Love Love Love

Mmmm Coca Cola :) This is "coca cola" in Arabic.
Can you tell I like Coca Cola? :)
Oh city traffic!!! C'est bizarre!
At one point on our bus tour, we stopped by the ocean and Devin and I found a pelican and the man let us take a picture with it!
We went on a bus tour of Dakar yesterday. Here's some of the other students walking back to our goofy looking bus near the Grand Mosque.
My room!
This is my floor. I live on the brightly pink painted 3rd floor by myself. Up there is my room, a deck area with a clothesline and a chalkboard, a bathroom for me, and a closet. I love the pink!
The view from my floor/balcony at night.

What a great weekend! Everything here is just simply enjoyable because it is always sunny and warm. I am the type of person that really reflects the weather, and waking up every morning to bright sunny skies is very agreeable! I love not worrying about grabbing a coat or thinking it might rain, but instead I put on my sunscreen and grab a big bottle of water instead (we're always drinking out of water bottles, the tap water isn't good).

I'm really excited because it is Monday (never thought I'd say that) but that means its laundry day! This morning I woke up and after my shower gave a big ol pile of dirty clothes to one of our maids because she was going to do our laundry today. Yay! I'm also looking forward to (and needing to) going shopping with my sisters sometime soon!

Basically this whole weekend was spent at my house in Zone B with my family. I hang out with my siblings, Oumy 12, Bineta 17, Papis 16, and my cousins who are pretty much siblings, Alpha 24 and Fall 29 (I think). Fall and I visited some of his friends in the neighborhood on a few walks this weekend, I met so many people and tried to speak so much Wolof. Its so much fun, I love laughing with people. Its tradition here to get a Senegalese name, mine is Oumy like my sister's which can get confusing sometimes! But the best is when i introduce myself as Oumy and the other person looks at me in surprise! Or when I try to greet in Wolof - "Saalemaalekum!" "Nanga def?" People are just always so happy!

Saturday night I hung out with Fall (who looks more like he's 23 or so) at his childhood friend Jules' place, which is about 3 places down from our's. Some things don't change across cultures, we spent the evening just hanging out and talking and listening to and watching music videos. I think I have watched more music videos in my time here than I have in an entire year at home in the states. (the name of this entry is in reference to my feelings to Dakar alluding to the song Bad Romance that my brother and sister sing ALL the time!) Oh, and don't forget drinking Coca Cola! (which like Paris and pepsi throwback, its made with real sugar...wayyy good! and even better its often served in glass bottles) My new friend Eric and I talked about many "manly" things the other night..our friendship commenced as soon as I saw he was wearing camo. I told him about my brothers, we share a love of paintball, he loves that I can (and do) change my own oil of my car, among many other things. another new friend, Bocar, loved the "artwork" I made for him, as does Eric and Fall. I wish I knew more rap/hip hop., cuz its definitely popular here! (at least I know miley cyrus...)

Sorry not in order, but when I got there on Friday night within the first 5 minutes all the adults (mom dad aunt uncles, etc) arrived at the house and we prayed and then killed a goat! Wahhh! I actually handled it pretty well, at least I think I did. Meals are always so fun and delicious so much flavor. We all sit around a big bowl or plate and chow down! Sometimes we use forks or spoons but other meals we use our hands in traditional fashion. Yumm!

Saturday morning we all came back to the school and the 14 of us went on a bus tour of Dakar. It was fun to see all the different areas of the city, but I guess when I compare it to a US city its hard. I feel that in many US cities there are definite "neighborhoods" with distinct character. Here in Dakar, contrast is a good describing word. There will be a tall shiney bank with a little green grass and neat little fence in front of it, and right next door is a decrepite building with trash blowing around. Even on my street, which is paved, our sidewalk is ceramic mosaic just like at SIT, but our neighbor's sidewalk is sand.

After school my cousin Alpha came to walk me home. Our home isn't far from the school, but I still think I would get lost if I walked home by myself. To confuse matters, Fall walked me to school this morning and we took a different way! The rest of the afternoon we just hung out around the house, visited the market, visited friends, etc.

Sunday was a very lazy day. Its so nice to have a breather from my usually extremely busy american life and just sit back and relax here. The best part of sunday was helping to braid my sister's hair. They add some extensions to it when they braid it to make it quite a bit longer. Usually they keep these braids in for about a month and a half. When the braider was almost done, my sister tried to help but the braider (a family friend) said that she didn't know how to braid well. I asked if I could try and help and she let me, she said that my braiding was better than my sisters! :) Also, I found out that we had the same birthday (me and the girl who was braiding my sister's hair).

Last night, Fall and I went to visit another one of his friends, met some more people along the way. We sat down by a busy road for awhile and just chatted. It was awesome. My French is improving so much! And everyone is so encouraging, I just hope they don't give up patience, but at least I"m improving and not being stagnant. The best part of our conversation was when I said something about a noisy taxi that drove by and said it sounded like one of my brother's cars. Then only 2 seconds later it back fired and instinctly I jumped and screamed! Fall just laughed and laughed and laughed at me! Oh goodness. It was so funny! I felt so dumb but just laughed with him. It was a great conversation..talking about freedom and how birds are so free. And comparing driving a car to driving a boat and other fun things.

The eating schedule here is pretty interesting. Meals are served a lot later than I'm used to, lunch usually around 2 pm (or 14h00) and supper sometime around 9-10pm (or 21h00-22h00). And of course I have some breakfast of a baguette and tea before school! Along with my beloved coca cola, I can also get my crepes like I had in Paris here. So good!

Well, once again a bright sunny day. I wonder what my family has in store for me tonight! I really should get off my computer, my little english world and head home from school soon back to my 3rd floor painted pink! Or go to Jules and chat some more, or play hide and seek with his nephew Nicola. Dakar est tres agreable!!!