K.O. (Senegal)- the city shuts down

Hey guys! Time here just keeps chugging away, my program is already 1/2 over, and I'm scared that things will just start going faster and faster from this point forward.

Two weekends ago I went with Lizzie and her sister, who is visiting from the states after being in China for a month, went to St. Louis (not the one in Missouri) in northern Senegal for the weekend. It was absolutely great to get out of Dakar, we hadn't left for more than half a day before that, and after going to college and leaving every 7 weeks, Dakar was starting to get a little claustraphobic. Plus, who knew Africa could get kind of dull...

So we got to the gare routiere (the station that leaves the city) about 5pm and while we were planning on taking a sept-place taxi (which holds 7 people, surprisingly enough) we decided to go with the cheaper "bus." The bus, however, holds about 12 people and doesn't leave the station until it is full, and seeing as there were only about 5 people on when we got there, we had a long wait with people trying to sell us all sorts of things. Some were good, like cookies, and others were just sort of bizarre, like a flashlight that also played christmas songs at a very high pitch. We finally got on the road and got to St. Louis around 11:30 at night.

We stayed at the university with girls from UPENN who spent 3 weeks in Dakar doing intensive wolof at the baobab center, and it was really nice to get to spend some time on a campus and meet other students etc.

We planned on going onto the island of St. Louis, which was the old colonial capital of French West Africa on Saturday, having lunch and then hitting the beach, but after a great lunch at a little restaurant on the far northern corner of the island, from which we could see Mauritania, we started talking to a group of women as we headed to the beach. We exchanged pleasantries, and were quickly invited to lunch, and after we explained that we'd just eaten a bunch they insisted we had tea instead. The thing to keep in mind is that senegalese tea, attaya, is an extremely intensive process, so while we waited, the women, whose husbands are all in the military, attempted to teach us how to dance mbalax, with various degrees of success. We ended up staying until 5, and decided to hit the beach on sunday instead, which was absolutely amazing, with huge waves that left us tired after only being in the water for about 30 minutes.

We left St. Louis on monday bright and early at 6:30am in order to get to our wolof class in time at 2pm, and ended up being 15 minutes late because of traffic as we neared Dakar. The traffic was due to this huge conference that is taking place all this week, with leaders (ie presidents etc) from countries all over the Muslim world.

Because of this conference, ALL of the schools are closed all this week, our class at the University was cancelled, but our other classes weren't, unfornunately. We do, however, get off all of tomorrow, so it will be a great time to hit the beach, once we can figure out a beach to go to that doesn't involve having to go anywhere near where the conference is, since we wouldn't be able to move.

After this week, we have 2 more weeks of classes before spring break, then a week off, and then only one more week of classes before our month long "break" in which we have to write all of our final papers. That month will also include a trip to the Gambia, and right now it looks like spring break will be a trip to Guinea-Conakry and Eastern Senegal. We want to make sure to be in the country on April 4, senegalese independence day.

Things I love about Senegal:
1. Sun, every day.
2. Crazy markets with people trying to sell you everything you can imagine, and mostly stuff you don't want.
3. Being able to bargin for pretty much everything you buy, and having the knowledge of how much they should charge you so you can laugh when they tell you a ridiculous price just because you are white.
4. Boutiques, selling everything and the owner getting mad if you don't stop by every once in a while, even if it is just to say hi.
5. My Senegalese family.
6. Pain au chocolat/Pain au fromage
7. cafe au laits on the street