J'ai arrivé

I am currently in the midst of orientation. We are staying in the dormitories on campus where our classes are held, until Friday when our host families pick us up. The university campus is in the neighborhood of Marmoz. The Senegalese army has a post across the street, and the Indonesian, South Korean, and Saudi Arabian embassies are around the corner, as well as USAID. We can see the ocean from the classroom windows, and frequent rain showers leave at least a couple of rainbows arching across the sky every day. 

There are lots of dogs and cats wandering around, as well as herds of goats (some with, others without herders), and some horse drawn carts beside the zooming cars, taxis, buses, and car rapides, which are colorfully painted cheap mini-buses that run constantly and are super-crowded (people hang off the backs). Some of us rode with student guides yesterday on a car rapide to Ouakam, the neighborhood I'll be living in. There is an incredible amount of construction going on everywhere because of recent foreign investment, apparently, and many walled off beautiful villas are right next to cramped apartments. Trash tends to be everywhere, but people are resourceful. At  the beach, kids were using a large piece of plastic (maybe it used to be a top or door?) as a boogie board. I have yet to see a chain store or fast food joint, (or a large supermarket for that matter) which is cool. There are innumerable street vendors and small shops and people just selling things without shops or by the side of the street. We will be receiving a food stipend, and I plan on eating many a mango and banana because breakfast consists of a piece of baguette and lunch and dinner mostly involve meat and rice. It's great because I'm not eating tons of snacks! Did I mention that it's extremely humid here and I'm sweating my butt off, but the weather is wonderful nonetheless.

My French is very bad, and we just started learning Wolof today (the teacher is a wonderful woman! and the class is in franglish), so communication has been difficult, but it can only get better from here! Everyone is extremely friendly once you say hello, especially in Wolof, which involves an exchange of about 8 questions and a generous handshake every time you see someone. Though considering our freshness here, we're only expected to exchange about 3 greetings at a time. 

Not much exploring has been done yet, but I'll have a lot more to say be next week after I've seen downtown and been with my host family. Ramadan starts next week so the stores will mostly be closed but that's not a problem. 

P.S. the call to prayer from the nearby mosque may just be a call to prayer but it's mesmorizing and beautiful!

P.S.S. there's no toilet paper here. 

a biendot!

amanda