Day 7

Today marks that we’ve been here for a week. As you may have read, its been quite a long week. How long? Well that’s 8 pages single-spaced in Microsoft Word, and if any of you know me well enough, that’s a lot. Seeing this, and the fact that we have yoga class tomorrow at 8am, I will abbreviate this entry.

Today was the first weekday that our family has fed us breakfast. This is good. However, it wasn’t ready until about 9, and we got to Cresp at 9:30, which surprisingly made us late. I thought it was impossible to be late here…but I guess I was wrong. We walked into French class and had to catch up with the rest of the class…there are only 5 people taking French, and 2 of them have never taken a French class before. They kind of do their own intensive learning thing while Katie, Allison, and I do other stuff. …French class ends.

Had a break that wasn’t long enough…then an excersise where we talked to another Senegalese student in English. This helps them become more comfortable speaking a English, and it helps us get to know each other better. We talked with our partners for over an hour, and personally, I had a very interesting conversation. My partner Soruw (I think…) is a student in Dakar, whose favorite subject is English. We talked about our families and our cultures, politics, and just about everything. He was very curious to know how I felt about September 11^th, and if I was afraid of terrorists. He then asked about president Bush, and eventually inquired why I didn’t like the president…I told him it’s quite a long story. We talked about the differences between our cultures like for example, the fact that random people introducing themselves to you on the street and inviting you for tea is not uncommon here. In fact, I have been approached many times, given phone numbers, invited over to a house by two attractive girls, and been asked for my wristwatch. I’ve never been to a place where I attract so much attention…sometimes I wish I could just blend in…

After that activity, we had lunch at home, and returned to Cresp for a lecture. After what seemed like 5 hours (actually only 2), we were released to do as we pleased. I went to the Shell station to get a bottle of cold water, which I had been craving, and then went to the beach with another American student, Allison. Allison is majoring in legal studies at Umass Amherst, and she’s 19. Anyway, we went to the beach, without any items that could be stolen, and went in the water for about an hour and a half. After being forced out of the water by the oncoming darkness, Allison and another girl, Kristin, stayed for dinner. After dinner we were given a juice that we’ve had once before, called Jus de Bese, (pronounced bay say), which was really good. It’s like a dessert for them…then upstairs to write blogs and e-mails to be posted and sent tomorrow, respectively.