Yoff

So I have left Dakar and moved in with a family in Yoff. I'm living with another student from my program, Emily, and it's certainly nice to have another English speaker in the house (even if it allows me to slack a little bit on my atte,pts at French conversation). When we first moved into our house, we both were desconsolate. The entire house is cinderblock, and somewhat resembles a mixture between a funeral parlor and a brothel. Each of us have a large room to ourselves (although Emily lucked out - she got an enormous velour blanket with a tiger on it on her bed), that are extremely sparesly furnished. I don't even have a dresser in which to put lmy clothes. Within the first two minutes of our arrival we saw a cockroach the size of my palm, a mouse, and had realized the kitchen smelled uncomfortably like rotten fruit. We spent the first hour or so in our house laughing hysterically at our sad new housing situation. To make matters worse, we initially thought we were living with the smallest family in Senegal, comprised only of a mother and daughter.

Things have, of course, gotten better- they always do. We actually have a mother, father, 2 brothers and 2 sisters, and all are very kind and welcoming. I really like our mother, who is sassy and smart as far as I can tell. Also, I've miraculously made piece with the enormous cockroach that haunts out house. I've come to think of it merely as a pet- if the family has tolerated it this long, so can I. And I haven't even seen the mouse since the intial sighting. Thus, our housing is nothing if not pleasant these days.

Yoff itself doesn't seem that different from Dakar except that we aren't heckled as much. Still, it's got the same fruit stands, boutiques, and garbage and sand-lined streets. Our classes are much different, however. Gone are the cushy classes in English that are focused on integrating us as much as possible into Senegalese society. Instead we have 2 hour lectures on sustainabilty, and wealth inequity...all in French. The lectures are completely intelligable to me. I'm not sure why but my brain has ceased to process French and the slight comprehension I felt I had gained for a while has entirely disappeared. Even worse are the discussions we are forced to have with the Senegalese students we have our classes with. They all seem to be very intelligent and well spoken people, at least from the few sentences I understand. It's extremely disappointing for me to be unable to discuss the topics at hand, though, since I've always been very interested in things like wealth distribution among societies. I feel so stupid because I am utterly incapable of expressing myself in French, much less sounding eloquant. I've been assured by Julie, a member of my group, that eventually I'll understand French and even be able to say what I want to say, but until then I guess I'll continue to feel hopelessly out of my depth.

It's good for me to remember that I enjoy myself here more often than not. Sometimes I become quite pessimistic and can't imagine living here until March. I guess I just have to force myself to recall that I have good days and bad days even in the U.S., they just don't switch as frequently as they do here. I've discovered it really helps me to calm down when I read or listen to music, so I've been reading up a storm. Thus far I've read "Flu," ( a book on the 1918 flu that swept the US) "Memoirs of a Geisha," and "Stiff" (a book on cadavors and their medical and societal use and history), and I'm working on "The Dante Club" right now. At this rate I'll return to the U.S. a very well read person.

That's all the news fit to print.