quick hello!!!

only have a few minutes left of internet but i thought i'd use it for this!!!

these past 12 days have been a bit slow. i got my house painted. wonderful bright colors. pink in the kitchen... it was supposed to be mustard but the painter had a bit of a probably figuring out what colors he needed to mix to get mustard... oh africa!!! and then my living room is light yellow and my bathroom and my bed room aqua. i really do love it.

this next week is Tabaski which is the muslim new year... i think. they change the names in senegal for the muslim holidays so i get confused!!! it involves slaughtering a goat. ours has been tied up in the compound for a couple weeks now. not sure if i'll watch them kill it... maybe i will... cultural experience.....

my ancienne... the girl i replaced, visited this past week and picked up her cat that i'd been taking care of. it was good to talk to her to find out about different things i'd had questions about. i'm sure i'll come up with dozens more over the next few weeks.

well i need to go!!! will write a long update over the next week and post on sunday.

three weeks in!!!

tomorrow will be three weeks at site. i'm definately settling in now. i have my hammock up so in the afternoons after lunch I sit and read and listen to the reggae that seems to always be in the air. life is slow here which is taking a lot of time to get used to. i'm so used the hustle and bustle of college life.

language is sorta of stagnent. I can get by with my little bit of french and wolof is hard to do by myself. i should start tutoring next week hopefully. but so far everything that i've scheduled happens several days or a week later then orginally planned.

one thing that i have been getting into is doing an hour of pilaties every morning. its really something i've always wanted the time to do regularly and now time is definately not hard to find. the bit of exercise is so good for me. i need to start going out and walking more but its really tough to walk in the sand. you really sink in pretty well. its too sandy to use my bike too. I haven't been sleeping too well and wake up easily which is something i've never really had problems with before. I think i need to get busier to become more tired so i have more incentive to sleep.

i've been feeling definate ups and downs. one thing that you don't really think about before you come is how absolutely alone you can feel at times. other times i'm just on top of the world. i had one of those moments this morning on the way to kaolack when i was squashed in a sept-place with 7 senegalese men bouncing along over the sandy roads. it was just such a unique experience and all i could think was "wow, i really am in africa, and this is so incredibly amazing".