Bonjour from Senegal!

Orientation is over and the real adventure is beginning. On Friday I was picked up by one of my host sisters and I knew my adventure was really starting when I had my first taxi ride in Dakar. Dogging people cows and major potholes on the dirt roads are enough of a problem but there seem to be no rules holding drivers back so they can be avoided by swerving on to the opposite side of the road towards on coming traffic, ahhh!

My Senegalese family is huge! There are three families all living in one house and Senegalese houses are always open to friends and family so there are always people stopping by. Luckily I got one of my uncles to help me with a family tree so I think have know the names of most of the people living in the house. All the little ones are very excited to have a new Toubab (foreigner) jungle gym in the house. I arrive home to screams of "Tata Kate" (aunt Kate) followed by five or six children launching themselves at me. They have decided to try to teach me French and Wolof however its no going very well because my most frequently used phrase continues to be, "je ne comprends pas" (I don't understand).

Meals have been really great. We all sit around a bowl filled with rice or couscous with some kind of meat in the middle. The bones and whole fish have been a bit of an adjustment but I love the idea of eating as a family. Although I only understand about 25% of what is going on most of the time because they are usually speaking wolof, I am slowly getting to know everyone.
We don't have any running water, which has been a bit of a problem for me but I am working through it. There is a large bucket of water in the bathroom with a cup in it for showers and for "flushing the toilet." It is a western style flushing toilet but since there is no running water I have not figured out how to use it yet. What I have gathered so far is that you have to kind of throw the water into the bowl with the cup to kind of flush it manually. So we will see how long it takes to master that one...
 
Ba beneen yoon (Until next time)