Fight for your right to paaaarrrrttttyyy!

So my last blog entry was admittedly a little bit of a downer and unfortunately, I have been feeling kinda down for the most part of this past week. There has been good parts but in general I have been grouchy, frustrated and not a fun kelsey at all. And let's be honest if I can't speak the language well I need to at least be happy/fun kelsey, because even I don't like grouchy kelsey. Here, she slightly rivals grouchy first-thing-in-the-morning Mikayla, which is saying something because she is a teenager. Anyways, I discovered today that the remedy is to have a little fun....this sound simple and now that i've realized it. I feel slightly stupid even verbalizing it. However, I have been so worried about mastering the languages, finding my place and what work I want to do, that I have had very little fun.
It is hard to relate things to the US because I do have down time, and quite a bit of it . Howeber, studying wolof/french or trying to speak it with my family and women's group is a lot of work. I have been feeling like I am in a constant finals week. I need to prepare but just can't study or do enough to fully prepare. Well I was feeling pretty beat up after a getting reminded how pitiful my language skills are, and that the men here seem to always want to make me their wife (this is not all but most the ones that I encounter when walking places.) So I went to the beach. (Yes, I do know who lucky I am that I can do this and I am greedily going to enjoy every darn second of it without shame). I have not done this for about a week, except to work out occasionally and just relaxing there made a huge difference.

I just lied there, sorta read my wolof book, and occasionally asked the senegalese women by me a question or two. Then tonight I went to a Belafont, a local restaurant owned by a lovely couple, to listen to some senegalese music. Doing this and speaking some simple french made me feel so much better. So moral of the story is I am going to have more fun. I might actually try to learn to play one of the instruments here. I am also going to get back into my painting. Maybe go for some bike rides.... who knows, Popenguine is my Oyster!