Pics pics pics

The girls got to dress up in their fancy new outfits and even get make-up done!! Muskuta is a neice also just around for the holidays! She is definitely a sweetheart!!


Keba with Fatou (Boundao and Keba's 7 year old daughter) I would call her a sweetheart but that would be lying....she is a bit of a princess in the house and know it!! But she isn't all bad!!

Boundao cooking a yummy meal to break the fast for the last time!! Mmm, chicken, fries and salad!!

The day that Ramadan ended...everyone gathered to pray together!

I should add that when I say Keba cleans and washes the Mouton...I mean he watches while Ousmane does all the work! That is what having children is for...right :)

Keba and his mouton! This is back at home. Keba spends HOURS on the roof watching his mouton, feeding them, medicating them, cleaning them, talking to them.... you can safely say they are his favorite hobby!!

An amazing dwarf baobab tree...me...and our guide...

Dakar in the background!

Apparently there is a djinn who lives on the island and refuses to let anyone build. These are the ruins of a house a famous scientist tried to build but it kept falling down! So when they built the watch tower on the island they carried out some ceremonies to ask for permission...must have worked because the tower is still standing!

Amazing!

Sarah, my french roomie and I came here and we were the ONLY two on the island...with our boat driver, and two guides but...that was it!!

Les Isles de la Madeleine...where to go if you want to feel like you left Dakar by thousands of kilometers but in reality you are just a short boat ride away!

This is me on a beach in Tahiti...JUST KIDDING! But you almost believe me didn't you?

This Ousmane - Keba's son who lives in Ziganchour but is visiting for the vaction! He gets the fun job of washing the mouton every weekend.

The friendly mouton! Keba doesn't kill them for Tabaski or any other event....he prefers to sell these guys and buy 'unknown' mouton for himself!! Or else it would be too hard!!

My window!

My room!

That is where the mouton live - when they aren't roaming around and pooing all over the roof!! Keba (the dad in the house) actually keeps it quiet clean but sometimes those mouton just get out of hand!

This is the roof top of where I live! I come up here for cool air and to watch the Mouton!

Work

After a year of being free and having no worries, no stress...it feels strange to get up early every morning and make the trek to work and then sit behind a desk, in front of a computer screen all day!

I guess it helps that the work is interesting and the people I work with are quite fun!

But on a day like today where it is thundering and lightening outside and the sky is pouring buckets...makes me want to be at home curled up with a good movie :)

Things are still going well here in Dakar! The family is still super nice, although my one housemate went to Paris for 10 days and then decided not to come back for another 2 weeks and now the other housemate is heading back home to Paris too. So I hope that more people come soon!!

I am discovering that Dakar is much bigger and crazier than Saint Louis (which I guess I knew before...but it is being confirmed now) but it has its upsides...like lots to do and good food!

More updates to come...

Mission accomplished

Mission accomplished!

I have a place to live. I am staying with a family. It is a big two-storey house. It is a family of 4 that live here (mom, dad, little girl and little boy) plus a visiting niece and an 18-year old son also just visiting.

Plus two French people here in Dakar doing internships and one more empty room that quite possible will be filled by a French couple in a few days.

Feels very nice to have my own space and unpack my suitcase after 2 months of living out of it. I have also started Wolof classes. The teacher is really nice. He is a little scattered but since I have a bit of base, I think it will go well. This week I am not working so I have class almost every day. I think I can learn a lot but we will see how ‘fluent’ I am by the end of the 3 months! Short post this time around. I have made a goal to be better at posting! But no promises…

Back in Dakar!!!

Back in Dakar!

Feels like I never left and yet…feels like everything is different. Funny how that happens!
I had a great month away spent with friends and family! Paris was wonderful and overwhelming as I was just getting over having left Dakar. But it being the romance capital I couldn’t spend too long being shocked and traumatized by western-ness all of a sudden! Getting to Denmark was equally great. It was so nice to see my parents again after so long away…and shortly after that seeing Torsten and Kelly too.

Pretty much the month in Denmark was spent eating waaay too much food and relaxing with family. Apparently I ate so much that the first comment all the Congolese boys (our friends that I stay with in Dakar) made was "wow, you have gained weight!" ARGH, I thought we had taught them that North American girls do not like hearing that!!!

People just have such an open honesty here. They don’t mean to make you feel bad when they call you big…they are just stating the obvious! No wonder people have culture shock when travelling between countries. That kind of outright bluntness would not fly back home!
The flight home was a little bit eventful. My bag was checked all the way through from Copenhagen to Dakar but I only had a boarding pass for the first flight…since in Barcelona I would be changing flight companies. That of course made me a little nervous but I figured, why not have faith in the airline companies to coordinate and get my bags the whole way! Once I landed in Barcelona I had a short lay-over which should have been fine but apparently I had to switch terminals which required leaving the airport, taking a bus that was determined to go slowly enough to make me miss my flight, push over people to get out of the bus quickly…run to the check-in counter and HOPE they hadn’t closed. Luckily, there was still a guy there and after checking me through he realized, oh yah…do you have anything proving you will only be in Senegal 3 months? What??? I have never needed that before! I had my return flight ticket that I could show him but that was over 3 months. My plan had been either to leave the country for a bit within 3 months or to have my ‘visa’ prolonged once here. Well, noo, he wasn’t sure that would work so he had to call the supervisor. All the while I am sweating from running and praying that he will hurry up so that I don’t miss the boarding call! Turns out he decided to just let me go anyway, no worries. I made it quickly through security…got to the gate and….boarding delayed 10 minutes! I have TONS of time…I love it when I stress for nothing!
The upside to all that stress and ‘what-if’ scenario-ing I was doing was that I had a great seat. The first row behind business class and a window seat with the seat between mine and the guy in the aisle being a very tiny-seat (child seat maybe) so no one came and sat there! I had the same seat from Lisbon to Dakar.

And I have to say, TAP Portugal knows how to feed its passengers. I know many of you out there HATE airplane food but I am not so picky. I wouldn’t choose to eat it everyday but I certainly don’t find it that horrendous. And TAP feeds well. Mmm mashed potatoes for dinner and chocolate mousse for dessert! How can you go wrong?? (I could never be a food critique…I just like everything)

So the faith I had in airline companies was shot to pieces when I arrived in Dakar and my bag didn’t show up. First the customs guy made me leave the airport to find the guy who was meeting me and get an address. You can’t get into the country without a very specific address! Once that was done I went over to the luggage belt and…oh, no bag! The guy unloading them shrugged his shoulders sadly and then asked me for my phone number – yup, I knew I was back in Senegal at that precise moment!

Luckily my bag wasn’t missing for that long. I arrived Monday night and the following night it arrived on a 2 am flight. I went to pick it up at the airport with no problems, oh except that the security guy also wanted my phone number…honestly?? Professionalism?? Or how about just look at our age differences??
Ah Senegal! How I missed you!

Now, the plan is to find a place to stay…start taking Wolof classes and figure how to get around in this city without having to fight with cab drivers on a regular basis. There is a fairly good bus system. I just need to find out how it works!