Like I’ve said the last few times, sorry I’ve been so absent. There has been a lot going on here and it’s a lot to catch up on right now.
The thing that has been keeping all of us busiest was our History of Islam paper. While only 4-6 pages double-spaced, it was in French and also our research options are not the best here. We were basically forced to use online resources from our home institutions and hope that whatever we found on these random topics would be sufficient. As usual my Islam professor liked to remind me and the class that my French is lowest in the class and recommended that I write the paper with someone else. I chose to write the paper by myself, seeing as I didn’t really care what he thought and if, worst comes to worst, I fail the class, I don’t need the credit anyway. In the end of it all, it’s been keeping our last week very busy.
On Saturday I went to HLM with Alex. HLM main attraction is fabric, but you can find anything there really. I needed shoes for my Tabaski outfit and Alex wanted to buy some fabric. Imagine any Black Friday, and then imagine it being ten times worse. There were times were I floated through the crowds just from the sheer volume. Many of the vendors had sound systems and were calling out to the people walking around, they were always surprised when Alex and I would respond to their calls of “Xop-nopp,” (sounds like hop-nop and means red ears).
After a long search, Alex found his fabric and I shoes, though unfortunately they were not the ones that I had seen EVERYWHERE two weeks ago, but I have something that will work, so it’s enough. One guy pretend to stumble into Alex, trying to steal an wallet from his back pocket but luckily all of his things were in the front pockets. I realized later that night that my bag had been cut at the bottom, but luckily the pocket and the outside layer of the bag were cut and the lining was still intact and still kept all my things inside. Dakar is a very safe city, but it was unsurprising given the crowds of the market that it had happened. Being white we are also greater targets.
This morning Alex continued our St. Louis tradition of getting to the beach early in order to catch the best rays, and then get back to our host families for a free lunch. Yoff is a beautiful beach that stays very shallow for a while out, making it good for kids, and for when you don’t really want to go into the water all the way. Saturday afternoon involved Tabaski preparations, in addition to many trip to my tailor who lives behind to try to get my boubou. Unfortunately, each time I’ve gone it hasn’t been ready yet. As Tabaski is tomorrow should will be ready when I get back from school today (incha’Allah).
The first group of people to leave are leaving in just 12 days. It’s hard to imagine half of our group gone. Yesterday marked the halfway mark of our program (and Grandma Zweip’s birthday!). It seems like we’ve been here much long than to just be reaching the halfway mark now. Among us 6-monthers, we’ve been discussing how were are so happy not to be going home in two weeks, just because it seems to soon, but if you had asked us how we felt at any other point in the program we would have jumped to be on those flights on December 20th. I am glad to be seeing friends over break, and get a chance to be away from Senegal for a bit. I do love it here but I really do love the snow and winter, and it will be nice to get a taste of that. The last two months after break are mostly filled with an internship we do and a few classes. I hope to be helping in English class at a primary school, but the details haven’t been worked out yet. Well I hope this has caught you all up, and as always I love to hear from you. (Thanks grandpa, I always get your emails, but sometime sending responses back out takes a while with the Wireless internet system we have).
Send emails to awilliams409@gmail.com or to anna.williams06@kzoo.edu
Miss and love you all.
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