greetings from efficiency friday! trying to do a million things today before the group goes away to Toubab Dialow (a fishing village where we get to lounge on the beach and do some West African dance, art, or drumming) tomorrow morning. so far have eaten delicious cereal, hand-washed laundry and hung on the roof for the world to see, and written the beginning of a french paper on child prostitution in the US! still to go: grocery shopping, lunch avec la famille et hanna (actually not with the family- they are all still fasting- about 10 days left of ramadan), going to a local market to buy more crap clothes for fall break trip to hot interior of senegal which is more lush and has mountains, and then the gym. probability that this will all happen? slim to none. but i am being very american today running around to try to do it all.

this week has gone quite quickly and floored that come sunday, i will have been here for a month. a highlight of the week: joined the local posh gym. tons of little french women elliptical-ing and foreign families lounging by the pool. i actually create puddles around every machine i use because despite the lovely fans the gym provides, its toasty. yesterday took an abs, butt, and thigh class (to get the jaay fonde - aka a big butt- that everyone around here wants. whenever i leave the house to go out on the weekends my sisters give me a nice tap on the butt and say oh lala jaay fonde. other girls have not been so lucky and their moms have said to them: oh you are so nice and fat. not exactly something we american girls want to hear). ANYWAY, the instructor really pushed limits and we did more squats than ive done in my life. he was singing along loudly to the american music in the background saying I WANT YOU and I LOVE YOU as we are all ready to fall over. amusing to say the least.

ok off to the grocery store. if anyone happens upon some articles on civil war in uganda feel free to forward them along. i have do a paper/presentation on it in french this semester and washu library resources are like you are in africa, no getting into our databases for you.

miss you all! good luck at sectionals wuwu! don't worry ive been stalking all the emails...