This is it

Well...that's it. I'm leaving tomorrow. I just sort of showed up one gray January day in this country, chilled out for four and a half months, and now I'm peacing. WHAT? I haven't written for over two weeks I believe, which means I have a lot to say because I've been trying to cram in everything before I go, but it's also probably a good thing because honestly the primary topic of conversation among us Americans is constantly something along the lines of HOLY BUCKETS OF GOAT DUNG WE ARE GOING HOME. In both positive and negative senses, of course. I'm so conflicted it isn't even worth talking about. Yet. Starting with two Wednesdays ago, in list form, until things merit paragraphs:

Wednesday-discovered an American style cafe that has real smoothies and coffee and that we should have known about four months ago, dangit-went to visit a very sick Ryan at his beautiful yet somewhat mosquito-infected residence (dengue fever? typhoid? who knows? he's okay now, though somewhat lighter)-watched Garfield in French which was way better in French than in English, especially because of the family's comments-spent most of the evening freaking out with Hannah about leaving, then cuddling in her bed because we'd had too much caffeine and couldn't sleep and instead talked about, oh yeah thats right, how we're leaving

Thursday
-went to WARC in the morning to discover that French had been cancelled
-got food at the Toubab store and spread out a picnic on the long back porch of WARC, which can be accessed through the back door to a classroom that has four locks that need to be undone just to swing the door forward
-wrote papers in the library
-walked all the way to the baobab center, read books in the air conditioning, walked all the way back to TRG to say hi to Ibou with Hannah
-was given something bought by Ibou, which will have to remain secret, as cool as it is, because it is a gift
-was all ready for bed and pajama'd when Hannah's boss called to tell us to come hang out at a bar before dinner
-went to the bar, Baobab 4, very cute, close to home, nice atmosphere, should have discovered it four months ago

Friday
-wrote papers, went to the Baobab center to read
-picked up stuff from the tailor that I'd had made-yeah this day wasn't terribly exciting

Saturday
Okay actually Saturday gets a paragraph. I woke up in the morning and headed to dance class where we were preparing to do a performance in the afternoon at the university for its fiftieth anniversary. It was a huge event and there were to be tons of booths set up by all the international student organizations. We had a booth, decorated with really odd pages ripped out from magazines, and some random posters from American art events in the 80s that happened to be lying around. It was kind of unfortunate because everyone who asked us questions wanted to know about what was shoddily hung up on the walls and nobody had any idea. Sene got us a gigantic American flag on a pole. More on that in a minute. Anyway, we had our last rehearsal for dance and got the costumes Kadja had bought for us: brown and white SHORT wrap skirts with dangling shells, and matching sleeveless tops. SO ugly. Oh well. Only six of us were dancing, five girls and Craig. We went home to eat and sleep and then headed out again in the afternoon, found our booth at the university and before getting ready to dance were bombarded with all kinds of odd historical questions in French and broken English from whoever came by. Such as: when did George Washington die? Who is the best president ever of the United States? What is the date of birth of JFK? Who was the original president of the thirteen colonies? Et cetera. I mean, what the heck? I made up a lot of things I think, that people nodded happily at. And then it was time to dance! We went into an empty classroom and came out in our costumes and binbins, legs way too bare to walk through the crowd again, and met up with the drummers. We warmed up a little and hung around and talked to the crowd of friends that had begun to assemble, then we all went over towards the stage. By this time there was a rap artist up there, lyp syching of all things, to a rather disinterested audience of several hundred people, all standing several hundred feet away from the gigantic raised stage. It was really bizarre. Then someone introduced us as the Americans and we got up on stage. The drummers played a bit first, then started our call, and we danced in front of everyone who was there. It was really incredible. People were really cheering and screaming and so appreciative. We didn't get to do our second dance or drumming because they shooed us off the stage, but it was just the craziest performance I've ever done in my life. Even Kadja came out and soloed while we were dancing. She got all teary, she was so proud of her fumbling American dancers. Someone filmed it but I doubt I'll ever see it. Afterwards I walked home with Hannah and JB with my pants on under my costume. Later that night Hannah and I headed out to Becky's, and from there to Baobab 4. We tried to go see Youssou Ndor but he wasn't playing and right near his club Becky's bag got stolen. We were in a large group and the guy came up to the two people who had bags, ripped them off their shoulders (we think with a knife) and ran away. People in the street chased after him but he got away. It was kind of upsetting and Becky lost a lot of stuff but she was fine. Instead of Thiossane we went on to a salsa club where Kate's host uncle was playing the guitar. We danced the night away and then went to Les Ambassades for burgers at 5 AM. It was a good night other than the unfortunate bag incident.

Sunday/Monday
-slept in and worked
-finished my very last paper, leaving me with a whole ten days of freedom before leaving

Tuesday
-went to the hospital, waited around but Diagne did not show up, got fed up and returned my blouse and just left, never to go back. It was just enough.
-went to WARC to meet up with people to go to the Artisanal village but instead got spaghetti bolognese (!!!) at the restaurant and met up with some girls at le Palais.
-went to Sandaga with Hannah and Renee and bargained insanely all afternoon. I am SO proud of this final trip there
-saw a play at the national theater about a village of people trying to buy a gun
-were approached by a crazy dude afterwards in the theater who recited then explained some poetry and spoke to us in English and admonished the general American lack of friendliness and took down some email addresses. whhoa.
-had a delicious dinner at the Institut Francais
-watched a crazy kung fu movie with the family on TV

Wednesday
In the morning I got up early, couldn't sleep because I was freaking out about, what else, the fact that I'm leaving here, so I organized the room. I then went to IFE class which had been switched to Wednesday (who just switches a class to a different day and ges away with it??? oh wait, I'm in Senegal) and where we had a really intense class discussion about homosexuality and how it is viewed in this society. I was the only white person, the only American in the room, and had to defend myself in French on some pretty racy and ridiculous opinions from the point of view of a mostly religious conservative group of international students. Really interesting and difficult, and got verbally attacked to a certain extent by some very religious Muslim men but held my own. That night Hannah and I had planned to make dinner. We bought the chicken from Jules the week before, but when we got home Awa had already washed and cleaned it and was starting in on some kind of weird spice rub, so we were intially sort of upset and disappointed. She actually ended up marinating and then boiling the chicken and peeling and boiling the potatoes for us. Geez. It was supposed to be our night, but that's how it goes. So what we ended up doing was deep frying the boiled chicken on the bone, having dipped it in egg mixture and then flour. We mashed the potatoes with butter and took the excess chicken fat and made country gravy with reconstituted milk. We also used the milk to make mav and cheese that my mom had brought with her in April. It took us something like 45 minutes to boil water because we had way too much and there wasn't enough gas to use the stove burners. But in the end, it was a huge success. Everyone absolutely loved everything, and nine of us ate an entire two chickens and two kilos of potatoes and two boxes of mac and cheese. We put some aside for Awa to eat at lunch. It was so wonderful and the family loved it and in the end I'm glad we did it even though I was reluctant to try. After dinner the family presented us with going away gifts: these really goofy yellow and red pagnes, beach wraps covered with dolphins and decorated with beads. The kids were so excited, all 'your friends are going to think theyre so pretty and youll be like I got them from my family in Senegal!' and it was really cute. We actually did wear them to the beach on Friday.

Thursday
-got locked out of the cabinet and didn't have any money or keys
-planned some stuff to do in Paris (wooohoo Paris!)
-ate shawarma for lunch
-said hi to Ibou
-went back to the tailor
-said goodbye at Raddho with Hannah and were given lots of mangoes from their tree
-went to get Hannah cell phone at home, then sold it to a friend of Ibou's

Friday
Hannah and I got up late and went to the beach and stayed all day. First we were hassled by the guys who sell places under huts on mats, and were further hassled by many children and dudes trying to hit on us. I mean at times we very clearly said "we do not want to talk to you, we are married and do not want male company and are not at all interested" and people still didn't understand that we wanted them to go away. At one point some kids got off of a horse cart and talked to us for a while and then asked if we would go swimming with them. We had burgers for lunch at a stand, which in retrospect is probably what made me really sick all of Saturday and Sunday, but who knows. When we got home Julo and Jules and all of the kids came and hung out in our room for a while. Later Sylvan (Mamie's boyfriend; remember him?) came over and after dinner everyone did gymnastics on mats in the courtyard. I have never seen Mamie so animated. She actually did gymnastics as a kid.

Saturday
We had our last dance class and said goodbye to Kadja at the car rapide stop. Later after lunch I went over to WARC to meet up with our whole group and Andre Siamundele, the director of our program in the states. He has come back for our last week and has been hanging out with us everywhere. He's wonderful, and we had a meeting about the program, suggestions, complaints, what needs to be changed and improved. It was mostly positive. As luch as we've all complained, we've come to the conclusion that this is about the best in can be... An interesting fact I've neglected to mention; actually I find it more interesting that Ive neglected to mention it than I take interest in the fact itself: there has been some kind of a power outage, generally several hours during the day and several more at night, every single day for probably the last two months. It just got to be habitual, keeping the windows open for light, then getting out the candles when the TV and all the lights go out in the evening. Usually we'll sit in the dark for about a minute, whining a little, until our eyes adjust enough to go into the cabinet for candles and flashlights. Hannah's last night ended like this - she left during a coupure de courant, followed by the whole family in the dark. Even Mamitie waddled out to the front door by the street, holding the lantern and sporting a loose flowery tunicy sort of garment that does nothing to hide some seriously pendulous grandmotherly mammaries. I mean you don't mess with those things, they fed eight children. Enough of that. Mamitie got all teary and assured us both that if we ever want to come back, we are her grandchildren and the door is always open. And then we trekked out to the curb on the other side of the terrain de foot, waited for a taxi, and were off to the airport. In keeping with the general themes of insanity in this country, a teary-eyed Hannah and I were first brought to a gas station, then pulled over in the taxi by a cop who demanded that the driver pay 1000 francs before passing. I had a brief moment of fear that I was going to be asked for my passport, which I did not have on me, just other forms of ID. But no, the cop was gone in a minute, and the driver got out to do something in the trunk. He stayed out for several minutes, coming back around only to ask Hannah, who was in the front seat, to bend over the driver's seat and hold the emergency break while he messed around with who knows what in the trunk. Ten minutes later we were off, then saying goodbye at the airport door.I met up with others saying goodbye, met Cate's family finally, and then we headed out to a Sabbar in Medina. A Sabbar is pretty much indescribable, but I'll try anyway. A circle of drummers sits or stands on the inside side of a ring of hundreds of spectators, all in the middle of the street after dark, and play rhythms in unison and with many accompaniments while women in beautiful and often matching outfits dance individually or together. Sabbar dance involves a lot of jumping from leg to leg and a lot of kicking and knee bending and pulling up of the garments. If you saw it for the first time you'd probably laugh your head off, but it's really breathtakingly beautiful and energetic and requires a certain concentration and balance and presence of mind that I'm sure I don't have. Sometimes a dancer will approach a particular drummer and the two of them will solo kind of crazily for a few moments. At one point after 1 or so there was a power outage and it went pitch black and the drummers just kept on going. Spencer, who got really decently good at the djembe this semester, actually played with the drummers for a while, and seemed to be holding his own. I was very impressed. He even was given a bill to hold in his teeth like the other dudes. After the sabbar everyone dispersed and the Americans had a little fun dancing, at which point we headed out to a bar downtown by taxi. The other taxi of people got lost with a driver who spoke no french and could not find the club, so we waited and avoided crowds of people and prostitutes and when they finally arrived went in to the sweatiest, sketchiest dance club I've ever been to. It was very hot and sticky and my glasses fogged up and there were hundreds of people and they blew foam all over us and we danced maybe three songs and got out of there. I got home and went to bed around 5.

Sunday
Uneventful, as I was extremely sick all day and reluctant to go more than twelve feet away from the bathroom. I was about as sick as I was the first week I got here, only this time I wasn't freaking out, just disappointed that one of my last days here had to be spent in bed. The family was so great about it, making me plain rice and telling me to just go to bed.

Monday
We went to the Isle de Madeleine again after buying lunch at the Toubab store and spent the afternoon exploring in our bathing suits. I have a sunburned nose with a really lovely white line from my glasses right across the bridge, and the soles of my feet are kind of blistering because the black rocks were so hot. But it was a great relaxing day and we were the only people on the whole island. Andre came along with us.

Today
Well, I'm at WARC, finally done catching y'all up after three hours of typing, two power outages, and a lot of procrastination. This afternoon I plan to go to HLM one last time and then maybe even Sandaga for some more souvenirs. It's coming down to the last hours, the last dinner, the last this and that and everything, and I'm constantly having pangs of fear and regret and excitement in turns. I wanted to end with something a little more profound than see you later, but I will be going to Paris so I'll include that and my departure and arrival in the states in my next blog from home, as odd as that is. I began a double-sided list of things I will and won't miss from this place, then realized - I only need a single list because I can't distinguish anymore. I'm trying to put down everything I can possibly think of, and I plan to work on it during the plane flight when I'm not sobbing or watching terrible movies. Many bisou and I'll see you on the other side, where I will reassume my proper name, get super clean in a hot shower, don some sneakers and jeans, shave my armpits, reclaim my very own laptop, eat whatever I want whenever the hell I want it, and any number of other fun Occidental activities.

Jamm rekk - peace and peace and peace only.