life is a work in progress; see it from behind the scenes

MORE PICTURES

I finally got some more pictures up, they're on FLICKR

here.

I'll have better descriptions soon...

Au Revoir, Ma Famillie Senegalese

Tonight is the last night I spend with my family in Senegal.  We just got back from the party SIT threw for the families, and they mowed the yard at the SIT house this afternoon, brought in a musician, and about 4 or 5 cases of soda...haha   It really was fun though.

I slept in this morning because I stole the fan out of the corner of the family room that has never been plugged in since I've been here.  It was awesome.  Supposedly it terrentially downpoured for about 20 or 30 minutes in the middle of the night, but I didn't wake up for it (a little distracted by totally consumed with the fan of course)

When I got up this morning, I went over to Suffolk to make my final editions to my project, and of course, OF COURSE, the power was out.  And it stayed out for much of the morning.  Everyone had gone to the Elton staion (the gas station with the internet cafe upstairs) and I met Frankie there to take a taxi over to SIT where we had heard you could use their one extra computer.  Prof Magoo walked in as we were leaving and told us that Souleye had said not to come to SIT because a student demonstration in the street on the way there had gotten out of hand and they started burning tires in the street, causing the police to come out with guns and tear gas...

BUT, I had just come on that road to get to Suffolk and Ken's information was over an hour old, so we went back towards my house to SIT.  I finished my corrections on a laptop there, but the SIT printer is broken and we had to turn in a hard copy so I ended up going back to Suffolk later in the afternoon.  The power had been on for a while but was off when I got there. It came back on for about 10 minutes, I printed during that time, and everyone screamed when the power went back off.  Erica (Aiden's girlfriend) and I headed back to the house so I could go to the soiree...I was really late getting home, so we didn't leave until 15 minutes after the party started and we had to sit in the back of the yard.  oops.  but I think they were fine.  My family left early anyways, and I came home a little while after.

Tomorrow we head to the Petite Cote.  I signed up for a presenetation tomorrow afternoon, but judging by how behind everything is, I'll either be going after dinner tomorrow or the next morning.  I'm just sayin'.

I'm giving my family here a book from South Carolina, so I'll have to come up with something nice to write in the front and then translate it into French.  I'm also giving ma mere (my mom) Bé some fabric--enough to make a boubou (dress) and headwrap thing.

I also have to pack everything tonight which is going to be REALLY difficult since I just bought a ton more stuff this afternoon, and I had already packed almost everything...oh well, we'll see how this works...

I'm off to eat my last Senegalese family dinner, take some pictures, and pack the goods.

I don't think I'll have internet access at the Petite Cote and I probably won't want to waste my last day in Senegal on the computer, so I guess this is it.  It's been a great adventure, and I'm so happy to have come here.  It's nothing like I expected, but I don't know how to say why.  Thanks for the emails everyone who kept me updated, and I can't wait to see everyone in a week!

A tout à l'heure!

Home

In exactly one week, I will be back on US soil, probably sitting at Ess-a-Bagel on 3rd avenue or passed out on Kim's couch after the long South African Airways return flight.

I hit somewhat of a wall last night with Senegal after a kid on the Car Rapide ripped us off by an extra 200 CFA on a 75 CFA per person ride...It wasn't much money, actually only 40 US cents, but it was definitely a slap in the face of a toubab in Senegal--when I asked for my change he looked at me and laughed. And it wasn't because I was did something wrong...I got really mad and then as we were walking down the street where we had gotten off, the route had apparently ended and the car turned around empty and as they passed by us again, the kid hissed at us and laughed at us as they drove by.

I was, as you would expect, fuming.

I got over it after last night, and it was obviously an issue of pride, totally being made fun of and knowing what's going on but not being able to do anything about it.  But it was 40 cents, and it's not worth being pissed about it.

So today, Natalie and Frankie and I went back out to the beach at Point des Almadees. We rented a mat and umbrella by the water and both of the girls bought these rediculously small innertubes to use at the shallow beach.  We took turns swimming and eventually these kids started pushing both of them around and pulling them on the tubes through the waves and into the sand and all over.  It was really funny when they started both climbing on Natalie and sinking her tiny tube.  I took my water camera so we got a couple good pictures with them (we hope).  That's one of the things I love about film cameras is that you don't get to be tired of the pictures before you even get home from your trip.  In fact, you have no idea what your pictures are going to be like until after your trip and then you get to experience the whole thing over again as you see what turned out...

I also made sure to take the photo-op of the trip, eating Kim's Ritz cheese sandwiches at the beach today.  Elaborate, you ask? My pleasure.

Kim and Brian sent me a box of goods for my birthday to use on this trip, to include two huge and helpful West Africa guidebooks and a couple smaller books, a box of chewy granola bars as well as an awesome random selection of Special-K bars (perfect by the way), Citronella body soap (awesome idea), and of course goodies from their most recent trip to Asia, including ginger candies and a pack of full size Ritz sandwiches with cheese...like Ritz bitz sandwiches but grownup sized. (and the photo album with some starters...excellent idea also of course)

SO, I decided I would take the Ritz sandwiches that had already come halfway around the world another quarter of the way around the world...AND to make the most of the opportunity, I decided I should photo myself eating the Asian Ritz sandwiches on my trip to Senegal at the westernmost point in Africa.  I even have a picture eating one out in the water at the beach at the westernmost point in Africa.

jealous, I know.

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So after that we ate crepes at a crepe bar by the beach (I had a meat one for lunch and a nutella and coconut one for dessert: amazing)  According to the guidebooks, I think Sunday brunch like that is the trendy thing to do.  check.

I'm off to hunt for toubabs this afternoon with Amanda to sniper photograph them for her project...once I get back to my house, I'll try to post the writing portion of my project...you can't wait, it's obvious.

Practicum

MY PRACTICUM IS FINISHED!!!

I'm posting it through yousendit.com so you can look at it for one week from today...CLICK HERE TO GET THE POWERPOINT

Basically this means, I get to go to Point des Almades tomorrow all morning, come in for a little internet freetime, and go out for whatever.

Today is the one week countown.  We have a cocktail party for our families Monday night, and Tuesday we head out to Mbour.  The hotel is like a bunch of bungalos on the beach supposedly...can't wait.

We come back Friday and stay at the same hotel we stayed when we first came here. cool.

Someone just said they were sending a list home of the foods they're eating when they get home, so here's mine:

NEW YORK-
Ess-a-bagel with tons of CREAM CHEESE
Grimaldi's pizza
Burger King cheeseburger
JG Morgan's burger
SUSHI
DIET COKE & DIET DR PEPPER
grapes, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, watermellon
REAL ketchup & YELLOW mustard
SALAD

COLUMBIA:
Groucho's
Moe's & other mexican
Guacamole from Qdoba
El Burrito for Bluegrass
The Other Store club sandwich
HUGE lasagna from the parentals with spinach and overflowing the pan

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and above all else, a bath with a scrub brush...not to eat.

a lot of little things

Since it's been forever since I've been able to get online, I'll do bullet points.  feisty.

+There's a new Canadian in the house.  Her name is Heba.  She's sarcastic and makes fun of my French, in a nice way.

+The power has been going out     all       the       time.
A lack of electricity at the house means the water pumps to the roof tank more slowly.  But, supposedly there are water outages too.  Yesterday there were both.  Almost all night.

+When there is power is on, the internet hasn't been working at the house, which then means going back to a French keyboard to type; you can't change the keyboard setup in internet cafes.  I'd just assume not type.

+Yesterday, as part of my practicum, I went to Dakar's HUGE dump.  It is dusty and incredibly dirty, but somehow less smelly than an American dump, probably because they burn trash like crazy.  The people I talked to (through my awesome French teacher Mourar, who went with me as a translater/guide...It's not easy to get there) were not the people working on the trucks but rather part of the way Senegal's "RECYCLING"...the way 'recycling' works here is that you throw absolutely everything into the trash, which may or may not get picked up to be taken to the dump.  These people sift through truckload after truckload of trash and search for metals and plastics to be recycled.  They sell heaps of scraps by the kilo for very little money to be recycled.

+        DUMP + no power + no water = sad Chris last night.  (but then the water came back and I used a flashlight to take a shower in the awesome downstairs shower.)  I still haven't been able to convince the Canadian that it's worth walking downstairs to use that shower...

+I have no idea how much work I have left to do on my practicum, but I really really hope to finish before this weekend and spend a lot of time going out before I lose my independence next Tuesday.  (No complaining, though...we go as a group to the beach next week and debrief.)

+ That means today is 10 nights left in Senegal, 1 week left with my homestay.  weird.

.

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I've made some good progress on my practicum, especially the written portion, but since the power keeps going out at my house, I can't get to the file to bring to Suffolk ot print.  It's all going to work, though.

a little more

When I was writing the last post this morning, I wasn't really in the mood to be online, but I had nothing else to do early Sunday morning, especially after the power went out for most of the night.  I have a lot of new westerners living in my house now, a new Canadian reporter named Heba who works for an agency that reports on the UN and a guy from my program and his girlfriend too (they needed somewhere to stay before heading to The Gambia this week)...

On Friday, I got tremendously burned at the Beach at Yoff because I went swimming in just my boxers after we left Suffolk when the power was out for a few hours and Magoo never showed up. (actually he saw us leaving in the taxi after we ran out of the back of the campus...apparently he was on his way in 1.5 hours late...)  Anyways, I figured out the next morning that Doxy-whatever, the malyria pills I'm on, make you more photo-sensitive.  So, especially that 6-inch discrepency between the length of my swim suit and that of my boxers got burned really bad while I was laying out/waiting for my boxers to dry...

Anyways, I'm back at Suffolk now, and I think I'm going to try to write a basic format of my practicum now, probably the majority of the paper, and then go take photos this week that illustrate it.  I'd rather have the paper out of the way now, get the photos done in the next couple/few days and then go to Toubab Diallo (a really cool beach town) next weekend.

So, off to do more practicum work now.  get excited.

(also, I have to start paying for my typepad account in 3 days.  weird.  I remember looking at that at the beginning of the trip and thinking I'd never get to the point in the trip when I'd have to start paying...)

let the practicum begin...

I know it's been a while, so I'll just pick up with where things stand right now.

Friday was our last day of class, HOORAY, and this week is our practicum/independent study time.  I'd still been trying to figure out what to do in order to help somebody with my project (the suburban American kid's dream of 'helping save the world' by going to Africa...) and I finally realized that my interest in sustainable development as it relates to consumer waste is legitimate and is something that will be helpful to someone because once I have learned more than just my observations I have today, I will be able to raise this issue this year in my packaging design class, and it will likely be something I design with in the future.

I have also found some organizations that are studying consumption and sustainability, though none in Dakar as of yet. I also found a site that has a huge collection of advertising that is directed at sustainability and awareness.  This was one of my favorite ads.

I think I may end up designing a poster about packaging design or something, but I'm not sure yet.  It should be a pretty interesting project...

Practicum & Sustainable Trash

So, I've thought about my practicum a lot more, and tried to contact a lot of the people I've found on the NGO list, and I've had to change my project a lot.  It's very hard to get in touch with people here, and I had somewhat narrowed my list of NGOs to Africare and the one about sustainable product design.  I think I'm still going to try to go meet some of these people, ESPECIALLY the sustainable design guy sometime next week. 

I have a lot of interest in this and how it relates to graphic design, specifically packaging design.  We've learned (primarily through observation) that trash and waste management are huge issues in Senegal.  When one of my friends asked where the family's trash can was, her host brother took her out the back yard and threw her bottle over their wall into the neighbor's wall.  And he was serious.

The trash collection workers are on strike a lot, and there aren't any public trash cans anywhere even if there were ample collectors.  One of the points Annalee had brought up at that bar in St. Louis was that she felt like these people aren't in need of our 'help' and that we're just trying to westernize them and impose our cultural standards on their lives, when they have their own values and standards for what is right and wrong and what is needed to fix a lot of the problems here. (although obviously a lot of problems still exist).  That got me thinking, though, that a lot of the westernizing gonig on here is by the desire of the people, and they will continue to purchase western goods (especially technology-related products) though I do realize and agree that a lot of other products able to be produced locally should be produced here, with local labor, local resources, and the intention of selling in local markets, (local meaning west africa)...

Anyways, we started talking about the sustainability of packaging design when a couple of us were on the beach in St. Louis, surrounded by garbage, which is EVERYWHERE throughout the country.  While I obviously don't have a clear solution to the problem and much of the problem is the individual citizen's apathy towards proper trash management, I began to think that possibly the solution in places such as this rests before the production of goods.  In the village stay and throughout our different excursions, I have seen many places where farming bags (plasticy burlap material bags designed to hold 50 or 100 pounds of food) have been reused in incredible ways.  The material is rediculously durable, and obviously readily available, so in the village, the bags themselves are reused, but they are also used as fabric for things such as a sling chair made with a metal frame and bags sewn together.  At the fishing villages, we have seen entire tarps made of these bags sewn together, used to cover shelters and huts.  We have seen them on the side of the road for sale as mattresses, sewn together, stuffed, and even tufted.  They're actually quite beautiful (though I imagine rather scratchy).  [A similar interesting direct reuse is using old printed vinly billboards (most modern billboards are printed this way, especially the really huge ones) as huge tarps, covering things on flatbed trailers, or even turned into the roof of a vendor's tent.]

All this to say, the rice bags are an incredible example of packaging that is very easily reused and I would imagine it's something you'd have no intention of throwing away, even if you don't have an immediate use--you probably always could have a use for a new one.  This leads back to the garbage.  It seems like if product packaging, in particular, were designed to be either a desirable product in itself or a much more easily biodegradable material, there would be much less of a problem with trash here.  Biodegradable garbage could even be useful to farmers as part of compost, or reusable packaging could be something like storage containers for homes, stores, and markets.  Things like phone credits should be repackaged to not be in clear plastic and on glossy cardboard cards; they're the size of credit cards, but everyone tears it open, scratches off the silver, types the number in the phone, and throws both parts on the ground.  The plastic isn't even necessary if the silver is good, though I guess a good counterfeiter could get that done... I'd go as far as to say that there is very little here that actually needs to be packaged in thin films of plastic.  if plastic is required, make it more durable and reusable.  You see this all the time with water bottles reused for juices at the market (and you have to watch out for reused bottles of water at certain fruit stands, passing if off as new), and there's a huge distribution system in place here for cocacola, which is still sold in glass bottles, which are reused (and hopefully cleaned *fingers crossed); some of the bottles are incredibly old and scratched, who knows how old they actually are...

While this has nothing to do with my plans for my practicum plans, I think it's something I will definitely persue this year in my packaging class, and possibly beyond undergrad too.  Now, about the practicum:

My plan is to work with the Peace Corps and visit a couple members in the field to document their work and to learn about the life of an American working for the Peace Corps in Senegal.  *If you're wondering about all the NGOs, SIT (my program) is incredibly unhelpful with this, and the ones that I've been trying to get in touch with have been unresponsive.  I'm going to keep trying, but the practicum starts Monday.  Apparently this doesn't make anyone (my professor or the academic director) the least bit worried and they have been actually an obstacle in the process, promising help and never delivering.  Anyways, looking past that, I am at least going to work with the Peace Corps hopefully and I'm also planning a couple of days independently studying elements of design around Dakar, specifically forming a collection of hand produced lettering that is throughout the city, all over signs at every business, on trucks, and all the car-rapides.  If the Peace Corps thing doesn't work out, I could turn that into my practicum, but I'd rather just take that with me and turn it into something next year.

My plan is to stay in Dakar for most of that 10 day period, but I'm going to travel a few hours away to see the Peace Corps members I'm interested in, and then go to the Petite Cote at Toubab Diallo next weekend, and back to Dakar to finish up the practicum in the computer labs at Suffolk, barring any tremendous power outages that happen ALL THE TIME>>>today the power was out for about 4 hours, and there's rolling blackouts all the time, related to national debt to other nations, overcrowding, and unbelievable amounts of construction in Dakar...it's a constant, relentless problem.

By the way, I was the only one that brought my iPod to the trip to St Louis and everyone else has decided that a huge lagging part of the culture shock for being here has been going without American music for the last 3.5 weeks.  Tomorrow we go on another excursion to the Islamic holy city of Touba, and everyone that has an iPod is bringing it.  Not that we're glued to our music, it's just a good thing to keep you stable. (I figured out, for example, that I listen to music when I'm getting ready in the morning, on the way to work, all day at work, on errands during work, after work on the way home, and once I'm at home.  That's a lot to suddenly go without.  Although 'Time After Time' and some other sweet old jams have been played amongst the really random Senegalese radio on the bus...)

TOUBAB, TOUBAB!

The last few days have been an incredible experience, possibly equal to the 3 weeks leading up to this part of the trip.  I feel so much closer to everyone on the trip, so much more in tune with Senegalese culture, and I finally understand Dakar and a lot more of why it is the place it is.

Let's start with what actually happened for the last few days:

We left Friday morning for Thies, a town about an hour and a half east of Dakar.  Along the way we stopped at the pink lake (Lak Rose) to see the salt mining operations that run there.  Lunch in Thies, which as it turns out is surprisingly clean.  It's much smaller than Dakar, but there are sidewalks everywhere and they don't disappear into the sand.  There are trees and public spaces with grass and benches and relatively well maintained streetscapes.  Still Africa, still Senegal, but nothing resembling Dakar (the only place I had seen until this point).

10km outside of Thies, we drove through sandy landscapes and stopped on the side of the road where a group of Villagers had gathered.  We heard clapping and shouting as Ken Martin (our photography instructor & the only person on the bus who knew what was going on) got off to a woman grabbing him and screaming KEEENNNNNNN MAAARRRTINN!!! 

Nobody else moved.

We slowly got off the bus and sat in chairs while the entire village stared at us, and we received very little instruction, and then we were paired with a member of our family who promptly took us to their village.

I was with the family Wade, and they immediately told me my name was Souleye Wade. My mother was Mbayague Thiaw, my father Aladji Wade. This was an immediate identity they quizzed me on constantly.  There were few people in my village/family that spoke French.  One of my 3 brothers was far along in his education, and he and I spoke about the same level of French, so we could actually communicate.  His English was about as good as my Wolof (better, actually), and the last night I was there we spent a couple hours talking about his school, while I read through his English assignments.  Yeah, he knows way more English than I know Wolof.

In the village, you eat with your hands.  Right hand only, actually. (Left hand is for doing business at the other end of the digestion process). Like at my homestay in Dakar, we all eat out of one big bowl or plate for the whole group and of course my family kept pushing me to eat.  The villiage is in the process of getting electricity, but the project hasn't been fully approved yet, and I liked it better that way.  We ate dinner in the dark after the sun went down.

One of my brothers had taken me out to the field earlier that afternoon, and I saw their farm land to grow root vegetables.  On the way back into the compound, we ran into one of my other brothers, and he gave us a ride on a horse cart.  Awesome.

We were told to leave our watches behind so we wouldn't be constantly watching the time that we were in the village, and the only time I checked my phone for the time was when I woke up Saturday morning.  At 6:46.  I knew it would be a long day, and I was still very awkward with not having a clue what was going on, so I went back to bed 3 times, in my room with a locked door (they made us lock our doors the way they do for security), and I finally got up at what I would assume was 9:30.  They made fun of me for sleeping so much, but I was well rested and part way through the day.  I hadn't fully committed myself to enjoying the time, just making the best of it.

The night before, I had already used up all my show and tell, with both my photo book, and my American coins.  They were FASCINATED by both.  The photo book was an incredible hit, even if I wasn't explaining it.  I explained the whole thing to a group of guys around my age who knew French, but nobody else understood French so they just liked looking at it.  All the kids, picked out which one was me in every picture, like Where's Waldo of white people in pictures (although they picked Gabe in a few of the Grand Canyon pictures when his hair was about how mine looks now...)

Like I said, I had used up all my show and tell tricks, and I decided to pull out my camera.  We'd been told that everyone there would love to have their picture taken, which I quickly found out was very true.  (The night before I took a picture on the horse cart, and one of my brother, but quickly put it away because of everyone's problem with photography in Dakar.)  I filled up 2 memory cards over the day and a half we were there, and had a great time doing it.  This is when I really needed a Polaroid camera.  You were right again, Kim (of course!)...

All day Saturday I spent my time with my brothers and semi-relatives (I'm pretty sure the deal was that my father was polygamous and every woman in the village was one of his wives, so I guess these were all my half brothers...), and we listened to cassette tapes on a boombox rigged up to a car battery in the shade of a huge tree for most of the morning.  In the afternoon we shared ataaye, the signature Senegalese tea that is served in shot sized portions, loaded with sugar.  It's kind of like eating a tea bag and a quarter cup of sugar. with froth.

My friend Natalie was also in my village, though she was just outside the compound.  She spent her whole day working to help her mother with her tasks, but in an enjoyable, spending time together kind of way (she says).

Saturday afternoon, during tea time, one of my dozens of semi relatives tried to explain to me something that was going to happen, but I kept not understanding.  He told me I was going to wear senegalese clothes and go to the school and something with jimbes...Every time he'd say it, I'd get puzzled, and ask him to figure out another way to say it.  As I finally got what he was saying, I saw Natalie with her mother, dressed in African dress, and then I figured it out.  We were all getting dressed up and meeting up for a party or something.

It was a village dance--incredible, entertaining, amazing; and then they made us dance.  I was first.  by myself.

It was really fun, and totally hilarious.  I mimicked a 5 or 6-year-old boy that had gone a while before I went, shaking my knees and bouncing around and laughing like an idiot.  It was really fun.

Everyone danced around a lot, and we had different turns getting pulled in the circle for all to see.  Totally great.

We went back home and ate dinner in the dark again, and went to sleep.  The next morning, we walked back to the meeting point again (we were split up into 5 different villages) after exchanging contact information (they don't have mail that far out, so we can send whatever we want to get to our families through our program director in Dakar...), and we left for Saint Louis.

I learned so much Wolof during that time (everyone in the village would point to something and say the Wolof word for it until I repeated it to their satisfaction), and improved my French a lot, relying on it when I couldn't figure out Wolof.  Maybe learning Wolof in French really was a better thing than I thought.

____________PART 2: SAINT LOUIS

We got into Saint Louis that afternoon, and it is georgious!  The city is a crumbling island of French colonial buildings. The people are friendly.  The hotel was bomb awesome.  The hotel had an open air atrium in the middle, a georgious restaurant downstairs, a rooftop terrace, and a dining room on the water across the street, sticking out into the Senegal River. For anyone who did not have a comfortable village stay, this was an incredible consolation prize.  For the rest of us, it was yet another great part of the weekend.  This was one of the nicest if not the nicest hotel in Saint Louis, and guide books suggest it as a good place for your honeymoon.

We wandered around during the day, paired off for photography assignments, and I went with Jay to the crumbling cathedral that was built in 1828.  It was really great.  I have some fun pictures you'll have to see later.

During this portion of the trip, I spent some time with basically all the people I don't know on the trip.  I roomed with David, probably the chillest person on the trip, and the first night I went out with David, Nikki, and Annalee (amongst others) to a few bars, first an old French bar, second a more local hang out bar, and last a really funny Senegalese dance club, where we brought the party, and danced to rediculous techno including a remixed old Madonna song and the Cha-Cha Slide, which nobody there could understand except the clapping part...At the middle bar, we had a long discussion of the presentation we had heard about child beggars in Senegal, and we had some really interesting points.  I'll write about that separately later.  Last night I ate dinner and hung out with Chelsey, Katherine, and Aiden, and we played cards and watched funny music videos and the tour de france in the hotel.  They're hilariously sarcastic and a great variety to the people here.

I came out of this long weekend, totally understanding so much more about Senegal, Dakar, and everyone on the trip.  We only have 3 more days of photography class left and then it's time for the practicum (I'll also write more about that later).

I guess I should explain the title to this post before I leave completely.  Everywhere we go we hear kids in particular yelling at us "Toubab, Toubab!"  It means 'white person' (really 'french white person' but now just any white person will do).  In the past some of us have gotten a little irritated by it and almost felt racially excluded by it, but after the village and the funny kids we ran into on the beach in St. Louis, I have a totally different, fond perspective of it.  They're really just saying 'hey, you're white!' (thanks for stating the obvious) or kids are pointing out the white people in the picture.  Supposedly we're supposed to respond "olof!" which means black person/Wolof person in Wolof.  It kind of works and is a really funny thing when you get to do it.  Our program director drove by a group of students during the photography assignment in Saint Louis and yelled it out his window at them.  It's kind of endearing after a while.

I'm getting kicked out of the Suffolk lab again, so I'll write more from home...

Ile de Gorée

Today, we rode the ferry out to Gorée, the island 3km off the coast of Dakar.  There is a museum to slavery there, and it is in what was believed to be a slave merchant's house, with the rooms below for the slaves to be held.  It was interesting, however, because the museum curator compared slavery to the Holocaust in his speech, in a very uninformed sweeping statement sorf of accused people of caring too much about the Holocaust since it was 3 years and slavery was 300. I got a little frustrated by that, but the house was very interesting nonetheless. 

The entire island is french colonial buildings, and we spent the morning walking around and the afternoon swimming at a small beach by one end of the island, renting an umbrella and a mat on the narrow beach that surrounds a round fort at that end of the island.  pretty cool.  The water was so nice this afternoon--it's been so hot here recently.  It's not so much the temperature as it is the humidity and the sun.  Every time you're in the sun any time from about 11-4, you feel like your skin is literally burning as you sit there.  and it is.

You sweat off any lotion you put on, and painfully burn whatever is left.  My farmer's tan is incredibly depressing.  My arms are Nigerian dark and my stomach is paper white.  hopefully that can even out if I cover up my arms, head and neck and gradually build up the rest of my tan...maybe next week in saint louis or after the practicum...

I'm going to be contacting NGO people tomorrow hopefully, but if I can't get in touch with anyone, I still have next week and tons of options.

Side story from the day:  I was waiting to get off the ferry today, wearing my shirt from The Backpacker in Columbia, and a guy stopped me and asked if I lived there.  We started talking, and it turns out he lived there growing up and even went to Spring Valley too.  He graduated in 96 though, and now he's back in school at Wharton studying international business, on a trip to francophone countries, discussing business in Paris, southern France, and Senegal.  pretty cool.  He gave me his phone number for here, so hopefully we can get together before he leaves the country.  weird, huh?

Last night there was a plumbing problem in my bathroom and the water pipe going to the sink started leaking everywhere.  (my homestay mom tried to show me that it was fine, and I tried to tell her I'd seen the problem, but she didn't think I'd understood her, so she turned the water supply back on for the room and it went everywhere!  she said 'i guess it's a problem now' and said she'd call the plumber today)  Anyways, this situation led to the incredible discovery of the worlds most amazing shower downstairs...it's like a rain shower, but not soft and trickling; the water pressure is just enough and it's directly above you instead of a trickle 6 inches from the wall.  Amazing. 

I'm about to go get rid of the nastiness of the day's activities just now.  I think I'll even shave to get ready for the village stay. The trip's almost half way over, so I might as well clean up just a touch.  (that's right, the halfway point is this sunday. weird.  I'd say it feels like it couldn't be that far yet, but it also feels like we've been here forever.  Probably means it actually is time for the halfway point.)

I probably won't be on again until after the village stay, so wish me tons of luck.  I'm in a village with only one other person from the program, and we have no idea what's going to happen there.  And I don't know Wolof (obviously).  adventure!

I'll let you know how it went once we get settled in Saint Louis.