A day of kids, tea, and soccer

I made some new friends at the soccer game this afternoon
Loading up a whole furniture set onto a horse cart
Statue, market, soccer field
A little more soccer
Samba making tea at my house this afternoon
Me and my little sister Lape Lape

Waves of fun!

A big wave came and in the process of saving my bag and clothes and journal from the water, I broke his sunglasses.
Hanging out on the beach of Ngor..right before the wave came
the beach at Ngor
Heading to the beach with a friend - Adama
Jumping for joy at a baobab
Mansour's birthday! (the son of a friend of Mamadou's)
Baptism on Saturday
Coloring with my little sisters
Me and Ibou. Opps I still have his sunglasses.

Talli bi

=the road in Wakam where I hang out every night after watching tv in my sister's room
Our shadows, the wind, Dakar.
Go is the woman, I am the man (sans baby in my arm)
Flags blowing in the wind
A Korean man asked to take a photo with us..then took us inside the monument (that's not yet opened...here they are hanging up the exit signs and Pape looking at the display)
Our new Korean friend
Plaque with Wade quote
Pape and Go on the way up to the statue
Me and my fellow Minnesotan, Emilia eating some NICE CREAM in Plateu, this was reward and down time after a stressful time in the market
A Singer sewing machine like mine at home!
Me, Mamadou, and Emilia at La Duchess - went there for a water break and to say hi. love this pic!
They are always giving me things to eat and drink - maafa, ceebu jen, cafe touba, milk, etc etc etc
Dried fish at the market. Let's pretend that this ISN'T a part of ceebu jen.
Downtown
Mamadou and I in front of his friend's fruit stand, next to La Duchess
Having tea with Samba's friend on Saturday while Becca conducted an interview
More of Seye's bball game - I love telling people here how the Lakers started in Minnesota!
Tuesday French class - learn French fashion words and how to say things like "bra and underwear" from our teacher Keba. He kept having to call in Mam Bineta for all sorts of things!
Drinking some tea in the back of a broken down car rapide with Mamadou and his friends there.

Life's been dandy. Sorry for the lack of updates. Its such a conflict balancing my American life with my Senegalese life sometimes. But I know you all understand!

This lack of structure has been good and bad. I have much more time to sit back and really be immersed (and go days without seeing Americans or speaking English). And just hang with my Senegalese friends. That's my favorite. Except they make me eat so much!

Yesterday I hung out with my friend Go. We hung out at his friend's house for awhile (Pape) not far from my house. Then we took a wander around Wakam, visiting people and buying essentials like phone cards and cigarettes. Not to mention all the sand between my toes! We decided to go visit the statue as a part of our wander. Just hiked on right up to it, a national monument lacking an entry fee, a parking lot, or even garbage cans. We got up to the top of the stairs and took in the few while attempting to not get blown away in the powerful ocean wind. Walked around the whole bottom of the statue when then we were approached by a Korean man asking to take a photo with us. He did and then he took us inside the monument! (Koreans built it) He was in there helping to put up the exit signs. Funny story - the exit signs above one door were in English and the ones above the other were in French. Go and I decided that if there was an emergency everyone would go out the door they understood. Oh the disorderliness of Senegal!

After leaving, took a few more pics. Walked back to Wakam, buying more phone credit. Chilled out on the side of the road with a friend for awhile then took off on a walk along the ocean to try to find graffiti. Found some writing but not exactly what we were looking for. Made it all the way through Mermoz, the neighborhood south of Wakam. Here we visited Go's cousins who were all really nice and I had a whole coherent conversation with that family in Wolof! Whoot! After finding a little bit more graffiti, we grabbed a car rapide back to Wakam from the gas station. I returned home and made Baby Fatim giggle like always! After dinner on the floor from a big platter in the living room, Mamadou and friends came over and we watched a Texas movie dubbed in French in my sister's room. Drank some wonderful red juice, delicioius! After the movie (which I slept a bit laying on the floor) we headed down to talli bi, which is wolof for the road, a nightly tradition. Here we said hi to people hanging outside the magasin, drank steamed milk, danced, sang, learned a little wolof, shook hands, and laughed a lot. Around 1 am, Mamadou walked me home, where I fell fast asleep following writing in my journal and pausing to look up at the sky, thinking about where I am and what I'm doing.

Spending a semester here is really putting my life into perspective. I may have said that before. It is still unbelievable to me that this life has always taken place with me being completely oblivious to it. What else is going on in this world that I am unaware of?

My friends at Wartburg are all celebrating the end of finals and the start of Tour week. Some have moved out if their may terms take them elsewhere. Me, I'm still off on this adventure in Senegal. Not going to lie, seeing Facebook statuses about Midnight Breakfast made me a little nostalgic. But there will be midnight breakfasts next year!

As for my project. How I wish my camera could be invisible and ethics wouldn't be an issue! My white-skinned presence already changes things enough the way it is! I want so badly to capture everyone's personalities and little habits but those are all changed with I bring out my Canon. (whoa that makes me sound dangerous..not exactly what I was going for). At least my advisor is finally back from Nigeria and his phone number is working again! We'll see what he has to say about changing the focus of my project from working individuals to 20 something year old males, since they are the only ones who are comfortable enough with me to let me photograph whenever. Oh how I wish I wasn't white. And always viewed as a tourist.

Or that I will know Angela. She's from the states. Do you know her?

Sorry, no actually I do not know Angela.

I think I might have to clean out my room (aka bed) this weekend again, it seems that a sandcastle has developed and if I accidentally spill some water from my 1,5 liter bottle of Kirene I'll have a moat around it! And the dead cockroach that was next to my alarm clock last night can be king!

I wander what kind of French dubbed movie we shall watch tonight? And maybe instead of a pile of fish on the platter, we'll have a pile of chickens. Too bad they don't come with an ice cold glass of milk.

Happy last day at Wartburg Stephanie!
Dustin and Matej and all my MLHS-ers-hope you had a spectacular prom!
Mom, I would like to redeem that gift card I got for christmas for a whole bunch of new underwear. Also, I need a haircut :p
Dad, what do you want for a souvenir from Senegal?

Anyone else - plan my summer for me!

Basketball

Basketball game = magic
Hanging out at the Cheikh Anta Diop dorms with my friend from Mouit - village. bahaha

Giggles

I spent Wednesday in downtown with my hilarious friend mamadou. Here is us taking jumping photos on self timer with my camera hanging out on the back of his motorcycle, on the avenue right by the ocean. I'm sporting my Senegal jersey and Senegalese all stars. This kid cracks me up!

I've spent this morning hanging out at my friend Bay's telephone repair shop. Drinking cafe touba and talking with the whole world. Really need to get putting some serious time into my photo project, but photo taking is just so extremely difficult here! I hate always being seen as a tourist..argh. However, yesterday was a promo day on phone credit, rocking because I finally have credit! (mobile to mobile minutes and texts are sooo amazing.)

After spending some time at My Shop for internet, I'm heading back to Wakam to eat some lunch with my new (and very tall) friend Seye. We're eating souloukhou for lunch, whatever that is. Hopefully NOT fish! Well, its 2 pm, I think its time for lunch!

While my ipod charges..

So ISP has officially started. As a part of this, we can take optional French and Wolof courses at school which I have opted to do to continue improving my language skills further and to give this month of freedom a bit of structure and to keep me connected with everyone (I'm a bit of a loner off in Ouakam by myself). Becca and I were the only ones present in our Wolof course this morning and learned lots such as how to pose questions and how to make these questions emphasize different things (subject, object, etc). My French class following was a hoot. The four of us in class, along with our professor Keba created a story including Beyonce, Wally Seck, a magic mutton, Saint Peter, Dumbo, and Amadou (the guard at our school). Gotta love when class is actually fun and entertaining.

I did a lot of walking yesterday. Printed my ISP proposal, HSR form, and two other student's paperwork at WARC, our new favorite place to print because its only 100 CFA a page (around 20 cents). This is what I pay for my transportation to Ouakam at the end of every day. I also had lunch here at this resource center of couscous and onion sauce, and of course tea and coca cola. After I eventually finished printing 35 pages here and emailing my dad while struggling with a french keyboard, I walked to SIT, stopping at the post office to mail a postcard on the way and was reminded of how lines do not work here. At SIT I met up with Alisa and we hiked on down the road to the media center of Dakar, with no success of who we wanted to find there. So then we went to a bookstore. I of course found several wonderful photography books which were unfortunately too expensive for my budget currently. But who knows, they may find their way home with me. :) Leaving the bookstore, we parted ways as Alisa returned home and I started my 40 minute plus hike in my pink heeled barbie shoes to Emilia's apartment. I walked down the large divided road where the median serves many purposes - the usual being a place to wash your taxi! After coming to the end of this road FINALLY I turned right until I got to a roundabout and then turned left and walked up a big hill as blisters were starting to form on my sandy and sweaty feet. Eventually coming down this road I saw the school that we visited two weeks ago where one of our profs teaches English at and Emilia (another Minnesotan) on the sidewalk of the other side of the road! We continued the hike and eventually after taking several rights made it to her apartment, which looks over GREEN GRASS FIELDS. We chatted on the balcony, searched for summer internships and jobs (she has internet), made supper of scrambled eggs and spaghetti and then a few of our other friends showed up. Us girls had some good chatting and bonding time into the night. As much as I love my host family, it was nice to have some down chill time away from children. A little after midnight, we decided it was getting late, Jess and I headed off on foot. And didn't want to take a taxi since that costs money and we are all limited by our ISP budget. After wandering and then asking for directions, we made it to the VDN, pretty much like a highway equivalent. We walked and walked and walked and made it to Jess's then I somehow caught the last car rapide to Ouakam for the evening. At home, I journaled then fell asleep in my CLEAN bed. Got up and went to class this morning.

Yay Senengal.

Heading to a graffiti expo soon in downtown with my friend from the village after I finish my chocolate crepe.

Oh, I think my ipod is charged now.

I cleaned my room

Baby Fatim 3 months old on Sunday!
I cleaned my room!
Little sisters (technically nieces if you think about the family tree), Dior and Khady
My eldery mother (in orange) dancing with a friend at the baptism
My dad and baby sister, Ibrahima and Khady. She looks scared and my dad looks like a creeper here! Ha.
My house
Two of the many cats that we have at our house, taking a Sunday snooze
A group of new friends at the wedding reception (I really need to invest in another dress!)
The gorgeous bride and groom
Mamadou and I at the wedding reception
Galerie Manege L'Institut Francais
Saint Louis 350 years Photo Exhibit at L'Institut Francais downtown
Carlou D at Just 4 U (Same group we saw in Saint Louis)
Becca playing some Senegalese pool
Me with Carlou D's sticks. I helped Maury fix Carlou D's THE DRUM with some rubber cement before the show
More soccer. There's lots of it here.
At Wartburg - My friend David sent me this photo, he missed me when he jumped in the fountain!