A Good Day.

Although I rarely use this blog to chronicle my daily activities, I want to talk about past Saturday. A great day overall, and since I'm starting to think of each of my days here as one of my last, I attribute some special significance to such a good Saturday.

Around noon, I went over to my homestay family's house. I had promised to take my 12 year old brother, Abdou, to MagicLand, an amusement park on the corniche overlooking the ocean. By 12:30, Abdou and I had hopped into a taxi and were en route to MagicLand. When we arrived, we were told that it wouldn't open until 2:30. Abdou and I sat on the rocks on the beach for two hours, talking and connecting in a big way. Abdou says he wants to be President of Senegal when he grows up, and he wants to make enough money to travel to the States. Finally, we went into MagicLand-- a Disney Land type place with about 20 rides. Abdou and I got two giant hamburgers for lunch and then we went on a lot of rides. Haunted house, moon jump, bumper cars, this spinny thing that disturbed the hamburger uneasily grumbling in my stomach, you name it-- we went on it. It was expensive, but so worth it to see the joy on Abdou's face.

After dropping Abdou back at his house around 5, I went home and hung out with my roommates. We made a delicious family dinner of jambalaya, and served it on one big platter. We've adopted the Senegalese eating-style, all circled around the same plate. If I could bring one custom back to the U.S., it would be that. Eating is such a communal, intimate experience here because of the shared plates.

After dinner, we went over to the apartment of some American friends we've met. They're leaving to travel around Africa, and this was a little goodbye soirée. They made crepes and we sat around and talked.

Around 1:30 AM, the night was just getting started. This place on the beach called Oceanium hosts a party on the first Saturday of every month; it's a fête that's really infamus among the toubab community of Dakar. After getting dropped off by our taxi on a deserted-looking street, scrambling over some rocks and traversing a steep hill, we followed the booming music into this rundown building that, like a good surprise, opened up onto a beautiful terrace overlooking the ocean. The place was packed with lots of Senegalese and, I'm convinced, all the toubabs I've ever met in Dakar. The DJ played great music and we danced until 5 AM, when my roommates and I taxi-ed home.

My roommate Clint had surprised us with pancake mix-- he has a family friend who's a flight attendant, and she had brought him some treats from the States. So around 5:30, we decided to make pancakes. Avery and I cooked them on our two stovetops, and then we all sat around devouring the pancakes, circled around the same plate for the second time that day, until the sun came up. Literally.