Meetin someone famous

Wally and I discussing life after our lutter won the combat! (Senegalese wrestling)
Thioune Seck - Wally's dad and other members of the group on stage
me and the celeb!
The beach at Ngor Island
Gotta love the sunglasses pics - me and Samba at Ngor
Me with a chunk of a wall at Ngor
Chilling with one of Samba's friends at a nice club on Friday night
Mamadou and I - we're silly together (note the mismatched flip flops)
Learning how to make tea at Samba's with my little sister
Leftover paint at Village Des Arts
Walking down the street back to school (just ahead on the left)


What a pretty rocking weekend! I've got a lot of homework on my plate right now so I'm going to try and keep this short. I went out to clubs both Friday and Saturday night with my friend Samba. Met a bunch of his friends at this really nice club called "Diamond" (lots of more "established" places here have English names) which we somehow managed to get in without paying the equivalent of about $10. After some dancing, drinking Coca Cola, and loud music, we walked down the road to a bakery to have some donuts and steamed milk at 4 am!

Saturday night was another adventure. Samba and I took a taxi to Penc Me (pronounced like "pinch me") which was another really nice place. We paid around $11 to enter, which was pretty good considering the entertainment to be had that night. Two Senegalese singers were performing, Wally Ballago Seck and his dad, Thioune Seck, who happened to be friends of Samba's. We enjoyed the good music and dancing then left the club with Wally. We hopped in his car and drove around Dakar at 5am! Then we somehow ended up back at the same bakery for some breakfast! When we got out of the car, a bunch of people swarmed to ask him for money or autographs. Or even while we were eating, people would call their friends on their phones and have him talk to their brother or sister. It was really cool to be out with someone kind of famous! When we were done eating, we went to visit his apartment. By this point I was quite tired and soon we returned home. On Sunday, he had invited Samba and I over to his apartment once again to watch the grand combat - Senegalese wrestling - national sport. In the group of the 7 of us, Wally and I were the sole two fans for Balla Gueye, who of course ended up winning the match that took about 15 seconds! The preparations and excitement and energy put into this sport here was incredible to watch! I really wanted to go to the stadium to see it live but we were all cautioned about how dangerous it could get with riots afterwards. Instead, I watched and cheered with a Senegalese singer at his apartment. For supper we had a big platter of bbq and thiakry (yougurt with millet). It was a great evening, and a fun weekend of going out and having a Senegalese social life.

Unfortunately, my school work is pulling me back into the English world, after going the entire weekend apart from my American friends, English, Point E, and other things I am familiar with. This is the experience I am looking for, a total immersion. And a fun one at that. We leave for 9 days on Friday for Saint Louis, a city at the northern border of Senegal. We will have stops along the way and stay in another village for a few days. We are preparing for this excursion and also starting to work more detailed on our ISPs.

Until next time,
Oumy Thiam (my Senegalese name!)