Book Work

I had a nice unexpected surprise on Monday… the university professors went on strike (again, as usual), so all the classes were cancelled until Friday. This meant that my friend Bethany from Dakar decided to come with me to Kaolack for a few days until her classes started up again. So, Monday afternoon we piled into a sept-place in Dakar with other strangers. One man who asked if we were French, we told him we were American, and he made a horrible face and told us that he's afraid of Americans. That then started an interesting conversation. He's basically afraid of Americans because he sees Bush as someone who will start a war wherever he pleases, and the guy didn't really like the idea of that. It was probably the most lively trip I've made outside of Dakar. At the beginning, there was some conversation between passengers. After awhile a woman got a CD out and gave it to the driver to play, it the was the music of a local Senegalese artist trying to get his name out. The music was alright. A little while later the woman who had provided the CD fell asleep. So, the woman behind me got her cell phone out and started playing music quite loud. All kinds of music: Akon, Nelly Furtado, The Pussycat Dolls, and Celine Dion. Needless to say we had a little dance party in the back of the sept-place. Ok, no dancing, but there was singing along and bopping our heads along with the music. (Side note: Playing music from cell phones is very popular here. No matter where you are. On the street. In a restaurant. People will get their cell phones out, sit it next to them, and blast music from them.) The sept-place ride took entirely way too long because the driver wouldn't pass if he saw any cars coming… he could not possibly have been Senegalese. This left us caught behind large slow-moving trucks for most of the journey. I was not very pleased. It took us well over an extra hour to reach Kaolack.

Tuesday I worked all day and Bethany came to help as well. We were incredibly productive, and it really boosted my spirits after a frustrating week last week. It started off rocky, but really what I have to do now is open up the boxes and look around to see what's in them. We searched for hours for English books and finally found sets complete with teachers guides and workbooks. Now, the 39,000 books are in boxes in all rooms of a school where I'm working. And please don't think that the sets of books, teacher guides, and workbooks were all in the same area… that would've been too easy. Nonono, they were all spread out and in no particular order. Even two days later I found additional boxes of books that belonged with them. But we were kept busy all day, and I was happy enough.

Wednesday we arrived at work later than I would've liked, but of course it didn't matter. There was not enough work to keep us busy all day. We worked until about noon, and then were done. We were told not to come back in the afternoon, because there was nothing left to do until Thursday. So, we returned back to the house for the afternoon. Amadou, the son of the family who is almost 18 years old, wanted to go to the beach so we decided to take him and his little sister and a friend to the beach for the late afternoon and early evening. About 5 kilometers outside of Kaolack there is a beautiful beach next to the village of Kahone. The water is insanely salty, but it's beautiful. There also isn't exactly a lot of water. You'll have to look at my pictures to really get an idea of it. Bethany and I didn't swim in the water because we didn't trust it, but we were content to sit on the beach and watch the kids play. We attracted an assortment of 15-18 year old guys who came over and started doing pushups with the two boys we brought. Bethany and I decided that we really like that age group of Senegalese guys because they're too young (in general) to propose marriage. There's always the occasional kid who tells you that he loves you, but in general that's left up to the guys older than them. The beach was surrounded by typical African scenes… people on horse carts, thatched roof villages, baobab trees, and such. It was so pretty! We were there for about two hours before the sun started setting and we headed back to the city.