Just another week in the life of a study abroad student.

Here I am, in Dakar, having had what may have been the most eventful week of my life, and I'm feeling reasonably un-phased.  I'll start with a list of things I'm surprisingly used to.

-Time differences: Getting out of the house takes AGES, and if we bother to plan to do something at a particular time at all, we can count on leaving at least 2 hours late.  Also, everything happens slower here.  Simple "Hi"s on the street can turn into 15-minute conversations (with strangers) if you're not careful.

-Attention: Being white here is quite an experience.  We get attention from men (though no proposals yet)...more on that later.  Every taxi that drives by honks at us, since we couldn't possibly be planning to walk to our destination.  Lots of people call "toubab" as we walk by.  Toubab just means Caucasian.  It isn't an insult, just a category.

-Food:  Every meal involves tons of starch.  I'm used to eating a lot of veggies and fruit and a little meat, some cheese or yogurt, and some sugar every day.  Here, I eat bread and tea for breakfast (I sneak some cheese onto my bread), rice and sauce and meat for lunch, and the same for dinner.  Sometimes, we use bread to eat dinner.  Also, my host dad is constantly telling me to eat more.  I say "J'ai bien mange" (I've eaten well, I'm full) and set down my spoon and he says, "Non, tu n'as pas bien manger.  Mange plus." (No, you haven't eaten well.  Eat more.)  Youssou, my host brother, said he's afraid I'll return to the U.S. skinny and my family will think that they didn't feed me well enough.

-Power outages: EVERY day in Dakar, there is at least one power outage.  Often, there's more than one.  I carry a flashlight around (thanks, Afnan, for donating yours!) just in case.  It doesn't bother me much any more.  We're actually having a power outage as I'm typing this up.  I'll just have to save it and put the post online later on.

Here are some things that I haven't adjusted to:

-Restrooms: People here simply use toilets differently.  It's always a gamble when I go to use a restroom whether it will have a toilet seat, whether it will have toilet paper, whether it will have soap, and whether the toilet will flush.  I don't like how unreliable it is that my "needs" will be met, but it is slowly becoming less and less of a problem.

-Gender relationships: The way men and women interact here is different, though less so than I was expecting.  I have an easy (and fun) time teasing guys when they flirt with me, but also just teasing in general.  It's good French practice, too.  I did get myself into kind of a mess earlier, though.  More on that later (I'm hoping to build suspense here).

-Wolof: I can't speak pretty much any right now, so there is a lot that I can't understand.  To make things better, I have trouble understanding French spoken with a Wolof accent...which is what everyone speaks here.  My Mama asked me earlier "Do you understand French?" and I said yes, but it was hard to understand it with the local accent, and she said, "Ah, you understand French, just not me!"

-Families:  Who lives at my house??  I have no idea!  And I don't know where they sleep at night!  More people keep showing up and I don't know whether they're permanent residents or whether they're just visiting.  I don't know what their names are or how they're related.  I'm really confused.  But, in the end it doesn't really matter.

Okay, now for some anecdotes.  These are the most recent, most memorable things that have happened to me.  Mom, don't freak out.  I'm doing great.

First is clubbing.  On Friday night, some friends and I went out clubbing with my host brother Youssou and some of his friends.  I had a great time dancing and then at 5:30 or so, when we'd finished, we went to a bakery for breakfast.  We had pastries and hot chocolate, and then went home.  When we got there, Youssou offered to give me a massage before bed, and then tried to kiss me. I said no and kicked him out, and then felt uncomfortable all Saturday morning.  In the afternoon, when I was out with friends, Youssou texted me and apologized for behaving inappropriately.  He said he felt uncomfortable all day knowing that he had done wrong to his "sister".  I'm pretty sure that nothing else will happen, and I know to be on my guard now.  But if anything does happen, I can always ask to be relocated.  As it is, I really like my host family.

The more recent incident was notre sortie a la plage (our outing to the beach).  Youssou and his friends and my friends and I went to a beach today, on a hot, lovely summer afternoon.  Then there were thunderstorms.  Then we played Frisbee.  Then I got hit in the head (not too hard) with a soccer ball.  Then this guy with a machete ducked behind me when I was sitting under our beach umbrella and another guy with another machete ran straight at me to try to get to the first guy and then they danced around me brandishing their machetes at each other...across me.  After just a few seconds of this, they ran off somewhere and half the population of the (packed) beach followed.  I guess they broke up the fight and no one was hurt, but it was very exciting.  I'm still slightly on edge from that adventure.

All in all, I am doing fabulously and getting my bearings and such.  There's a lot more adjusting that I'll have to do, but I'm in a good place and surrounded by fabulous people.

Now if only the power would come back so I could post this online and go to bed...