Sokone - 3 weeks!!!

3 weeks never seems like the right number. Sometimes it feels like I only arrived a week ago, and I must have another 5 weeks before heading back to Dakar (a final week of seminar before winter break). Other times I fit in so well that I can't even remember Dakar and feel like this life will continue forever. Most times it's an interesting balance between the two. A balance between wanting to go home and wanting to stay for another month or year.

Sadly most nights I fall asleep wishing that I hadn't left Dakar and happy to be headed home for Christmas. Frustration, disappointment, anger, ennuie, and a bunch of other feelings make for one unhappy girl by the end of the day.

Currently my days are too boring for words, and yet seeing as how this is a blog, the words must be wasted. I get up tired (lethargy+wolof headaches+heat). Go to work from 8am until 12pm. Come home in the midday heat. Laze about until lunch, usually take a nap out of sheer boredom and there's really not much you can do in dry windy 95°+ heat. Head out to work again after a late lunch with the family. Work from 3pm until 6pm. Teaching English from 4pm until 6pm is really my one saving grace during the week- so much fun! And then waste some time next door with my boyZ at the cybercafe next door before heading home.

Life here is just simply too frustrating. I can't go out alone after dark, even though the town is fairly smalll. It's socially unacceptable for an unmarried woman to go unaccompanied after dark, but also it's not safe for a young Senegalese woman or a toubab like me. Because of that, my only freetime is on the weekends. And so my opportunities to make friends is fairly limited given social opportunities for the young women of Sokone, around the gas tank (cooking) and among the market stalls (buying the food to cook). Work and home are basically my only two places that I can meet people.

Home is pretty nice. I like both of my host moms (although the second wife doesn't speak any French, and my Wolof isn't progressing fast enough) and my two sisters are super sweet (although Ami, who's closest to me in age, doesn't speak French and neither does Amina- but she's three so she's quite forgiving if I let her pull me around). Rama, a woman from a nearby village, is the most patient in teaching me Wolof although her French is limited. My brothers are great, but they are both occupied with their own lives. Momar, 20, works, and Khadim, 21, is finishing high school. Besides they both have their own circle of friends and can't always let me tag around.

Work is fun, just barely enough to make up for some of my boredom. The cybercafe next door is an offshoot of KerGui. Babacar, the guy who runs it, is super awesome and one of the few guys here that hasn't asked me to marry him. A bunch of his friends spend their freetime (of which, as is the case with most men in Senegal once they are out of school, there is too much) at the cybercafe. It is a herd of rappers, artists, and the odd aspiring philosopher. It will be interesting to see if come out of this as a Wolof rapper. One can only hope not (considering the rap would consist of basic salutations and food vocabulary only).

I have three weeks left, and so I had better take up basket weaving or go crazy considering my friendship bracelet string is starting to run out (all those hours of European soap operas!).

(first picture: me and my brother Khadim)

(second picture: me and my man BQ, up and coming rapper extraordinaire)