Day 9: More French, Rain, and Rainbow

This morning began early with rain. I was awakened by the noise at about 730am and quickly got out of bed to get all of my stuff off the floor. If you have read the other entries, you might have read that my room floods a little bit when it rains, but that figures causei’m on the roof. Anyway, I went back to sleep after that, and didn’t wake up till 830. Before going further, its important to understand that when it rarins, life here slows down even more than it already has. Just compare rainstorms to the blizzards we have in Boston; no one really wants to get moving, people are reluctant to work, etc. So rich and I go downstairs to find our mother barely awake, preparing us breakfast. It was the usual baguette and chocolate spread. I don’t really like the chocolate stuff, so she said she would buy butter for tomorrow. Good stuff.

So we went out the door to French class. After a couple hours of learning French, Marian came in to announce the Ecotourism professor was rained in, and wouldn’t be able to come this morning. So we continued French for another hour and a half, working on translating the ecotourism text we had been given. (All of the classes are taught in French, so their text and references are en Francais as well.)

We walked back for fish and rice lunch, then back to Cresp for the ecotourism intro that we had missed in the morning. Didn’t get started till around 1545, and went until about 1730. Our teacher works in the ministry of tourism in Senegal and is in charge of all the ecotourism section. He seemed to be extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about teaching us. While the whole lecture was in French, I was able to understand a good part of it. However, the classes here are doubly hard for us Americans, as we have to comprehend not just the language spoken but also the concepts that are being spoken about. At the beginning I was getting everything, but by the end, I was tailing off. Marian said it would get a lot better over the next couple weeks. I really hope she’s right.

Today was also a good day because I got to spend some quality time with some kids in our group. Now that we’ve been here for 9 days, I’m starting to get to know people individually. The more I get to know these people, the more I like them…

After class ended, the sun was coming out; perfect time for the beach… again. This time I went with Allison, Kristin, and Kaila. Today, the ocean wasn’t as rough, and we were able to watch a beautiful sunset while we were swimming in the ocean. It doesn’t get much better than that…but I shouldn’t neglect the rainbow that we saw as well…see pics. After swimming, we all relaxed for a while, the girls went home and Allison stayed for dinner which was the best we’ve had, French fries, bread, and fish. I “mange tres bien”. My family was very happy with me.

Coming soon: What I miss the most from home.