a normal day...

Today is saturday. Which means so many wonderful things. First of all, we are done with class/training at 12:30. Second of all, tomorrow is sunday! After training today, me and a few friends rode our bike through Thies to this nice cafe with FREE WIFI! So, I'm enjoying a beer with some friends and using the internet on my own computer! It's wonderful because those french keyboards are a pain.

Things are going so great. I love living here and it's already starting to feel like home. I love my host family and the town I live in is great. It's a really small town so already everyone knows me and yells my name as I walk home everyday. "Matar Diop! Matar Diop!" I have been teaching the village kids how to make whistle noises with their hands and they love it! Each day they proudly show me their progress.

So, I'll describe a normal day for you so you can all feel like you know what I'm doing right now. I wake up at about 6am while it's still dark and my family is sleeping. I get dressed etc and wash my feet with a little plastic kettle out in my courtyard. I walk to the main road passing many donkeys, chickens, goats and the few people who are up that early. At the main road I greet people as I pass, "Malekum Salaam! Nanga Def? Nanga fanaane? Naka waa ker nga?" and many more. I meet up with a few other PC volunteers and we get picked up for the 18km drive to Thies. We do language, cultural, technical and security training which lasts until about 6pm at which point the few of us who live out where I do get driven home. The rest of the day I spent with my family, watching brazilian soap operas in french, playing in the courtyard with my little brothers, homework and lots of trying to speak wolof with the family which is going quite well. My family loves staying up late and hanging out, so I'm usually one of the first ones to go to bed at about 10:30pm. Dinner with the family is always wonderful. We eat on the ground outside, all around a bowl that we share from. Pretty much every night we eat rice with fish and some vegetables. My family is trying so hard to make me fat......"Kay Lekkal Matar! Kay Lekkal!" (come eat matar, come eat!). There was one day when they fed me two lunches and 3 dinners!

So that's pretty much a normal day. Language is going surprisingly well. I can't believe how quickly a persons brain can absorb knowledge. I am now a huge advocate for total immersion when it comes to learning languages. I've been asked what the toilet situation it like too. Well, let's just say I'm a PRO SQUATTER now! We have turkish toilets which wasn't that difficult to get used to. The thing that I'm still trying to adapt to, is......NO TOILET PAPER! Let's just say you never hand anything to anyone with your left hand! Seriously.

Well, I guess that's it. I miss you all tons, and your comments bring me joy everyday. Let me know if there is anything else you want to know! I'll conclude my post with a few pics that my friend took.