Post braids poof

It took about 5 hours to take my braids out, but luckily I had some help from the kids :)

When they were finally out I had super crimped hair.

Papa Sene visit #2

I went to Papa's house again to visit. This time I brought my friend Emily and he got mad at me for only bringing one friend instead of a bunch. We ate a reallyyyyy good Yassa Poulet (one of my favorite dishes here) and he again gave me a dress and gave one to Emily.

This is Papa's nephew, or Samba's grandson wearing Emily's sunglasses. He also liked to steal the knife that we were using to cut fruit and run away with it. 

When we left his house we walked about 15 minutes to the bus stop and waited for the bus to come. As we were waiting we saw Papa's two nephews hiding behind a building. They had followed us all the way to the bus stop. When they were caught Papa wasn't even mad he just laughed and told them to go back home.

At one point Papa said we could lie down on a bed in the living room and take a nap (see right to rest post). We took the offer, and there was a Senegalese show called "Attaya" (tea) which was just four people sitting around a small pot of tea on a gaze (I don't know the word in english) talking about random things. Senegal TV in general is very strange. They have a lot of reality TV and a lot of ridiculously overly dramatic soap operas. 

The Right to Rest

There is this fabulous concept in Senegal called "the right to rest," which is exactly what it sounds like. Basically people believe rest/relaxation time/sleep is a necessity that everyone deserves. For example, one day I was at my internship and a yawned, so my supervisor said if I was too tired I we could stop for the day and finish next time (2 hours early). This is also why Senegalese people tend to take 2 to 3 hour lunch breaks, including big businesses such as supermarkets and post offices. Although this can be quite an inconvenience, I appreciate the concept as a whole enough to not care too much.

Teaching

Every friday me and my friend teach english for one hour at a local elementary school. I originally signed up to volunteer with a program that works with girls after school to encourage them to stay in school and value their education. But when the teacher who was going to place students in this volunteer site went to the school to suggest the program, the principle just said "we don't have a fourth grade teacher, can you fill in?" The school system clearly needs some work here if they are okay with having random American students with no qualifications come in and teach a class period.

The class I teach actually does have a teacher, who seems very caring and motivated to teach, though the other volunteers either don't have teachers in their class or don't have motivated ones. One thing that is not lacking, however, is the motivation of the students. After all that I hear I came into the volunteer service expecting to face an unruly class of wild children who won't listen and refuse to learn anything. Instead I was pleasantly surprised by how incredibly well behaved and excited all the kids were to learn english. They all payed attention, took notes when we told them too, raised their hands to answer questions (though timidly at first), and best of all were really really quick learners. 

A perfect example of this is one friday when we came in and could not find the teacher. The kids were all running around outside so we asked them where the teacher said, and they said they were on vacation and they were just here to play. So we said "oh okay so we don't teach class today" and they said "no you can teach us" and they all ran into the classroom and took a seat. Thought they were more restless than usual, the fact that they actually wanted to spend their vacation time learning english was incredible to me. In the states if I asked some random kid if they wanted to come to school and learn even though it was vacation maybe one in everyone 100 would actually say yes. 

Below is us playing their favorite game, memory. The first time we played I explained the game to them and then asked who wanted to go first. One person timidly raised his hand and walked up to the board to choose two cards. When he finished I turned around to see 40 students standing out of their chairs raising their hands to go next. I think once they understood that it was a game they all went crazy and wanted to volunteer.

 They all went crazy over wanting to take a picture with us. We're also kind of maybe the same height as the kids.

One day a few weeks ago I was walking down the street in Ouakam to go to the super market and I randomly heard a little girl call my name. Then I heard a bunch of kids calling my name and turned to see about ten kids on the other side of the road waving to me. I recognized some faces and realized they were all kids from my class that just happened to get out of school while I was walking by.

As wonderful as this teaching experience is, it has actually turned me off from wanting to be a teacher. Before this I had had many experiences in the classroom, but always as an assistant or a one on one tutor. Being the main teacher is an extremely stressful experience that takes an enormous amount of planning, endurance and improvisational skills. That being said I would not take back this experience one bit. I enjoy my classes with the kids very much, I just don't think I could do that multiple hours a day 5 days a week!

Transportation

This is a car rapide, which is not really rapide, though it's much faster than the bus. It is the way I get home from school every day which is a pain because during rush hour they are super crowded. No matter how crowded the car is, they will almost always stop to let people on. When its too crowded some people will hang off the back or even ride on top in the rural areas. Normally they don't let girls ride on the back, but one day it was really hot and I wanted to so I insisted. After arguing for about a minute the "apprenti" (the guys who hang off the back to collect money) finally let me stay, and it was so much nicer than sitting in the stuffy car. At the end of the ride he said I was now and apprenti.

In general, driving here is crazy and there are basically no rules. I asked Victoria (the person in charge of our program who is American but has been living in Senegal for the past six years) if she had to get a drivers license in Senegal and she said no, so I said "oh your american one works" and she replied "I hope so." I realized how ridiculous my question was because there is certainly no such thing as a speeding ticket here or any other kind of ticket for that matter. I don't want to know what constitutes bad enough driving for a ticket here...

Here are some of my greatest public transportation moments:

1. One time I took a taxi to an ice cream place by my friends house. We were on the busy/highway-ish road and he missed the round about that let us turn around to get off at the other side. We said it was fine to get off on this side and he said "no it's okay" and then just made a you turn right over the median. Side walks are more like guide lines for cars, they are basically aloud to drive wherever there car is physically able. 

2. My car rapide was once rear ended by another car and the two drivers just got out and started yelling at each other for a while then kept going. No one called the police or collected information, they didn't even pull over. 

3. Multiple times my taxi has just pulled over randomly on some road to fix the car in some way, like check the oil or tighten the tires. The best was this one time where it was really hot but we couldn't roll down the window. We asked the driver if it was broken or if we were just doing it wrong. He said "oh okay, one minute" and turned the car around. He drove about 4 minutes and then randomly pulled over to where a guy was sitting on the side of the road and the driver handed the guy a 1000 cfa (2$). Then guy the physically forced the window down with his hand and then the taxi turned back around and kept driving. We kept saying it was the Senegalese version of pepboys.

There are also some really cool things that you see in public transportation that show a lot about the culture here. For example, the following things are very normal to see on a bus or car rapide:

1. If you are standing up and you are holding a bag people who are sitting down will offer to hold your bags for you

2. Whenever someone with kids gets on the bus other people will hold their kids on their lap while the person buys tickets, or even for the remainder of the ride

3. If you are standing up on a car rapide and there is even the smallest inch of room on one of the benches, people will tell you to come sit down. 

4. If you are at the opposite end of a crowded bus from the ticket man it is normal to just pass your money up to the guy and then they will pass down your ticket and your change.

I will add more moments as I remember them / as they happen!

Update on the kids

This is what Papi Joe wore to school on Mardi gras. 

Nogay's favorite thing in my room is my suitcase. She will always get it form under my bed and talk about "ma valise verte"

Arame Yvone

Arame Yvone is my oldest little sister, she's about 10 years old. She's super cute but also really mature and clearly takes her oldest sibling role seriously. She's the one who will always tell me that my things are "too beautiful" and she always talks very maturely like that. Yesterday she made me laugh so hard. She asked what I did the first time I was in Senegal, so I told her that this was my first time here and she was super surprised. Her exact words (in french) were: "What? I cannot believe my eyes. That is incredible, you will truly discover it." This is how I imagine Hattie talking when she is 10.