A couple of days ago I didn't have class until 2:30, so I decided to sleep in. At 11 I woke up to the sound of a baby crying, so I jumped out of bed and put some clothes on to go investigate. It turns out the woman who washes our clothes brought her baby to visit us. Another one of her daughters lives in our house as the maid. The baby was playing on the floor, and I gravitated towards her of course. And she was so scared of me! I think I was probably the first white person to [View Full Entry]

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Today was exciting. I went into downtown Dakar for the first time. We started out at the school this morning, and we broke up into groups of six. Each group left with a guide, a Senegalese university student. The guides taught us how to ride the Car Rapides, which are the crazy buses they have here. Actually, they are more like trucks with a cover on the back than buses, and they just cram more and more people inside. The boy on the back, who is called the apprentice because he may one day become a driver, takes money from passengers [View Full Entry]

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This morning I woke up knowing I had spent my last night in air-conditioning for 4 months. We had some more orientation and a Wolof class, but the big event of the day was meeting our families. It was so nerve-racking, wondering what the house would be like, the people, the food… We had to meet in the auditorium at 5, where the families came and heard a little speech, then left with their Toubabs (white people). Well at least some of them did. 5:30 passed. 6 passed. 6:30 passed. There were three of us left homeless. It turns out that [View Full Entry]

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I'm a little behind on posting already; I had planned to add every day. I'm a little distracted because there is a 6ish year old Senegalese boy sitting next to me shouting. He’s playing a racing game online and has his headphones on, and he’s shouting “go, go”… “oh no!” … “you’re gonna pay” in English. I’m very confused… The last three days were big days for me, because I took my first walk outside the campus, I took my first walk alone, and I took my first walk at night. It sounds silly, but it was pretty [View Full Entry]

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Dear people who know me, I am spending the next 4 months in Dakar, Senegal in West Africa. I’m studying abroad through Emory, and I’ll be taking classes and living with a host family. Hopefully I will also be doing an internship. If you got an email sending you to this page to read this, that means I’ve put you on my mailing list to receive an email every time I update this page. I have no idea how often that will be. If you don’t want me to contribute to your inbox traffic jam, just send me an email and [View Full Entry]

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Tambacounda, is where I'm staying for the night. This town is a major crossroads between Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Gambia, and for the Niokola Koba National Park. Niokola Koba Park, is Senegal's major national park - its residents include elephants, lions, leopards, hippos, crocodiles, water buck, bush buck, kob, baboons, buffaloes, monkeys, warthogs, antelopes and hartbeest. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to visit the park or make my way to Guinea - I'll decide that in the morning. I'll go into more detail now about recent events: TUESDAY 25 JANUARY[/h2 [View Full Entry]

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It's nice to have left the predatory 'bumsters' of the Gambia behind. Bumsters is the local Gambian name for the touts and would be guides that plague the Atlantic coast. Here in Ziguinchor, it's much more relaxed. This is undoubtedly because Ziguinchor isn't a mass package tourism destination. The interior of the Gambia may be less of a hassle, but I never got there, as I spent days feeling unwell with tooth ache and didn't want to do anything. It has to be said being pestered by bumsters when I have tooth ache makes me bad tempered! Anyway, I decided yesterday [View Full Entry]

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I am now in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. I left Saint-Louis on Sunday morning. When getting the taxi to the Gare for Dakar, I had to bargain, one taxi driver tried to charge 3 times the going rate. At the Station they asked the going rate for the journey but tried to charge me 500 francs for the rucksack. I refused, so instead of taking a collective taxi to Dakar I ended up in a mini bus. Thinking about it I was arguing over very small amounts of money - 500 francs is 50 pence sterling. Having opted for the [View Full Entry]

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I'm still in St-Louis, relaxing. Yesterday I took a day trip to the National Park for birds at Djoudj. It is one of the most important bird sanctuaries in the world. Over 3 million birds migrating south from Europe stop at the Parc National des oiseaux du Djoudj. I organised a tour with a guide who works for the National Park. His English was non existent, but he spoke slowly and repeated things when I didn't understand. As a result I followed everything he was saying in French. The park was well worth a visit, if not cheap. I had to [View Full Entry]

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I'm now in St-Louis Senegal, which was the old colonial capital. It still has a lot of the old French colonial charm. St-Louis was a welcome sight after the trip from the Mauritanian Border. I left Nouakchott in Mauritania on the morning of the 4th of January. We left Patrick and Chris behind. Patrick still wasn't feeling well - so he didn't want to travel. We caught a pick up truck to the border - the journey was relatively uneventful. The fun started when we got to the border. Leaving Mauritania can be expensive, the guards demand all sorts of 'taxes'. [View Full Entry]

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