Here I am again on Tuesday morning making use of the computer lab instead of sleeping in...last night I stayed up with Hannah till around 1 (that's like 2 hours past my bedtime, give me a break)and JB and I walked her down the street to get a taxi. Maman Amitie wanted us to get the license plate number of the taxi just in case something happened to her, but she's sort of old and crazy. How old? 68. How crazy? We'll never know, but what I do know is that her oldest GRANDchild turned 31 last week. Daaaamn. Anyway, Hannah's fine, off to the US for a week, and I can't help but enjoy a little solitude in my room and envy her being put up in a nice hotel and taking glorious hot showers and eating whenever and whatever she wants. The suit she had made for her interview by a tailor here turned out to be really awesome and fits her better than anything you could get in the US for the equivalent of 30 bucks.

So, let's start with Friday. After another exciting history lecture per usual I went with Jeremy, Tina, Natalie, and Joanna to check out this Chinese restaurant around the corner, not because they have good food, but because they have a POOL. There was nobody there, except for three or four employees who sort of oddly stared at us for a couple of hours while we sat around this deck and ordered really expensive food and drinks and waited for a guy to clean out the pool. I wasn't really in the mood for swimming, mostly because it was just a weird situation what with being the only customers and ordering the cheapest things on the menu and the pool seeming sort of sketchy and being at a restaurant in bathing suits with these dudes all staring at us and whatnot. The rest of the bunch cheerfully did cannonballs for several hours, the only resulting injury being some pretty severe scrapes on Tina's feet that we cleaned up with toilet paper that someone was carrying around. We left around 3 and even left something like a 3 percent tip. People generally don't tip at all here. Afterwards we went back to WARC to use the computers, then to le Palais to share a couple of hamburgers (because clearly we needed more food).
Friday night was sort of uneventful - we watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith on TV (dubbed over in French of course). What really amazes me is that there is absolutely no concern about what children are allowed to watch on TV - if it's on, everyone watches it, from 2-year-old Farou, when he's around, to Maman Amitie, be it a bloodly horror flick or a war movie or Scooby Dooby Doo. Samu turned away voluntarily during the scantily-clad-Brad-and-Angelina bits, but was all eyes while they were attempting to blow each other up with machine guns. Another movie that was on was Brokeback Mountain which someone immediately turned off as soon as they realized there would be men kissing later...there is very very little tolerance of homosexuality in this culture.
Saturday morning I headed off to dance feeling sort of woozy (I'd had a very rough week or stomach stuff) and eventually came back early via taxi because I really couldn't dance at all. Too bad, apparently I missed a great class and a new dance but I'll pick it up next time. My friends were all really nice about it and offered to come get me and take me to a doctor if necessary. At home, Maman Amitie was very understanding and gave me plain rice and fish without any spicy sauce. The rest of the day I slept and read Mansfield Park which I got through in like 4 days because there's so much friggin time to just read books. Hannah got back from l'Ile de Madeleine where she spent the day getting a tan and hanging out, and I was feeling a lot better. Saturday night was a good time - we finally got into the kitchen by really bugging Mamie to let us cook the French fries and wash the salad and all that. It was also Purim so I attempted to tell Mamie the story and failed rather miserably but it was at least good to talk to her - she's quiet in the first place, and thinks our French is awful because we can never understand her when she speaks and are always asking her to repeat things. I was all excited to be frying stuff in oil for Purim and then found out that the dinner meat that night was pork. Well, you can't have it all. In any case we told Mamie we'd exchange recipes, and she wants to be there when we bake cookies, which we tried to explain was really not hard at all but she's still sort of in awe at the idea.

Sunday I probably could have slept in but instead I got up at 8 and read more Jane Austen until almost noon, with a break for a little breakfast. Maman Amitie and Samu had gone to see Didi's new apartment and were staying there overnight, so neverland was sort of wild and the kids did whatever they wanted all day. Around 1 I left for Amitie 3 to go to Becky's house where she was having a party for her birthday. The house she lives in is huge and really comfy and there are families and students renting rooms upstairs. She has some Senegalese and Guinean friends from her classes at the university who came for the party and we tried to speak French as much as possible so that everyone could understand. I listened to Saliou and Eli argue about philosophy for a while and then went out in search of vegetable vendors so that we could add something to the twelve pounds of pasta that the family had cooked. Justine and Ashleigh and I wandered around and pretty much bought all the vegetables that this one woman had. The thing about anyone selling stuff on the street is that for the most part, they'll just have enough so that a couple of people can buy a couple of things. Like one woman will have 4 tomatoes and a couple of sketchy-looking peppers, and then down the street you might find some carrots or onions, and around the corner three or four more peppers and a handful of chives. I got a bit of a burn on my shoulders in the process, just walking around for under an hour. The pasta salad turned out to be the best thing I'd eaten in a week, and there were really three GIANT plates full, enough for the twenty people who were there and more. When I say giant plates I mean shallow metal painted dishes nearly three feet in diameter. I'd love to bring one home but I haven't a clue where I'd put it. At the end of the party we had cake that someone bought, with butter cream frosting that Becky's aunts made, which was literally butter and sugar. Then we did this cute little gift exchange where we brought something we had or bought in Dakar and everyone drew numbers out of a hat and got something. I put in a campaign poster and a little necklace and got back an odd shell someone had found on the beach. It was a nice little gathering and sort of awkward but I think people had a good time.
Afterwards some friends and Spencer's family went off to Ouakam to see the Simba festival. I didn't go but I will describe as best I can from what I've heard: Men in costumes do traditional dances and some Mbalax while other guys dressed up as lions run around chasing kids who haven't bought tickets. And when I say chasing kids, I mean really running after them till they scream and then grabbing them and smashing them face down in the dirt or twisting their arms or kicking them until they cry. I think most of the fun of the festival is in watching the child abuse, from what it sounds like. I was hoping to go as well but it was getting kind of late. I also had the inside keys to our room and Hannah was there, throwing up all afternoon, having to go all the way around the house to get to the bathroom. I don't know what's up with everyone getting stomach bugs all the time! We didn't do much Sunday night other than the usual TV routine but I did the dishes and played a game with the kids that was kind of like pre-teen Mad Libs and involved various names and numbers and terminated in a story about who you were going to kiss or marry and when. Kids are pretty much the same everywhere. Jean-Paul, gangsta that he is, has already gotten half of a new tattoo which will say "In God I trust." In English and everything. I of course had to break out a quarter and show him what was written all over all American money, and I think he was sort of put off by that, but at the moment it just says "In God" so he could theoretically change his mind about that...

Yesterday (Monday) I made the spontaneous decision to go downtown and apply for a Gambian visa for spring break. I may go twice, once with Becky and Cate's dads, and again for spring break if I like it. Then again I may bum around Dakar and do all kinds of fun things like shopping and beach trips. We'll see. Anyways we were sort of pressed for time and had to be back for class at 3:30, but Ryan and I got some lunch and then took the car rapide downtown. On the way there I stopped to have some passport photos taken, which took five minutes and cost 4 bucks. I also ran into Jean-Paul, Reine, Samu, and Fifi going home for lunch, which was kind of exciting, seeing family on the street. The car rapide we got on was probably the wrong one and took us nearly an hour to get downtown, but we got there and with some maps and good guesses we made it to the embassy. We started out speaking in French and when they found out we were American they were so impressed with the fact that we spoke French that they started speaking in English. Actually what the woman said (in French) was "the US needs more people like you!" which was mildly encouraging, and then she said "keep it up" in English, and I thought she was testing us to see if we understood Wolof, because the expression was so unintelligible. I responded with "degg naa tuuti rekk" and got laughed at. In any case the Visas were very easily obtainable - in half an hour, no less! - and we filled out the forms, gave them some photos, and were out of there. I was pretty late for Literature class, but I don't think anyone really noticed or cared.

The only other exciting thing that happened yesterday was that Maman Amitie gave us the recipe for cebbu jenn. We sat on the couch taking notes, accompanied by the shrieks and suspense music of some kind of weird horror flick. There was a lot of translating and repetitions and substitutions for things we don't have in the US, and a lot of Mamie cutting in with reminders, but I think it may work out! I'd at least like to see someone prepare it here before I go wasting loads of oil and rice on something that turns out to be really gross.

Well, that's all for now, folks. I'm going to read a book I've borrowed from Ryan and play cards until Wolof and get lunch on the Corniche and talk to Marianne and Sophie about doing some kind of community service soon. I miss the states like crazy but you gotta have some of those days. Things are going well in any case, Alxamdulilaay.