so this entry dates to April 8, 2009. again, almost straight out of my journal. so on wednesday April 8, i woke up at 8:30 and took a shower, which basically consisted of washing my feet since my hair was in braids and i didn't want to get it wet. the wife of the guy we were staying with brought us breakfast which consisted of bread and butter with some weird coffee/tea concoction that was pretty tasty. by 9:30 we had left. first we went to the bank where i tried to exchange travelers' cheques, but of course they didn't. so [View Full Entry]

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country number 6! (if you count the united states). this entry dates to April 7, 2009, and is pretty much right out of my journal. i woke up at 6 am, ate breakfast, had coffee, finished packing, and cleaned my room (i do that now!). by 6:30, which Mr. Jobe told me he was going to pick me up, i was ready to go. mr jobe arrived an hour late, so i read The DaVinci Code until he got there. he arrived and we took a cab to banjul. i payed D200 for both of us. i planned on paying for [View Full Entry]

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so on saturday night Jarry and Fatou Ngoneh were getting all dressed up. they asked me if i wanted to go to Laila's (pronounced la la) birthday party. laila is in grade 2. she is from sweden and turned 10 on friday. so i said "sure." by the way, i'm currently in senegal and the keyboard doesn't make sense. the q and a have switched, the w and z have switched, the m is after the l, and the comma, period, and apostrophe are all misplaced. it's very difficult to type. we drove to laila's house which is near to abc [View Full Entry]

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so in my last few minutes of interneting on thursday i heard screams coming from the building next door. then a guy rushes in and says "Gambia got another goal! it's 3-1!" i guess they were in the finals for the african U-17, which is this huge african football tournament. so i went home and watched the final moments. basically, Gambia won and yesterday was declared a public holiday. why don't they have that in the US? no one had school or work, and my vacation started a day early. the rest of thursday was filled with people driving by screaming [View Full Entry]

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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!! 1. BUY ISHMAEL RIGHT NOW. if it's sitting on a bookshelf somewhere because you've already read it, lend it to a friend. it's one of those books that the entire human race needs to read. 2. the address you should send school supplies to is my address at home in the states. if you know it, awesome. if you know my mother, ask her. if you don't know either, send me a message and i'll send it to you. i'm gonna collect them all at home and send them all at once once i get home. 3. if [View Full Entry]

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And here we are again. I've been here for a month. Can you believe it? i couldn't. so what's happened this past week? hmm... well, last time i updated, i was at a new internet cafe. it was all great and dandy and cheaper than the previous one. but it was WAY slow. and then one of the workers started hitting on me and asking me if he could help and i kept saying no (what could he have possibly helped me with?). then he asked for my name and e-mail and phone number and where i was staying and how [View Full Entry]

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It's been a while. Sorry. So last Friday, i worked in Grade 4. I taught and such. Not very eventful. Although Mr. Jallow is the best teacher i've seen here. he loves what he does, and he makes things really interesting for the kids. it's really great to work with him. in the afternoon i was in drama club. The Norwegian woman Cece wasn't there, so i taught it myself. first i taught them "zingamama" which they loved. then i taught them lion face lemon face to exercise their face muscles. then i taught them about improv and we spent the [View Full Entry]

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On saturday at 2 Njareh picked me up and took me to Banjul. The city itself was nothing spectacular, but we went into the market. IT WAS HEAVEN. fabric store after fabric store after fabric store of beautiful african fabrics. i bought a ton of fabrics for under $100 and am probably going to get them made either tomorrow or saturday. on sunday i woke up to the sound of women laughing and talking in Wolof. they were outside making donuts for the Gamo. i went out and helped them. they had a huge pot of vegetable oil over a fire [View Full Entry]

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That's my name! and it's been so worn out. so let me explain some things because it would be easier to reference people after they've been explained. the respectful way to address an authority figure is by calling them Aunty if they're an unmarried woman, Mrs. if they're married, and Mr. if they're a man. Aunty Bin is my homestay mother and founder of the ABC learning center. two of her sisters are Aunty Fatou and Aunty Ngoneh. Aunty Fatou lives with us and makes food for school lunches. Aunty Ngoneh is the head of ABC 1 (nursery school through grade [View Full Entry]

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so remember how last entry i talked about how Njareh was going to take me out on saturday night? well she showed up at my house at 9:45 in a dress and heels and told me we were going dancing. first we went to a little restaurant so i could get some food (pizza) and we talked about life and such. she told me that we were meeting the boys after. the boys were her 27-year-old fiancee (she's 25) Adama and her 23-year-old brother Cheron. we met up with adama and got a taxi to Senegambia. tourist town!! there were so [View Full Entry]

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