good morning! been 20 for about 9 hours now and feeling great. in reality, the power went out last night and i woke up multiple times only to find i had sweated through my shirt (the same one i wore yesterday because ive run out of clothes) and this morning, both my host mom and my roommate forgot it was my birthday. BUT all about the positive attitude over here. for example, my host sister sent me a text message at midnight last night (yes, we do live in the same house) saying: 'Happy Birthday i wish to u happiness, success, health of diamond and all that u need and wish in your life. je fais beaucoup de fautes en anglais mais tu peux me corriger (i make many mistakes in english but you can correct me). so sweet dreams for u girl. i wish be the first". and she was. it made me happy :) also upon arrival at school this morning, totally snagged a computer within seconds and the internet was working. its going be a good day/ decade.
this past weekend, i went with 7 other students to a small beach town - pompingin- 2 hours south of dakar. highlights included: my friend having to push the taxi we took to get to the gare routiere (a large field with tons of old station wagons and buses that can take you wherever you need to go after an hour of bargaining with at least 20 men) because it broke down in the middle of a traffic circle, staying in a huge house right on the beach for like 10 bucks a night per person, paying the salaries of every person in the town for the month by buying lots of food from the local "grocery store" (read: hut with canned veggies, drinks, and eggs), eating dinner on the beach with candles and my friends surprising me with a cake made out of cookies welded together with nutella for my birthday, and seeing real-life huge giraffes and rhinos about 2 feet from me at a local reserve.
tomorrow is korite, the festival ending ramadan (well it could be thursday- depends on the moon). apparently it entails lots of eating and everyone wearing beautiful dresses- both those things sound good to me. then this weekend, off on a 15 hour adventure to south-eastern senegal to do some mountain climbing, see waterfalls, and hang out with the people of the bassari country. i read a travel humor book that says that "sometimes half the fun of going somewhere is getting there. most of the time its not"....
sorry i have not been as good at responding to everyone's emails of late- been away/power not working but i really appreciate all the birthday cards (mom, judy, and dad) and nice emails... love to you all!
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