Small things

Because it's so hard to contemplate all that goes with having an experience like this, I'm sticking to the little things. I love the fresh fresh fruit (mangoes, apples, bananas) from the little fruit stands that are all over the city. It's fruit as it should be, exactly as it should taste, and it just crushes you with flavor and I think I'll never go back to supermarket produce. I love how each day walking to school is its own little adventure, especially when it rains and the streets flood and the sand turns to mud. The car rapides will always make me feel good on a bad day, I've decided. They're small buses absolutely packed and crowded with people in every possible corner. Yesterday I rode it in the rain and the flaps came down over the open windows and the little red light in the back partially illuminated us all squeezed one atop one aside. And it just felt like Africa; and it felt like I was apart of it. Last night I stood on the roof of our home with my new sister and stared out over the neighborhood. It was one moment of the day that I could actually say I was completely there, completely in the present and not worried about tomorrow or my "goals for my sejour in Senegal" or the countless other challenges that await me.

Traveling here, or anyplace, as a tourist is different than coming and staying for four months or ten months. I harbor the knowledge that I'm here for awhile and that I can take my time seeing and visiting and learning, but on the other hand I'm just as clueless as a tourist. And tourists can have their jollies in one or two weeks with that departure time always looming where I feel like I'm slowly running a marathon. Building myself up during these first weeks so I can have a foundation to live by over the next months.

I want to do it right while I'm here. Live everything. Live every moment so hard and so full, but sometimes it's easier just to sit on the terrace of my new home or to watch traffic in the quarter with the other people in the street. That's part of what I love about Africa, that the pace slows down. And I can't forget that's what I'm here to do, just to be here.

Here are a few images from the past week.

A little boy on the plane over New York.

Section of the beach nearest to the university. This is from my first day.

This is Tiebou Dienn (pronounced cheb-oo-jen). It's one of the traditional dishes of Senegal. In this picture we are learning how to eat it with our hands in addition to the many rules of "around the bowl" etiquette.

Before eating, the girls learned how to tie a pagne.

Here is small view of the university where I'm taking classes this semester.

A few people in the group during our excursion to downtown Dakar.

A neighbor girl who decided to plop herself down on my bed.

We went to the beach on Sunday. The waves were perfect and it was my first time swimming in the ocean. I loved it.