Arrive a l'auberge

We got to our hotel yesterday. I made my first friend in the NYC airport-Fatou. She was a middle-aged Gambian woman who was going back home to her kids from visiting her husband in the states. She was really sweet and helped me out with preparing me for the Dakar airport and such.

My second friend was a little 5 year old Senegalese girl who I sat next to on the plane. Our friendship was so strong it didn't need words, ( I don't think she really spoke english, except for to tell me that the cartoon character on her shoes was Dora). We amused ourselves with expressions throughout the beginning of the flight, oos and aahs about how the seatbelt buckled and unbuckled. Then I attempted to sleep, and she started trying to play with my TV. That's when her cuteness wore off. Haha, just kidding. But yeah, it was a smooth flight besides the 4 hour delay due to mechanical issues.

We arrived at the airport, fastest conveyor belts I've ever experienced. But, very proud of myself, I got my luggage on my first try. Also greeted by a sad looking cat that was just prancing around in baggage claim. A very nice, smiley man greeted me and the other program participant who was on the plane with me and took us to our bus. I quickly began to see some of these upsetting scenes where there's a beautiful, fancy beachside houses directly next to run down shacks or crippled beggars sitting on the crumbling beachside cliffs.

I think our hotel is in a more "well-to-do" part of the city, so we seem to be currently isolated from many of these impoverished scenes. The hotel is very nice and the area around it is beautiful. The beach is gorgeous, we plan on going on a walk there tonight (which by the way, very glad I'll be taking my boot off in a week cause these roads, which are mostly sand and then broken up concrete closer to the city, are definitely not conducive to broken bones). The people who own and work at this hotel are great. We seem to be very spoiled with our meals too. The food's awesome! We ate our first more traditionally Senegalese meal today, sitting on the carpet and eating with our right hand. Let me tell you, turns out that is a definite skill which I think is gonna take me a while to master. The food was delicious-even the fish! Yesterday, we already made our first cultural faux-pas. We were served dejeuner lunch and all left after we finished. Bouna, one of the program directors, told us later that we left before they served dessert. Haha, typically American, on the go.

We began to learn Wolof today, which I'm very glad about, because it seems much more appreciated in some situations to speak wolof instead of French.

Of course there are 12 girls and 2 boys on the program. Somehow going to all women's school dooms you to never be around men...Oh, and even better- my roommate goes to all women's school in Minnesota! In general, my fellow program participants seem pretty cool. Now that we've been here a day, I think it's clear that most everyone is going to be pretty good about branching out and pushing ourselves to take advantage of all we have to learn here.

I have so much more to say already after less than 48 hours. But I don't wanna write a novel.

a bientot