In Love

So I think I fell in love with Senegal after last night, atleast fell in love with their folk music. Stephanie (a grad student here from Texas) and I went to a bar/club called Pen N Ink and had a drink before listening to some music that we heard was supposed to be very good. Turns out this music was amazing! It totally blew me away. I cannot really explain it very well but the group included two acoustic guitars/vocalists and 4 bongo sort of drums. It was really really cool. But I must say that I am a sucker for any man who can sing and play the guitar :) We happened to meet one of the group members on the way out and Im meeting up with him today to buy his cd. I wish I had the capacity to put a clip on here because it is so unique and cool. maybe I could get it onto MySpace, Ill try.

This morning has been very productive, mostly because Ive cleaned my room and finished my laundry. There is still nothing more satisfying to me than a clean room. I may have had a minor ant problem on my desk space. And it really was minor, I had never counted any more than ten ants at a time. That'll teach me to eat in my room. And I also have a new found appreciation for washing machines as i had to wash all my "petite linge" by hand today (which is my underwear and socks). These are the only things that our maid doesnt wash. so they are currently hangin off of my mosquito net in my room.

And yesterday I had my interview with the head of the oral surgery department at the main university here in Senegal and it was exceedingly helpful. Not only do I have a good amount of information for my paper but I now know exactly where I need to go in order to access key dental journals that I can only access there for my literature review.

In other interesting cultural notes, I had a language issue the other night. I really wanted ice cream (glace, en francais) and so i told my house sister. She said they sold "glace" at her familys house across the street but they didnt have any more. So I went down to the street and was chatting with her family who was sitting outside who told me that they did in fact have "glace" left. But it took them a really long time to get it for me, probably 20 minutes. But when they did come out they came out with a huge block of ice. I immediately realized my mistake because "glace" means ice cream and ice... It was a humorous mistake. I didnt get any ice cream that night.

But I did get some 2 days ago. I felt very at home after eating 4 servings of ice cream in one day. After the 3rd and 4th at the gas station I had eaten myself sick, something which i had yet to do here and it brought back good memories, or not such good memories from home :)

Tomorrow Im off to linguere which is 5 to 6 hours northeast of Dakar. I have been told by EVERY SINGLE PERSON that Ive met and told that it is reallly really hot there. No joke, eveyr person informs me about this. My host brother actually called it "infernal." Thats not good for anyone but Im looking forward to a change of scenery.

I am currently feeling very motivated to improve my wolof and french and be productive on my projects but infortunately am realiwing at the same time that I dont have enough time here to do all that i want!