February 2012
6 posts
Election day in Senegal
was extremely calm. The most exciting part of my day was my fifteen- minute walk, during which I saw a truck loaded with gendarmes, a soldier walking around with a machete, and a rasta man walking around with a machete. The rasta man bothered me enough to go home, but apparently, his knife was just for decoration because nothing happened in Ouakam, or really anywhere else, thank God. There is...
Food
I’ve said it before: I think that being married is turning me into a wannabe housewife. This morning during my insane supermarket run, I daydreamed about things to cook, trying desperately to remember recipes I’ve found on the internet. I ended up with sort of a random assortment of things…but I have various meats and vegetables, I have rice and pasta, and I have semolina to...
Protests.
have given me a five-day weekend. No school today, tomorrow, or Monday, to make sure that everyone is safe and to encourage people to stay at home. Today I woke up at 9am, went to the grocery store and bought so much stuff in fear of not being able to leave my house every again…and then sat in a comfy chair and read a book/watched TV on my computer/looked at pinterest for the rest of the...
Dakar recently
is a different city than the one I studied in in 2008, than the one I moved to in 2009. It is strange to think that four years ago I could walk home from a friend’s house at 4am without worry, and these days I feel quasi-nervous taking a taxi home from work when we are inevitably told to go home at 1pm. I realize that I’m exaggerating in feeling so nervous (especially according to...
Tonight
You know those nights when you are home alone and you feel lazy, so you eat cheese and crackers for dinner because it is just no fun to cook for yourself alone? Those are exactly the nights when you should cook yourself a really nice dinner.
Olivier went to Bamako today on business. I invited three different friends over for dinner. One cancelled on me, one got stuck somewhere, and the other...
This evening
I came home in a cheerful mood after a productive day at work to find my husband sitting at the new little table we set up in the living room, doing work himself. We smiled and kissed and I continued feeling cheerful.
I bought a whole chicken on my way home and am now making it into chicken soup with rice, chock full of veggies…and also butter. It smells amazing and even if I just boiled...
January 2012
4 posts
Here is the truth.
It makes me feel so, so happy to come home from work and start cooking a really good dinner before my husband gets home, and have him come home from work to find a home full of nice smells, and then for him to lurk around the kitchen asking if he can help me cook, and then to set the table and have dinner together, and have cooked it myself, and have it be delicious.
Another truth: sometimes I...
Wednesday
Today we have the day off of work because public transport is supposed to be on strike. They are striking because gas prices are at around $7 a gallon - true, down from the $8 a gallon they were recently, but still. When the government lowered the price from $8, the raised the price of cooking gas by about $1 a liter - meaning by about $3 a gallon. Thanks, Abdoulaye Wade!
It’s nice to be...
December 2011
4 posts
!!!!!!
Mom has been whisked away to Saint Louis with Olivier’s parents, and I got my nails done today which took a million hours because they put on fake nails and did all sorts of insane things to make them look real. They DO look real! They are also really long and I will have to get used to this. They do, though, make a satisfying clicking sound against the keyboard as I type.
My sister gets...
T minus five days
until I become Mrs. Mbaya, which will pretty much be the coolest thing ever. Five days, though, feels SO LONG.
Mom arrived last night, we went to church with the Mbayas and then rested a bit before going to their house for an organizational meeting with everyone, thenate eggs and sausage for dinner and went to sleep. I gave mom my fan and got eaten alive by mosquitos - when I covered my whole...
November 2011
2 posts
Robbers
Olivier and I brought out wedding rings home two days ago. Yvonne, the day before yesterday, told me to be careful because Ouakam is known for robberies. I said okay, that I would give her the rings on Saturday when we see each other so she can keep them for me.
Yesterday, on my way home from picking up the printed invitations, Olivier called me, asking if I had passed by the aparment during...
Khaware
There’s a house in my neighborhood that sells the coldest beers on earth. Just someone’s house - you walk in, sit down in their courtyard, and tell a child to get their parents, who then bring you the coldest beer on earth for one dollar. Last night these people organized a big party which Olivier didn’t want to go to, but too bad for him!
I had the best time. We drank one...
October 2011
2 posts
Renewed Hope
It is amazing how much the weather in Senegal affects me. On Saturday I was sweating and getting sunburned and feeling horrible. Yesterday I was sitting outside drinking a beer with friends, feeling the cool breeze and basking in the slight chill. This morning I am again enjoying the wind through open windows.
Is it sad that the simple fact of not sweating changes my mindset to an extreme...
The Most Impressive Student
So, this is sort of a long story I guess.
Last year I led a group of students in a national English language competition, in which we won second prize. We were supposed to get a 500,000 franc (about $1000) prize, but as I type, we still have not received it. The guy who organized this competition is called Mr. Touré, and he made our lives insanely difficult during the competition, and now we...
September 2011
3 posts
This is not that interesting but
this was the worst morning. I accidentally poured hot coffee on my hand, then poured ice water on it, did my makeup, immediately sneezed and got mascara all over my face, etc.
But I think it was just to make me appreciate Olivier. Because when my hand hurt too badly for me to hold my eye shadow compact, Olivier stood behind me and hugged me with one arm and held it open for me with the other so...
Lazy Sunday
During a power cut the other night, Olivier and I dragged a twin mattress into my living room and put it right next to the open door to the balcony, sleeping better with the breeze than in the stifling bedroom. It felt like college to sleep two to a twin bed, snuggled up/smashed together, waking up not sweating as we would have been otherwise, but with aching backs.
Last night we picked up his...
I'm really happy to be home,
but it would be SO nice if the water and electricity would stop cutting so that I could either stop sweating like a pig, or take a shower after sweating like a pig.
August 2011
4 posts
There are things
that being here makes me realize, or remember, or just be more aware of. There are things that make me angry that I am just never going to be able to change, and I have to just accept them and be okay with them, but that is really, really hard to do. I am realizing things about my parents and their relationships with people and about myself and my own relationships with people. Last night,...
Hmmm
I am pretty done with America at this point, or at least with being at other people’s houses in America.
I have been shopping like crazy with my mom, which has been delightful and I will indeed have clothes that are not falling apart with which to start the school year. I hung out in Chicago with so many people who I had missed, and I hung out in Portland with my sister who I had missed,...
unfuckwithable.ca: 28 for 28 →
tesslynch:
1. Maybe you do like kale.
2. Put your spare car key somewhere that’s easy to describe over the phone in a panic (“TOP DRAWER OF BIG CABINET!” instead of “Go into the garage and find the old file drawer with three locks, not the one with two locks, and open the bottom drawer…
July 2011
6 posts
Really, Senegal?
All I wanted to do today was sit on my little balcony with a cup of coffee and read, all day long. I wanted to put on my ridiculous but absurdly comfortable chaya romper, put my feet up, enjoy the fresh air, and start a new book in peace. I was excited about enjoying a day of calm, in which I don’t talk to anyone until the evening at Thierry’s house.
Then, my neighbors decided to...
23
Apparently there are now going to be protests on the 23rd of every month until Wade leaves power, or something like that. Whatever the real plan is, I just got yet another US embassy security email saying to stay at home this Saturday (July 23) because both pro-Wade and opposition parties are going to be holding rallies all over the city. Apparently they have already planned to block the...
Vacation
was full of running around the city for various reasons, and will be again, but for the moment, vacation is just full of sitting in my living room drinking coffee and resting. I want to write, but every time I open this screen I draw a blank on what to write about. I can just say that I am preparing things that will be lovely, but it is tiring.
Last night I had a dream about old friends, and it...
Senebirthday, take four
Yesterday was my fourth consecutive birthday in Dakar. I generally kind of dread birthdays these days, because on my past three I have at some point cried in a bathroom and felt horrible. Last year I cried the day before my birthday, too, because I dreaded my birthday so much, and got yelled at for it. The year before that I woke up in the morning and immediately started crying, because I was...
June 2011
3 posts
Senepolitique
I didn’t go to work on Friday for fear of continued protests. In the end, nothing happened, but it’s sort of like the government is now punishing the people for having protested. How? From Friday morning through this morning, we had about 3 hours of electricity in Ngor. No, not three hours per day - three hours IN TOTAL. That’s three hours of electricity within a 36-hour...
Politics, Protests
So Senegal is generally a pretty calm country. It is one of the rare countries in West Africa that has never had any serious political violence, has never had a coup d’état, and has has presidential elections that resulted in peaceful party changes. But now, Senegal has Abdoulaye Wade as a president, and has since 2000.
Abdoulaye Wade was democratically elected in 2000, the transfer of...
Today
Life has been moving both fast and slow at the same time. I have only two weeks left of work before summer vacation, and that’s so short, but there is where things are going slow. Things at work are crazy and stressful and I just want to be on vacation NOW. I want my friend Hannah to get here and to have a 4th of July barbecue on Thierry’s roof and to sleep as late as I want every...
May 2011
4 posts
I have been loving:
running after work, a very new and very good habit.
cooking with Olivier every night.
trusting my students more than usual, and having it work out beautifully.
planning the future.
feeling thankful.
reading my little positive book every morning, just a little bit every morning.
sometimes painting my nails.
talking to my mom more often.
Monday morning
I feel calm, as I have been feeling lately. I’m still a little bit sick with a bad bad cold that may or may not be developing into something else, and therefore need to go to bed early tonight. My head hurts a little and my throat hurts, and there are things I need to talk to my mom about.
I bought parrots last week, and one of them was sick and died yesterday. I will wait to get a new...
Wednesday morning
Today I only teach 1 hour of class, from 1pm to 2pm, but I still have to be at work all day. Tant mieux, because I have work to do for the English competition, papers to grade, and a test to write for the 8th graders. And yet, here I am fiddling on the interent.
Yesterday Olivier and I went downtown after work and bought two parrots in a tiny cage. Tonight we’re talking to a metal worker...
April 2011
13 posts
Wedding, etc
I got Friday and Saturday off of work for Easter, and used those days to go to Saint Louis up north for Olivier’s sister’s wedding. Rented a taxi on Friday afternoon with Thierry, Liz, and Clement to get up there, spent the evening going back and forth between Clement’s house and Olivier’s house, drinking wine and introducing myself to everyone in Olivier’s family...
Waiting
is fine when it is for a good reason, and when you are waiting for something lovely. I am sleepy, but it’s okay.
Today Olivier and I went to Sea Plaza, the only (real) mall in Dakar, to get him shoes for his sister’s wedding. Sea Plaza overwhelms me every time I go there. There are escalators - the only ones in Dakar - and bright lights and shiny things and a food court, where we...
Habits, etc
I have been quitting bad habits and taking on good ones. Meredith and I went running/walking today - my first time ever running, so we ran for about 15 minutes and then walked for about 45. It felt good to exercise and to sweat and to do something after work other than sit on my couch.
This week will be great, partially because of good new habits. Tomorrow Meredith and I will go running again....
Sunday
I will wake up at 6 tomorrow morning to go back to work after my two weeks of vacation, and it will probably feel more normal than I think it will. The power cut earlier while I was trying to do some work to catch up for the beginning of third trimester and I got frustrated, thinking about how the power has been cutting more these past few days, how things are returning to normal.
This morning I...
Answer this.
Is there any way in the world that I can continue working in Africa and have good jobs without going back to the United States and getting a Masters? Is there a way to just skip that step, and just stay in Africa?
Oh my goodness
I am thinking about life again.
My trip to Kédougou taught me to be kinder through chatter in Wolof and appreciation of people I would normally not have thought twice about. I listened to the same 7 or 8 songs over and over in the car and smiled every time. I came home and was so happy to return to my warm apartment filled with Solvi and Cheikh and Olivier and home cooked meals and showers....
