Traffic Jams and other miscellaneous items

I left work early yesterday to meet a women I met in Banjul for tea at her house downtown. Her name is Leila and she’s Tunisian, but lives in Dakar with her family. She is very friendly and has sort of taken me under her wing as a daughter/sister (she’s just barely old enough to be my mother, but prefers to think of me as her American sisterJ). On the way to her house, I experienced Dakar rush hour in full force. During traffic jams, people are constantly filtering through the traffic selling all kinds of things. Seriously, at just one intersection men came by selling water, kleenex, t-shirts, peanuts, fans, phone cards, remote controls and probably a good number of other things that I’ve forgotten (granted, we were there for about 10 minutes, but still).

After drinking some Tunisian tea (very sweet) and meeting Leila’s son and daughter, I headed back home to watch the second to last game of the world cup. There are some mixed feelings here about France’s success – but whether people support them or not there is a consensus that the only reason they’re any good is because nearly all of their players are African. I think that also makes people a little more likely to support them, although the other day when Italy won you could hear people cheering all over the neighborhood. I can only imagine what it must have been like when Senegal beat France 4 years ago.

Later in the evening, I was in my room working (since I left work early, I brought a laptop home with me to finish some work there) and listening to music when Mohammed came into my room to see what I was doing. So, I decided that it was an opportune time to introduce him to some other types of American music other than just hip hop. So, I played him some Lucinda Williams, which he got into. I also played him a little Brandon Patton for good measure (B- he said to tell you that he likes your music, by the way). After a little folk, though, I also played him some Public Enemy and Black Eyed Peas just to make sure he knows that there’s more to American hip hop than just 50 Cent (his favorite…he tattooed 50 on his arm with pen the other day).

I think I mentioned near the beginning of my time here that I was eating in my room separately from the family…well I finally managed to convince my host mother that I didn’t mind eating with them and that, in fact I preferred it. So I’ve started eating with them (and eating with my hands, I should add). She was worried that I wouldn’t get enough to eat because they eat fast and all off the same plate that they put in the center. But I actually think this way I’m going to be made to eat even more because no matter how many people are eating out of the same bowl, they finish what there is, and the past few times they’ve left it to me to finish it all...

I'm working on posting some pictures for you all as well because I realized that since I have a digital camera, I don't actually have to wait until I get home ti put them online, and this way you can see where I am. Although now that I have only a few more weeks left it's a little late for that. But, still, I'll see what I can do.