First week

Alright, so I started writing about my first week in a Word Document, so that I could post it to my blog later on when I was connected to the Internet.  I ended up writing 4 single-spaced pages about Saturday alone.  I figured no one wants to read that much, so I'll try and give a briefer overview of my first week in Dakar.

It's been good.  Not easy, but not totally awful either.  NOTHING is the same here as it is at home, so it's almost impossible to pick one thing to start with.

The house I'm living in is about a 40 minute walk from my school, but most days so far, I've taken a bus to get here.  My family is not really what I expected, but they're great, especially my siblings.  The blurb that Wells sent me has a few errors in it - the father, Jean Baptiste, is not around.  I don't think he lives in the house anymore.  I've heard a rumor from people who have been around that there's been some drama in my host family, but I don't really know what exactly.  My mother is around, but she's not exactly overwhelming my with African hospitality the way I had been lead to believe that she would.  She's not around the house very often, and when she is around, she's sort of distant with me.  It seems to me that if some stranger was going to be living in your house for 4 months, you'd take an interest, but not so with her.  She's not unfriendly or mean to me.  She just doesn't really seem to care that I'm there.

On the other hand, my siblings are great.  I've met all five of them, though Caroline goes by Moussouba and Stephane goes by Kiki.  The oldest, Daniel, is usually out at work or with his friends, but when he's around, he talks to me about American TV shows.  He's a fan of Prison Break, 24, and Kyle XY (or Kyl Eeks-Eegreck).  The girls who's my age, Anita, is at school a lot and, by some strange division of labor, does most of the cooking and cleaning in the house, so she's often busy.  She also speaks really fast and sort of mumbles, so I have no idea what she's saying when she talks to me.  I think she thinks I can't understand her, so she doesn't really bother talking to me.

That's all okay though, because I have Moussouba, Kiki, and Fatima to take care of me.  They're around nearly all the time (I guess school is sort of optional here, for Kiki and Fatima.  Either that, or I just can't figure out the schedule) and they seem really excited for me to be here.  The first few days, Kiki took me and Ryaunté, another Wells girl who lives around the corner from her, back and forth to school, and Moussouba takes me out to run errands with her all the time.  Fatima talks to me about American music that I don't really know anything about (Akon is huge here.  I should have boned up on my R&B and hip-hop before I left home).  Actually, she'll talk to me about pretty much anything.  I've also met a whole bunch of friends and neighbors.  The other night, I went to a party with the three of them.  It was at Moussouba's boyfriend's house, and I think all the people there were friends of his from church (they're definitely Catholic).  I didn't understand hardly anything anyone said, but we ate a lot of food and listened to music and danced, so I had a good time.

I'm getting by with the language well enough.  I usually can make myself understood, and I usually can understand when people talk to me, at least after they've repeated themselves once or twice.  If two of my family members are having a conversation with each other, though, forget about it.  They mix French and Wolof together and speak very fast, so I don't have a prayer of understanding.  I am getting better at understanding French on TV though.  We watch a lot of dubbed American and Spanish soap operas.  And, of course, Kyle XY.

I have my own room, but I think that's because I've displaced someone, which makes me feel a little guilty.  Actually, there are a lot of things that make me feel a little guilty.  The other day, Fatima did my laundry (by hand), and every morning either Kiki or my mother heats water on a gas canister so I can wash with warm water.  I sit in the living room and read or watch TV while Anita sweeps and mops the floor or makes dinner.  I've offered to help, but they tell me they don't need any.  It still makes me feel like a burden.

The house is kind of strange.  It's in this weird halfway place between finished an unfinished.  All the houses here are made of cinderblocks, faced with plaster or concrete, and then painted.  The outside of my house is faced, but not painted, and there are some rooms, especially upstairs, that are not tiled or, seemingly, inhabited.  Everything is very open and airy, but everyone keeps the doors to their rooms closed and locked, which is sort of weird.

The weather is colder than I thought it was going to be, but not as cold as all the Senegalese think it is.  They're amazed when I leave the house in a t-shirt or sandals because they all think it's freezing out.  It has been unseasonably cold and windy, but its certainly nothing like a winter at home.

I'm doing good with the food.  More often then not, it is really spicy, which is something that I struggle with but am getting over.  Baguettes are a staple; we eat them at every meal, so that's awesome.  As far as I can tell, there's no fresh milk here.  At breakfast, we drink hot milk made from a powder, which is not the same at all, but which isn't that bad.  They like to put tons of sugar in their milk too, which is not something that I'm into.   We eat lots of fish, rice and, sort of surprisingly, French fries.

I started classes this week.  Through a complicated set of circumstances, I'm not going to be taking classes at the University, which is kind of a shame.  But at the research center, I'm taking Wolof, History of Islam, African Literature, and a class with a long title about conflicts in West Africa.  Classes are 3 or 4 hours long each and meet once a week.  I have one on Monday, none on Tuesday, one Wednesday, two Thursday, and maybe a French class on Friday.  I'm not sure about that though.

Alright, the battery on my laptop is about to die and I have no idea where to plug it in here at the research center so I'm going to sign off.  Let me know if there's anything specific you want to hear about!

Oh, and for Adam: the tea here is very strong and viscous.  I suspect that it would be really bitter, but they put SO much sugar in it that it isn't really at all.  They only give you like a shot-glass-sized amount at once, but will refill it for you.  Serving tea is a long process that involves pouring the tea from one cup to another from a heigh of about 18 inches over and over and over again.  My best guess as to why they do this is so that the tea works up a froth.  Once every cup has some froth in it, they pour it from the teapot.  I've only had tea like this once, though, at my orientation.  My family doesn't seem to drink it at all.