So sleepy...

Senegal is quite the place. One thing I found interesting is that water is more expensive than beer although very few people drink since the town is mostly very strict muslims.

Ok, so a little about my house. I’m living in my first homestay with the Fall family. My mom, or yai in wolof, is a divorcee and runs the house (VERY rare in Senegal, as if you are divorced or your husband dies, you are supposed to go and live with your father’s family if you are a woman). Yai is also a math teacher at the local school. I have two host brothers Libasse and Pop. Libasse is 24, and primarily a football player going for the Senegalese nation team and Pop is 19, and in the final year of high school. My yai’s sister lives in the house too, but I am not sure what she does. We also have a cousin of the family living with us, Daouda, who is in a masters program for geography and history at the University of Dakar. We also have a maid in the house from Monday till Saturday whose name is Lai. And finally, there are the toubabs, Pete and myself. Pete aka Bouba is also a student from UMass. Pretty much everyone has their own room, save for Libasse and Daouda who share a big room. We have an outhouse with a Turkish toilette and an outside shower. There is no hot water at my house either, when the water is running anyway (we have “water-outs” just like there are black outs all the time).

A typical night here involves having a late dinner, around 8 or 9 in front of the TV, around the communal dish. Everyone typically goes to bed at 10, and there are all sorts of crazy noises, like cars driving around all night that have huge megaphones on them blasting Arabic chanting to collect money for the mosque. Then at 5 am every morning, there is a call to prayer.

Typical small talk for a Senegalese guy trying to talk to a girl: “I love you, do you love me?” They go there right away.