Asalaam Alekum!
I've been in Dakar for a little more than two weeks now but it feels like so much longer! It's incredible how much I learn and how much more comfortable I get every day. So where to start? There's so much, so I'll just try and give you a taste of what life is like here. In order to get home to my house from my Wolof class, I walk down the street and turn left onto the first street after the big herd of sheep in the small park that divides the two sides of the road. Then I walk past a mosque and a recently demolished shanty town that is beginning to build up again, until I get to a street with a fruit stand where I turn right and walk through a field (really just a bunch of sand) where the carpenter has his whole shop set up outside. Then when I get to my house, I stop and speak some broken Wolof to the boulangier (the man who sells bread) right next to my
house, and then go in and greet the family. It's nice because I'm starting to recognize people and
say hi to people in the neighborhood.
Yesterday, I went to a soccer game with Morgan (another exchange student in my house) and a neighbor named Saliou. I met him one of the first days and I thought he was definately hitting on me because he kept looking at me with these creepy eyes, but now I just think he's a very awkward kid but he's incredibly nice and fun to talk to. He's a literature major at the University here. At the end of the game, with like a minute left to go, the power went out and they had to end the game! It was really funny! (The field had been lit with those big lights like in the States, but when they went out it was pitch black), That's Dakar for you.
We also went to a festival with a family that one of the people in my program is friends with. They are griots and all play instruments or dance. It was so incredible. We had dinner with them and hung out for a while talking, and then one of the women dressed us all up in her clothes so we looked like real Senegalaises (except that we were white) and went out and watched the most incredible drumming and dancing. It was so cool! One of the women came over and asked if anyone wanted to dance, and everyone else said no, but have I ever been anyone to turn down dancing? So I went up and told her I didn't know how to do it but that I would try, and she had me sit on her lap and watch for a little while other people danced and then pushed me up into the middle with everyone watching and we danced together. I had no idea what I was doing but i just jumped around and flailed my limbs in a sort of circular pattern and I don't think it looked half bad! It was such a fun time! I'm going to try to do something new every day that I can, hopefully every day that I'm here!
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