Life After College Graduation

Over the weekend, we finally received the desks that we had paid for weeks ago. And the apprentices finally painted the varnish on the wood (well not really, it was the first layer of varnish… there’s supposed to be another coat… but i’m not a carpenter.) All of our furniture was so poorly done and we have been fighting a couple of times a week with this idiot who just laughs every time we try to make a point or convince him to give us our furniture. I supposedly still owed him some money, but I told him he could go to hell.

He wasn’t too happy with that and came back last night with his apprentices to demand his money again. I was fixing to yell at him again (this has been going on for about six weeks) when a man walking stopped and asked what the problem was. Matar went to tell him and I yelled at Matar for trying to tell him lies and for even telling him our business. I didn’t think it was his business, but little did I know. It was Pop Ndang, the brother of Pop Ndoye who owns our apartment. He said to me in English he came from the states and he is related to the owner of my apartment. I felt a little bit sheepish meeting him when I was in the middle of a fight with someone else.

So I told Pop what Matar the idiot manusier had done, how he treated us, and how I was never going to pay, not if my life depended on it. Not only did Pop convey this message to him, he told him to go talk to another manusier and he would pay it - but Matar refused. So, he got really angry and told Matar he wasn’t getting his money and he had better never come around and bother us again. He also is going to give us two numbers of people to call he in case he comes over to bother us. After having to deal with him and having no means of coercing anything decent from this jerk, it was such a relief to have someone who would stand up to him.

And then today… I cannot believe what happened today. Kader, a guy who helped me fix my moto when I was broken down last week, went with me to a shop to find out if my battery would ever work again, and bless his heart, he spent all that time helping me get it fixed, he paid for the charging of the battery, and then he took my moto to his friend’s place to get it washed. That kind of hospitality is rare- and to not want anything in return, I was really just flabbergasted. He more than fixed my moto, he made it look all shiny and new.

Saturday night, my friend Ibrahima invited me out to hang out with him and some of his friends. We went to a bar and had a really good time. It was the birthday of another one of his friends, so we all celebrated and danced. The Senegalese are such good dancers and I’m so bad at it… I try though, I hope that counts. Of course, that doesn’t prevent them from laughing and trying to deny the truth, but c’est la vie.

Tukkikat (our baby kitty) woke me up this morning by walking on my face and mewing at me. It startled me so much that I almost knocked her off the bed. Little stinker, she’s obsessed with my suitcase and has been sleeping in my room on it pretty frequently. She’s also of course just so darned cute.

I am finally officially enrolled… and without incidence, so that was a success. I am just so relieved that it’s over, because the process has been so unnecessarily difficult, and the guy in charge of our department has been charging foreign students extra fees that pay for their moutons (sheep) during Tabasky. This week should be the last week before our vacation starts at school. I find I understand more and more in each class, of course that’s only when I pay attention. But I do try to pay attention. Everyone else seems to be able to, it’s just an hour is so long to try to concentrate on another language. I do hope this gets a little bit easier.

Oh and Caramel… i think you should move here so I don’t have to worry about being domestic. You’re just so good at it, lord knows your feminine qualities make you the perfect fit for a homemaker. ; )

I felt so domestic the other day when we cleaned the apartment. I wore a little panne (a wrap around skirt - they’re quite popular over here and I love them!) and we did a thorough cleaning of the apartment. I really didn’t want to seeing as how it really need an industrial type of cleaning… there’s paint and cement all over everything… but we had to because company was coming over and I wanted to start using my bathroom. My bathroom totally rocks, it’s on the upstairs terrace that over looks Yoff and the coast for miles. It’s a beautiful sight to come out to. Of course the shower is absolutely freezing due to a lack of hot water and a lot of wind, but I shiver my way through it ; ). As soon as winter passes, it will totally rock.

Of course the people who manage our apartment are incredibly unreliable. We have told them numerous times all the problems it has and they won’t fix them. Like for example, my bathroom switch is missing its cover and I some water got into it and now it sparks. I’m afraid it might have leaked down to our apartment because Rebecca’s plug was sparking, so we turned off the breakers to our apartment, the electrician is supposed to come tomorrow. But it’s just so frustrating because all of this could have been avoided had they fixed everything. I need to get Pop Ndoye’s number and harrass him until he does something about everything that’s wrong with our apartment.

Thanks for the recommendation on the incredible machine. I am now hooked. Of course Tukkikat is always playing with my mouse when I’m trying to play on my computer. She’s so cute, she likes to sleep right between my neck and my shoulder or between my ankles. I really enjoy having her around, and she’s so smart! She started using the litterbox right when we put it down and loves cuddles. Of course I also annoy her as much as possible.

The more I go to class, the more I understand. I should have figured this out earlier in life. C’est la vie. For Christmas vacation, I will be traveling around so I may or may not have access to the Internet. We don’t have class for a few weeks, so I figured that would be a great time to discover some neighboring countries - the safe ones. ; )

We have a visitor this weekend, Kristin, she came up from Casamance and she is spenidng a few days with us. And then Nicole will be heading over next week, and then we will be taking off for Tunisia. I can’t wait!

This past week I went to Casamance. It was beautiful! We took sept places (7 place vehicles… think mini station wagons… they are very crowded!) through the Gambia. Now I have a little Gambia stamp in my passport. The trip itself took about 9 hours… a truck had broken down on the ferry boat that crosses the Gambian river. My roommate and I stayed with this really sweet American couple, Kristin and Tate. Tate works at Enterprise Works -a non profit, and Kristin teaches English. We left Saturday around 11 and arrived pretty late. Sunday, Tate made pancakes for breakfast. They were soooooo good!!! I haven’t had American food in awhile. We then walked around, and saw the Colonial area of town, it was so quaint! We had a beer by the water at a hotel, and then went to a restaurant that had this really good shrimp and pasta.

Monday, we left in a Jack Ndiaye (a big white van that seats 14 people) for Cap Skirring, where we stayed at a hotel owned by a friend of Rebecca’s. We went into the local Rice Fields and watched the women cut rice. Then, these really nice men lent us their bikes, and they walked while we rode their bikes all the way to Kabrousse, a small village on the river that divides Senegal and Guinea Bissau. There, we stayed and spoke with the local people, and they offered us food and water. This was probably a big mistake on my part because I got pretty sick to my stomach later that night. But the women were so nice, and gave us a tour of their village (which took about five minutes - it was very small). But it was still so charming, and the kids just attached themselves to me… they were getting into fights over who could hold my hand. I couldn’t even communicate with them, they spoke Pulaar and a little bit of Wolof. But seeing as how communication is 70% nonverbal, we got by. We also picked up baby goats! They were so cute and so little, less than a week old. One still had its umbilical cord.

We then went back to Cap Skirring, where we walked along the beach. It was absolutely beautiful, and we swam for the rest of the evening. Then we returned in a sept place that made great time, and I spent most of the afternoon playing with the kitties. Then we went and visited a really neat guy named Dennis. Dennis was in the peace corps like 2 years after it was first started in the 60s, and then he went on to work with USAID. He then retired to Casamance about ten years ago and works with the local Catholic Diocese and various other volunteer activities.

We finally returned by Ferry to Dakar… it’s a brand new boat that takes trips between Dakar and Ziguinchor. We almost missed it because we had so many things to do at the last minute. Rebecca also decided to adopt a baby kitty and so we had to bring it back in a basket. It was so cute! We also got to spend a lot of time up with the Captain where we met the funniest guy ever - he was the second mate on the ship, and he was from Indonesia. We finally made it back this morning. It was really a great trip, and I learned a lot about the history of Senegal. Dakar and such was colonized by the French, the Gambia was colonized by the British, and Portugal colonized Casamance, so a little bit of Creole is spoken there. Mostly, the legacy that the colonization left behind has had a huge effect on the citizens here. Ok, that’s the update for now! I’ll try to keep up better, but we had little internet access in the Casamance.