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Published: October 4th 2005
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Squat 'n' Swat Imagine the scene. The sun is shining, interesting cliffs are towering around me, waves are lapping at my feet. It’s amazing. Until the pizza and ice cream I had paid too much for comes back to haunt me…
Last weekend a bunch of us decided to spend Saturday at the beach. Before meeting everyone at school, I decided to splurge on an American lunch. I went to the gas station (a favorite American hangout- it feels like home) and bought a tiny pizza for 2000 cfa, about $4. Then I went to La Provence next door and tried to buy ice cream. They only had the giant-sized cups left, but I had myself all worked up for ice cream, so I bought one anyway. We all know how much I love ice cream, and I’ve only had it 3 times since I’ve been here.
After I ate, I met the rest of the group at school, and we took a taxi to the beach. From there, we took a little motorboat, a pirogue, out to the island, Iles de la Madeleine, and asked to be picked up at 5:30. This place was amazing. It’s basically
On the boat
From left to right: Brittany, Stephanie, Lauren, and Jeslynn. a big hunk of rock sticking up out of the ocean in sort of a ring shape. The inside of the ring made little lagoon, where the ocean was calm enough to swim around with goggles. The water wasn’t perfectly clear, but I got to see some cool fish.
All was well for about a half-hour or so. Then my stomach started feeling funny. Let me add that this is an uninhabited island, meaning of course, no bathrooms. There are also no trees, only bushes. There I was, on this gorgeous island, with a rumbling tummy and no way to escape. While everyone else swam placidly, I made a dash to the largest clump of bushes I could find, which wasn’t full enough to hide me from the rest of the my group or the few Senegalese visitors. There I squatted for a least an hour, occupying myself by swatting the swarms of flies and mosquitoes. And I didn’t have any toilet paper.
Once I deemed it safe to return to the beach, I was so shaky feeling and unsure of my stomach that I couldn’t swim. I sat on the beach reading until the boat came.
The post office Last week I needed to send off some application materials to Emory. I don’t have the greatest trust in the Senegalese postal service, so I thought I’d check on sending my envelope DHL. I had seen a sign for DHL near On the Run (the gas station where I bought the pizza), so I took a car rapide there and started walking. I had never been to this area of town and was pleasantly surprised. It’s where all of the diplomats live, in one particularly nice neighborhood. The street was well-shaded, a rarity in Senegal, so I didn’t mind the walk. At first. About 30 minutes later, after not having found the DHL office or seen another sign, I was starting to get irritated.
Right about then, my contact decided to attack my eyeball. My right eye started burning and watering, and rubbing it just made it worse. Half-blind, I stumbled over to a parked car that had a man in it and asked if I could use his mirror. While I was still bent over trying to peer under my eyelid in the side-mirror, a dirty-looking homeless man came over to help me. He
Fantastic hat
From left to right: Jeslynn, Me in a so-sexy hat, Joy, Brittany. was perfectly nice, but I did
not want him to touch me. Despite my (false) declarations of being fine, he proceeded to touch my face and try to see in my eye. That was bad enough, but then he drew in a deep breath and
blew as hard as he could into my eyeball. I’ll bet only Daddy can fathom my horror. 😊
Another day this week, I attempted to pick up a package. This required going all the way downtown, an hour long journey in itself. Then, after a 20-minute hike, I arrived at the package post. I had tried once before, but they had been inexplicably closed.
This time, I walked inside the security guard pointed to the third window. I handed the man my package slip. He read it and sent me through some doors to another window. I showed this man my slip and he sent me to another widow. The forth person who read my paper actually went to find the package. He returned and gave the package to another man. This man opened the package and made me identify the mysterious contents (an intuition razor and some pop-tarts). He then gave me
The side of the island
LP, show off your skills by adding a comment explaining this.. cleavage? a new slip of paper and sent me back into one of the rooms I’d already visited. There I waited in line for a man to look at the form, write down a few notes in a book, and stamp the form 4 times. Then I went to the next table where he stamped the form 2 more times. Then I was sent to another window where I was told to pay 2500 cfa. I got my receipt and headed to the other side of the building, where I paid a different person 1000 cfa. Finally, I went to the last window where I was given my package. They never checked my ID. That’s Senegal…
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mommy
non-member comment
blowing in eye
hey baby, i miss you. i giggled at the bathroom (or lack of) story, but i busted a gut with your contact-eye story. i can just imagine you trying to remain calm! for anyone reading this who doesn't know holly, i used to get mad at her and use her hairbrush (brush my hair) out of meanness. for punishment when she fought with her sister, i made them hug each other to make up. much worse for holly than a spanking!!!! lol. i love you!!!!!