Sokone!

So I've arrived. Like I said in the last post, I was planning on arriving on Monday. However as plans seem to be more like a mild suggestion in Senegal, I arrived Tuesday, noon-ish.

My living quarters here are quite different. (Pictures will come of Dakar house versus Sokone house, but you'll have to wait until I figure out computer time here.) I live with Madame Mané and her three year old daughter Amina (adorable! but doesn't like to roughhouse as much as I do), another woman (who is most likely not her sister but who I doubt is the second wife) and her newborn son (1 week old!), a young woman (who as far as I can tell is Mme Mané's sister), and two women who cook and clean.
My host father, Monsieur Mané, doesn't live with us. However he does come over for lunch and dinner if he is in town. He works for the local bank and so visits branches in smaller villages quite a bit. At first I thought that he lived with Mme Mané's brothers in a small house about a block or two away... but alas, more confusion because her four brothers live in what can only be described as a bachelor pad- just four bedrooms and a dirt patio/backyard. They get plates of food from my house.
So basically all I know for sure is that I live in a compound with only women. Beyond that- where exactly all the men live, how everyone is related, what they all do during the day, their ages, who is older and who is younger- no idea! That's one thing that has had me perplexed. Here, in Dakar too, I am introduced to family/friends without ever knowing their names or how they fit in. They are just there and then not and then they appear again...

Outside of work, I have been having a fun time practicing my Wolof at home where no one knows much French except for Mme Mané. It's up to my brothers to show me around town because the women don't leave the house much. Of course, the boys are always up for an adventure- a walk during the day when I thought I would faint from the heat; then exploring at night when anything that went bump! or squeak! or clank! made me jump; and yesterday an afternoon at the beach where the air was cool and the pool was more salt than water.

Now the internship on the otherhand is quite frustrating. I though that I would be working at a school, but rather I work for an organization that coordinates donations of notebooks, pencils, etc. from France. So not many kids to play with and to make me smile. Just me and my two bosses working out of two small rooms.
More than anything, I am just frustrated by the Senegalese way of working in general. Apparently Kër Gui (the organization) has 5 people on their payroll. And yet, here we are, three in the office, with barely enough work for 1 person. Although I understand the need to contribute to the employment of the local residents, I feel like Kër Gui could use the money in better ways- such as providing for the education of more students.
Also, we just sit around... a lot. Right now I am blogging, James is alking around out front, and Ousmane is playing with a piece of wire at his desk. And I would say we are being productive considering yesterday we sat staring at each other (once in a while glancing towards the wall or up at the ceiling fan) for 45 MINUTES!
And I am supposed to be here for 6 weeks...

I going to try and start tutoring middle and high school students in English in the evenings. And I might even offer basic email classes once a week.
Any other suggestions?
I've already put the class roster into Excel. (Access would have been better, but considering how many problems I can run into with the program, I'll just stick with the basics.) They thought it was going to be one of my major projects but I finished it this morning in under 4 hours- even with Ousmane trying to help me and just getting in my way.

DISCLAIMER: I don't mean to come across as ungrateful in any way for this opportunity. It just that I feel that I can do more for Kër Gui than simple data entry. I don't want to feel like I did not give my best over the next 6 weeks. Also I need to think about my role in the organisation for next semester, or even if I want to stick around. I really like Sokone, I just can't find the strength to withstand 4 MONTHS of data entry and staring at the ceiling fan.