Ups and Downs.

People often describe the abroad experience as a collection of extreme ups and downs; my experience has been synonymous with that characterization.

The Ups
I get along really well with the people in my program. SIT is great, and the villa where my classes are held is beautiful. I like the neighborhood I live in-- Point E-- a suburb about 20 minutes north of downtown Dakar. It's fairly calm, and there are a lot of students because the University Chiekh Anta Diop is in the area, too. I live very close to school; it's only about a five minute walk. My friend Erin lives just a couple houses away, and I spend a lot of time at her house drinking thé and watching the télé with her brother, Samba, and his friends. My little brother, Abdul, who is twelve years old, is very warm and enthusiastic. He's been communicating with me the most and showing me the ropes. I help him with his English homework; he helps me with my Wolof. Babacar, my sister's one and a half year old son, is absolutely adorable. I play with him a lot, and when I come home from school every day, he runs to me, hugs my legs, and demands to be picked up. Dakar is beautiful, smelly, chaotic, and overwhelming.

The Downs
My family speaks French with a very thick accent, and about half the time they speak Wolof. My communication with them is at a minimum, and I often find it difficult to gauge the attitudes of my family members towards me. My sister Maty is still fairly cold towards me, and my mother, too, doesn't speak to me much. I have bedbugs pretty badly, and when I tried to explain this to my host parents, they insisted that it's mosquito bites-- even though I have a mosquito net and there are no mosquitos out because it's winter here. The bites don't itch, but they are all over my legs. Basically, I'm sweaty, smelly, dirty, and covered in red dots. Super attractive.

Being here and diving into this foreign culture is a lot like becoming a child again. I still don't know exactly how to work the toilet at my homestay, and I've re-learned how to eat, shower, interact with people-- there are a host of cultural faux pas that I've been absorbing. It's very bad luck to say a child is cute, and pregnancy is never acknowledged. It's rude to look elders in the eye. I'm sure I am still committing faux pas right and left. Well, tomorrow, we get out of school early, so some friends and I are planning to go to the huge, overwhelming outdoor market downtown, eat lunch at Ali Baba's, this great fast food place, and then go to the beach. A bientot!