Daily Life

February 30, 2008

As my time wraps up here, I'm reminded of things that I see and experience here everyday that one probably would not see or experience in the States. And it's not even that all these things happen on a daily basis, but that things like this happen every day. In my mind this week, I've been making a mental note of things that I've simply gotten used to here.

1. Walking down the street and having to walk around a cow that was heading my direction, in Dakar
2. Watching a little cat sit underneath a huge skinned dead animal of some sort (part of a cow I believe), happily spotted in drips of blood and munching away at parts of the carcass that had dropped to the ground
3. Marriage proposals from almost every taxi driver
4. Having to discuss the price of almost everything
5. Seeing sheep (or even pigs sometimes outside of Dakar) on the beach
6. Being followed and asked for money by terribly dirty little boys without shoes that7. Really little kids crying at the sight of me, because I'm white (when in a village, or areas of Kaolack)
8. Creating a parade without effort as young kids follow me to work while yelling "toubab" (in Kaolack)
9. Women's breasts being in plain sight
10. Soaking all vegetables I buy in bleach water before cooking and eating them
11. Getting stuck behind horse carts on the major roads in Dakar
12. Having to slow down or stop on the National Highway while waiting for donkeys or sheep or cattle to cross the road