On partarge tout

This is the scariest, hottest, most physically and mentally exhausting, most challenging thing I have ever done in my entire life. ...and it's only the 4th day. Let's rewind and head back in time to 20 minutes before my flight landed in Dakar.

So I'm sitting on the plane with a semi-achy neck from the flat pillow that was sitting on my seat upon boarding, and I look out the window and see the moon. I instantly got super homesick and started freaking out about my decision to go to Senegal. "Am I ready for this?! I can barely even speak French! I miss my mom! What if I get really sick?! What if all my money gets stolen?! What if I don't make it through customs? What happens if my host family hates me?!" All of these things and more were exploding in my brain at rate of about 50 per second. Then we landed.

Those who were continuing on to South Africa were directed in both French and English to stay aboard the plane, and the rest of us made our way down the aisles to disembark. We climbed down the stairs out of the aircraft and I was instantly drenched in sweat. HOLY HUMIDITY! Anyhoo... we made our way over to a shuttle that transported us to the main terminal where we filled out some paperwork, went through customs, and grabbed our baggage. By time I had everything on my person (a 55L backpacking backpack on my back, a regular backpack on my front, and a duffle that I somehow managed to sling over my head and around my arm) our group was approached by many Senegalese men who were offering to carry our baggage and direct us where to go. One man said, "you follow me, and you follow me only." We all looked at each other and started to follow... turns out he was one of the program leaders whose name is Waly. He's hilarious. We walk to the van which seemed to take FOREVER since I was hauling around the weight of 3 semi-large children and when we finally made it to the van I was disgustingly sweaty and also nauseous from the plane ride. All I wanted was a glass of cold water and a bed. But no. Once the van was loaded with all of our stuff, we proceeded to speed away into the dark of the night on an extremely confusing mess of roads/highways. My first views of Dakar were these:

1) garbage. everywhere.
2) a man hanging off a door on the back of a moving van
3) a bare boned horse eating grass from the median of a major highway with no one to attend to it
4) the hotel

When we made it to the hotel we quickly unloaded our baggage and filled out more paperwork...
FINALLY we were able to go to our rooms. I made it up the stairs (with my 3 small children a.k.a. heavy baggage) and took a minute to check out the space: 2 small beds, a table, a t.v., and a bathroom. Not too shabby. I was so relieved to have arrived that I flopped on the bed. It was the most glorious feeling ever.

The first day we talked a lot about Senegalese cultures and social tendencies and things that are important for a successful journey in Dakar. It amazes me how people share everything ("on partage tout") and take so much time to greet each other. I wish our culture was more like that. We all get so caught up in our own lives that we forget the importance of taking the time to appreciate other people.

Since then, I have moved into my homestay. I'm living with a 57 year old single woman whose name is Maman Anne Marie. She's Catholic (which is interesting since most of the people here are Muslim) extremely nice and already seems to worry about me a lot. The first night there, she had a friend over who is called Marie Therese, she's absolutely hilarious and we all chatted (as much as I could) and drank bisap (a juice that looks like grape juice, but tastes 50 million times better. It's composed mostly of a bisap flower, water, sugar, and some mint). For dinner, Maman cooked fish. Not just any kind of fish... a fish from Fear Factor. It still had it's skin, eye sockets, and teeth. Of course, I didn't want to be rude, and I'm not at all a picky eater, but looking down at my plate, and seeing this fish staring back at me with it's ghostly eye sockets wasn't exactly appealing. But I ate it. I ate every bit of that fish and actually kind of enjoyed it once I stopped staring at it's head. So pats on the back for me! ha :)

Yesterday, the group of us went to Goree Island. It was beautiful. No traffic or any kind of motorized vehicles and rich in history... and vendors. I'm already sick of saying "non merci."

Alright, well I'm all blogged out for the day. Sorry this one was so much "today I did this, then I did this..." bla bla bla.

My brain is exhausted from translating all the time and I continually feel like I could sleep for another 12 hours. I can't wait for a week from today when I can walk to and from school by myself and I'm a little bit more familiar with this vibrant city. :)

"Salam Malekoum" - Every person you meet on the street in Dakar