Luxury hotel

Our little funky bus we take places
Making ceebu jen (fish and rice) in the backyard of our school
Keba and I - my hilarious Wolof professor
Samba and I - he runs the boutique across the street where I buy my Coca Cola everyday
Some dancing at the baptism
Me and Joe - one of the students at the business school - he was super tall!
Visiting Bouna's school


I currently find myself in a place of luxury: a hotel in Thies called Massa-Massa. This place is gorgeous, as are all the hotels I've managed to find myself at here. I'm excited for a bathroom sink, flushing toilet, tp, shower with hot water, and furniture in the room; all things of which do not exist at my home. But this is only a little lick of this luxury, tomorrow we find ourselves headed for another village. All 14 of us will be staying in one village rather than split up as before. From the sounds of it, this stay will not be nearly as intense as Kedougou - we will all be together, there's electricity, and its close to the ocean coast meaning it will be cooler. But who knows, it could be more intense in other ways.

The last few days have be nice, normal, Senegalese days for the most part. Get up and walk down the skinny path to the main road from my house, practicing some Wolof with the woman selling cafe touba and never forgetting to say hi to the guy setting up his stand at 8 every morning. At school learn some Wolof and French, take some quizzes, discover American methods of research. We made ceebujen yesterday morning which is Senegal's national dish, fish and rice. I always find myself stuffed after meals here. I definitely ate wayyy too much for supper tonight!

I met up with two Senegalese photographers yesterday also after school which is giving me exciting prospects. One is a professional freelancer who is set to be my advisor for my ISP and the other is a friend of Wally's who does more studio and portrait type work. Both want to show me how they go about their work and have me assist, I can't wait!

The other day we visited another school of one of our professors. He teaches English at a business school so we went to meet with his students. They were super fun, full of energy and enthusiasm! We got to tour their school and then had a chance to sit and chat with them while eating some snacks (they all now know that I love to eat). I hope I can meet up with some of them again sometime - they were so nice and friendly!

Wednesday after meeting these other students, I went to watch Samba play some soccer at the field near my house and made some new friends while trying to keep sand out of my eyes. After I returned home from the game, I hurriedly got dressed up to go to a baptism of my neighbor's baby. Baptisms are big events here. We went down the road/path a little bit all in our best dresses to a huge circle of women and children, with drummers at one end. Then ensued a good hour or so of spotaneous dancing and continous energy! It was amazing! The mother of the baby was gorgeous, especially for just having had a baby a week prior (baptism take place a week following the birth). Funny thing, I never once did see the baby though!

I would love to write more but really need to catch some shut eye! Looking forward to my village stay and more adventures!