katie

Tobab Dialow and a little bit touti

Yaangi ci jamm?

I hope that you are all doing well. I've been having a crazy week, mainly wonderful but like always, a few stranger things too!

This past weekend I went to Tobab Dialow, three hours south of Dakar. It was a wonderful time. We were on the beach and stayed in a very quirky fun hotel. There we had a very relaxing weekend where we could get down to the beach, do a little body surfing and have a nice time. Had I known how relaxing it was supposed to be I would have brought a book, so instead I spent a lot of time talking, shocking, I know. I ended up taking a batik lesson while I was there and we had a big dance event which included doing the limbo and attempting the splits. I actually ended up doing pretty well in both! So it was great and hopefully my fall break will be just as interesting as this weekend was!

So talking about my fall break, last week I sent out an email to some of you saying that we were going to be staying in this great house and how excited I was about it. Well, we had also invited a bunch of other CIEE students and some of them decided, because their trip to the Casamance (very dangerous, in the south) was canceled, they would rent out the house for themselves. So, that was a bumber because we were going to share the house with some of my friends' host brothers and they can't afford to stay any where than there (they were going to stay for free since they knew the owner). Anyways, so we have been scrambling around this week trying to find a place that will take four tobabs (white/foreigners) for a good price and will be accessible to get to. We seem to have a place but we won't know anything about it really until we get there! Next week will just be a surprise!

Another 'excursion' type thing I did this past week was I went to the post office in town to pick up a package from mom! This trip should not have been exciting. I went with my friend Matt (who will also be on my trip for fall break) and we got a taxi for a decent price and went on our way. Of course, when you get there you have to talk to fifteen different people, have to pay to different 'officials', they open your package, filled out a few more pieces of paper, and we were on our merry way. Well, not so fast, we had to get the taxi back to school. We finally got a taxi to pull over to let us in, while he was pulling over he was able to bump into a motorbike, we negotiated a price and got in. He backed out and hit another taxi. We were in the taxi for only a minute when he pulled over and jumped out with a water bottle. Saying something in Wolof he left. He ran to the other side of the road and, didn't pee onto the wall but into the bottle. (Since then I have realized that this is normal procedure for taxi men) and we continued on our way. We drove for 15 minutes and then I realized he was taking us to the wrong part of town. This time, using our wonderfully atrocious Wolof skills, we named many more landmarks and we finally made our way to the campus with twenty minutes left before class! Gosh, the things I will do to get a terrific package!

So a few general things I have noted since I have come here but have forgotten (or have not had the time) to share! The first one is a little out of the ordinary and something that everyone on this trip has noticed. So, people in Senegal burp, spit, cough, pick their nose and women will put their hands in their shirts and fix up their boobs. No one sees any of these things as gross or abnormal to do anywhere and over anyone. However, the few times that someone lets a little toot out I have never seen people here laugh so hard and they make fun of the tooter for about ten minutes. It really cracks me up and people of all ages have been on both sides which is pretty amusing.

Another thing that I have noticed is the many ways that I have caused cancer to me since I have gotten here. The biggest one is plastic. So everyone in the USA now knows the harmful effects of BPA. BPA is even worse if you put hot things in your plastic. Well, every morning and some nights I will have my tea from my five year old plastic mug. There are two ceramic mugs in our house but those are left for special occasions and special people - I got to use on the first few days I was around!

Dakar, for being a Muslim country, has a lot of dogs all over the street. There are dogs everywhere you could ever look. I don't think of myself as someone that is scared of dogs, but street dogs have always scared me. The way I walk to school there are quite a few dogs that always look a little menacing but they never really move very much so I try to keep myself together. However, the other day I was going on my early morning run with Elizabeth, and we got on a side road where there were about five dogs and no people. I have us start walking to not bother them and to not draw too much attention to us. One of the dogs though comes toward us and luckily, thank you Tanzania; I picked up four rocks at my feet and threw one his direction. He left us alone. Let's just say from now on I'm staying on the busy roads for running and not doing the pretty streets!

A few Saturdays ago I went out. Yes, it was my first, and really only, time out since I have been here. I went out for a wonderful dinner with a few friends. The whole time while we were walking to the restaurant I was saying how excited I was that I would be getting food without bones! (I spend a lot of time here pulling fish, chicken, and anything else I eat bones out of my mouth and food) I received my delicious plate of coconut chick. I had probably the best coconut sauce I've ever had. I took my first bit of chicken. Boom. Bone. The whole thing was full of bones. I guess people here need the bones. Note: to those of you who want to make me food when I get home, please, no ribs for a couple weeks!! After the classy dinner, we went to a tiny shack bar where we got the cheapest beer I've seen since I've been here. It was a nice place to meet up and hang out with a larger group of people before figuring out where we wanted to go dancing. At midnight, the little bar closed and we all went on our separate ways. I went over to a friend's house where I was told we were going to make a quick turnaround go out to a club in the main part of the city. Two hours later, we are still hanging out at her place with no sign of us leaving. Finally, at 2:30 am, we head out to the club. We get there and the four of us CIEE girls decide now we can finally get our groove on! So we get out there and after about five minutes of crazy, fun dancing. We were swarmed by about 20 Senegalese men that would not go away. As I described this last bit to mom I believe my phrase was 'like flies around poop' she thought that was pretty gross. But let's just say the whole thing was pretty gross.

A few host family stories to end this off. Mom wanted a family tree, so this is my basic drawing for the time being. The reason for the wacky placement of Baba is I'm not sure his relation to the family still!

So my friend Elizabeth has a wonderful and very dynamic family. Last week she wanted to show her love for them and decided to make brownies to get some brownie points with them. So, silly her, invited me to help. Well, I was useless until we got to eat them. Everyone decided that they loved her ten times more than they already did and now I wish I could cook! The funny thing will Elizabeth, and many other students' families is that the boys that are about the same age as us always just walk around in their towels. Elizabeth, gets flustered very easily, and one time her brother came into the living room with her there in only his little boxers and asked her why she was so red in the face. She didn't catch on but asked me if she was burnt later, I told her she may want to work on blushing around handsome men! They are a kick and even speak great English.

I have still been letting my brothers play games on my phone while I'm around and supervising. Bebe Cher has a good time at it but Mohammed is very intense and does incredibly well in the games. Finally, when Mohammed got 100 points in the game instead of just running around my room and saying how awesome he is, he ran around my room praising god. All I heard for the next five minutes was Alhamdulillah and other phrases of thank you God for the wonderful score I just got on this game. Cracked me up a little bit but interesting to know how much he cares about his god.

A not so good Mohammed story is about us going out. So, we usually go out every other night and visit someone other student and their family. And when I say this I mean I go visit the family and this is the time where the boys go out into the public garden and have fun. That night, Bebe Cher actually came over to the house with me and Mohammed went out by himself. At the time we had decided to go home, Bebe Cher and I go out and try to find him. We try calling his phone, nothing. After about ten minutes of looking around the area and not finding him Bebe Cher says that we may as well go home. So we do. Fanta looks annoyed when I went to bed but it wasn't until I fall asleep that Mohammed came home. All I heard for the next few minutes was his crying and his mom yelling and hitting him with her belt. As Bebe Cher described it to me yesterday "elle a frappe bien" - those of you that don't speak French, literally she beat him well. Hopefully he will always come home on time now.

The next story actually mostly takes place at school but is my little brothers’ fault. They have, on a few occasions, run around my room yelling 'data koi' and they would not tell me what it means other than it is a joke. A few days later, I asked my Wolof professor what it means and as soon as I said it she gave the look that kids get right before the belt comes out. I explained that it was my two little brothers (she is starting to realize how crazy those two are) and she just shook her head and told me that I should beat them. She then told me that it means 'a woman's sexual organs' interesting and I called them out yesterday when they tried to use it. I think they are realizing I might be a little smarter than they give me credit for.

At home I have been watching a lot of the soccer matches with my brothers and Baba. Baba, who I am bonding with a lot more these days, turned and asked me where the label 'Heineken' originates from. I said I believe it is from German and he looked confused that it wasn't from the USA. When he didn't ask any more questions I asked him if he knew it was for beer. He looked shocked and after a few minutes he asked if I had ever drank, I responded honestly and said yes. He said that he heard they taste good but that he could never have one because he is Muslim. The interesting part was right after that Bebe Cher turned around and asked me if I was converting to Islam, I believe I said no a little too quickly.

The last story I have for today is from the women in my family. The women in my family continue to tell me that I am becoming more 'touti', which means thinner in some translation or another - which is supposed to be a very bad thing. So when my mom saw me running one time she rolled her eyes and told me that I need to watch out because if I keep getting smaller it will look like the cooking in the house isn't good. We will see, supposedly this trip is supposed to add five to ten pounds on girls, hopefully that won't include me!

Well, I best be off to get some homework done. Lots of love and please keep me up to date with all of your lives. I miss you all!

Yendul ak jamm,
Katie

Cockroaches and running

Yaangi noos!

I have a couple good stories for the week, and a couple that I keep putting off, so hopefully I will make sure that this time I get the stories in here!

The first theme of this is going to be cockroaches. For the past two weeks I have been finding that my cockroach number has actually been increasing - I know, not a good thing - so I have been spraying Raid in my room like it is my job. However, the flaw with Raid is that I believe I am semi allergic to it, who would think, poison causes bad reactions... So, I have been sporting my glasses since my eyes are not enjoying the spray. I'm also wondering if it may have something to do with the crazy cough I get now and then. I'm trying to get better about not spraying quite as much and not right before bed.

Story two, probably a week ago I was sleeping, I woke up at 6am to something crawling across my stomach. I touch it and it moves. Aggravated I flick it off me onto the bed. Jump across the room and turn on the light to see what could possibly wake me up from my slumber. Of course, not surprising to many of you, it was a decent sized cockroach. I quickly equipped myself with my bottle of raid and flung it to the floor. I hope that the rest of his friends realized that it was a stupid decision to mess with the Katie!

The other night at dinner I was minding my own business around the bowl (note, this is on the floor) and one of those awfully disgusting critters did a sprint around the bowl. No one in the family seemed to care, which only shocks me a little bit. When it came around for it's victory lap it decided to go for my white bread. I quickly moved my bread (quick movements are not a part of dinner at the Wade house) everyone looked at me like I was just that crazy American but luckily when the cockroach passed Fanta she gave it a nice swat - but didn't seem scared or want it dead.

Some good TV stories now: The normal thing to watch here is Latina and Bollywood soap operas. Also, I just watched Heros the other day - I was very confused. However, every occasionally I will see a crazy show like the ones I'm about to talk about. I have watched traditional wrestling a couple times now (for those of you who don't know Senegal that well their national sport is not soccer, it is wrestling, don't worry, I was surprised too) and my brothers started naming off the wrestlers as they were meeting with their Imams and their witch doctors. Right before the game they all do their dance (dance more like New Zealand sports teams - really cool but very scary) as this was going on I looked at Bebe Cher and Mohammed next to me and they knew all the guys moves! I was very impressed to say the least! I've had them do it a couple times since then, it was very fun.

My other story actually happened last night. I was sitting around with the family and we watched some TV. The TV all of a sudden burst into color and I was seeing the pictures on the screen. A guy then walked down the stairs with a screwdriver the size of me and realized they had finally gotten their TV fixed - up from two channels to six! Good day in the Wade house! After dinner I then watched some TV with Baba, Bebe Cher, and Mohammed and we were watching something with a witch doctor putting snakes around young boys necks - which I was curious to figure out what exactly was going on and then one by one the boys were brought into a room and undressed. Then I realized what was about to happen. Male circumcision. The boys were tough. Didn't cry until it was all over. Looked horrific. A nice picture to have as I fell asleep.

Now some stories with Bebe Cher and Mohammed. I was trying to explain to them that Shep is my boyfriend and so I used the Wolof word 'far'. As soon as I said it they both looked at me and said, "Wow, you are getting married" of course my, very American independent woman, came out and told them that I most definitely was not getting married any time soon because I'm in college and my education is much too important for anything like that. It was quite funny. I found out that, it does just mean boyfriend and that they just wanted that reaction from me. Good for me for falling for an eight year olds tricks!

Every other American that lives in Sacre Coeur has met Bebe Cher in some way shape or form and once they realize that he is my brother they tell me how lucky I am to have this little angel. He is one for sure and he sure does crack me up. However, on Sunday he was most definitely trying to pull a few moves on me - hopefully that doesn't continue too much longer. I have now been getting him to read picture books for me in French, which is a great time and I think might actually be helping my French!

I have slowly been realizing a couple things about the maids that work at the house. First thing is that the doorbell to the house is always ringing. I was amazed by the number of people that came in but it didn't seem to equal the number of rings to the door. So keeping my eyes and ears out I realized that Mama Rama has another doorbell ringer in her room! She doesn't have to leave her little ACed paradise to get Satu and Awa to literally be at her fingertips. It was quite a discovery for me!

Also, I realized that Satu actually has a second job on weekend nights. I actually don't think I've told any Satu stories up until this point so quick overview, in a family where no one has ever shown calves or shoulders she is able to where her push up bra so much so that her boobs come up and out of her little tops. She puts on her wig and her flashy clothes and hits the town to make a few bucks. She is quite different from the rest of the family's very conservative outlook on life to say the least!

School is starting to pick up, I have a test today in Wolof and a paper due in Senegalese Society and Culture and have a much bigger paper that I am working on for Gender and Development. So work is happening - even if it doesn't feel quite like the insane work I'm used to doing at William and Mary (there are no complaints though!). It is wonderful to feel busy and productive though!

Also, I have been running once a day. Saturday I ran for over an hour and then power walked on the beach for two. So I'm feeling good about everything. However, after an insane amount of rain yesterday I skipped last night and went this morning. I got out with Elizabeth at 6h30 in the morning and it looked like night. After hitting the Corniche (the nicest road that is also on the beach) it started pouring. This was like a monsoon plus an extra side of rain. The short of it, is that after two hours of being dry I still feel pretty pruny. Pretty gross. Most worried that my shoes will come through and dry out by this evening so I can get a real run in.

Anyways, I should probably stop procrastinating and write my papers and study for my test a little bit more. Love to you all and hope all is well with you!

Leegi leegi,
Katie

Korete and Rain

Numu deme!

Last Friday was Korete, the party for being allowed to eat food again. I began to realize that it is celebrated very much like Easter in the USA. Instead of going around for chocolate and bunnies the kids run around to all the houses of friends and family and are given a ton of money. Instead of watching 'The Ten Commandments' (1956, DeMille) everyone watches the parallel, still four hour version on the prophet Mohammed (let me tell you that you never see him, get's very challenging to figure out why there is a gap in the crowd the first couple times). But best of all, everyone gets incredibly dressed up and lots (too much) of good food. Maybe it is more like our Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving all on the same day!

Saturday, I decided to go meet up with a couple of friends to go into town and the beach, but sadily the rain god disagreed with our plans. So I spent 20 minutes walking through almost hurricane like conditions where I finally ended up hitting Noah's (Ark) flood so I ended up taking cover with some nice Senegalesse women in an abanded house for a couple hours! So much for plans. Luckily, it was still a good time and one of the ladies owns a vegetable stand, so I got an in with the veggie lady, Awa! I've been eatting tomatoes like apples almost every day since.

Sunday was probably the longest day of my life. I sat around, watched TV, napped not once but twice, read an entire book. The book was amazing. It is called 'So Long a Letter' and written by a Senegalese woman in the 70s/80s and discussing polygamy, family life, and everything else. I loved it and you should all read it, if you haven't already. What was very interesting about it is that my host mom is a second wife (and the husband lives with us most of the time) and my host sister, 35ish and has two kids, is I believe a first wife but her husband lives in the USA with his second wife and other son. So brought up a lot of things that seemed parallel to my life here.

My room, where even Katie, can read a whole book!

Classes are still going really well, so that has been good. I have a couple papers coming up and more and more homework so I'm finding things to do with my time. Public health is still my favorite and everything else is most definately getting better! I did just get a field trip canceled and our rural visits have gotten pushed back a week. Though neither of those things are all that shocking.

Now for a few stories of life with the Wade family! A story I forgot to tell, so I have been telling you all about how Bebe Cher and Mohammed enjoy going through all my stuff, well, sometimes they find things they shouldn't be finding - like tampons. Tampons. That thing you aren't supposed to talk to eight to ten year old boys about. So Bebe Cher pulls it out and starts asking about it, "What is this? What do you use it for?" And the girl that I'm teaching English to started dying in laughter but she told me to not explain it to them. So, after asking a few more times and after they got used to the response of "go ask you mom" Bebe Cher finally just looked at me and goes, do you stick it up your butt?!? Well, let's just say I died in laughter and they haven't bothered me about it again.

Bebe Cher, up close

And now onto the family and food story! Now that Ramadan is over lunch is the biggest meal of the day so they have chebugen (fish and rice) and all the other crazy rice meals, without me. Dinner is much smaller. There is either yogurt and millet, peas and meat, pasta and chicken - and always lots and lots of white bread! So, I believe that my crazy food stories may be coming to an end... The other big thing about all these meals is you are not allowed to drink while you are eatting, you can have your water only once you are totally done with your meal. Let's just say I have not gotten used to that addition yet.

Bonus of breakfast and dinner: Sit on the roof

Ba ci kanam,

Katie

Senegal with a side of school

This week has seemed a little more normal, so I guess my emails may start to come a little less frequently now, but, of course, I have a few stories to amuse you all.

Goree Island is beautiful, but it is terribly small and without much beach, which was a bumber since I was very excited about jumping in the water since it is always oh so very hot here! Silly me thought it would resemble Zanzibar to some extent but not quite so much. I do feel like it was a great event since we went to three different museums, all very interesting, one on the slave trade through Goree, another one on women, and just an overall museum - which was actually by far the most interesting (and is where the picture attached was taken). The only major flaw was that it rained a large portion of the time we were there (which I guess makes up for not having a beach) but the rain has most definitely proved itself in the last week that I am, in fact, here during rainy season!

Group shot!

So a couple of family stories from the past week!
Sunday was the football match between Senegal and DRCongo (yes, we won 4-2) and so I decided to invite a couple of people over to watch the match. By the way, when I say watch the match I mean stare at a tiny TV screen and most of the time not being able to see anything because of the static (though I'm getting better and seeing things in static now!) I bought some juice and soda and we just had a good time. Bebe Cher and Mohammed were pumped about having all these tobabs over that liked watching some footie but all the women would not respond to any greetings or anything anyone of my friends said to them. It was pretty strange, but hey, family always is! Though, the great part of the story is that hopefully from now on one student will host us at their family's house and hang out on Sundays.

The living room

As I think I've told you, Mohammed and Bebe Cher go through everything I own. So, while I was taking a nap one day, Mohammed went through my bag and found my phone. They are very competitive about some of the phone games so Mohammed woke me up asking to play some, I said sure but a limit of five or so, well after half an hour he is still messing with it and my phone is making a lot more noise that it makes when just playing, I tell him it’s time to stop and he gets out. A few seconds later, I get a text from Mom. I check my phone and he had made over fifteen calls to friends, family, and texted numerous people. When I talked to him about it he denied it. Let's just say someone lost phone privileges until they apologize - he would rather get hit with the belt then say I'm sorry. So, we will see what happens...

Mohammed

Korete, the party end of Ramadan, (which I just called Karate for the first few times because I couldn't remember the name) should be taking place either on Friday or Saturday (depending on the moon) and everyone already seems excited! My family most definitely practiced their Korete dinner last night and I am loving it! I'm not quite sure how much of the festivities I will be invited to, my family told me to not get an outfit made and reminded me that I was Christian and that this is not my holiday. So, hopefully they were just messing with me, but if they lock me in my room for the day I wouldn't be too surprised.

And some dinner stories... So, to start this off, I just realized I never quite explained how dinners work in Senegal. So you eat around a bowl - does this sound like a social affair to you, well it did to me, but no - you sit in silence, eat as fast as you can and as soon as you finish you leave the area. Let's just say, quite a change from dinner at the Gehron house! So last night I actually had an amazing dinner and found myself too full to sleep for an hour or so, first time I have felt even close to that way since I got here (and I ate with all men so there were jokes and smiles around the bowl)! The other night though (or maybe twice this week) we had something with intestines, again, but then when I thought the pain was done they would bring something out (goat?) with the jaw as the centerpiece of meat. You know what I don't like doing, touching teeth when I'm trying to get my protein! Hopefully, soon enough, I will become numb to bones and intestines, but for now, just not tough enough.

Suffolk University Campus

Mom implied that she was worried that I might not be studying in this study abroad program, so just wanted to talk a little about classes. So now after almost two weeks of classes I feel like I have a better idea about what I think about them! Classes shouldn't be quite as challenging as back at William and Mary but there is still a lot of reading but, major bonus, there are field trips! I have a field trip for some class or another every two or three weeks which will be a great addition and will make the classes literally come to life, so I'm looking forward to that! So my public health class, in French, is by far my favorite class. We had a guest speaker today come in and he talked about HIV/AIDS which was interesting but I think the real focus of the class is going to be community health which should be really cool. Really pumped about it and the professor has worked for a long time in each part of the field.

My class on Senegalese Society and Culture has been alright, each day we have a different person speak which is cool but since it is in English it is usually pretty broken English. The man that led it on Tuesday though was amazing. He talked about the caste system that used to be in place in Senegal which was very interesting but his dynamic nature really added to the class. He was making a point about the way people title themselves and was trying to tie it back to something we understood and said 'People are proud to be New Yorkers but who says "I'm a native Alabamian" that is just not done...' We all cracked up - in short, Luke, I miss you!

Class with Kate and Monica (yes, I'm sporting my glasses more often than not now!)

The class I'm taking for Wolof (the local language) is interesting. It is really tough but at the same time the professor is really good at making sure we understand what we are saying in Wolof (an important addition in my personal opinion) so that has been nice. Also, this is the class where if we have 'culture questions' we are supposed to throw them out there, so I asked sometime last week if I'm supposed to do like Bebe Cher does and point with things with either a nod or (more often) my tongue, since in Madagascar I remembered there being something about not pointing at graves, etc (yes, I said all of that en francais) but she just laughed and said 'no we just call that a bad habit'. So much for being culturally sensitive! The other nice thing about it is the class is maxed out to five people! So there is most definitely a lot of one on one time with Prof Mam Binta Fall!

The Gender and Development class is really interesting but the there doesn't really seem to be any structure to the class, so luckily there is a lot of reading, so I'm able to feel like I'm really learning something. She seems to go on numerous rants and doesn't quite know how to get us back on topic. This is one of the classes with a lot of field trips so I'm sure that will make up for some of the problems...

So my biggest worries right now are making my fall break plans (I have a week and a half of free time and haven't confirmed anything yet!) and, thanks to mom, already stressed about Christmas presents!
Ba Suba,

Katie