Only Prettier

The study abroad students

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting 2 Americans studying abroad in Dakar.  I’ll admit I was a little nervous that I wouldn’t have enough work to show them, so they’d think I did nothing, and that they would put my French to shame.  As usual my fears were unfounded, all though they did speak much better French than me, and we had a wonderful week.  I’m not going to claim I’m the busiest volunteer, but I tend to forget until I talk about my work, that I actually have quite a few projects underhand.  Honestly, I’m a little worried that I’m taking on too many and won’t be able to manage them all but that is a long blog post for another day. 

Fatou prepping my foot for fuden

The girls stayed for a little less than a week, which fulfilled their programs “village visit” requirement.  I have to say Popenguine is not a true village for many reasons, but the idea is to get the students out of Dakar and see other parts of Senegal.  Also by pairing them with a PCV they can hopefully spend the week learned from us and our experiences.  Since I’m still pretty green I’m not sure how much they learned from me, except how one uses water instead of toilet paper in the douche, which was super fun to explain.  Being around other PCVs I forget the teapot, water douche thing is so shocking.  Anyway, these two girls were wonderful to have around and I’d have to say I learned a thing or two from them.  Their level of French (both are French majors or minors) meant they could dig a little deeper when talking to my mom  and I ended up learning a few things about her, the women’s group and reserve that I didn’t already know.  It was also just great to have someone to go on adventures with. 

While I have gotten quite used and maybe even comfortable doing things by myself, having another person or two always makes me more apt to actually some of the things I’ve been meaning to.  For example, having seen quite a bit of the village and what I do we decided to check out Saly.  …..back knowledge…Saly is a very touristy town 20k south of me on the coast. I had heard stories about how it looks just like south beach Florida, is epitome of tourists who want to go to Africa but not really “see” Africa…. I had been wanting to see for a number of reasons, some work related but mainly to satisfy my curiosity.  So the 3 of us spent a lovely day walking to Saly (well most of the way), lying on the beach, people watching (I have never seen so many old topless European women in my life) and finished it with a lovely dinner at my sister’s place, who lives between Saly and Popenquine.  The next day, the group of us had Fuden done (henna) which was a whole other adventure. I hadn’t realized how long it would take, about 6 hours for all of us, and then we would have to have our feet and hand enclosed in plastic bags for even longer.  However girls were troopers and now we all have Senegalese approved feet.  Besides’ how long it takes and the awkwardness of walking around (which we really shouldn’t be doing) in plastic bag feet, I really enjoy having my feet fuden. It is pretty and gives me street cred (more important than you guys can realize.)  I’m settled on keeping them in a constant state of fuden for my remaining time.  I have many different designs to try out and colors.

In other exciting news, April 4^th is Independence Day. The students are on vacation for about two weeks, but are practicing for a parade of sorts.  It sounds like there are a lot of festivities that day and I’m super excited to see it.  I’m hoping to get my red dress back from the tailor before then, but is seems unlikely since he is soooooo slow.  Either way I’m going to deck myself out in green yellow and red, watch the parade and eat loads of food.