when i told my moroccan friends the i was coming here, they all exclaimed, oh wow, you're going to africa! as if morocco is not a part of africa... but i see their point. morocco is a blend of the middle east, africa, and europe. senegal is a world unto itself. though it is a muslim country, people are still very traditional in the sense that the pre-muslim culture prevails. i dont know how to explain that, except to say that, unlike the uber-conservative morocco, women walk around in the streets shamelessly dressed in colors that put peacocks to shame. you can here african music everywhere you go and dancing is highly encouraged.
i live with a christian family so my experience may be a bit different. first of all, we drink wine with dinner every night. my host mom, odile and my host dad jacques are incredibly kind and funny. she is senegalese and very involved in her church community. he is french and completely non religious. they have the funniest dinner conversations. my two host cousins, beatrice and marie suzanne, are really fantastic. they're both 24 and have been so amazing, taking me to great places and showing me around.
i go to school for 4 hours a day. the rest of my time i spend studying and working on a marketing strategy to get more students at the baobab center (its very intrax). i've made a bunch of friends and seveal times a week we go out to concerts or to grab beers by the beach and watch the sunset.
dakar is very beautiful, but it was clearly built without the help of a city planner. it is dusty and dirty and somewhat ramshackle. unlike morocco, where my long curly hair and complexion gave me some sense of mildly fitting in, i cant even try here. i am clearly toubab (stranger). theres no escaping that. which means that i walk around with a big dollar sign on my forehead and it can get quite tiresome always trying to not get ripped off.
but of course i love it here. the music, the people, the school. i arrived here at 11:00 pm. the next night my host cousins took me to a mardi gras party. they showed up at my door dressed like male pimps, bling and all. it was hilarious. even more hilarious was that everyone at the party was crossdressing, including the boys. one of whom was wearing a yellow dress that barely covered his ass. it was hilarious. welcome to senegal.
jesse came to visit me for a week, which was great fun. we got a chance to escape the city to go to toubab dialo, a town about an hour south of here on the ocean. we stayed at a beautiful place called sobo bade which is an artist community as well as a hotel. then we came back to dakar and braved the downtown markets.
Toubab Dialo
Dakar
i have only 5 days left here. on saturday i am going to joal where my dad was in the peace corps, with this guy moussa who works at the baobab center but is from joal originally. i heard he was almost voted mayor. then on sunday i am going to the pink lake. no joke, its pink. then, monday night at 11:30 pm, my african adventures come to an end. it'll only take me 3 flights and 25 hours of travel to get home. but for now, i have to go do my homework.
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