Toubab Dialaw and two weeks to go

Wooo weekend on the beach!! Or at least one night. We left for Toubab Dialaw on Firday afternoon after Tina and Craig and I came back from a conference at the University for History class. We thought this was going to have something to do with history but it was in fact a celebratory meeting organized by our professor for the 50th anniversary of UCAD, where a panel of old dudes talked about the university. We got out of there pretty quick when we realized there were many hundreds of people and that our professor wouldn't know whether we were there or not because his eyesight isnt good enough even to spot a couple of Toubabs among the students of the audience. So back to the beach: the (air-conditioned!) bus ride took only an hour or two and then we were there at this cute touristy hotel. Over the 24 hours we were there, we designed and dyed batik fabric, went swimming, bargained for tons of jewellery on the beach, drank cheap gin, spent the night hanging out in hammocks overlooking the ocean, slept under mosquito nets (!!), went tanning, and generally enjoyed a relaxing if short beach vacation. The food there was great and the water was slightly lukewarm when it was running and the beds had sheets and blankets! Wondrous!
Saturday when I got back I went to the tailor's where he had finished my dress! I am very pleased, and wore it on Monday. I was so tired Saturday night that instead of going to a party hosted by Spencer's family, I went to bed. Apparently we didn't miss too much so no worries. Sunday morning I went with Hannah to where she works for a conference on Darfur. We couldn't hear very well and anyway we were about an hour late but we did get great croissants and coffee and other fun western munchies afterwards, which made it all worth it. Later Hannah and I hung out at Nando's until around 16 when we met our friend Ibou. He took us to his house in Medina for the afternoon, where we met his (80-year-old) father and his sisters and nieces and such, and drank all three glasses of attaya which kept me up far into the evening what with the coffee I'd already had in the morning. He paid for our taxi there and our car rapide home and it was just such a pleasant afternoon and early evening of sitting around on a bed listening to music and watching bad tv and chatting (in terrible french on both ends). When we asked to use the toilets after an afternoon of drinking tea Ibou was all embarrassed because they were 'African toilets' aka a hole in the ground behind a door. I mean come on Ibou, we've been here four months! On the ride back he told me he was going to get me one of those plastic teapots that every senegalese house has in the bathroom in place of toilet paper.
Monday for lunch we went to the Toubab store and bought real cheese, tomatoes, and zucchini which we thought was cucumber and made delicious sandwiches. Later in the afternoon I relaxed at the Baobab center for a bit, then met some girls to go to the talior and pick up a TON of bags that we had made for friends. We also commissioned some other works. So many souvenirs and presents, gah! We went to Becky's and sorted things out, then visited Ryan who was at home sick. By this point it was getting dark and I had to take a taxi home or face a probable mugging on Poop Street aka Bourghiba.
Monday night a horde of cousins took me and Hannah out drinking at Nando's - very moderately on our part and not at all moderately on the part of said horde who eventually got kind of unbearable and started spilling beer and getting touchy and not preventing random friends and strangers from hitting on us. A neighbor took us home relatively early despite the boys' requests that we continue on with them to some kind of soiree with their friends, from which they didn't get home until after 7 am. I'm so glad we opted out of that. It was a pretty good time in any case.
In the morning I slept in and didnt go to my internship which was probably cancelled anyway. Tuesday was labor day here so WARC wasnt open. We got up and had a late breakfast with the family - there was even an exciting odd egg-and-onion fried mash thing made by the enormous Odette, Fifi's mother. Most of the boys were hungover and cranky. Excellent. Later Hannah and I met Kate at nando's (a great meeting place among other things) and we headed out to do some souvenir shopping on the route de ouakam. We ended up walking ALL the way to ouakam in the height of the afternoon sun which is probably like four miles, and I have an aesthetically horrendous (but not really too bad) farmer's sunburn on my shoulders and neck. We got shawarma for lunch and I did end up buying some souvenirs, and we looked around the food market at Ouakam, and then went down to the beach. Other than being bugged by a couple of fishermen it was really wonderful to be out by the ocean and the weather was just wonderful - not that it is ever bad (it hasnt rained since I've been here) but there was a nice breeze. A bit later some of Kate's host sisters who were hanging out further up the beach brought us a fresh fish they had sort of barbecued, and we just plopped it down on a piece of plastic bag and ate it with our hands and spit out the bones. That is the kind of thing I'm really going to miss. Hannah and I took the car rapide back to Nando's and shared some grapefruit and banana. The rest of the evening was uneventful and full of organizing and paper-writing. It was oddly quiet after all the cousins had left, and a little sad because we most likely will not see them again before we leave.
Okay folks I've got to write a ten-page literature paper so you may not see me for a while. Then again you may. After leaving Dakar I'll be in Paris for a week! In any case I'm a comin' home soon. Jamm ak jamm -